It wasn't long until the rest of the team made their presence known in the echoey gym. Being the first one there, Olly should have really set up the court, adjusted the goalposts and dragged the equipment out of the dark and dusty supply cupboard and he was positive that Coach Anderson would scold him for it when she arrived. In through the heavy double doors barged his rambunctious teammates, yapping about their days before practice actually began and all joy was sucked out of the room like a hungry, raging black hole. Olly couldn't remain unnoticed for very long before Kathleen, his best friend and the greatest defensive partner in the universe, scanned the wide hall for his slumped body. She bounded over, her gym bag flailing and twisting around her neck as she moved. "Wassup?" she asked rhetorically as she reached out a gloved hand to help Olly to his feet. They had both agreed that they were definitely the factory manufactured type of best friends who would create a skillfully intricate handshake that they would theatrically perform whenever they were together. However, they had also agreed that they were the broken biscuits that didn't live up to the factory standards and therefore refused to create one.

        Not long after the team had transformed the gym from a tranquil place of Olly's contemplation to a rowdy pub, Coach Anderson appeared, nudging the door open with her tracksuit-clad hips as her hands were full of piles of paper. It was two weeks until the National School Vincit Championships and from here on practices would consist of exhausting recurrent drills, mini-matches, individual skill workshops and analysis of the techniques and playing styles of other Vincit teams that they could be facing for a whole month. To put it simply; from here on, whatever shit that was happening in your life didn't exist. 

It was just you and the ruthless game.