Week 2 Storytelling: Overcoming The Odds

 Overcoming The Odds

Crest of Manchester United 

            Manchester, England is a land full of soccer history and two of the greatest soccer clubs in the world. This is a city with two of the most passionate fan bases of the soccer world, with a wide variety of fans from young children to the elderly. The elderly, who have lived through times of many championships, league titles and domestic titles from Europa League and Champions League ties. The young children were born into a culture of soccer glory and riches. Everyone in this city is encouraged to play soccer from the time they can walk and try to achieve what very few have in suiting up in either the red of Manchester United or the baby blue of Manchester City. There was one teenage boy, who had a dream to become a Red Devil of Manchester United.

            Tony Wilkinson was the name of this 16-year-old boy with such a large dream. He had grown up in a household full of Manchester United supporters, in which his room was full of Manchester United apparel. He had posters and pictures of all of the United legends, ranging from Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes to Sir Bobby Charlton and George Best. He had been playing soccer ever since he can remember. His father played in the English Championship League, the second tier of English pro soccer. Tony had always been around the game and grew to love it with great passion. He practiced each and every day on every aspect of the game of the soccer, which included dribbling, shooting, passing and conditioning. His skills were above average. His only short coming was that he was the smallest player, but no player had a bigger heart on the pitch than him.

            Manchester Health Academy is the high school where Tony played soccer. He was a starter on the Junior Varsity squad his freshman year, where his skills were far more developed than the other players at the JV level. Before the season, the coaches brought Tony into their office and told him that he would be on the Varsity squad for the upcoming season, but would come off the bench as a substitute. Although the coaches did not mention it to him, he knew the reason he was not in the Starting XI was the fact that he did not have the ideal size for a player at his position, Striker. His physical frame of 5’9” and 165 pounds was not great size for that position as the top Strikers in the world, such as Karim Benzema (6’2” and 183 lbs.) and Thomas Muller (6’1” and 163 lbs.). This is what was making the coaches hold him on the bench when he knew he had the skills to start over the regular starter. The year passed by with Tony making minimal appearances, but he also made the most of his time on the pitch by creating chances on goal time after time hoping the coaches saw the skill and determination over his physique.

            Tony went on to experience the same pains during his junior season, where he came into matches and made major impacts on the outcome of each of them. There was not much that he could do else to convince the coaches to start him. The only thing he knew to do was work harder and get better. He spent his whole summer perfecting his skills in all aspects of the sport to be the most complete player he could be. One day during the summer while training by himself at his high school, a man walked up to the fence and stood there to watch him train. Tony shook off the distraction, and continued to train. Once he was done and leaving, the man who had been watching him started walking towards him, but Tony could not detect who the man was because of the hat the man was wearing, covering his face. The man walked Tony's way, and raised his hat to reveal himself. The man who had been watching Tony train was one of Tony’s soccer idols in former Red Devil and current Manager of Manchester United, Ryan Giggs. Mr. Giggs offered him a chance to come in and join Manchester United’s Academy squad. Tony immediately accepted his offer.

After all of the hard times he had gone through during his three years of high school soccer, where he became discouraged more and more each match he did not start, but he kept on working. All of time he spent putting in countless hours training and developing his skills, finally paid off as he was on his way to suiting up in the red of Manchester United and leaving his legacy throughout English soccer history.

Author's Note:
       

My storytelling style was telling a story using the character of Saint Kentigern and by using his story I could build my story of Tony, in which each character shared the same struggles and achievement. Kentigern was the character I based my main character off of because he was the smallest child and was picked on since he was the smartest and the other kids were jealous. The kids were jealous due to the fact that Kentigern was the teacher’s favorite student, and they wanted the treatment he got. The other kids in this story decided to frame Kentigern into being the catalyst of the teacher’s pet robin death. The teacher thought that Kentigern actually killed the robin, but Kentigern was able to express faith and was granted the power to bring the robin back to life. In my story, Tony was the smallest player and the coaches thought of him as lesser because of his size. He continued to fight against the odds of the coaches and kept faith in his skills to achieve his goal of playing for Manchester United. It eventually paid off when one of his idols, Ryan Giggs, saw his work and offered him a spot on the Manchester United squad. My goal was to draw the readers in by connecting to the character as each of us can relate to in which he try as hard as possible to achieve something, but keep coming up short, then one time we finally get a breakthrough. I also wanted to inform the reader with some knowledge of soccer. As I build my Portfolio, I wanted to build it with stories that we can all take something from and apply to our everyday lives.

Bibliography:
        Saint Kentigern and the Robin, Abbie Farwall Brown