Hero

Hero

This took place in Stockwell park in year 11. I was aged 15 or 16 at the time. Classes were split into different groups and named after consonants from the word Stockwell. So we had:

11 S – This was the quiet class that didn’t actually become visible to me until year 10. They hardly played football, this was the class that chased girls and smoked in the corners.

11K, was the Portuguese/Hispanic Class. The wimps of the school and the owners of the Portuguese lessons. Hard to get them to play football, but being hispanic and Portuguese.. when they did.. it was a good game.

11W, this was my sister class, this class consisted of a mixture of Portuguese and footballers and well as a few rudeboys and a few class footballers. My best friend also existed in this class.

11L, my class, feels like I am bragging here.. but my class contained champions. We had the strongest 2 people in the school, the best footballer, the best goal keeper of a decent height, the best badminton player and defender me… and the list could go on.

The story here happened at lunch time. It was 11L vs 11W/K – we were playing on the small football pitch which faced the school staff room. I was in goal or standing in defence at the time, as I recall the game was being played by our strikers at the other end of the pitch. For some strange reason I was distracted by events taking place in the big playground. I saw little Marco, a boy in 11K who was tiny in stature and build, talking to someone in year 8. Looked like they were arguing; I remember smiling at this scene, as although he was older it looked like Marco had bitten off more than he could chew in this argument. The argument escalated and it seemed to end with the year 8 student pushing Marco to the floor and Marco running off saying something in Portuguese.

I watched as Marco’s run took him to where we were playing football. He settled by the bins which we were using as goal posts and said nothing, he just stared in the direction from where he had come from.

Looking back to where Marco’s enemy had been standing, an interesting development was taking place.. crowds were gathering around him.. 5 – 10 – 80 kids possibly more had amassed in the large playground and they began marching towards Marco. Seeing this Marco ran on the football pitch and started to pretend to play football. The crowd that had started off marching were now running and chanting in our direction ‘fight – fight - fight’. Marco’s enemy must have been popular as I noticed in his crowd that he even had my brother from year 9 running towards us.

I called Marco over and this seemed to distract the footballers. Marco stood by me and as the crowd descended upon us. I simply raised my arms and said ‘what’. 5 others from the footballers picked up what was happening and joined me. At this the crowd that had formed so fast quickly dispersed. My brother who had joined the crowd continued his run and ran around me and back to the main football pitch. It was over almost as quickly as it had started. I’m sure you have seen the Persian film 300. They should create another one after us and call is 6.

I looked up towards the staff room and noticed that the teachers were on their feet. We had prevented a disaster and they knew it.

Marco seemed to follow me around after that day.. Almost with a sense of duty.. offering me his presence as an entourage. On the last day of school Marco came up to me with his signature book. He had labelled a page ‘hero’ and wanted me to sign it. I didn’t sign anybodies book Marco was no exception.

To this day I see Marco every so often, the skinny tiny Marco is now a fully and well-built Marco. I see him and recognise him, he doesn’t recognise me anymore. His hero.