If the reader will button his right arm inside his coat and try to kick a ball with accuracy he will gain some slight idea of the difficulty which embarrassed Neil.

When work was over he felt as though he had been trying, he declared, to kick left-handed.

But he met with enough success to demonstrate that, given opportunity for practise, one may eventually learn to kick goals minus anything except feet.
That happened to be one of Paul's "off days," and the way he played exasperated the coaches and alarmed him.

He could not hide from himself the evident fact that Gillam was outplaying him five days a week.

With the return of Neil, Paul expected to be ousted from the position of left half, and the question that worried him was whether he would in turn displace Gillam or be sent back to the second eleven.