Alexander Morgan hated his expensive, yet exclusive, boarding school. He was bullied mercilessly by the rugby team and his only refuge was his room. Fortunately, as no one wanted to share a room with him, he enjoyed having a twin room all to himself...
You Can Win If You Want by Modern Talking (1984) https://youtu.be/b0qAJ-jfTts
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Clifton's POV.
Playing rugby without my twin being in the team or cheering me on from the touchline was something new for me and without the competitiveness that scenario generated I found myself actually enjoying playing the sport much more than I ever had. The fact that we were winning most games must have contributed to my new found enjoyment.
Dickie had commented on the fact that my kicking was not as good as my reputation, or should I say my twin's reputation, but he was all too aware that I wasn't fully fit. I still perpetrated the lie that I had injured my back and groin at the end of last season in the hope that it would hide any other discrepancies in the way that I played.
It was highly unlikely that we would ever play against my old school but I was acutely aware that we could play against teams that I, or the real Clifton, had played against before.
The success of the Reserve XV was not just down to me, although the fly-half's role in rugby is an important one. We had won games because we played as a single unit, a proper team. Having played alongside my twin as an Inside Centre and being a versatile player I knew exactly what to do as fly-half and no one questioned my instructions during the game and acted immediately to my every shout.
Having a good Scrum Half helped. For the Reserve XV it was usually Nathan Pendleton-White, who went by the almost obligatory nickname of Chalky for anyone called White. He was small and fast and his deft handling helped me distribute the ball quickly along our back line.
I'm sure that it was this team cohesion that Bradley and Leo had seen and could see that it was precisely what the 1st team lacked.
Graham's performance with the 1st team had shown no improvement and Dickie had become impatient with his lack of ability or in following his game plans. With the Inter Schools Challenge Cup 1st round coming up Dickie had finally relented and had promoted me to the 1st team.
Our training had been really intensified and we had won games that on paper we should have lost.
Dickie, of course, was more than delighted with the quality of our wins. He totally believed that the resulting final scores were all due to his tactics and my submissive attitude towards Trevor, who he regarded as his best player and the man of every match.
That was not necessarily true. Trevor was a selfish player. He was a glory hunter who grabbed the limelight whenever he could. For all his protestations to me about Dickie never picking a non team player, Trevor was the one player in the squad that was not a team player at heart. He made all the right noises in the right places and seemed to have Dickie fooled, but he didn't fool me.
There were other things about Trevor that bothered me too. Things that I couldn't quite put a finger on but they smelt. Smelt of duplicity, and I definitely didn't trust him.
