Kicking a Ball Down Havelock Street

What to do when you're no good at football in a city that's obsessed with it? Keep playing, keep trying and see where things will lead. An old Scouse expression proclaimed "He couldn't kick a ball down Havelock Street" and, given the steepness of that long-gone thoroughfare, this was some achievement. Terrible schoolboy footballers everywhere can identify with being picked last on the team and facing the cruel humour of 1970s P.E. teachers, as we froze on muddy pitches. Almost by chance, Mackarel is thrown back into playing the sport he loves but can't play, eventually leading to high school "soccer" coaching jobs in the United States. Things go inexplicably well until he returns to his home city and his comic ineptitude once more surfaces.