Coldrow Works Ladies, by Dorothy Marsden

An original novel extract set in the twentieth century.

The referee placed the ball on the spot and stepped away, and for a moment nobody on the pitch moved. Four thousand people had paid sixpence each for the Red Cross, and four thousand people went quiet together, which is a sound you never forget.

Clarrie Atherton had taken every penalty for the Coldrow Works Ladies since 1941. Eleven penalties. Eleven goals. She walked towards the ball now from habit, rolling her shoulders, and then she stopped, because Hilda Marsh was already standing over it.

A week before, in the canteen, they had nearly come to blows. Hilda had been at the works three months. She was nineteen, from Bolton, and she could kick a ball with either foot harder than most of the men in the machine shop, and she said so. She said other things too. She said Clarrie was too slow for the forward line now and everybody knew it. She said it in front of the whole table, through a mouthful of potato pie, and Clarrie had put down her fork and said that some people would do well to learn which end of a shell case was which before they started telling their elders how to play football. Then the hooter had gone, and they had walked back to the filling shed three yards apart, and stayed three yards apart all week.

Now Hilda looked up at her. Her face was white under the freckles. Clarrie saw, with a shock, that the girl was frightened.

‘Go on, then,’ said Clarrie.

Hilda did not move. ‘It’s yours. You always take them.’

‘I’ve a bad knee,’ said Clarrie, who had not.

The crowd had started to murmur. Somebody on the far terrace shouted something about getting on with it. Clarrie walked up close, close enough to smell the liniment on the girl’s legs, and spoke very low.

‘Keeper dives left. Always has. Her mother was the same. Put it right and low, and don’t look at her before you run.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I’ve played her four years.’ Clarrie nearly smiled. ‘I know everything. Ask anybody.’

She walked back to the edge of the area and stood with her hands on her hips, the way she always stood, and did not watch the kick. She watched the crowd instead, and saw it in their faces before she heard it in the roar: the keeper going left, the ball going right, low, into the corner of the net.

Hilda did not celebrate. She turned round and looked for Clarrie first, across all that grass, as if asking permission.

Clarrie nodded, once.

In the canteen on Monday there was a space on the bench beside her, and Hilda sat in it, and neither of them said anything about it at all.

What impressions does the writer create of the relationship between Clarrie and Hilda? How does the writer create these impressions?

You must refer to the language and structure used in the text to support your answer, using relevant subject terminology where appropriate.