YOU climb out of bed in the morning to survey the trail of destruction already zig-zagging to the half-open front door. You summon the courage to slowly peel open another credit card bill.
You remember that favour you promised to do for a friend today. Pulling at your pyjamas leg, you suspect the universe may be hinting heavily at a return to bed.
Then you take a call and afterwards you’re just glad you still have a full team.
Like any teenager, sometimes Toyosi Shittabey just plugged into his music as his coach pointed the car homewards after another tiring training session.
But Majiek Tarnogrodzki still missed the quiet presence in the passenger seat of his car last Sunday week, as he headed to his side’s first game without his little number six.
The 15-year-old was stabbed to death while walking home from the National Aquatic Centre on Good Friday.
"I used to pick up Toy – we called him Toy – at the Tyrellstown roundabout, and take him to training on Tuesdays and Thursdays and back again afterwards," the coach says.
"He wasn’t a very talkative boy. He was a quiet boy. To be honest, it was difficult at the beginning. I actually thought he was a little cheeky at the start.
"But after a while – and I’m not saying this because he’s dead – seriously, he was a person with a good heart, he was very tough and strong."
The little Nigerian boy buzzing around the Tolka Park centre circle was certainly tough. Invited to Drumcondra after impressing with the African diaspora’s team Insaka-Ireland FC, he quickly marked himself out as a star in the making.
Friends remember him as one who was always brave in the tackle – but both more importantly, also possessing what John Giles would call ‘moral courage’.
Tarnogrodzki – a 35-year-old Polish man – remembers one early incident in Toy’s time in the famous red of Shels, which would perhaps foreshadow the young Nigerian’s life.
"When we started the season, there was an incident; there was a fight on the pitch – which Toy didn’t start," he says. "But he came in and was helping the person. Typical. He always looked out for the weaker person.
"And it’s maybe the same that happened in the end."
And with another young life, so too a bootbag of dreams is lost. Friends say he hoped to one day represent his country: Ireland.
"As a footballer – Toy had a lot of potential. He was still small because he was 15 – slim but very strong and with very good endurance," says Tarnogrodzki. "See, people don’t know that he was one of the best at cross-country too – he could run all the time, he’d just keep going. But just before his death I put him on the wing because I wanted to play someone who’d pass in the centre. And he had this drive to go and beat the players and I thought it might suit him. He made lot of progress."
But how many talented flames have been dimmed by adolescence’s haze. Maybe that would’ve happened here, but Toyosi certainly wanted it enough. And in his personal chauffeur – on the nights he didn’t slip on headphones and furtively text friends – he, also, had a private tutor.
"I spoke with him all the time. I knew he took it seriously. I knew he went to bed on a Saturday night at 11. Sometimes I see the boys go out with their friends and come back at one or two. But he was very committed. He wanted to make it.
"In the car, he didn’t speak much. I’d talk to him about mistakes on pitch, what to work on. And we were speaking about life sometimes too. Sometimes we laugh, sometimes he listened to his music on his mobile and I’d listen to the radio. Normal, I suppose."
After his young teammates saw Toy’s coffin – draped in the Shels jersey – buried the Thursday after Easter, they turned towards a weekend of football once again. Admirably, they insisted on togging out. But without an engine, the team stuttered.
"Toy’s funeral was really, really tough. The boys wanted to play the game for their friend. But we lost the first game after a six-game run – five wins and a draw.
"They are doing okay, I would say. But even on a sports level, we miss him. He was our fighter. But it’s my job to motivate the team isn’t it?"
The violent death of such a young and popular member of the community sparked a thunderous outcry. At a rally in Dublin city centre, Abisoye Shittabey explained that her cousin had earned the ultimate call-up.
"God wanted a football player for his team in heaven. He looked down and said Toyosi Shittabey," she said.
"So God took him by the hand. You are safe where you are... in God’s care."
But as Tarnogrodzki could explain to God – it’s the other players he should be worried about. The new signing is a fighter.
