1.20 - Expertise, Athleticism, Moments of Surprise (Patreon)

20.

I leaned a little closer to Emma, and Emma leaned a little closer to me. "Emma and Gemma. Are you serious?"

"Honest."

"What are you doing in Manchester?"

"We were on a training course. Booked the AirBnb a bit longer to have a little weekend."

"Do you like it?"

"Yeah. It's like Newcastle but bigger. Great shops. Are you going to eat that cheesecake?"

I pushed the plate in front of her and offered her the spoon. "Do you want a clean one?"

She made far too much contact with my hand as she took the spoon from me. She popped it in her lips and dragged it. "It's clean now," she said. Flecks of the cake remained on her lips for all of three seconds, before vanishing into her mouth. I was getting really turned on.

"This was all a scam to get our friends talking, wasn't it?" I said.

"No," she said. "I've always wanted to ask someone with a brain what football is all about. What you see in it."

"There are brains in Newcastle."

"But I live there. I don't want to be that girl that men explain football to. And I'll never see you again, so I thought, now's my chance."

I'll never see you again. That sounded familiar. That was what I did.

Fine. Let's explain why I like football. Totally normal conversation. "All right. Sport. I was watching Taskmaster and they had a challenge where they had to invent a sport. A comedian and a brainiac. The brainiac asked the comedian to distil the essence of sport into a few words. She used that word: distil. So the guy, Alan Davies, he goes: expertise, athleticism, moments of surprise. By the way, I think that's exceptional coming up with it so fast. I'm in awe of that. So. Expertise and athleticism. That's sport as a proxy for war."

"War?"

"Instead of men running around stabbing each other, you play football. Win or lose, you're alive. Great. Let's do that instead."

"There's still war, though."

I didn't mean to be rude, but I ignored her point. I was getting into the flow. "In the old days you'd train to kill, now you can train to play a killer pass. It has the same social effect. Sport is brilliant." I sipped my tea. "Expertise, athleticism, moments of surprise. Honestly, that's good enough for me. I'm into that. But there's more."

"There is?"

"The Premier League. Massively popular. Watched worldwide. There are 20 teams. Half the players have played for multiple teams. Half the managers have managed other teams. Sometimes those relationships end well, sometimes they don't. So you get returning heroes, or heroes turned villain. Pantomime villain, real villain. Sometimes the stadium becomes a hate-filled cauldron."

"Charming."

"Then you’ve got Manchester versus Liverpool. Not just the clubs; the cities. North London versus South London. Which is the best team in the midlands? So what've we got? Individuals with shifting allegiances. Clubs with grudges and rivalries. You know what that is? That's Game of Thrones."

"Come on."

"It's Game of Thrones with a ball. And then."

"Then?"

"Then you've got Man United. That’s the old money. Man City. That’s the new money. Flashing their cash around, buying up all the land, buying all the best players. Rubbing everyone's nose in it. Then along come Newcastle! Your lot. Richer than every other team in the world combined!"

"That can’t be right."

"I promise you it is. It's not even close. So what's that? Money versus money? It's Dallas."

"The city?"

"The TV show. The soap opera. Today's Dallas is probably Succession, but I haven't watched it. Whatever: the Premier League is the world’s most popular soap opera."

She was doing the thing with her lips that suggested she thought I was talking total bullshit, but she was enjoying it anyway. "You're saying football is a soap for boys. There are women's teams now, you know."

"You don't have to tell me that. I coach one of them."

"You do?" said Ziggy. I don't think his chat with Gemma had petered out - I think my enthusiasm had just been a little too infectious and they'd stopped to listen.

"Ugh, yeah, just a bit. So it's a soap opera for men and women, and it's more than that."

"Oh, yes?" said Emma, amused.

"It's Shakespeare," I said, earnest.

"Okay, I didn't expect that."

"It's Shakespeare," I repeated. "It's Greek tragedy. You work and toil but then the referee makes a bad decision and boom - your season is over. Referees are like the gods - sometimes they just send a player off or disallow a goal. Just to test the hero. Just to be a dick. You finish bottom of the league? You're out, mate! Exiled. You have to play far from the money and the fame. Like in Sunderland or somewhere. Or what about a superstar player? He moves from one team to their bitter rivals. He makes more money there, wins more trophies. But now he can never go back to where he was most loved. And there are cruel fates. England prepare for years, put together a team that can win the World Cup, but just before the tournament, their star striker Harry Kane breaks his foot."

"What!" shouted Ziggy. "Kane's injured?"

I laughed. "No."

"Oh, thank fuck. Jesus. You gave me a heart attack."

"See?" I said to Emma. "Every season is the hero's journey. Triumphs and disasters. Highs and lows. And there's a climax. Someone wins the league. Someone wins the cup. It might not be the team you want - "

"It normally is, though," said Ziggy, the City fan. Enjoy it while it lasts, bro!

"But it's satisfying that it ends decisively. Every season is a book. Every match is a chapter. It's stories all the way through."

Emma looked at me. She wasn't doing anything sardonic with her mouth. She loaded some cheesecake, but used it to point at me, almost accusing. "You're a romantic."

What a strange way to put it. I didn't feel like a very romantic person. Not in the flowers and fireplaces kind of sense. "Football is romantic. Romance is about hope. The club we were at today. It’s a long way from United and City and Newcastle. But it’s part of the same pyramid. Any club can move up the pyramid, and up, and up, and be on a par with the big boys. You don’t get that in every sport. In football you can be tiniest little mouse and dream of becoming the mightiest elephant."

"A small mouse would turn into a big mouse," said Gemma, contributing to the conversation wonderfully.

"And the FA Cup," said Ziggy. I was glad to see he was on my side, that he got my point.

"Yes! The FA Cup. More or less every team in the country plays in it. A teeny tiny village team can win a few matches and be playing against United at Old Trafford. Sometimes, really quite small teams get close to the final. One day, a tiny team could even win it. So every year there’s hope."

Gemma piped up again. "Romance is getting married on a sandy beach."

I shook my head. "No. Romance is sending a text and not knowing if she'll reply. The agony of worrying if you've messed everything up. Winning the cup isn't romantic. Romantic is being one nil up after 80 minutes. That last ten minutes where you are put through the wringer. Not knowing how it's going to go. Getting married? You’ve made it then. There’s nothing to worry about. Nothing to… to…"

Ziggy said, "To yearn for."

I beamed at him. "Exactly."

Emma had a ball of cheesecake in her mouth. "So that's why you like football."

"Yes," said Ziggy.

"No," I said. "There are hundreds more things. I could honestly go on about it for hours. Even Ziggy would get sick of me."

"Who's Ziggy?"

"That's his stage name," I said, which was the cue for Ziggy to start talking about himself. Some light boasting.

But Emma had other ideas. "Just tell me one more thing. Come on, I'll buy you another tea."

"Thanks, no. I feel a bit weird. I'll go soon." I did, indeed, feel weird. Fragments of memories from the match were crowding my head. I was still getting little spikes of pain, and I when I rubbed the area, it felt warm.

"Just one."

Well, maybe I could kill two birds with one stone. I sighed. "I think football tells you something about someone's character."

"How?"

"When I went to watch Barrett the first time there was this guy on his team." I tried to remember the name. "Er... Graham. I don't know him, I don't know the first thing about him, but I'd be willing to bet his job is super boring."

"He's a plasterer," said Ziggy.

"Right. Good job, good money. Monotonous, though, innit? So when he plays football his creative side comes out. Leaks out! It’s tragic because his body won’t let him do what he hopes it will do. But he never stops trying. Back-heels, spins, nutmegs. Zero percent success rate. But his brain demands he try."

"Holy shit, that's exactly what he's like."

"I'm not saying this is an exact science, Ziggy. It's just a theory. Take someone who cheats at golf. Would you do business with them? I mean, your instinct is no, but why not? Are they likely to cheat in business if they cheat in golf? Is cheating in golf a different sort of character flaw to cheating in footy? I have no idea. I just enjoy speculating. It's interesting to me. And you know what's absolutely fascinating?" I asked Emma.

"What?"

"Ziggy. He fascinates me. He’s an introvert. He's supportive - tries to make his teammates look good. Will probably pass instead of shooting. Will play left-back instead of striker because that's what he's asked to do. Introvert. But his best skill is the most extrovert thing a player can do - scoring a goal. Scoring a goal makes you the centre of attention. You make the game stop - literally stop! People write your name down in the history books, call it out to the whole stadium. So that’s fascinating to me. An introvert doing an extrovert job. And when I asked his favourite player - which you ladies found so ludicrous - he said it was a creative midfielder. A little tiny invisible genius who made everyone else look good. You’d expect a goalscorer to talk about goalscorers. But he didn’t. So what does that mean? Maybe nothing. But maybe he secretly wants to be the sociable introvert who plays the pass, but his team needs him to be selfish extrovert who scores the goal. So who is he? Is he Barrett? Or is he Ziggy?"

As I finished speaking, I was aware that things had changed around the table. The mood, or whatever. But I couldn't spare any mental runtime to it - another sharp pang of pain attacked the centre of my skull.

Ziggy was saying something. For the first time since the women had laughed at us, he was giving me his full attention. "What?" I said. "Sorry, I just had a headache."

"You were saying about my next steps," he said. "Talking about finding another trial and that."

"Yeah, I'll do it tomorrow. I feel..."

"No," he said. "I mean, there's no need. They asked me to come back."

"Who?"

"FC United," he said. He looked worried, which might have been for several reasons. Mostly the fact that they'd gone behind my back. Should I be worried about that? Probably. Probably definitely.

"Oh," I said.

"If you don't want me to - "

Another, smaller, but not much less painful pang struck me just then. "Jesus, Ziggy, of course I want you to." Slightly calmer, I added, "You're going to smash it. That's what I've been telling you. You'll be their star striker before Christmas."

"Star striker?" Gemma demanded Ziggy tell her all about it. I mentally retreated from that part of the conversation. There was a big silence on my side of the table. Like I'd ruined things with Emma, somehow. Things? What things? Why did I think like that?

There was still some cheesecake left. I took it and ate the rest, in case my headache was from low blood sugar or something.

Finally, she said, "Thanks. That was really... educational."

"Polite," I mumbled.

"No," she said, grabbing my arm and instantly letting go. "Really. But... are you okay?"

"Weird headache," I said. "I'll go take a couple of pills and hopefully sleep it off."

"Oh," she said. Slight hint of disappointment?

"Do you have a spare room?" I said.

"In the AirBnb?" She gave me a dubious look. So she hadn't been flirting, after all.

"In Newcastle."

"Oh. No. Why?"

I rubbed my lips to clear off the last bits of cake. "I'm a football agent. I need to find players. Why not Newcastle? It's a real hotbed of talent."

"Is it? Are you good at spotting talent?" Now she was giving flirty vibes again. Choose one!

"Yes. And yes."

She leaned close to me and in a soft voice said, "I don't have a spare room but I know where there’s a hot bed."

***

So a pretty good day ended with Ziggy maybe finally scoring (I never asked) and me writhing in bed, sweating... with a fever and splitting headache. At least I had a solid phone number. Phase 2 of my scouting empire seemed like it would have an unexpected base: Newcastle. The question was, if I went to stay with Emma, would I get any work done?