by Mel Stein
‘Not so sure about the youngster bit,’ Mark said, laughing, surprised that he no longer felt the pain of a missed career.
‘Seriously,’ Cunningham continued, ‘anybody who’s qualified to play for England and who puts in a good performance has got a chance. You know me, I’m open minded. As long as I’ve got the England job nobody’s too old or too young to pull on the white shirt – as long as they’re doing the business out there on the pitch.’ He flashed Mark the smile again. ‘So I suppose that does rule you out, unless you can get yourself back in training.’
The three of them laughed as if they were just old friends putting down a pint or two at their local.
Even at forty-five Kenny Cunningham looked very much like the man who had taken England so near to the final of the World Cup a decade before. There was a lot of grey in the curly hair, but only as much as he permitted by his decision not to tint it out. He liked to be in control of his life from the top to the bottom and the run of indifferent form that England had experienced in the last four matches had annoyed, as well as baffled, him. He adjusted his glasses, which again he had made a conscious decision to wear, although he was only a little short-sighted. He felt they added to his credibility, gave him a certain gravitas that the youthful bloom of his skin denied. He always looked clean-shaven and the slightly ruddy complexion gave a suggestion of a lad who might well have worked on a farm rather than the street-wise townie that he really was. The eyes looked straight at whoever was speaking to him, never wavering, encouraging a companion to continue with his theme even if Cunningham might think they were talking utter rubbish. He was a career sportsman in very much the same way that there were career politicians. The Football Association loved him because he brought no hint of scandal to the job, the players idolised and listened to him because they knew he had been there and done it, whilst for once the public all believed the right man had been chosen for the position.
They chatted on for a few moments more, exchanging jokes and anecdotes and then switched to their man outside the stadium talking to the incoming fans.
Off the air, Cunningham asked for a coffee and gave the assistant who brought it the sort of smile that would have done service to a five-course gourmet meal.
‘Thanks love. Best station for its refreshments this one.’
‘Is there anybody who doesn’t love you?’ Bob asked, a little enviously.
‘Only those who love you more,’ Cunningham fired back without hesitation.
‘Sorry to interrupt this mutual admiration society,’ Mark said, ‘but who are you here to watch? Strictly off the record that is.’
‘I might not be here to watch anybody. I might be here because I’m being paid for it, just like you.’
‘No, no, Mark’s not here for the money. He doesn’t need to work any more. Hadn’t you heard he’s a man of independent means?’
Mark ignored him, knowing there was no malice in what he said, but Cunningham nodded as if this was another piece of information that needed storing in his filofax alongside his notes on the Colombian centre forward. The focus of both men switched to the pitch. A couple of the Hertsmere team were already out there. Barry Reed, the young Geordie, curled the ball past Greg Sergovitch from thirty yards. Another ball was rolled to him and he did it again. From the corner of his eye Mark saw Cunningham sit forward in his chair, alert and attentive, nodding once more almost imperceptibly, and at that moment Mark knew exactly who it was that the England manager had come to observe.
CHAPTER 2
Helen Davies no longer felt as if she were a woman in a man’s world. That was not to say that she felt any less feminine. Indeed, since her marriage to Rob Davies, newly promoted in the police force from sergeant to inspector, she felt more feminine every day. She thought about what she would be wearing the night before she actually wore it, bought some jewellery to match her clothes and then reflected on the effect of it all. She had become a far cry from the large, almost ungainly, girl who’d got into football because she was a groupie who loved the sport. Now she had become respected as one of the most efficient chief executives in the Premier League and there was no doubt that David Sinclair, the Chairman of Hertsmere United, relied upon her absolutely. Yes, he might be a successful businessman in his own right; yes, other members of the board might be perfectly competent, but it was Helen Davies who ran the administration of the club from top to bottom. She missed nothing. A dirty floor in reception meant a review of the contract cleaning; the match day catering was subject to random tests and, on occasions, the replacement of the catering manager; any disappearance of kit reported by Alfred the kit-man meant the implementation of security measures that inevitably led to the discovery of the identity of the thief. It was hands-on management that led to her being at the club from early morning until late at night. With her husband taking his newfound promotion seriously it gave them little time together so it was with some surprise that the news had been confirmed to her just this morning that she was pregnant. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She’d come off the pill a few months earlier upon doctor’s advice and their use of condoms had been fairly disciplined. However, there had been one occasion after Rob’s promotion when they’d rolled home legless, couldn’t wait for any protection, couldn’t even wait for the bed. Although the night of passion had seemed great at the time there was an inevitable price to pay.
She was taking her time in getting used to the idea. She supposed she had another eight months or so for it to sink in fully – and after that, what? Did she give up the job she’d fought so hard to attain? Did she take her maternity leave and then get back to work? Or did she drop the little creature in a convenient paddy field and be at her desk the same afternoon? The real problem was going to come when she had to tell David. He’d had enough trouble with the club over the last few years and she knew he was looking forward to a period of stability and consolidation.
That was what today’s meeting was all about. In late July, with people not yet returning from their holidays, the previous season might seem to have ended only yesterday, the next season might appear aeons away, but in the real world of football there was no rest. Season tickets had to be sold, the decorators were still in one stand and the contract with the main sponsor was up for renegotiation. The players might have just returned from sunning themselves in Florida and Majorca, but Helen had permitted herself only one lazy weekend in Bath before returning to the fray.
She hoped and prayed she was not going to suffer from morning sickness. She couldn’t recall having had a day’s illness since she’d got the last of the childish ailments out of the way in her teens. She could think of more constructive things to do with her mornings than retch in the bathroom. Even as the thought crossed her mind she felt a small spasm of nausea and wondered if it were self-induced. If her life were about to go out of control then the least she could do was to restrain herself from helping it on its way.
She watched from one of the few executive boxes contained within the ground as David Sinclair made his way up the stand towards her. He had just returned from a sailing holiday in Bermuda, having cut his trip short to see Hertsmere play the day before in the fairly meaningless Anglo-European pre-season tournament. Although that had been a friendly it had given him cause for concern. Both Barcelona and Munich, in the forty-five minutes allotted to them in a round-robin competition, had wiped the floor with the English side. It was, he felt, going to be a long hard season.
The Bermudian suntan could not conceal the strain and tension in his face. Given everything that had happened to him over the last few years, it was a miracle he was still there at all and at times Helen thought it a miracle that Hertsmere were there themselves. A little club who had come through the old Southern League, up into the Fourth Division via the Conference, then all the way to the Premiership. And, despite everything and every dire warning, they had survived. Not merely survived, but triumphed in Europe.
Yet this season, playing again auto
matically as holders of the European Cup Winners Cup was not enough. The money would be useful, but the real pot of gold had been moved further out of reach, beyond the existing rainbow’s end. Until this year the jackpot was the European Champions League, open only to the winners of the individual championships of Europe. But now the powers that be had decided that in itself was not enough. There was to be a full league programme in Europe over the entire season, the ESL, the European Super League.
In order to accommodate the extra fixtures, the Premier League would be reduced by four clubs, with another four going the season after. It was the ultimate in elitism. Only the strong would survive.
On this July morning, however, it wasn’t mere survival that David Sinclair had in mind. It was the ultimate victory, the Premiership itself, and with it entry for Hertsmere into the ESL. Their brand new fifty-thousand seat stadium would be ready by then, of that he was sure. He’d been to see it just an hour or so before and had visualised it filled to capacity as Hertsmere challenged for the European title. He wanted visiting chairmen from France, Italy and Spain to return to their countries talking not just of Hertsmere’s prowess on the field, but of their facilities.
He remembered going to the Olympic Stadium in Rome with his beloved daughter. From the outside it looked good, it looked great, but then the reality set in and hit you in the face. The absence of any printed match day programme, the battle for an expensive cup of coffee, and Holly’s ultimate complaint – that the ladies’ toilets were little more than a hole in the ground. There would be no chance of any of those areas being overlooked at Hertsmere’s new home. Although they did not have a limitless budget, with the help of the local authority and the Football Trust they were going to create a state-of-the-art theatre of sport. The sadness was that his daughter had not lived to share in the triumph, because without her, it was a hollow one indeed.
‘Morning, Helen,’ Sinclair said, his tall frame filling the doorway momentarily as he entered the box. Helen smiled, half at the memory of how once her chairman’s very presence could have turned her legs to jelly. Now only her husband did that for her, although she sensed that it had taken her marriage for David Sinclair to realise she was, in fact, a woman.
‘Hello, David? Been down to Disneyland?’
That was their private code for the new stadium being constructed some five miles from the city centre. There was still some argument raging over its ultimate nomenclature and, having been present at some of the more heated discussions, both David and Helen could bear witness to the fact that Disneyland was as near to the truth as anything could ever be.
‘Everything’s fine in the Magic Kingdom. It’s Park Crescent that worries me,’ Sinclair said gesturing around their existing home. ‘Obviously, if we’re moving, I don’t want to spend too much money on this place, but on the other hand we’ve got our European campaign to worry about.’
‘We managed last season,’ Helen said.
‘Managed is very nearly the right word,’ he replied, then seeing the expression on her face, quickly added, ‘not that I’ve any complaints about what you achieved. You did a great job but quite frankly even Michelangelo couldn’t turn this particular sow’s ear into a silk purse. Somehow it looks even tackier twelve months on. I’ve seen the bill from the painters and I can’t really believe we’ve had any value for money.’
‘Trust me, David. I got that quote down to the wire. To get anything cheaper we’d have had to have the local primary school out with their paint brushes. Everything costs a fortune nowadays. You only have to look at the specs and costings for Disneyland.’
‘Yes, but at least that’s an investment for the future. What do you think the council will do when we move out? They’re not going to turn it into a shrine or a museum, that’s for sure. The bulldozers will be in and new housing development, here we come. In a year’s time nobody will even remember where the clock was situated.’
‘What are you trying to say, David?’ Helen asked, gently sensing the frustration in the chairman’s tone.
‘I’m not sure. It’s just that we’ve got past the point where Park Crescent was a horrible little place that all the big boys hated to visit. If we beat them then they blamed the playing surface, the size of the ground, the proximity of the crowd, the lack of hot water in the showers … Whatever. It was never the fact that Hertsmere United may – and only may – that we may just have played better football than them. I didn’t want it to be like that second time around. We’ve won the FA Cup, we won a European trophy, now I want to go for the big one.’
His eyes misted over a little as he gazed around his beloved ground, a ground now empty of spectators, but filled with so many memories. The terraces where he’d stood as a kid were no longer there, but were banked with seats. The fans had hated that and when matches became exciting the stewards found it virtually impossible to get them to remain seated. There were times when Sinclair felt he was the star of an English Field of Dreams. If he rebuilt the club then they would come, the ghosts of the past. The great ones he remembered from his childhood. Of course, they’d not really been great, merely better than the rest in those lower divisions. But time played tricks on the memory and he was quite happy to believe that the Hertsmere side which won promotion from the Conference into the League just over a decade before had enjoyed skills to compare with those of the Manchester United team who perished at Munich. Yes, if he built it they would come. Costner in the movie had built the stadium for his dead father, and Sinclair was building it for his dead daughter. Only nobody would understand that, except perhaps Helen. He had no other woman in his life, there had not been one for a long time. He just made sure that he was too busy for any involvement that might cause him pain. He had suffered enough pain already in his lifetime.
Helen Davies, like David Sinclair, had always been a Hertsmere fan, only the sharp end of the business side of the club had caused her rose-tinted spectacles to mist over.
‘David, we struggled in the League last season. In some ways we’re lucky still to be in the Premier. We’ve signed nobody of note in the close season. What makes you think we have any chance of the title? Why should it be different this time around just because you want it to be?’
Sinclair’s strong mouth took on a steely set of determination.
‘It’ll be different because we’ll make it different. And no, we won’t win the Premiership just because I want us to, but because we have to.’
Another woman might have laughed at his stubborn illogicality, but Helen Davies was not another woman. She also wanted it to happen. The only difference was that, unlike David Sinclair, she did not truly believe it was possible.
CHAPTER 3
Mark Rossetti knew Patti Delaney well enough by now to realise when she was unhappy and even before they had gone into dinner he knew she was not a contented lady.
‘You really didn’t have to drag me all the way out here to prove that we’ve money to spend. I’ve looked at the prices on the menu as well as the room rates and we’ll be burning money rather than spending it.’
It had been Mark’s idea to take her away for a romantic weekend. The Compleat Angler in Marlow, he’d thought, would be perfect. Lovely setting by the Thames, good food, not too far to travel, pretty countryside all around.
The expedition had not even begun well. The M25 and then the M40 had been solid with traffic, all heading out of town for the weekend. They’d had to phone ahead three times from the car, on each occasion pushing back the time of their dinner a little.
‘We might as well make a booking for breakfast at this rate,’ she’d grumbled, lighting up a cigarette and challenging him to argue because she knew he hated her smoking in the car. He’d indulged himself by buying a Mercedes with a sun roof, but with the temperature edging up into the eighties even as the evening drew in, he found himself relying on the air-conditioning as they edged along the motorway inch by inch. He tried to make light conversation, but she obviously wasn’t in the mo
od.
‘I feel as if I’m in a car park,’ he said.
‘You can get out of a car park if you’ve got a ticket,’ she replied, looking ahead to the solid line of traffic snaking its way up the hill as far as the eye could see. A sign appeared informing them that the roadworks which were causing the tailback did not actually begin until a mile ahead. Still less encouraging was a flashing message saying that there were no emergency telephones for miles and that anybody breaking down would have to stay with their vehicles. All that was missing was a little face sticking out its tongue and mouthing, ‘Yah, boosucks.’
After about an hour, during which they’d progressed about two miles, she rolled down the window, letting in the mix of stuffy air and diesel fumes and lit another cigarette. She flicked the ash out of the window, sure that the ashtrays in the car were virginal. Again she challenged him to complain and he made the mistake of trying to joke it off.
‘I don’t know why you don’t staple your fags together – you could smoke yourself to death twice as fast.’
‘Not funny,’ she snapped. ‘You tried to drink yourself to death. That was acceptable behaviour, was it? If you want to tell me to stop smoking why don’t you have the guts to come straight out with it?’
‘And if I did?’ He knew he was being drawn into an argument but he seemed to have no choice but to continue riding into the valley of death.
‘Then I’d tell you to mind your own business.’
‘I worry about you,’ he said softly.
‘You needn’t.’
‘Look, Patti, you had a really close call with that bullet wound,’ he said.
‘That’s what I get for trying to rescue your daughter,’ she replied without a trace of the humour she would normally have injected into such a statement. He should have shut up then, but he couldn’t stand the silence from somebody he so needed to talk to.
