by Ross Raisin
Tom angled his body away from the men. “I don’t know. I was looking at what was going on. He was the other side of the dugout from me.”
He wanted to press for more—to ask what they had said in the dressing room, how often they had mentioned him since, but he held back, and now the men were beginning to sidle towards them. He moved in beside Tom as they closed around them, offering drinks, gesticulating at the leg. More men drew near, and though he tried to stay close to Tom and sensed Tom wanting to do the same, they quickly became separated. Sponsors converged on him. A drink was put into his hand. He was able to escape only when the operations manager came for him and directed him back towards the stage for a round of photographs with the shirt sponsor, the program sponsor, the stadium sponsor, the Riverside Stand sponsor—some just him, some with Fleming, then Jones.
“How long are they telling you?” Jones asked, looking at his leg.
“They can’t say yet. I’m hoping five months.”
“Before rehab?”
“Back playing.”
“Tib and fib? You’d be doing well at nine.”
When the photos were over he was released back into the throng. This was the longest that he had stood for, drunk for, in a long time, and he felt drained and increasingly woozy. There were still another twenty minutes until his taxi. He searched for Tom but could not see him. Every new person that approached him asked about the leg. He answered the same questions again and again until the injury became something separate from him that existed on its own, unconnected to the numb drift of his days and his nights, something which could be explained, defined, given a schedule and an end date that was not just a hopeful guess wrested from the club doctor to put out to the press.
—
He was woken up by Tyler shouting early the following morning. For some time he lay where he was, his leg throbbing under the covers. He tried to make out any words but gave up, deciding that it was gibberish. Tyler’s constant babble never made much sense to him. Leah could understand it. She could listen to a stream of nonsense and know that he wanted the television or a Ribena, and he would look on in incredulity, struck by a yearning to be a part of it but feeling outside of them, a stranger. He waited for the front door to close. Even then he found it difficult to move. Pins and needles were shooting up his injured leg. His body felt heavy and a hangover was pressing at his temples. He would get up in a bit, he thought, and turned over uncomfortably to go back to sleep.
When he came out of the room there was a note from Leah on the carpet outside the door: “Going over to Mum’s after nursery drop-off, back after I’ve picked him up again.” He stared at the unfamiliar, measured handwriting and wondered why she had not sent him a text instead. He read it a second time, then let it drop to the floor, already anticipating the simple singsong of the laptop starting up.
Because of the function he had not looked at the message board since yesterday afternoon. The thread that he had been following was no longer at the top but he saw instantly that it had been added to.
Anyone noticed…
Started by Town Legend
Replies:
14
20 Feb 2012 ≤ 1 2 ≥
Views:
218
Town Legend posted Mon at 11:20am
…that our form has picked up since Easter got injured? Coincidence?
Road to Wembley 2010 posted Mon at 12:32pm
Yes. Because he got injured at the same time that Wilkinson arrived.
Bald and Proud posted Mon at 12:50pm
Totally agree. The change in management is the reason for the turnabout in fortunes, together with the signing of Gundi. We’ve been crying out for a goalscorer all season and this guy is a class act.
Onetoomany posted Mon at 12:56pm
The Easter injury has no doubt helped but the turnabout has been too strong for it to be anything other than Wilko’s arrival (& Gundi’s). Just look at how things are now compared to a month ago.
Farris posted Mon at 12:59pm
Are you mental, Town Legend?
Town Legend posted Mon at 5:25pm
Probably true about new manager but what I mean was it can’t just be coincidence things have picked up since Easter’s been out. First half of the season Clarke wasn’t getting the best from him and it probably affected the whole team. Be interesting to see if he fits into Wilkinson’s plans once he’s back fit.
Voice of Reason posted Mon at 6:04pm
Chris Easter was a non-league player, re-signed by a s**t manager with a charisma bypass who was misguidedly backed to the hilt by a chairman with more money than sense. Even if his career wasn’t over he’d be getting nowhere near this starting eleven. End of.
Jamesy1987 posted Mon at 8:05pm
Didn’t look like the chairman was backing Clarke to the hilt when he gave him his P45
Mary B posted Mon at 7:49pm
Something I think’s definitely been overlooked in all this is Bobby Hart coming into the team as Easter’s replacement and the difference that has made. Jones + Hart = Leadership + Energy = Winning Combination.
The 13th Oyster posted Mon at 9:47pm
Easter’s pissed me off at times this season but at other times (Morecambe away) he’s looked something like his old self. Don’t fancy his chances of getting back in though.
Riversider posted Mon at 11:57pm
Sometimes have been flashes like when he first came up from the youths but mostly he’s disappeared in games. Was very poor Cheltenham away, Marlon Pack walked all over him. The main difference is Jones. With Easter out of the picture he’s looked even better.
Whizzer posted Tues at 12:22am
Drooling over Jones again are we? Are you related to him or something, Riversider?
Lardass posted Tues at 8:06am
I genuinely don’t understand why Easter comes in for so much stick on this forum. Even when he’s going through a rough spell he never hides, and is this really a fair time to stick the boot in? He’d bleed the colors if you cut him open.
Towncrier Ian posted Tues at 8:22am
Think that’s what the doctors are doing to him right at this moment, mate
Riversider posted Tues at 10:00am
All I was saying is Jones is able to play his natural game now that him and Easter aren’t looking for the same ball all the time, and we look a better outfit because of it. Yes, Clarke wasn’t able to get the best out of Easter, but we’ll probably never know if Wilkinson would be able to do any better. I am no relation to any Town player.
He continued to stare at the screen after he had read the final post. His skin pulsated against the cast. For a minute or two his hands stayed poised above the keyboard, before he started to type:
Town Legend posted Tues, at 11:21am
Agree that neither of them were able to play their natural game under Clarke. Easter’s natural game is driving forward but he was being made to provide defensive cover so that Jones could support the attack. Heard Clarke has given up trying to find a new post and has gone back to his van hire business! Best place for him IMO.
When he had sent the post he shut the laptop down and moved through to his bedroom, wanting to lie on the floor and stretch himself out for a few minutes before he went downstairs to see if Leah had made him any food.
14
The chairman came into the dressing room after a home draw against Accrington and told the team, while they continued eating lasagna from paper plates on their knees, that they would be spending three days at a country house hotel and golf resort before the second leg of the Paint area final against Charlton.
Tom got onto the coach on the Sunday morning and took his now usual seat, near the front, on the left. As the players shifted up the aisle and the air filled with the odor of them, Beverley swung in beside him. “Don’t mind, do you?”
Tom moved his bag off the seat so that Beverley could sit down.
“I’ve got bagels and Connect Four on the iPad.”
&nbs
p; “Party time.”
For a full five minutes before the coach set off, Beverley arranged himself. This was the third time they had sat together, though still Tom did not expect it and did not mind—was pleased, even, for the company. There was no edge to Beverley. He was easygoing and, after the mutual silence of room-sharing with Easter, talkative. The others had taken to him too. He was already part of the dressing-room banter bubble, and Tom knew from the conversations he sometimes heard on a Monday morning that he had been to the Hut a couple of times. He was popping open a large Tupperware box. Inside were two cling-filmed rows of bagels.
“Tuck in, mate. Steak and cheese, bacon and avocado.”
They ate and played a couple of games of Connect Four, Beverley all the while half-involved in the meandering conversation going on behind them about spot betting and hair transplants. The bagels and their interest in the game had gone by the time they reached the motorway. Beverley put his headphones on. Tom stared out of the window, thoughts crowding in on him. Burning Liam’s number at the sink. The lift home from the Town-supporting policeman after spinning his car. He was pulled from them by Beverley nudging his arm. “You ever play at Wembley, Tommy?”
“No. You?”
“No. You didn’t play there with the England Unders?”
Tom shook his head. “I played in a final for the Under-17s, but that was at Burton.”
“You think we’ve a chance?”
“Maybe. We are winning.”
Beverley leaned his head back. He shook it slowly on the headrest. “Serious. If we do, I’m going to have twenty or thirty people down, going ape. Just amazing. I can’t stop thinking about it.”
Tom realized that he had not thought about it at all, not once. He pictured his dad telling his work colleagues, organizing the travel, buying Town shirts, sitting in the vast stadium with Rachel and his mum and Kenny and John, and he had to get up and shut himself in the toilet for fear that he would throw up his bagels.
The hotel was plush. Immaculate beaming staff greeted them on the gravel driveway. Once they had progressed through a reception area heavy with the aroma of immense pendulous flowers, the entire squad made immediately for the pool and spa area, where they aroused the unconcealed horror of a party of elderly golfing ladies taking tea at the poolside.
After changing and going up to see their room, Tom went with Beverley for a walk in the grounds. There was a landscaped pond. A ha-ha. A sparse orchard in which a well-built old man with a beard was making repairs with a length of twine while eyeing them through the branches. Before the evening meal the coaching staff sat everybody down in a large conference room to review the DVD of the first leg. The mood of the players was buoyant, frolicsome, their reaction to the goal on the recording every bit as joyous and physical as the celebration of the real event.
In the morning, following a training session at a nearby boarding-school facility, they were taken to the golf course. A rank of electric carts awaited them outside the clubhouse. They were split into groups of four, selected by Wilko. Tom was paired with Beverley, to play against Boyn and Daish. It was evident even by the time the foursome set off down the first fairway, the bouncing cart resounding to cheers as Boyn slipped the first four-pack out of his golf bag, that neither Tom nor Beverley had ever played golf before. They found Beverley’s ball directly behind a horse chestnut tree. Beverley stood over the ball for some time, pondering. He decided to knock it back onto the fairway, but the ball jounced off the knuckle of the club head and smacked the tree, almost hitting him in the face on the rebound. All four collapsed in laughter. Tom then produced a succession of air shots from inside a deep bunker. On his fifth attempt he struck the ball out, and climbed up to see that it had landed in another bunker. When eventually they completed the hole they heard the distant ironic cheers of the following party. Boyn and Daish studiously marked the scorecards: Beverley 13, Pearman 15. Another round of cans was handed out and the cart trundled on to the next hole.
“You two, seriously,” Boyn said, his voice wobbling as the cart traveled over a stretch of bumpy ground. “It’s like playing with those old women.” He was struggling to latch his finger onto the ring pull of his can. When he did, beer gushed all over him. “Crap.” It continued to spout onto his lap. “I’ve just creamed myself, lads.”
“Well, Boyney,” Daish said from the driver’s seat, “I’ve warned you before about your old-lady chat.”
Tom sank back into his seat. Here, in the cold clean air of the middle of nowhere, pissed already, he was enjoying himself. He closed his eyes, letting himself soar with the purr of the cart, the merriment of the others.
He and Beverley improved, slightly, on the next hole, but then Beverley sliced a clump of soil from the perfect fringe of the putting green. Tom, Boyn and Daish, from their position beside the cart, doubled over at the sight of him, hands on hips, staring down at the wedge of earth lying on the velvet surface of the green, thick and rich as a portion of sticky toffee pudding. After six misses he holed the putt. Raising his hands in the air he ran over to Tom and put his arms around him in a bear hug. They jumped up and down together, shouting Tom did not even know what. Over Beverley’s shoulder he could see Boyn and Daish watching them. He removed his arms from Beverley’s warm torso and stood back.
The joking and the drinking continued for the rest of the round, though Tom was careful to avoid getting too close to Beverley other than to high-five or to consult, pointlessly, over shot choices. In the restaurant at dinner their performances and final scorecards—along with the confrontation between Bobby and Steven halfway through their own round—were the source of much amusement. Tom found himself included in the conversation to an extent that he was not used to. He tried to look unfazed by it. He joined in and to his own surprise was able to give a description of Beverley’s attack on the second green which made both long tables shake with laughter. Boyn, sitting next to Tom, put an arm around his shoulder, and for a few floating seconds, clinched to Boyn’s chest, Tom was empowered by a vision of how he must have appeared: one of them, normal.
They were permitted a single drink in the hotel bar after the meal before they went up to their rooms. As Tom climbed the grand staircase with Beverley, who had somehow managed to keep drinking all day and was hammered, he caught his reflection in one of the gilded mirrors and, in an upswell of unexpected happiness, smiled broadly at himself.
In the darkness, however, as he lay in bed and Beverley straightaway began snoring on the other side of the room, the feeling left him. His mind raced. Insistent choking desire tore at him—the thought of Liam’s hands, his face, his body, the things they had done; the things which he blocked out over and over that he knew he wanted to do again.
—
With little to do at the hotel except swim, walk, go for a massage or play cards, the squad was restless by Tuesday, the day before the tie. After a short, sharp fitness session on the hotel’s hedge-lined croquet lawn, then lunch, they dispersed. Some went to the television lounge. Some to bed. A small party—Price, Hoyle, Richards, Bobby Hart—escaped the hotel grounds and quickly became lost in their search for a village pub, ending up stranded by a reservoir. When they arrived back at the hotel sometime later in a taxi, Wilko was waiting for them in reception. He fined them two hundred pounds apiece. They ate the evening meal, each, to the initial confusion of the waiting staff, at a table on their own, and were sent to bed early. Once upstairs, though, they convened in Bobby’s room and resumed a game of cards that had been running since the previous night.
All four were included in the starting lineup against Charlton. Tom was also selected. He deserved his chance, Wilko said at the breakfast meeting. And if they made it to Wembley, he pledged, those who had got them there would be the ones who played.
The Valley was by some margin the biggest ground that Town had ever played at. The team looked up in wonder at the stadium from the window of the coach when they pulled up outside it, and were then escorted inside.
During the warm-up, stretching for a ball, Beverley aggravated a groin strain that had been playing up over the past few weeks. He hobbled off the pitch, his inner thigh cramping, and Tom had to assist him up the few steps into the tunnel. Inside the dressing room he was helped onto a treatment table and the physio bent over him, syringing his groin, while Wilko delivered his team talk.
Even though the stadium was less than half full, the noise of the crowd flowed onto the pitch at kickoff. Charlton began positively, Town instinctively locking into rigid defensive lines, afraid to make a mistake or to venture forward other than by hauling long balls up towards Gundi. As a result they were at once under pressure. A Charlton midfielder loped forward and struck a powerful shot against the crossbar. Wilko’s urgent calls from his technical area were lost in the building expectation of the crowd, and from a swift simple corner routine Charlton scored. The previously exuberant block of Town fans was swallowed by noise. Ten minutes later Beverley went to take a throw-in from deep inside Town’s half. Nobody offered themselves for it, and Beverley, his arms tensing above his head, turned to launch the ball back to Hoyle—but an alert Charlton forward intercepted the throw and ran on to finish calmly through Hoyle’s legs.
The team knew they were going to lose. They closed in behind the ball, determined to keep the score down. Tom, even when he came infield, hardly touched the ball. He chased and wandered as if drifting in a fog, the match and the crowd far away from him. The waves of sound, although loud, were indistinct, remote. The stands were set back from the pitch, and in the rising mass of blurred bodies he could not pick out any solo shouts, could not see the veins of any particular throat or forehead. Only after the final whistle did the rows of people take on a defined shape, when Wilko ordered the side to walk over and applaud the Town supporters. Their disappointed white faces shone in the roof lighting, clapping the players in response, resigned to the 3–1 aggregate defeat.
