by Paul Bishop
"There is no American soccer scene. What's this all about, Gerald?"
"About?"
"Don’t be obtuse.”
Gerald ignored me. "How are you feeling?" He put his tobacco mixture away and took a seat on the visitor's side of my desk. I could feel trouble coming.
"I'm fine."
"Physically and mentally?"
Almost two years had passed since I'd left my right eye and my playing career on the muddy turf at Wembley. England continued playing World Cup tournament rounds, making it to the quarterfinals in Italy before being eliminated. I hadn't watched.
The passage of time had been harsh, filled with operations, plastic surgery, and constant anguish of knowing I would never play in goal again. The image of Wagstaff's boot exploding into my face was etched across my memory like a never-changing mural. If someone had asked, I would have said I'd rather be dead.
After three operations, the doctors said the trauma was too great to make an inconspicuous glass eye feasible. The news came as a relief. I was more comfortable with the empty socket hidden behind an eye patch. With the decision made, the nightmares of my real eye being crowded out by a glass orb declined.
I fixed Gerald with a cold, one-eyed stare. "The doctors say I'm in great physical shape. I run five miles every morning. Yoga three times a week."
"And otherwise?"
The gilling was making me angry. "I'd gouge your eye out if I could possibly use it and get between the goalposts again. Where is this leading?"
"Nowhere," Gerald spluttered. He looked shocked. "I'm concerned about you."
Gerald is five years my senior with the portly comfortableness of encroaching middle age. While I was playing for international crowds, he was establishing a modest magazine empire. His company published two top selling general interest titles, a woman's monthly, a hobby digest, and a children's activity periodical.
He'd been my steady rock in the eternity following my injury.
A strange phenomenon occurred when it was clear I’d never play world-class soccer again. Instead of having time to wonder what the hell to do with my life, I was deluged with job offers. In a way, it made recovery more difficult. I was in no shape to make decisions. Fortunately, money was not a consideration. As my sports agent, Gerald had negotiated lucrative superstar playing contracts, the value of which he increased a hundredfold with business investments.
But choices needed to be made. I started by turning down a profitable request from a certain men's shirt maker who wanted to splatter my eye-patched mug across their advertising campaign. I wouldn’t exploit my handicap. This decision made Gerald unhappy for business reasons. He was further incensed when I continued to turn down other endorsements of the same nature.
I was flattered when Wolverhampton, my league team, offered me a coaching position, but I couldn't face it. Similarly, the opportunity to become the color commentator for television's Match of the Week was attractive. But making soccer small talk while my heart was breaking because I wasn't on the field was unthinkable. If I couldn't play, I wanted to be as far away from the game as possible.
The whole situation was complicated by the Fleet Street newshounds who laid siege to the hospital. For weeks, they tried everything their devious minds could think up to get an interview or a candid photograph of my injuries. During my career, I'd been generally treated well by the press. But after the accident, I had not been emotionally capable of confronting them.
Gerald convinced me to organize a bedside press conference where I tried to answer all questions. The reporters weren't happy, though, because I refused to remove the bandages which partially covered my face. They continued their harassment until I became old news, replaced by bigger and juicier scandals.
Eventually, the tangent I chose came from an unexpected source. A therapist, who was helping me deal with the traumatic emotional problems of losing my eye, suggested I explore my feelings by writing them down. It was meant as self-catharsis, and it worked. I wrote reams and reams of rambling prose—sometimes vehemently venting my anger, other times exploring the meaning of life, or writing pages of playing advice and game/life philosophy.
One evening, without me knowing it, Gerald picked up my scribblings. He found them of great interest. With a ferocious single-mindedness, he badgered me until I consented to let him work them into a series of columns for one of his general interest magazines. I regretted the decision almost immediately and tried to renege, but Gerald would not listen.
When the magazine containing the first column hit the newsstands, I felt emotionally naked. I hid in my house for a week without answering the phone. However, the following weekend, Gerald turned up carting a sack full of reader mail generated by my column. He was full of enthusiasm for other articles he wanted me to write. The more he talked, the more he made me believe his nonsense. Looking back, I can see my brother was being his usual crafty self—I'd been wallowing in self-pity for too long, and Gerald was going to drag me out of it.
Together, we hammered out the structure for a new addition to Gerald's magazine line. Six months later, Sporting Press was on the newsstands with a two-hundred-thousand print run and a sixty-two percent sales rate. The figures, my new boss assured me, were a success by any standard.
I didn't mind the job. It couldn't replace what I had lost, but it kept me busy and broke the brooding moods when I had time on my hands. The magazine also allowed me a lifeline to the world I'd left behind. I had originally shunned similar situations, but Sporting Press allowed me to deal with the soccer world on my terms. If my emotions got away from me, I was able to turn to issues involving other major sports or throw myself into dealing with our array of writers and the never-ending editorial tasks of my new position.
I kept the magazine's tone fair and impartial when dealing with volatile or scandalous issues. Coupled with my high-profile athletic past, this helped me find new angles and insights other sports publications missed. The players trusted me, and I never violated their confidences.
My new life wasn’t my old life, but it kept me going. Gerald was making me anxious about this status quo.
"Do you remember Dad taking us to the football matches when we were kids?" he asked.
"Like it was yesterday," I replied.
Our father was a retired policeman. A caring and loving man, he took it upon himself to answer the thousands of letters and cards sent to the hospital by well-wishers. I was overwhelmed by the outpouring of public affection and the job was too enormous for me to handle.
When we were young, Dad would stretch his minimal policeman's pay to take us to see the local football team play. The cheap, standing-room terraces behind the goal became our stomping grounds. I retain a vivid memory of Dad standing tall, singing chants with the rest of the crowd, with me on his shoulders and Gerald next to his side tucked in by strong arm. The noise and the crush of the terraces held a special kind of magic and became a second home. When Gerald and I were old enough to go to the games by ourselves, we always made straight for the terraces at the home end of the field.
It was in the terraces where I first found myself fascinated by goalkeeping. Nobody consciously sets out to be a goalkeeper. It is an occupation which chooses you—not the other way around. Directly in front of the terraces, the huge rugged men who tended the nets loomed large against the sky. To Gerald and me, our tousled heads barely able to poke over the guardrail, they appeared as awesome as mythical giants.
We came to know each goalie's individual traits—how they warmed up, who wore gloves or hats, and who jumped up before each game to touch the crossbar for luck. We knew which keepers added extra flash and flourishes to their saves, and which ones worked hard to make everything look easy. And should, by chance, a goalie turn to acknowledge the crowd, we felt he was talking directly to us. Standing out as they did from the inaccessibility of the other field players, these men became our heroes.
At school, Gerald's health turned him to the pursuit of academic excel
lence. I had inherited the hardy constitution and build of some long-forgotten Saxon ancestor. As I grew inches in height beyond my brother, Dad was given to humorous wondering about the involvement of the milkman or the postman in our conceptions.
Because of my size, I relished the physical challenges of the playing field. I was thrust into the role of protector when the local toughs harassed Gerald or someone we counted as a friend. Since Gerald was always willing to help me catch up academically, it was natural for me to protect him and the others. From these confrontations, I began to realize I did not conceptualize fear the same way as my peers.
For me fear wasn't an emotion to run from. It was an emotion to be embraced, conquered, and then cherished with compulsion. The same trait lead others to become boxers, policemen, or explorers—men for whom fear holds no significance. The stronger the trait in an individual, the better the chance of excelling in a chosen field.
One afternoon, while I was in the junior form at school, Gerald and I joined the crowd waiting to watch the seniors play a crosstown match with Links Road School. Before we got settled, Hollingsworth, the physical training master, asked if I would fill in for the senior goalie, who'd sprained an ankle warming up.
"I've never played in goal," I said, inwardly excited.
"You're the right size, son," he told me seriously. "Let's see if you've got the cut for it." He tossed me the senior goalie's solid black jersey and put a hand on my shoulder. "Goalies are a different breed. We'll soon know if you're one of them. Do your best."
Gerald told me later my grin wrapped around my neck. All I remember was trying to keep my teeth clenched so my heart couldn't jump out of my throat.
The position instantly came alive. In one too short game, I realized I was embarking on a fanatical crusade to constantly defend an eight-foot-high by eight-yard-wide, invisible, vertical plane, from being penetrated by a spherical leather intruder. From then on, I never wanted to do anything else.
As my goalkeeping skills became apparent, scouts from Third Division teams recommended me to their organizations. I was signed as a schoolboy amateur at twelve. At sixteen, I became a professional. My gigantic salary was ten pounds a week. I did double duty with the youth team. I had the first big thrill of my career when we won the Football Association Youth Cup—a dark horse team battling against all odds.
I took two years out of my professional footballer's life for National Service military duty, the last year of which I did with the SAS in Ireland. I could have spent the entire time in soft jobs, playing football for the army, but I chose a harsher route, which provided me a sense of confidence and self-worth I've never lost. Even in the dark days after my eye was sucked from its socket, there was at the bottom of my soul a case-hardened mantle of self-esteem fighting back against my despair.
After the army, I returned to my Third Division team as a full-time professional, only to be sold at the end of the season to Chelsea. My new team was being relegated from the First to the Second Division and needed new blood for their goal. Though Chelsea was taking a step down, it was a step up the professional ladder for me.
I set out to learn everything about the geometry and skills of goalkeeping, but my time with Chelsea was, unfortunately, undistinguished. After two seasons they put me up for sale and were as surprised as I was when the First Division Wolverhampton Wanderers offered to pick up my contract. Both Chelsea and I jumped at the chance.
The Wolverhampton goalkeeping coach was a wizened old man called Sticks. He looked like he could be blown over by the mildest breeze, but he taught me more about goalkeeping and life than anyone I have ever known.
Under Sticks' guidance, fortune began to flow my way.
His judgment of my potential was quickly justified when I started in goal for the season which saw Wolverhampton win both the FA and the European championships. Five seasons later, I was called as an alternate for England's national team behind Peter Shilton.
Shilton looked like he would be starting for England forever. However, just prior to the West German game, he came down with the flu and I had my first start. And then Wagstaff's boot exploded my life.
If I'd never reached the pinnacle, I might have found it easier to accept leaving the game behind. Easier to dream of what might have been than to be tormented by what could never be again. I told myself I was lucky, but it didn't do much good.
Bringing my mind back to the present, I put the sports page with the news of Pasqual Maddox's death on my desk and stood up.
"You're making me nervous, Gerald," I said, trying to put some good nature in my voice to hide my anxiety. "If you have something to say, then spit it out."
"Ian, really, I..."
"Don't deny it," I told him. "I know you."
I walked around the desk with a smile, put my hand on Gerald's elbow, raised him gently from his seat, and escorted him to my office door. "If you're going to be shy about whatever it is you've got to say, Mr. Publisher, I don't have time to drag it out of you. My feature editors are in a full-blown flap with the legal department over the current issue, so I can't begin to think about a special American soccer issue."
When he hesitated, I fluttered my hands and shooed him on his way. "Get out of here. I'm terribly busy, and you know how cranky you get if we miss deadline."
Gerald left the office reluctantly, but without complaint, and I returned to battling journalistic windmills.
The first of many crises was resolved by contacting a staff writer and promising to marry his ex-wife if he would machine-gun me a reworking of a lead article. He said he wouldn't wish his ex-wife on anybody and settled instead for a bonus large enough to pay her alimony for the next few months.
The solving of one problem quickly made way for others. I spent my day chasing lost photographs, dealing with inferior artwork, remasking botched layouts, and settling squabbles among my usually efficient staff. By four-thirty, I was knackered. My empty eye socket throbbed monotonously. Sporting Press, however, was back on track.
The chair behind my desk looked inviting, so I plopped down with a cup of tea and a soggy tomato sandwich. As I ate, I flipped idly through the personal mail I'd brought from home. Most of it was routine, but at the bottom of the pile was a crisp white envelope with my address in barely decipherable chicken scratches.
I recognized the handwriting immediately. It belonged to my SAS section leader, Adam Qwale. There was now a Sir in front of his name. I hadn't spoken with him since my discharge.
I tore the envelope open. Inside was an invitation to spend the coming weekend at Sir Adam's country estate. The hair on the back of my neck prickled. Between Gerald's strange behavior and this bolt from the blue, I had a feeling my fate was being manipulated.
Chapter 2
Rather than fight the Friday evening traffic jams, I relied on British Rail to get me within striking distance of Sir Adam's estate. Ever since a Sporting Press reporter crashed his car on the way to covering an event in Scotland, causing me to dash off on the spur of the moment to fill in, I've kept an overnight bag in the office. The precaution saved me from racing home for a change of socks and a toothbrush.
When the train arrived, fifteen minutes late, I grabbed my bag from the net shelf over the padded seat and stepped out onto the platform. I was in unaccountably good spirits. Foreboding rambled around in my subconscious, but I'd decided to enjoy the pleasant weekend promised by Sir Adam's invitation.
"Mr. Chapel?"
I turned at the sound of the lilting feminine voice. I was confronted by a young woman of striking features and mature composure. She was wearing a knee-length brown suede skirt with a modest slit up the left side. A pair of brown leather boots over trim legs, and an expensive, umber-colored silk blouse. The whole outfit was topped with a short suede jacket, which matched her skirt.
"I'm Paula Qwale...Sir Adam's daughter." She extended her hand. "Daddy sent me to meet. He’s busy doing evening stables with Hocker."
"Hocker?" I asked, releasin
g her hand.
"John Hocker. He's Daddy's trainer. They have two runners tomorrow, Penny Dreadful and Thieftaker."
I was clear, she took her lifestyle for granted.
"This way." She turned and began taking long strides toward the station exit. "My car is parked in the lot."
Outside the station, weak sunlight was fighting a losing battle against dusk. Following behind Paula’s graceful sway, I felt like an awkward puppy. I'm not good around women, especially if they’re young and attractive. I don’t feel inferior, but I never had a chance to develop social skills at school. While other boys were discovering girls, I was too busy on the playing-field to notice. My hormones finally caught up, but I wasn't attracted by female soccer groupies, and I was too transient to establish a lasting relationship.
Paula’s car was a beautiful red '68 Alfa Romeo Spyder. Its convertible roof was secured down, the black glove-leather interior beckoning an invitation. On the road, Paula surprised me by driving with concentration and skill. There was none of the devil-may-care abandon I'd expected from a rich Daddy's girl. She wasn't trying to impress me, just transport me from one point to another in style. I complimented her.
"Thank you," she said. "I drive in rally races. It teaches you about being safe. You take risks when necessary. Not for the hell of it."
Another point in her favor. Her words were the same I'd heard from her father before numerous patrols in Northern Ireland. In profile, she had the pale complexion, high cheekbones, Roman nose, and prominent chin the English associate with good breeding. The whole was complemented by a long neck, wrapped in a silk scarf. A profusion of thick auburn hair piled at the back of her head. Several wisps had escaped to flutter in the wind flow, and she continually tried to secure them behind her ears.
She kept up a steady torrent of happy chatter about her father's horses and her university activities. I put her age at eighteen or nineteen. A sophisticated and charming package. Tenacious too, if I was any judge. Without a doubt her father's daughter.
