Season of Sid

by Nasser Hashmi

  ‘How did…what’s he called…Ibrahim take it?’ asked Molly.

  ‘I think I just let something like ‘you people’ slip into the conversation and from then on the father threw insults at me, as well as throwing me out. I made a genuine mistake, and I still think about it all the time.’

  I suppose ‘you people’ were just like being called UB40 or U2 in those ancient days, seeing how many black and Irish lads were banged up for being in groups.

  I could see that Molly had calmed down a little. ‘Those black armbands that you left in the dressing room…’

  Partingon nodded slowly. ‘A great player like Ibrahim should be remembered.’

  ‘But he isn’t dead yet,’ I said.

  ‘No course not, and I hope he makes it…but he should still be remembered.’

  ‘I’ll be wearing mine at the next game,’ said Molly. ‘Anyway, what are you going to do with yourself now?’

  Partington sighed. ‘Probably move down to the south coast. Rita deserves some more of my time.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Maybe you should be getting home to Kate and helping change the nappies.’

  ‘Don’t worry, my hands are as dirty as my boots,’ laughed Molly. ‘Just how you like it. Crap on the back of your legs.’

  Partington stood up and put each hand on one of our shoulders. ‘Look, I’ve been sacked and people can say what they want but over the years I’ve watched boys like you come through and it’s the greatest feeling the world…’ He paused for a moment. ‘…But I still think about the one that got away.’

  *

  So our boss had been sacked but some people acted as though the clash of civilisations had kicked off for real. Don’t get us wrong but I’ve never thought of gawper paupers, Pundicks and so-called fans as ‘civilised’ but maybe they should get a life instead of obsessing over our every break of wind. There were protests outside the ground, the papers were wanking off as usual and Lassie were attacked by a fan in the car park. Well, he were only shoulder barged – and he may have been a little tanked-up – but you see how these things can get out of hand.

  Anyhow, once the game started our boss could have been Dennis the Menace as far as I were concerned: we were going to beat Arsenal. As soon as the chant started, about four minutes into the game, I felt all the joyous, twisted energy of a few fans propelling us forward. To the tune of The First Noel, they cleared their throats and raised their voices in spine-tingling fashion.

  El Sid, El Sid

  He ain’t no Yid

  He’s the Popadom Kid

  El Sid, El Sid…

  Now, I know the Kick Racism Out of Football people have done a lot to stamp out this sort of thing, but there were nothing for them to get worked up about here. I could deal with it myself simply because I’d never actually eaten a popadom in my life. And then there were the second line which were the kind of dumbo jumbo I expected from the stands. Of course, I ain’t no Yid, you dicks: I’ve been circumcised.

  There were probably only about 25 of them singing it anyway in the corner of the Billy Moss End; although it didn’t help when Mags kept cupping his ear to them to say he wanted it louder. But strangely this chant seemed to fire us up, and after Arsenal had taken the lead in the 34th minute, I saw Kai make a great run and lifted the ball through for him. He belted it in off the post and celebrated with a body-popping routine in front of the Arsenal fans. Now, I didn’t know break-dancing were big in Liberia but amazingly he didn’t get any aggro and the Arsenal fans seemed to be enjoying it. The only problem were, one of the fans jumped over the advertising hoardings and challenged Kai to a body-popping contest. The two of them went at it, hammer and tongs, as though they were stuck in the mid-80s with their headbands and huge stereos. We were ready to kick-off again but Kai were still at it, eyeballing this Gooner for all he were worth. In the end, Rico had to go and fetch him so we could kick-off again. The Gooner were finally taken away by a sleepy steward but not before he could try a headspin, backspin and caterpillar. He nearly got a bigger cheer than our goal.

  We could even take a weasly team-talk from Drab Dennis at half-time and still believe a famous victory were ours. Call it momentum, adrenalin or the simple fact that the Arsenal players were still dazzled by their body-popping mascot, but when Iggy curled in a 25-yard free kick, there were no way back for them. Until that is, they equalised because I could still taste Lassie’s salty lips on my right eye. I don’t know why the dick were kissing us more than Kai – after all, he were the one that scored – but I were still rubbing it when they got in down the left and eventually rifled in from 18 yards.

  So it were 2-2, but now something else were taking over. Pearly clapped his hands and shouted, ‘Do it for Partington’. I thought about telling the skipper what Partington had said about him but he had those extremely low eyebrows which meant he were, at least, heading the ball in the right direction. But, in truth, I were knackered and hung out on the right touchline for the next ten minutes. Then the ball came down the flank and I punted a hopeful ball into the area. Arsenal failed to clear and there were Pearly, playing as an emergency attacker, to plant the ball home. It were like NASA shuttles had been sitting underneath the four stands because the stadium exploded; with the small group of Arsenal fans in one corner the only ones left on earth.

  With time running out, there were only one thing on my mind. The ball were near the halfway line and I were fouled. It were true, I’d been watching a few old westerns on TCM lately, and the way they went down after a duel were special. But here there were physical contact and, as the other players surrounded us like a poor supporting cast, I stayed on the ground for as long as possible. The whistles around the stadium were deafening. I got up on all fours and the impatient ref drew the whistle to his mouth. All four stands were up too, joyous and ecstatic. We met in the middle for our first maximum.

  Jamil had his hair up in a ponytail and kept touching the back of it as he sat in his leather office chair typing away furiously on a keyboard. His living-room were too quiet for us and even a boring England friendly on the TV couldn’t help, even though it were comforting to know a place in the national team were there for the taking.

  ‘Are you trying to get us on Question of Sport? I asked, getting up off the sofa and walking towards him.

  ‘No, it’s for your new boss,’ he said, continuing to type. ‘It’s just a bit of stuff to tell him how much you bring to the team.’

  ‘We don’t even know who it is yet.’

  He stopped and turned to look at us. ‘Life’s short, a career’s shorter but YOUR career…’ he said, pointing at us, ‘…is the shortest.’

  Well thanks for those words of wisdom Mr Qazi. But I ain’t thought much about being a bid and finding something to do when I’m 40. That’s a long, long time away. I’ve heard stories of former Town players like Frank Spears and Graeme Ridge going penniless but that won’t be us. If I’m ever hard up, I can always pop down to Perv’s Pakoras and endorse his products for a lot of dough – and I mean a lot. Pervez doesn’t understand why women won’t go into his shop, but I can help that part of the business, no sweat.

  ‘Talking about short things in life,’ he said, beginning to type again. ‘Did you see Mullah?

  ‘Aye, I couldn’t stay long.’

  He stopped typing and sighed. ‘Not as tough as you thought, eh?’

  ‘I could feel my fitness going down the pan. Anyhow, I wanted to ask you about his daughter.’

  He leaned back in his chair and untied his hair. ‘His daughter?’

  Now it’s true that I’d had another dream since Ibrahim’s Pink Floyd saga. But this were even worse because it were some kind of gameshow that Granny Fatima used to go on about called Mr & Mrs. I could tell the woman were Mrs Latif – the one I saw at school – and the bloke were just a black silhouette. I thankfully woke up when a ref’s face were emerging as her husband.

  ‘I don’t know if it were her,’ I said. ‘But there we
re this teacher at school and she were a bit distant…’

  ‘All teachers are a bit distant,’ he said, shaking and rubbing his fingers through his hair. ‘They’ve got so much crap in their heads they have to teach to the kids. Anyway, if it was that Rukhsana she has every reason to be a bit off, after all her father’s right on the edge.’

  ‘Aye, I know that but she called herself ‘Mrs’, how can that be?’

  He put his hand on his forehead and leaned back on his seat. ‘Now, I’ve got too much crap in my head,’ he said. He got up from his seat and sat down on the floor cross-legged. ‘Didn’t balance my chakras today.’ He closed his eyes, joined his palms and started breathing deeply.

  ‘Aw, not that Yoga shit again,’ I tutted. ‘Before you get into prawn chakras, just tell us why you think she called herself ‘Mrs’?’

  He continued to breathe deeply and still had his eyes closed. ‘It’s usually a sign of marriage,’ he said, softly.

  I were ready to whack him one but he were fucked-up enough already.

  His breathing got heavier and he were sniffing like a junkie through his nostrils. ‘Some of our people meet for breakfast…’ he said, at a snail’s pace. ‘…they have small talk for lunch and are hitched by supper, so what’s the problem?’

  ‘What’s the problem? She were only offered to us a few weeks ago…’

  ‘What did she look like? I’m just in the middle of a visualisation.’

  ‘About five seven, long straight hair, small nose…and yeah, she had dimples on her cheeks.’

  ‘Did she have a face like Jennifer Jason Leigh?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Jennifer Jason Leigh, she’s an actress.’

  ‘Never heard of her. Is she married to Jet Li? Bruce and Rob are the only other ones I know.’

  He looked at us with disdain, ‘Did she have light brown hair?’

  ‘Think so.’

  ‘…Hmm,’ said Jamil, ‘That’s Mullah’s daughter.’

  SIX

  The plan were to get in and out of there as quick as possible like one of the crappy non-league grounds where we got changed in a crane with blacked-out windows. But as I’d been waiting in the foyer for about an hour already – with only the vending machine to keep us satisfied – the tactics had obviously gone a bit wonky. The seating area were a bit like the treatment table at Starcot: a place of near-silence, gleaming walls and ripped magazines, although here the poor fuckers had to wait ages to get attention. So the foyer did the job in making sure no gawper paupers came up to us for autographs. I turned my head away from people coming in and did the same for people going out. The Lacoste beanie hat were pulled over my ears and this helped to switch their radar off.

  So I were ready to come back to hospital some other day, but then I spotted her coming down the stairs. She were looking towards the automatic doors and had her fur-collared black jacket zipped up even though her shirt were tucked out of her trousers. There seemed to be a man walking a few feet ahead of her, although I couldn’t tell if he were with her or not. I thought about getting my shades out because his flowery purple-tinged shirt, beige trousers and white socks almost hurt my eyes.

  They walked through the double doors and went past us in the foyer. I waited till they were a few paces ahead and then followed them out. I could see them heading for the car park as I stepped out into the light rain. I pulled my Lacoste beanie hat up over my ears and speeded up as I walked past a couple of statutory ambulances. The man stopped by a red Vauxhall Astra and leaned against the passenger door with his arms folded. She were walking slowly towards the car and I eventually caught up with her.

  ‘Where’s the football?’ she said, surprising us by turning around.

  ‘What football and who’s that anyhow?’ I asked, pointing over to the man leaning on the Astra.

  She scratched her cheek with a car key and went up as far as she could beneath her eye. She looked across at him and turned back to us.

  ‘The ball you and my father were playing with at Starcot Lane.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘We have to find it.’

  ‘Why? It’s only a ball, there’s thousands of others.’

  She didn’t answer and walked away towards the car. As she approached the driver’s side, she raised her hand to a man in a blue BMW who were waiting to get into her car space. She opened the door but I managed to hold it open as she waited to get in.

  ‘Just tell us if he’s getting better,’ I said, scratching my recently-grown goatee.

  ‘Get your hands off the door,’ she said.

  ‘HEY SID, YOU’RE SHIT,’ shouted the man in the BMW. ‘NOW GET OUT OF THE FUCKIN’ WAY AND LET THE LADY OUT.’

  If I weren’t feeling so tender about Mrs Latif’s emotional state – if Mrs Latif were her current status – I’d have whacked that fucker all the way to Royds. Well, to Starcot Lane at least. Also, Drab Dennis’s morning session were a factor in my good-natured response. He came up with these dossiers on the opposition which we rolled up to play tig. He weren’t too happy about it but we didn’t care because we knew there’d be a new boss soon.

  I took my hand off the door and gestured for the man to wait. She got in the car and closed the door. She started the engine and I could see the man in the passenger side looking at us. She said something to him and then wound down the window.

  ‘My father’s dead. This is my husband.’

  The home game against Blackburn Rovers were a bit of a blur but the aftermath were as clear as Abujee’s holy water. I stepped onto the Starcot Lane turf in my jeans, t-shirt and beanie hat and walked slowly across to the Billy Moss End. The floodlights illuminated the empty, eerie stadium as the tangy grass squelched and sucked into the soles of my trainers. I walked towards the goal and rested my face against the cold post. I could still remember the tiny squares of the net which Ibrahim touched for the very last time.

  As for the ball Rukhsana were going on about, why were that so important? There were hundreds in and around Starcot Lane anyhow, but if she were so insistent about getting it back I’d just nick one from the training ground and hand it over. She wouldn’t know the difference.

  ‘Haven’t you got a home to go to?’ said a voice, which echoed around the stadium.

  ‘Who’s that?’ I said, looking around the empty seats and stands.

  ‘You’ll know soon enough.’

  I still couldn’t figure out where the sound were coming from but then I heard some footsteps coming down the corner of the Billy Moss End. A man emerged and slowly hurdled over the advertising hoarding onto the touchline. He walked across to the corner flag and put his arm on top of it.

  ‘Fans aren’t supposed to be on the pitch,’ I said.

  ‘I’m more than that,’ he replied, taking his hand off the flag and walking up the touchline towards me. ‘You didn’t play too well today…’

  Who the fuck were this joker? Here I were trying to make sense of Ibrahim’s death, his dodgy marriage proposal and his shot at the big time and I’m confronted by some whinger who says I haven’t played well. If I weren’t so tired, I’d have given him some Jet Li good and proper.

  ‘I’ll call the stewards if you don’t leave,’ I said.

  ‘I won’t be leaving anytime soon,’ he said, as he closed in on the the right goalpost.

  I could see that he had something in his hand. It were rolled-up and looked like some kind of prospectus or file.

  ‘Look mate, I hope you’re not thinking of using that thing,’ I said. ‘It wouldn’t be worth your while. Just stop there.’

  He kept walking and were just a few feet away from us now. It weren’t so much the physical threat as the invasion of a personal moment when my thoughts were with Ibrahim. And that were the kind of nerve he shouldn’t have touched.

  ‘Listen I’ve had enough of you now, you prick.’ I said. ‘Just fuck off and leave us in peace will you?’

  ‘It’
s a difficult time for you, isn’t it Sid?’

  ‘Don’t call me Sid, you don’t know us.’

  ‘I will soon enough,’ he said, handing us the rolled-up file.

  ‘What?’

  I rolled out the file and recognised it as the dossier we’d used to play tig.

  ‘I’m your new manager, Danny Bowker…’

  Calling your new boss a prick weren’t the best way to start a new relationship; telling him to fuck off were also a bit of an own-goal. But Bowker, a former player at the club, would surely recognise I cared deeply about stuff and could use the insults in a positive way. If he didn’t, then what kind of man-manager were he? His job were to manage men, and men say aggressive things. In fact, he were lucky I didn’t clout him one for creeping up on us on a dark night. They put people away for that kind of thing.

  But I were more interested in how many games I could fit in before Ibrahim’s 40-day mourning period elapsed. I wanted to delay a visit to Briar Street for as long as possible because the Latifs might not want us there for obvious reasons and the mass wailing would have also died off. I looked at the fixture list and saw that I could play ten games and go down to the house on the 39th day. By that time, everybody would have calmed down and no-one could accuse us of not paying my respects.

  Bowker still hadn’t introduced himself to the lads but Drab Dennis said the new boss would pick the team for the Carling Cup tie at Bolton Wanderers. I didn’t know what the organisers of this tournament were doing but I’m sure they were spying on us, and acting accordingly. First they called it the Milk Cup when I were still sucking on a bottle. Then they called it the Littlewoods Cup when all my toys, clothes and nappies came from the store. They did it a third time when Abujee took me into Rumbelows for the first time to find a new TV and then, when I were knocking back gallons of Coke, they ripped that idea off too and called it the Coca-Cola Cup. I thought the next thing they’d do were call it the Chicken Korma Cup or something similar, but I think they came to their senses. They went for the Worthington Cup and now the Carling Cup and, as I don’t touch the stuff, I take back the allegation of spying.