Final Whistle

by J Jackson Bentley

  I found a parking space right outside the Sky Sports building for the first time ever. The close season obviously meant staff holidays. Tanya went off to the staff canteen for a meal and I climbed the stairs to my office. I sat in the chair and rang Ben’s extension. He answered immediately and asked me to come along to production suite 3. I looked at the small office that had become my second home recently and felt a little sad that I would have to give it, and the job, back to Danny on his return.

  Ben was sitting staring at a bank of monitors. In the middle section were six large monitors about the size of a household TV. To either side there were over a dozen smaller monitors about the size of portable TV’s and similarly some were colour and some black and white. I pulled up a chair and sat beside the young editor. Just sitting beside him I could sense his excitement.

  “I’ll be with you any minute now,” he said as he ran a segment of video at high speed with his hand on the jog and shuttle button. The picture came to rest on a still of me just before Dean Butler’s tackle in the cup quarter final. One by one the large monitors flickered into life and the same picture was repeated six times.

  “OK. I want you to watch the video of the tackle as it was broadcast.” My young colleague read something from my face and continued. “Sorry, Alex but it is necessary.” I forced a smile and nodded.

  The picture came to life and I watched as the ball left my right foot and the crunching tackle smashed into my left leg. From this angle the tackle didn’t look too bad. The picture froze again.

  “Now Alex, can you see the referee?” Ben asked.

  “No,” I was puzzled by the question. “The referee is out of the picture.”

  “You are absolutely right. The referee does not appear on the broadcast shots.”

  “What does that prove?” I asked impatiently.

  “Nothing…. Yet,” came the enigmatic reply. “Watch the same sequence from camera two.” Monitor one stayed frozen and the others all showed a slightly different angle. The referee still could not be seen as far as I could tell.

  “Here. Look.” Ben pointed at monitor two with a laser light pen. I looked at the red dot but could not see anything of note. Ben saw that I was still puzzled. “That,” he explained, “is the referee’s boot. So he was right on top of the action. My guess is that he was about fifteen yards away, but we can check that on the computer later. The question is, if he was so close why didn’t he send Dean Butler off?” Ben wasn’t really looking for an answer but I gave him one anyway.

  “Because he doesn’t think that it was a dangerous tackle. He says so in his witness statement.”

  “Come on Alex, get real. Referees dish out red cards with total abandon these days. Watch this.”

  The third monitor flickered to life and replayed the tackle from ground level and in detail. The picture froze just after the tackle.

  “This is the view from ISO one. The hand held camera that we use to cover throw ins and corners. Now watch that tackle and tell me that a referee doesn’t think that warrants a red card.” I had to agree, from ground level the tackle was brutal, but then I already knew that. In that second of realisation I recalled that the Wanderer’s fans immediately behind me had, on mass, taken a sharp intake of breath. Strange that I should remember that at this moment. Ben was already setting up monitor four. “Watch this reverse angle shot carefully. This is from one of the two wide angle cameras you use for your match analysis.” The monitor showed the whole of the Wanderer’s half of the pitch. On the opposite side of the pitch, in the distance, I could see the tackle coming. Ben stopped the picture on that frame. After half a dozen key strokes on his computer keypad, a green line stretched its way from the referee to me and a figure of fifteen point six yards appeared on the screen. Close enough for anyone to see the severity of the tackle, I thought to myself.

  “Where is this taking us, Ben?”

  “Watch monitor five,” he said in reply. As the picture appeared on monitor five it was a blown up version of the wide angle shot. Ben clicked a few keys and a magnifying filter appeared on the screen. He moved it until it rested on the referee who was at the edge of the ‘D’. The quality of the picture inside the filter was poor, despite being recorded in HD, as each pixel had to be blown up to such a large degree.

  “Here is the referee,” Ben said triumphantly. “What do you see?”

  “I see the referee. What else am I supposed to see?” I was beginning to find Ben’s guessing game tedious.

  “Look closely. Tell me exactly what you see,” he insisted.

  “I see a very blurry referee running with a whistle in his hand.”

  “What about his face?” Ben asked.

  “Like everything else it’s very blurred. You can’t really tell who it is.”

  “But you can make out his features, eyes, nose, mouth. Even his eyebrows, look.” He pointed with the laser pen. “I’ll show the whole sequence with the filter on. That should help.” Ben rewound the tape and replayed the sequence at about half normal speed. It was then that I saw it.

  “Ben. You are truly a genius.” He replayed it again so that I could be sure of what I had seen. There was no doubt in my mind or his. Now we knew why the referee hadn’t sent Butler off and my case suddenly looked more winnable.

  ************

  It seemed incredible to me but the referee’s face was visible to the reverse angle camera throughout the sequence. Before, during and after the tackle. The referee couldn’t possibly have seen the foul, he was looking in the other direction. After a moment I found my voice.

  “No wonder he didn’t send Butler off, he didn’t even see the foul.” I was thinking out loud. “But why was he looking away?”

  “I think I have the answer to that question.” Ben replied grinning. “This is from the automatic camera behind the goal.” Monitor six came to life. “As you know this camera records on a two and a half minute loop and unless you download the pictures within that time you lose them. That’s because they are recorded over as many as thirty times a game. The match editor obviously thought you were bound to score and so he downloaded the pictures to the hard drive,” he paused, “…and here they are.”

  “The monitor showed the view from behind the goal. On the left side of the picture I was bearing down on the eighteen yard box with the ball at my feet and Dean Butler was getting ready to pounce. On the extreme right of the picture Michel Valjean was running into space waiting for me to pass. Michel was being held back by the defender and elbows were flailing. The incident showed all the signs of breaking out into a fight and both the referee and his assistant looked on. Ben stopped the picture at the moment of Butler’s mad lunge. The picture was clear and focused. My face was etched with a grimace of real pain, but perhaps more importantly, the match official’s facial features were clear and unmistakable. The referee was looking in the opposite direction.

  ************

  At the top right hand corner of the monitor appeared a sequence of figures. This I had been told was the time signal. When the match kicks off the video time signal begins at;

  00:00:00

  The first two zeros represent the minutes, from 1 to 45, the second two zeros are the seconds, and obviously run from 0 to 60. The third set of zeros are the frames per second and they run from, 0 to 25. So a frame of video from any stadium camera can be matched to within a twenty fifth of a second to any other camera angle covering the same game.

  Ben set all monitors to 81:00:00 and started the tapes. Ninety seconds later it was all over and I was lying on the ground with a broken leg and a ruined knee.

  “I think that puts an end to the referee’s credibility as a witness,” Ben said.

  “This is the law we’re dealing with here.” I responded cynically. “We can take absolutely nothing for granted. Who knows what a clever barrister will come up with to recover the situation?”

  I left Ben to copy the tapes and made a phone call to counsel’s chambers. After a lengthy discuss
ion with Christopher Byron’s junior, it was decided that Ben would prepare a witness statement and send all of the video he had collected to counsel for disclosure to the other side. Junior counsel was cautiously optimistic about our new discovery and looked forward to viewing the tapes whilst I was away.

  ************

  I sat in the terminal building concourse waiting for Tanya to complete the circuit of duty free shops and collected my thoughts. I opened my Filofax and turned to my ‘To Do’ list. I crossed out the items that I had already taken care of; leave keys and alarm code with Sally (next door neighbour), leave contact phone number with United, Sky, Sally, Aaron and my agent. Everything was covered, or at least I hoped it was. It was too late now if it wasn’t.

  Tanya returned with two football magazines, a legal thriller and a packet of barley sugar sweets to suck during take off. She was mothering me. We took the moving walkway to the lounge and settled down for the last hour of our wait.

  The seats we had been allocated were great. Tanya took the front window seat and I sat behind her, the seats had sufficient room to lie flat and so I could stretch out my leg. The investment in ‘Upper Class’ seats suddenly didn’t seem that frivolous. The flight was nine hours long and uneventful. I managed to watch three movies, which were yet to be released in the UK, on a small screen monitor in front of my seat. Tanya read and played Nintendo games on her built in console. The food was surprisingly good and the drink was plentiful. It would be fair to say that I was very relaxed when we started our descent into Orlando.

  ************

  The bright Florida sun shone through the smoked glass of the concourse at the airport. There was no temperature shock yet as the building was air conditioned. We rode a monorail to the main terminal building and went to pick up our rental car. After the usual argument with the attendant about my not wanting to upgrade my pre rented car, we stepped outside. The hot air hit me immediately. In the space of a minute I had moved from around seventy four degrees to well over ninety degrees and a sheet of perspiration covered my body. We hurried across the road to a dark, cool car park where our luggage was loaded into a rental car by a helpful American student in a smart uniform. I gave the first tip of our stay to the young man and the holiday began.

  The air conditioned Plymouth took us out of the airport complex and onto Boggy Creek Road. As per my request the gear shift was on the steering wheel but otherwise the car was a traditional automatic, which needed no effort from my damaged left leg. We drove down the road which was bedecked with orange trees on either side. On Stella’s instructions we ignored all of the intersections until we passed a roadside MacDonalds with a play area attached. At the next intersection we turned right onto an estate of executive villas peppered with man made lakes. Unsurprisingly the estate was called Lakeside Park. The houses all looked new and were adorned with variously shaped swimming pools in mesh enclosures. Each villa was a different pastel shade. We pulled up outside the fourth house on Morgan Point. The number read; 2411. Where the other two thousand four hundred houses were was a mystery to me.

  Stella came racing out of the villa and swept Tanya off her feet, then she turned her attention to me and kissed me wildly. She could see that I had my hands full of suitcases and was unable to defend myself. We moved into the air conditioned comfort of the house. The rooms were spacious with high ceilings. There were no ceiling lights and their place was taken by large fans. Artificial lighting came from lamps and wall lights. The furnishings were matched and co-ordinated with the colour scheme and the carpets. I suspected that the house had been furnished by ‘Rooms to Go’, a large retail unit we passed on the way from the airport. Stella showed us around the house that would be our home for the next month. The house had been prepared for our visit and to all intents and purposes it appeared as though Stella lived here alone. Tanya went outside to survey the pool area and I was alone with my mother in law.

  “Who’s the boyfriend, Stella? Will we get to meet him?”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she lied, casually. I walked into the bathroom and picked up a bottle from amongst many others.

  “When did you start using Georgio cologne then?” Stella snatched the bottle from me and put it back.

  “I thought we had removed everything,” she said shamefaced. “Don’t you dare tell Tanya.”

  “Why not? I’m sure she would understand,” I said, certain of my daughter.

  “Look Alex, young girls can’t even believe that their parents have sex, let alone their grandparents.” I laughed out loud at her sudden prurience.

  “Is this the same woman who posed naked for Men’s World on her fiftieth birthday? The woman who sunbathed topless in Nice whilst sitting next to her prospective son in law?”

  “Shut up,” she interrupted. “That’s different. I don’t want my grand-daughter thinking that I’m immoral. It isn’t right.”

  “Is he English? Is he called Nigel or Vivian or Morris?” Stella laughed.

  “His name is Tim, actually, and he performs at Arabian Nights in Kissimmee. He is a cowboy who does tricks with ropes and knives and things.”

  “So. he’s an American then?” I pressed.

  “No. He’s from Surrey, but he does a very fetching southern drawl.” It was my turn to laugh. I hugged my mother in law and promised her that I would keep her secret. She put her arm around my waist and walked me out to the pool. Tanya had already tested the water.

  “Come on, Dad. Let’s get changed and have a swim. You too, gran.” I smiled as my afternoon was planned for me. That was something I would have to get used to for the next few weeks.

  ************

  After the first week I was exhausted and I insisted on a day’s rest. We sat around the pool and read books and talked. This was the most content I had been for a long time, perhaps since Vicki’s death. I was with two people I really cared about and I hadn’t a care in the world. I dozed off in the warm afternoon sunshine and was only woken by the return of Stella and Tanya from the WalMart. They were brandishing the photographic evidence of a week’s complete insanity.

  In the last seven days we had covered every inch of Disneyworld. We had been to Epcot, the Magic Kingdom and Disney MGM Studios. I had shaken hands with Minnie Mouse on Main Street, been shrunk to ant size by Rick Moranis, of ‘Honey I Shrunk the Kids’ fame, and dropped to almost certain death in MGM’s Tower of Terror. Now I was about to relive it all in photographs and again on the accompanying DVD.

  That evening, rested and refreshed, we went out to a Dinner show and witnessed Tim, the Surrey Cowboy, in action. After the show we all had a drink together and Tim, who was about my age, offered to take us all to Busch Gardens in Tampa on his day off. I agreed without knowing what I was letting myself in for.

  The Drive to Tampa took about ninety minutes and soon we were parking in the giant car park. I quickly became aware that the main reason for the existence of this particular theme park was to terrify the parents of fearless kids. One ride after another threw me around, sent me round in corkscrews and turned me upside down at speed. I was white with shock by the time we reached the pinnacle of man’s rollercoaster inhumanity to man. The object of my terror was a yellow snaking spaghetti of tracks that twisted and turned in every conceivable direction. I just knew that I was going to have to ride the ‘Montu’.

  Now, some people claim that soccer is a softies’ game and that rugby is the game for real men. Tell that to those who tear muscles, break limbs and have noses flattened every Saturday afternoon. In my opinion, whether you are a hardened rugby player or war torn soccer player, you’re going to be tough. And I don’t exclude myself from that description. Tough or not, the ride that loomed large in my field of vision was horrifying. I explained to the attendant that if my cast was a problem, I would reluctantly forego the chance of riding the rollercoaster. He told me that it was no problem and that I should forget the cast and enjoy myself. Tanya laughed at my discomfiture as we neared the front of the queue. I
sat in a bosun’s chair that hung precariously from a monorail track and smiled grimly. The ride began and we started to rise in the air. In seconds we were travelling at speed and were suddenly flung upside down. The speed gathered as we went and thereafter there wasn’t a straight piece of track in the ride.

  We were on our sides, upside down and in the most improbable positions, our legs always hanging loosely from the chairs. I began to relax when we came out of a corkscrew spin and we were once again upright. Travelling at about fifty miles an hour we hurtled towards an underground concrete trench. There was no way we could get through the gap we were approaching. I quickly estimated that I would either be decapitated or I would lose my hanging legs. The opening approached, we couldn’t make it. We hit the opening at speed. I scrunched my body up as much as possible in the harness and closed my eyes tight. I couldn’t bear to watch. Screams engulfed me as we entered the darkness and nervous laughter followed as we emerged into the sunlight. Never again, I promised myself. I don’t care how soft I might appear, never again.

  After Montu anything else could be classed as enjoyable. We sampled the water rides and came away drenched. We surveyed the wild animals from a cable car and we washed junk food down with copious amounts of Sprite. All in all, we had a great day. On the way back Tim and I spoke in hushed tones about our very different careers as Stella and Tanya slept in the back seat, mouths wide open in the most unflattering of poses.

  ************

  I was awoken the next morning by someone ruffling my hair.