[SHORT] The Cup Final

[jdoyle9293]

The piercing summer light shot through my awkwardly structured blinds—a bit like the Arsenal defence that I play in front of. The bedsheets were nice and fresh, they always are when Larisse does it. I sat up in bed, dragging my throbbing legs up as I attempted to clamber out of my sparkling new pocket sprung mattress.

I don’t care that I’m apparently “stuck up” or “arrogant”, my ex-girlfriend can complain to some other poor loser now—I can afford a maid and she can’t, that’s the be all and end all of that particular story.

I signed a new four-year contract at Arsenal football club last weekend and she left me the day after. I thought the trick with girls was to make loads of money and they’ll be attracted to you—apparently not in my case. Apparently my supposed arrogance counters the huge wad of cash that I take home every week and conflicts with the romances in my life.

I’ve been able to move out of the accommodation that the gaffer stuck me in here since I moved from France a couple of years ago. It was nice to get out of that dingy old place, let some other 18-year old youth squad member have it now. I made the senior team at Arsenal last year after a few years of hard work and soon my national coach came a-knocking. Thank you very much, Sir.

I snapped his hand off, almost literally when I went to the French national team training for the first time. He’s an absolute hero; I remember when he played in that European Championship winning side in 2000, I’ve loved him ever since for that, I always will do.

Some people tell you never to meet your heroes but that couldn’t be further from the truth with my national manager. Not so much the gaffer at club level, though.

He has a lot of grievances with Laurent, my best friend in London and my agent. He’s an agent to quite a lot of the French footballers who live in England actually, he takes you to classes to learn the language and settle in; he’s a really top man.

Laurent always keeps me in check money wise, if there’s a sponsorship to be sniffed out then he’ll cart me off from training to a photo shoot or an interview or whatever. The gaffer’s always moaning that I should be getting my rest and not throwing all of my energy into media-related activity. I mean we’ve just finished our season and we missed out on the league (again) and we’ve got a cup final at Wembley in a couple of days’ time.

Gaffer’s said I’m on the fringes and should be playing up to a high standard in training to get that spot in the starting eleven for Saturday. Our coach is quite easy to read, though, and everybody knows that the “on the fringes” lecture means that you’re in the matchday squad and he wants you to push on and keep fit for the game.

Laurent and the boss have a very strained relationship because of it now. My stock rose dramatically last month when I scored two goals against Middlesbrough in the semi-final of the cup. All of a sudden, the call came in from the national squad manager, I was being put on French magazine front covers and shampoo adverts, the lot.

The lads always joke, “Oh yeah Mikael, where you off after training? A photo shoot for Nivea?” It’s just I’m always after a bit of extra cash, well at least I was before this mammoth contract came in from the gaffer last week.

This week, my agent’s tried roping me in for a few extra bits here and there about town. Thing is, I don’t really fancy it, being an ambassador for Vodafone or Nivea and staying out until 8pm when I could be relaxing before I inevitably get woke up by my alarm clock at 7.30am again.

Nike called Laurent up the other day and said they wanted to star me in a new advert which I was totally excited for. It fell on the day I got dumped by my ex-girlfriend and being caught up with all of that nonsense meant I had to miss out on the Nike deal; it was big money too. I could have even been able to retire off it for a few months.

I have other ways of getting money on the side if my career does go down the pan and I have to take a pay cut from Arsenal, though. It’s in fact why I was up so early this particular morning, I got a call in from a guy called Kevin, friend of a friend, or so he says. He wanted to meet up at 8.30am in a bar in North London for a ‘special endorsement on the side’, as he called it.

[tenthreeleader]

Part of understanding the writer's art is being able to give your reader a mental picture of what he's reading. That's one reason why FMS is such a challenging forum -- the lack of pictures means that in order to make the connection with the reader, the writer has to take the 'extra step'. What I'm reading here is top-drawer stuff, and it performs that key task for me.

[jdoyle9293]

Usually I wouldn’t have gone anywhere near this pokey old bar, and wouldn’t have turned up for the meeting. However, seen as though he contacted me directly and not through Laurent, it must mean that he’s especially interested in me.

It was a fair distance away from my apartment, just off Regent’s Park and near Tottenham Court Road. The Albany I think they call it, just a little pub/restaurant and a few fine wines on the menu. It was nothing special when it comes to London but this guy obviously wanted to do his dealings on the sly and in the morning.

Researching the place after he rung me up, I noticed he arranged to meet a full three hours before the place actually opens. He must have known my schedule for some reason because we had a day off training due to it being a day after the final league game of the season.

Monday mornings are usually clichéd to be horrendous but I had a good feeling about this. I could spot The Albany’s disgusting light green paint work a mile down the street as I approached it, the cracks in the paintwork and brickwork started to show.

The pub inside was void of all light with the exception one overhanging the bar. To my surprise the door was unlocked and I caught a glimpse at the mysterious figure that I presumed to be Kevin. Dark fridges flanked him as well as beer pumps which were draped in sponsored mats and towels from various beer and cider companies.

“Hello, Mikael.” Kevin whispered, he had a very coarse voice, a hardened voice if you will, with a slight Scouse tinge to it although it wasn’t all that noticeable. He didn’t look up from his gaze of the morning newspaper, which told of Chelsea’s title win in dramatic fashion the previous day.

“Money always talks, doesn’t it? Chelsea are pretty much buying the league like that.” Kevin obviously didn’t have the respect to notice that my team had been thrashed by Chelsea 4-1 a couple of weeks back, a result which eliminated us from the title race and dropped us into fourth position in the table for the remainder of the season.

“Well,” I cleared my throat, “they’ve got a good set of players and a world class manager, he’s done quite well since he came back.” He raised his head which was straggled with long hair escaping out of a similarly coloured black beanie hat. He didn’t catch my eye as the type of man that would wear a beanie hat; he was well over forty, almost pushing fifty and was carrying some stock.

His untidy hair met his equally scruffy and unkempt beard which tickled his leather jacket. He didn’t look all that happy to see me and his appearance definitely wasn’t that of an optimist, almost goth like to be wearing all black and such layers on a sweltering day like it was.

“We may as well get down to business, I don’t see why we should push on with the pleasantries all that much.” I nodded my head cautiously as I was still completely unaware of what this ‘business’ actually entailed.

He lifted a briefcase up from behind the bar and sat it in between him and me on the wooden bar which hosted the transaction.

“The big game on Saturday; I’ve got a vested interest which I shan’t relay to you, but I’m propositioning this amount of money to you,” he clicked open the briefcase, a glimmering light at the end of the arduous tunnel, a light which contained plenty of bank notes, thousands probably.

My ears had shut off from Kevin’s words so I scrambled my brain, urging them to re-connect, “you got that? So, if you make sure you team loses, you will get all of this, maybe even more if I’m feeling generous. Okay?”

If I hadn’t have been sat on a chair at that moment I would have dropped to the floor under the sheer weight that my nervous system had been put under due to that last sentence. It was wrong, it was definitely wrong. It was highly unethical, to my team mates, the gaffer, my friends, the millions of supporters that go to see us every season and the entire sport.

I would throw the game into disrepute for all of that money, I mean, I didn’t count it but there was absolutely loads there. Easily a couple of months’ wages, and probably more than Nike were shoving under my nose. Could I realistically do this?

My abrupt handshake and conclusion to the meeting erred towards the positive of that question. I shook his hand, mumbled a word or two before I was marched out of the building. Never once did that man smile but I’m sure he was glowing inside, he was about to make millions by this Saturday, if I complied that is.

We were playing Liverpool so they could beat us without me having to throw the game, I could evade all problems by just doing nothing wrong. Liverpool better bring their A-game on Saturday, otherwise I’ll surely get caught. That’s when the two-year bans come in and the ‘throwing the game into disrepute’ charges fly at you, your face splashed across the entire world’s media for throwing a high profile game.

These thoughts just regurgitated around my brain the entire week, I went into the training ground feeling guilty. I was ridden with it when I had to change into my Arsenal tracksuit to go out and do some light training on Friday morning.

Nothing hit me like a ton of bricks more so than breakfast in our hotel on Saturday morning. I ventured down to the basement restaurant that the club had rented out, seeing all of the first team lads and management in such a joyous mood, they were happy to have got so far in the cup, but at the same time showed an unerring determination and focus. I wish I was the same. The manager had a few rallying cries whilst we were digging into our cereals and whatnot, I couldn’t do this to our club.

There was a person missing on our table, the two centre forwards I was sat with and our goalkeeping coach but one man, my roommate was missing. I hadn’t seen him since we turned off the lights quite late last night and got some rest ahead of the big game.

[jdoyle9293]

Sam Watkins was England’s number one goalkeeper and our more experienced player; he had played at the club for a number of years.

I hadn’t seen him that morning but I decided to creep down to breakfast without him, especially after I heard gagging and vomiting in the bathroom. I couldn’t do with that noise with all of the problems that today brought, I was still hanging in the balance whether or not to gift Liverpool the FA Cup and win a hefty prize at the end of it.

The gaffer’s passion had changed my mind at breakfast, I was going to play it straight and try and win the game for the lads, if we lose, I’ll be sad for a bit but the money would keep me happy over the summer; that and a possible call-up for the World Cup squad with France.

He approached me, asking about Sam, but I told him he was feeling a little under the weather. “He’ll probably be better in an hour,” I tell him, we needed him to play and we needed to win, so I had to get Sam motivated and feeling better for the 3pm kick-off which was hanging over me like a bad smell.

“Alright, I’ll get Steve to keep an eye on him this afternoon,” the gaffer moved closer into my ear, “you’re in my eleven for today, Mike, big day for you, this. Instead of on the wing, I want you at right-back, you can push on and create problems from deep today. Be a little surprise for them when they see the team sheets.” That ******, how can he play me out of position when I got them into this position in the first place? I scored the goals to get us into the final and now he’s playing me in the defence?

Why should I appease him by giving him an FA Cup winners’ medal? I definitely needed more time to think about this and control my swaying emotions so I brushed his comments off. I forced the fakest of smiles and sloped off back to my room. I couldn’t tell Sam, he would beat the living hell out of me for even mentioning or contemplating it, he was Arsenal through and through, just like most of the lads in the dressing room.

I withdrew the key card from the door and entered the well air conditioned room as the door chimed to allow me access. What lay before me straddled over bathroom door threshold was far worse than something I was about to perpetrate today. My cheeks drained of all colour, I could feel them as they began to water and wobble, vomit rising to the surface.

[jdoyle9293]

I eased my foot off the featherweight pedal on the right and yanked up the handbrake lever to grind myself to a halt on the gravel which squirted up either side of the gorgeous vehicle. I lifted the gull-wing door up into the sky, and passed out into the beautiful spring afternoon to breathe the hot air in, what a fantastic day it was to be handsomely rich. Cheshire was always impeccable at this time of the year.

The ivy stretched across my rural Edwardian mansion and balanced beautifully between a darkening red and a granny smith-type green.

Unfortunately, it was a trek to the other side of the house where I could pluck an actual Granny Smith apple from one of my trees which lined the pristine back yard. I say yard, it was more like a national park. I had dozens of acres to cope with, so employed a keen squad of well-paid gardeners and maids. Tens of football pitches dipped down into a tranquil stream which surrounded each of the four houses in the local area.

I delicately closed the door on the shimmering silver Mercedes-Benz 300SL, a complete thing of beauty from 1956—a drop in the ocean, if you will, when you take into account the sharp incline in my financial successes from the past three years.

Recently, well since the pay rise, I’ve had a penchant for classic cars. They are definitely plentiful in the garages I have attached to the west side of the house, sorry—mansion. Felipe, a guy in the office at the club told me I should invest in a Hermès EC 135, a ludicrously expensive helicopter to you and me. Yeah, it took quite the snip out of my yearly wage but I am so grateful for it now, and to Felipe.

He’s fully trained as pilot so I thought, seen as though he would be a great asset ferrying me about from place to place, he could moonlight as a pilot on the side. He’s definitely got me out of some holes in the past and to say he helps me out every now and again is an understatement, if I was nostalgic or even remotely kind-hearted, I would say that I owe him my life.

The copter does turn a few heads when you power into a couple of the more poverty-stricken nightclubs in Liverpool, landing on the building top and all that. It raises a few eyebrows and lifts up a few skirts with the sheer gust of wind that it’d create. I do pay Felipe a bit of cash in hand before you ask, it’s the least I could do after he recommended that beautiful creature. Felipe and I have struck up quite the business partnership recently.

It’s only a quick twenty-five minute flight out into the city centre from my home in Cheshire. For his time, if Felipe taxis me to a night out with a couple of my friends I give him a couple of thousand for his time. I am generous at heart. Also, I do make sure I go round all of the nightlife in Liverpool, just to uphold my reputation in the city.

I can even take a dip into Manchester too if I haven’t washed. I hate that city and with that, their football clubs, Felipe doesn’t mind United though—secretly he’s a fan, but I’m sworn to secrecy over in the offices at the club’s training ground, where I play for Liverpool, I’m all hush hush round the lads with personal matters, so he’s safe there. I’ve only told most of the youth lads and they won’t spread any rumour, they’re young and stupid, but most importantly terrified.

I’m a Scouser through and through. This superstardom started a while back, over a decade ago now. I woke up as a seventeen-year old on a morning, quite similar in weather to one we’ve had today. I received a call, you know what people are like with their “no caller ID” bollocks, and on the other end was the England manager. I’m rarely left speechless and shaken by something that somebody has said or asked me to do, but this was an honour and was truly the making of me.

He asked me to play in the European Championships in 2004 that were being held in Portugal. I’d only played a few games for Liverpool and they had a couple of strikers that were going to miss the tournament so as far as he was concerned I was in the tournament squad. I fancied a bit of that, I’d be the fourth choice striker, playing zero minutes and I could have a few parties in Lisbon and the like, it was practically a free holiday for some of the younger and terrible players on the team.

It didn’t work that way unfortunately. The gaffer gave me my international debut in our first game at the tournament against Latvia. Being the goal machine that I am, I only went and scored twice, but of course, every cloud has a depressing lining. It was then that all the press began jump on my back and swarm me and everything I did like flies round, well, you know.

They haven’t left me alone after that, I scored four goals that tournament and we got knocked out by the Netherlands in the semi-finals. I was on the cusp of being a national hero, in quite of a lot of Liverpudlien eyes, I already was.

All of a sudden I was the next big thing and I would have a dozen of journalists dedicated to following all of mine and my ex-girlfriend’s moves. They obviously had no lives and thought they could live out their worthless existence following somebody more successful in one month than they would ever be in a lifetime in their careers.

It drove her so crazy that she left me after the 2006 World Cup. We got knocked out by Italy in the second round and I got a red card, for intents and purposes I was public enemy number one for quite some time after that, she couldn’t hack it. I mean we were both 19, neither of us wanted the attention that we got those first few years.

We were being treated worse than rapists or murderers. We would go to the shop for a couple of things and be hounded by every person with a heartbeat on the way to and from the house. We’d open up the post to receive numerous death threats every day, I’d get the odd bullet through the post or threat of anthrax in a letter or two; it was simply insane.

So yeah, we hadn’t done that well as a nation since I made my debut in 2004. I like to think that I carried them to the World Cup semi-final a few years ago in South Africa with my five goals. Even that wasn’t enough for some of the journalists down there in our camp. They still berate me to this day for missing a penalty in the shootout against Spain. They just gloss over the fact that I scored the three winning goals in the group stages and a last-minute goal line clearance against Germany in the quarter finals.

On the pitch I’m constantly fuelled by my rage against the press, I see them hiding behind their laptops up in the main stand at Anfield every week. They tap away on their little keys, writing imaginative headlines about me and my performances, in a way they spur me on to be a better player—to prove them wrong.

31 goals in 34 games this season for Liverpool says very much the opposite to the streams of negative press directed at me. I helped England qualify for the World Cup in Brazil mere months ago but every waking minute they still clamber over each other at the gates at the foot of my house, like obsessed wolves salivating and snarling at their potential prey.

“Adam! Adam! What did you think of last night’s defeat?” They scream through my blacked out windows as my gates are prised open mechanically. I don’t have an answer to such a senseless question because there is an obvious answer ready to be contorted and pulled apart by those barbarians. The only thing that separates that miserable flock of journalists from animals ready to kill is the fact they don’t leap into my house and begin to tear everything apart. They’ve done enough of that mentally in my career in the nation’s spotlight.

By those standards, they can only be semi-human, which is quite the compliment for this poor collective excuse for humanity that pray on the answers of footballers every morning, noon and night. That description is also probably a vast improvement for journalists in the current climate, Leveson Inquiry and what not.

A couple of days’ rest did me good after a trip back from Newcastle, a win and another two goals to seal fifth place in the league. The promise of European football was a tonic to another restless and panicked week from our inferior blue neighbours who promised so vehemently to beat us.

You could compare them to the bottom feeders which lurk at the foot of my gates every morning, I suppose. Whichever way you look at their, both of them are stealing perfectly good oxygen from the rest of us. The Everton fans are constantly in our shadow and, like the journalists, want to strive for more but failing in more spectacular methods than ever before.

The only occasions I’m not greeted with hordes of paparazzi outside my house is if there was a huge game taking place, usually around the summer time. It’s usually either one of the FA Cup final, the European Cup final or the World Cup final. Today, my trip to the training ground in Melwood was, for once, uninterrupted due to the fact we had to do battle with Arsenal in the FA Cup final on Saturday afternoon.

Well, they often schedule it on evenings now for completely absurd commercial and marketing reasons which I can’t get my head around.

It had been a refreshing couple of days for me and the lads really, since the return trip from Newcastle in my Merc. It was a case of a light training session on Thursday morning filled with a snore fest of tactical preparations throughout the afternoon. We travelled down first thing on Friday morning.

My first question to a couple of lads on the flight down from John Lennon airport to Heathrow was simply querying the night’s entertainment. Would we be indulging in a night out on the town or pleasuring each other in our dour London city centre hotel rooms whilst playing kids’ video games?

[jdoyle9293]

As one of the leading figures in the dressing room, and when you word something in a correct and suggestive manner, you can make anybody go along with absolutely everything. A couple of the older lads, who I didn’t particularly direct the question to, had a few choice words and scoffed but I knew they wouldn’t tell on me to the gaffer.

I knew I could go toe-to-toe with any of Arsenal’s defenders on Saturday whether I’d had a skin full of alcohol the previous night or not. The scheduled evening kick-off was in my favour and did change my opinion of the FA dramatically. When I was sat at home watching the late cup final kick-off in the past couple of years it was ridiculous but when I had an inevitable hangover to shirk, they were geniuses as far as I was concerned.

I only considered the fringe players in my invitation because we could do without a few first teamers going out and getting trollied off three pints and having an absolute stinker at Wembley the following day. The fringe players and the reserve players who travelled down for the experience knew how to drink more and were a lot more fun on a night out. Plus, they were expendable in the club’s eyes, I could handle my drink in a big game situation, the other lot couldn’t—I was better than them either way.

They weren’t as well known, yeah a few of them had played in the odd end-of-season throwaway fixture, but nobody would be able to recognise them in a London nightclub. I wasn’t all that bothered about keeping under wraps. I hadn’t been out in London in a long time and saw this as a perfect chance for a team bonding exercise, mixed with getting the reserve players completely off their faces on drink.

It was a usual Thursday night out in Liverpool for me; as regular as clockwork.

It’s always a bit unusual heading out to an unknown city for a night out, I’ve had some amazing parties in London, but they were all in private quarters and a fair few years ago. I frequented there often in my early twenties, before I discovered that northern nights out were far better than some of the pretentious parties I used to attend.

I was alienated at first by the fact that I would be without my helicopter. Felipe had travelled down with the club which meant that I wasn’t going to making any grand arrivals tonight. The poor copter was left on its own and rendered entirely useless back in Cheshire where I couldn’t reach it.

Instead I laced up my waxed dancing shoes and slicked back my hair and threw on a dark red cotton suit and a straggled bow tie; the after party look was always successful. I had planned this night out so far ahead, packing the fanciest of attires on the trip down to London. Fortunately, I had persuaded quite a lot of the reserve team lads out of their shell in time for kick-off round at my hotel room at 7.30pm.

If I was to put the night on a scale of 0-10, with ten being the best night of my life and zero being the worst night humanly possible by a group of five males in North London I’d say we hit minus figures.

It began with such promise, room service in a king suite hotel room where I was joined by four of the reserve lads who hadn’t made the team utilised to full potential. By the time Big Ben chimed ten times we had raided the hotel refrigerator between us and had lubricated ourselves with whiskey, vodka, rum and all manner of other drinks—we were loose and ready to hit the town.

We passed through various nightclubs, stopping for respites at a couple of bars in between. Old London Town was definitely producing for a Friday night as spring ebbed away into what was going to be a glorious summer. A few shady bars passed in between Regent’s Park and the main club scene but we dusted ourselves down as we narrowed our options.

In the toilet of one particular establishment is where things began to go crazy. In the toilets of one bar were a couple of meatheads ******* around with the hand dryer when they spotted me at the other side of the room, finishing off my business in the quietest and furthest corner.

“Adam Williams?” They shouted at me in an all too distinguishable Scouse accent, it was as if I was back in Merseyside. The three lads walked towards me and I graciously stood there with open arms. My brain told me that they were probably Liverpool fans down for the weekend and enjoying the sights that the capital had to offer.

My collared shirt was slightly diminished by a wine spillage and was scruffily untucked as my hair had started to flop down to one side in front of my eyes. I brushed it back as the tallest of three spat out some words.

[jdoyle9293]

“You piece of ****, you’ve got the cup final tomorrow, haven’t you?” I was beginning to think that they weren’t my biggest admirers, the leader and tallest of the three lifted up his tacky SuperDry polo shirt to reveal an Everton F.C. crest. I was done for. The rest of the night was ancient history as far as I’m concerned. When I awoke on the itchy hotel room floor next to a reserve team brother in arms I was greeted by fleeting hazy memories of what the previous night had become.

Certain sound bites and camera flashes was all I had to go by.

“Here, take this it’ll make you feel better.” The Scouse tone made me feel comfortable that night, but slightly uneasy. The incessant need to throw up my lungs dampened my mood further as I attempted to recall the events of the past ten hours. All I could fathom, whilst looking my tired face in the bathroom mirror was taking a couple pills from three men in the bathroom. Beyond that, though, all I could recall was an almost primal need for water or something to re-hydrate me.

I stumbled over the steps of a club to the greetings of a magnitude of shutter sounds from cameras which bulleted sheer light towards me and my unrecognisable reserve team buddies.

I inherently reached for my face, as I had done on many occasions that cameras in suspicious circumstances were directed at me. I still felt sick. The potential pictures that could be splashed over the internet or social media didn’t help my cause in the slightest. The boss couldn’t see this, not until the season was over and done with, that is, playing in the cup final was an absolute must.

Looking back at the remnants of that night and, in fact, the remnants of the hotel suite, I could see reserve team players strewn all about the room, sick splashed in and around a plastic bin in the corner, beer and wine splashed over the bed sheets and a thin layer of urine coating the toilet seat to top the whole macabre situation off.

I hurled not once but twice before heading down for breakfast, ensuring to make myself look presentable at best in an oversized Liverpool tracksuit. I didn’t know if needles had been introduced last night or not, I couldn’t see any marks but I wasn’t in any state to judge anybody especially myself.

If there was a day to wear an undershirt on the football pitch, then it was today, I’d get the kit man to slap me a cheesy message on it so I covered my tracks and nobody would get suspicious. You see, I’m always thinking—always one step ahead.

The four lads I shared the previous night with followed me as if I was the Pied Piper down into the private kitchen where we settled down for pre-match breakfast.

Before I could even take my seat, Felipe met my eyes from across the room and tiptoed around the manager and staff sat at their own table to get to me.

“Have you seen this, boss? Why were you pictured coming out of a nightclub at 4am?” I tried to deny the whole thing but there was no denying the failed attempt to shield my face and scurry the other lads into a 5-seater taxi. Cliché I know, but the picture did speak a thousand words.

“It says: ‘Liverpool and England superstar was pictured outside a North London nightclub on the eve of his club’s FA Cup final.’” I was done for, but my obituary wasn’t over, “The Daily Mirror posted that on Facebook about thirty minutes ago and it’s doing the rounds on Twitter. You’re trending on there, mate.” Felipe whispered. He was a top bloke, if he liked somebody, he would try to get them out of a sticky situation. I couldn’t handle his constant babble though, so I put my hand to his face and began to butter my toast.

“Look, just don’t let the gaffer see that and I’ll be alright. I’ll score a goal for you and save another for the club today, alright?” The reserve lads’ heads were constantly on a pivot, looking out for the manager who had gone out of view, they were twitching but I was surprisingly calm for an FA Cup final morning, especially considering last night.

Maybe it was the spoon-fed drugs and alcohol last night? I reached for my phone instinctively as I often do in the morning after a night out; there was no new numbers or texts sent. So the night was a bit of a damp squib, I wasn’t fussed that much, I had a good time and the toast was helping my recovery along a real treat—the 6pm kick off didn’t seem as daunting somehow.

I scaled the Facebook news feed, a couple of news postings about a potential kidnapper in London circulated to the top of the page. Apparently he takes pride in his collection of high-profile victims. I skimmed through them without paying attention. I didn’t take much notice of the news and, to be truthful, there was no real need when you earned a fortune playing football. You could easily coast through life not knowing a right deal about sod all.

[jdoyle9293]

“What’s on your phone that’s so fascinating?” There was only one loud boom that I could attribute that voice to. The reserve team players that flanked me at the restaurant table all leapt up in horror, you could almost smell the mess in their pants, it was a stench of inferiority, but I naturally rose above that. Alternatively, for me this was a three or four times a year deal. I learned that it was best to shut up, get the bollocking out of the way and move onto the more serious business.

“I don’t take too kindly to one of my players having a night out in town the day before a bloody cup final. After what I have seen this morning, you’re an embarrassment to the club. I don’t need you in my team and from now on I won’t have you in my team—I am completely sick of your attitude. I have players who want to play in this final who want to play for the badge on the front, rather than trying to improve the popularity of the name on the back. Felipe can take you home; you’re in no fit state to be left alone. Get out of my sight, you’ve wasted your last chance on me.”

My dreams were crushed, an act of stupidity, was a few drinks in a nightclub really that bad? It wasn’t worth it on the face of it, but maybe the gaffer will learn the error of his ways if Arsenal tear us apart this afternoon in front of billions of people watching on the television.

He’ll know he’s made a mistake, when he needs a goalscorer when Liverpool are losing. He doesn’t mean what he says, probably, I’ll stick that down to a heat of the moment thing, he’ll learn when I bring England the World Cup back from Brazil this summer.

“Scott,” the gaffer glanced over my shoulder, “I’ve got a place on the bench for you, replacing this disgrace.” Scott—a reserve team player who passed out three hours ago alongside me on the floor of a hotel suite. Scott, who cannot score either on the football pitch or the nightclub dancefloor, was replacing me, easily the club’s best player.

The gaffer labelled me a disgrace when he should’ve said that into the mirror, they’re both disgraces.

Felipe tried to follow me to my room; I had to buffer him away. “It’s alright Felipe, you don’t have to follow me everywhere, I’ll get the train up or something, I’ll cope. You watch Liverpool lose the cup final at Wembley thanks to that ******. See you on Monday, oh and bring my suitcase up to my house when you’re back from this ********, what they call the capital of England.”

I’d probably manage to catch the game on the telly, or better yet, have a few drinks and watch some terrible film and forget about football for a few hours. I didn’t need Liverpool football club, so I guessed that I’d check the score out tomorrow morning online.

…despite the fact that their star striker, Adam Williams, who has notched almost an incredible one goal a game this season for club and country, was bizarrely left out by his manager, Liverpool snatched the 2-1 victory at Wembley…

[jdoyle9293]

“Dad, what do you reckon the score’s going to be?” My son, Richard peered out from the passenger window of my now defunct Volkswagen Touareg.

“Not sure, son, but we should nick a result before extra time.” I palmed his question off with a simple answer, one that I believed to be true. It was approximately eleven and a half hours from kick off and about five hours’ drive away from our destination and I was stuck under my ageing vehicle.

The 350 mile round trip to Newcastle the previous weekend had officially finished the car off. I was thanking my lucky stars that we had attempted to set off at the sprightly time of 6.30am.

“Williams will get a couple; I’m thinking 3-1 to us.”

“Maybe,” I was pre-occupied with the vehicle, we needed a change of plan, one that strayed away from footballing questions, “we’ll have to get a cab into town to get the train down, son.” I flinched as I muttered the last part, but he got out of the car with a smile on his face. I guess that the old child mentality of a long train ride down to London must’ve warmed his heart; that or the unyielding excitement of FA Cup final day.

This was going to be only my second trip down to the new Wembley Stadium. I was restless all week waiting for it. Me and my kid, Richard had seen Liverpool win the FA Cup a couple of times in the past but that was down in Cardiff and a fair amount of years ago. The home of English football, and world football, I might stretch to say, was a different kettle of fish and it was two years since I saw Liverpool beat Cardiff on penalties in the League Cup final.

Richard was fully grown up, I take him to every single game; both home and away, have done for over ten years, since he started primary school. He’s fourteen now.

We’ve been all over the shop, Istanbul in 2005, had a big argument with his Mum taking him to so-called “dangerous Turkey”, but it was a beautiful city. Some hooligans give the city a bad press, especially after the horrific events a couple of years before that with those poor Leeds United fans. We try to get to one European game a season, one of the better ones to a presentable city like Milan or Lisbon so it’s almost a holiday as well.

I preferred to think of the winning trips I made to Rome, London, Paris and Istanbul rather than the misery of crushing defeats in Athens and Brussels on European evenings, especially Brussels.

Richard loved hearing about my stories about my trips to see Liverpool before he was born, or at least I think he does—I do bang on quite a bit about them in truth. He’s heard it all a million times; from the agony of the 1989 Old First Division defeat to Arsenal at the end of the season which cost us the league and the ecstasy of four European Cup finals and eighteen league titles, he had missed all of that.

Growing up as a kid in Liverpool in the 60s and 70s was heaven. The city was riding on the back of the Beatlemania wave and was being throttled forward into two decades of dominance with our football clubs. Frankie Goes to Hollywood weren’t that bad either. The red half’s success meant a lot more to me for obvious reasons, though. Music and football—what else is there?

I’ve been to watch the Reds in all of our seven European Cup finals, one that I constantly relay onto my son, though, is the 1985 final—hardly our finest hour as a club. Football became irrelevant that night in Belgium, it was a harrowing experience. That and four years later at Hillsborough in the FA Cup semi-final against Nottingham Forest; they don’t bare thinking about.

A more pleasant memory was the 1966 World Cup final. My Mum and Dad were too poor to have a television back in those days so we all poured ourselves into another family member’s house and watched the match from there.

It was one of my very first memories, a staunch one at that. My love for Liverpool F.C. was born out of my blood line due to living in Merseyside but being five years old and watching England win the World Cup was probably one of the fondest memories in my life. Like I said, there’s not much more to life than football.

“Yeah, Williams is gonna score a couple today I reckon.” The question snapped me out of my daydream. We had been on the 07:47 service to London Euston from Lime Street station for around a quarter of an hour until Richard piped up from his seat across from me.

“Williams?! You’re kidding me, right? That kid can’t play football to save his life!”

“Look at his goal record though, Dad.” I had to concede that one, he had been on fire in front of goal this season but for good reason, the service he was getting was phenomenal. I reckon I could bag a dozen or so goals even at my age with the service that he was getting from our midfield and wingers.

“If I was up front with the players that provide for him every week we’d have won the league this season.” Richard had to chuckle, it was a preposterous statement but one that I genuinely though to be true. I couldn’t say that at work or to my friends or even my kid though, not seriously at least, for fear of being ridiculed.

“To be fair, I’d rather have that young Turnbull lad from the reserves, what’s his first name?” I hadn’t a clue about him really, I had seen a few under-21s performances and he came on for about five seconds in a throwaway League Cup match at the start of the season. I knew he was a striker though, and we had precious few of them knocking about in the first team these days.

“Scott, I think. I don’t think he’ll even make the bench, he’s too young.” Says the fourteen year old, although, saying that, he does have a good footballing brain for a young kid.

When he played football at junior level he got a call up from an Everton scout, he actually had a professional club on the phone to him wanting to give him an academy trial and a potential scholarship.

He turned it down immediately.

[jdoyle9293]

“Why did you do that?” I was apoplectic with rage initially but his response soothed me just as quickly.

“It’s Everton, Dad. I don’t want to play for them.” That is just the loyalty that some people stretch to. Although nowadays it’s usually only the case with supporters, when the youngsters who grew up with the game transition into over-paid superstars they develop a mercenary mentality. Look at how Steven Gerrard almost defected for Chelsea after we won the Champions League, for an example. Or Nicolas Anelka, the lad must have had played for about ten clubs by now!

We were due into the capital for around quarter past ten. That gave us time to get a spot of lunch and have an elongated walk on Wembley Way to truly soak up the surroundings before kick-off.

Although I’d usually be scathing at an untraditional kick-off time for a cup final of this magnitude, it allowed us to take our time through the capital. I’m a fan of London as much as the next person so when you’re there you’ve got to see a few sights. Even if it was amongst the chaos of a cup final day on top of the already insurmountable pandemonium of a big city with seven or eight million people packed inside.

It was a relatively short journey down into North London with all things considered. Richard had progressed past the stage of being fidgety on modes of transport which took longer than ten minutes. Just about anyway.

Flights to Istanbul and Eastern Europe were a nightmare when he was a kid in primary school if we were heading for a Champions League game. He didn’t seem to mind much about skipping school for two or three days once or twice a year, probably loved it deep down, getting away from the classrooms and pencil cases.

It’s not affected him in the long-term, he wants to go through college and university and be involved with football at a different level, in the media. I can’t blame him; if you can’t want a job in playing sport then the next best thing is surely to be watching those games for a living, right? I couldn’t think of anything better at my age, but some of us older folk don’t have the necessary qualifications. Otherwise, I’d have signed up within a heartbeat.

A few delays here and there in Stoke and Wolverhampton set us back around forty-five minutes on our journey, rather typical of the modern British transport system. It allowed me and Richard to plan out our starting eleven for the game. They weren’t too dissimilar, really.

I begrudgingly stuck Adam Williams up front on his own; purely because we had nobody else there. By our estimations we’d easily beat Arsenal today, but football isn’t played on paper.

We slowed into London Euston, which was naturally packed for a prime station in the capital of England on Saturday lunchtime. There were a lot more in the red of Liverpool than in Arsenal’s colours, probably because they all lived within, but Richard had a good chuckle at that fact as we stepped onto the platform.

Richard and I slalomed past some of the slower pedestrians on the narrow platform edge as we were sieved out into a broader landscape that was the lobby of the station.

I squinted slightly as I entered the lobby purely because I couldn’t believe the information that my eyes gifted to me. The identity of the figure stood looking towards the overhead timetables was one that initially eluded me but he became clear as day as soon we approached him.

I should’ve really checked Richard for his reaction as it would have given me a solid answer as the man in question was stood directly in our eye line. He was the subject of much of my son and I’s conversation on the delayed three and some hour commute down into the capital—Adam Williams.

[jdoyle9293]

Just less than six hours to go until kick-off and he was leant onto a wall checking his phone at a train station some ten or twelve miles from the stadium which he was due to play inside. His perfectly shined up shoes probably cost more than my entire terraced house, alongside some trousers and a worn out white collared shirt.

He didn’t look even a shade of the athletic, pacey and strong man who had scored over thirty goals in the Premier League that season. His hair was tired and wrangled back, with strands curling out all over the place. The bags under his eyes suited that of the local Tesco’s or Sainsbury’s rather than a human face.

The team news wouldn’t be released for another three or four hours so it was impossible to tell if he was simply waiting for a family member or being dropped from the squad and sent home for one reason or another.

He didn’t look anywhere near his best shape when compared to scoring two goals six days ago and being the supposed man of the match against Newcastle United.

“Is th—,”

“Yeah, it is, I’m gonna go and get his autograph!” Richard obviously spotted him through the crowd too and with a chance of meeting his favourite player, he wasn’t going to waste that opportunity, never in a million years.

Williams clocked us for the briefest of moments amongst the bustle of the station, two Liverpool replica shirts in jackets bounding across a train station lobby. He flicked the phone up to his ear almost instantly, a matter of sheer coincidence or plain ignorance? I knew which one I was selecting from that not so particularly tough pub quiz.

Richard retrieved a marker pen from his back pocket and offered his shirt out in front of the footballer whilst offering him a pleasant greeting, one that Williams picked up and stamped on before throwing it back where it came from.

Williams simply held his hand in front of Richard before passing through him and me, he was obviously bigger than his supporters to recognise them. He strode down the platform where we had just entered the station from like a God in his own mind for in his eyes he was much taller and stronger than any of us mortals down on Earth.

I feared the worst in terms of my son’s reaction as I forced my attention back to Richard but he was blinded by being in the same presence as one of his heroes. He wore a dim smile and he clearly didn’t care all that much that he had just been completely rejected on the spot.

How much of an arduous task was signing a shirt and sharing a couple of pleasantries with a fan? He looked completely vacant from the mindset of a footballer about to compete in a cup final.

“I don’t think he’s playing today, son,” I offered to Richard as we embarked up Wembley Way a few hours later at around four o’clock; two hours before kick-off. Of course, being a teenager and not believing the wise drivel that spilled out of my mouth, he brushed off the train station incident as no indication to whether Williams was playing in the final or not.

As we split to the right hand side of Wembley Way we now had access to unfiltered gossip from the Liverpool fans, a lot of them were murmuring about Adam Williams. The striker had been the focal point of our entire season and never strayed too far away from our lips on match days or any other day for that matter.

“I’m sure I saw him in Euston train station when I got in, he didn’t look best pleased.” One guy said sat down as we passed him. As much as I’m sure Richard was attempting to block out all of the bad whispers surrounding his favourite player, it must have been killing him inside.

I disliked Williams despite the fact that he was our top goalscorer this season, but a team without him in was weaker, even I could admit that fact. As we approached the huge stadium, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something suspicious was going on with Adam Williams.

He looked incredibly worse for wear and was straying ten miles away from the ground he was playing at ahead of a cup final situation. I don’t claim to be a professional athlete or even know their inner workings but slinking your way through a train station in London is no adequate preparation for an FA Cup final.

[jdoyle9293]

I used to love FA Cup final day, getting up at eight and diving head first into all of the pre-match build-up nonsense and making a day of it. Radio shows, newspapers, television shows and the like. Today was different though, it was going to be packed from start to finish through the morning right until the evening in a different way, I had to work.

I owned the bookmakers about a mile or so from Regent’s Park in London, it was tucked away from most of the capital’s frenzy but still managed to attract quite the crowd. That crowd would double and treble in numbers today as Arsenal, the big local team around here, were in the FA Cup final which meant people pouring through the door to stick money on them. Good for business, bad for me as a football fan who wanted to watch it.

It being such a busy day meant that I had to work the entirety of it and keep an eye out on the till and shop floor areas. There had been one or two punters milling about near the entrance way when I arrived at 8.40 to open up, that was quite unusual but then again I’d never experienced a Saturday or Sunday where Arsenal had been in a cup final.

We kicked off at nine and so did the money as a couple of quite hefty betting slips were pushed through to Megan and Kev on the till.

The first hour rushed by, I had administration work to be getting on with but as lunchtime approached and employee’s breaks had to be covered, the place shrunk with the amount of humanity inside it.

10.41, the clock beside me read. Kev and I were sifting through the betting slips and wading through the customers and Megan was two minutes late. She was probably fagging it and hanging out of the back entrance on the phone to her husband about the incoming baby. I had told her that she probably shouldn’t smoke but she’s been racked with nerves, it’s due in a few months and she’s only 22.

We were typically short staffed for a standalone bookmaker on a Saturday afternoon. Four people should have been here this morning. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to where our resident Arsenal fan, Liam would be spending the afternoon. His whole family are Arsenal supporters, he’s named after Liam Brady, what a player he was. Brady was probably the best player not to play in a single World Cup tournament, what a shambles that is. Liam and his folks will be out on the drink this morning before heading up to Wembley tonight, all ten or twelve of them.

I’m probably deeply resentful of this day in particular because I’m a West Ham fan. Arsenal dumped us out of the cup a couple of months back, the worst thing about the loss were the gloating Arsenal fans around the area. Getting the tube back up from Upton Park was an absolute nightmare with the amount of Gunners fans on there, there’s no wonder that I don’t often disclose that I support the Hammers to punters, they’re all Spurs or Arsenal around here. I might have even given myself the day off if the old Hammers did get to the final; it would’ve been a remarkable day, and a rare one at that.

I refocused my mind to see a couple of lads in their mid to late thirties almost pressed up against the glass barrier on the till, Arsenal red peeking through their hoodies. I took their money and slammed the receipt copies in the till before being fed another selection of punters. Most of them went for an Arsenal win and I’ve got to say that I would’ve sided with them if I was allowed to put some money on in my own shop.

Aside from the large bias of the Arsenal contingent in my shop, a dark coated man shuffled through the crowds at the back of the store and plumped himself down onto a seat and leant against a pillar. I joined him in gazing at the large offering of television screens on the wall as I was constantly being referred to do my job by my ever endearing customers.

When Arsenal were ever on the telly or in a big match, the shop was always packed out, but never this much and especially seven or so hours away from kick-off. The customers at the till thinned out slightly so I could catch my breath and another look at the strange person across the shop.

In a bookies there is an obvious need to take extra care with the clientele and build up a rapport with the community. I didn’t like the fact in some places you had to make your presence known to shady types. I always thought that they were better to be viewed from afar, that way I could complete two jobs at once. I was to make sure I was serving my customers as well as ensuring this strange man completes a smooth transaction in a couple of minutes’ time.

He dug a phone out of his pocket which holding his coat in place, so it wouldn’t unfurl to reveal whatever secrets he was hiding under the thick leather. Slotting the small blue pen behind his ear and entangling it with his long, messy hair, he took the call and his posture changed almost immediately. He transformed from a slouching position to a frantic upright stance as he shuffled a couple of papers in his hand and retained control of a briefcase which stood firmly underneath his foot.

10.53, Megan was taking the **** now. I was down to my last two customers who exited through the threshold with quiet content and hope that they would be returning later on or the day after to collect their winnings. It really was a loser’s game, this.

The shop was almost bare now, aside from a couple of horse racing punters in the far corner watching their chunks of meat cross the finishing line behind the winners. Crumpled up betting slips were thrown into a nearby bin as they followed the hopeful customer out of the building.

This left me, Kev and three or four customers; one of them was the suspicious tall male wearing a dark, heavy coat which draped down to his knees on such a wonderfully warm morning. A contrasting white collar poked out from his coat which probably met his skinny jeans in a concoction of unseen material around his waist.

His disembark from the chair and shuffle to the till seemed laboured and heavy, he was tied down by the steel briefcase which made my arms tired by simply thinking about having to carry it. He lifted it onto the desk before slotting the betting slip and pen into the troth under the protective glass wall on the till without saying a word, not even an introductory murmur.

Before I had a chance to peek at the slip, he had stuck the briefcase on the other side of the employee’s entrance and exited with haste. I made my way to open the door next to the till, checking the man’s whereabouts but he had made his way round the corner and out of sight.

A couple of the older and more loyal patrons in the corner of the room obviously didn’t abide by his ignorant actions. The man obviously had somewhere to go but that didn’t stop the gentlemen following him intently with his eyes to where he ran off to, tutting to voice their displeasure. I lugged the briefcase onto the other side of the till, bending down to unclip it behind a desk out of view.

It wasn’t exactly bursting from the seams, but there were enough banknotes there to put me into a great deal of profit if the bet wasn’t successful. I clipped the briefcase back into a locking status as I retrieved the slip on the till’s desk. I glanced up from the sheet of paper to match the two elderly men’s gazes which were fixated on me. They politely smiled at me as if to ask for the information on the case.

I replied with a similar smile which looked warm but informed them to stop looking at me and get on with their own business, I didn’t want witnesses if I was aiding and abetting some sort of crime. I mean, who sticks £25,000 on anything remotely related to betting if they’re not involved in something shady on the side?

I was correct in my stake estimation, which read in clear block capitals, and above that it read “Liverpool 2-1 correct score and one red card.” It was the neatest betting slip that I had ever read in my time at this place, he obviously wanted to make it very clear so there wasn’t to be any miscommunications. Or perhaps he was instructed to do so? The odds for that must have been astronomical. The likelihood of the bet actually coming off was low down in the gutter but that only made it even more suspicious.

I became an Arsenal fan in the matter of moments it took me to read the slip and allow the amount of money under the desk to sink in. I continued to search my brain for the ethical reasoning behind reporting this incident.

My company was quite well off, I was almost planning on opening another store a couple of miles away, which proves that I was quite a high point in the business and this sudden influx would give me a lot of startup cash for the expansion. I could report it to the police as grounds for match fixing due to the high lump sum and returns on such a bet but would I gain any capital from that? Yes, maybe a couple of unseen plaudits that the general public would never see or know about.

Today had just turned into the biggest day for my little bookmakers on a North London side street.

[jdoyle9293]

A quiet little spot away from town was needed for the night before a cup final. The gaffer had booked us for lunch as a team but allowed us, on strict dietary and location specifications, to eat out for our evening meal. Mikael Bonfils and I often roomed together and that was the case in the hotel for the cup final.

The manager usually booked us into a quaint and remote place before a big game but since we hadn’t been in the best of form recently, apart from the cup run of course, he chose to handpick a hotel in the middle of the city.

We decided on a restaurant about ten minutes’ walk away from our room but one of our club’s drivers took us there and waited outside anyway. The gaffer was adamant that we should all be monitored to ensure that we didn’t go off the rails or cost ourselves the match that was taking place in under twenty-four hours’ time. The pressure was mounting on him after not winning a couple of major finals in the past five or so years so he was ruthless and meticulous when it came to this match.

I was in my mid-thirties and had done it all with Arsenal, I guess that’s why the boss asked me to room with the new French kid, and I have done ever since. He probably hopes that I can mould him into a model professional like I have been for the past decade and a half. Although, not always.

There are always some people in the game that’ll wind you up no matter what, just by being there or having a punchable face. Luckily enough for me, I was facing one of them the following evening in the cup final. Adam Williams, Liverpool and England’s superstar, he never failed to drive me up the wall whenever we met up on international break.

He was such a talent being wasted in front of my eyes, it annoyed me no end. I’d made my England debut in 2003 a year before this teenager lights up the European Championships. Adam Williams made his tournament debut and nearly won us the trophy, and he hasn’t done anything since. For England definitely not, but he’s definitely come up trumps enough times for Liverpool, although some of their lads tell me that he likes a bit of a drink a day before a big game, to loosen his nervous slightly.

I found this to be true enough when we had a big game at Wembley in 2007, we needed to win to qualify for the European Championships the following year—nothing else would do. He went for a drink with his driver or helicopter pilot or whatever, whilst the rest of us stayed in the hotel, he always loved going out in London especially.

In the game, I let one of the Dutch lads’ shots slip through my fingers and I looked up to see Williams charging from their penalty area all the way to ours, berating me whilst running about a hundred yards.

I couldn’t stand some pumped up teenager lecturing me so I shoved him to the ground and told him to pick his game up. We lost 2-0 and didn’t qualify and the national team consequently went through some rough times. The media had it all fleshed out between me and Williams for almost two years until the World Cup, we were on the back pages for quite a lot of 2008 and 2009.

The World Cup year came and then all quietened down a bit for once, they must have finally gauged that we needed peace in preparation for the tournament. Needless to say, we got to the semi-finals thanks to their lack of interference as both Williams and I did alright for ourselves. We don’t really speak much which helped us repair our relationship slightly, otherwise I would’ve probably had to hit him or retire from England that night against Holland in 2007.

He likes to call himself a superstar but on the rare occasions we do speak, I’ll often refer to the fact that he has never scored past me in a competitive match for his club.

I caught myself in this thought and realised that I hadn’t spoken to Bonfils across the restaurant table in quite some time, the food hadn’t arrived yet either. The youngster looked deep in thought, staring at his phone despite the fact that the screen had faded out and locked itself for quite a number of minutes.

“What’s up, man?” I introduced at least some conversation up to the table.

“Just nervous, don’t worry. I’ll be alright tomorrow. I’m always like this the night before big games.” If I didn’t know him as well I would have assessed that as a clichéd response but coming from Mikael’s mouth, I knew that it was both clichéd and incorrect.

The night before the semi-final in April, we were in a quiet little hotel and he was enjoying a video game with a couple of the other youngsters in our room. All four of them were jumping about and screaming as they tried to foreshadow on a games console what would happen the day after.

He was confident then, now he had retreated into his mental shell, checking his phone every two seconds and being agitated by something every couple of seconds. A doctor would diagnose him with obsessive compulsive disorder given the amount of times he altered the position of his cutlery.

[jdoyle9293]

“Where’s this food? I’m starving. Thought the club employed a few chefs here?” I knew that wouldn’t facilitate even the beginnings of a conversation between me and Mikael, but it was worth a try. The night before a game I like to be regimented in my diet, food had to be eaten by the very latest of eight p.m., it had ticked over to thirty minutes beyond that timeframe.

I wasn’t going to wait about any longer, I wanted to be back in the hotel room relaxing and getting off to sleep, not at the table without any conversation or food. I approached the kitchen entrance where I saw a chef through the window preparing two plates of food, both served with half chickens and a selection of vegetables.

Bingo! As I began to walk back to my seat, I noticed that the hazy figure stood over the food was in complete casual clothing, from the tight burgundy t-shirt which just about contained his large stomach to the black jeans and boots with his hair slicked back.

“Steve?!” I shouted through the glassless window, I had to squint to make the figure out, but I was certain that it was him, he was moving out of my eye line as he slalomed between a couple of ovens and headed out through the back door.

“Are you at table eleven?” A uniformed woman approached me from behind and informed me that my food would be with me shortly. I sat down, rubbing my hands with delight, Mikael still wore the same tired expression as we completed our meal and exited the restaurant, all the way to the hotel room.

We exchanged a few words prior to turning out the lights where he reassured me that he was feeling okay and that he would be well prepared for the game in the morning.

Seven and a half hours later, it was a promise that I couldn’t fulfil. From the moment my eyes were introduced to the white hotel room ceiling that morning, I felt a dreaded surge up my body. Throwing the sheets off myself, I zipped straight into the bathroom, allowing the bile to crash into the toilet water.

Internally I was being well rinsed out as I seemed to hover next to the toilet for a half hour without much thought.

“Are you okay?” Bonfils asked me through the locked bathroom door, the tables had been turned from the previous night. He seemed more confident but still tired in his voice. A thought bulleted into my brain at that point as I remembered the restaurant conversation that Bonfils and I shared, or lack thereof. I re-imagined the man standing over our meals, preparing it in some manner, but exiting as soon as I called out his name. My head hadn’t properly kicked into gear yet, so it took me a while to return with the name.

“Steve! Bloody Steve!” I hurled some more recycled chicken into the toilet.

“What?” Mikael was probably more confused than me, if that was even mentally possible. “Anyway, I’ll meet you down at breakfast.” I wouldn’t be long, or at least that’s what I told myself. However, my brain alerted me to some unfinished business.

[jdoyle9293]

My cheeks drained of all colour, I could feel them as they began to water and wobble, vomit rising to the surface. The note on the bathroom floor, equipped with a stain of blood on the corner, read: “If I’m not at breakfast by 10a.m., don’t worry, I have gone to meet a friend; don’t tell the gaffer. I’ll be back before lunch.”

Our top goalkeeper, England’s top goalkeeper, had gone missing. My mentality switched immediately, we can’t lose this game; I couldn’t throw it. If I needed to escape from some crook or whatever for losing his huge wad of cash, then I could, jet it to Spain or the Caribbean or somewhere far away. I needed to find Sam Watkins though.

The grounds of the hotel offered nothing in terms of a response, neither did the hotel lobby or streets which surrounded the place. Sam seemed pretty annoyed and confused last night when we had our food returned and a little off with me.

Then he kept shouting a name at me from the bathroom that morning, Steve, over and over again. I didn’t know a Steve and I’m fairly certain that I didn’t know a Steve that Sam knew. I extended my search parameter a little wider, out onto the side streets until I found a little shop next to a back alley that was packed to the rafters, I found one half of my search.

I shielded my eyes from the sun and peeked in through the door. Two old men were staring at me, asking me with their eyes what on earth I was playing at, and probably recognising me too. They were wearing Arsenal shirts after all.

A few objects were thrown at me, the briefcase by a wall, for example, before somebody came walking towards the door, I turned swiftly and hauled myself down the small cobbled hill to the store’s back entrance, lifting my tracksuit hood over my head. I could hear a phone conversation so I distanced myself from that as well as the store’s opening.

The dark clothed man, sporting a Tottenham Hotspur shirt and a lot of layers came bounding out of the shop and turned a corner with haste, almost looking for a quick getaway. Fortunately I was well hidden thanks to the dark alleyway that I was housed in, but that meant that I couldn’t get a clear look at the familiar figure that was escaping, and with that, Sam.

[jdoyle9293]

What in God’s name is he doing? Mikael had his head pressed up against the bookmakers’ window as I peered down the store’s entranceway from my vantage point of the open market across the road. I saw a tall gentleman, one that mirrored the image I had in my head of Steve from the previous night, and countless others in the busy building.

He entered with a briefcase but left about fifteen minutes later without one. He was up to one of his old schemes again. I had to follow him. If there wasn’t a busy road across from me, I might have let Mikael in on my plan, but there wasn’t enough time. I had to catch Steve before he could cause any more damage.

His plan, though, was working to fruition, he had probably slipped something into my food last night to poison me. How he got hold of my locations I had no idea. He probably had someone inside in on the club’s affairs somehow.

For the Champions League final in 2006, the very same shady man in a bar three weeks before the final asked me to throw the match. At first I flat-out refused but he had a way of working his way under my skin. After several hours of getting me intoxicated and buttering me up for the idea, I agreed and took a red card in the first half. It almost didn’t come up, though, as we went ahead a few minutes later although Barcelona eventually won it, thank goodness. I got almost £50,000 for that. Never again, though.

He was escaping fairly fast, as we my chances or confronting him, I had a slight inkling to where he was heading.

[jdoyle9293]

Grey toaster, grey walls, grey floor, grey worktop, grey ambitions and completely grey confidence. The toaster’s incessant beeps woke me up from my daydreams, which were becoming increasingly depressing with each passing day, as I pulled the scorched bread from the industrial appliance. I settled the bread on the shelf as my colleague continued plodding on with the mechanical and methodical approach. Ketchup and mustard squirted onto the bread bun, two of the only enticing colours in the entire building.

Compared to the dirty yellow and green uniforms, the ketchup and mustard looked like a vibrant abstract painting on a breaded canvas. I distributed the tired and discoloured lettuce onto the sauce, it was 2.25p.m on a Thursday afternoon in May, what the hell was I doing here?

My eyes opened, the burgundy hotel room curtains met my gaze, along with the dim glow from the dusty lampshade. I gasped for breath. Turning around, my roommate was nowhere to be seen, I was in North London. Thankfully, my dream was just a silly memorial to a worse off time, although it wasn’t so far in the past.

I left high school last July and found myself just two weeks later working full-time in a fast food restaurant. “They have great apprenticeships there, you could work your way up!”

My Mum would often just relay these messages from my managers and more senior colleagues. I didn’t want to work in a fast food kitchen for the rest of my life.

Liverpool F.C. dragged me out of that nightmarish scenario by offering me an apprenticeship that I actually wanted, a two-year deal at their football academy. I had played for plenty of junior sides in Liverpool, the whole of Merseyside and the north-west really. I knew I was good enough to play for professionally, Liverpool were the fourth club to have contacted me in the space of four years.

Tranmere Rovers phoned my Mum up when I was 11 years old but I only lasted two games because I punched a teammate in a training session. The academy coach promised my Mum that he was going to name me captain for the following game. His son just wound me up so much that I had to push him against a goalpost and then punch him. It’s the only way some people will learn.

A lot of people who know me will probably say that I have a fiery personality. I prefer to think that I am a realist and I just simply put people in their place when they’re flying a bit too high. A year after the Tranmere trial in 2009 I was given a couple of chances in the Manchester City academy, in January and August.

In my first game against Stockport I broke an opposition player’s foot by lunging in, I was substituted off almost immediately so the referee couldn’t send me off. There was uproar amongst the parents who were there, especially when the ambulance showed up. My Mum and I escaped without being hurt and I was told to never return to the club by the under-13s manager.

If that was the case then why did the same manager recruit me eight months later? I had started that season alright, I saw myself as a thirteen year old and one of the most mature lads on the team. My so-called teammates kept annoying me in every training session and seen as though I didn’t do much talking with my mouth, I decided to do my talking with my knee, sticking it right into one of the smaller lads’ back. That shut him up.

It was almost as if the same story had been copy and pasted into my life in the exact same year—I was told to never return. Good, I didn’t want to play for Manchester City anyway. It took me two years to get noticed by another professional club when Stoke City appeared, it ended in similar ignominy.

I was fifteen now and I thought I had a wiser head on my shoulders. Two red cards in three matches said otherwise as I was sacked on the spot after the third match away at Burnley. That was a nice and depressing car journey home with my Mum, who was growing more and more restless with each opportunity that I wasted. She wanted her son to be a famous and successful footballer but I needed to get past my anger issues. This time I disagreed with the referee’s decision. I got in his face and pushed him over, he was a little elderly man, about sixty-five years old so he went down with ease. I thought he’d be a bit stronger. Stoke decided to get rid of me after that after they failed to take things from my point of view—I only pushed him because I didn’t think he was going to fall over.

I finally repaid my Mum, though, when Liverpool were finally on the other end of the phone in August of last year. I put in a real captain’s performance at a Merseyside schools tournament in June but it took them until August to call me though. They could’ve spared me those three weeks at that hellhole fast food restaurant.

The Liverpool academy scout rang my Mum whilst at work, saying that they needed another young centre back to mould into a club legend, after one had just retired at Anfield. After watching me in the school tournament, they deemed me more than acceptable.

Fortunately for me, there was a bit of a defensive injury crisis at the club as by October there were six defenders in the first team that were out of action. They called up a couple of under-21s lads who were a bit more experienced than me. I had no choice but to accept that fact and get on with my under-18s career.

[jdoyle9293]

I was determined not to lose my head and develop into the footballer that I knew I could be. I was fast tracked into that situation when I was thrown into first team training a few weeks before Christmas.

By the time we were on our way down to London for the cup final six months later I had made almost twenty first team appearances. At the conclusion of the season last week, the gaffer said I’d be in his mind for a place in the starting eleven in the cup final.

The travel down to the capital gave me a lot of time to think about the past year, it was eventful to say the least. I lasted three weeks in that fast food job. My anger problems that appeared on the football pitch sometimes spilled out onto my work—schoolwork as well as in the kitchen.

I wasn’t any of my teachers’ best friends and only got a couple of GCSEs because of it, not as if it mattered anymore with the forthcoming football career I was ready to carve out. I was clever but I had no passion for stupid subjects like Maths and Geography. I got my qualifications in P.E. and English and moved right along to adulthood at the age of sixteen.

My third shift in the fast food kitchen was one of the toughest nine hours I had experienced. It was a Saturday morning and afternoon shift in the middle of the Liverpool city centre’s hottest day of the year. I worked so hard yet didn’t receive any gratitude from the management, I asked the store manager if I had done well and he didn’t have much to say for himself.

He was a right boring *******, when I asked him to speak up he got in my face and proved he actually had a voice by raising it for all of the store to hear. I pushed him into the ice cream machine before clocking out; I wouldn’t last much longer than that, fortunately.

Half an hour into the following shift a week later somebody made a joke about one of the two disabled workers in the kitchen and I called him out on it.

“What are you doing?” I asked him, I was enraged by him making fun of a guy who couldn’t defend himself.

“Shut up.” He replied callously so I had no other option but to slam his face on the grill. I let go after five seconds and he was blistered by the three hundred degree heat, one half of his face was bright red with blood and drooping skin and matter whilst the other was in almost perfect condition.

Of course, the CCTV footage around the kitchen was seen almost immediately by the management in their ivory tower of an office. They swiftly kicked me out of the building and was strictly told never to return, not even for food. I was officially barred from a fast food restaurant and I never did receive any wages from that place. A week or two later I was participating in my first training session for Liverpool.

This Friday morning was all about the travel down into London. As we got off a coach by our hotel later on that afternoon, I had to force my way through a hoard of paparazzi. The press weren’t really that interested in me and rather concerned with whether or not a couple of the senior players would be starting in the afternoon. Of course, they had dozens of their camera lenses fixated on Adam Williams, but when is he ever not in the newspaper or on the sports channels? I wasn’t concentrating on the Williams furore but rather on getting into the hotel lobby.

I was only focused on the FA Cup for now, I wanted to win it. I was going to when I started the game and lifted the trophy.

There seemed to be a lot of so-called journalists in the actual hotel building too, we often visited this hotel when playing Arsenal or Tottenham but it was never this busy. I guess you could put it down to FA Cup final weekend. I physically had to push a long haired emo-type man out of the way and onto a nearby sofa as the hotel lobby got far too crammed for my liking. I didn’t care where he ended up, as long as he wasn’t in my way.

I shoved my stuff upstairs without any pretense, and waited on our usual floor for the rest of the team. If anything I needed to calm myself and give myself a couple of minutes to re-group.

This weekend, for me, needed to be the epitome of tranquil and calm, I played better if I was in a calmer state, not flying into tackles, getting sent off and extradited from clubs as experience had a cruel way of reminding me.

We ducked into the hotel lobby for an evening meal and I stuck around to have a chat with a few coaches before retiring to bed, it was always a good tip of mine to get on the good side of your coaches. It was something that had worked at Liverpool unlike the other clubs I had spent time at. My roommate had gone out on the town to get hammered with Adam Williams and a few of the under-21s lads who were old enough. I was only seventeen and not much of a big drinker. I preferred time spent on the football pitch than in pubs, bars and house parties.

[jdoyle9293]

The coaches all left for their hotel rooms as the night seeped into 11p.m as I decided to finish off my brazil nuts and head to bed. Taking the stairs, I realised out of my peripheral vision that the same dark haired man from a few hours ago was following me.

I climbed a few more flights of stairs in order to evade the portly man, who was probably wearing a huge jacket to cover up some thinly veiled weight issues that were evident from his multiple chins.

Speeding up, it would be impossible for him to catch me. I reached floor eleven and crossed the floor’s reception area to find the man exiting the lift and smiling at me, the crafty *****.

“What do you want, eh?” I didn’t really wish to speak to him but maybe a bit of intimidation wouldn’t go a miss, if I needed to be desperate.

“That’s not very nice, James Grounds.” He was obviously trying to antagonise me so I let it slide and retrieved my room card key from my tracksuit bottoms.

As I passed through into the corridor he reached for my hand, I pushed it away from me before turning abruptly and clocking him with a right fist. He laid on the floor, a prime target in my primal vision. I urged myself to just turn away and head into my hotel room, there I could get away from this crazed man and get a night’s rest ahead of the biggest game of my life.

He was such a big target, though.

I jumped on him to his bizarre amusement and pummeled him with four more right hands to the cheek and nose.

“Save that for the Arsenal players tomorrow, James. Just pretend they’re your father.” A smile crept onto his face as he laughed through the blood streaming out of his nose and onto his jacket. I gave him a head butt directly into the bridge of his nose for good measure. He obviously already knew my past and I couldn’t do anything about it, I didn’t want to be involved with some stalker in London.

I let him escape but as he tried to get to his feet and leave, I stuck a right boot into his stomach. He spluttered blood onto the carpet as he rolled around in the narrow corridor, a chortle of laughter kept escaping him somehow.

I couldn’t sleep that night. That long-haired freak had almost mentally pushed me over the edge and the sheer nerves for the cup final were beginning to reveal themselves. I was just hoping that the fight on the corridor had quenched my anger in time for the following day’s evening kick-off.

The following morning I plodded downstairs and joined a table with a couple of the youth team lads which included four or five of the most hungover people I have ever seen. My roommate Scott was almost asleep on the table. He could be playing in the biggest game of his life in about nine hours for all he knew. Some people took their lives for granted at an extraordinary rate around this club.

Scott noticed my bruised knuckles almost immediately once he glanced at me, I shot him my meanest look and he seemed visibly intimidated. The gaffer soon came round and informed us as to who was playing; I was in the starting eleven.

Wembley Stadium is a beautiful sight, even more tremendous when you are stood on the pitch looking back at the 90,000 people in the building and a millions more through the lenses of the hundreds of cameras at the stadium.

As the national anthem blared out and the Arsenal players came to shake our hands, I still felt an unshakable anger, squeezing the opposition players’ hands with all my might in a vain attempt to remove it. I was desperate for the anger to escape me or else I would be in trouble throughout the next ninety minutes.

I didn’t have to wait ninety minutes. Our right-back had got done for pace down the wing so I covered across. With the winger’s third touch he knocked the ball just slightly out of his foot’s reach which gave me the initiative to win the ball off him. I charged across to the touchline where he was but he got the slightest scrape on the ball to take it out of my path and beyond me, my feet had already left the floor.

I lunged in, completely airborne and clattered into his standing left leg. I ploughed straight through the pacey winger as he writhed around in a crumpled heap, in agony next to the dugouts. The Arsenal players and staff were completely apoplectic with rage, the manager shoved me back onto the pitch and waving an imaginary card at me towards the referee.

I afforded him a light chuckle, I had to otherwise I would have knocked him out. The referee was digging for something in his pocket for what seemed an eternity as the stadium retreated from seething anger and shock to a deathly silent sea of bodies. The polarising cheers and boos were as much of a notification that he had shown me the red card than the colour itself. I had no excuses.

[jdoyle9293]

I now had no doubts that I was in hot pursuit of the man who poisoned me the previous night. Steve swerved through people at an alarming rate, for a bigger gentleman he was quick on his feet. He probably knew I was trying to catch him.

He was almost at a running pace as he reached the Euston train station entrance, passing through the ticket barrier without any qualms. In a sea of people, I was briefly puzzled as to why nobody had tried to speak to me as densely populated as the train station was. It was cup final day in an area with a lot of Arsenal supporters in it.

The mayhem of the station’s lobby allowed me to sneak behind a tall man carrying a suitcase through one of the wider ticket barriers. I had my eyes set on him; his Tottenham shirt appeared as he turned onto a train on platform eight.

It was a mammoth of a train, about ten or eleven carriages and he jumped on it at the very end. First class travel for a first class crook.

It took me at least a minute to scale the length of the train before nipping onto the vehicle slightly ahead of a teenage mother. I was in no mood to be courteous. First class was occupied by Steve, his back to me, and just one other person, the last person I’d expect to be on the train at this time. Adam Williams, my England teammate.

They were sat across from each other on one of only two four-seaters at the back of first class. I shot Adam a confused look; millions of questions raced through my brain at that point. Had Adam been roped into one of Steve’s scams? Or was Steve holding Adam against his own will? He did target footballers and celebrities, any well-known person just to get any publicity.

The look that met my anger was one that I’d never seen from Adam, he looked nervous and almost petrified. He was never nervous, ever since I first met him as a teenager in Portugal with the England squad. He was always an extrovert but never discussed or let out any true emotions, especially ones of fear.

The puzzlement must have escaped my head and found its way onto my face because Adam bowed his head, probably in shame for showing his true feelings knowing him. I was confused for a second but he was pointing with his head towards the gun that was rested against his kneecap under the table.

Adam shot me a look as if to say “figure it out quick, you thickhead or else we’re all dead.” That only unravelled the situation further.

“Ah, Sam. I knew you’d be here. Are you feeling the side effects from last night’s meal?” Steve piped up, his gaze still firmly trained on Adam, he was a brutal man but very prepared and very scrupulous.

“It looks as though it’s all come together nicely. Liverpool will win in a few hours so congratulations Adam. Unfortunate for you really, Sam.” I felt my fist clench instinctively, I had waited for a long time to hit this man. I could finally do it now without any repercussions. Well, apart from a bullet in the knee or worse.

“It was a nice surprise to see you here actually Adam,” Steve continued, “that puts further proof to the fact that Liverpool will win. They always do better without you. The world would be better without you in truth.” Adam riled himself up his seat and looked as though he was going to attack Steve.

All the leather jacketed man had to do, though, was gently remind him of the gun pointing at his knee. A couple of little taps of the gun on his thigh soon simmered Adam down, his bottom lip firmly tucked into his mouth with his teeth.

That was another trait I’d never seen Adam release, an actual anger. He was always a happy-go-lucky clown who always got his own way so never had any true right to be angry. His face was turning into an angry red.

“You two are quite accepting of Liverpool winning this match.” The train was now rattling through a tunnel; it had been at a high speed for around fifteen minutes now.

[jdoyle9293]

“I reached an agreement with your little young friend, Sam,” Steve turned to me when he said this, but kept his gun locked on Adam’s knee, “Mikael Bonfils. He’s agreed to throw the match and make sure Liverpool win today. I’ve already had a couple of words with a Liverpool lad too, well two if you count Adam.”

I must have looked quite forlorn, the realisation soon dawned on me that the train, plummeting to god knows where, was taking me far away from Wembley and the FA Cup final, a final which this man had bought out.

“It’s okay, you were never going to win the cup anyway, not with the poor lot in the team.” Coming from a Tottenham supporter, this hurt even more. My fists were still clenched and more than ever prepared to hit this thug. I just needed to figure out my recoil for when he ultimately turned the gun on me.

“We’re going to Liverpool, luckily for you both really. They’ll love you up there for skipping out on the match when they lift the FA Cup tonight. Bonfils told me everything about you, by the way. He told me where you’d be eating, when you’d be eating—everything. I think that kid loves earning his money rather than he loves his football, teammates and supporters. The right person for my line of work, really.” I channeled my anger towards Bonfils into a cumulative rage towards Steve that was building exponentially by the passing second. I couldn’t wait any longer to figure out my plan if he drew his gun out on me.

I launched my fist towards him but he caught it and pulled the gun out from under the table towards my neck.

“No need to get aggressive, I’ve already had a Liverpool player hit me this weekend. I’ve got it all figured out, you seem to forget that, Sam.” He wasn’t going to shoot me on a train, no matter how little people were on first class, people would hear the gunshots and he’d be done for. He didn’t exactly have an escape route if he shot me now.

“It’s all come up quite rosy for me and my bosses actually. After poisoning you last night I slipped Adam a few drugs, I knew he would be out in London last night, he always is. I needed to get him into the worst possible state that even the **** poor Liverpool manager wouldn’t pick him. As for this black eye and broken nose, I paid James Grounds a visit and let him attack me,” he turned towards Adam whilst still poking the gun into my throat, “you know that Grounds kid has a few temper problems, he’ll be sent off today. That is guaranteed. He’s a ticking time bomb, that kid.”

Time stood still for an eternity, I could wrestle the gun away from him. He was pre-occupied and I could just snatch it. I lifted my hand slowly up to my throat.

“Don’t even think about it, Watkins. If you touch my gun I will shoot you dead on the spot, you’ll fall quicker than Arsenal’s title ambitions in April.” I thought it was time to call his bluff.

I snatched the gun but Steve only smashed the butt of it into my nose, forcing me through the automatic doors into normal class, next to the doors. The sound system explained that we would be shortly approaching Stoke-on-Trent in the next five minutes.

“Stoke-on-Trent. That truly is a fitting burial place for a disappointment like you, Watkins.” As Steve dragged me to my feet, Adam leapt onto his back, forcing us against the exit doors, eliciting screams from two women opposite us, waiting patiently to alight at the next station.

Steve rammed the gun into my face once more which knocked me to my feet before reversing Adam with a crash into a glass panel which shattered upon impact.

The crook’s cocky and in-control persona had flicked drastically into a wild, man on a mission attitude as he destroyed the exit door window with his gun before slamming me head first into a nearby door.

I could feel the blood rolling down my lips and chin as he hung me out of the window, the fresh air of Staffordshire striking me like a hundred kicks to the face. Steve held me by my hood which reversed its effects at the front of the jacket, choking me as I struggled to see through the outside high-speed velocity of the train.

“Right, you two shut up and sit down, you’re not going anywhere near Stoke. Adam, you move and I’ll blow you right through into the driver’s seat.” Steve’s momentarily lapse in concentration wasn’t going to be renewed any longer. I tried to call his name but I couldn’t get his attention.

I heard him talk to the conductor as the train continued on its tracks to Stoke, “if you or anybody reports anything that happened on this train, then I will individually book your funerals, okay?” He still couldn’t hear my calls.

This was it.

[jdoyle9293]

He kept pleading with me but that only firmed my grip on his hoodie.

“My name’s not Steve, alright?” I had to let the Arsenal goalkeeper go, he was doing my head in. His body was barely heard on the tracks as the train continued on its path without remorse of the footballer that had been thrown from it. That was one problem solved at least. I just had to worry about getting through Stoke-on-Trent alive and not behind bars.

The train picked up speed and bumped slightly as Watkins got lost under the tracks, we all rocked back from our standing positions as a loud bang erupted throughout the train. We were pulling into the platform.

As I got to my feet, I saw the conductor slouched against the opposite exit doors, a bullet wound through his forehead, blood dirtying the pristine white panels and splattering onto the glass windows.

“You, superstar, do not move an inch, I’ve still got five bullets in here.” I thought that would calm the situation down, it definitely put me back in the driving seat. The train was pulling into the platform. That meant I had seconds to get my act together and make sure Adam and I escaped out of this situation, I could enjoy my money for the entire summer off this job.

Lifting my beloved Spurs shirt up, I tore my enlarged stomach off of me, dumping it on the ground whilst ripping my fake chins away from my face. The oversized Tottenham shirt did come in handy, at least. Tucking it into my shirt, I passed my leather jacket and beanie hat towards Adam.

“You better listen. You’ve got to wear this through Stoke. If any of your lads have mucked this up, me and my boss will dump you in the Mersey, yeah?” There was no need to keep him throughout the journey to Liverpool and back to London to collect my inevitable winnings.

I knew his type—all talk and no action, which meant he wouldn’t go and blab to the police or his self-employed helicopter pilot back in Liverpool. I just needed a couple of days’ insurance.

I rolled my wig off, that thing had irritated me all weekend. I threw that through the gaping hole in the exit door, it was National Rail’s problem now. My problem of the conductor was solved quite simply. I chucked him in first class—like anybody in Stoke-on-Trent was paying for that facility.

“You two, bloody scream sisters. You’re going to stand in front of us and leave before us and we’re going to walk behind you the entire way out of the station. Got that? Oh, and no more screeching, I’ve got a bit of a headache. It has been quite the busy weekend on the job, okay?” They accepted the situation, they had no other option. Oh, the power of firearms.

Adam and I looked the part making our way past the screaming twins at the station’s exit. It was quite a big footballing town but none of them would be able to recognise a big superstar walking amongst them. The biggest superstar they have had in the past thirty years has been the kit man.

The city was at a standstill, though. Pushing Adam through Stoke, I fazed us into the anonymity of the city centre. Ambulances launched themselves into the train station entrance, the odd police car in pursuit, too. All the chaos over one elderly train conductor and a failed footballer, you had to smile really.

Pedestrians clogged up the pavements, but I knew where to find my fortune. Maybe I could cut Bonfils a bit more than expected, given his inevitable grieving period over his good friend Sam Watkins? He was no more than a filthy foreign traitor who had no love for Arsenal football club—it sums them up in a nutshell. There’s no Tottenham bias in that whatsoever, by the way.

We ducked straight into a mucky pub, I only needed a couple of seconds to identify that my job was completed and furthermore successful. The pub’s giant television screen showed the Liverpool manager celebrating in the royal box with the FA Cup trophy, with the score line of 2-1 in the corner. Beautiful.

“Well done Adam, you helped this happen. Not with your goals or whatever, but by being an alcoholic and drug addict. Congratulations, you’ve just won the FA Cup.” He didn’t look too pleased for some reason. Some people are so ungrateful.

====

Finito.

Moving right along to FM 16!

[mark wilson27]

Excellent jdoyle that's all I can say. Will be looking forward to your next story