.jpg)
Sport 32: Summer 2004
Transferred
Transferred
The sting of linament narrows the eyes. Where's the loyalty in football? the old timers ask. The love of the game—where's that?
I'm an old timer myself now, retired from the Golden Oldies, mindblown by the final whistle. I've limped through several clubs, loyal to them all until the love got the cramp.
You see? It's a work of science fiction, penned by Bobby Moore. I might be a television commentator for ESPN, an erudite gossip on Hard Talk.
The pulling-on of the shirt is a sensual act—under the arms, over the head, down along the torso. Assertively numbered, particular colour, sleeves adorned with a stripe or two…
To the clubman it's his skin—to the journeyman, a condom.
I sum up total football like an accountant balances books. If you slip a pass into a gap, I won't run for it. Mistaking myself for Stanley Matthews, I'll stand rooted to the spot, pointing at my boots. To the feet, I'll yell. To the feet! Genius is always lazy once it gets the idea.
She lies flat on her back at the foot of the world, forearm folded over widow's peak. My life's over, she says. She's in her thirties. She's threatened by the hills in a Don Binney painting, concrete tanks on the skyline. Water on the brain, she sniffs.
She attacks on the break from a blanket defence. Her skill is the set-play—Her Majesty's Christmas Day message, beamed around the world, page 57 shows fabulous composure; as does the Wembley Cup Final, where the winners lift their trophy—presented by a member of the Royal Family—high above their heads.
But this… A quaint old worker's cottage, deemed worthy of preservation by colonial zealots! This is non-league stuff, kick-and-rush, the timbered terraces of Accrington Stanley. Just look at the state of the bedroom!
Weeds climb through the skirtings like hooligans on the march. Uphill, into the wind.
A goalpost is a coat topped with a cap. Low stone walls to houses—topped with privet—define touchlines. Spectators arrive in occasional cars, forced to stop, their drivers to lean on their horns.
Teams are territorially based, Avenue against Road, Crescent versus Close. We referee our own fights, quick to spot the difference in the cultured from the crude. To indulge the opposition—if only to balance the numbers—concedes a free kick in the balls.
At the age of six, my brother switches allegiance from Liverpool to Everton, the shock tactics of innocence. His suffering feeds my guilt, a defence-splitting pass from Steven Gerrard.
Game after game we are postponed, week after week. Frozen surfaces, failed floodlights, the ball that won't roll on a waterlogged pitch. I'm out of favour, in my own company. My smile has lost its winning streak.
When the silence stretches longer than its stride, I roll my substitution for the pleasures of a smoke. Both lungs ache in the effort of asking. You OK?
She is offended by the chill that bites my lip. There's nothing wrong with me, she says.
Another scoreless draw.
What did I say? And was I well spoken?
The drive back from the airport is the passport to my longest flight. It was good to see the folks, she says, but… The oral history is lost, like an old valve radio invaded by static, the commentary obliterated just page 58 as the centre forward shapes to shoot. For the taker of the penalty, mercy.
I may have said I'm leaving. But anyway, I left. The great one-club man, finally transferred.