Title: The Beautiful Game

Author: G.J. Melling

In: Sport 32: Summer 2004

Publication details: Fergus Barrowman, December 2004

Part of: Sport

Conditions of use

Share:

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Sport 32: Summer 2004

Final Whistle

Final Whistle

The room is struck by the dimness of its lighting, the deference in the opening of its door. What else to recall of such a place, except a longing for amnesia? A shrunken head on a plumped-up pillow, she is the mother of all dénouement.

Am I to remove the rings? the sexton needs to know.

A captain's armband decorates my sleeve. Heads or tails?

I assume my father wants them, and that she would wish him to.

In the aftermath of the Munich aircrash that sends off half his teammates, Duncan Edwards lingers for days in a hospital bed kept vigil by the nation. But you can't argue with the referee, however mysterious the misdemeanour. He simply has to go.

How odd it feels to pray—in school assembly—for the life of a lad from Manchester United, the enemy down the East Lancashire Road. During classes, we wear black armbands supplied by a silent prefect, a Tranmere Rovers supporter.

When Duncan finally goes, we wonder how he'll feel, never to know if his team will win the Cup that year, or the league.

It's hard to imagine not knowing that.

The striker is assisted by the wind, forcing me back towards the edge of the box. The goalie's staring eyeballs frisk my neck. Suicide or euthanasia? Or the trust in good custodianship?

The frame of the goal is the border to hell.

page 63

When the Vespa scoots them off into the night, it confiscates my sleep. The house is an unprotected goalmouth, its keeper dismissed from the field.

I patrol my bedroom's edges, run its lines—the stiles of the door, the sill of the window, the wall between inside and out. I count the ticking of the clock at the foot of the stairs. I'm in injury time. Are they already crushed beneath a bus, down at the Pierhead? My eardrums beat a signal to the streets, sounding out the engine note that arrogates my peace.

Interred in its pillow, my head rests on the cast-iron bars of the Boys' Pen, high up on the Kop. Under the glare of floodlights, a linesman waves an orange flag as the bright red shirts press forward. Briefly thwarted, they come again, propelled by the power of collective will. I spread my arms out wide across my blankets—I'm well within their reach.

The gurgle of the homecoming Vespa is choked by the clamour of a singing crowd. I keep a clean sheet.

Sometime last century, an apparently equalising goal (a crucial FA Cup tie) is controversially disallowed when the final whistle blows just as the ball crosses the goal line.

The following day, Sports Extra displays black and pink photographs of a ball suspended in air, inches from its target—a graphic obituary to a public mourning. It seems like dying before the time is due.

When the old man goes in off the post, fewer people attend the funeral than turn up at Newtown Park for a President's game.

His diligence runs out the time, tough as his tired old boots. But his days yield few statistics, and the fans demand a write-up in the Sunday morning papers.

Spectators sport the dream. Reality is there, out on the park.