The flow, however, were now getting dangerously to the area I didn’t want it to go: Starcot Lane. Although, it were true I still had muffins, dribbles and spy rings on my mind rather than Ibrahim’s instructions.
He crossed the road and were obviously ushering us towards the ground. As we turned off Starcot Lane and into the Billy Moss End – where Town’s most fanatical support were based – I started to get that queasy, horrific pre-match feeling. But this one felt like a match against a crack Champions League outfit: a match I couldn’t win.
All the turnstiles were closed with the hefty blue wooden doors bolted and scattered among the imposing brick structure. The bold white sign above said ‘Adults £24, OAPs and Under 16s £12’.
Ibrahim bounced the ball up and down on the rough surface as he walked towards the ticket office. The sound overwhelmed the light mid-afternoon traffic and the silence between us added to the eeriness. It were obvious what he wanted and he got it within the next ten minutes. I fetched Stephen ‘Spares’ Forsythe, the club secretary, and he agreed to let the two of us onto the pitch after telling us the groundsman were at another Premier League stadium.
We walked into the ground through the ticket office and Spares walked away to leave us at the back entrance to the Billy Moss End. Ibrahim looked out at the immaculate green turf and closed his eyes. The ground seemed bigger than usual but that may have been down to the empty terracing and seats. It felt as though it were allowed to breath, without the suffocation and exhilaration of fans.
‘I had a trial here when I was 17,’ said Ibrahim.
‘I don’t get it…what are you on about?’
He looked at us and then ran down the Billy Moss End towards the goal. He jumped over the advertising hoardings and ran onto the pitch. He then unzipped the old Albion Town top and revealed a bright, new club shirt with the number 9 – and Mullah – written on the back. He took off his trousers and had blue shorts on underneath.
He kicked the ball ahead of him and ran across the pitch towards the centre circle. He clapped his hands above his head as though there was a capacity crowd of 23,000 in the stands. He stopped at the centre circle and put the ball down on the spot. He then looked back and ushered us over.
Something obviously weren’t right, but I swallowed my pride, fear and whatever else were sprinting through my veins to join him in the centre circle.
‘You had a trial here, for this club?’ I asked, slightly out of breath.
Ibrahim looked at us and pointed to the ball on the spot.
‘We’ll play ten minutes, me versus you, one against one.’
‘I’m a bit knackered, to be honest. I’ve just had a three-hour session.’
He put the ball down on the centre spot. He blinked many times before adjusting to the sunlight within the stadium. He looked around the ground and eased into a smile.
‘This is how it should have been,’ he said. He bent down and touched the ball with his finger. ‘I’m sure they’re watching now,’ he said.
‘Who are you on about?’
He didn’t answer and stepped forward towards us. He reached over and stroked my neck. I looked round the ground to make sure no-one were looking. I mean, two blokes touching in the centre circle weren’t what I had in mind. Luckily, he needed to take his hand off and look at his watch, which were a relief. He then started his stopwatch, kicked off and came towards us with the ball. I’d improved my tracking back and tackling in the last six months but he used his instep to put the ball past us and he were away. His bandy-legs took him towards the penalty area and he crashed the ball right-footed into the top corner.
Bloody hell, I thought, it’s like Gregory’s Girl, Escape to Victory and The Albion Stadium Mystery rolled into one.
He went and retrieved the ball and put it back on the centre spot. But as he bent down with the ball, he grabbed the side of his stomach.
‘Are you okay?’ I asked.
‘Yes, let’s carry on.’
‘No, you have to tell us what’s going on.’
He looked at us, picked up the ball and staggered away towards the Billy Moss End. I followed him and he eventually sat down behind the goalline in the right-hand corner of the net. I joined him and sat down in the other corner of the net.
I must have scored about 20 goals in this net and I poked my finger through one of tiny squares. Ibrahim lay down flat on his back and looked up into the sky through the roof of the net. Something were on its way, and I didn’t want to hear it.
‘I may be going up there soon,’ he said.
‘Come on, tell us what’s wrong?’ I said, firmly.
Ibrahim used his hands to turn the collar up on his gleaming Town shirt; the points of the collar rested against his cheeks.
‘I’m dying Sadiq…I’m dying. Only Allah knows how much time I have.’
Suddenly, a film about football came shooting into my head. Larry, whose girlfriend were a big film critic, had told us about a film called The Crying Game which he said were the greatest football film ever. He also said it had the most amazing ending he’d ever seen and that we had to check it out. I’d never got round to seeing it, but now I didn’t need to as the action were unravelling right in front of my eyes. This were The Crying Game.
‘Are you sure?’ I said, resting my head against the post. ‘I mean…you don’t seem to be too bad.’
Ibrahim stroked the bright and colourful club badge on his shirt with his hand. ‘The years of toil have caught up with me, Sadiq. I’m so ashamed of my hands that I wish they were like feet, and you could cover them all the time. But now, there’s not much I can do.’ He reached out towards the ball and slowly drew it towards him. He rubbed the leather with the palm of his hand and sighed. ‘I feel nothing, Sadiq.’ He turned away and looked at the blue seats behind the goal. ‘All those years of partnership and now my hands are alien to the leather. They’re numb…and so am I.’
‘Let us call an ambulance,’ I said, standing up.
‘No, don’t do that,’ he said, raising his hand. ‘You should let me live my dream, Sadiq. I dreamed about finishing things off in this goal, ending moves here, making it the final destination. And here I am, I’ve made it, Sadiq…I’ve made it.’
My mobile rang again and I thought about not answering it – but it got so loud that it reverberated around the stadium. I took it out of my pocket and walked to the side of the post.
‘NAPPIES SID,’ said Molly, with even more excitement than he’d shown last time. ‘That’s what we need as our next goal celebration, nappies.’
‘What?’
‘After we score a goal, drop our shorts and we’ll have nappies on underneath. Those old rocking celebrations are boring, we need something new. What do you think?’
‘Erm, look…can I call you back.’
Ibrahim coughed and turned on his side.
‘Who’s that?’ asked Molly.
‘It’s a bit difficult to talk now…’
‘Whay hey…who have you got there you dark destroyer.’
‘I have to go, so tara…’
I ended the call and slipped the mobile back into my pocket. I took a deep breath and went to stand against the other post.
‘You said you had trials here…’
I saw his head shift a little to the left. He then lay on his side to face us, curled up like a baby. He rolled the ball towards his forehead and his nose were almost sniffing the white leather. He blinked repeatedly as he looked intensely at the ball.
‘I see hexagons,’ he said softly.
‘Hexagons?’
He looked up at us and said nothing but raised his hand slowly. He drew an imaginary six-sided figure with the tip of his finger. His hand dropped by his side after he drew the last line.
‘There’s something else you need to know,’ he said.
‘What is it?’
He kept staring at the ball, and then he stroked it. He shook his head and seemed
to be close to tears. ‘If I have enough strength in my body, I will tell you later. You need to know but not like this. It isn’t the right way.’
I looked round the ground to try and make sense of what were happening. ‘What about the trial then?’
He looked up into the roof of the net again. ‘I knew I could play a bit,’ he said. ‘A scout at the club was at one of our schools’ matches…’
I looked down and the tears were now definitely emerging in his eyes.
‘He asked me to come down for a trial,’ he added. ‘I had to skip reading class at the local mosque so I had to make a decision. I didn’t tell anyone in my family and decided to get the bus down to the ground.’
Ibrahim turned to lie on his back once more and picked up the ball, putting it underneath his head like a pillow.
‘Everything just felt right,’ he added. ‘I scored two goals in the match we played and they were amazed by my fitness levels. I was asked to come down again the next time so they could take another look. I was told they might want to sign me. It was the most exciting day of my life…and on the journey home I had a special feeling. But when I got in the house, I saw the imam standing there with my father…and that was that.’
I used to know one of these guys: a real dark lord if there ever was one. He used to wait for the kids to come to his mosque after school and then whack them silly if they couldn’t recite their lines. After double Physics or Maths, there weren’t many kids with much memory left by the time they got to the dark lord at 5pm. So Ibrahim had been snared by one too. Maybe it were the same guy, or his son. Somehow, this information about the dark lord seemed to shift something inside us.
I walked towards Ibrahim and kneeled down beside him. ‘So what did they say?’
He turned his head towards us so the ball rested against his cheek. ‘There was no future in the game for me. I had been doing well learning the Koran, so I should concentrate on that.’
I looked away to the empty Main Stand on my right. The massive white letters of the club were draped across the blue seats: the first two letters ‘AL’ felt more significant than the others.
‘You had amazing talent,’ I said, moving my right hand to rest on Ibrahim’s shoulder. ‘You should have made it as a player. I can’t believe you weren’t given the opportunity.’
‘It’s all gone now, Sadiq, it doesn’t matter.’
I looked into his bloodshot eyes and the vitality I remembered had gone. I felt awkward about tending to him but some other force were now in control. Usually, such a tight embrace at this end of the pitch would be joyous, but this one were sending different, hazy signals to my eyes. I had to work hard to keep the wussy water at bay.
‘Look, don’t fret,’ I said, breaking from the embrace. ‘I can take care of you, now. I can get the best care, it’s not a problem. I’ll do anything for you.’
He smiled with a tinge of pain. ‘You’ve been a like a son to me, Sadiq. You’ve come such a long way and I’m so proud of you but…it’s probably too late for me now.’
‘Oh come on, don’t talk like that,’ I said, squeezing his right shoulder. ‘I can get access to the best doctors in the world, never mind the country.’
‘It’s not that…it’s just that I’ve haven’t got much time and I have so many things to do.’
‘Look, I’ll do them for you, what are they? I told you, I’ll do anything for you.’
‘Anything?’
‘Course.’
He looked down and picked up a blade of grass with his left hand. He rubbed it in his fingers and allowed it to blow away towards the post. He looked back at us with restored conviction.
‘I’d like to you to marry my daughter.’
THREE
Of course, I were broken up about Ibrahim’s plight but if he thought I’d just say, ‘Yes Sir’ like a cha wallah and agree to his neat little arrangement then he had another thing coming. And when I were sat in the dressing-room – before the Fulham game – reading a story saying ‘Muslim Divorcee Chops Ex-Wife’s Head Off’, I were even more sure of my position.
This story were on the front page of the tab rather than the back so it must be true, but more importantly, Ibrahim had to realise it ain’t the late eighties no more. The Rushdie lads had moved on from burning books and their conservative ways. Okay, a couple of decs later, they’re strapping stuff to their bloaties and blowing the biggest bubbles they can, but that ain’t my fault is it? I mean, before 11-9 they were all tucking into Bella Pasta and letting their kids fall in love before tying them up. Most of them were on that ladder of liberation. Now, they’ve gone off to have brekkie, lunch and tea in Purity Plaza and there ain’t no coming back from there. And as for us, I’m on the top few rungs on that ladder and I ain’t coming off. This kind of match-up simply doesn’t happen to footballers.
So, as Ibrahim lay in the ward at Clutterbuck Hospital, I had to get my eye back to matters on the pitch. These weren’t quite going to plan either as Fulham were a goal up at half-time and I were sat in the dressing-room trying to get inspiration from the big motivational message on the wall.
It were put there by our greatest player, Billy Moss, after Mr Starmer said he wanted some motivation for his ‘troops’ after a dodgy half. Moss died 11 years ago – aged 81 – but legend has it that as soon as the message went up at half-time in a game against Leyton Orient, the team went out and overturned a 3-1 deficit to win 4-3. As I looked up at the huge red and blue letters on a white background, it weren’t having quite the same effect.
Ay-up
Laddie
Bobbins
In’t
Our
Name
Some of our foreign lads seemed to get it straight away – particularly Jet, who stroked his chin and nodded his head as he walked away. I mean he were Chinese so he must have understood all that kind of stuff anyhow, but it left us a little cold; as it did the rest of the dressing-room, which were always too quiet at half-time for my liking. Usually, I looked down at my boots and took another swig of my coconut smoothie but today, I knew there were a firestorm on its way from Partington, so I took a few more swigs.
‘Mr Moss’ll be spinning in his grave,’ said Partington, standing by the message on the wall. ‘You lot have shamed him…some more than others.’
The boss walked across to us and I knew there were something coming my way. ‘How many times would you say you’ve suffered racist abuse, Sid?’ he said, standing over us.
Jesus and Mohammed, the cheek of it! I looked over to Kai and he were sniggering in the corner. How can he ask us about that, I thought, when you’ve got a Liberian in town: surely he must get most of the heat rather than us; I am a local lad after all. But then I thought about the only time I were forced to travel on a filthy TransPennine Express train while my Audi R8 were in the garage. It were just after 7 All and, as usual, I were looking a bit buff while waiting to get off at Stalybridge. I had my Forzieri leather jacket buttoned right up but there were this lass eyeing us up, like she fancied us or something. I smiled back at her, but then she whispered something to the bloke next to her. The bloke then starts eyeing us up too but he rings someone on his mobile. I just thought he’d recognized us and he were ringing his bum chum to share this information but about 10 minutes later, I get off at Stalybridge station and there’s a bunch of coppers waiting for us. They were laughing their heads off but still unbuttoned my coat and felt my bloatie; it were humiliating. There I were, a six-one, 180-pound famous footballer and they were treating us like a cha wallah with no nadgers. Maybe, this is what Partington meant?
I were just about to come out with it, but another swig of my smoothie felt more reassuring.
‘How many times, Sid?
‘Look boss, do we really have to talk about this?’
‘HOW MANY FUCKIN’ TIMES?’
The 7 All thing were the most recent but there were another instance. This one, however, were proper painful and I
didn’t want to share it with the lads, let alone Partington.
‘COME ON WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?’
He were just a few inches away from us now. His breath had a tinge of alcohol and it went right up my nose. I tried to take another swig of my smoothie but there were none left.
‘Erm, I must have been about ten, I think,’ I said, looking directly into Partington’s eyes. ‘I were walking back from school and two boys, probably just a bit older than us, stopped us and asked us if I had any money. I had my dinner money and they snatched it off us. One of them were eating a Curly Wurly. He came up to my face and spat the chewed chocolate into my eyes. He said ‘There should be no white in a Paki’s eyes’. I could hardly see by the time I got to school.’
Partington stood up straight once again. ‘How did that make you feel?’
‘Hurt…humiliated…’
‘Well, we now feel the same, don’t we Sid.’ Partington looked round to the rest of the dressing-room and started addressing them as well as us. ‘I’m as hurt and humiliated as Sid was on that day. You’ve taken the piss and insulted me. I won’t tolerate it, I won’t put up with it. You are playing for your futures in the second half.’
So now I get it. This were one of Partington’s famous motivational techniques, and as the smoothie worked its magic in my bloatie, it seemed to be working. It obviously weren’t his favourite though: that were his pre-match folk tales complete with harmonica and a false smile. He told us that opposition players should never be in our heads because if we were worried too much about them we’d lose the game during the warm-up, so he made up little songs to tell us how weak they were. So he sang On The Wane for Rooney, Feast of Steven for Gerrard and Put the Diddy Man Down for Drogba. It were a noble enough intention – and it worked for about ten minutes on the pitch – but then we got leathered good and proper. No-one sang too much after these types of games.
But this patently weren’t one of those games. So I took Partington’s motivational skills onto the pitch in the second-half and things fell into place. Iggy crossed a wonderful ball and I came onto it perfectly. The contact were sure and sweet and I’d already sensed the worship of the Billy Moss End. Only the ball hit the post and ended up being cleared by a defender. Fulham took the points back down south; we had two defeats out of two.
Season of Sid Page 3