Putting the Boot In

by Dan Kavanagh

  ‘Thank you. Let’s see, one tonic water.’

  ‘Have you got Slimline?’

  As Melvyn Prosser poured the tonic into a nice bit of cut glass, Duffy gazed at the carpet. Beige, with flecks of brown in it. Little flecks of brown. Was that what Kaposi’s sarcoma looked like?

  ‘Well you’ve had two minutes already.’

  ‘What do you think of the lads’ chances tonight?’ At home to mid-table Wigan. Could be a difficult match. Thrashed four-nil up there in the early part of the season. Bound to remember that, some of the lads, that’s what Jimmy Lister had said.

  ‘You didn’t ask for a lift all the way to Muzzie Hill where you aren’t going in order to ask me that.’

  ‘How much are you worth, Mr Prosser?’

  ‘Ha ha. Yes. Well, I wish I knew. But it’s the old saying, I’m afraid. I make the money, and I pay others to count it.’

  ‘But we’re talking well into six figures, aren’t we, Mr Prosser? I mean, I’d say well into seven figures.’

  ‘That’s very generous of you.’

  ‘You must be quite used to things being a success?’

  Melvyn Prosser chuckled.

  ‘I’m very glad I’m not footing your bill, Mr Duffy. I think it’s very funny, the idea of Jimmy Lister paying you, what is it, fifty quid a day plus expenses to ride in the chairman’s Corniche and ask him tricky questions. This is the bit, I suppose, where I say, Yes I am used to success and look all smug and pleased with myself and then you say something I wasn’t expecting and I break down and admit I’m the Boston Strangler and Jack the Ripper and Colonel Gaddafi.’

  ‘I’m not trying to ask you tricky questions. I’m just trying to get some background. For instance, there you are, rich man, used to success, and you find yourself with a real loser on your hands like the Athletic. Isn’t that a bit aggravating?’

  ‘Nice of you to care. Obviously, I’d prefer it if the club were making a profit. But there are two answers to your question. First, I suspect that you have a rather crude picture of the way businessmen like myself operate. We look successful, because looking successful is all part of being successful. But we don’t have any magic formula. We don’t always back winners. We throw a lot of bread upon the waters which simply goes soggy and gets eaten by seagulls. It’s partly a question of knowing what to get into, partly a question of knowing when to get out, and partly a question of just pretending to know what you’re doing.

  ‘And the second thing is, I didn’t buy this club because I wanted to make money. Of course, I’d prefer it if we roared up the table and were entertaining Juventus or Borussia Mönchengladbach every other week, and building new stands et cetera. But if I’d been thinking return on capital, I wouldn’t have sunk whatever it was into Athletic. I’m just nuts about the game, that’s the fact of the matter. Ever meet a kid who didn’t want to own a football club? Wildest dream.’

  ‘Used to play the game, did you, Mr Prosser?’

  ‘Wanted to. Wanted to. You may not believe this, but as a kid I was too fat. Too fat and too brainy.’

  ‘I’m a goalkeeper,’ said Duffy. Sometimes he thought he was prouder of being goalkeeper for the Reliables than of any other thing in his life. Well, perhaps that wasn’t surprising: what would be number two source of pride?

  ‘You look a little short for a goalkeeper,’ said Mr Prosser. ‘Also a bit—how shall I put it?—a bit stocky for a goalkeeper. Is that why you’re on the Slimline?’

  ‘So you’re seven-figure rich and you’re pouring money into Athletic …’

  ‘Not pouring, Mr Duffy. A little dribble. And you’ve no idea how useful a loss can be here and there in the books.’

  ‘And you’ve absolutely no enemies.’

  ‘What a silly word that is.’

  ‘Can we start at the beginning again, Mr Prosser?’

  ‘Wherever you like. As long as you don’t charge poor James for the petrol. The Corniche can be a little heavy on fuel, especially in London traffic.’

  Duffy took a swig at his tonic water. Nasty crack, that, about the Slimline. He was just in training, that’s all. In training twelve months of the year. In training for not getting fat.

  ‘OK. So we have a football club. Third Division, slipping a bit. Slipping quite a bit. Deep down in the relegation zone. Scrambling for points. Gates dropping, not enough money coming through the turnstiles. New manager unable to stop the rot. Some hopeful signs, though, especially the way young Danny Matson is playing, and the understanding he’s striking up with Brendan Domingo. Not out of the wood yet, not by a long way, but there’s a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel, as the manager keeps saying.

  ‘Then, what happens? The clever little midfielder who happens to be prompting the revival walks into a good kicking in an underground car-park. Rather a lot of them doing the kicking if they were only after thirty quid and a Barclaycard. They didn’t even borrow his motor, either. They just made sure he wasn’t going to be out playing one-twos for quite some time.

  ‘Very unfortunate for the club, just when they were beginning to pull round a bit. Still, they say crisis brings out the best in everybody, so what happens next? Young Brendan Domingo starts taking more responsibility, the other lads chip in, and Danny Matson isn’t missed that much. Is this a bit more light at the end of the tunnel? It might be, but someone comes up to Brendan in the Albion and suggests an early wage packet for seeing to it that Athletic gets relegated. In the nicest possible way, of course. Big Bren tells him where to shove it, and what happens? A few days later Bren gets fixed on a rather clever rape charge. It may not work out in the end, but it’ll be enough to keep him out of the game until the end of the season, and perhaps for several seasons to come. No Danny, no Brendan, no Athletic.

  ‘And just in case this isn’t enough to do for the club, there’s bits of agg off the pitch as well. Like a very nasty bunch of yobboes up one end, who all of a sudden start turning against one of their own team’s star players. A very nasty bunch of yobboes organized by some neo-Nazi nutter funded by we know not who. Could be anyone. Plus which there’s another bit of agg from a normally very quiet set of residents, who for some reason take it into their heads to sue the club and close the Layton Road end. Thereby ensuring that the yobboes get more chance of mixing with the away fans, and that the club has to pay out more money for more coppers, and that the average home fan thinks twice before taking his wife and kids down to the ground. How does it sound so far?’

  ‘It’s like listening to Jimmy Lister. Another Slimline?’

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘Probably the wise decision. Well, it doesn’t sound anything to me, Mr Duffy. It sounds less than anything. Are you suggesting that I ought to be more concerned than I am?’

  ‘I don’t know how concerned you are, Mr Prosser.’

  ‘I’m very concerned about this club being relegated. But what are you telling me? That there’ve been two criminal acts relating to members of the playing staff over the last few weeks. Quite right there have, and they’re both being looked into by the police with what is I am sure a proper diligence. Whether the criminal acts are as you described them, though, seems dubious to me. Matson was always a bit of a hothead, and he admitted he was drunk at the time; what more natural than for him to get into a fight? And how do we know there were these dozens of unidentifiable men descending on him? Perhaps there was only one. With Matson in the condition even he admits he was in, one would have been enough. It might have been a schoolgirl. Some schoolgirl in need of thirty quid for the hairdresser or something.

  ‘As for Domingo, I’m sure he’d be touched by your loyalty, and I’m sure there are two sides to the story, but until it comes up in court it seems to me that we have to accept the police’s view. I’ve always liked Domingo myself, both as a player and as a person. I don’t know him that well, of course; though I know him a lot better than you do. And since we’re hazarding reckless guesses, I’ll give you my guess. Brendan had been booed ro
tten by the Layton Road end all Saturday afternoon. Then he’d got us the winning goal, and only the directors’ box applauded. He’s had this treatment for weeks—you may even have seen my note in the programme a couple of weeks ago deploring the loutish behaviour of certain untypical groups of so-called fans. He’s always pretended it didn’t affect him, but how much self-control can you have? So he’s been made to feel unwelcome, to put it mildly, all afternoon, and then after the match which he’s won for us he goes down the boozer, meets a girl who invites him back to her place, and just when he thinks the whole white world isn’t against him after all, she suddenly turns unwelcoming as well; starts going on about a woman’s right to choose, or whatever. He isn’t the conquering hero after all, he’s just a big black fellow who scores goals and then gets kicked around and jeered and turned down. So for once in a while he kicks back, his self-control snaps—and very unfortunate it is for all concerned.

  ‘So what does that leave us with? The yobboes. Well, I’m sure you wouldn’t say that yobboes are unique to this club. Or even the Red White and Blue Movement. I gather something similar happened down at Millwall, and I expect it happens elsewhere as well. We club chairmen are always trying to think up new strategies to combat hooliganism, I can give you my assurance on that one.

  ‘The Layton Road residents? Well, I can’t say I blame them, given the way some of our so-called fans behave. I’m surprised they’ve been so long-suffering. The other thing, the bribery? Deplorable, of course, but not unusual. There’s always a shortage of class players, and now there’s a shortage of money as well. No club chairman is going to turn up his nose if some third party wants to earn himself a little drink.’

  ‘So you’re saying it’s all coincidence?’

  ‘I’m saying that when a club, or a business, or a marriage, or anything is in trouble, then you’ll always find that it never rains but it pours.’

  Duffy grunted, and reached into his pocket.

  ‘But what if there’s someone up there making the clouds?’

  ‘I wish I knew who it was who invented the phrase “conspiracy theory”. It’s been responsible for so much sloppy thinking.’

  ‘Did you know her?’

  ‘No. Should I? They’re very good pictures. I didn’t know you were a photographer Duffy.’

  ‘She’s called Maggie Coleman. Or at least, she sometimes is. She’s the girl Brendan is supposed to have raped. But she’s not always that. Sometimes she’s called Denise. When she was called Denise she picked up Danny Matson at The Knight Spot, fought off the other girls through the evening, made sure he left with her, sent him off to the car-park alone while she waited at the club, and got him beaten up.’

  ‘Is it really the same girl?’

  ‘It’s the same girl.’

  ‘Well, she must like footballers.’

  ‘Bit of a coincidence, isn’t it?’

  ‘Is it? There are girls who like footballers, you know, Duffy. I mean, I don’t know if the outfit you play for is famous enough and, if I may say so, sexy enough to attract groupies, but it’s no rare phenomenon in the Football League. Both Matson and Domingo are attractive to women, I should imagine. I don’t think we should disapprove of her morals just because she allowed herself to be taken home by both of them. Indeed, perhaps she should have our sympathy, given that neither of her romantic evenings with the stars of the local team went according to plan.’

  ‘They didn’t go to plan for Danny and Brendan either.’

  ‘Then we must sympathize all round.’

  ‘Don’t you think it’s a bit iffy that she had dark hair and was called Denise when she met Danny, and had blonde hair and was called Maggie when she met Brendan?’

  ‘Duffy, I’m not responsible for this young woman’s behaviour. Ask her hairdresser, ask her mother, ask her psychiatrist, ask …’

  ‘Whoever’s paying her?’

  ‘No. Ask the girl herself.’

  ‘I’d love to. Except that I’d get locked up for doing so.’ Duffy put his glass down and started on the harder bit. ‘And then we have the question of the planning permission.’

  ‘The planning permission? Oh, Magrudo’s joke. What’s that got to do with anything?’

  ‘Can I spin you a line, Mr Prosser?’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘I mean, you won’t take offence, or anything?’

  ‘I can’t promise not to.’

  ‘Fair enough. Well, let’s try this line. You bought the club, what, two years ago? It was pretty run down, losing money, falling gates, hadn’t won anything for years. Everyone thinks, Ah, here comes the saviour. Local hero. Pump money into the club. New blood. All that sort of stuff—I remember reading it at the time myself. What they got wrong was, you never intended to save the club. In fact, you intended the opposite. You aren’t interested in football, though you’re very good at going through the motions. You’ve got away with looking like a chairman trying to pull the club up by its bootstraps, but all the time you’ve been letting the plug out on it.’

  ‘Really? And how’ve I been doing that?’ The tone was mild, polite, interested. Melvyn Prosser didn’t look at all ready to admit being the Boston Strangler.

  ‘Well, you appointed Jimmy Lister for a start. Very good player, nice man, rotten manager. Had a good little Second Division outfit and what did he do with it: in a couple of years he nearly got it relegated. Then out of the game for a year. That’s not called bad luck, that’s called the whisper going round about Jimmy Lister. And it wasn’t a comment on his morals—they weren’t worrying about their physios’ wives. I bet he wasn’t even offered a non-League team in all that year. You picked him up because you thought he was good at getting clubs relegated. And you gave him his head with all that silly stuff about kicking balls into the crowd and Bunnies sitting on his knee or whatever it was, which is all very well if you’re riding high and pretty pathetic if you aren’t. But that sort of thing makes people expect more from a club, so if you let him get on with it and then the club doesn’t do the business on the pitch, then the manager looks more of a berk and the club looks even sillier.’

  ‘I didn’t know I was such a deep thinker,’ said Melvyn Prosser. He was smiling at Duffy and following attentively, just as if he was being told a wonderful story he’d never heard before.

  ‘I’m not sure I’d put it that high,’ said Duffy. ‘But you do look ahead. I think when you first got into all this you had some idea of how it might turn out. How you might make it turn out. Most people who look at a football ground see just that. A bloody great place where they play football. Something that’s always been there, and always will be, even if it’s looking a bit tatty at the time. You don’t knock down a football stadium any more than you knock down a church.’

  ‘They’re knocking down churches nowadays.’

  ‘Well there you are. That’s what you saw. It looked tatty, and you thought, if I bought that, I could make it into a wonderful bit of development. So you started running the club down. And the worse it got, the more dependent on you it became. You didn’t mind paying the bills because if anyone came along and was at all interested in buying it they’d take one look at the books and see how much it was costing you and they’d run away. You bought this club and instead of giving it a blood transfusion you cut its throat.’

  ‘James will be saddened to hear that the fellow whose wages he is paying has such a low opinion of his professional capacities.’

  ‘I think we have about the same opinion of Jimmy Lister, you and I, Mr Prosser.’

  ‘So what do I do next?’

  ‘Well, next you get Magrudo to apply for outline planning permission for the site.’

  Even though I haven’t seen him for years.’

  ‘Even though you haven’t seen him for years except that you forget to tell various people like the staff at Hess House Holdings that you haven’t seen him for years.’

  Melvyn Prosser chuckled. He actually chuckled.

  ‘I’m
sorry. I didn’t realize I was on oath when I spoke to you.’

  ‘Then you get the permission and are all set on that side of things. Except that Jimmy Lister isn’t quite running down the club quickly enough. He’s done his best, but you can’t actually be sure of relegation. So you decide to hurry things along. With Danny, and Brendan, and the residents. I don’t know about the Red White and Blue—that might even be a coincidence.’

  ‘Suddenly you’re admitting there is such a thing as coincidence?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, all right.’ Melvyn handed him back the photographs. ‘And that’s my wife, by the way,’ he added sarcastically.

  Then I suppose—not knowing as much about the business as you do—but I suppose you then have some system worked out with Charlie Magrudo. He’s the front man, you’re the money man; you sell him the ground for peanuts, then buy it back from him. I don’t know how these things work—’

  ‘Evidently.’

  ‘But perhaps you bung him some work for his construction company as a thank-you present. Give him the contract for the leisure centre or something. Nice little leg-up for a business which hasn’t always enjoyed the best of fortune.’

  ‘I see. Is that it?’

  ‘Yes. More or less.’

  ‘And how do you rate my chances of getting detailed planning permission?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘And what sort of profit am I looking to make?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Oh dear, how disappointing. And what would you say if I told you that you’re living in cloud-cuckoo-land?’

  ‘I wouldn’t believe you.’

  There was a pause. They were somewhere north of Camden Town; Duffy wasn’t exactly sure where. He couldn’t understand Melvyn Prosser at all.

  ‘Can I have another Slimline?’

  ‘Of course. Would you help yourself? I always try and do the first drink and then let guests help themselves.’

  Duffy poured out his tonic water.

  ‘Yes. Definitely too small for a goalkeeper, I’d say. Even though I know less about the game than you, as you’ve so carefully pointed out.’