by Scott Innes
‘Gillian?’ I said, knocking and walking in. ‘Have you got a sec?’
Gillian is about forty or so – maybe younger. Or maybe older. I’ve never been good at placing people; I remember I once bought Warren Barton a Happy 30th Birthday card and he said, ‘No, I’m actually twenty-nine.’ I’ve never felt so embarrassed! But having said that, Gillian has none of Warren’s flair and she’d be the first to admit that. She was appointed chair of the academy by the Compound Council and soon set about putting her own stamp on things and cutting corners financially. Within weeks she’d axed my weekly trip to Flix, the Compound cinema, where I’d take the lads to unwind after a gruelling thirty-minute training session. Other essentials were quickly trimmed away too: Alfonso, the club baker, was shown the door (no more pre-training eclairs, which makes you wonder why you even bother really), my pot of money for necessities like training cones or a bottle of Brut for the man of the match went out of the window, and my Friday night ‘Kev & Pals’ music extravaganza, in which I and a special musical guest would regale the lads with a performance of a different classic album each month, was actually cancelled mid-show one week when Gillian got up on stage and literally pulled the plug, saying it was ‘an appalling misuse of Compound funds’. You should have seen the look Jimmy Nail gave her. In her year as chair, Gillian had systematically eroded everything that made my football club tick – little wonder it was all now going to seed.
As I came in she looked up from her desk, and although she tried to hide it, I spotted the look of tired disdain in her eyes when she saw that it was me. I’d had that same look on my own face countless times when Graeme Le Saux used to come in to see me to complain yet again about the lack of recycling facilities at England’s training complex.
‘Yes, Kevin,’ she sighed, leaning back in her chair. ‘What’s on your mind?’
I’m not having a pop, that’s not my style, but Gillian simply doesn’t understand football. She doesn’t know a 4-4-2 from a… well, whatever other formations there are. And listen, that’s not a sexist thing – I know plenty of blokes who are just as clueless about the game. Steven Taylor, for one – you’d give him simple instructions and his eyes would just glaze over. Mind you, I’m one to talk. I hadn’t even heard of the offside rule until 1999. At the end of the day, Gillian’s a bureaucrat, a cynical pencil-pusher whose only consideration is about the numbers, the bottom line, the ingoings and outgoings. She doesn’t understand that what really matters at a football club is the graft, the passion, putting the ball in the net, the catering facilities. I knew that prising a few quid out of the coffers for a new striker was going to be a big ask, so I decided to play it cool and blindside her.
‘Nice sunny day outside,’ I said casually.
‘Yes, I suppose so,’ she agreed.
‘Can I have a new striker?’
‘No,’ she replied wearily. ‘We’ve been through this before, Kevin; we simply can’t afford to spend money on player recruitment right now. The budget is stretched thin as it is, you know that.’
‘We’re getting killed in the league,’ I protested. ‘We’re wallowing in the bottom half of the table.’
‘We’ve only played one match; most other teams haven’t played their opening fixture yet,’ Gillian argued. I rolled my eyes.
‘Yes, but on alphabetical order, Palangonia FC are right down in the doldrums,’ I said. Once again Gillian had displayed her woeful lack of knowledge.
‘Look, I’m sorry, but it’s absolutely out of the question,’ she went on. ‘I was at a meeting of the Compound Council just last night and General Leigh was making a big stink again about how much money is already set aside for this football club. There’s a war on, Kevin – a big one – and it’s not going to end any time soon. You know the L’zuhl are making great advances across the galaxy.’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘How can you not know?’ Gillian asked patronisingly. ‘It’s been all over the news – they annihilated the horse-mutants of Teplok in a raid just yesterday. They’re really upping the ante. We have to be prepared for the possibility that they’ll strike Palangonia next. If they find out about our military presence here… It’s no secret that the L’zuhl were furious to discover that some of us managed to escape during the invasion of Earth. It made them look weak and that is one thing they are most certainly not, and if they begin to see our small outpost here as a threat then they will not hesitate. Mankind is high on their list of targets.’
‘And a new striker is high on mine,’ I argued. ‘Anyway, if the bloody L’zuhl come down here and see how half-arsed an operation this football club is, how’s that going to make us look? If we’re going to win this war, we need a team that’s competing for promotion to Galactic League B. That’s basic.’
‘I sometimes wonder what planet you’re on,’ Gillian said quietly, shaking her head.
‘Palangonia,’ I replied defiantly. ‘You know, the one with the football club that has no firepower up top.’
‘You’ve got Rodway,’ Gillian said. ‘He scored hatfuls for us last season. There’s no reason he can’t do the same again.’
‘The kid’s cracked,’ I snapped irritably. ‘Out until all hours, drinking himself silly and then going to seedy clubs. Probably snorting weed too. He’s a liability. I can’t have it affecting the other lads.’
‘I’m sorry, Kevin, that’s my final word,’ she said, putting her glasses on and looking at her computer screen, which was her way of saying that she wanted me to leave. (Also, she then said aloud that she wanted me to leave.)
‘Fine,’ I grumbled. ‘But remember this conversation when we get our arses handed to us on Saturday. You need to wake up, Gillian – the real war is out there, on the pitch, eleven against eleven. Everything else is window dressing.’
‘Oh, and Kevin?’ Gillian said as I stood up to leave. ‘Have you considered switching to three at the back, perhaps utilising Rooker and Nightingale as attacking wing-backs supporting Rodway and Alex Booth up front? Or perhaps even a move to one striker and drop Rodway into the hole as a creative playmaker? Just something to think about, anyway.’
‘Aye, well,’ I shrugged. I didn’t need strategic advice from anyone, thank you very much. (Though I made a mental note to adopt pretty much everything Gillian had just suggested.)
‘Take Barrington12 with you,’ Gillian said as I opened the door. ‘Maintenance have discharged him; they couldn’t see a problem but reckon it may have been a clogged oil filter that caused him to keep saying… what he kept saying.’
I sighed – that was insult to injury. It was bad enough having to marshal a skeleton crew of a squad without having to deal with a walking, talking tin can as part of my coaching setup. I asked them for Sammy Lee and they sent me Barrington12. It just summed everything up.
‘HELLO, KEVIN KEEGAN,’ he said in his foghorn, mono-tone voice as I stepped into the corridor outside Gillian’s office. The robot staggering uncertainly towards me was the absolute bane of my life – a clattering, clanking, insufferable relic that had been ready for the knacker’s yard for decades. Now he looked up to me like a father, though he also looked down at me from his height of around eight feet. His limbs were gangly and thin, his legs little more than coils of wire around metal bars that looked like leftovers from a Meccano set. His bulky mid-section was like a household boiler and his head was an upturned metal bucket with an approximation of a face, two small blue dots for eyes and a thin, unmoving slit for his mouth.
‘Back so soon?’ I asked miserably.
‘YES, I AM BACK,’ he replied amiably. ‘I WAS SUFFERING FROM A CLOGGED OIL FILTER, A COMMON COMPLAINT ASSOCIATED WITH THIS BARRINGTON MODEL. THIS BLOCKAGE HAS BEEN REMOVED SO I WILL NOW FUNCTION AT NORMAL CAPACITY.’
‘No more of your filthy talk, then?’ I asked, eyebrows raised. In the week or so before he was finally shipped over to maintenance, Barrington12 had been acting peculiarly, ending every sentence, irrespective of the subject matter or the person to
whom he was speaking, with the phrase ‘I’D LIKE TO ALSO REMIND YOU THAT I AM FREE OF ERECTILE DYSFUNCTION.’ It got rather wearying after a while but Gillian didn’t seem minded to approve the cost of a once-over from maintenance – not until we had that class of youngsters from the Compound school over for a sports day. I haven’t had to apologise so profusely on someone else’s behalf since I had dinner in that posh restaurant with Al Hansen and he ordered ‘a dry white wine’. I had to hurry after the waiter and say, ‘I’m so sorry about that – he means “wet”.’
‘ALL SUCH PHRASES HAVE NOW BEEN ERADICATED FROM MY VOCABULARY,’ Barrington12 reassured me.
‘Well, let’s hope so,’ I said haughtily. ‘Come on, let’s get down to Giuseppe’s. We’ve probably missed pizza now, but we should make it in time for ice cream.’
Gillian’s office door opened and she poked her head out.
‘Oh, good, you’re still here,’ she said. ‘I meant to say – the thrice-weekly pizza and ice cream trips have also been cut from the budget.’
PIZZA AND ICE CREAM
With the loud buzzing of Barrington12’s mechanised legs clattering along behind me, I headed out of the John Rudge Memorial Stadium through the wrought-iron gates and down the paved streets towards the bustling Compound Square, the hub of the human Palangonian community. Given that it’d been barely more than a year since humans had arrived here, it was difficult not to just stop and marvel at all that had been achieved in so small a timeframe.
At the entrance to the square was the imposing Council building. Gillian had one of the five seats on the Council, from where she could undermine me at every turn, as did that oaf, General Leigh. I realise that supposedly there’s a war on but the amount of sway the General holds over Compound life is outrageous. Next door to the Council building was a large Tesco and adjacent was Flix, the cinema. There were dozens of restaurants, a library, a leisure centre, a car park (bit of a misjudgement, that – with the exception of the little buggies that big cheeses like Leigh use to ferry themselves about, there are no cars in the Compound), the infirmary and a big TV studio. It was like being back on Earth, except for the twin suns burning in the sky and the frequent sirens going off to warn of an impending attack by Winged Terrors, flying ape-like beasts that swooped over the walls, picking off anyone unfortunate enough to be out in the open. I’d lost three good full-backs to them (well, two good ones and one who worked hard but, with respect, was never going to make the grade).
‘Keep up, son,’ I scolded Barrington12 as he slowed to stare into the window of the library.
‘SORRY, KEVIN KEEGAN,’ he replied with a strangely wistful air. ‘I JUST LOVE KNOWLEDGE.’
‘No harm in that,’ I told him, ‘but you’re a Barrington model – you already have everything there is to know about everything stored in your data banks. You’d never know it to look at you, but you’re probably the smartest guy in this Compound. You won’t learn anything new in the library.’
‘ALL LIFE IS THERE,’ he replied sadly.
A robot in the midst of an existential crisis. Just what I bloody needed.
‘Come on,’ I said, ‘we need to stop Gerry going mad with the ice cream; I’m not made of money. If he’s given them double scoops, I’m going to absolutely kick off.’
As we hurried towards Giuseppe’s, the pleasant Italian restaurant beside the post office, a low rumbling sound could be heard.
‘PLEASE BE AWARE – I DETECT A SIZEABLE VEHICLE HEADING IN THIS DIRECTION.’
‘A what? There’s nothing like that here; the Compound’s pedestrianised,’ I said. ‘Are you quite sure they cleaned all the gunk out of your system?’
‘BARRINGTON12 ADVISES IMMEDIATE REMOVAL OF OUR PERSONS FROM THE CENTRE OF THE PATH,’ he went on. ‘OR IMMINENT DEATH IS PREDICTED WITH AN 83% CHANCE.’
The rumbling got louder and I couldn’t deny that it sounded like the engine of a large vehicle. We hurried over to huddle in the doorway of Flix as other Compound residents also scattered, looking equally confused as to what was happening.
I watched in dismay as it came round the corner – a large, black hulking mass on six wheels, each one taller than I was. A member of the Compound Guard was behind the wheel, eyes obscured by his intimidating black visor, and I had no doubt there were other guards packed into the back of the tank-like monstrosity. On the roof was mounted an enormous machine gun with another visored figure sitting behind it, his thick-gloved hands resting keenly by the trigger. I’d heard of the Harbingers before but had never seen one of the behemoths up close – they were the most disturbing sight I had ever seen (and I once rode a tandem bike with Arsène Wenger sitting in front of me while his shorts snagged under the seat and got pulled all the way down). In a small jeep following behind sat the members of the Compound Council, no doubt being provided with a demonstration by Leigh, their fellow Council member, of precisely how their finances were being spent. Bloody show-off. The jeep passed quickly, a glass-eyed guard behind the wheel, but I glimpsed them all huddled in the back, some deep in conversation – miserable Doreen McNab from the education board; Sir Michael Bowes-Davies, the eccentric philanthropist; Dr Andre Pebble-Mill, the Compound chief of medicine; and then Gillian herself, gazing forlornly out of the window – they must have picked her up very shortly after I left her office.
‘That’s… not good,’ I said in a quiet voice as the Harbinger rumbled past. I glanced up and there in the passenger seat on the near side to us, wearing a guard uniform decorated with medals but sans helmet, was the man himself – General Lawrence Leigh, head of the Compound military. He looked deep in thought, a grave expression on his craggy grey face. Our eyes met briefly and I could feel his disdain burning right into me. I gave as good as I got – I’m not scared of that arsehole. If he thinks I’m going to be intimidated by someone driving around with a machine gun attached to his vehicle then he hasn’t seen me deal with Steve McManaman after he’s swigged nine bottles of Sunny Delight and customised his Mercedes. I’m no pushover.
Moments later the vehicle was beyond us, turning a corner and vanishing from sight.
‘THAT WAS UNUSUAL,’ said Barrington12. ‘SUCH A DISPLAY OF MILITARY MANOEUVRES IS HIGHLY PECULIAR OUTSIDE OF THE EMMELINE MILITARY BASE AT THE NORTH END OF THE COMPOUND.’
‘Yes, thanks, I’m aware of that,’ I muttered. ‘I’m sure it’s just General Leigh trying to look like the big I-am. Showing off to the ladies, trying to look like a tough nut. You know how vain he is.’
We hurried on, and the square quickly reverted to its normal bustle as though a terrible war machine had not just roared directly through our midst. I didn’t believe a word of what I’d just said, of course. Something was very, very wrong.
*
‘There you are!’ Gerry greeted me as we hurried into Giuseppe’s. My heart sank as I saw Rodway at the table in the corner, tucking into a double-scoop butterscotch sundae. I was too late.
‘Sorry,’ I said as Gerry shook my hand eagerly like we hadn’t just seen each other barely an hour ago. ‘Got held up.’
‘Did you hear that thunderstorm just now?’ Gerry asked. ‘Big old rumble right outside here.’
‘Yeah,’ I replied quietly. ‘Seems to have passed now.’
No point in worrying him unnecessarily. Gerry was prone to overreacting – he refused to shop at HMV for years back on Earth in protest at their decision not to shelve Grease in the sci-fi section. ‘The bloody car flies off at the end, are you blind?’ he’d shouted in vain at the young lad behind the till as security ejected him from the premises.
‘Anyway, I’ve ordered you the Enormo-Bloat,’ Gerry said proudly. ‘Twenty-seven scoops of ice cream with fudge pieces, flakes, strawberries, whipped cream and gherkins. Obviously you can just peel the gherkins off. Everyone does.’
‘Oh, bloody hell,’ I replied. ‘How much is that?’
‘Kev, don’t worry – the club’ll cover it.’
‘No, they won’t!’ I said, exasperated. ‘Gillian’
s cut our funding again. She’s killing this club, Gerry. Do you know she turned down my request for a jukebox filled with Motown classics for the dressing room last week? She said it had nothing to do with the game of football. What a slap in the face for Marvin Gaye.’
‘Outrageous,’ Gerry agreed. ‘Everyone knows that Let’s Get It On is about a referee deciding that a match can go ahead after a pitch inspection. Y’know, Kev, I hate to say this, but… do you think we ought to maybe look elsewhere? I heard that Dave Moyes is on the verge of the chop from that swamp planet in the Fifka System. Who knows, it might be just the fresh start we need.’
I had to admit, it was tempting. Life at Palangonia FC was slowly but surely falling apart around me. A threadbare squad, inadequate training facilities – I’d even heard Gillian remark in passing at last year’s end-of-season party when I did a DJ set consisting of Rumours played back to back six times that she preferred early Fleetwood Mac to the Buckingham-Nicks era. I mean, what kind of madness had I involved myself with?
But as all of these thoughts zipped around my mind right there in Giuseppe’s, I looked over at the faces of my lads as they innocently stuffed their faces with ice cream and realised there was simply no way I could walk. I’d come to Palangonia with the sole aim of building a club that could compete (as well as to escape the L’zuhl genocide on Earth, obviously) and I couldn’t just bail out because the top brass didn’t appreciate my maverick ways. These kids relied on King Kev.
‘Giuseppe,’ I said, a steely note to my voice, ‘I’ll take the Enormo-Bloat. And please make it payable to Gillian Routledge at Palangonia FC.’