‘That sounds ominous. Please don’t tell me you want a transfer to another club. You’ve only just got here and made your mark. We need you, son.’
‘This is very difficult for me, Scott.’
‘Look, if it’s about pay then I’ve already spoken to Zarco. He’s confident that we can get you another ten grand a week.’
‘Thank you, but it’s not about money. Or a transfer. It’s about something else. I don’t really feel I can be who I am. I’m different from these guys.’
He folded his arms defensively, stood back on one heel and then tapped his lips with a forefinger, like Samir Nasri making his famous shush gesture. (I still don’t get why he does that — who the fuck is he telling to be quiet? The fans?)
‘Different? How?’
‘When I was playing in Augsburg I was living in Munich.’
‘I know. That’s where we met, remember?’
‘Yes, but do you want to know why I was living in Munich?’
For a brief moment I wondered if he was a neo-Nazi and then rejected the idea; Christoph only looked like a Nazi.
I shrugged. ‘Munich is a nicer city than Augsburg. At least that’s my own impression.’
‘Have you heard of a part of Munich called the Glockenbachviertel?’
‘Yes, I think so. It’s the trendy part. Lots of art galleries. I often used to go there and look for paintings.’
Christoph nodded. ‘There are lots of gay people living in that part of Munich.’ He paused for a moment. ‘That’s why I was living there, Scott. Because I couldn’t live the way I wanted in Augsburg. What I mean to say is I was living in Munich with a man.’
I felt my spirits sink. This was going to be coaching football at its most challenging. The only gay footballers who’d ever stepped out of the closet as far as I was aware were Thomas Hitzlsperger and Justin Fashanu, and Fashanu committed suicide, which wasn’t exactly an encouraging precedent for anyone else in the game who felt moved to declare his homosexuality.
‘Right. I see.’
‘It’s just that Mr Zarco said some things the other day on television about the Qatari World Cup — about having gay friends — which was very encouraging. And I thought that perhaps it might be all right to be gay at this club. Unlike my last club, where I had to live a kind of lie about who and what I was. Which is hard, you know?’
I winced a little at the mention of Zarco and the Qataris. Since his comments about the 2022 World Cup the London City press office had been besieged with threats from anonymous Arabs; we’d had three bomb threats at Hangman’s Wood. Meanwhile the Qataris continued to deny any impropriety and FIFA’s executive committee in Zurich had complained to the FA about Zarco; as a result of this the FA had felt obliged to cancel their invitation to Zarco to become a member of its England team think tank. Zarco’s response to all this would certainly have been to repeat his allegations had Phil Hobday not told him to button it.
‘Look, Christoph, if you’re asking me for advice on being gay, I can’t give you any. I have one or two friends who are gay but none of them are in football. But if you’re asking me what I think you’re going to ask me...’
‘Should I tell the guys in the team I’m gay? That’s what I want to know. That’s what I’d like.’
‘Then the answer is no, absolutely fucking not. Don’t ask me to justify it, Christoph, because I can’t, but being gay is just not acceptable in football for the simple reason that the game is the last bastion of open bigotry and homophobia. There are no openly gay footballers in any of England’s top four divisions. Of course that’s not to say there are no gay players. Everyone knows who they are, or thinks they do, but those players keep it quiet for one simple reason: fear. Not of the other players, but fear of the abuse an openly gay player would receive from the fans. Right now there are lots of fans on terraces all over England who still sing songs about the Munich air crash and about the Hillsborough disaster, and who make gassing noises towards Tottenham fans who are all presumed, wrongly, to be Jews. In my time in football I’ve heard these bastards sing songs about Sol Campbell’s mental breakdown, Dwight Yorke’s disabled son, Karren Brady’s miscarriage, the floods in Hull, and the excellent public service done by various murderers including Harold Shipman and Ian Huntley. All of which means that there’s quite enough shit that they can throw at you already without giving them anything more. That’s why you can’t tell anyone, Christoph. Wear a pair of rainbow football laces if it makes you feel any better; there are at least some straight players who’ve done that. Otherwise you have to keep this quiet. You’ll be committing career suicide if you say something now. I know this is not what you wanted to hear, but I’m sorry, that’s just how it is.’
Bündchen sighed. Looking at him now it was hard to believe the young German could be gay; then again, I never notice these things. Sonja claims she can tell, but I never can. A small part of me wanted to applaud him for his desire to be so open, but mostly I felt I’d told him how it was. Individually most football fans would probably tell you they couldn’t care less about someone’s sexuality, but on the terraces, a different mood prevails. The Germans have a word for it: Volksgeist. It means ‘the spirit of the people’, and the spirit of the people usually collects around the lowest common denominator.
‘Look, you have a wonderful talent and on the basis of what I saw the other night against Leeds, you have a fantastic future ahead of you, Christoph. You could do anything in the game. You could play for your country, make a great deal of money and get right to the top of football. And having got there — who knows? In a few years it could be you who leads from the front and who changes things for the better. I for one hope they do change. But you’re at the start of your career and right now my advice to you is never to talk about this with anyone but me at this club. Anyone at all. The fewer people who know about this the better.’
‘I see.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s disappointing.’
‘I’m sorry, Christoph. Truly I wish I could tell you something different. But best keep it quiet, eh? At least until your career is over. And then talk about it. The same way Thomas Hitzlsperger did.’
He nodded. ‘All right. If you think it’s best.’
I breathed a sigh of relief as he went out of the door.
But Christoph Bündchen wasn’t the only one at London City with a secret that had required me to play counsellor. The fact that Zarco was having an affair with Claire Barry, who was the club’s acupuncturist, had become common knowledge at Hangman’s Wood — so common that I had felt prompted to speak to him about it. Me, of all people, offering him advice on the wisdom of having an affair with a woman who was herself married. Claire was a decent woman but her husband, Sean, was a bit of a thug; and if he wasn’t he knew plenty who were. He ran a private security company that did a lot of work in the Gulf States, which meant he was frequently away; he also employed a lot of people who were used to solving problems with violence.
‘People are beginning to talk about you and her,’ I’d said over the Christmas holidays, which is a very busy time for an acupuncturist at a football club, as you might perhaps imagine. ‘Tell me to fuck off and mind my own business if you like, but I’m your friend. You’ve been good to me and I wouldn’t like to see anything happen to you, João. The press would love to give you a going-over for something like this. Remember what happened to John Terry. They think you’re an arrogant bastard and they’re just waiting to catch you out. So why don’t you cool it for a while? I’m not telling you to forget her. That’s up to you. All I’m doing is telling you to keep it zipped for a while. Just to put people off the scent.’