Clearly the United fans had thought the same way as Zarco; I remember watching him play for MU against Fulham and the fans singing, ‘Abimbole, Abimbole, He’s a lazy arsehole, And he should be on the dole’. You had to laugh.
‘Besides,’ added Zarco, ‘Scott here has a brilliant plan to fuck with his mind. Wait and see, boss. We’re going to put the hex on him.’
‘I’m glad to hear it.’
Viktor glanced at his watch; unlike the rest of us he wore a cheap Timex. The first time I’d seen it I’d checked it out on Google in case it was actually a valuable antique, but it cost just £7.50, which was another reason why I liked Viktor — most of the time he wasn’t in the least bit flashy; my suits from Kilgour were probably ten times more expensive than his. He was wearing the coat because it was cold. Only the billionaire’s Berluti shoes were expensive. And the Rolls-Royce Phantom in the car park, of course.
‘And now I’d best be going,’ he said. ‘I have an important meeting in the City. See you guys at the match on Saturday. Don’t forget, João, you’re coming to that pre-match lunch I’m hosting in the executive dining room for the RBG.’ RBG was the Royal Borough of Greenwich.
‘I wouldn’t miss it for the world, boss,’ said Zarco, drily.
‘Good. Because you’re the trophy guest,’ said Viktor. ‘At least you would be if we had any bloody trophies.’ Laughing, he walked back to the players’ tunnel, leaving the three of us staring at our much cheaper shoes.
‘Cheeky bastard,’ said Zarco.
‘He’s in a good mood,’ I replied.
‘I was just thinking the same thing,’ said Colin.
‘I know why, too,’ said Zarco. ‘This morning the RBG planning committee is going to announce that it has granted permission for the new Thames Gateway Bridge. It’s going to be worth a lot of money to Viktor’s company because they are building it, of course. That’s why he’s bringing the RBG council here for lunch on Saturday. To celebrate.’
‘But he’s paying for the bridge, isn’t he?’ I said. ‘Rather a lot if the newspapers are correct.’
‘He’s paying for some of it, yes. But don’t forget, the Thames Gateway is going to be a toll bridge. And the only bridge between Tower Bridge and the QEII Bridge. That’s exactly ten kilometres of river either side of where it will be built. Fifty thousand vehicles a day — that’s what they estimate. At five pounds a time, that’s two hundred and fifty grand a day, gentlemen.’
‘Five quid? Who’s going to pay that?’ asked Colin.
‘It costs six quid to get across the Severn Bridge into Wales.’
‘Surely it should be six quid to get out of Wales,’ I muttered.
‘It’s only two quid to go through the Dartford Tunnel,’ persisted Colin.
‘Yes, but it takes forever,’ I said.
‘That’s right,’ said Zarco. ‘So you do the math. They reckon the new bridge will make more than eighty million a year, just in tolls, and pay for itself in less than five years. You see? It only looks like philanthropy for five years, then it starts to look like very good business. He owns the bridge for the next ten years after that, before he gives it as a gift to the people of the RBG; but by then he’ll have made at least eight hundred million. Maybe more.’
‘No wonder he’s smiling,’ I said.
‘He’s not smiling,’ said Zarco. ‘He’s laughing. All the way to the Sumy Capital Bank of Geneva. Which, by the way, he also owns.’
‘That must come in handy when you need an overdraft,’ said Colin.
‘Did you hear that?’ Zarco shook his head and smiled, wryly. ‘Trophy guest, indeed. He never misses an opportunity to have a little dig at me.’
‘Talking of having a dig,’ said Colin, ‘that copper came back here, to the Crown of Thorns. Detective Inspector Neville. He wasn’t very pleased to see we’d filled in and grassed over the hole.’
‘What did he expect us to do with it?’ snarled Zarco. ‘Play around it?’
‘He said we should have let him know we were going to fill it in. That it was evidence. That they hadn’t had time to take a photograph.’
‘I’ll send him a photograph of a hole,’ I said. ‘Only it won’t be a hole in the ground.’
‘What did you tell him?’ asked Zarco. ‘The cop. You didn’t tell him about my photograph, I hope.’
‘No, of course not. Look, all I told him was what Scott told me to tell him. That he took full responsibility.’
‘What did he say to that?’
‘He said that suing the Metropolitan Police successfully had made you too big for your boots and that it was time someone took you down a peg or two.’
‘He said that?’
Colin nodded.
‘The cunt. You’re sure it was me he was talking about and not João?’
Colin nodded again.
‘Hey, don’t drag me into this,’ said Zarco. ‘I’ve enough enemies already.’
‘You’ve noticed that too, huh?’
13
João Zarco had been on the front of GQ and Esquire and was frequently voted the best-dressed man in football; on match day he cut a very dapper figure in his Zegna suits, cashmere coats and silk scarves. Sometimes he seemed to be as famous for his designer stubble, his Tiffany cufflinks and his bling watches as for his candid thoughts about football. Perhaps that’s not a surprise; these days you don’t just judge a club by results but by the style of the manager, and if you doubt that then ask yourself this: if you were obliged to support a club because of the manager, who would you choose? José Mourinho or Sir Alex Ferguson? Pep Guardiola or David Moyes? Diego Simeone or Rafa Benitez? AVB or Guus Hiddink? These days it’s not just the image rights of players that are important to football clubs; how a manager looks can actually affect the club’s share price. Winning is no longer enough on its own; winning while looking good is the essence of the modern game.
I like good suits but I think it’s important that, unlike the manager, the coach dresses like his players on a match day. Besides, it looks a bit weird if you take charge of the warm-up in a tailor-made whistle that cost five grand. I don’t like tracksuits very much but I always wear one on the day of a match; picking training cones off the pitch and doing mountain climbs alongside the lads is just easier in a tracksuit.
London City is nicknamed Vitamin C because the club colours are orange and because it’s good for you; no one in east London gives a fuck about Ukraine’s Orange Revolution in 2004, which is why the club colours are orange in the first place. A lot of modern kit looks like it was designed by the art class in a primary school. You expect African World Cup sides to wear shirts that look like shit, and even a few Scottish ones, but not big European sides. Was there ever a worse kit than the one Athletico Bilbao wore in 2004, which looked like some fat bloke’s intestines?
City’s kit was designed by Stella McCartney, and so were the tracksuits. I don’t mind the kit so much: the orange makes your players easy to see on the park, and on a foggy night in Leeds that can be a real advantage. It’s the equivalent of playing golf with an orange ball; it seems that seventy-three per cent of golfers find a vividly coloured ball easier to see in flight and on the grass. Come to think of it, that must be why I’m so crap at golf.
In truth, Sonja likes the City tracksuits better than I do. It helps that hers is a size too small and when she wears it she looks just like Uma Thurman in Kill Bilclass="underline" Volume 1, only without the Hattori Hanzo¯ sword. But when I’m wearing an orange tracksuit I look like a fucking carrot. We all do. Which is why some rival supporters call us cat shit; apparently some cat shit is orange. You learn something every day.