‘What happened to your hand?’ I asked.
‘I punched a locker door yesterday, after the match,’ said Ayrton. He was English, from Liverpool, but he’d grown up in Brazil where, in spite of a father who wanted him to become a racing driver, he’d learned to play football.
‘Why, for Pete’s sake?’
‘Because I was frustrated, I suppose.’
‘About what?’
‘I wanted to play yesterday, of course. There’s nothing worse than seeing your team do well without you. Even when you’re injured. Christ, you should know that, boss. I just wanted to get on the park and score a goal myself.’
‘You still feel that way?’
He nodded at the trophy. ‘There’s a World Cup coming up soon. The only way I can get picked to play for England is if I’m playing regular football, and scoring goals, but there’s not much chance of that happening now.’
‘Show me the door,’ I said.
‘What?’
‘The door you punched,’ I said. ‘Show it to me.’
‘Why do you want to see a fucking door?’
‘Just humour me.’
Taylor shrugged and led the way downstairs to the dressing room where there were twenty-seven locker doors made of polished oak, each of them behind an individual seat upholstered in orange suede. He led me to the number seven locker, which had Christoph Bündchen’s name on it. I opened the door and saw that it was split all the way through the wood, as if it had been struck with considerable force.
‘Christ, how hard did you hit it?’
He looked sheepish. ‘Hard enough. I used to study karate in my spare time and thought I could still do that kind of stuff. But it seems I can’t do that either.’
‘Have you had an X-ray?’
‘No need. I can tell it’s not broken. I bruised the bones, that’s all.’
I took his hand by the fingers and turned it over.
‘Nice bandage. Who did it?’
‘The wife, Lexi. She used to be a nurse. She was waiting at Hangman’s Wood for me to drive me home last night. You know I lost my licence a while back. She always picks me up after—’
‘Why her and not the team doctor?’
‘Because I was embarrassed about it.’
‘You’re fucking crazy,’ I said. ‘You could have broken it.’
‘I figured it was better than hitting Christoph,’ said Taylor. ‘Given that it’s him who’s got my place in the team.’
‘True.’
Then he smiled. ‘Oh, I get it. You thought maybe it was me who smacked Zarco.’
‘Someone did.’
‘It wasn’t me. Between you and me I hated the bastard, sure. And he probably had it coming. But not from me. Besides, I’ve got a witness who saw me do this. Manny.’
Manny Rosenberg was the kitman.
‘Maybe you hit the door because you’d already hit Zarco. Good way of explaining your hand. You could have hit the door to disguise the bruising.’
‘But you don’t really think I hit him, do you?’
‘Not really.’ I glanced at the Jules Rimet. ‘How old are you, anyway, Ayrton? Twenty-eight?’
‘Yes. This is my last chance.’
‘You know we’ve had offers for you from other clubs?’
‘I know. But Fulham and Stoke City don’t exactly blow my hair back.’
‘Can I be frank with you?’ I nodded at the iPhone in his unbandaged hand. ‘That’s to say I don’t want to read anything I say now on Twitter.’
He nodded and dropped the phone into his coat pocket.
‘I thought the way Zarco treated you was unfair. But you should never have sworn at him like that. Even though he threw a cone at you. In my day as a player managers did much worse than that. It’s good to get angry in football. It’s an emotional game. Big Ron Atkinson chased a player around the dressing room at Villa and ended up punching the wrong bloke. Lawrie McMenemy had a ruck with Mark Wright in the showers at Southampton. And when he was at Forest Cloughie punched Roy Keane.’
‘Really? Jesus. I can’t imagine anyone punching him.’
‘Keane says now it was the best thing that ever happened to him. Players do things that piss coaches and managers off — like being lazy in training — and when that happens they deserve a kick up the arse. What happened was my fault. You were a lazy bastard but I should have been the one who kicked your arse, Ayrton. Not Zarco. I was taking the training session and it should have been me who bawled you out.’
‘Thank you.’
‘You won’t get a place in the England squad if you’re a lazy cunt — you know that, don’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘I admire fair play and sportsmanship but there’s no place in my squad for anyone who doesn’t work hard in training. If you’re prepared to do that, then I want you in my team. As far as I’m concerned, everything that happened between you and Zarco is water under the bridge if you can tell me now that you want to stay here at City and work your fucking balls off for us.’
‘Do I want to stay here? I never wanted to leave.’
‘And you’ll work hard for me?’
‘Yes. Yes. You mean it, boss?’
I put my hands on the boy’s shoulders and looked him squarely in the eye.
‘Of course I mean it. We need an experienced player like you, Ayrton. There’s bags of talent here but apart from Ken Okri there’s no one in our squad who can steady the younger lads and help to keep them going if we’re still behind with five minutes left to play. When we lost 4–3 to Newcastle just after Christmas, you were the only one who was still looking for the equaliser at full time. You may be a lazy bastard in training but in a match you’ve got that never-say-die attitude that wins games, Ayrton. There’s no obligation to win when you’re playing football, but there is an obligation to keep trying. That’s what the fans believe. And it’s what I know. The number of games I’ve seen won in the last minute—’
‘You’re right, boss. Arsenal against Liverpool in May 1989, Man U against Bayern Munich in 1999, Man City against QPR in 2012.’
‘That’s what I’m talking about, son. The really beautiful thing about football is that at any moment, a match can turn the other way. A goal changes everything. The last minute of the game is always, always, without exception, the most important minute of the match; and yet the number of times you see a winning side relax before the whistle has gone. People used to talk about Fergie time as if by chewing the fourth official out he’d unfairly get a few more minutes of extra time so that Man U could steal the match. Bollocks. It was just that Fergie had schooled his players never to give up. The players saw him walking up and down, getting mad and they knew that he hadn’t given up. So they didn’t either. That’s what people didn’t understand. What they still don’t understand.’
He smiled and it was the first time I’d seen him smile in ages. ‘I’m really off the transfer list?’
‘You can play on Tuesday night if Simon thinks you’re fit enough.’
‘Fucking brilliant.’
Ayrton pulled his phone out of his pocket. ‘Can I tell Lexi?’
‘Yes.’
‘She’ll be over the moon, boss. There was no way she wanted to leave London to live in fucking Stoke.’
‘But no tweets. In fact, if I were you, I’d stop tweeting altogether. It’s only cunts that pay attention to Twitter.’
‘Yes, boss. Whatever you say.’
‘And no more punching lockers.’
I didn’t know it, but I’d just made one of the best decisions of my new managerial career.