‘How is that a fucking card?’ I yelled again. ‘It can’t be for time-wasting. Look, the West Ham players are still off the pitch down there celebrating. The boy was just irritated with himself and put a bit more welly into the kick up the pitch than was normal. The wind caught it, probably. And if the yellow wasn’t for that then where’s the dissent? The cunt knows it’s a fucking goal. He’s not completely stupid.’
‘If you don’t mind your language, I shall cite you for dissent,’ said Donnelly, ‘and then send you to sit in the stands. Under the special circumstances in which this match is being played I’m being lenient with you, Mr Manson. Next time it’ll be different. Okay?’
I turned away angrily and sat down.
‘I hate that fucking man,’ said Simon. ‘Thinks he’s still in the fucking army, so he does.’
‘Bastard.’
‘From now on you’d better watch your language, boss. He’s got your card marked. Nothing he likes better than to make an example of people who use profanity, which is what he calls swearing. Thinks it’s the curse of the modern game. Or at least that’s what he told Alan Brazil on TalkSPORT the other week. The cunt.’
I wasn’t too worried; not yet. We gave Raphael Spiegel a scare when Ayrton Taylor hit the post from fifteen yards; and Jimmy Ribbans ran through onto a clever chip from Iñárritu, but with only Spiegel to beat he was adjudged offside, when the replay clearly showed this was not the case. Besides, League Cup games are often high-scoring fixtures — who could forget Arsenal’s 6–3 victory over Liverpool in the 2006/2007 quarter finals? — and I figured we could easily overturn a two-goal deficit.
At least I did until just before half time when West Ham scored their third. After a dubious foul and another yellow card, this time given against Iñárritu for a trip on Leo Chambers, Cole rifled a free kick towards a mass of orange bodies around the penalty spot. The ball ricocheted off Ken Okri’s knee straight in front of the foot of Kevin Nolan, who flicked the ball up and then volleyed it over the heads of our so-called defensive wall. Bruno Haider ran onto it and scored with an almost suicidal diving header that was faintly reminiscent of a kamikaze pilot at Pearl Harbor. Kenny Traynor got a hand to the header and was unlucky only to tip the ball into the top corner of his net. Three-nil.
‘It’s not his night,’ observed Simon.
‘It’s not anyone’s fucking night, so far,’ I said, with my hand in front of my mouth. ‘Least of all Zarco’s.’
‘The man must be turning in his grave.’
It didn’t seem worth mentioning that Zarco wasn’t yet in his grave; that he was probably still on a cold slab just a couple of miles north of where we were now, at the East Ham Mortuary; but I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d sat up on the slab and shouted a couple of choice swear words in Portuguese: caralho or cona. I’d often heard Zarco use words like that.
I sat back in my seat, laid my hands on my head and stared up at the black ceiling that was the night sky. Light snow was starting to fall and in the powerful floodlights that ran around the entire circumference of the Silvertown Dock stadium it looked like the myriad pieces of a betting slip torn up and thrown into the air by an angry god who’d made a heavy bet on us winning this game. But not as heavy as my own.
‘That was the most piss-poor forty minutes I’ve ever seen us play,’ said Simon. ‘We were disjointed, uninspired, ragged, lazy; not to mention unlucky. And that’s just our fucking back four. The rest look like they were wishing William Webb Ellis was playing for us; that he would pick up the fucking ball and run off with it and never be seen again. I tell you something, boss, when the whistle blows for half time it’ll seem more like a fucking armistice. As for that cunt of a referee I think he must think he’s playing bridge, the number of fucking cards he’s shown.’
I didn’t answer; the linesman’s flag had gone up and we had a corner. But it was poorly taken by Jimmy Ribbans. The ball could have been made of concrete and swinging on the end of a crane, such was the apparent reluctance of any of our forwards to head it, and Spiegel gathered it safely in his hands as nonchalantly as if he’d been jumping for a nice shiny apple on a tree.
‘What are you going to say in the dressing room?’ asked Simon. ‘What can you say to turn it around when you’re 3–0 down at half time?’
‘Liverpool did,’ I said. ‘Against AC Milan in 2005.’ I shrugged. ‘Besides, I think you just told me what to do, Simon. To turn it around. And I don’t think I’m going to say anything at all.’
And then the referee blew for half time. I might have breathed a sigh of relief but for the fact that there were still forty-five minutes to come and our players were walking in with bowed heads to whistles and jeers like they had spent the first half collaborating with the Nazis. The West Ham supporters in the far corner of the dock started to sing ‘Bubbles’ again, and this time you could hear every stupid word, like you were in the Bobby Moore Stand at Upton Park.
46
I followed the team into the dressing room. A strong smell of liniment, Deep Heat and even deeper shame greeted my flaring nostrils. Through the adjoining wall we could hear the sound of the other team loudly congratulating itself on an excellent first half. I wanted to punch my way through the breeze-blocks and point these players out to my own.
‘Look,’ I wanted to tell them, ‘the Hammers think this game is in the bag. And who could blame them for thinking that after the way you lot have been playing? Not me. The ladies’ team could give West Ham a better game than you’ve done up until now. I’m embarrassed to be the manager of such a worthless bunch of no-hopers. That song they’re singing is about you, the way they’ve sucked you in tonight and blown you out of their fucking arses like so many shitty bubbles.’
Instead I pushed my hands into my trouser pockets and looked at the ceiling as if searching for some inspiration. But none was there. And really, what was there to say? I’d already said everything that could be said before the game; to say anything else now would only look like I’d wasted my breath the first time. Besides, I’d have probably started to swear and chew the carpet like Hitler and that wasn’t going to help anyone; not tonight. They say actions speak louder than words and short of throwing boots and punches and kicking backsides I decided there was really only one thing I could do.
The lads were all looking expectantly at me now, waiting for the full Al Pacino, the Any Given Sunday, inch-by-inch, ‘I don’t know what to say’ speech that was going to work a miracle in their thick heads and turn the match around. I was all through with motivation. But I could, perhaps, offer a moment of epiphany, one simple symbolic gesture that would allow a leap of understanding where another thousand words would not.
I walked up to Zarco’s picture and lifted it away from the wall. I stared at the face for a moment, caught the expression in the eyes, and nodded; then I twisted the picture around on its cord and placed it back against the wall, face first, so that the Portuguese would not have to look at the players who, so far, had disgraced his memory. At least that’s what I wanted them all to think. Then I picked up my iPad and left the dressing room.
For a moment I stood outside in the corridor with all the noise of the stadium in my ears, wondering where to go. There were dozens of eyes on me now: policemen, officials, security men, ball-boys, television technicians and stewards. I had to get away from them, too, and as soon as possible.
I remembered I still had the key to the drug-testing station; I went in there and locked the door behind me.