April 2007
I’d been picked for the England team. I’d only been playing club level rugby for six months. This was a dream come true and my teammates were delighted for me. Unfortunately, their idea of celebrating my call up involved stealing all my clothes while I was in the shower and leaving me completely naked and locked in the changing room.
There were windows, but they were far too small for someone of my stature to squeeze through, even if I did want to brave the outdoors in the nude. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d streaked, and I certainly wasn’t embarrassed about my manhood, but that didn’t mean I wanted it splashed across the sports pages.
I hated being the rookie. I could put it down to jealousy, but there were three other players already on the England team, and they’d achieved a lot more in their careers than I likely ever would.
In the end, I decided to wait it out. I was trapped in a locked room without access to my phone; I didn’t exactly have a lot of choice. After twenty minutes of pacing up and down the changing room in the nude, I heard someone try to open the door and then swear when they realized it was locked. A few seconds later the person turned the key and walked inside.
It could be the cleaning lady, who probably wouldn’t appreciate seeing me naked—or maybe she would, but I didn’t want to get sued—so I decided to hide in one of the showers. Someone walked around the changing room as if checking and then continued talking into his phone. I knew the voice; it was Gary, the only guy on the team whom I could completely trust to help me out. That was a stroke of luck.
Just as I was about to leave the showers and ask for help locating my clothes, I overheard part of Gary’s conversation that stopped me in my tracks. It was just two sentences, but they couldn’t have been mistaken for anything innocent.
“I can’t throw another game, I just can’t. If I make the team lose in the last minute one more time I’ll be kicked off the team, and then you won’t be able to use me anyway.”
Gambling. Gary was throwing games for money. I knew it happened in sport, but of all the people in the world, Gary would have been the last person I would have suspected of such a thing. Hell, I thought I would have done it before him. Gary was as straight-laced as they came.
Gary’s words echoed in my ears as my eyes struggled to focus on the wall in front of me.
Gary had taken me under his wing the second I walked through the door. I’d assumed he was going to play a prank on me; Gary had a reputation as someone tough on newcomers and I was scared of him at first. A few weeks later, I finally relaxed and asked him why he helped me settle in.
“Just returning the favour,” he’d said. “You helped out my son in the shop by the training ground. You remember? He was accused of stealing some food—no doubt because the shopkeeper was a racist fuck—and you stood up for him.”
I remembered. The kid had looked like a deer caught in the headlights. The shopkeeper accused him of stealing even though he’d only been about eight years old. I politely informed the shopkeeper that the item in question wasn’t even sold in the store and he backed down.
Gary’s son had run out to the car and told his dad what happened, and then Gary had been introduced to me later that day at training. That one act by me brought Gary into my life, and I couldn’t have coped without him.
He’d lowered my ego down a notch for one thing, and had helped me improve my mental approach to training, which was something the coaches didn’t usually bother with. How could that man now be helping the team lose for money?
Everything seemed to look further away and a dizziness crept upon me as I realized the seriousness of what I had heard. I must have lost my balance, because my hand reached out and grabbed hold of one of the showers for support. Gary stopped talking. He’d heard me.
“Who’s there?” he called out.
The changing room wasn’t big enough to hide in, so I walked out slowly—still naked—and stared at Gary. He looked terrified. There were a few seconds of confusion as he no doubt wondered why I was standing there naked and then he said “your clothes are just outside the door.”
I nodded and went outside to collect my clothes before coming back in and closing the door behind me.
“What’s going on, Gary?” I asked as I got dressed.
“You heard?”
I nodded. “You’re throwing games. Why?”
Gary sat down on one of the benches and sighed, before burying his head in his hands. I knew he wouldn’t lie to me, even about something as serious as this, but he couldn’t find the words to say either.
“You need money?” I asked. Gary earned more than me, but he also had a kid to support on his own. The mother had walked out just after giving birth the the child. Perhaps he had a gambling problem, and this had been his way of fixing it.
Gary shook his head and then did something I never thought I’d see him do; he cried. Now it was my turn to be speechless. What was an eighteen-year-old kid supposed to do when a guy like Gary is crying in front of him? I settled for sitting down next to him and waiting for him to talk when he was ready.
“They threatened us,” Gary said at last. He managed to turn off the tears quickly, but the stress in his voice gave away his pain more than tears ever could. “Me and my son.”
“Who did?” I asked. I was close with his son now, so the threat to them both hit close to home. His son was a nice lad, who worked hard in school and had a bright future.
“Just these guys,” Gary replied. “They run some kind of betting ring.”
“You need to go to the police. They can protect your family until these people are caught.”
Gary shook his head. “I’m too far in now. They have… pictures. Of me with women. Nothing bad, just sex. But not something I want my son to see. They threatened to make them public, so I did them a favour.”
“You threw a game?”
Gary shook his head. “Nothing so drastic. All I had to do was make sure the ball went into touch within the first few minutes.” He laughed quickly and then went serious again. “Can you believe the things people bet on? It seemed so minor.”
“Then they started asking for more?”
Gary nodded. “They made it clear that my family is at risk if I don’t do what they want. Some of the things I’ve done...” He started crying again and I thought back to some of the games we’d played recently where Gary had slipped up. He hadn’t played badly; apart from the mistakes he’d been strong. No one blamed him, but there had been mistakes and those mistakes had cost us points.
“We’re going to figure this out.” I said. “You don’t have to handle this by yourself any more.”
Gary turned to look at me with a puzzled expression on his face. “You’re not mad?”
“Oh, I’m mad. But not at you. Those people who threatened your family are going to pay for this.”
“Please don’t tell the guys,” Gary said. “I’ll fake an injury and find a way not to play for a few weeks.”
I nodded and Gary disappeared to go and wash his face. He’d left his phone on the bench and it vibrated with an incoming text message. I glanced at the screen and had a fairly good idea that the sender was someone Gary didn’t like. The water was still running, so I grabbed the phone and opened the message from “The Fucker.”
Enough of your bollocks. Come to the store on London Road. Back entrance. Be there in fifteen minutes, or the boss will get mad.
I deleted the message and put the phone back down on the bench.
“Gary,” I yelled out. “Sorry mate, but I have to go. Just remembered I have a sponsorship meeting.”
“Oh, okay.” I could hear the disappointment in his voice. He needed me to be there for him right now, but it was better I tackle the problem at the source.