headed into the old town, letting his legs carry him, spent an hour drifting around the market streets, the narrow lanes, before traipsing up thehill in the direction of the estate. It didn’t take him long to wind up at the hulking new sports complex, the third-generation football pitch, the deserted car park, the soulless athletics stadium where Town played their games. He peered over the fence at the pitch, marooned as it was beyond an expanse of running track and run-off, shallow, partially covered terraces, a characterless concrete stand. It was meant to be better than the old place. It was cleaner, safer, up to scratch, but better? Was it fuck. A grand athletic stadium maybe, but it was no place for a football match. And this is what they’d discovered, the diehards from Tamworth and Guiseley, Matlock and Whitley Bay, a bland, windswept nothingness. A place to visit, tick off and instantly forget.
Somewhere in the distance, the sounds of men shouting, the dull thud of a football. He climbed a grass embankment, stumbled upon the remaining grass pitch, sandwiched between so much concrete and tarmac, a tragic encounter, the pitch cut and bruised by wet autumn, tufts of longer grass in midfield, twenty-two blokes huffing and puffing, a couple of hardy spectators, a boy on his bicycle, an old guy with a dog, one team decked out in odd shorts and socks, manager-less (the bare eleven), rudderless, all at sea. They conceded two goals while he stood there. He watched them asking helpless questions of each other.
The ball bobbled and deviated its way across the surface. The nets had seen better days. The goal area was a sea of mud, the goalposts a multicoloured array of torn-off tape, the remnants of a thousand Saturday afternoons and Sunday mornings. The referee stood in the centre of the pitch watching it all take place around him, good for twenty quid plus expenses, good for nothing except keeping things in order, his face the picture of boredom. Beyond him, the changing rooms, daubed in graffiti, the windows covered in metal sheeting, some of the brickwork chipped away, a couple of beer bottles by the door, a third smashed into pieces. One of the corner flags was bentat the middle, lopsided, falling over. When a player tried to pull it loose to take a corner, the ref ordered him to put it back. There was a scrape of dog shit near the touchline where Finchy was standing, turds scattered by his feet, out of play, out of mind.
Beyond the bedlam, beyond the mounds of earth, the metal fencing that separated the sports complex from everything else. He could see the empty 3G pitch more clearly from here, pristine in its unemployment, silent, dew on the fibres, a million tiny water drops. Another cheer erupted from the side that were leading. The losing keeper bellowed his disgust, hammered the ball back towards half-way. One of his teammates threatened to throw the towel in, headed for the touchline, telling his keeper to fuck off. The ref stepped in, pointed to his pocket, pointed at the sad excuse for a changing facility. The bloke thought better of it. He pulled his socks up, surrendering authority to the man in black, went steaming into the next tackle that came his way, missed ball and man, ended up on his arse in the smear of dog shit, his actions punctuated by cries from both sides, cries of ‘well in’ and ‘calm down’. The leading team were popping the ball about now, loving their morning, the losers a tragic, shambolic metaphor for the state of the game and England’s sad exit from Euro 2004.
As he was leaving he heard the old bloke talking to the manager of the decent lot. He was pointing at the shit on the player’s back and at the 3G pitch through the fence.
‘You’re fucking joking,’ he said. ‘At £100 a pop? We get the grass for half that.’
‘Aye, and the shit to go with it,’ said the old bloke.
They both laughed. The bloke with the shit up his back had stopped somewhere near the centre spot.
Somewhere in the distance, the sounds of men shouting, the dull thud of a football. He climbed a grass embankment, stumbled upon the remaining grass pitch, sandwiched between so much concrete and tarmac, a tragic encounter, the pitch cut and bruised by wet autumn, tufts of longer grass in midfield, twenty-two blokes huffing and puffing, a couple of hardy spectators, a boy on his bicycle, an old guy with a dog, one team decked out in odd shorts and socks, manager-less (the bare eleven), rudderless, all at sea. They conceded two goals while he stood there. He watched them asking helpless questions of each other.
The ball bobbled and deviated its way across the surface. The nets had seen better days. The goal area was a sea of mud, the goalposts a multicoloured array of torn-off tape, the remnants of a thousand Saturday afternoons and Sunday mornings. The referee stood in the centre of the pitch watching it all take place around him, good for twenty quid plus expenses, good for nothing except keeping things in order, his face the picture of boredom. Beyond him, the changing rooms, daubed in graffiti, the windows covered in metal sheeting, some of the brickwork chipped away, a couple of beer bottles by the door, a third smashed into pieces. One of the corner flags was bentat the middle, lopsided, falling over. When a player tried to pull it loose to take a corner, the ref ordered him to put it back. There was a scrape of dog shit near the touchline where Finchy was standing, turds scattered by his feet, out of play, out of mind.
Beyond the bedlam, beyond the mounds of earth, the metal fencing that separated the sports complex from everything else. He could see the empty 3G pitch more clearly from here, pristine in its unemployment, silent, dew on the fibres, a million tiny water drops. Another cheer erupted from the side that were leading. The losing keeper bellowed his disgust, hammered the ball back towards half-way. One of his teammates threatened to throw the towel in, headed for the touchline, telling his keeper to fuck off. The ref stepped in, pointed to his pocket, pointed at the sad excuse for a changing facility. The bloke thought better of it. He pulled his socks up, surrendering authority to the man in black, went steaming into the next tackle that came his way, missed ball and man, ended up on his arse in the smear of dog shit, his actions punctuated by cries from both sides, cries of ‘well in’ and ‘calm down’. The leading team were popping the ball about now, loving their morning, the losers a tragic, shambolic metaphor for the state of the game and England’s sad exit from Euro 2004.
As he was leaving he heard the old bloke talking to the manager of the decent lot. He was pointing at the shit on the player’s back and at the 3G pitch through the fence.
‘You’re fucking joking,’ he said. ‘At £100 a pop? We get the grass for half that.’
‘Aye, and the shit to go with it,’ said the old bloke.
They both laughed. The bloke with the shit up his back had stopped somewhere near the centre spot.
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