Even the old man.
Everyone spoke to Danny in the gray, sodden language of the English weather. “You’ll take what you’re given, son.” “You’ll win if you win, Danny, but you probably won’t, you likely won’t, you won’t you won’t you won’t...”
Danny walked through town every Monday to the shouts of “Big man!” and the nods of the old men and the smiles of the women and the scurrying of the children, to meet his dad down at the pub for a swifty. They called it a swifty, but it rarely turned out that way. They’d have a weekend’s football to discuss, plus the goings-on in the First Division and the Match of the Day broadcast, and finally, after the two or three swifties had well and truly entered the bloodstream, a thorough consideration of the most recent East Southwich Albion fixture to write itself into the blur of East Southwich football history. Danny’s father was a quiet man, opinionated in facial expression but, like his son, disinclined to make sounds. Danny had inherited this gene—except when his dad was around. When his dad was around, Danny opened up, rambled and jambled, said what was on his mind. Mr. Hooper listened—loved listening to his son address most any topic, but especially the Funny Old Game—and responded with a litany of eyebrow wrinkles, curled mouth corners, and even a few things that said plenty that he alone could do with his ears.
This Monday presented Danny with plenty to say and for his father to hear. Danny’s East Southwich side, representatives of the only club either Hooper had ever supported, had conceded late and not scored at all in a depressing loss to Bloat County. “Bloat,” Danny sneered, a light ale cream coating the underside of his mustache. “Bloody Bloat County, come to East Southwich and left happy. And why? Because we play pre-war football in these parts, Dad. It was a kicking contest Saturday. A kicking contest. Nothing more. How far and how high. And could you get stuck in, could you earn your right to play. Earn your right to play football? I’m bloody paid to play football, not foul gits from bloody Bloat County. But that’s all they want, Dad, all they want.”
He stopped, polished off another half pint, slammed the glass down on the table, looked at his father, and said, “Bloat. How they even stay up in this division I’ll never know. All you’d have to do to nick the points off of Bloat County would be to keep the ball on the floor for a minute or two at a time. Pass the bloody thing, Dad, pass the bloody thing.”
Danny slumped in his chair, leaned his head back to take in the dark brown ceiling of the Southwich Defeatist’s Arms, and raspberried a frustrated, malty spray of alcohol into the close, warm tavern air and let the mist of disappointment settle back on his hairy face. “We can’t take two points off of Bloat County at home,” he said, and sat back up. “Not likely to win anything that way. Not likely to win anything at all.”
Danny’s father narrowed his eyes and wrinkled his nose. He locked his sons’s eyes in his own gaze and held still, stiffening his shoulders. Danny said, “I know, I know. It’s what I signed up for. It’s what I wanted, to be a professional footballer, to play for the Royals, but I also wanted to win something, Dad. A cup, a medal, a little ribbon, something.”
Mr. Hooper leaned forward, and Danny said, “I said I know.”
Then Danny’s father spoke. “Aldershot Taylor has the imagination of a horse. Since you lads were boys, I’ve seen his methods: his idea of a side is nine of the biggest boys he can find and two of the fastest.”
Danny waited for his dad to finish, because he knew he wasn’t finished.
“The nine of you graft and grind and kick the ball up to the fast ones. For decades, Danny, for decades...”
This was Mr. Hooper’s version of a speech, and he was now most likely done speaking for a week. He took a drink from his third pint.
“I’ll go play in Holland,” Danny said. “It’s not so far away. And it’s real football. I could help some nice Dutch club win a trophy. I’ll—”
Danny’s father made an incredulous face.
“Why not?”
Mr. Hooper used his ear-twitch to say, Seriously? You can’t play in Holland.
“I could do.”
Mr. Hooper’s crinkled chin said, They wouldn’t have you.
“Well, I can’t stay in this league forever.”
Mr. Hooper raised an eyebrow.
“What?” Danny asked.
Danny’s dad raised the other eyebrow, just to be perfectly clear.
“The mines?” Danny said. “No, Dad. Not the mines.”
The elder Hooper surprised Danny and spoke out loud again: “Danny, your options are few. You play for this club because you’re big and you’re strong and you’re from here. No one else is calling for you, are they? You lads can’t even beat Bloat County. It’s Albion until you’re hurt, and then it’s the mines for you, my son. Unless something happens that neither of us sees coming.” Now he was done for the week.
Danny put his hand up in the air, which he did only to call for offsides or to get his hands on one more round.
* A NOTE ON DIRE VALE UNITED FOOTBALL CLUB: As of the 1975–76 season, the club held the remarkable distinction of being the only known footballing organization on the planet to have finished twelfth in every league competition they had ever entered. This had come to light all the way back in 1903, after the team finished twelfth in the Mid-Maidenfoot Alliance Second Division, despite a unique playoff system in which the teams were re-seeded after each match and the contests were scored by judges based on foot speed and playing style. In time, the club’s management determined to build the squad based on a stated desire to finish in twelfth each year without ever being suspected of throwing a match; United’s unique aims put them in the awkward position of paying exorbitant transfer fees for players of what the club deemed “exactly our kind of mediocrity.”
The next Saturday afternoon, a late February Saturday afternoon, brought godforsaken Dire Vale United to the Auld Moors football ground for an FA Cup Fifth Round tie. As festive as a Fifth Round FA Cup tie might be, especially for a club like East Southwich Albion, the Auld Moors on a late February Saturday afternoon is still the Auld Moors on a late February Saturday afternoon, no matter the stakes: the creaky old ground, which was reaching an age of possibly preferring to be left alone, emitted the familiar odor of breaded fish, woolly perspiration, and Bovril—roughly the same odor as an East Southwich man of similar age let off on a Saturday afternoon. Danny inhaled the oil-saturated fish, the sweat of old men, the liquefied meat, and thought some version of what he always thought at two minutes to three o’clock on a Saturday afternoon: I’ve been dipped in England.
Despite its forever-midtable/lower-league grimness, the Auld Moors, festooned in bunting and ribbons and pennants and flowers, did seem to bring a little extra something this particular FA Cup Saturday. Elderly East Southwichmen wore blue rosettes and buttons and badges on their bulky coats and caps, testifying to their long and mostly dissatisfying relationship with the club. Ten or fifteen papier-mâché one-legged cockerels* of varying size and quality made their ways through the crowd, across the fingertips of eager supporters desperate to see the town’s and the club’s talisman brought to some measurable glory. Local women wore floppy blue hats and the mystified smiles of people who weren’t entirely sure how to support a winner, if that was indeed