Judd (from the plane - first class)
“Last o’ the great romantics, so ye are,” smiled Bernice.
“Dunno what else to say,” I said. “She’s not me girlfriend.”
“No,” said Bernice. “Just the first girl ya thought of.”
* * *
I was deliberately late to training. I wanted to have a bit of a look at the guys before I reintroduced myself to the world of football. Southern Conference was semi-pro, after all. Probably about the same level as State Super League back in New South Wales - a level I’d never reached (despite being easily good enough).
Watching from a small copse on the far side of the field from the shed, they looked the same as any other bunch of guys who took the game reasonably seriously - standing around chatting - having a laugh before the coach showed up. Jaffa was clearly the centre of attention, and from his movements, I could tell he was acting out the incident in the bar at lunch time.
It was right on 5.30 - getting dark and a definite chill in the air.
The idea of training was suddenly extremely unattractive to me, but something very strange happened. I had more or less made up my mind to give the whole thing a miss, but as I started walking, I found myself moving towards the group of footballers, rather than away from them as I (thought I had) intended.
A bit of a silence fell as I approached. Jaffa gave me a grin and said,
“‘Ere ‘e is! Eric Judd. The Great White Hope!”
I was introduced to the boys but most of the names went in one ear and out the other, with a couple of exceptions. The oldest bloke there (besides me) was Trevor. He would’ve been late 30s and I already knew from Jaffa that he’d actually played for Oxford United in the old third division (now League 1) in his younger days. Could’ve been a star, according to Jaffa, but too fond of the bevvy. Most of the other blokes had similar stories - lots of talent and opportunity in the past but always frittered away or lost via the bad luck or stupidity of youth.
Trevor was a Souness-like hardman midfielder and captain of the Bentham United Reserves, and the only one to shake hands with me.
“‘Ear yer can play a bit.”
“Used to,” I said, inwardly weeping at the vocalisation of retirement.
“Used to, bollocks,” scoffed Jaffa. “Yer did alright this afternoon. Kept two outta three out.”
“Actually, it was three out of three.”
“Fahk off,” laughed Jaffa.
Another name I noted was Dennis: a tallish, blondish bloke who played left half for the first team and was also a chemistry grad who’d done nine months for possession of laboratory paraphernalia and precursor chemicals. Dennis just sort of nodded vacantly in a manner that could have been either a polite acknowledgment of my presence, or an answer to voices within.
Then, two skinny Latin types sauntered over, exuding all the natural arrogance and style of their race.
“This is the Santos brothers: Juan Pablo and Juan Marco,” introduced Jaffa.
Jaffa had told me about these blokes too: fantastic ball players but incorrigible thieves and pants men. No-one ever knew for sure that they’d turn up for a match, and they didn’t look like brothers. And upon being introduced to a stranger seemed a trifle furtive.
“You’re brothers?” I asked.
They looked at each other.
“Si,” said Juan Pablo.
“And you’re both called Juan?”
They looked at each other again.
“Our family ees verra close,” explained Juan Marco.
The first grade goalkeeper was Charlie, known as Charlie the Cat. He was off with the reserve keeper, Col Cochrane (Cockie) going through some of the same stretches as I had always done before training, and I was suddenly itching to join them. But at that moment, the laughter and banter stopped as a bloke in his late fifties or early sixties strode into our midst.
“What the fack is this?” he exclaimed in exasperated cockney. “It’s gone ‘alf-fahkin’-past and yer still gas-baggin’!”
Without another word, the entire group took off on the traditional warm-up laps, with the exception of me and Jaffa.
“Awright, Ronnie?” asked Jaffa.
“Oo the fahk is this?” responded Ron Wellard, the Bentham manager, as I tentatively held out my hand.
“Eric Judd, from Australia,” I replied.
“What you want?”
“‘E’s come to train,” said Jaffa.
“If that’s okay,” I added.
“Train? Yer fahkin’ older than me mate,” said Ronnie, then waved a dismissive hand at us. “Well fahk off then. Four laps, Jaffa.”
“Come on,” said Jaffa, shoving me in the direction of the other blokes, and still not entirely sure whether I’d been given permission (“fuck off” could be so ambiguous), I trailed after Jaffa - plodding along and immediately feeling the ill-effects of jetlag and bugger all training over the weeks of my recovery from the back injury.
At the end of the first lap, I was already puffing. Jaffa had sprinted ahead to join the others, but two of them dropped back and nodded at me, plodding alongside for half a lap. These two definitely were brothers - Billy and Gareth - nephews of Mervyn, so doubtless also members of the Irish mafia that seemed to infest this part of London.
“Jaffa tells us yer ‘ad a bit o’ bother today,” said Gareth.
Billy and Gareth were both young and fit, and very hard. Billy would’ve been six foot and Gareth slightly older and shorter, and for all my expertise with my fists, I wouldn’t have liked taking on either of ‘em.
“Just a bit,” I puffed, not wanting to have to talk too much with two and a half laps to go.
“Blue Fury?” asked Billy.
“Think so.”
We plodded on for another half lap or so.
“Mervyn’ll wanna see yer later … back at the club,” advised Gareth, and the two of them sped up again, leaving me to finish as best I could. In fact, I was lapped by the main group at the end of three laps, so that seemed like enough. But instead of standing around stretching - getting a breather like I’d always done in the past - it was straight into sprint work. We took off in threes, at intervals of five seconds, sprinting twenty meters and then jogging back to the end of the line to go again. There were about 30 at training so you had a breather of about 20 seconds before you had to sprint.
It was never enough. After
