did better than that. I raised my knees and tried to press them against my chest, but the pain in my lower back was searing.
“Aaah … fuck it!”
“Sorry, Eric,” said Shona, tears streaking her make-up. “I’m so sorry.”
“We’d better get him to hospital,” sighed Dave.
What a way to spend Grand Final night.
* * *
I lay in a warm, fluffy cloud, suffused in a golden glow.
Shona and Dave were laughing and chatting, but after the Pethidine, my conversation skills were a bit sub par. I just lay back on my cloud, tuning in every now and then.
It was good of Dave to stay so long. He was missing Grand Final night himself, but he seemed happy enough laughing and chatting with Shona. I suppose I should’ve mentioned the money earlier, but I hadn’t quite gotten over Jimmy’s death yet. And I felt unclean swapping Jimmy for money.
I’ve never known anyone who loved the game like Jimmy. He was still playing in his sixties and it was only dodgy knees that forced him to give the game away. I’ll never forget the night that he finally accepted the fact he had played his last game. He wasn’t emotional, he just talked quietly about Stanley Matthews, and how he’d still been playing professionally in his fifties.
“You’re never too old, lad,” he’d muttered in his soft Geordie accent, wincing in occasional pain. “You don’ stop playin’ joos ‘cause soom fooker says you’re too old. There’s summat we get from football we can’t get from anythin’ else, an’ yer a long time retired.”
He didn’t hang up his new boots, though. He gave them to me. He’d only worn them a couple of times - top of the line professional screwins with three sets of studs for different conditions. I always preferred moulded myself so I’d never worn them.
I smiled, returning from my golden cloud as Shona laughed at one of Dave’s jokes.
Jimmy had always trained me until I’d made my first rep team. I’d loved playing in goal from the start, but Jimmy had forced me to play in two teams at once for several years - keeper in one team, striker in the other to learn what strikers were up against - how they went about the business of scoring goals. And I did enjoy scoring goals, but it wasn’t the same as keeping ‘em out. A keeper’s an individual.
But playing up front had given me some insights which helped get me selected in a series of rep teams in my early teens, and by the age of 16
I was playing 1st Division State League for Kuringai. This culminated in an offer to trial with Man Utd:
15 October
Eric Judd
42 Dutch Way
Wahroonga
Dear Eric,
We’ve read the recommendation from our scout in Australia (Mr Warren). We would be prepared to give you a trial if you can get yourself to Manchester.Come as soon as you are ready, and bring this letter with you.
Yours sincerely,
John Argyle
Youth Team Coach
Manchester United FC
The 15th of October was my birthday. It seemed like an omen.
About a month later, the day I was to pay for my ticket to England, I’d finished work early and was racing through one of the local parks to get to the shopping centre at Hornsby, where the travel agent was…
It’s hard to think about what happened next.
I didn’t play football for a couple of years, and I could have played at the highest level in Australia. No doubts about that. But I just wanted to play with the mates who’d looked after me. We started out playin’ Premier League in the Gladesville-Hornsby comp. Then a couple of years later, the nucleus of the team had moved to Dartford Town, a small club in the lower reaches of the New South Wales State League. We won promotion most years, but we never made it out of 2nd Division into the State Super League. After a couple of years in the 2nd Division, I was the only one left of the original bunch of mates who’d all fallen by the wayside due to work, family, injury or the simple facts of time. At 30, I was part of the furniture and oblivious to the needs of Manchester United (who seemed to be doing alright without me). I just kept playing.
Mr Cleansheets, they called me. At six foot two, I was the perfect height and build for a keeper; big enough to dominate the box, but not too big to get down quickly. Jimmy always said it was my reflexes that set me apart - that, and my ability to read the game and be in the right place at the right time. The non-goalkeeping public always think of the flashy, agile keepers when identifying their favourites. Only a goalkeeper knows that the real skill lies in anticipation, positioning and timing. The perfect performance by a keeper could, in theory, involve no diving at all. But as I’ve said before, just catching a ball does not compare with diving full length and tipping it round for a corner.
Yeah. Manchester United.
I didn’t even follow United, to tell the truth. I’d always divided my affections between Arsenal, Newcastle and Hibs, but United (at least in terms of revenue) were the biggest club in the world. It wouldn’t be bad to give up carrying fridges and pianos and just play football - especially if that’s what Jimmy wanted.
I found myself staring at Shona, dimly aware that the drugs were making me stupid.
“Shona …”
She broke from her animated discussion with Dave, and her face changed as she remembered my plight.
“How are you feeling, Eric?”
“I’m gonna play for Manchester United.”
Dave laughed out loud, but Shona turned white. She knew me better than he did.
FOOLHARDY IN THE EXTREME
“You have no choice, Mr Judd.”
I waited for the doctor to smile, to show he was pulling my leg.
“I’m sorry. Could you repeat that?”
His expression never changed, and I suppose I should not be expecting humour when everything is so pervaded by the serious smell of disinfectant, and the distant beeping of serious machines.
“You have no choice, Mr Judd. You have suffered significant trauma around the disks L4 and L5. The disks themselves are quite worn… almost as though you had spent your whole life carrying heavy weights or jumping about and falling over all the time.”
“Well, my work is— ”
“There is also,” he interrupted, “evidence of severe trauma in the past. This is not your first spinal injury, is it?”
Shona turned to me with raised eyebrows, but I just sat there blankly. The doctor grew tired of waiting: “In any case, if we don’t do something now to shore up the damage, you risk
