StCoreline Man sat two rows from me to land a non-covenant from a dozen parties a year. He had a battered and weather-beaten face and always wore a dove-gray, Velcro-belted, pantyhose. In my mind I called him the Cozy Shoe Man. Nodding to each other on arrival and departure, we either raised our eyebrows, and in recognition of the dirty 0-0 rue-necked yoke we returned, or an unfortunate defeat.
The only time we talked after one of those, a brilliant 0-3 in which the home side hit the woodwork so many times in the second period, was almost a drum roll. “Unfortunate,” I said. Cozy Shoe Man pulled a face. “One of those things that doesn’t reflect on the scoreline in any way,” he replied in a low, nasal tone. Later I thought of him as the Scoreline man. Scoreline Man has been a small fixture in my life for twelve years. Then one matchday was not there. I did not go there the next time, nor the next, and soon the noticeable absence ceased.
One of my legions of fans is a fairly familiar acquaintance, but never a friend. In the same high ground, always wet, a cap, lonely as a barn, clung to the fences of the perimeter like a sailor in a storm. At each pair, after he has advanced to the middle, he exclaims once, “Go, boys, dig,” in a drum as melancholy as the fatal howl of a wild dog as an encouragement. The Dig Deep Bloke disappeared sometime after a 1-0 home win in the FA Vase over a crowd of swearing blokes from the South Yorkshire coalfields.
In a seat across the gallery sat a middle-aged man with a turret, worn-out ears, and a dog so small that it might have been a gerbil, which cried out in a shrill voice like a starling: “Apage. , liner, what’s the matter with yes?” They all follow the offside. (“Ah, here’s a WAG,” the bloke in front of me would point out without fail after the first time.) The tiny lady dog went under one relegation period and never came back. WAG Lad – balding and emitting the smell of throat lozenges – is still there, although the catchphrase is missing. There are dozens, probably hundreds, of others who have gone MIA from my life over the past four decades – who is being asked? A new job? A new relationship? A new beginning? Death, madness, DIY? I never knew my daughter-in-law well enough.
Last week, near where the Scoreline Man once sat, I sat down with one of the supporters I know enough to be happy enough to talk to about football for 90 minutes, but not well enough to be aware of their job or marital status, or indeed where they live (because such things are of minor importance (you can argue when goalie gloves started, or the shot of local TV football presenter George Taylor recalled false teeth).
“I’m glad to see you,” he said, with unexpected enthusiasm, “because you know this new center they got at Sunderland? Well, you and I had a Northumbria Senior Cup game together in December 2019. Do you remember him?” I shook my head. “To be honest,” I said, “I hardly remember the game.”
“Neither,” he said, “me. “But when they said what teams were playing, I saw it in my file.” “Your document?” I said. “It’s really a little silly,” he said, “but I come to every game, photograph the teamsheets, the players I take an action and write down a note of the score, who watched the game and who was the best player, then I will save it on the computer.
I was about 40 matches at the time, but compared to this guy I was a lightweight, a weekend warrior. “And you do that for every game?” He nodded. “This is going to be a big package,” I said. “Yes indeed,” he said with pride. “They were definitely in the megabyte field.”
Now I wonder if I even made the file. There is no such thing as a football player, but an author. Because hope is often a place, we come to escape our daily fears, to succeed with others that are more temporary and less terrifying. Each of these, present or noticed, plays a small part in keeping us healthy. Some deserve to be remembered.