An assistant coach comments on Big John’s yoga practice
Outside a training room, some years ago in England: “At first we were quite skeptical, of course, of John’s unorthodox methods, but, well, pfff, the results speak for themselves, don’t they? Imagine my surprise, pushing open the door to see all the lads on their backs, clasping their feet with their hands, legs splayed wide and John at the front of the squad chanting ‘happy baby happy baby happy baby’ with that huge grin on his gob. All those bulging crotches and waving limbs. No, of course John didn’t demonstrate the moves himself. How did he teach them? Here, see, he’s made these little posing figurines out of clay. Didn’t you know he has his own kiln?”
Big John’s wife Patricia feeds the dogs
Three in total, all mongrels, yip-yapping at the door from the back garden. Occasionally smashing their noses into it, causing the latch to go thwack, thwack. They can see Patricia filling the bowls, and the anticipation has them in spasms. One, a short-haired bulky bitch John christened Firebird, clamps a mangled squeak toy in her mouth and drags it back and forth, painting and repainting a wide stripe of saliva across the glass. “She’s his favorite,” Patricia says while putting the kettle on. She’s got a trim figure for a woman her age, with toned arms and legs and a smart, tight haircut that frames her narrow face. “He found her when he went to Greece after all that unpleasantness with the newspaper. He’d been moping around here for months. Never seen him like that before. Saying he felt like he was in a cloud. I told him, get out of here. Get some sun to clear your head. And what does he do? Finds a malnourished stray riddled with worms. Brings her all the way back here.”
Patricia opens the door and the dogs barrel in and swarm underfoot. Growling and slobbering, they knock about under the table and topple a wooden chair. Patricia sighs. Her teacup has little cartoon Corgis chasing each other around the rim. “The scandal nearly ended him. Hidden cameras, the cheeky bastards. Though they’ve apologized since, the damage was done. Doesn’t matter that what they’d been talking about was legal and said in confidence, I have to add. It looked bad, and that was enough when you’re at the top like John was.”
Firebird heaves her body against the door and explodes back outside. She soon corners a rabbit in the back of the garden. It tries to dart past her along the fence, but Firebird snatches it by the neck. She looks back to the house for guidance. Patricia blows a little air out her nose. “I told him, what’s done is done. There’s only forward. Even when you kick a ball backwards, you’re still advancing the game. You have to talk in his terms, you see.”
Big John ponders the long ball
He lets everyone think it bothers him because, like many trivial facets of life, it amuses him. But don’t let yourself fall for it – Big John has no quarrel with being labeled a “long ball merchant.” The media, ugh, the media, call the strategy primitive, but he knows it’s simply direct. Cover the ground, shrink that distance. Trust your forwards! Your best lads! The beautiful bastards that capture the pass and bloody do something with it on their end. Nevermind they (and the whole squad for that matter) can get away with just about any misconduct off the pitch. Their narrow lives are under the microscope for entertaining the masses, but they never suffer any real consequences. Bah. The long ball simplifies the game. Who needs all that midfield nonsense? Midfield is for the birds. Seagulls. If he could teleport himself to the seaside, he would. Enjoy a whole pint of wine with Pat, put his feet up in the sunshine. If he could skip the long debriefs, the insipid interviews, shit tea and hard biscuits, get right to the action, he would. Is he an impatient man? No. Perfectly practical. The world is choked with fools.
Big John’s father, Dr. Richard
His father, an equally sturdy and substantial man named Richard, was a well-respected physician specialized in matters of the kidney. In the back half of a long and decorated career, Dr. Richard took on only mysterious cases, the truly baffling illnesses that defied Aesculapian expertise, like some British Dr. House without the painkiller addiction. As an example, one patient, a young girl who had undergone a year of unsuccessful and brutal chemotherapy for a renal tumor, wheeled herself into his office with emaciated arms, and, with great effort, reached up and gingerly hung the last scrap of her hope on his caduceus. Dr. Richard poured some tea and sat down with her thick file. By the end of the week, the tests he’d ordered confirmed his suspicions that the culprit was a medullary sponge kidney, a benign congenital condition that creates masses mimicking cancer, and that all of the girl’s maladies were iatrogenic. Twisted and enfeebled by misplaced cures, the girl wept caustic tears of joy, kissed Dr. Richard on the mouth, and went on to live a full and healthy life as a financial analyst. This and other prodigious instances displayed Dr. Richard’s knack for solving tangled nephrological riddles, won him several international awards and recognitions, and put West Midlands Hospital on the map as a Delphic destination for the renally despondent. He raised his three boys, two of whom are practicing physicians, under the ethical banners of “no case too hopeless” and “simple solutions for complex problems,” an ideology that surely explains why for the last three and a half decades Big John has resuscitated, reinvented, and resurrected athletic lost causes, why a third-tier football club such as Granksby Town FC, an obstreperous lot of filthy hooligans who spent more time brawling in the pub than training on the grounds, could rise to the Premier League in two seasons under Big John’s firm and loving guidance.
Big John scrolls through social media posts about himself shortly after the scandal
“HA. No. God no. Not at all. Good heavens. Hahaha! What rubbish! Got every detail wrong save one. Typical. Oh! Haha! Oh, o-oh my, that’s a good one. Saving that one to my smile file. Smile file! Ahahaha! You like that one, eh? In my office I have a real physical one full of humorous images and newspaper clippings, alphabetized like a Rolodex. You ever seen a Rolodex? No, you’re far too young. Rolo. Dex. Wonder what they called those in West Sussex. Rolosussex, Rolo, Rolo…oh dear me, look at this, will you? What? Sorry, the interview, right. You asked how I feel about losing my position as the national team manager? Bloody stupid question.” He sighs and continues scrolling, using one hand to cradle the phone and the index finger of his other hand to fling the feed across the screen. The violent swiping is audible. “You never forget what they did to you. When you’ve been stitched up you’ve been stitched up. What rot, eh? Here’s another. Look. No. I say no to that one. And another no. Yes. No. No. No. Yes. Everything in life can be reduced to yes or no. Everything under the sun is a binary choice when you really boil it down. When you really squeeze it, it’s always yes or no. You will or you won’t. You either play defense or you don’t.”
Big John in Spain
Mediterranean sunshine on Big John’s pink arms. Nothing but a big, strong Agua de Valencia on the glass patio table beside him. It’s a special day, one where he’s locked up the phone and laptop along with his regrets. Time for the Benidorm Open Water Race. A true delight, a highlight of the year, and he can watch the swimmers from start to finish with his telescope from his villa terrace. He presses the viewfinder to his eye socket. The ferry, laden with competitors in aquadynamic swimwear, has almost reached L’Illa de Benidorm, a rock an angry giant hurled five kilometers from mainland. He fumbles for his cocktail without taking his eye off the boat. There she is. Pat, his wife of forty-one years, her white swim cap with the yellow vinyl flowers a beacon blasting straight to his heart. He holds the scope steady as she disembarks, mills about with the others until a silent order is given and three hundred people dive into the sea. Return to me, he mouths, and tilts his head back to laugh. It takes him a moment to find her again. Her tan, beautiful arms cut the impossibly blue water and splash fractions of sun like jewels behind her. Soon he will saunter down the cliff steps to the beach below, the finish line, with an oversized, sun-warmed towel and another Agua de Valencia, this one for her, but not just yet. He adjusts the lens to see her face turn away, turn toward him, away again, every other stroke a chance to behold her face, ecstatic.
A sacked manager cedes control of his team to Big John
“My, er, the players will respect him, of course. They’re professionals. And Big John’s a big, big guy. You see him on the telly – he fills the whole screen. Just try reading the advertisements on the wall behind him. Where have they gone? You can’t see them.”
A supporter recounts the Fiore Ragazzo incident from last Saturday
“It was a bit confusing if you didn’t see it on replay, I’ll give you that. What happened was Ragazzo made a stupid challenge and got tied up with, like, three defenders, right. One of them had his arm out for balance and tapped Ragazzo, who was behind him, on the chin. Next thing you know, Ragazzo’s rolling around on the floor, over and over, like a lathe. Then flopping about like a fish! And gripping his face with both hands like he’d been hit with a bat! I was right behind the dugout, so I saw it all, I did. Big John was at the edge of the box, about twenty feet away from it all, and he’s laughing at Ragazzo. Like, big booming laughs you could hear over the chaos of the whole stadium. Ragazzo peeps out from behind his fingers to see if the ref is coming, if his teammates are trying to help, anything, but there’s no foul. No call at all. Then the grass must have fallen out of his ears because his face, like, changes. He hears it. The laughter. It’s like time slowed down. I saw his dark little eyes lock onto Big John. And it’s too unbelievable what happens next: Ragazzo gets up and actually charges towards him, like he’s going to sock him one. And what does Big John do? He puts his hands on his hips, legs apart, and laughs harder. Like barking. Mental! Fucking love that guy. He’s not afraid of someone whose name means Flower Boy. He’s not afraid of anyone.”
