Who’s Your Captain?
The big brummie struggles out of the car wearing a smirk so empty that for a fleeting second, sympathy creeps into my emotional palette, diluting the red intensity of blood lust.
I think of The Green Mile; all eyes on the condemned as he drags those big, shackled feet along the cold stone of the death row floor. The awful silence of looming mortality.
In March, our fantasy football league loser was cruising in mid-table, enjoying his leisurely season tour from the top deck of his 80-point buffer. But it can change that quickly.
***
Dad asks if my brother and I have chosen our teams, and we hand over two scraps of ruled notebook paper, on which we’ve each scrawled eleven footballer names ahead of the 1995/96 season. We say nothing, just await further instruction on how to play this game we’ve heard of.
Dad mutters as he works through the newspaper fantasy football rules, jotting things down. He tells us the official rules are too complicated, so he’s simplified them for our maximum enjoyment. That afternoon, we watch the game with – for the first time in our young, untainted football fandom – a vested interest. How it works is, your chosen players will gain fantasy football points for a real-life goal, assist, or a clean sheet. You lose points for a yellow or red card. We sit there, making little notes next to our selections as BBC Radio 5 Live keeps us up to date with the latest scores from around the grounds.
***
Our loser shuffles up to the frisky pack of competitors, and as the administrator of the league, I step out, shake his hand, and jam a tiny top hat into his hand. It has an elastic chin strap to keep it on during the forfeit. Then I reveal a red clown nose which hoots when you press it. I squeak it once as he opens his hand to accept it. It’s a tired, sad noise, like those tragic England air horns at major tournaments during a bleak 0-0 with a country they really should be pounding. It is worse than that here in Lancashire on a grey, miserable day. It conjures only a couple of laughs. I can’t be sure whether the yelp that squeaks out of our league loser’s mouth as he stares at the red nose is a laugh or the breaking of his emotional dam.
***
We play this way for a number of seasons, self-governed and informal, between the three of us. We are allowed to make (three) transfers only at Christmas. I find myself mainly bottom, largely thanks to my inability to choose a simple 11 comprised of the likeliest players to score points. The romance of sexy new signings from distant lands and exciting academy graduates nobody else knows about, bursting onto the scene bedazzles me into crazy, maverick choices. I choose Ian Walker over Peter Schmeichel because of his curtains-hairstyle and neon green goalkeeper shirt. Faustino Asprilla gets the nod over Shearer, Fowler, and Cantona because of the BBC news highlight reel they run when he signs for Newcastle United, and Tony Yeboah’s place in my team is never in doubt. I want his points volleyed straight down my doubting father’s throat.
I get moody when it backfires, and my dad asks what I was thinking. I screw up my little sheet, mock wipe my arse with it, then open it up again because re-writing it would feel like school lines in detention.
***.
Our loser tells us that upon leaving the house he informed his partner that the nature of the forfeit for finishing bottom of our league was a surprise for his arrival. That was a lie. I drew up the bad tattoo depicting three cartoon-llamas five weeks ago whilst sunning myself in Spain, the dismal culmination of a private league joke not worth explaining. She said to him,
‘Have fun, just don't come back in a police car or with a tattoo!’ Upon this leaked detail, a crackle of stifled sniggers bursts into the air like a radio passing over some distant station. Then it’s gone, and we all begin to cross the road where the tattoo parlour awaits our booked party.
We buy packs of cookies and sugary drinks from the newsagent next door especially for the event, but the laughter abruptly stops when he tells us he is scared of needles. Making our way past bronzed, confused faces in the beauticians on the ground floor, the procession of grown men heads upstairs to the studio where hearts, anchors, and skulls hang from the walls on paper sheets; highlights of the owner’s work. He tells us this is easily the most warped project he’s had to date as he pulls on black latex gloves.
***
I leave home and go to university. By now, some people have started playing fantasy football on the internet. We keep the family league going, but the stakes escalate when I meet other people with mini-leagues and agree to join them. I tell myself I won’t get so wound up if I lose to these new friends, but who am I kidding? It doesn’t take long. Long days on the beer, getting to know each other better, and the same old questions about my silly selections lead to heightened competition. Eventually, I try to make a serious effort to apply my reasonable football knowledge to the fantasy game and unsurprisingly achieve a couple of decent placings, relying on spines such as Drogba, Van Persie, and Ronaldo. But I find template teams dull. Aside from one mini-league runner-up placing and a top 60k finish, the returns for my safety-first approach are not enough, and I relapse into a succession of big gambles for only rare payoffs. One thing is crystal clear: fantasy Premier League brings an abundance of pain and minimal, tainted pleasure. I start to suggest light-hearted forfeits for league losers. Things change for good.
***
The mood shifts. Schoolyard glee descends into silent apprehension. The morals start to feel questionable in the cold light of day, offline and face to face. In our secret fantasy football league Facebook group, it was all harmless fun. Now, as the ginger brummie is lowered face down onto the table, his clown face threaded into the hole from which panic breaths will emit like whale song, nervous glances are traded between adults, fathers, and professionals who concede this has gone too far.
His pants come off and he’s wearing The Simpsons boxer shorts and Mr. Happy socks, but even this lazy swipe at good humour fails to hide the fact that we are behaving like some kind of secret cult.
One over-excited member of the league plays a circus anthem from his phone and another streams the event live for those members of our sordid little community who could not make today.
The buzz of the needle starts up and all we can do is watch as the forfeit commences. On the backside of a person I’ve met only twice, who I may not see for years to come, my drawing is being painfully, permanently inscribed as if it were the name of a loved one, all because he could not successfully predict the performance of Premier League players. For the man with trembling skin and twitching feet on the sacrificial table, life will never be the same. Not one person in this room will forget what they are a part of today.
Look at what they make you give.
***
During our weekly phone call, my dad and I touch upon fantasy Premier League, but I am thankful he cannot see the ceramic arse I baked, which sits on my windowsill, upon the silver platter I bought from the charity shop. Nobody in our mini-league wants that monstrosity chuffing away on their windowsill, but if they finish bottom, that’s exactly what will happen. My brother moves to the same university and the depravity spreads like a virus. Our sibling rivalry serves to amplify the already immense pressure on a game marketed as fun. I set up a secret Facebook group for the league, where we can really let loose, and fuel is lashed onto an already raging fire. Football becomes mere context. No, camouflage. People get in touch having heard about this high-stakes league, where winner and loser have to negotiate a forfeit, and we are not talking hired costumes from a fancy-dress shop. No. In this league, it’s nastier than that. They want in. Most regret it, but cannot bring themselves to walk away. In the outside world, we wink and nod, but nobody speaks of it.
***
The club managers who rest their stars ahead of a Champion’s League fixture, the overpaid players who put on weight in the summer should understand the consequences of their actions.
Back in 1996, I had no sex life to impede. No such thing as this; sitting quietly, lurching over my phone, tinkering with my front three on the bus, reading online opinion blogs written by grimy teenagers with pale skin in pursuit of an edge over the competition. The closest thing to a career I had was school and I simply didn’t care about that. Most of the back pages of my exercise books were covered with handwritten football team sheets and formations where there should have been algebra.
With a life attached to football comes inevitable pain and dangerous obsession. This fantasy football subculture is a dangerous data-driven disconnect from the football culture we love, built on the human experience.
We all stop eating our snacks, drinking our drinks, and surrender to the finality of the buzzing tattoo needle as it ruins a good man. When he is finished, he stands up and gasps, a pitiful attempt at good humour. He has tears in his eyes and stutters when he speaks. We surround him and pat his back, hug him, tell him “Well done, pal.”
In our world, that man is a hero.
Out there it’s grounds for divorce.