“Did you go last night, then?”

God almighty. I’d only been in there two minutes before the kid, with his spiky hair and face, attempted City-related conversation. I’d been dreading it since I’d woken up, having to force myself out of bed with every fibre of my being. “Just think of the money”, the wife sez. “I can’t,” I say. “He’s poisoning me with the sound of his voice.” So it goes.

He tries hard, bless him. He has a cup of coffee ready for me in time for my shift, but then spoils this by thinking that welcoming me by saying I “look like shit” is some kind of office ‘banter’. Apparently I look even worse than he feels, what with him having to suffer watching City ‘reserves’ lose to Macclesfield. He paid money to do this, too. Why the hell he believes this to be of interest to me is something someone else will have to tell me. I grumble something about how Hull City are generally shit, but especially shit in the League Cup. They’re often even shitter when playing against Macclesfield and this, to me, is the natural order of things. He counters that a side like City shouldn’t be losing to teams like Macclesfield, and I notice my eye is making a displeasing clicking sound whenever I blink.

I find myself defending Macclesfield Town to the kid. A cursory glance at Division Four for the first time in years revealed all manner of insanity. No Mansfield, for a start. No York, either. There was fucking Crawley, Stevenage, even some team of elite superfans who’d managed to attain FL status in only ten years. Christ, I thought, even Ella Street will be in the Football League soon. Imagine playing them cunts in the League Cup. At least Macclesfield had the audacity to loan us Kyle Lightbourne at a time when we were the supposed rich kids of the lower-leagues before, in an almost twee attempt at post-modern Dolanism, signing both Alan Fettis and Steve Wilson to vye for their goalkeeping jersey.  But then, the kid ain’t angry at Macclesfield. He’s angry because he’s paid money to watch some Euro-trialists and young offenders lose a football match. Well, that’s his fucking problem. He shouldn’t have shacked up with her if he was so keen to avoid her on Tuesday nights.

I check my emails. There’s one written in red font from some team-leader type, advising me to be more swift on my toilet breaks. It occurred to me that the only time I get away from the kid is when I’m on the crapper. Fuck this. I went for a fifteen minute walk around the building. When I returned, he launched straight in there.

“If you were Nigel Pearson, would you play Jimmy Bullard?”, he asks.

For whatever reason, he’s taken my opinion on football-related stuff to mean something. Just like he did with the riots in London. He’s asking me what I think, feel, what the Government should do. Get the army in, he says. Hell, I tell him I couldn’t give a fuck if the Chinks stormed us. I’d still be pushing paper around with these tedious cunts the next day.

“Well, I wanted to join the army, I failed a medical, that’s why I’m doing this job.”

Figures. The only reason any of us are in that building is because we failed a medical. In my case it was for an Incapacity Benefit claim. Listening to him bluster on, I’m reminded of when we played Derby in the League Cup in 2001. Back in the day when, like now, the League Cup meant nothing to anyone, but we’d still manage to convince ourselves that beating Crystal Palace in 1997 was a giant-killing. The Derby game was in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, and every red-faced gobshite in Pride Park stepped out of their secure realm of televised sports and considered themselves an authority on world politics. London’s going to be bombed tomorrow, they said. Twitchily texting bulletins to friends at home, as if they’d received word of imminent evacuation. Ringing home and officiously telling their wives to keep the windows locked. You couldn’t smoke in Pride Park, either.

It was a bad night.

I’m now stuck here, almost ten years to the day, with this kid, trying to decide whether I wanted him to stick with sports cliches or move on to knee-jerk tabloid speak. I feel the beginnings of an unappetising sweatpatch under my right arm. I haven’t come very far, I thought. Rather like Hull City.

(DL)