Wings of a Sparrow

  Rob began to feel his nerves dissipating and his irritation rising. Normally in such a situation, he would have climbed out and had a go at the driver but this time, he simply smiled to himself.

  ‘Right you fucker,’ he muttered. ‘You just made my shit list.’

  He glanced around, noting with some satisfaction that people were looking in his direction and then eased the car forward. Rob was about to head for the main car park when he suddenly realised that directly in front of him was an empty space, the legend Chairman painted on the wall at the rear. His grin widened slightly and he headed directly for it.

  ‘Let the fun begin,’ he said out loud to himself.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Rob had only managed to place one foot on the floor when he noticed a man approaching at a rapid rate. He looked at least 60, wore clothes which had possibly never seen a washing machine let alone an iron and a Day-Glo green tabard which might as well have had Jobsworth written across the back.

  ‘You can’t park there,’ he shouted. ‘That’s the chairman’s slot.’

  Rob stood up and looked him up and down. The old man’s cheeks were covered in little red veins, while his nose bore the slightly pink hue of someone who likes a pint or three. Judging from his yellow stained fingers, he also liked a fag or two.

  ‘Yes, I know,’ said Rob calmly. ‘It says Chairman on the wall.’

  ‘So you can’t park there,’ replied the attendant. His voice lowered into a slightly aggressive tone.

  Rob smiled, warming to his task. He desperately wanted to make reference to the fact that the chairman the old boy was referring to would shortly be out of a job so his parking space was going to be the least of his worries. Instead, he pushed his car door closed and simply walked past the attendant toward the entrance. The old man followed in his wake, his anger rapidly turning into rage status.

  ‘Oi, I’m talking to you,’ he said. ‘If you don’t shift that heap of shit I’ll have it towed.’

  Although conscious of the fact that the ranting car park attendant was clearly attracting an audience, Rob continued to ignore him and after taking a deep breath and thinking once more unto the breach to himself, he walked into the foyer.

  Once inside he stopped and glanced around for a second. It was exactly as he’d imagined and dreaded. Pictures of every player and manager he had ever hated stared down at him, taunting him with memories of defeats, last-minute goals and even incidents of violence. The recollection of years of rivalry and hatred poured into the pit of his stomach and it was all he could do to stop himself from spitting on the floor.

  ‘I told you, shift that bloody motor or else.’

  Rob continued to ignore the increasingly angry voice as he took in his surroundings. The inevitable magnolia walls, the dark, slightly faded carpet, it was all so… scummy. At least the blonde on the desk was fit.

  ‘I’m bloody talking to you.’

  Rob suddenly realised that the foyer was now silent as all eyes were trained on the drama which was unfolding. He turned to face the attendant.

  ‘Listen mate,’ he said quietly, ‘you say one more bloody word and I swear to God-’

  ‘You’ll what?’

  For a second, Rob actually thought the attendant was going to throw a punch and he smiled at the thought of it. But before he could say another word his attention was grabbed by a rapidly approaching and very smartly dressed middle aged man, his face the picture of calm authority. Rob recognised him immediately and his grin widened.

  ‘Well, well,’ said Rob smugly. ‘Mr. Mayes. We meet again.’

  Keith Mayes stopped dead in his tracks as his face adopted an expression which was a curious mix of bewilderment, horror and disdain.

  ‘D’you know this bloke sir?’ asked the attendant, slightly taken aback by this turn of events. ‘Or shall I have him slung out?’

  ‘It’s OK Alf,’ said Mayes without taking his eyes off Rob’s smiling face.

  ‘But he’s parked your slot sir. It’s-’

  ‘It’s fine Alf. I know this er, gentleman. Leave it to me.’

  ‘Yes, run along Alf,’ said Rob. ‘There’s a good chap.’

  The attendant stood seething for a second and then withdrew, muttering under his breath as he walked away and headed back to the car park – where, Rob guessed, he would spend the next five or ten minutes letting his tyres down.

  ‘So Mr. Cooper,’ began Mayes sarcastically. ‘To what do we owe this pleasure? Have you come to apologise?’

  Rob laughed. The last time he had seen the outgoing City chairman was some years previously at a meeting organised by the United board in an effort to calm the tension between the two clubs’ supporters ahead of an FA cup tie. It had not gone well, primarily because Mayes had begun the meeting by quoting angrily from a diatribe Rob had written about City in the most recent edition of Wings of a Sparrow and then demanding an apology – a demand which brought cheers from the City supporters present and ironic laughter from the United fans. The subsequent fight had even made the tabloids.

  ‘Not really,’ he replied with a smile. ‘I’m actually here for the board meeting.’

  ‘Oh really?’ said Mayes raising a mocking eyebrow which put Rob in mind of a poor man’s Roger Moore. ‘And what on earth makes you think that you of all people would be allowed anywhere near it?’

  Rob’s smile widened as he realised that he was about to have one of those golden bombshell moments of the type he’d been on the receiving end of all too frequently over the past few days.

  ‘Because Mr. Mayes, I’m your new chairman.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  Rob stood at the sink and allowed the water to run warm before rinsing his hands and then splashing some on his face.

  It had been an hour since he’d been shown into the board room and his head was still swimming with it all. Not that he had actually said anything. Instead, he had listened intently while Lee England had outlined the details of the will to the assembled board and then sat silently as the argument had kicked off. Well, it had been more of a simple rant than an argument, since everyone in the meeting bar him and the solicitor seemed to be in total agreement. Arthur Cooper was an arsehole.

  Eventually, Keith Mayes, now demoted to the position of club secretary in accordance with the terms of Arthur Cooper’s instructions, had asked for a break and had left the room to contact the club’s own lawyers. Rob had headed for the bathroom, four cups of coffee having taken their toll on his puny bladder.

  He smiled to himself as he thought of them all and what they might be saying with him out of the room. Not that he cared about their opinions. He didn’t have to. Ninety percent he’d kept repeating to himself. You own ninety percent of this lot and there’s fuck all they can do about it.

  Rob almost laughed out loud as he recalled the looks on their faces when Mayes had introduced him, neglecting to introduce anyone to him in return - and not one of them had offered their hand by way of a greeting. Not that he would have taken it, he’d never knowingly shaken a scummer’s hand and he certainly wasn’t about to start.

  Their collective mood had darkened when he’d walked the length of the room and sat down in the chairman’s seat at the head of the long oak table which dominated it. That had been quite a moment - and yet again, Rob smiled to himself at the thought of it.

  He took a paper towel and began drying his hands in preparation to a return to the fray. As he did so, Rob noticed that the mirror was steamed up - so with a smile, he wrote ‘United’ in the bottom right hand corner.

  ‘Ninety percent,’ he said to himself. ‘Time to have my say.’

  Keith Mayes had already returned to the room by the time Rob entered and he could almost feel the daggers flying at him as he made his way back to the head of the table and settled into his chair.

  He caught the eye of Lee England and gave him a cheeky wink - the response from the solicitor a barely imperceptible shrug of the shoulders.

  ‘As I was saying
,’ continued the club secretary. ‘From what I have been told by our legal team, it is unlikely we'll be able to challenge this will at all.’

  ‘This is bollocks,’ said a spindly middle aged man who had made his fortune in scrap metal. ‘There has to be something we can do. I mean, of all the people how-’ He stalled, struggling to find the right words and failing miserably.

  ‘You once called me retarded,’ said a short, round and extremely angry looking man.

  ‘That's nothing,’ said another. ‘He said I looked like I spent my evenings kerb crawling.’

  ‘I’m embalmed,’ said an elderly man. ‘Like a fucking corpse!’

  ‘Finally,’ interrupted Rob. ‘I can start putting names to faces.’

  ‘You cheeky twat,’ said the kerb crawler. ‘We should kick your arse all the way back across the city.’

  ‘Gentlemen,’ said Keith Mayes. ‘I know tempers are running high, but could we try to keep this civil?’

  The room settled into silence but the daggers continued to fly in Rob’s direction. He settled back in his chair and smiled. This time he didn’t bother to try and hide it.

  ‘Can you imagine what the supporters are going to say when they find out he's in charge?’ said the kerb crawler. ‘They'll bloody riot.’

  ‘Maybe we should get onto the FA,’ added the spindly man. ‘There’s no way he can be considered a fit and proper person to run a football club.’

  ’There is another way to deal with this,’ interrupted Keith Mayes. ‘Could we have a moment Mr. Cooper?’

  ‘Actually no,’ said Rob. ‘Look, I'm not happy with this situation either but I'm stuck with it and so are you. So if you've got something to say, say it to my face. Otherwise, I have work to do.’

  ‘Work?’ exclaimed angry man. ‘You can't be bloody serious.’

  ‘I most certainly am,’ said Rob matter-of-factly. ‘The first order of business being to sack that doddery old twat in the car park.’

  The men sitting around the table looked at each other. Their expressions a mixture of dismay and hatred.

  ‘You can't sack Alf,’ said embalmed. ‘He's been here for years.’

  ‘You don’t get it, do you?’ replied Rob calmly. ‘I own ninety percent of this club. I can do pretty much what the fuck I like.’

  The room fell into a horrified silence as the full gravity of the situation hit.

  ‘What if the board brought you out?’

  Every eye in the room turned to face Keith Mayes who had remained standing throughout. Rob leant forward. This was a development he hadn’t foreseen. Even Lee England looked shocked.

  ‘Go on,’ said Rob.

  Mayes looks quickly around the room at the board. If there was any kind of response from them, Rob didn’t see it.

  ‘We’ll pay you a hundred thousand to walk away.’

  Rob laughed out loud.

  ‘Make it six million and you have a deal.’

  ‘This club isn't worth anywhere near that,’ said kerb crawler.

  ‘It is to me,’ said Rob. ‘Didn’t you hear?’

  ‘But we have almost a million pounds’ worth of debt.’

  ‘Then that’s your answer,’ said Rob as he leant back in his chair.

  ‘Fuck you,’ said angry man.

  ‘Since I take it that’s your final offer, then I guess this meeting is over,’ said Rob. ‘Unless anyone has anything else to say?’

  ‘In actual fact, I do.’

  All eyes, including Rob’s, turned in the direction of a middle aged smartly dressed man who up to that point had remained silent. Rob had thought he recognised him when he had first entered the room and now it hit him like a sledgehammer: Ian Wilson - a former City player who had become etched onto Rob’s hate list some years previously when he had feigned injury to get a United player sent off.

  ‘Well, well,’ said Rob sarcastically. ‘I’m all ears.’

  ‘The fact is that we don't actually have to do anything,’ said Wilson with a smile. ‘Except wait.’

  ‘And how do you make that out?’ said Rob.

  ‘Well,’ said Wilson. ‘If, assuming what we’ve been told is correct and your share of the club would be transferred into a trust should we have a bad season, all we have to do is have a bad season.’

  Rob and Wilson locked eyes. One smiling, one unsmiling.

  ‘And if we do that,’ Wilson continued. ‘You my friend, are, not to be too fine a point on it, fucked.’

  The room fell into silence again.

  ‘He’s right,’ said kerb crawler, suddenly smiling. ‘He’s absolutely right.’

  Rob leant back in his chair. His mind took barely a second to register what had been said and barely a second more to construct a response.

  ‘There are two flaws in that plan. First, you lot finished one point above the relegation places last season so any lower and you're not just down but out of the league. That would mean the value of this club would plummet and you lot would lose a fortune.’

  ‘So would you,’ said Keith Mayes.

  ‘Maybe financially, but at least I’d have the satisfaction of knowing that I played some part in sending this club into oblivion.’

  ‘And the second?’ asked the angry man, barely able to hide his contempt. ‘You said there were two.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ smiled Rob. ‘I seem to remember reading something about throwing games. Isn’t that illegal? Yes, I’m sure that’s what it said.’

  ‘Throwing?’ replied Wilson feigning offence. ‘That's a bit strong. We could just ask the manager to sell most of our first team and play some of the younger lads.’

  ‘We do have a debt to furnish,’ said embalmed smugly. ‘It would actually make a lot of sense.’

  Rob smiled. This was what he’d been waiting for.

  ‘Ah yes,’ said Rob. City’s manager, their former striker Ray Ellis, was particularly high on his shit-list for all kinds of reasons. Not least the fact that he had scored a hotly disputed last-minute goal in the 1987 derby game and then taunted the United fans about it in The Sun the following day. ‘Firing him is going to be my second job.’

  The entire room, bar Rob and Lee England, looked shocked.

  ‘What?’ said Mayes. ‘You can't do that! Ray Ellis is a City legend. The fans idolise him.’

  ‘He's a cheating bell end,’ said Rob dismissively. ‘He’s history.’

  ‘But we're only four games into the season,’ said a shocked kerb crawler.

  ‘I know. One win, one draw and two defeats. Impressive stuff,’ said Rob before adding, ‘Oh and from this point on, I'm taking charge of all matters relating to buying and selling at this club. So no bloody ideas.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  Rob stepped through the front door and pushed it closed behind him. Finally, he could relax.

  Much as he’d enjoyed stiffing Mayes and the other arrogant bastards on the board, it had been exhausting and now he had a ton of stuff to study as well as a plan of action to construct. Who would have thought running a football club would involve so much hard work?

  He was about to call out to see who was in when he noticed a pink post-it note bearing the words at new house lying on the floor, having fallen from the hall mirror.

  ‘Fucking great,’ Rob said out loud to himself before wandering through to the kitchen and throwing the note in the bin. He was about to click the kettle on when he stopped, thought for a second and then headed for the front door.

  Mick Cooper frowned when he found his son standing on his doorstep.

  ‘What do you want? And what’s with the suit? You look like a ponce.’

  ‘A cuppa would be nice. And I’ve worn a suit almost every bloody day for the past ten years, so don’t act the prat.’

  Mick grunted and turned away.

  ‘So, you bin at work then?’ he said over his shoulder hopefully.

  ‘No,’ said Rob as he pushed the door closed behind him. ‘I’ve been at shitty.’

  Twenty minutes later the two m
en were sitting in the living room dunking a steady stream of bourbon biscuits in their tea. Mick, as usual lately, was also chain smoking.

  ‘Well fair play to you for that at least,’ sniffed the old man who remained reluctant to show any sign of support for what his son was doing. ‘I bet sacking that cheating bastard Ellis went down well.’

  ‘They were more pissed off about the old tosser in the car park,’ replied Rob. He glanced around the room and then stood up and opened a window. ‘I hope you’re gonna knock this smoking on the head. I don’t want Charlie breathing in all this shit.’

  Before Mick could answer, he was interrupted by the door bell. He looked at Rob who remained motionless.

  ‘It’s your bloody house,’ he said. ‘Open your own door.’

  ‘I will,’ said his father as he struggled to his feet. ‘I wouldn’t want anyone to know I had a bloody scummer in here anyway.’

  Rob threw him a mocking v-sign and sat down. He felt drained, both emotionally and physically. The morning might have been fun but it had also shown him just how monumental a task he had ahead of him. And clearly, judging by Ian Wilson’s comments, he was going to get no help from anyone at City - although at least Mayes hadn’t walked. Rob realised that if he had done so, it would have been catastrophic.

  The reality was that to do what he needed to do, Rob was certainly going to need help and support with just about everything - the team, finance and PR being the three most important areas. Some personal security might not be a bad idea either, although not for one second could he assume that any would be forthcoming from the club so he would have to go looking elsewhere.

  He had plenty of contacts at United he’d be able to call on, but there were certainly some who would refuse point blank to provide any assistance. Rob wasn’t alone in his hatred of City - and unlike him, not everyone had much, if anything, to gain.

  However, before he could ponder this further, Mick re-entered the room. He looked almost sheepish.

  ‘It’s for you.’