The Security

It’s approaching half-time in the nail-biting six-pointer against Middlesboro when Rob, who has once more taken Jack’s ticket, says, ‘See that steward down there, the one with the fluorescent waistcoat…?’
Yes, I say.
‘He does security at our place. He’s Albanian.’
Rob works at a supermarket. Though the match is tense enough, it’s no classic, and I begin to study the Albanian, as a distraction from the tension and the misplaced passes. Now it’s been bought to my attention, he is obviously different to the other stewards. He is tall with a 1950s haircut and a high forehead. He is good looking, in his way, and he is inscrutable. He is kneeling by the perimeter hoardings and his is eyeing the crowd like a visitor eyes the zebra in the pen at the zoo. He is slightly curious about us, we are vaguely interesting, but we are not the most important thing in his life, not by any means. Unique amongst the stewards, the Albanian is wearing a white shirt and tie. He looks neat and tidy, he could have played Boris the Bullet-Dodger in Snatch.
‘He will have worked at your place last night, then?’ I ask Rob, who does night shifts. Yes, Rob says.
‘So this is his second job today, then?’
Rob confirms it.

In the second half Tuncay – a hero from the Turkish side who did so brilliantly in the European Championships last year – runs the show, trading back-heels through the midfield, supplying dummies, crosses, shots and no small measure of energy. But still Boro cannot score: they have no outlet for Tuncay, and he cannot do it all on his own. He should play for us, he would appreciate it: our crowd are like the Turks we saw that night in Berlin, crazed, tribal, insane, beyond reason. The noise that begins on the sixtieth minute, when we are not playing at all well, swells and continues, the crowd on its feet, until the eighty-fifth minute when the ball is finally sung into the net. Rory slings in another rocket and young Ryan Shawcross, our twenty-one year-old centre-back who was suffering ‘growing pains’ a few months back, pains that see him now standing at 6’3” flicks it from his shaved head into the goal at the far post, his third headed goal in the last four games, this one the match winner. The Boro defence have been evading and deflecting Rory’s scuds all afternoon, but it only takes one on target to deal a fatal blow. We won the six-pointer. We have the six points. After the final whistle I look round to see how Boris the Bullet-dodger has responded to the victory. He is nowhere to be seen. Perhaps he has moved on to his third job of the day.

F/T Stoke City 1-0 Middlesboro