Chapter 307 Under The Lights I

I put the gas bill back in my coat and did not ring the Mile End Road. The stand’s piece was November’s business. Robbie’s block came first, in the week of the 21st of October, and before that there was Leicester.

We beat QPR at Marsh Road on the Saturday, 1-0. They had come down from the Premier League in May with more internationals on their bench than we had at the club.

On the hour Riyad bent a free kick round their wall and into the corner, swish, and Kieran ran the length of the touchline in his wellingtons with both arms in the air.

Andy Robertson stayed back near the halfway line for every corner we had.

At Bolton the Saturday after, Bailey Quinn scored after 9 minutes and they equalised in the second half. 1-1. 11 points from 9 games.

Then it was Tuesday the 1st of October.

Priya had sold the last home ticket on the Friday. Leicester had filled the away steps the week the tickets went on sale, and their club secretary had rung Margaret twice to ask for more.

On the Monday a man rang the ticket office and offered Priya 50 pounds for 2 on the Bovril End. She told him what a ticket cost and told him there were none.

"He rang back," she told me. "The second time I gave him the number for the police station."

By 5 o’clock the police had coned off the road outside the away turnstiles. 2 horses stood by the bus stop, shifting their feet, clop, clop. Margaret walked the length of the away end with the safety officer and came back with her clipboard under her arm.

"The steps are sound," she said. "And the gate at the bottom does not squeak any more."

"Did it squeak?"

"On Derby day. I asked Kieran to oil it."

Kelly’s lad and 3 of his friends were at the back of the Bovril End with a bedsheet and 2 tins of paint, finishing a banner. They had it laid flat over 3 rows of crush barriers under the roof, to dry. The letters were a foot high.

OUR END TILL MAY.

"Is that allowed, Mr Mercer?" said Kelly’s lad. "Margaret in the office said ask you."

"Who is holding it?"

"Them 3. I have got the drum."

"Then it is allowed. Keep it off the front wall, so the stewards can see over."

"We will." He stood back from it with paint on both his thumbs. "My grandad says it is the best banner this end has had since the 70s. He saw the new lad against QPR, as well."

"And?"

"He says he heads it properly."

At 6 Raj’s cab stopped at the main gate with Ted in the front seat. Raj came round and opened the door, and Ted got out stick first and looked up at the floodlight poles.

"Under the lights," he said. "Against Leicester."

"3rd in the league," said Raj. "They have won 3 of their last 4."

"I can read a table, son." Ted went through the turnstile with one hand on the bar, clack, and up towards the back of the Bovril End.

Raj leaned on the roof of his cab. "I will have him home by 10. Can I see you tomorrow? I want a word."

"What about?"

"Tomorrow." He got back in and drove off before I could ask again.

Kieran put the floodlights on at a quarter past 6, as the light started to go. They came up bank by bank, bzzzz, and the grass went from grey to green underneath them. He had marked the lines twice that afternoon.

"Once for us, boss," he said. "Once for them. They have got lines at Leicester you could shave with. I seen them on the telly."

Leicester’s coaches came in at 20 past 6 with a police van in front of them. Their supporters came off singing and went through the away turnstiles in a long blue stream, and a policeman on one of the horses walked beside them the whole way.

A man in a blue shirt stopped at the rope by the main gate and called to Kieran, who was coming back from the car park with a bag of sand.

"Oi, mate. Which one is Vardy?"

"The quick one with the 9 on his back," said Kieran. "You will not see much of him. He goes past you before you have seen him."

The man laughed and went on.

Sadler came down the corridor from the dressing room at half past 6 with the team sheet folded in his hand, on his way to the referee.

"Their keeper comes off his line for everything," he said, without stopping. "Jamie knows. Carrow knows."

"Does Riyad?"

"He will by 7."

One of Leicester’s directors came up the stairs at a quarter to 7, with their club secretary behind him. He was tall and polite, and he shook Kieran’s hand at the top of the stairs, because Kieran was the first person he met there.

"I came to see the one we offered 4 and a half million for," he said, when Margaret had given him his tea, clink. "Our people watched him on film all summer. They say he is quicker than the film."

"He is."

"And you still will not sell him."

"No."

"Then we will have to stop him tonight." He said it pleasantly, and drank his tea.

We sat in the front row of the directors’ seats, with Leicester’s director on my left and Margaret on my right. Rudd was on our bench, first of the substitutes, sitting forward with his elbows on his knees.

As the teams came out, Leicester’s end sang their old slow song, and the whole of the away steps swayed with it, scarves held up between their hands.

The Bovril End answered with the tide song. Kelly’s lad’s drum went under it, boom... boom-boom, boom... boom-boom, and from the corner by the tea hut came Bald Tony’s bell, ding-a-ding-ding. The bedsheet went up over the middle of the end, flap, in the wind off the estuary, and it held.

The director read it. "Till May?"

"The end comes down in May. Seats, next season."

"Seats," he said.

The referee blew, peep.

The first time Jamie got the ball, the away end whistled at him, high and long, wheeeee.

Jamie took the ball at their full-back and went past him on the outside. The Bovril End sang back at them.

"ONE JAMIE VARDY! THERE IS ONLY ONE JAMIE VARDY!"

For half an hour Leicester were better than us. They moved the ball round our midfield and over it.

Their captain was a centre-half as wide as a door, and he won everything in the air against Carrow. Twice Jamie went in behind them. Both times their keeper was off his line and on the ball before Jamie could shoot.

On the half hour their right-back drove a free kick under our jumping wall, thwack, and it went in by the post.

"LEI-CES-TER! LEI-CES-TER!"

The man on my left clapped once and folded his hands in his lap.

"They are good," said Margaret.

"They are the best side we have played," I said. "Look at their keeper. He has not let Jamie shoot once."

The half-time whistle went, peep, peep, with us a goal down. Danny Vine caught me at the top of the stairs with his notebook already open.

"Their director has sat next to you for 45 minutes," he said. "What has he said?"

"That their people watched Jamie on film all summer."

"Can I print that?"

"Ask him."

Danny went and asked him at the top of the stairs, and came back writing. The director came over with his cup.

"Your captain is very young," he said.

"Harry is 20."

"We know how old Harry is." He put his cup down.

"Shall I tell you what our people said about your centre-forward in June? They said if we waited a year, he would cost us twice as much."

"Yes."

"So we did not wait. And you said no."