The Cup Tie: Chapter 4

I didn’t lie there for much longer. It must have been about 5 minutes at the most. I could hear the door being unlocked and the lights were turned on again. It was Rob and Andy. Perhaps I should explain now that Andy was a gay boy, We all took the piss out of him in the dressing room banter but Andy just gave it back, as good as if not better. Andy was definitely one of the lads and many of the team said that they had seen gay boys in a different light since knowing him.

I could see that Rob had a bucket with him. Andy crouched down and unlocked the handcuffs on one of my wrists. This enabled me, at last, to stand up. I suppose I should have guessed the handcuffs were Andy’s. unbeknown to me, just after my sending of Andy’s boyfriend had got them from a bag in his car. When I got to my feet Andy removed the handcuffs from my other wrist. I could now look round the dressing room. There was nothing, including my clothes, on any of the pegs but all of the players had left their boots on the section of the bench that would have been above me. In the bucket there were some old newspapers, rags and a brush.

Rob then explained what was going to happen to me. He went on to tell me that the other players had run themselves ragged covering for me in my absence. In return I was going to make it up to them by cleaning all the boots. Not only that but I was to think myself lucky by getting off so lightly. Rob suggested that I clean the boots at the end of the dressing room away from the physio’s bench so as not to get it splashed in the mud from the boots. Also, If I laid the sheets of newspaper on the floor I could stand over them when I bang the boots together in order to get the worst of the mud off. This would make it easier to tidy up afterwards. I remember Andy putting the handcuffs back in his pocket as he left to return to the bar. As Rob left he just told me that the boots “had better be spotless“.

So there I was with a pile of muddy football boots to clean. I hated cleaning just my boots; but now I had a whole team’s, including substitutes, boots to clean. I was also mindful that a number of players had changed their boots at half time, giving me even more boots to clean.

But it was my stubbornness that got he better of me. I was the most talented player in the team - No, the club. I had the skills to go on at play at a much higher level. By rights the other players should be cleaning my boots. They could draw lots every week with the winner being given the honour of that undertaking.

If I just sat there what could they do? The groundsman would want to lock up and go home sooner or later and in the meantime I had plenty of newspapers to read. They weren’t going to humiliate me by giving me such a degrading job.

It must have been another ten minutes before Rob returned. This time he was on his own. He said he was just checking to see what progress I was making. I don’t really think he was that surprised to see that I hadn’t even started. He just went on to say, “Stubborn little sod. We’ll have to see what else we can do”. He left the dressing room once more. His last words left me wondering what he had planned. But then I didn’t have to wait too long.

It took no more than two minutes for Rob to return. But this time he was accompanied by Paul, Andy and Simon - who at first hadn’t seemed keen to get involved. Paul quipped, “Simon’s just here to see fair play”. I sensed that this game was about to get ratcheted up,