Page 34 of Brat on the Ball

Leinster was the better team, or so one of the people in the box with me commented, but Cardiff made up for it with pure willpower. When Leinster had the ball, they threw themselves at the opposition with no fear of being hurt. When Cardiff was lucky enough to take the ball, the players huddled close and sent the ball small distances to one another, playing like the underdogs they were. When the final whistle blew and the Cardiff Old Navy boys were only a couple of points below Leinster, there were sighs of relief in the box like they’d pulled off a win.

“Coming down to meet the players?” Elsie asked.

“Oh, I dunno, I should probably go…” I started, but then I felt a little tug on one finger and looked down. Blod had wound her fingers around one of mine and was looking up at me expectantly. “Go on then,” I said, and she smiled, still mute.

We walked out of the box and down the stairs to a blank corridor. At Cardiff City Stadium, the walls were painted navy blue, with the football team’s crest emblazoned in white at every opportunity. Here there was just a plain white-brick corridor, with nothing to show the team, the games they had won or the glories of being a rugby player. It felt like the place was stripped back to the bone.

We all milled around in the corridor until the first white-shirted player walked out. Every player that followed was identically dressed, all in white shirts, grey chequered trousers and a tie with the Cardiff Old Navy crest on it. I was reminded again of the flashiness of football, and the way we’d all out-compete each other with the latest Armani suit and Rolex. This team was unified, all presenting the same image to the world.

George entered the corridor last, flanked by a dark-haired guy who stood tall above everyone else. His eyes alighted on me and widened. I saw them dip to my neck, and I adjusted my collar. It was George’s eyes I wanted to see though, and when he saw me, his face broke out into a smile that I wanted to put on him forever. He pushed through the crowd to get to me, and only when he was standing right in front of me did he seem to remember he couldn’t do anything he wanted. Or what I thought he wanted, because I wanted it too. To hug him, congratulate him on a game all done. To kiss him in front of all these people. I couldn’t do it.

But why?The voice was louder than it ever had been before. That voice that had compelled me to ask John about coming out. It had been growing in strength for weeks, but now it felt so strong. Like if I just opened my mouth and…

“Are you OK?” George was asking, and I realised I had completely zoned out for a second.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m…” and then, like an instinct I couldn’t resist, I had to pull him into a hug. Friends and family everywhere were holding one another in the corridor. I was just another. “You played brilliantly,” I whispered into his ear.

“You don’t know if I did or didn’t,” he whispered back. I could hear the smile in his voice.

“Shut up. I’ve played professional sport for long enough to know an outstanding player when I see one.”

“‘Scuse us, can we push in?” Elsie asked, and I realised I had been holding George for way longer than I’d intended to, and we’d maybe been pulling a bit too much attention to ourselves..

I stepped back, right into the massive frame of the man behind me.

“Sorry, sorry,” I started.

But one gigantic hand reached out, grabbed my arm and turned me around. “Finn,” said the man with a smile. He really wasmassive, but in the least intimidating way I’d ever seen. He just radiated joy.

“Ollie,” I replied, holding a hand out. Finn took it and shook it, and I remembered George mentioning that Finn was a queer friend of his. Finn leaned in to talk to me. “I’m trying to convince George to come out tonight. Fancy joining us?”

“I…I don’t know,” I muttered, “It’s…Monday.”

“Tomorrow, yes. I don’t drink, so you can keep me company as a sober companion if you like. My fiancé will join us at some point, I hope. We’ll be going to Wings, so you can…well, you won’t need to be so uptight.”

“Go on then,” I whispered. I wanted to go back to George’s after the match to show him how much I really liked his playing today, and I might get him back to his flat quicker if I was with him on a night out.

So once George and Finn had made sure they had no media responsibilities and George had said his goodbyes to Elsie, I walked with them through the darkened streets of Cardiff. We stopped off at a pub, where a couple of people stopped and asked us for a picture.

“Hey, mate…you’re rugby players, right, and you’re a football player. What the fuck you doing here together?”

I froze up for a second, and it seemed George had too. So Finn swooped in to save the day. “Have you heard of the Rugby-Football partnership? It’s a scheme being run by the FA and WRU to integrate the teams more closely together, in line with paragraph five subsection c of the code of…did you want to hear more? I’ve got a two-hour presentation here.”

Both lads shook their heads and walked off, back into the warmth of the bar area. “Brilliant,” George laughed.

“Top class bullshitter,” said another, unfamiliar voice. I turned to see a little guy with round glasses, big wide eyes and shocking pink hair walking up behind Finn. Finn leaned down to kiss him, and when he pulled away, his cheeks were a dark shade of pink. “Ollie, this is Nathan.”

“Nice to meet you.” I held out a hand to shake Nathan’s. He seemed much gentler than Finn, and I wondered how they’d ever met or got together.

“You taking me to aprivateclub, dear?” asked Nathan.

“Are you wearing your jockstrap?” Finn asked in earnest.

Nathan goggled at him. “That was a joke, wasn’t it?” he asked. “When you mentioned that this morning, it was a joke.”

“I said ‘I will wear mine if you wear yours’and you thought it was a joke?”

“Oh God,” Nathan put his head in his hands. “For a man who was outed by an inappropriate video, you’re very strangely open when it comes to potentially compromising situations.”

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