Galactic Keegan Read online

  THE IRRESISTIBLE FORCE

  As predicted, the second match of the Galactic League C season against Groiku IV was a disaster of, well, disastrous proportions. With barely enough fit players to field a team, I was left with just young Booth up front on his own – the very idea of playing with only one striker made me feel physically ill but I had no choice. Or at least none that I was prepared to make.

  Gerry was vehemently against my decision to leave young Rodway on the bench. The kid was itching to play and had been on his best behaviour in the few days since his dressing down, but listen, people need to understand that actions have consequences. Like the time I sent Joey Barton home from training when he wore a baseball cap that read F**K THE POLICE. I was disgusted. I said to him, ‘Sting is Newcastle’s favourite son – he deserves better.’

  ‘Kev, our goose is cooked without Rodway up top,’ Gerry said when I handed him the team sheet before kickoff. ‘He’s our star man. We need him.’

  ‘I can’t believe you have so little faith in our squad,’ I scolded him. ‘Little Dunc has come on leaps and bounds in pre-season. He lobbed the keeper from the halfway line in that practice match last week. That takes a special kind of quality.’

  ‘Yeah, but that was an own goal,’ Gerry said doubtfully. ‘He was aiming the other way and scuffed it.’

  ‘Look, you can’t get bogged down in details,’ I insisted. ‘We’re going with Alex Booth up front, Tilston as an advanced playmaker behind him.’

  ‘Tilston? He’s the goalkeeper, Kev.’

  ‘I know, but I want to play a high pressing game against this lot – he’s wasted back there in his own box.’

  An emphatic 6–0 defeat later and Gerry gave me just the faintest ‘I told you so’ look as our lads trudged off the pitch dejectedly. The boys from Groiku IV were a good side; their crusty red skin made them fairly impervious to most of our attempts to tackle them – in fact Wiggins, our midfield general, knackered his own knee going in for a crunching tackle on their number nine.

  Still, despite everything, I didn’t feel too downhearted. No one enjoys a defeat (least of all John Gregory, who once lost a game of Connect 4 to me in the green room before we appeared on Football Focus in 2003 and hasn’t spoken to me since) but I saw this capitulation as simply a means to an end. Gillian was up there in the stands and she’d have seen just how little I had to work with. And with a record crowd of over forty-one people in attendance, she’d be feeling the pressure even more. In a strange way, this defeat was going to turn into a victory in the long run. I just had to wait for Gillian to call me up to her office – which, an hour or so after the match, she did.

  ‘Shall I come too, Kev?’ Gerry asked as he put the boys through a warm-down after the match. ‘Moral support and all that.’

  ‘I’m sure it’s fine,’ I assured him. ‘I can fight my own battles, you know.’

  And that was true – like when that Hollywood studio tried to make that film based on my life back in 2003. I was told it was going to be a straight biopic job, my life story from A to B to C and then however the rest of the alphabet goes. I’d insisted ahead of time on being given script approval and input on casting – Jack Lemmon to play me was a deal-breaker, but they kept fobbing me off with ‘he looks nothing like you’ and ‘he died two years ago’, and so in the end I had no choice but to pull the plug. Their loss.

  Anyway, I made my way up to Gillian’s office once again, trying hard to disguise the spring in my step. We certainly hadn’t thrown the match – I would never do that – but I’d known going in that we’d more likely than not end up taking an absolute battering. Now the ball was in Gillian’s court. Cough up or watch the football club slowly drip away down the plughole.

  ‘There you are,’ Gillian said as I came in. I hurriedly wiped the expectant smile off my face as I entered – it was crucial that I look depressed. I tried to focus on sad memories to contain my exuberant mood, like the death of my childhood hamster, or the time Rob Lee told me that he didn’t like Auf Wiedersehen, Pet.

  ‘Hiya,’ I said in a solemn voice. ‘I assume you saw what just happened out there. Now, I want to say, we did our best but at the end of the day—’

  ‘Close the door, please,’ Gillian said ominously. Slightly perturbed, I did so and took a seat opposite her desk. She looked quite pale. It had been a dismal performance, sure, but she seemed to have taken it quite badly. Well, so much the better. I reached over her desk and extended a hand and, as ever, failed to prepare myself for her iron grip. My eyes were almost watering by the time she released me, entirely oblivious to her own strength. She’d have given that Arthur Schwarzenegger a run for his money, I can tell you that much.

  ‘Now you can see what I’m up against,’ I continued. ‘But the important news is that it’s a problem that can be remedied. There are thirty-six more games and plenty of time to mount a promotion push. I’ve taken the liberty of drawing up a list of potential signings…’

  ‘No, Kevin, be quiet for a minute,’ Gillian said as I unfolded the sheet of paper from my pocket and placed it in front of her.

  ‘I’m not asking for every name on this list,’ I explained to reassure her. ‘We already have the spine of a good team, we just need to add a few limbs. A good six or seven of these players and we’ll be well on the way.’

  To my astonishment, Gillian screwed up the piece of paper and tossed it towards her waste paper bin (missing by a fair distance, which just about summed up the day really).

  ‘Oh, I see,’ I said, folding my arms across my chest. ‘You want to play hardball. You’re killing this club, you know.’

  ‘Kevin, there is no football club. It’s over!’ she said, voice cracking with emotion. I was taken aback.

  ‘Bloody hell, Gillian,’ I said. ‘Steady on. It’s only one defeat – you realise we have another match in midweek, yeah? A few of those new signings that you just dismissed out of hand and we’d get some points on the board for sure.’

  ‘Kevin, I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but it’s done. The plug has been pulled. Palangonia FC is no more. The Council voted on it this afternoon. I’m… sorry.’

  My stomach was in knots – surely it couldn’t be true? Had my decision to leave Rodway on the bench and consign us to inevitable defeat really had such devastating repercussions?

  ‘I voted against it,’ Gillian went on as I just sat there, frozen, ‘of course I did, as did Dr Pebble-Mill, but it was a 3–2 majority. Something has happened and, well, all but the essential Council expenditure is to be redirected to General Leigh.’

  ‘Oh, I might have bloody well known!’ I snapped, breaking out of my trance. ‘Leigh’s been waiting to bring me down all year – you know full well he thinks Palangonia FC is a waste of time and money. And now he’s got his wish. Brilliant. Well done! Happy now?’

  ‘Kevin, if you knew what I know, you’d understand—’

  ‘And if you knew what I know, about how important football is to the morale of the people in this Compound, people who’ve been displaced by a bunch of bad alien sods without so much as a by-your-leave, you’d realise that this is the worst possible decision!’

  ‘Kevin, it’s not like that at all – yes, Leigh is opposed to the football club, but we still enjoy broad support on the Council—’

  ‘Do we?’ I huffed. ‘Funny way of showing it!’

  ‘It’s not a personal attack on you or the club,’ she insisted, adopting a calmer tone in an attempt to defuse the palpable tension in the room. ‘It’s a matter of necessity.’

  I was flabbergasted.

  ‘What could be more necessary than this?’ I asked, waving my arms at the room and the wider stadium beyond. The fire had gone out of my voice now. I sounded helpless. An immovable object had met with an irresistible force, and the irresistible force had won. The dream had died.

  ‘So, that’s that then?’ I asked, getting to my feet and trying not to pout. ‘After all you and I have been through?’

 
; ‘Well,’ she said, sounding a little surprised, ‘I mean, we’ve only worked together for a year.’

  I gestured to the framed photos on her desk – happy scenes of a man and two young children, taken years ago on Earth. The bloke was, by any estimation, quite the looker. Ordinarily I’d have assumed these were pictures of family or friends but Gillian didn’t have any of those. Although she was a confident, gregarious person in her working life I had noticed that she was a solitary, closed-book of a person with few apparent friends beyond her professional capacities – it was entirely likely that the pictures in the frames were the placeholder templates and she hadn’t got around to putting anything in them yet. (Pride of place on my own desk at the stadium is a photo of the 2003 Man City youth team squad, signed by Ronan Keating. I forget how that came about.)

  ‘Your family must be so proud of you – I hope you tell them all tonight what you’ve done today,’ I said bitterly, knowing it was a low blow. Gillian looked like she’d been punched in the gut and I instantly regretted what I’d said. She didn’t respond and, stubbornly, I pressed on. ‘I really did think you were better than this, you know. Gerry said you were a tight-fisted penny-pincher but I always stuck up for you. And yet here we are.’

  I reached for the door handle to leave Gillian’s office for surely the final time. Maybe Gerry was right – a fresh start was the best way. My hand stopped in mid-air at what Gillian said next.

  ‘There’s a L’zuhl spy in the Compound, Kevin. And by hook or by crook, Leigh is going to flush them out. Until that happens… everyone on Palangonia is a suspect.’

  THE SPY

  I stepped into Mr O’s Place, feeling tired and dejected. The café owner was the enigmatically named Andy O – he was sitting in his usual spot on a stool by the side of the counter, reading the Compound Chronicle and muttering to himself about the recent increase in overheads for businesses in the square. He was always fairly hands-off as an owner, delegating the day-to-day running of the place to a man with an enormous head whose name I’d never managed to catch. I had a lot of time for Andy; he was a regular at our games (well, I’d seen him there once – though thinking about it, it might have been a pile of training cones) and he had even once generously provided emergency catering on a match day after Gerry’s sleepwalking flared up again the night before and he wolfed down the contents of four chest freezers before dawn.

  ‘Morning, Pete,’ Andy said to me as I approached the counter. I rolled my eyes and sighed heavily.

  ‘Aye, morning, Andy, lad,’ I replied. ‘Though as I said yesterday, and the day before, and basically every morning for the past year, my name is Kev.’

  ‘Right you are,’ Andy said, winking as though I’d just let him in on some elaborate joke. ‘What’s new with you?’

  ‘Actually, I’ve got a lot on my mind today. I’m not allowed to say what. Politics, you know.’

  ‘Say no more,’ Andy said, holding up both hands agreeably. He rapped on the counter to attract the attention of one of his team, a spotty young lad who looked like he ought to be in school, who sidled over to take my order.

  ‘It’ll all come out eventually anyway,’ I sighed as I put my wallet away. ‘Let’s face it, you can’t keep news of a spy under wraps for long.’

  Andy straightened up in his seat and stared at me intently.

  ‘A spy?’ he asked urgently. ‘Here, in the Compound?’

  Buggeration.

  ‘No, no,’ I said, clearly flustered but trying to play it cool. ‘I think you misheard me, son. I said… Fry. Stephen Fry. Yeah, apparently he’s coming to Palangonia on a book tour or something. It’s all very hush-hush.’

  Andy looked at me sceptically.

  ‘Stephen Fry,’ he said, eyes narrowed. ‘Right. But you said the news had left you with a lot on your mind. So how does that work?’

  ‘Well, he uses all those big words, doesn’t he?’ I explained as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. ‘It stresses me out, if I’m honest. Anyway, I’ll let you crack on. Have a good one, yeah?’

  I took my breakfast and hurried over to a seat by the far window and sat there watching life in the square outside go by. The fried-egg sandwich tasted like ashes in my mouth – and not just because the head chef, Alf, chain-smoked over the pan while he was cooking. A spy in the Compound – could it really be true? Who would ever want to sell mankind out to the bloody L’zuhl? Oh, sure, there had been some notable defectors – not least the Great Betrayer, Richard Madeley, the popular TV host who had decided, as the horde of alien lizard men laid siege to Earth, that he would be better off joining the winning side. Prat. Last I heard he’d been appointed to the role of L’zuhl propaganda minister. For me, you just don’t do that.

  Who could it be? Gerry? Surely not – no one would ever hand over state secrets to a man with hair like that. Then my heart stopped – could it be me? Was I the spy? I quickly batted the idea away. The only notable thing I’d been able to observe during my time on Palangonia was the complete lack of forward thinking from the club hierarchy. And anyway, I’m not cut out to be a spy. Not a real one. James Bond though? That’s a different matter.

  In 1994, I’d thrown my hat into the ring to replace Tim Dalton after he unexpectedly quit the role. I was managing Newcastle at the time and things were going great guns, but nevertheless, the role of Bond is not one you pass up when the opportunity presents itself. The producers kindly offered me an audition, after I put together a little video of celebrity testimonials endorsing me for the part, with contributions from footballing heavyweights like Tony Parkes and Howard Wilkinson, all the way up to Hollywood A-listers like Griff Rhys Jones and Chris Tarrant. I decided that Bond needed a fresh approach so I outlined my vision to them during the meeting.

  ‘The way I see it,’ I told them, ‘the whole MI6 thing is a bit old hat. I propose that, instead of a super spy, Bond is a fully CRB-checked under-11s football coach who leads his team to glory while also defeating corruption within the highest echelons of the junior league structure.’

  I could tell they were interested – they said, ‘Well, let’s get this over with,’ which was a clear indicator of how keen they were: the sooner my audition was in the can, the sooner the announcement could be made that Kevin Keegan was the new 007. (Oh – and that was another condition: I asked them if we could change his codename to just ‘7’, in keeping with my old shirt number.)

  Anyway, as soon as the audition was in the bag I headed over to St James’ Park to break the news to the chairman, Sir John Hall. He was stunned by the revelation, coming as it did in the middle of a league campaign, but he said he would not stand in the way of such an opportunity. Cracking bloke, Sir John. He began to draft a press release and I went downstairs to break the news to my lads. I bumped into Andy Cole, my top man, and – knowing what a huge fan he was of the series – I wanted him to be the first to know.

  ‘Heard who the new James Bond is, Andy?’ I said cheerfully.

  He nodded. ‘Yeah, Pierce Brosnan apparently. Heard it on the radio on the drive in. Should be good.’

  Horrified, I dashed down to my car and put on the radio. I had to wait forty minutes for the next news bulletin, which was tedious in the extreme – though that’s not a dig at Ken Bruce, who is an absolute master of his craft. Anyhow, when the news bulletin finally came round and they confirmed that Brosnan, whoever the hell he was, had indeed been given the role of Bond, I was utterly crushed. I went back up to see Sir John with my tail between my legs and I haven’t watched a Bond film since. Shame.

  As I mulled over this bitter memory in Mr O’s Place, someone suddenly sat down opposite me. I looked up from my sandwich and was surprised to see Rodway looking back at me.

  ‘Morning, gaffer.’

  ‘Aye, morning, son,’ I replied gruffly. He was no doubt here to grouse about being left out of the previous game – how was I to break the news to him that he’d be missing the next one too? And the thirty-four after that?

  �
��You look terrible,’ he said, pinching one of the sausages from my plate. ‘Even worse than I did during the week.’

  I was miserable – it felt like everyone was out to have a pop at me and now here was Rodway sticking the boot in.

  ‘Et tu, Rodway?’ I asked, sarcastically.

  ‘No, I ate one,’ he said, wolfing down the sausage. ‘Any road, I’m sure we’ll get a result on Wednesday, boss. The team from Blipplip are the whipping boys of this league. I mean, their species is just microscopic bacteria – we’ll literally walk all over them. Keep the faith, gaffer. We believe in you.’

  It was all I could do not to burst into tears right there. Here was this wayward kid who I’d been quite prepared to dump on the scrapheap and now, with me at my lowest ebb, he was giving me a pep talk. I could see from looking at him that he’d made a conscious effort to clean up his act – he looked fresh, healthy and fit. He was back to the Rodway I’d signed almost a year ago, a street urchin who had been orphaned during the L’zuhl invasion and had stowed away on an evacuee shuttle to Palangonia. This kid was the future of football, I’d known it from the moment I clapped eyes on him mugging a defenceless old man to steal his wallet. I’d said to Gerry as Rodway kicked the ailing man to the ground, ‘Hell of a left foot he’s got on him.’

  ‘Listen, son,’ I said. ‘I’ve got… something to tell you. Something you won’t want to hear.’

  ‘If it’s about Gerry’s naked sleepwalking then don’t worry – Gillian warned us all about that months ago.’

  ‘No, not that,’ I said, though now I felt depressed all over again. It’s worse. Palangonia FC has been canned.’

  Rodway frowned, confused.

  ‘What do you mean?’ he asked. ‘They’ve kicked us out of Galactic League C? For one defeat? Can they even do that?’

  ‘No, the Compound Council have chucked us in the bin,’ I explained. ‘There’s a… well, there’s something going on. Some problem the military top brass have got their knickers in a twist over, so the budget is being redirected to General Leigh, the prat.’