Chapter 916 - 916: Hostile Territory I

"Stand there," Michael Cooke said, and pointed at the corner of the box on pitch 3.

Aaron Wan-Bissaka stood there.

Gary Issott was at the fence beside me with his mug on the post, and behind the far goal his under 23s had given up on their cool down to watch. Dion Asare was out on the left touchline 30 yards away, in a training top that stopped 2 inches short of his wrists, rolling a ball back and forth under his left boot.

"Go."

Dion went at full speed. Aaron ran with him, sideways, on his toes, for 15 yards, then put a leg out at the byline and took it.

Tk.

"Again."

Inside, and Aaron was there first. The step over, and Aaron stood and watched it and took the ball off his other foot. The long knock and the race, and Aaron put a shoulder in and Dion went off the side of the pitch and into the hedge. He came out of it with a twig in his hair and walked back to the touchline with his hands on his hips.

"Again," Cooke said.

The 5th time he walked.

He came at Aaron slower than walking pace with the ball on his left foot. At 2 yards he put his sole on it and stopped it dead, and Aaron stopped with it, and Dion went. Past the right hip, 3 strides, and he hit it across the goal into the side netting before Aaron had turned round.

Fsshh.

"OHHHHH!" The under 23s, behind the goal, as if it was a cup final.

"He's done you, Aaron!"

Aaron walked back to his corner and set himself lower, weight on his toes. The 6th, he took it clean. The 7th, Dion stopped and went again, fft, and Aaron got a toe to it, just, and the pair of them went down in a heap on the edge of the box and lay there on their backs looking at the sky.

[DION ASARE. CA 97. PA 152.]

Issott picked his mug up.

"He did the stop at 16," he said.

"His legs did not," Cooke said. He had come over without either of us hearing him.

The boy was bent double, hands on his knees, trying to get his breath back without anybody seeing.

"Thursday," I said. "First team."

Cooke walked back across the pitch to tell him. I saw Dion straighten up and look over at me, and look away quick. Then he picked the ball up and held it against his stomach with both arms.

My mother rang that night. The Manchester Evening News had taken the photograph down at 4 o'clock, and Mrs Kaur from number 14 had put a plant pot on the step in front of the door number anyway.

"Brighton on Saturday," my mother said.

"Brighton on Saturday."

"Go on, then." The telly went quiet behind her. "Beat them."

Kick-off was 12.30 on the Saturday, for the cameras, and Deano got to the Amex 4 hours before it. Before he unpacked a single shirt he went into the toilets in the away dressing room and looked in every cubicle, and came out and nodded to the kit man behind him.

The coach came off the A27 behind a minibus of Brighton fans with a photograph of JJ Johnson pressed to the back window, in a Brighton shirt, ON LOAN. STILL OURS. across it in felt tip. They banged on the glass at us from the back seat all the way to the car park.

When our players walked out to look at the pitch, Brighton were already warming up. 50 minutes before kick-off, and they were doing full-speed sprints, the whole squad, the subs as well. Chris Hughton stood on the halfway line in his club coat with his arms folded and watched every one of them. Then he turned round and watched us.

He had been a professional footballer since before I was born. He looked at me across the halfway line and nodded, once, and did not smile.

CRYSTAL PALACE: Pope. Wan-Bissaka, Dann, Tarkowski, Chilwell. Neves, Kovačić, Eze. Townsend, Benteke, Zaha.

Bench: Krul, Ward, Sakho, Højbjerg, Rodríguez, Grealish, Cartwright.

The North Stand held its scarves up over its head.

"GOOD OLD SUSSEX BY THE SEA."

It went round all 4 sides and came down on us in the south east corner, and our end threw its own back up at it.

"GLAD ALL OVER. GLAD ALL OVER."

There was an old man in the front row behind our dugout, close enough to touch the roof of it. Flat cap, a blue and white scarf so washed it had gone grey, and WEMBLEY 83 stitched into the end of it by hand.

He had been sat there since before the gates were meant to open, with a flask between his feet. When I came out of the tunnel he leaned over the rail and looked me up and down.

"How old are you, son?"

"29."

"My grandson's 31." He sat back and unscrewed his flask. "He does IT."

Then Zaha came out, and every seat in the Amex booed him. It started low and climbed, a long sound with no break in it, and it followed him all the way to the centre circle. Zaha bent down and retied a lace that was already tied.

The North Stand turned to my box.

"DOES YOUR MUMMY KNOW YOU'RE HERE? DOES YOUR MUMMY KNOW YOU'RE HERE?"

Bray looked at me sideways. I watched my back 4.

"YOU COULDN'T AFFORD JJ. YOU COULDN'T AFFORD JJ."

PRRRRP.

Shane Duffy went through Benteke on 40 seconds. Ball, man, both, and Benteke went up and landed flat on his back, and the Amex roared as if they had scored.

"DUFFY! DUFFY! DUFFY!"

The referee waved play on. Chris Hughton was out on the edge of his area with his fist clenched at his hip.

I had watched 6 of his Brighton games that week on Marcus's laptop. In all 6 of them they had sat in 2 banks of 4 and waited. Today they came at us. March and Knockaert pressed our full backs the second the ball reached them. Murray ran at Dann's back. Stephens and Propper hunted Neves in a pair. Every 50-50 was a tackle and every tackle was a roar, and every throw-in they won, the North Stand stood up and applauded it like a corner.

"Ruben! Time! You've got time!"

He did not have time. He had Propper on his heels and Stephens coming through the back of him, and he gave it away on halfway for the second time in 10 minutes and put both hands on his head.

"SEAGULLS! SEAGULLS! SEAGULLS!"

The old man in the front row was on his feet, flask and all.

"GET INTO HIM! GET INTO HIM, DALE!"

On 11 minutes Brighton won a corner, and Lewis Dunk jogged up for it, and Shane Duffy jogged up next to him. Both of them. I looked at the halfway line. Solly March, on his own, with his hands on his hips, and 40 yards of empty grass behind him.

Pope punched the corner clear. Brighton went again. Both centre halves stayed up until the ball was dead.

"Bray."

"I've seen it."

"Every corner?"

"Every corner, if they're chasing." He looked at the grass behind March. "Nick's punched everything today, Danny."

"Not in the second half, he doesn't."

On 17 minutes Knockaert beat Chilwell on the outside and hung it up at the far post, and Glenn Murray went up with both hands on Scott Dann's shoulders and headed it back across Nick Pope into the far corner.

Thud.

The Amex went up, and I felt it come up through the soles of my shoes. Murray ran to the North Stand with his arms wide, and he was halfway there before he saw the flag.

It was up. The linesman on the far side had it straight up over his head and was not moving.

The noise turned over in a second, a roar into a howl, the whole stadium on its feet and every arm in the North Stand pointing at 1 man in black.

"CHEAT! CHEAT! CHEAT!"

"BOTH HANDS, MY ARSE!" The old man had both his own hands on the dugout roof, banging it. Bang. Bang. "BOTH HANDS, MY ARSE!"

Murray stood in the 6-yard box with his hands out. Dunk ran 50 yards to get to the referee. Chris Hughton was at the 4th official with his face a foot from the board, and I could hear him from my box.

"Both hands? BOTH HANDS? He is 35 years old! He is jumping!"

Scott Dann got up off the grass and rubbed his shoulder and said nothing to anybody.

In the silence under all of it, from our corner, 1 woman's voice on its own.

"COME ON, PALACE!"

"They've made it a final, Danny." Bray was at my shoulder.

"I can see that."

"What do you want?"

I watched Neves take the free kick and give it to Kovačić, and Kovačić give it back, and Propper and Stephens come at them both, fast.

"Mateo," I said. "Mateo and nobody else."

I went to the edge of the paint.

"MATEO!"

He looked over. I made a fist and pushed it forward, twice, and he nodded.

The next time the ball came to him on halfway he turned out of Stephens and ran. Propper came across. Kovačić rode his shoulder and kept going, and Duffy had to step out of the back 4 to stop him, and took him down.

Prrp.

"GET UP, YOU FRAUD!"

"GET UP!" The old man. "I'VE SEEN BETTER DIVES AT THE LIDO!"

Kovačić got up. He walked the ball back to the spot and put it down for Neves, and Neves put it on Tarkowski's head, and Ryan tipped it over.

"PALACE! PALACE! PALACE!" The south east corner found its voice.

On 38 minutes Murray turned Tarkowski on the edge of the box and hit it low and hard for the near post, and Pope went down to his left and turned it round with his wrist.

"OHHHHHHHH!" Hughton was on his haunches on the touchline with his hands over his face.

PRRRP.

0-0

They stood and clapped their team off, every one of them, and booed the referee all the way down the tunnel. A man behind the old man leaned over the rail as we went in.

"Go home, little boy!"

"Leave him alone," the old man said, without turning round. "He's somebody's son."

In the dressing room Zaha sat down with his socks round his ankles and his face shut.

"They sang 2013 all half," he said. "Every time I touch it."

"Good," I said, and he looked up.

"They're singing about 5 years ago, Wilf. Go and give them something new." I turned round. "Nick."

Pope looked up from his gloves.

"Their corners. When Dunk and Duffy both go up, you don't punch it. You catch it."

"And if I can't catch it?"

"You can catch it. Then you throw it, straight away, to Andros on halfway."

Townsend put his bottle down. "Halfway? I'm on the edge of our box for their corners."

"Not when they're both up. When they're both up, you're on halfway, on your own, and you don't come back, whatever Bray screams at you."

"I'll scream," Bray said.

"He'll scream." I turned round. "Mateo."

Kovačić was already nodding.

"Every time. Middle of their 4. Run until 2 of them come. Then look for Ebere."

Eze put his hand up from the other end of the bench. "I'll be there."

When we came back out the North Stand had a new one.

"WE'RE GONNA WIN AT HOME. WE'RE GONNA WIN AT HOME."

***

Thank you to Sir nameyelus for the support.