Godfather Of Champions

“Paul Gerrard got the ball, but Hunt didn’t stop kicking….Oh my God!”

The substitute goalkeeper, Gerrard was supposed to hold the football in his arms and press it under his body, but he was suddenly knocked over by Hunt.

Hunt didn’t think anything of it; it was physical contact. He even smiled for the cameras. But just as he turned around, he saw a huge fist appeared in front of him, and then he was sent flying backwards.

After George Wood punched the man, he lay still, his right leg bent backwards due to the strength Wood had used in the single punch. It was as if this was the evidence, clearly demonstrating to the referee that he had beaten Stephen Hunt in that spark of an altercation.

Wood’s movements were just too fast. From the moment Kim Do-heon passed the football, he gave chase at a high speed, but he was still one step behind and did not manage to put a barrier between the goalkeeper, Gerrard and Hunt.

Because he was closest, he saw Hunt’s dirty trick clearly. He did not care if Hunt’s action was intentional or not, all he knew was that it was an injurious action, especially since it was directed at the head—the most important part of a human body. Even boxing required head protection. A moment of carelessness could be fatal.

There was no time to intercept Hunt, but there was still time to punch him. Therefore, Stephen Hunt, who plotted against Paul Gerrard, was knocked out of the field by George Wood’s single powerful punch.

Hunt’s dirty trick against Gerrard was covert, but George Wood’s punch was a public act of stadium violence.

The referee, Riley’s whistle finally rang. With Wood in the middle, the players from both sides suddenly swarmed around, looking like they were ready for a fight. As the players jostled and pushed each other on the field, Twain grabbed the collar of the fourth official at the sideline and yelled, “Stop the game and call for an ambulance! Did you not see someone is unconscious?”

There were also people shouting on the field, “Stop fighting. Help him!!”

“Didn’t you hear that? Save him!”

“Damn it, ref, blow the whistle and calm them all down!”

The players on both sides were forcibly separated. They all calmed down when they saw Gerrard unconscious on the ground. The football had rolled past the end line. Was it a corner kick or a goal ball? No one cared about that anymore.

The Nottingham Forest team doctors had rushed up to administer emergency rescue while the Riley was busy controlling the agitated players on both sides.

“His condition is very bad. He needs to be sent directly to the hospital.” Fleming shook his head, speaking to the referee who had approached.

The referee waved for the ambulance, which was parked at the exit, to drive over.

As the paramedics carried Gerrard into the ambulance, Riley whistled for Wood to follow him. Wood knew very well what was going to happen. He would not obediently follow him. He looked at Gerrard, who was strapped to a stretcher, took off the captain’s armband and threw it to Piqué, and turned to walk straight into the player’s tunnel by the sidelines.

Behind him, Riley had already raised his hand high with the red card in his hand. Riley did not punish the perpetrator, Stephen Hunt. He did not even give him a verbal warning.

Hunt had fallen on the ground and was also being treated by the team doctor. But he only had a swollen face at the most, which could not be compared to Gerrard’s injury. The Reading team’s medical unit dragged out treatment for five minutes, during which the booing did not stop.

Without Gerrard, Edwin van der Sar had to be put on the field, and since George Wood was sent off with a red card, Twain could only replace one other player. This time he chose to bring off the striker, Bendtner.

Bendtner gnashed his teeth as he walked off the field. He was not upset that he was being brought off. He was angry because his teammate was ambushed, and the perpetrator had gotten away with it.

“Be careful!” Twain warned him as van der Sar walked onto the field.

Edwin van der Sar nodded with a solemn expression.

This time, everyone was surprised by Twain’s deep anxiety. After Edwin van der Sar ran onto the field, the booing stopped and was replaced by the sounds of applause. It would indeed take some courage to play at this time after Gerrard had just been knocked unconscious and sent to the hospital.

As the Nottingham Forest goalkeeper had just come on the field, Hunt stood on the sidelines and raised his hand to request to come back on the field.

As if there was a conductor, the applause for Edwin van der Sar immediately turned into an earth-shattering boo, so loud that it took one’s breath away.

Twain stood in front of the technical area with his eyes fixed intently on Hunt, his chest heaving.

※※※

“Riley approved Hunt’s request to play again, which is a little unbelievable. That petty maneuver was absolutely immoral. Kicking a limb and kicking the head are two completely different things. Seeing Hunt play again, the Forest players’ expressions changed. I think Riley’s going to have his hands full for this game. Moreover, Paul Gerrard’s injury is quite worrying. Hopefully he’s going to be fine.”

The commentator was right. Riley found it difficult to keep control of the game. Originally, the injury stoppage time in the first half was five minutes. But they could only play two minutes, and he hurriedly blew the whistle to end the first half.

The whistle sounded and the players on the field did not make any drastic moves. Instead, Tony Twain rushed to the visiting coach’s technical area and tore into Steve Coppell as he roared, “This is how you f**king play football, Coppell!”

Coppell ignored Twain and walked briskly toward the tunnel. His assistant manager, Dillon, came up to confront Twain. “Please mind your language, Mr. Twain!”

Twain pushed him away. “Get lost, you’re not qualified to talk to me!”

Twain bellowed at Coppell’s back, which the television journalists at the scene could hear, “Why are you keeping quiet, Coppell! Don’t think that silence can clear you of this. Show the guts that you let your players use on us! Where are the d*ck and balls between your legs?!” Coppell still did not answer as he increased his pace. “If anything happens to my player! Stephen Hunt—that bastard will be a murderer, and you son of a bitch will be the mastermind! We’ll see you in court!”

“Mr. Tony Twain, watch your words…” The fourth official warned Twain at the back.

Twain jerked his head around and stared at him. He was so terrified that he swallowed back the words and did not finish his sentence.

“We’ll settle our score separately, Mr. Referee.” Twain threw out this remark before he marched into the tunnel.

The Reading assistant manager, Dillon, who was just pushed aside by, also wanted to come up and demand an answer from Twain, but he was turned back by the stadium security guard.

“I—I can treat this as a threat to the referee!” The fourth official announced loudly.

“Do whatever you want, Mr. Referee.” replied the assistant manager, Kerslake as he walked past him. He was followed by the Nottingham Forest coaches who all looked serious as they walked back.

Only Dunn stayed on to explain to the angry fourth official, “Please forgive them for their reactions, Mr. Referee. Our player was taken to the hospital, and we do not know how serious his injury is…”

The fourth official looked at those people who were rude to him, and then glanced at this Chinese man in front of him. He turned and walked away with a grim expression.

Dunn scratched his head somewhat helplessly and turned to run back into the tunnel to catch up with the rest of the team.

The media were excited. The scene that happened during the halftime interval was so thrilling that tomorrow’s news would be exciting! The fierce conflict during the game and the halftime interval was a three-way melee!

※※※

Back in the locker room, Twain received a call from Fleming, the team doctor who went with Gerrard to the hospital.

“Good news, Tony. The initial examination shows that Paul’s life is not in danger.”

Twain breathed a sigh of relief. “Did he fracture his skull?”

“So far, they haven’t found anything. The bad news is that it’s likely he has to rest for more than six months. They have to consider the after-effects of a concussion. We do not know if he will be able to return to the field to continue as a goalkeeper.”

Twain fell into silence again.

The entire locker room was quiet. Everyone was listening to Twain’s phone conversation. Although they could not hear Fleming on the other end of the line, they could guess some things from Twain’s expression.

After he was quiet for a moment, Twain gave a grunt and hung up the phone. He then looked at a room full of expectant looks.

“Paul’s life is not in danger,” he began to say.

The players gave an audible sigh of relief. The dreary and suffocating atmosphere just now had just been eased.

Twain did not say the bad news because he was afraid to affect the mood of the players.

“George.” He looked towards the captain’s seat and said, “You come with me.” With that, he patted the assistant manager, Kerslake on the shoulder and indicated to him to take charge of going over the tactics.

Wood stood up and followed Twain out of the door.

“All right, guys, calm yourselves. Let’s go over the second half again.”

Kerslake’s voice faded as the door was closed.

There was no one left in the passageway. There was no one to disturb Twain and Wood, except for a few stadium staff hurriedly walked by.

“George, how many times have you been sent off because you acted impulsively?” Twain stared at Wood and asked.

Wood bowed his head and kept quiet.

This was his typical impassive attitude. Twain frowned and slightly raised his volume, “You’re the captain. Can you cool down a little bit? After you’re sent off, our playing becomes passive! There are forty-five minutes left in the game. Who knows what else will happen? What more, do you know the cost of your one punch?!”

An important measure by the English Football Association for the Premier League this season was “severe punishment for any stadium violence.” Just before this game, the Manchester City fullback, Ben Thatcher, bashed the Portsmouth midfielder, Pedro Mendes with his elbow in the game, causing Mendes to faint and was suspended by the English Football Association for an additional eight games.

The Football Association would severely punish this type of stadium violence and foul this season. Manchester United’s Paul Scholes and Wayne Rooney were suspended for three rounds in the league tournament because they each received a red card in the pre-season friendlies.

The former incidents were just fouls, but George Wood’s deliberate punch was bound to be viewed by the Football Association as a brazen provocation of their authority. There was almost no need to guess what kind of punishment would await Wood. No wonder Twain was furious.

Wood was silent for a moment and could hear the sound of Twain’s heavy breathing across from him getting louder, and he knew that his boss was really angry. Then he opened his mouth and said, “When I met Roy Keane, he told me that he used to beat people up and then think about whether or not he should have taken the shot. Later, he learned to think about whether or not he should hit someone before he punched them.”

Twain listened in bafflement, “what does this have anything to do with what we’re talking about?”

“This time, I thought about it before I hit him,” Wood said as he raised his head.

Twain grabbed his head with both hands. He was stumped.

Roy, you b*stard, of all the things to teach George, you taught him this!

“You stupid b*stard, if the referee was going to punish the foul player, your punch just landed you in it!”

“Was that number 10 punished?” Wood asked in return.

Twain froze for a moment, and then answered indignantly, “No!” He certainly knew what Wood meant. “You are not a vigilante, George. You’re the captain of the team. You have to prioritize the entire team’s interests at all times.”

“I know,” George replied.

“You know, and yet you still…” It was really infuriating for Twain to try to have a conversation with him.

“If I didn’t fight, they’d have done the same.” Wood pointed to the door of the locker room.

Twain could not refute this. He knew his team the best. Wood said one thing right. A lot of players in this Forest team had been playing together for several years and developed a deep emotional bond. They had long regarded each other as their own people. When one of their own people was being bullied, who could stand by and do nothing?

This fight could not have been avoided by any means.

There was a brief silence between the two men.

“All right, George. If you seriously thought about it before you hit that bastard hard, I’m sure you know exactly what the consequences of this punch are.”

Wood nodded.

“So, the next time a similar situation occurs, just hit harder!”

Wood looked up at Twain with somewhat a strange look.

“Since you are going to be sent off with a red card and an additional suspension and if the other side does not follow suit and go to the hospital, it just makes your exit a little meaningless. To put it bluntly, that was you venting your personal spite.” Twain shrugged his shoulders and said, “Your punch has to have a bigger effect. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Wood contemplated, and then nodded.

“Go on and head back.” Twain patted him on the shoulder and opened the locker room door for him.

When Twain and Wood returned to the locker room, Kerslake had already finished all his instructions and waited for Twain to sum up his remarks.

“All of you know our current situation, I’m not going to talk nonsense. We must win this game! We don’t care what means and methods you use. In short, we must stop that bunch of bastards! I don’t care about fouls! Red card, yellow card? Let that d*ck-less referee pull one out of his pants and try it! He’s got no d*ck, where will he f**king get those cards?”

※※※

The outcome of the game was Nottingham Forest thrashed Reading by 1:0.

Despite the win, it was a tragic victory for Twain.

Both teams played with resentment in the second half. Pepe suffered a knee injury in a fierce scramble with the opposing defender and had to be carried off. The team doctor’s initial diagnosis about his condition was not encouraging. Pepe was replaced by Kompany as a result. Sonko was kicked out of the field by Riley, the referee on duty with a red card for that foul—even though it was just an ordinary fierce scramble, and it could not be compared to Hunt’s malicious attack in the first half.

As a result, the commentator ridiculed Riley for trying to seek a balance in the game commentary, and unfortunately that his act of trying to curry favor with the home team attracted even more boos.

Hunt, who got rid of Paul Gerrard, was replaced by Coppell with the South Korean striker, Seol Ki-hyeon, not long after the start of the second half. Hunt had become the “hunting target” of the Forest team on the field. As long as he had the ball, there would be Forest players going up there to “violently collide.” Most of the time, Riley went along with the Forest team’s behavior. Even so, the Forest team still received three yellow cards just on Hunt.

This provoked the anger of the Reading team. The more the two teams played, the more physical they got. Riley completely lost control of the situation. Towards the end of the game, he started issuing cards frequently.

Because he had already accumulated two yellow cards, Ashley Young was sent off with a red card. Seol Ki-hyeon, who only came on in the second half, was also sent off with a red card because he struck Kompany with his elbow during a scramble for a header.

When the game entered the injury stoppage time, the agitated coaching staff from both teams also clashed on the sidelines. Kerslake angrily went up and questioned the Reading team’s rough style as not playing football at all but waging a war. The Reading assistant manager, Dillon, who was already disgruntled with the Forest team, naturally stepped out to fight. Had it not been for both sides’ colleagues desperately holding them back, the two men might have fought directly under the nose of the fourth official.

Twain did not step in to stop his own assistant. He coolly observed this scene on the sidelines with some vengeance. He did not think about how he was going to play against Arsenal in the next round. He just wanted to even the score in this game right in front of him.

The referee will not punish, will he? Then my men will do it!

In the double chaos on the sidelines and on the field, the referee, Riley, who had already lost all control of the situation and the players’ reactions on both sides, hurriedly blew the whistle to end the game. He completely ignored the seven minutes of make-up time on the signboard that the fourth official had just raised up…

His whistle sounded, drowned out by the deafening boos over the City Ground stadium.

What a farce!