Chapter 283 - 2 Legs II

He had told Craig on the Saturday night what he wanted: the bench, and the last quarter of an hour if it was still level. The fourth of his 6, if Craig used him. Craig had said yes.

Ted was at the turnstile in his 1996 scarf, waiting for the queue to thin.

"No roof," he said, when he saw me.

"No."

"I had forgotten what that was like." He looked up at the sky. "It is all right in May."

"Is it all right for you, Ted? Standing?"

"I have been at every away game since August, son. They sat me down at Portsmouth. There is nowhere to sit on that."

"What does the girl say?"

"She would not give me a price till tonight. I told her I would let her know." He went in through the turnstile, clunk, with his stick going first.

Their chairman met us at the boardroom door. He shook Margaret’s hand, and Maureen’s, and mine last.

"We were in the Conference 10 years ago," he said. "People forget."

"We were in it 3 years ago," I said.

"And we do not forget," said Margaret.

He turned to Maureen and held the door for her. "First time at Huish Park?"

"First time this far west," said Maureen. "I have lived in Essex all my life."

We sat in the 3 seats they kept for visitors in the directors’ box, in the middle of the main stand. Right below us was the tunnel, short and dark, with a strip of shade in front of it. Maureen had brought a cushion. Margaret had brought the deed.

The teams came out into the sun. Stokes was back beside Maguire, and I could see him talking before he had reached the halfway line. Marsh was on the bench in his coat with his leg out straight in front of him.

"GLO-VERS! GLO-VERS! GLO-VERS!" off the covered end, loud enough that the roof of it hummed.

"COME ON YOU TOWN!" from the open terrace, every one of the 1,600 on their feet in the sunshine.

"It is very loud for a small ground," said Maureen.

"So is ours," said Margaret. "You are always in the turnstile office."

peep.

You could see the difference by the tenth minute. Every time Yeovil looked up to play it long, Stokes was already talking.

"WITH ME! WITH ME, HARRY! GARY, UP! UP! I WANT TO SEE ALL 4 OF YOU IN A LINE!"

The 4 of them stepped together, and their top scorer was caught offside twice in 5 minutes.

"That is him," Margaret said. "That is the man from January."

"That is him. That is what we pay him for."

On 30 minutes Kanté nicked the ball off their holding midfielder on the edge of the D, and it ran loose, and Reece arrived on it at a run.

He hit it first time from 20 yards with the inside of his right foot. It went up and round their keeper’s hand and dipped in under the bar. thwack off his boot, swish of the net.

1-0. 2-2 on aggregate.

The open terrace went up into the sun. Maureen stood up, which I had never seen her do at a football match, and then sat down again as if she had been caught.

"AI-DEN REECE! AI-DEN REECE! HE SCORES WHEN HE WANTS!"

"2-2," Maureen said. She had it on her fingers.

"Level," said Margaret. "If it stays level, 30 more minutes."

"I could not do 30 more minutes."

peep, peep. 1-0 at half-time. The open terrace sang them all the way into the tunnel below us.

"Is it like this every week?" Maureen said. "All season?"

"Every week since August."

"Then I do not know how Ted is still standing up," said Margaret.

The second half was theirs for a long time. They had 7,000 behind them and their top scorer, and they came at us down both wings. Stokes headed everything that came into the middle, thud, thud, and the third one he headed down to Kanté instead of away.

"KEEP IT, N’GOLO!" Stokes was shouting from the edge of our box. "NO HURRY! MAKE THEM COME AND GET IT! HARRY, STAY ON HIS SHOULDER! TOM, SHOUT FOR IT!"

On 66 their top scorer turned Kettle on the edge of our box and hit the post. clang. It came back off the woodwork into Braithwaite’s arms, and Maureen put her hand flat on her chest.

"I cannot look," she said.

"Then look at me," said Margaret, "and I will tell you."

After that they stopped coming, and pulled everybody back behind the ball. By 70 minutes there were 10 green shirts in their half and most of them in their box.

"COME ON, TOWN! BREAK THEM DOWN!" from the open terrace, over and over.

"They are happy with 30 more minutes," Margaret said.

Reece had gone off on the hour with cramp in both calves, and Gayle had gone on. On 75 minutes Sadler made his last 2 changes at once. Quinn came off, and Murphy came off, and the board went up for Big Pete and Marsh.

"Why is Lenny taking his coat off?" said Maureen.

"Because he picked this one."

"Is his knee all right for it?"

"Dev says it is."

"Then I will believe Dev," said Maureen. "Dev measures things. He measures them every morning and writes them on a card."

"3 at the back," Margaret said. "He has never done that."

"He has never needed to."

I knew what Sadler was doing before Pete had his tracksuit off. There were 10 green shirts in that box, and Pete is 6 feet 4.

Marsh was going on to stand at the back with Stokes and Maguire, 3 of them across, so that whatever Pete did at one end, nobody walked through us at the other.

"BIG PETE! BIG PETE!" Then they saw who was beside him. "LEN-NY MARSH! LEN-NY MARSH!"

Maguire met him at the line and gave him the armband. Marsh pulled it up his arm and walked on.

On the bench Dev took his card out of his top pocket. He had copied the 6 boxes off the wall onto the back of it in March. He ticked the fourth.

DEV’S CARD · MARSH, L. (copied off the wall) MARSH PICKS 6. GAFFER SAYS YES OR NO. NO CLOCK. DEV COUNTS. TAPE EVERY MORNING. [?] [?] [?] [?] [ ] [ ]

2 minutes later Kettle was pulled down on the left touchline, 30 yards out. Mahrez stood over the ball and looked at the box for a long time. There were 9 green shirts in it, and Pete, and Maguire, who had come up for it, and Stokes, who had not.

"Go on, Riyad," Margaret said, very quietly. "Go on."

Mahrez curled it in with his left foot, away from the keeper, into the middle of all of them.

Pete went up. 2 of theirs went up with him and came down below him. thud of his forehead. The ball went down into the grass, bounced once, and went up into the roof of the net.

2-0. 3-2 on aggregate.

The open terrace came over the front fence and the stewards pushed it back. Pete dropped to his knees in the 6-yard box with his arms out, and the whole side landed on top of him.

"PE-TER! PE-TER! PE-TER!"

Margaret had hold of my arm. Maureen had her hand over her mouth. Along the row their chairman sat very still.

"Are we through?" Maureen said through her fingers. "Margaret, are we through?"

"13 minutes," said Margaret. "Do not say it yet."

"I am not saying it. I am asking."

"Then do not ask it yet either."

Yeovil came at us again, because they had to. For 10 minutes the 3 at the back of our side stood in front of everything, Stokes and Marsh and Maguire, shoulder to shoulder, talking all the time.

"LEFT! HE IS LEFT, DEAN!" I could hear Marsh from the main stand. "I HAVE GOT HIM! HARRY, SIT! SIT!"

On 88 minutes they got a cross in from the right. Stokes headed it out, and it fell to one of theirs on the edge of the box. He hit it first time, low and hard, through a crowd of legs. Braithwaite never saw it. It was going in at the near post.

Marsh threw himself across it.

He got everything in front of it, hip and thigh, thump, and the ball spun off him and away past the post for a corner. He landed on the bad leg. I watched the knee go under him. He went down, and he did not get up.

The ground went quiet. You could hear the ball rolling along the advertising boards.

One voice came off our terrace, and I knew it. "GET UP, SON!"

"Sam," Maureen said. "Sam, is he all right?"

"No."

Dev was on the pitch before the referee had waved him on. Stokes was down on one knee beside Marsh, and Maguire stood over the 2 of them with his hands on his hips, looking at the knee and then away from it.

The 2 men with the stretcher came out from beside the tunnel and jogged across the grass.

Marsh saw them coming. He put his hand up, flat.

"NO."

I heard it in the main stand.

"Len," Dev said. "Let them take you, Len. Please."

"I said no."

"Lean on me, then," Stokes said, and held out his arm. Marsh got hold of it and pulled himself up onto the good leg. Dev had him round the waist on the other side. He stood for a second with the bad leg held off the ground.

Then he took his arm off Stokes’s shoulder, pushed Dev’s hand away, and put the bad foot down.

It held him. Just.

I was on my feet. Margaret was standing beside me with her bag held against her chest, the deed in it.

He walked to the touchline. It took him a long time. The stretcher men walked beside him with the stretcher between them and nobody on it.

I had carried the month all season. It was March. In the life before, the knee went under him in March.

This time Marsh had picked his games, and he got March, and April, and 6 days of May that the life before never gave him.

At the touchline he stopped. Maguire had come with him every step. Marsh pulled the armband down off his arm and put it into Maguire’s hand without a word, and closed Maguire’s fingers over it, and let go.

Maguire put it on.

"STAND UP FOR LENNY MARSH! STAND UP FOR LENNY MARSH!"

Our terrace was singing it. Then the covered end started clapping, all of it, people in green and white clapping a man who had just stopped their goal. clap, clap, clap, from every side of the ground.

"Oh, Lenny," Maureen said. "Oh, love. Why will he not let them carry him?"

"He asked me in December," I said. "The day we beat Burton. One good year, and to go on his feet, not on his back."

Sadler had no changes left. We would play the last minutes with 10. Marsh was walking along the front of the main stand toward the tunnel below me, one step and then the next, with his head up.

As he passed the dugout, Sadler stood up out of it and put a hand on his back. Marsh kept walking.

"WELL PLAYED, OLD SON!" a man in a green scarf shouted from the front row as he passed. "WELL PLAYED!"

Behind him Yeovil took the corner. Stokes headed it out. It came back in, and Maguire headed it out again, and the ball went up into the sky toward the open terrace and seemed to stay there.

Marsh was 3 yards from the tunnel when the referee blew for the end.

Our end went up, all 1,600 of them at once, and the whole of our bench ran onto the grass. Maguire stood still in the middle of it all with the armband on, looking at the tunnel.

Marsh did not turn round. He walked into it on his feet.