Chapter 845: Like Home
At 20 to 3 they put 3 plinths on the halfway line, and there is a reason it is 3 and not 2.
You get into a Community Shield 2 ways. You win the league, or you win the FA Cup.
Manchester City won the league by 19 points with 100 of them.
We won the FA Cup.
So they brought the Premier League trophy out, and they brought the FA Cup out, and they put a third plinth between the 2 with a cloth over it.
Under the cloth was the only 1 of the 3 that nobody in that stadium had won yet.
RRRRRAAAAAAAAAA.
Vincent Kompany carried the league title.
He is 32 and he has been at that club 10 years and he was there when it was not that club, and he came out of that tunnel in a suit with his collar open and put it down on the plinth like a man putting down a bag of shopping.
7,000 in the north east corner sang his name for 40 seconds and he did not look up once.
And Ron carried the FA Cup.
Ron is 71 years old and he has been on the gate at Beckenham for 19 years. He cleans that barrier with a cloth he keeps in the hut. He calls me son and he called the last 4 managers son and he will call the next 4 son.
Sarah rang him on Thursday and asked him and he said no.
Then he rang her back on Friday morning at 7 and said his grandson had told him he was being ridiculous, and could he wear his own coat.
He came out of that tunnel in his own coat, in 27 degrees, holding it with both hands like it was full of soup.
He got about 40 yards and stopped and looked round, because nobody had told him where he was going.
"RONNIE! RONNIE!"
40,000 people in the Palace end worked out who he was inside 10 seconds. I have no idea how. I have asked 6 people since and not 1 of them knows either.
Joel Ward came out of our line and went back for him and walked him the rest of it with a hand between his shoulder blades.
Joel Ward is 28. He has been at this football club since 2012, he was on that pitch the day we went down, and he has been the 4th best player in every team he has ever been in.
Nobody told him to do that either.
I watched all of it from the mouth of that tunnel and I did not go out.
I have not walked out onto a pitch to be looked at since the day I got this job and I am not starting on the 5th of August.
Bray was stood next to me with his arms folded.
"You should be out there."
"No."
"Danny, you won that cup."
"They won it. Ron has been on that gate 19 years and he has watched every one of them go out of that building and come back into it." I did not take my eyes off it. "And there is only 1 of those 3 that is worth anything to me this afternoon, and it is under a cloth."
Prrp. A steward’s whistle.
"Aye," Bray said. "Well. Your mother is in 118."
I turned my head.
"Since when?"
"Since Sarah put her there on Wednesday and told you nothing about it," he said. "Do not look at me. I am the set pieces."
At 5 to 3 they took the cloth off the third one.
Then 4 men in blazers carried all 3 of them off that pitch, the league, the cup and the Shield, and put them somewhere under the stand where nobody could see any of them.
1 of the 3 comes back at 5 o’clock.
I stood in that tunnel and looked at the grass where they had been for about 20 seconds longer than I meant to.
The tunnel at 3 minutes to 3 is 2 rows of men who have nothing to say to each other, in a concrete corridor, under 84,617 people.
Rrrrrrrrr. You can feel them through the floor.
Clk. Clk. Clk.
Studs on a rubber floor. Somebody bouncing a ball. A man in a McDonald’s polo shirt with a clipboard, because they sponsor this thing and their name is on the trophy.
Jon Moss had the ball under his arm. West Yorkshire. He has done 4 of ours. He gives you a decision and walks away from it, and I have been happy with all 4.
Sergio Agüero was 4 feet from me with his hands behind his back, looking at a spot on the wall about 9 feet up.
Phil Foden, 18, was 2 places behind Fernandinho and had his socks pulled up over his knees, and Michael Olise, 16, was 30 feet away in a tracksuit, and neither of them knew the other one existed.
Kyle Walker leaned over to Aaron Wan-Bissaka.
"Alright."
"Yeah."
"You had a year, you." Walker put his hand out. "I watched the Arsenal one 3 times."
"Cheers," Aaron said, and shook it.
Kyle Walker is 28 and he went to a World Cup semi-final as England’s right back 4 weeks ago. Aaron Wan-Bissaka is 20 and somebody offered 55 million pounds for him on Tuesday night.
Both of them know what that handshake was, and neither of them said another word.
Pep Guardiola came down that line and shook my hand.
He is 47. He had a grey jumper on in 27 degrees.
"Congratulations for the summer."
"Thank you."
"No, listen to me." He had my hand and did not let it go. "3 trophies and the second place, and then a World Cup final with Morocco. In 1 year. In your first year."
"Second year."
"In your second year." He let go. "It is not going to get easier. Everybody has watched the tapes now."
"I know."
"Good," Pep Guardiola said. "That is the correct answer," and went and stood at the front of his line.
I said 1 thing in that tunnel and I said it to 1 man.
I went 3 places down our line and put my hand on the back of Christian Benteke’s neck and said it into the side of his head.
"He is 33 years old and he has run 11 kilometres a game for 5 seasons and nobody has ever gone with him for 90 minutes.
"You go with him for 90 minutes."
"I know what I am doing, gaffer."
"I know you do. I wanted to be the last voice in your ear and not Marcus."
Benteke laughed once, through his nose.
"Marcus has already done it twice."
"TEAMS, PLEASE."
And they went out.
RRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAA.
84,617 people in a bowl with a roof on it, and nothing to slow it down.
There is no anthem at a Community Shield. There is no lap and there is no build up. There is a handshake line, a photograph, a coin, and then football.
The Palace end had 3 flags going over the top of it, hand to hand, all the way to the back, and 61,400 people were singing 1 word over and over and the word was PALACE.
Wilfried Zaha stood on that line with his shirt in his fists and his eyes shut for about 3 seconds.
He has been at this club since he was 12. He was on the pitch when they went down. He went to Manchester United at 20 and it did not work and he came back and half of this country laughed at him for 3 years.
[WILFRIED ZAHA. CONDITION 96%. DETERMINATION 18.]
I have had that number on him for 14 months and it has never told me anything I could not see.
Clap clap clap clap.
The handshakes took 40 seconds. The photograph took 20 and Michael Olise took one of his own from the bench, of the back of Wilfried Zaha’s head.
Fernandinho called the coin and Fernandinho got it.
Sarah sat down on my left with the folder on her knee.
"Say it," I said.
"Say what?"
"You have had something in your mouth since the tunnel."
"Fine." She did not look at me. "Foden."
"Go on."
"He is 18 and he is starting a Community Shield and everybody in that stand thinks it is a nice story. Guardiola has put him on the left of that 3 because Aaron is on that side, and Foden does not stay on a touchline, and Aaron has spent his whole life defending one."
I turned my head.
"Sarah."
"I know. There is nothing either of us can do about it in the next 40 seconds." She opened the folder. "I am telling you so that when it happens in the 12th minute, both of us already knew."
Bray sat down on my right. Marcus 2 seats along with 2 laptops. Rebecca at the end with a bag she never opens and always needs.
Jon Moss put the ball on the centre spot and stepped back and looked at both goalkeepers, and Claudio Bravo put a hand up at one end and Nick Pope put a hand up at the other.
Wilfried Zaha stood on the halfway line about 40 yards away and did not look at our bench.
PRRRRRRP.
***
Thank you to Sir nameyelus and Kostas_Gounakis for the support.