The referee blew his whistle and the England fans erupted. Johnny Knapp had been chopped down just as he was about to shoot — a split-second more and he would have buried the ball in the back of the net, then wheeled away with his right arm in the air, celebrating a last-minute winner in familiar style. Collecting the ball inside his own half, out near the touchline, he had beaten two players and drifted inside, seen a gap between the centre-halves and gone straight down the middle. There was nobody better in this situation. His game was all about speed and instinct, the ability to make an instant decision. Thinking only complicated things.
Johnny stood up, team mates arriving to slap his back, and he looked over at the ref, who had been surrounded by the opposition, and they were shouting and holding their hands out flat as they faked amazement. It was a clear foul, and he turned away, scanning the crowd behind the goal, loving the Union Jacks and St George's Crosses draped across the barriers, but it was only when he glanced at the other stands that he realised just how many England supporters had made it into the ground. It was incredible. They had travelled so far, spent a small fortune on transport and hotels, struggled to find tickets, and yet here they were, filling three-quarters of the stadium in the last minute of a World Cup semifinal. If he hadn't been fouled he would have put England into the final. There was no doubt in his mind he would have scored. But at least England had a penalty. He suddenly felt very sick.
Johnny walked to the edge of the area, remembering how the manager had given him the job after the team's regular penalty-taker was ruled out through injury. Why hadn't he said anything? He was seen as a maverick, a prolific goal scorer who mixed tap-ins with more flamboyant efforts, and the manager would have understood if he'd explained he was the wrong choice, but his strength was also his weakness — he didn't think ahead. The last penalty he'd taken was in the reserves, before he made his first-team debut, and he'd been so nervous he blazed the ball high over the bar. He was going to miss this one as well. He was about to let England down.
Johnny's face remained impassive, a defence mechanism he had quickly learnt once he turned professional, but his head was spinning. He could feel the fear building, moving towards panic. He had embarrassed himself early on in his career, returning a comment by a defender with an over-the-top reaction, his furious features blown-up and printed in the newspapers the following day, footage of the incident spreading across the internet inside an hour. He had missed an easy chance, it was true, but had really been angry at himself more than the other player. It was out of character and he was ashamed of his behaviour.
Dad took him down The Stag the next afternoon, explained over a Sunday pint how Johnny had to control himself now he was in the spotlight. It was fine to be dedicated, to take football seriously, but it was also important to not take it too seriously. The playing should be enough. Much worse things happened in life. Johnny had heard this piece of advice many times over the years, and while he always nodded and said he understood, the truth was that he didn't. Dad had been right about controlling himself though. There were cameras everywhere.
Beady, unblinking eyes watched his every move. Hundreds of lenses were focused on him at this very moment, looking for weakness, zooming in so close they could isolate a single drop of sweat, and he pictured his face melting as it was digitised and broken into millions of tiny dots, lowered his head and focused on the pitch, but his head was pounding and there was no way he could escape the reality of his situation. He was being watched by 20 or 30 million people back in England, hundreds of millions around the world.
He felt numb, as if he had been injected with a military-strength painkiller, and the sensation was spreading, filling his chest, arms, legs. He was going to put the ball over the bar again, or wide of a post, maybe even hit the corner flag. He would hit it straight into the goalie's arms, or miskick so the ball only trickled as far as the six-yard line. Perhaps he was about to miss the ball completely, slip on the turf and fall over in front of the world. That was if he made it to the penalty spot at all. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, his throat so dry he thought he was going to choke. He wished he could have a drink of water, orange juice, an ice-cold pint of lager.
He knew he was luckier than most, earning millions of pounds for doing something he loved, living in a big house with a swimming pool, and he was safe behind the walls that surrounded his two-acre garden, but once outside the front gates he could never relax. Even when he wasn't playing, the cameras stalked him. He had to think about his every movement, and this made him nervous. There were times when he felt as if he was suffocating.
Like most men he enjoyed a night out, felt comfortable in The Stag with his pre-football mates. A few weeks before the World Cup he had been photographed in the pub, surrounded by people he had grown up with, having a laugh, doing no harm. Pictures had been taken and spread about, filling pages and screens, discussed at length on the radio and internet. It was even suggested he should be pulled out of the England squad. A good session and a curry with the boys cleared his head like nothing else.
One of the worst things about it all was that he wasn't allowed to complain about the intrusion, the unfairness of the criticism, not when he was earning more in three days than most people did in a year. It was ridiculous he was paid so much, he knew that, even though it was a reflection of the society in which he lived, so he had to keep quiet and accept the cameras. It was the penalty of his success.
