Prologue

Saturday 17 November 2001, White Hart Lane

It is different today. Even the man from the Salvation Army shouting out for donations isn’t smiling. On the corner, a street vendor is doing a roaring trade selling t-shirts with what the uneducated would perceive as the world’s biggest villain since Hitler printed on the front. Here comes a group with their teeth biting so tightly that their jawbones may crack. ‘Come on!’ shouts the tallest, ‘let’s get in there!’ He coughs one of those long phlegmy spasms that you hear in the next-door room through thin walls in cheap hotels, before a spit to the pavement.

A crowd is huddled outside the burger stand. It is nothing more than a one-sided caravan with a stove, on which burgers and onions fry. The owner, an enthusiastic raconteur not unlike those we hear on Speakers’ Corner, has a queue of punters. He sweats a lot as he serves, his hair rather wet from the steam; each customer receiving a special quip as they hand over their cash. Although there is hate in the air, it does not seem to have spoiled the crowd’s appetite. There is nothing better than to have a full stomach before a battle.

‘Keep up!’ the father calls to his son, the boy’s blue and white scarf tied tightly around his neck. The father takes hold of his hand. Today, of all days, even without the bigger story hanging over them, would be one to hold firmly on to little hands. For today is the great derby match between Tottenham and Arsenal.

It’s ten minutes to three. Time to get in. The father passes over their season tickets to a woman who tears off the paper in the booklet. ‘She’s our lucky charm!’ the father once said to his son, and since then the boy has always whispered the word ‘lucky’ into his ear. They walk through the click of the turnstiles, beyond the milling hordes and up the steep stone stairway, out into the open again, the green grass of the battleground brilliant to the eyes. It feels like the Coliseum today. The crowd is singing, no, yelling.

Traitor! Traitor!

There is a sense of madness spreading through the ground. A flicker in the faces of apprehension, of anticipation, of bafflement.

Why did you do this to us?

Yes, how quickly things can change in life. Our one-time hero has transformed himself into our everlasting villain.

It’s five to three. The crowd jumps up and down, sways. Sections fall over each other in cascades of tribal bonding; a mass of humanity stacked so close together, even though they have their our own seats you feel you could gauge the tone of each individual breath.

Then, in slow motion, they see a flurry of activity at the head of the tunnel. Thirty-seven thousand people inside the ground, and millions watching back home on television, rise to look in that direction. Down below on God’s turf, stewards so eager to turn round have to watch the crowd to make sure there is no trouble. Trouble? Some have never felt so close to war, to hatred. ‘Judas!’ yells the man in front; the rest of the row join in. The photographers are squeezed together, their index fingers twitching with excitement; today they know where and who their money shot is. They know what their editor wants, what the public wants. The snappers step forward. The teams are on their way: the good angels and the evil angels. Soon the reason for the home supporters’ anguish will emerge. Very soon. Here they come. Yes, I see them! The teams walking side by side. Where is he? Where is the man? ‘We Hate You Because We Loved You’ is written on one banner.

Do you understand, do you realise that?

It’s one of those love affairs we can never forgive because of the way it ended. The crowd release four thousand white balloons with the word ‘Judas’ etched in blue. They fill the grey sky for a moment but soon disappear from view, an act of defiance that would be completely forgotten if it wasn’t for what comes next. Finally, he’s in sight. Here he comes: Judas into the Garden of Gethsemane. He looks straight ahead and immediately picks up his pace. Spellbound or terrified? There he is, the man the crowd have been waiting for: Sol Campbell, the home team’s former skipper, in red shirt with white sleeves with a number 23 on his back. The man who said he’d stay at White Hart Lane and sign a new contact when his original deal ran out. He said that he loved Tottenham.

Really? Did you really say that, Sol? Well then, why did you leave the club and break a thousand, no, tens of thousands of hearts? Why on earth did you do that? And why did you, to cap it all, sign for Arsenal, the North London neighbours and sworn enemy? Answer that, Sol.

He is the seventh man out. It’s a cliché but he looks the calmest person on the field. He doesn’t give a clue that he is being threatened by the onslaught of venom. Enjoying it even? Perhaps, deep down, he is terrified. But no-one can truly tell. The crowd begins to whistle like a freight train exploding through the station. The man to the father’s right wrings his hands. ‘Booooooooo!!!’ howls his son standing on tiptoes. The father’s instinct is to scold him. Don’t do that, don’t join in the pantomime. But he doesn’t. Maybe because he is too angry. Anyway, it’s not causing much harm, is it? It’s just a game after all.

But no, it’s more than that. For those of us who follow and appreciate its beauty, it maps our moods, shapes our days and for many adds colour to our drab uneventful lives. Such delicacy, such grace. Yes it is personal, of course it is. Watch the football. Think of all it’s given us: the tales we’ve been able to tell, the debates, why we won, why we lost, why is our life so good, why is it so shit. Post mortem on our day, on our life. ‘Loved football all his life’ should be written on our obituaries, because as football fans it’s true. Yes, it is true. Hands in the air. Praise be to God. Here’s another tale from our beautiful game: Sulzeer Jeremiah Campbell’s story, our one-time favourite son.

Then silence. The referee puts the whistle to his mouth. The game begins.

• • •

Eight Years Later

I’m in La Delizia, my local Italian restaurant. La Delizia sits on the corner of a precinct of shops on Chelsea Manor Street, off the Kings Road in Chelsea. This unassuming place is one long thin room with chestnut-coloured walls and a dozen tables; you could easily walk by without noticing it’s a restaurant. People who find it tend to return. They like the anonymity of the place; it reflects their character.

I sipped at a latte. There was only one other customer in the restaurant. He was someone you could not easily miss. It was Sol Campbell. He certainly looked the part of one of our finest footballers in recent years: firmly angled lantern-jawed face, body of a supreme athlete, the omnipresence of a superstar that usually sounds off a vibration that unsettles anyone who comes within reach of its aura. But I could see, or rather feel immediately, that Sol was different. He merges his presence within the walls. He was there, without being there, like someone walking across snow without leaving footprints. And I was surprised my initial reaction was one of confusion; the result, I realise now, of a flashback to the days of watching him play football, and although not understanding his actions, having a liking for single-minded ambition.

He is talking with the owner Michele, who is opening his mouth wide and long, shoulders hunched, palms open, speaking to him like he’s answering several telephones at once. Sol is listening, not uttering a word. His smile tells me he is enjoying the tale, his entertainment for the morning. Suddenly Michele turns and calls out, ‘Simon, have you met Sol?’

‘No I haven’t,’ I reply. I get up and walk over to introduce myself. So much for ignoring him.

‘Another coffee, Sol?’ a waiter asks, interrupting the flow of our introduction. He says, ‘double espresso’ and shakes my hand with a firm grasp and a straight look into my eyes. The way Sol struck me at first with that look was that he was shy. We exchanged a few pleasantries. He seemed a little distant. Although I think he wanted to talk, he gave the impression that opening up to someone new was not easy. But we did speak briefly about football. What else? Every famous footballer has to go through the barrage of overexcited eager fan questions before any further connection can be made. I thought I would start with an easy one: ‘Why did you leave Tottenham?’ Nothing too testing, then. I half-expected him to say, ‘Leave me alone … You ask too many questions …’ But no, he was nothing like that. He was cordial, respectful even. Our conversation lasted a few minutes. Before leaving, I confessed I was a Spurs fan. When I told him, I felt sure he already knew. I think it’s obvious. I think we carry it in our eyes.

After a few encounters, we begin to feel more comfortable in each other’s company. He asks me over to join him. He’s the one who starts the conversation, when before it was always me. He talks more freely about his mood, how he is feeling. There is still hesitation when we talk about Tottenham; I notice it is definitely there.

‘Good result for Spurs at the weekend. I think they’ll finish in the top four. Don’t you?’

There is a pause. I change the subject, or rather the team. And he begins to talk more freely, until we reach the point where I can ask the question.

‘Can I write your book?’

He doesn’t reply immediately and then says, ‘It’s too early.’

‘Too early or too painful?’

I kept prompting him about the book each time we met. And then, four years later, things changed. He had retired from football and it seemed that he was trying to fill up his days. ‘The beginning of the season is very difficult,’ he told me at the start of 2013-14. ‘I want to be involved. Playing!’ he emphasises. ‘I mean, just watching the games is very painful. I used to be out there. Part of it.’

He authorised me to write his biography. ‘It’s time,’ he said without hesitation. What follows is his story told through a series of text messages, talks with team-mates, managers and friends, but mainly from face-to-face conversations with Sol himself, usually held in our local Italian.

He was nearly always late for our meetings by at least fifteen minutes but would send word by text. When he arrived he would apologise and greet me with a firm handshake. He did not once refuse to answer a question, however tough the question might be. Sometimes he would stare at me with a seriously blank expression when I asked something difficult, but he would eventually open up.

I’ve listened carefully to Sol and although you might imagine you’ve heard it all before from a footballer, in numerous keys and orchestrations, I believe he will surprise you.

Sometimes there may be slight discrepancies in events, but as the saying goes, if two or more people recall an incident in exactly the same way, you can be almost certain they got together and agreed to lie…