For over a decade I played in the top flight, earned 31 caps, picked up a few medals along the way. Less than I probably should’ve, but more than most players.

Despite this, my entire public persona rests on two pillars of perception.

The first, is that I’ve somehow garnered a reputation for being a so-called “intellectual.”  I’ve become the ex-footballer for the sports journalist seeking an interesting observation beyond the antiseptic replies that most modern players are coached to deliver.

When the first edition of my autobiography was published back in ’04, a newspaper commissioned a professor from the LSE’s political science department to review it. A powerful read from everyone’s favorite metaphysical midfielder, was her concluding line.

The second pillar, is that within the sporting public’s collective memory, my final seven days as a professional footballer was one of epic failure. In that now, infamous week, at the conclusion of the 95-96 season, I missed three penalties, in three consecutive games.

“Three of the biggest games of your career, I think it’s fair to say Ryan.”

Fair to say. That crutch phrase is firmly established within the already crowded field of sporting cliché.  But I know this neck-bearded, checkered-shirt wearing, 30-something journalist sitting in front of me, would be crushed if I highlighted his lazy use of language.

“Yes, it’s fair to say John,” I reply. “You know that’s one of the reasons I love coming over here to Dublin, your lot are not afraid to tell it straight.”

We’re sitting in front of a packed audience, in a large pub, at a live recording of John’s weekly football podcast. His show is the self-conscious antithesis of traditional sports journalism cliché. It’s knowing, sarcastic and popular. I find it a bit much to be honest.

“It’s over two decades since those iconic misses Ryan. As everyone knows, it proved to be a sad week to end your stellar career.”

The week?

In those seven days, before my (already planned) retirement, I missed a penalty in our final crucial home game of the season, as a result we failed to win the League. The following Wednesday I ballooned (that’s the verb that’s always used, even by highbrow sports hacks like John) a penalty over the bar in the European Cup Winners Cup Final shoot-out. We lost. Then on the Saturday, my 87th minute penalty was saved in the Cup final at Wembley. We lost again.

“C’mon John, who doesn’t secretly enjoy an unhappy ending? It’s more interesting for one thing. Sure, we’re still talking about that week all these years later, aren’t we?”  I smile.

But the truth of that week is not exactly how John and others remember it.

The victors may write history, but I’ve come to understand that it’s also often scribbled down by the lazy.

So significant elements are forgotten, like the fact that my miss in the European final was not actually the one that cost us the game. Two others, including our star striker Browner, also failed to convert their spot kicks on that sticky night in Vienna. People also fail to recall that after the keeper parried my Wembley pen away, Browner missed an absolute sitter on the rebound.

But over the years, I’ve made my peace with the fact that the narrative fix is in. My role in that week is firmly lodged into the orthodox sporting record.

“We’ll return to those penalties later Ryan.”

“Great.” I wink towards the crowd.

“So, Ryan, you also have the reputation of being intelligent. An intellectual even.”

This provokes a couple of stray laughs in the audience.

“Yeah, that’s a strange one, obviously I’ve never styled myself as that. I’m a bit embarrassed by it, to be honest. I suppose it all started early in my career. Many of you have probably heard this story before. When I first broke into the Rovers team as a 19-year-old kid, Kick magazine reached out for an interview.”

“Yeah, I think many of us remember Kick magazine,” John shouts out to the audience. Nostalgic cheers of recognition emerge from the dark.

“Well, the Kick journalist asked me something about how I deal with defeats and injuries. In response I told him, ‘You just have to get on with it, like the way Albert Camus wrote about Sisyphus.'”

“Ha!” John laughs a little too hard. “He was probably expecting you to say that you ‘take each game as it comes’ or something like that.”

Clichés really are the greatest sin for guys like John.

“I think he had a follow up query as to whether Camus was maybe some young French player he hadn’t heard off?”

John is laughing so hard now that I worry, he may not be able to continue the interview.

“I told him that Camus had actually been a pretty good goalkeeper in his youth. That is before he hung up his boots, took out his pen, and wrote about the absence of given meaning in the universe, with its resulting dilemma for man, particularly in light of man’s inherent need to seek a purposeful foundation on which to construct life.”

John’s laughing subsides.

“And women,” he says.

“What?”

“It’s a dilemma for men and women.”

“Yes,” I say.

John nods.

I continue. “The guy from Kick wrote some lines that, I think, have become infamous in football journalism folklore.”

John waves his hand. “Actually, Ryan we’ve already scanned a copy of the original interview, and we’ll put it up on the big screen now for everyone to see.”

John makes a hand signal towards someone standing unseen at the rear of the bar. The lights dim further and the large screen at the back of the stage brightens.

I arch my head round to see the scanned page from Kick enlarged across the screen. My young face in Rovers’ blue.

John begins to read aloud from the article.

“Top young midfielder Ryan Milner is inspired by the ‘never say die’ attitude of ex-Algerian goalkeeper Al Camus, whom he regards as a real hero. He told Kick that Al never lets defeats get on top of him. ‘He thought that was absurd,’ Ryan told Kick. That, readers, is an important lesson for all young footballers.”

John smiles. “Hilarious.”

John’s self-satisfaction makes me nauseous. But my role here is not to challenge. It’s for this gig to pass smoothly, or at least that’s what my agent Sam pleaded for.

“As I’ve said,” Sam huffed on the phone last night, “I’m contractually bound to give you advice. So, during this interview I would avoid anything about race, sex, women, politics. Got it?”

“All the things they’ll expect me to talk about.”

“I’ve to raise these flags, Ryan. Anyway, there are a few specific taboos for this particular show. This is a young Dublin crowd, you know, like trendy and ironic or some other bullshit like that. They’ll be consistently tweeting through the interview, so be vigilant. One wrong phrase could be videoed and uploaded and spark a social media shit-storm before you even step off the stage. Wait there a second.”

I heard Sam clicking his computer mouse. “Found it. Okay, don’t mention Northern Ireland, clerical sex abuse, Brexit, alcoholism, obviously your dad was Irish so they’ll probably think you should’ve declared for them so thread carefully there as well. Also don’t mention their local league, this lot feel guilty that they don’t support it. Plenty about how you hated playing for England. They’ll lap that up. The saps.”

John coughs.  “Your mother had a big impact on your career Ryan, am I right? She was a radical.”

Now, I think it’s fair to say, this isn’t a question I often get asked by the average soccer hack.

“My father died in a construction accident when I was four. She basically raised me alone. Her father was a Communist Party member, though she herself never officially joined. But she was a fellow-traveler you could say. There was plenty of politics in the family home. My mother had supported the Viet-Cong like it was her local team, and I won’t even start to explain what she thought of the Northern Ireland situation.”

“Ah go on,” an audience member shouts.

I smile and close an invisible zip across my mouth. Sam would be so proud of me.

“She trained you, am I correct?”

“In a way. You see, she was opposed to professional competitive sport because of her beliefs. But one evening the manager of my school-team knocked at our front door. He told her that I’d something special and it should be encouraged.”

“She became a strong female influence,” says John glancing out towards the audience.

“Well, she had no real interest in sport. Our home was full of books and political leaflets in messy piles strewn across the kitchen table. She told my manager that exams were more important. But he was persuasive. In the end she insisted if I was going to take football seriously, I was not to be a glory hunter.”

“And this helped forge your distinctive style of midfield play?”

“I was too young to understand politics really, but it was my mother so you listen. She sat me down on the small wall at the rear of our back garden and addressed me, like she was addressing one of the anti-apartheid meetings she attended.”

“The ball is the means of production,” she told me. “When you possess it at your feet you become the capitalist, you become the boss. And Ryan, who does nobody like?”

“The boss,” I answered.

“So don’t hog the ball,” she continued.  “The ball should be passed from a player according to their ability, to another player based on their need. So, if another player is standing in space, or closer to the goal, then they’ve a need. From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”

John nods his head slowly. “That’s such a wonderful story Ryan,” he says glancing down at his sheets of interview notes balancing on his knee.

“That’s how I became a playmaker,” I said, “I suppose for some footballers their greatest influence was a manager or a senior player. But for me, it was my mother and her socialism.”

There’s a round of applause from the pub audience.

“She must’ve been very proud of you.” John nods hard. He then places the interview notes onto the ground and claps his hands together. “But now, we’ve a challenge for you to mark the memory of… well you know what.”

I remain seated, as John’s producer carries a retro video-game console onto the stage, which he rapidly hooks up to the large screen.

Between John’s laughing and audience cheers, I’m handed a controller and instructed that I’m to take three penalties in the FIFA video game that is now running.

I look up at the screen. The player in United red is standing with his back to me, ready to take a pen.

I hit two buttons quickly.

I pull my first shot wide. The audience boos.

For the second penalty, I lightly tap one button.

The ball harmlessly trickles along the ground into the keeper’s hands. John laughs.

The final pen.

I concentrate.

I press one button rapidly twice.

The ball rises high, up over the bar.

I smirk. “Well John, sometimes I think- I’ve measured out my life in penalties ballooned.”

John laughs. “Interesting, that’s an allusion to a line of Yeats poetry, am I correct?”

“Nope sorry, this time it’s you who missed the target, John. It’s T.S. Eliot.”

John’s smile disappears.

“Everyone, could you please put your hands together for our special guest tonight, Ryan Cooper. Still can’t take a penalty, but apparently remains the smartest footballer around.”

***

David Lynch is an award-winning journalist and author of three non-fiction books. These include Confronting Shadows: An Introduction to the Poetry of Thomas Kinsella (New Island; 2015) and a book of reportage from the Middle East (A Divided Paradise). He recently had short fiction published in époque press ezine, Crannog magazine, Swerve magazine and Books Ireland. At 48, he still manages to pick some passes on astro twice a week … always hoping, that even at this late stage, he could turn the head of a passing big-club talent scout. He lives on the north side of Dublin in Ireland.