The Breezes. Joseph O’Neill

      I am afraid that the answer was painfully obvious. It was plain as pie that Pa has walked into every punch that life had swung in his direction. With his whole, undefensive heart, Pa has no guard. Every time a calamity has rolled along, there he has been to collect it right between his poor, crooked peepers. And in the last three days, of course, two real haymakers had made contact: first, the news that his job was in jeopardy; and second, Merv. It was doubtful that Pa had slept at all since Thursday night, the night of the crash.

      I remembered the time I became acquainted with Merv: about four years ago, when I was looking for my first job and needed a suit for interviews. Pa said he had the answer to my problem. 'There’s this fellow in my office with a terrible curvature of the spine,’ he said, ‘but you’d hardly know it to look at him. He strolls around like a guardsman. It’s his suits that make all the difference,’ Pa said. 'The jackets fit him like gloves. There’s the man you want – the man who makes his suits.’

      That was Merv – not the tailor, but the dapper hunchback. Every time I’ve met him I have been unable, hard as I might try, to keep my eyes off his back, off the hump, under his shirt.

      Pa took a slug of his beer and threw me a packet of salt and vinegar crisps. Then he opened a packet of his own.

      We sat there in silence for a few moments, crunching the potatoes. I said, ‘Are you sure you’re OK? You’re not looking well.’ He did not reply. I drank some beer and regarded him again. Then I said, ‘Listen, Pa. I know you don’t agree with me on this, but I really think you ought to consider packing in the reffing.’ Pa tilted his face towards the ceiling and tipped the last crumbs from the crisp packet into his mouth. ‘I’m not saying you should just sit at home doing nothing,’ I said. ‘Do something else. I don’t know, take up squash or something.’ No, that was too dangerous: I could just see him stretched out on the floor of the court, soaked in sweat and clutching his heart. ‘Or golf,’ I said. ‘Golf is a great game. Just give up the reffing. It isn’t worth it, Pa. You don’t get any thanks for what you do.’

      Pa took a mouthful of beer and shook his head. ‘Johnny, I can’t. If I wasn’t there, who else would do it? Those kids rely on me. They’re counting on me to be there. Besides,’ he said, ‘I want to put something back into the game. Pay my dues.’

      This last reason, especially, I did not and do not understand. The fact of the matter is that Pa, never having played the game, has not received anything from it which he could possibly pay back. Pa owes soccer nothing.

      It was only thanks to me that he came into contact with football in the first place. I was eight years old and had begun to take part in Saturday morning friendlies in the park, and, along with the other parents, Pa took to patrolling the touch-line in his dark sheepskin coat. ‘Go on, Johnny!’ he used to shout as he ran up and down. ‘Go on, son!’ At first, my father was just like the other fathers, an ordinary spectator. But there came a day when he showed up in a track suit, the blue track suit he wears to this day with the old-fashioned stripes running down the legs. When, at half-time, he called the team together and the boys found themselves listening to his exhortations and advice, it dawned on them that Mr Breeze – a man who had never scored a goal in his life – had appointed himself coach. While Pa’s pep talks lacked tactical shrewdness, they were full of encouragement. ‘Never say die, men,’ he urged as we chewed the bitter chunks of lemon he handed out. ‘We’re playing well. We can pull back the four goals we need. Billy,’ he said, taking aside our tiny, untalented goalkeeper, ‘you’re having a blinder. Don’t worry about those two mistakes. It happens to the best of us. Keep it up, Sean,’ Pa said to our least able outfield player. ‘Don’t forget, you’re our midfield general.’

      Pa’s involvement did not end there. No, pretty soon he had come up with a car pool, a team strip (green and white) and, without originality, a name: the Rovers. He organized a mini-league, golden-boot competitions, man-of-the-match awards, knock-out tournaments and, finally, he began refereeing games. He was terrible at it right from the start. Never having been a player himself, he had no idea what was going on. Offside, obstruction, handball, foul throw – Pa knew the theory of these offences but had no ability to detect them in practice. This incompetence showed, and mattered, even at the junior level of the Rovers’ matches between nine- and ten-year-olds. Needless to say, it was not much fun being the ref’s son. It made me an outsider in my own side.

      I looked at my father, Eugene Breeze, sitting in front of me with his pint, resting. The creased, criss-crossed face, the leaking blue venation under the skin, the thin white hair pasted by sweat against the forehead. The red eyes blinking like hazard lights.

      ‘Pa,’ I said as gently as I could. ‘Face it. It’s time to quit. It’s time to move on to something else.’

      He shrugged obstinately. ‘I’m not a quitter,’ he said.

      That was true – he’s not a man to throw in the towel. When I stopped playing for the team – I must have been about eleven years old – Pa kept going. He kept right on refereeing the Rovers, running around the park every Saturday morning waist-deep in a swarm of youngsters. Even when the Rovers eventually disbanded, he did not give up. On the contrary, he decided to enter the refereeing profession properly. He bought himself a black outfit, boots with a bolt of lightning flashing from the ankle to the toe, red and yellow cards, a waterproof notebook and the Association Football rule book. Then one day he came home with a flushed face and a paper furled up in a pink ribbon. Wordlessly he handed me the scroll. I opened it and there it was in bold, splendid ink, Eugene Breeze, spectacularly printed in a large Gothic script.

      This is to certify that Eugene Breeze is a Class E referee, the document announced. It was signed by Matthew P. Brett, Secretary of the Football Association.

      ‘Congratulations,’ I said. I was sixteen and laconic.

      ‘I took the exams and passed them straight off,’ Pa said. He retrieved the certificate from me and slapped it against his palm. ‘Do you realize, Johnny,’ he said, ‘do you realize that now I’m qualified?’

      ‘Great,’ I said. ‘You’re in the way,’ I said, leaning sideways to see the television.

      ‘This could lead anywhere.’ He shook the certificate as though it were a magical document of discovery and empowerment, a passport, blank cheque and round-the-world ticket rolled into one. ‘Who knows, with a bit of luck I could be refereeing professionally in a couple of years’ time, couldn’t I, Johnny? I mean, I know it sounds crazy, but it’s possible, isn’t it?’

      That’s right, I said. It’s possible.

      Possibilities! Pa, the numbskull, is a great one for possibilities. Stars in his eyes, he signed up officially with the Football Association and put his name down on the match list. He developed a scrupulous pre-match routine, ticking off checklists, boning up on the laws of the game and the weather reports, checking his studs and, late on the night before, ironing his kit and laying it out on the floor like a flat black ghost. But his dream of ascending the refereeing ladder did not materialize. For a while he took charge of good fixtures, games between ambitious young teenagers playing for serious clubs. But then, after his lack of ability became known and complaints had been made, the invitations dried up. ‘Never mind,’ he said to me eventually. ‘I’ll find my own level.’ That was when he took to wandering around football fields in his kit, haunting the touchlines, his silver whistle suspended unquietly from his neck. He would approach teams that were warming up and say, ‘Need a ref? Look, I’m qualified …’ and he would unfurl his certificate. Usually that was enough to do the trick, and that is how Pa has ended up where he is, officiating bad-tempered confrontations between pub teams and office XIs, ridiculed and bad-mouthed by players and onlookers alike. Even when he does well the abuse keeps coming, because the referee – that instrument of injustice – is never right. And still he persists and still, rain or shine, every weekend finds him out on the heath, looking for a game.

      This state of affairs is unlikely to last for long, because Pa has become truly notorious for his incapability, even amongst occasional teams. One time he so mishandled a game that the players, unanimous