Only the Players Were Plastic
Podcasting, pints, a hug from a Premier League striker and getting your heart ripped out at the very end...it really doesn't get any better than that.
I finished last in a subbuteo tournament this weekend.
If you aren’t familiar, subbuteo is a table top soccer game invented in post-war England in which tiny 3-D figurines perched atop plastic bases are flicked across a kind of pool table surface that looks like a soccer pitch.
In this case the pool table was two wonky high top tables pushed together in the middle of a basement bar, and nobody involved had played since George W. Bush’s first term, so the skill level left something to be desired. The plastic lads would slide gracefully across the playing surface until encountering the trough where the two tables met or some other imperfection and topple over in a manner familiar to anyone who has watched soccer. I liked to imagine them clutching their ankles and making that face players make when they’re fouled, one that says I may never play, or for that matter walk, again after this.
I played one game and lost 1-0 I think, but honestly I can’t even remember.
I had flown down to New York just ahead of the latest "snowmageddon" to hang out with fellow members of QPR NYC, a fan group I have written about here before. We’re supporters of Queens Park Rangers, who play in the EFL Championship and on this particular weekend were at the center of an event designed to celebrate the league, the club and the U.S. rights holders Paramount+.
They brought pins and pens and a former Premier League striker.
Charlie Austin played parts of five seasons for Rangers, scoring 18 goals in the 2014-15 Premier League season, with only Sergio Aguero, Harry Kane and Diego Costa netting more times. He got an England call up (though not a cap) and went on to score another 20 EPL goals, all for Southampton.
On Friday night I got to host and produce our eponymous podcast with Charlie as our guest. He was great, but it was at the watch party the next morning that the real magic happened.
Our opponents were Wrexham AFC. If you haven’t heard they’re a Welsh club owned by Green Lantern himself Ryan Reynolds and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia star Rob McElhenney. They’re a club (one with a long history) but more so these days, a TV show.
Our dear Rangers have not had a great record recently when it comes to playing well on big occasions. Earlier in the season we hosted a fund raising event for a member whose daughter is battling stage 4 cancer. The fundraiser was a success, the game not so much. We lost 4-1.
With about 10 minutes left against Wrexham, however, the game was tied 1-1 and Charlie and I (having become great buddies) were standing at the back of the bar praying to a winner. As QPR set up for a corner, I happened to look at my phone.
Now I get A LOT of notifications from FotMob (a soccer score app) on your average Saturday. One of my “roles” as a member of QPR NYC is to track the careers of every single player who ever pulled on a shin guard for the club, from first teamers to academy rejects. I find them on FotMob, and make sure I’m notified every time they score a goal, log an assist or are subbed off.
To be clear, nobody asked me to do this. Normal people are not interested in being kept up to date on Reece Grego-Cox’s exploits at Hampton & Richmond or how Osman Kakay is getting on at FC Košice. Luckily, these are not normal people.
Anyway, moments before Nicolas Madsen lofted the ball into the Wrexham box a notification popped up…GOAL QPR 2-1. I locked eyes with Charlie and nodded.
“It’s coming,” I said. “You won’t want to miss this.”
Five second later Steve Cook had put us ahead and I was locked in a real, authentic embrace with QPR legend Charlie Austin. He thought I had called it, when actually it was just the vagaries of modern mediation that had allowed me to appear to be a football Nostradamus.
15 minutes later I said goodbye to a completely different Charlie Austin.
In the interim our right back had been sent off and we’d given up two goals, one in the 93rd and one in the 94th minutes to lose 3-2.
“Charlie, I have to go, but it was great to meet you,” I said offering my hand, one foot out the door on my way to the airport.
“Be well mate,” he replied, clearly crushed but trying to muster a little enthusiasm for a fan.
That’s what I call the full spectrum QPR experience, and I wouldn’t change a goddamn thing about it.