From Guernica to Guardiola by Adam Crafton

Author:Adam Crafton [Crafton, Adam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK

CHAPTER 9

Artists and Pragmatists

On a biting cold January evening in the Midlands, a vehicle is parked up on a side road adjacent to Aston Villa’s Villa Park stadium. Sleet lines the pavements and streetlights flicker occasionally. Inside the car, a balding middle-aged man is jabbing in exasperated fashion at a satellite navigation system. The robotic voice giving out instructions repeats the order: ‘Please make a U-turn.’

We’ve all been there. So, unfortunately, has Pepe Mel. ‘On my first day at West Brom, they gave me a car,’ he begins. ‘It was a freezing night and pitch-black. We finished training and I left the training ground at 6pm. You head out of the training ground and travel through the Black Country. Anyway, I got lost. Very lost. The satnav they gave me was in English and this bloke from the machine is giving me instructions and I can’t understand any of it! I was unable to redirect the machine, as I couldn’t even read anything on it. I had to call up West Brom’s media officer, who came and found me. So there I was, parked up on the side of the road for over an hour, and it was even worse because I’d managed to park up on a road that was only a hundred metres from Villa Park, the home of our big rivals!’

For Mel, it was the first of several false starts after being appointed as manager of West Brom at the beginning of January 2014. His tenure at the club lasted only five months and, in truth, English football barely scratched the surface of one of the more zany characters of Spanish sport. He is an entertaining raconteur, both in person and in his prose. Intoxicated by the novels of Dan Brown, Mel’s debut work El Mentiroso (The Liar) was published to both critical and commercial acclaim in 2011. El Camino al más allá (The Road to the Beyond) followed before Mel ventured into the realm of children’s literature more recently. ‘Escapism,’ he smiles.

In the brittle and insecure world of football management, where social media amplifies every tactical misjudgement and 24-hour news channels offer up odds on the next managerial sacking, a distraction is required. Some managers prefer the temptations of Silicon Valley, luxury gadgets and zooming sports cars. For Mel, writing is the soothing balm that diverts attention from the raging fires. I suggest it may even be a coping mechanism. ‘Certainly, writing is a way of escaping the pressures of football. I am not in work right now and therefore my writing is terrible. Yet when I’m coaching and stressed, that’s when the adrenaline flows and the words fall onto the page beautifully. It may not be a surprise to learn I wrote a lot at West Brom!’

El Mentiroso is a riveting read, as protagonist Cail Lograft uncovers rare archaeological finds from ancient Egypt before embarking on a worldwide adventure, pursued by Middle Eastern mafias and implicating the Catholic Church. ‘I am drawn by archaeology, mystery and fantasy,’ he grins.

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