Your author's last day as a journalist was the third Thursday in June of 2003.
I was 24 years old, and unlikely to ever reach the pinnacle of my profession. The endless brushes with deadlines had worn me down to a nub of directionless energy, and I was ever-more aware that I felt physically sick every time I had to pick up the telephone.
For all that, I'd achieved what I'd set out to do when I was 16, and I could always hold out the hope that one day I'd wake up and my phone-illness would be cured, or that my restless and nervous being could be made to focus itself more narrowly. I was talented enough to have been head-hunted at 21, even though I often looked in the mirror and mouthed to myself that those who'd identified me were out of their fucking minds.
It was all to become irrelevant anyway, by around noon on that particular summer's day. I was a sports journalist, and the third Thursday in June is important for football followers in England: the fixtures are released, and supporters up and down the country more-or-less crash the internet speculating where they'll be going on the forthcoming season's first day, final day, and when the enemy from down the road is coming to park its tanks on their lawn.
These fixtures are released at 10am, and I had agreed to come into work for eight that morning to help prepare them, so that at ten on the dot we could publish them to the website for whom I worked. Of course, it meant that I got an advance look - in other words, I had prior knowledge about the particular order in which my club were playing next season's fixtures, two hours ahead of almost everyone else.
At about 9am, BBC Radio Five began to give out some of the bigger football clubs' itineraries, couched in a particularly cautious language. 'We understand Manchester United are playing such-and-such an opponent on the first day of the season, whilst Arsenal's opening fixture is said to be against such-and-such.' This gave me the confidence to carry out the idea that had been forming in mind for most of the morning - what harm could it do?
I duly logged onto an unofficial messageboard used by Barnsley supporters, signing in with my nickname of 'Imago.' At 09:06, I posted that our first fixture would be at home to Colchester United, and, at 09:14, followed this up with the other 45 dates and opponents, for the duration of the season from August to May. I then carried on with my work.
At between half-past eleven and noon, I was called away from my desk by my line manager and taken into an upstairs office - my line manager and his boss were present. I was told that Barnsley FC had made a complaint about me in the form of an e-mail, stating that I had broken the 10am embargo. I was asked if I'd anything to say. I shrugged my shoulders and said: "No, not really," or words to that effect.
I was then asked if I was responsible for posting the fixtures onto the messageboard, and I replied that I had indeed done so. At that point, I was taken back to my desk, and I continued with my duties for a further twenty minutes, or perhaps half-an-hour.
My line manager again asked to speak to me, and told me that he was going to have to suspend me from work for a week. I was told to go back downstairs, collect my belongings, and leave the building. It was made clear I should not speak to anyone about what had happened until the company had concluded its investigation, after which I would be asked to attend a disciplinary hearing.
The disciplinary took place the following Thursday, with the outcome that I was sacked on three counts of gross misconduct: breaking e-mail policy, disclosing embargoed information, and damaging the business with regard to the Football League (the governing body for lower-division clubs in the English game.)
My opinion about the way I lost my job has changed over the years. At first, I was astonished that I could be sacked for what I saw as a minor aberration; these days I reckon I was probably asking for it. Regardless, the fact is that I've not been paid to write since.
I mention all this, years after the event, because I have always been aware of the identity of the person who send the initial e-mail to my line manager stating that the embargo had been broken - the press officer of Barnsley FC themselves. As above, my opinion of this person (whom I've never met, or seen) has changed as time has passed. Initially, I wanted him to die in an accident, then later I imagined buying him a drink and asking him to explain what motivated him to do it. Latterly, I have been grateful that he helped to lever me out of a profession which was gradually edging me towards suicide, if I ever think of him, or that day, at all.
I mention it now because it's come to my attention that this person has himself been suspended from his job - the one at Barnsley FC which he still holds - for being over-critical of a match referee in one of his website match reports. He is the first journalist to have ever been charged with bringing the game into disrepute. A member of the public alerted the football authorities to some apparently inflammatory language, and this has been enough to jeopardise his future career.
When I daydream, I sometimes wonder how I'd react to the news that someone whom I have crossed in the past has died in suspicious circumstances. Would I ever be brave enough to tell a police officer: No, officer, his death was nothing to do with me - but I wish it had been? I am clean, but I long to shake the blood-covered hand of the person who carried out this nice bit of work!
It is true - I swear it on everything that I hold dear - that I didn't report this man to the football authorities, and nor did I prompt anyone else to do so on my behalf. The first I knew of it was a web link I clicked on Friday. For a brief moment, I did curse the fact that I wasn't the one to have landed him firmly in the shit, but it was a short-lived sentiment.
There is no glory in revenge, in lying stock-still in the darkness for years, and then leaping from the gloom to throttle someone, silently, like a coward. There is no reward in either unrequited hate, or unrequited love. I obsessed about Bluefish for months, when I should have turned my energies and abilities elsewhere. For what seemed like an eternity, my thoughts were utterly wasted on a woman who had neither need nor want of me, and it is only since the New Year that I've extinguished her.
Similarly, I don't (any longer) squander many thoughts on the manner of my sacking or the person whom I always complained had instigated it. In actuality, I was the instigator, and it is for me to take responsibility for my own actions.
There is no progress to be made in recycling the past over and over again - it is as purposeful an exercise as imagining what I'll do with all my riches when I win the Lottery (when I never actually trouble myself to buy a ticket in the first place.) The past and the future are mere ghosts of the mind, which shift and slide as the driving force of my present disposition instructs them.
My atheist self is now troubled, because it does seem as though some kind of equalising Other is at play. Co-incidences are the mother of gods, and the mother of love. What other explanation can there be for all the above other than the existence of a subtle, karmic god? What else can it be other than an expression of love from the outermost circle of heaven that I think of my hypothetical partner, and immediately the song with which I most associate her comes on the radio?
No. No. These are just co-incidences, and we bring all sorts of trouble upon ourselves when we ascribe such events to an interventionist, levelling God, or to the angels of romantic love. One day we'll associate everything with everything else, and at that point our sanity will have broken down, beyond all repair.
