Philip Kerr - False Nine

But on the night against Barcelona, PSG played out of their skins and it was plain to see that this was the match that had persuaded the Catalan side to make a mid-season move for Jérôme Dumas, because while PSG’s goals had been scored by David Luiz, Marco Verratti and Blaise Matuidi, the man of the match was, without question, Jérôme Dumas. In and out of possession he had been the spirit of PSG’s impressive display. Having played for much of the previous season as a holding player, the young Frenchman was moved forward into the No. 10 role for the game against Barcelona, although his workrate did not seem to suffer in the least. Brimming with two-footed invention, he was a great example to the Parisians and on several occasions he managed to turn like a scalded cat in the tightest spaces and get his team out of pressure, creating chances where none had seemed to exist before.

Dumas was equally irrepressible in defence, frequently dropping back deep to aid David Luiz and Gregory van der Wiel, who were hard to break down, although Messi and Neymar tried hard enough. Halfway through the second half, Dumas had briefly looked tired, as if he might have to be taken off, but Laurent Blanc’s decision to keep him on proved inspired when Verratti nodded in a perfectly weighted ball from the Frenchman. At times the sheer verve he brought to his work seemed nothing short of miraculous: in one fifty-yard run deep in the second half begun after he’d easily dispossessed no less a figure than Lionel Messi, Dumas dribbled, swerved, pivoted and almost slalomed, before succumbing to a hard, scything tackle from Dani Alves which would have had many a footballer crying foul, before getting up again with a smile instead of an accusatory stare of goggle-eyed incredulity at the referee.

He was like this for the whole game: an unruly, hyperactive, runaway child. Messi and Neymar — who both scored — must have wished that someone would put Ritalin in his half-time water bottle. Even Dumas seemed to recognise that he’d surpassed himself.

When the match was over Jérôme Dumas finally left the pitch with his socks rolled down his wobbling legs and wearing a euphoric grin like some footballing d’Artagnan from the pages of The Three Musketeers , that great French novel written by Jérôme’s more famous namesake, Alexandre Dumas. On the strength of the performance I saw in this match it didn’t seem too much to expect that this young footballer would soon stand alongside the writer in the pantheon of French glory.

There are two things that strike you as your plane comes in to land on the Caribbean island of Antigua. The first is how small the island is. It’s not much bigger than the city of Birmingham. The second is how like an emerald the green of the land is against the lapis-lazuli blue of the sea which seems to extend forever so that you can hardly tell where the sky ends and the sea begins. Darker blue patches of coral reefs surround the island like submerged thunderclouds and almost every inch of the meandering coast is gilded with the sand of some perfect beach. Nearer to the ground there are more houses than you anticipated and these are mostly white as if a green coat had been studded with the shiny buttons of some eco-minded pearly king. And then there is the airport, as pink as candyfloss with the name of the island helpfully spelled out in large green letters under the seven arches of the building’s roof which resemble alphabetical trains sitting in a railway siding, awaiting dispatch to various parts of the island. But this is the last time on Antigua you ever stop to think about something so urgent as a train because as soon as you are off the plane life drops a rusty gear or two. Enveloped by warmth and confronted everywhere by almost fluorescent smiles, you even blink more slowly as if you’d just had a hit on a big spliff and were trying to remember your own name and something like a name actually mattered. Nothing on Antigua seems to matter all that much. There’s not even a drink-driving law which — in spite of the many wines I’d sampled in Club Class — hardly mattered either since the hotel had sent a man with a car to drive me to a jetty, and from there by boat to an even smaller, more exclusive island where there were no cars at all. I might have normally baulked at seventy-five bucks, US, for a ten minute airport transfer but already I was feeling as laid-back as the fellow with cornrows in his hair who drove the boat. Besides, that’s the thing about travelling on someone else’s dollar: suddenly everything seems quite simple; only the best will do. If you ever win the lottery then come straight here; that’s the Euromillions lottery, not the smaller, British one; two weeks at the Jumby Bay won’t leave you much change from a British lottery win.

As I arrived in Antigua’s airport a photographer took my picture which irritated me as I had hoped to remain as anonymous as possible. I hardly wanted to talk to anyone about being hoodwinked in Shanghai or, as the Sun had put it, Manson’s Chinese Fake-Away , which I have to admit was rather good.

But I was keen to talk to almost anyone about Jérôme Dumas. I decided to get started right away, and by the time the boat guy picked me up to take me to Jumby Bay, I’d already asked questions of the airport police and my driver. I thought the sooner I found out what had become of the guy the sooner I could get back to looking for a proper job in football. And there was something about the boat guy I liked which encouraged me to think he might be a bit more forthcoming than the cops and the chauffeur.

‘Welcome to Jumby Bay,’ he said. ‘The island is named after a local word meaning playful spirit. It comprises just forty guest rooms and suites and a collection of villas and estate homes owned by a group of people who are all committed to protecting the environment and several endangered species that still live on the island such as the hawksbill turtle, the white egret, and the Persian black-headed sheep. Everything in Jumby Bay is su-stain-able .’

He said it like I should watch out where I put my dirty hands and feet but clearly he liked to talk and I hoped it might not be too much to expect if, having helped me with my luggage, and then into the boat, he also helped me with some information that hadn’t been fished out of the resort’s guest brochure like the local red mullet.

‘It’s a long way from home, isn’t it? The Persian sheep, I mean. How did it get here, anyway?’

‘I don’t know, boss.’

‘Christopher Columbus, I suppose,’ I said, answering my own question. ‘Along with horses and syphilis.’

‘I suppose you must be right.’ The boatman laughed and then clapped his big hands. ‘All these years I’ve been saying it, and I never asked myself what a Persian sheep be doing here in the Caribbean.’

‘And a black-headed one, too,’ I said. ‘There seems to have been a bit of a theme going on here.’

‘Hell, yes. You’re right.’

‘When you think about it, everyone is a guest here. People brought over from Africa to cut the sugar cane — like you and me — a few Europeans, and the Persian black-headed sheep. And the tourists, of course. Strikes me as the people who were first here — the real native Antiguans — are probably long gone.’

‘Never thought of it that way. But I guess you’re right, boss. Where you from? London?’

‘That’s right. What’s your name?

‘Everton.’

‘Like the football club?’

‘That’s right.’

‘You like football? I assume your father did. With a name like Everton.’

‘He did, that’s true. He was from Liverpool. But me, I support Tottenham Hotspur.’

‘I’m not sure that answers my question, but never mind. I guess it’s lucky your dad didn’t support Queen’s Park Rangers.’