by Ben Nolan

Extract from the New York Times bestselling autobiography of 24 June – the afternoon of 24 June 2022. Former football star Ben Nolan shares his experience of meeting his co-star Jude Bellingham in the long years after their Belbroughton debut. What follows is a tale of broken promises, sprained ankles, and strained friendship.

It was the evening of 11 May 2020. I sat stirring a cup of black coffee (I don’t order any of that Italian malarkey) when he finally came in. There he was, still in his Dortmund kit, barely off the private jet.

He looked different, disinterested. Usually, you’d see a bit of light behind his eyes but all I could view was a distant glint of what was. He was sullen, years of professional football playing had ground him down, screwed with his dopamine receptors. He reminded me of our old teammate, John. He was grumpy as anything; then after a tab of MDMA, he completely changed. You could almost get a conversation in, we were finally able to have a laugh, he got a bit annoying at some points, would start talking about all the milk he drank. Then it wore off. He took some more, and he was back again, a bit worse this time. Then it wore off again and it kept wearing off. And he’d just keep getting more. Then he couldn’t buy anymore, and it stopped. The John leftover was a fried, hollow shell of his former self. That hopeless, shameful, broken expression I used to see in him I now saw in Bellingham.

‘Take a seat.’

He gingerly walked towards the table I was on and placed himself across from me.

‘How are you?’

I got nothing back, just a shrug. He’d flown all the way from Dortmund to Stourbridge to shrug. I wasn’t quite sure where to go. I stood as Mehmet II to the social barrier of his Theodosian walls. Then I brought it out. The great bombard. The story of my most recent escapade. Even the most famed general could not hold out against my conversational assault.

‘Do you know what I’ve been doing this past year?’

‘No.’

‘Well … I set out on a bit of an expedition.’

‘Nice one … where bouts?’

‘Deep into the Amazon rainforest. It was just me, no one else. I thought I’d go out alone, just me, my thoughts, and a single goal in mind. For ten days I wandered, sunburnt, mosquito bitten and dangerously out of my depth. I’d heard warnings of what to look out for. Snakes, certain plants, and dangerous predators. I thought it would be some kind of jaguar that would get me in the end, that my expedition would be compromised in some dramatic way, that I’d die in the middle of a rainforest after a violent scuffle with mother nature’s best. In the end it was the supplies and poor planning that got me.

For five days I wandered, no food, only faint droplets of rainwater to sustain me. I felt myself becoming increasingly frail. My bearings ebbed away as my mind went to different places. At one point I was back in Belbroughton, it was lovely, like I had never left. For a few moments I found peace, it was like it used to be. Then I woke up. I was surrounded by a language that I no longer recognised, by people whose reaction to my waking felt warm yet unfamiliar. I had found myself in a settlement of an uncontacted people. For three weeks I was nursed back to health, I learnt the local customs, I was even able to speak the local language; an interesting mix of visual symbolisation alongside oral utterances. Eventually I was able to ask for more complicated requests outside of the universal needs of food, water, and company. I was able to continue my mission.

They told me the being I was looking for was ten days further into the rainforest, it remained in the taboo zone, ostracised from the group. Two of them decided to join me to ensure that I did not fall to my previous fate. I was taught where to find water, what plants to consume and to avoid. Certain bugs were introduced to me as edible as well as a variety of fruits that I had previously brushed off as dangerous. Those days spent in the rainforest proved to be greatly enlightening. I knew I would return home a changed man. Yet this was not my goal. I was not a creature of the social sciences; I was here for one reason only. After ten days I found it. The reason.

Stood in front of me, spindly and covered in scars lay the being I was looking for. A wretched creature, it remained almost a mockery of God. It glared at me with frightfully curious eyes. My body remained poised, trembling with fear yet my mind, my mind remained soothed, bathed in the cool ambrosia of the magnitude of my achievement. The world would shake at what I had found…

The most local Manchester United fan.

Their red shirt remained as rags draped upon their haggard shoulders. They just looked at me and murmured what may have once been a cultural chant, now long forgotten by the passage of time. The two people who accompanied me ran off; they were terrified of a being which had long been marked as taboo. I was left to deal with this spiritually dangerous creature. What kept it from violently attacking me was a can of Greene King IPA that I had kept with me as the result of a tip from a local. Even at my darkest moments in the rainforest I could not bring myself to drink the brew yet here I stood watching the creature desperately claw it into their mouth. For the moment I was safe and finally able to take a photo of the being before promptly backing off.

I do not know what became of the creature after I left. I sent a photo of them to the managerial board of Manchester United and was handsomely rewarded for finally being able to discover a fan. I thanked those who had nursed me back to health and contacted the Brazilian government to reward them with the amenities of modern life. The following year their village was transformed. What was once a collection of dwellings devoid of amenities is now a beautiful arrangement of strip malls and a six-lane highway. I am sure the entire tribe is thankful for the great gift of modernity and civilisation I was able to bring to them.

Anyway, I am now back and glad to see you, how have you been?’

Jude just sat there, shocked. We always talked of finding a Manchester United fan and originally thought our adventure would take us deep into the Arctic or the centre of the Bermuda Triangle. Then he went pro, and those ever-burning dreams dissipated into ash. His expression after a few minutes became one of disappointment. His eyes now glowed with a sadness, a spark of what could have been. From that point forward I knew we sat on equal ground. We were teammates once again and all the better for it.

Jude now looked up at me, a bit of the old warmth his face once held had returned. He finally gave a welcoming response.

‘I’ve not been too bad mate.’

‘That’s good to hear.’

…

‘This coffee tastes shite. Spoons?’

‘Spoons.’