The Fosse Way

People who reach the pinnacle of their profession often talk about how their obsessive single-mindedness in one specialism perfected their craft as a child, with hours and hours of practice leading to perfection.

As a kid, I had two obsessions – so it’s no surprise I reached the pinnacle of two professions…

Football.

And comedy.

I would always be horsing around in the school playground, kicking or heading a ball but also diving here and there and generally making an ass of myself. I loved both reactions equally: both the cheering and the laughter.

The question was always whether I could combine the two. This was back when YouTubers were starting to become a thing, playing charity matches and setting up their own football clubs. I was one of the best players in the school team and I also acted in a couple of plays. Pretty soon I was approached by an agent with a novel proposition: how would I like to become the first comic professional footballer?

Why not, I thought. It would be a way of pursuing both dreams. If it didn’t work out, I could seamlessly transition into either pure football or pure comedy. Damnit, I was in. I signed the contract and was quickly offered a trial at the biggest club in my home country: Anderlecht.

Of course, I would be playing a role so I couldn’t use my real name. I decided to name myself after the Flemish word for ‘farce’, to make it clear to anyone watching that I wasn’t a real professional footballer. Anyway, it turns out the Belgian youth league isn’t that great and after a couple of practice games, Anderlecht swiftly signed me up.

It took me a while to get used to being the world’s first comic professional footballer. My agent told me I had to gain trust so I could make it in Belgium before moving to a proper league. It was tough though and Anderlecht ended up selling me to Oostende, or “the Oostende of nowhere” as my agent called it. I reminded him I was the comedian around here.

He may have been a bad comedian but he was a good agent. I had only been at Oostende a couple of years when he got me a transfer to a French club called Reims. This was when things began to change. Suddenly he started sending me scripts for each game. I was truly playing a role now and it was so fun. I really exaggerated my part, motoring around all over the pitch like a madman.

Obviously I thought this was the end so I was enjoying it while I could. I was playing in a farmers’ league where only one team ever had a chance of being champions so there was no pressure. I was larking about, over-egging everything I did. I even grew my hair to look like my comic football idol David Luiz.

Then the phone rang.

It was my agent. I was with my wife in the car at the time. An English Premier League club had offered £15million for me. We both started laughing so hard we could barely breathe. Tears were running down our faces. Once we’d recovered, my agent said “Well?”

“Which club is it?” I asked.

“Leicester City,” replied my agent.

Wow, I thought. I may have based most of my character on David Luiz but there was also a guy who had come through the ranks at Leicester who had big hair like me and ran around like a madman like me, constantly either kicking people or being out of position. He was a comedy genius. I couldn’t turn down the opportunity of playing alongside such a legend of the genre.

“Do they know they’d be getting a comic footballer?” I asked.

“It’s not really clear,” replied my agent.

The chance to play in the best league in the world ahead of the World Cup also meant I might be able to bring my brand of comic football to the global stage. Damnit, I was in.

It was immediately obvious I was at exactly the right club for my talents. We lost on the day I joined. We lost 5-2 three days later when the goalkeeper spent the entire game continually standing in the wrong part of the goal, arguing with team-mates, diving after the ball was already in the net. We lost 6-2 on my debut.

After I came off the field, my agent rang me.

“You’ve got to dial down the comedy,” he said. “There’s no way you’re going to the World Cup if the team keeps playing like this.”

I didn’t feel like it was entirely my fault. The manager had given up, we had a French midfielder who seemed to be stuck in slow motion and I was pretty sure the goalkeeper was receiving comedy scripts as well.

But I took his comments on board and started actually trying. We won four out of five games and I was off to the World Cup.

It was a great experience. It was only when I got back that the scripts coming through from my agent changed dramatically. Now the World Cup was in the bag, it was back to pure entertainment. One week I had to score two own goals. I went viral and my agent was thrilled.

Unfortunately, the club got relegated but none of the players seemed that bothered. The good ones went off to bigger clubs. I assumed I would be going too. I’d played in the World Cup! But the market had changed. Pep and Mikel had started playing four big centre-backs across their defence and nobody wanted a Temu David Luiz.

So I was stuck in the Championship, but it wasn’t that bad. The level was so easy I could throw in some comedy defending and nobody really noticed. I’d fall over and opposition strikers would run through on goal and then smash the ball out of the stadium. I was truly happy as a footballing comedian.

The problem was that nobody was really interested. I tried to liven things up a bit by messing up towards the end of the season, going off script, but Leicester fans were the only people who cared. There was no way I was going to go viral stuck in this division, even if I single-handedly caused us to lose at places like Plymouth and Millwall.

The Championship didn’t get shown in Belgium though, so I still got called up to play in the Euros. I guess Belgium just haven’t got many good defenders. Before the tournament started, I thought I’d spice things up again by talking about the luxury option of leaving Leicester if I had some offers from other clubs.

I didn’t get any offers from other clubs.

It was only once we were back in the Premier League that things really heated up. The Leicester fans were constantly furious at everything – me, my team-mates, the manager, the owner, the director of football, the league, the referees, the opposition, the pies, the roadworks around the city, the weather. Anything. Everything.

But more importantly, I was back in the limelight so the scripts started to get more and more ridiculous. I had to leave every ball that went near me for James Justin, who was a nice guy so he would be polite and leave them for me. Of course this meant the opposition scored every time the ball went near either of us, which the fans didn’t like too much.

I was in and out of the team. Communication with the other centre-backs was difficult. One week I was playing with a guy from Denmark, the next week a guy from Italy, the week after that it would be this other guy I couldn’t understand at all, who talked really fast and was always going off to record podcasts.

The fans would boo me, but then when they shouted my name it sounded like booing too so it was hard to tell what they thought of me.

They were booing everyone else as well, and I could see why. At one point I began to wonder whether my agent was sending scripts to all my team-mates too. Were they all comic footballers? Did we have a comic manager? Was the owner in on it all?

You can guess the rest. We got relegated again.

The new season started and somehow, I still didn’t get any other offers and I was still at Leicester. And it still wasn’t clear if they knew I was the world’s first comic professional footballer.

Writers always like to make a big statement with the first script of a new season so I was told I had to try to score a goal (not my forte!) and then cup my ears with my hands and tell the fans to f**k off. It felt a bit extreme even for my character but I threw myself into it and the response was the usual mix of people either shouting my name or booing me.

Interest has started to drop off this season again though with us out of the Premier League so the scripts are getting really outlandish. Last week we had to go 3-0 down at half time twice in the space of five days. For the first of them I had to leave their best header of a ball unmarked for two goals. At some point people are going to notice this, or I’m going to get frozen out. But hey! That hasn’t happened yet! They’ve even promoted my hero of the comedy football genre to be vice-captain, and he’s playing worse than ever!

This week, an email came in from my agent. Over the past few years, he’s been working his way up within the game with the aim of becoming the world’s first comic technical director.

So he’s coming to Leicester with me! It’ll be nice to have a familiar face around. All the good Belgians left years ago. I’m looking forward to catching up with Jean Reudkine.