Friday night found Colin in The Shipwreck Inn, a pub that looked as though it had missed the last ferry out of 1979 and decided to age in place. The wallpaper was nicotine tartan, the carpet patterned in what a sign called “nautical roping” and what Colin suspected was just damp camouflage. He loved it on sight.
He’d planned a single pint to mark the work-week’s burial at sea; by pint three he’d reached that gently buoyant stage where deadlines felt like legends from another culture. He was contemplating the menu’s promise of “Loaded Chips – Includes Absolutely Everything” when a broad-shouldered lad in a faded away-strip squeezed in beside him.
“Colin, you menace!” the stranger boomed, slapping the bar for emphasis. “Thought you’d vanished after that screamer last time.”
Colin’s brain went full blue-screen. He managed a slow smile. “Alright… yeah. Been a week, hasn’t it?”
“More like a fortnight,” the lad laughed, passing two pints to friends behind him. “You saved the Pier Wanderers’ skins—eight seconds left, you twist, top corner, bosh. Any chance you’d jump ship and play for us? Kidding, kidding. Loyal to the Wanderers, aren’t you?”
Colin’s mouth said, “Course,” while his mind rifled uselessly through memory. He hadn’t set foot on an AstroTurf pitch since February—six months ago—too many late nights babysitting Matteo’s CSS mutations.
“We’re head-to-head again three weeks Tuesday,” the lad went on. “Seafront cages. Half seven. Try not to break anything before then, yeah?”
He winked, hoisted his drink, and melted back into the crowd where someone immediately called him a jammy git.
Colin exhaled. He replayed the exchange twice, found no foothold, and downed the rest of his pint in the hope it contained answers. It did not.
Saturday, 10:06AM
Rain fretted at the window of his hotel room while the wall-mounted kettle performed its best impression of a jet engine. Colin sat on the bed, thumb-typing.
pier wanderers football blackpool
Top result: a local five-a-side league page out of Blackpool, complete with fixture lists, pint-sponsored match reports, and, two clicks in, the photo album titled “Champions Night.”
He tapped. Thumbnails of lads in mismatched kits loaded, all beer-flush and plastic medals. Fourth picture...inexplicably, there he was.
Same half-crooked grin. Same mole under the jaw. Caption: Colin Fenton – MOTM, 6–5 Final v Seafront Rangers (May 2016).
A full two years a go.
He zoomed. The face didn’t blur into coincidence; it sharpened into certainty—sweaty fringe, scuffed knee, and his own battered Casio watch ticking away on the wrist.
Colin stared until the screen dimmed for lack of interest. He re-lit it, half-expecting the image to correct itself, perhaps swap in a stranger with kinder proportions. It did not oblige.
He switched to his calendar, half-expecting the little square to be empty.
It wasn’t.
Pier Wanderers v Seafront Rangers, 7:30 p.m. blinked back at him—three weeks Tuesday—along with half a dozen past fixtures he was certain he’d never played.
Colin stared until the screen dimmed, the dates still faintly visible in the glass like something printed underneath.