And so it comes to this. My World Cup ended sitting in a dark room watching the final on a small television somewhere in the bowels of the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, surrounded by agents from every intelligence service north and west of Milan. They had tried to get me access to Zidane all day, but there were dark forces at work. That’s what they said.
Not that I believed any of it for a second. For three weeks I’d been told that there had been small chips placed in the heads of various World Cup stars, the idea being that at some crucial point in a match, something would be activated and the player in question would do something disastrous. It sounded insane. I cut the hair of quite a few of these guys and saw no sign. I mean, if it was true, and this stuff had been done by a pro, what was I, a gentleman barber, going to be able to spot? And yet, here I was, the inside man, tasked with quietly removing the implant during the course of a haircut.
Otto, the master spy, told me that for the whole tournament there were three players per team implanted with the bug. For France, Trezeguet, Zidane and Henry. For Italy…no one. When he’d told me, he’d raised an eyebrow and left it at that.
So they tried to get me at Zidane and Henry and Trezeguet, but it didn’t happen. Someone, somewhere, kept me away from all three. Personally, I don’t think it mattered. What was I going to be able to do?
We watched the game, me and seventeen nervous intelligence agents. They had other guys combing the ground and the city trying to establish who was controlling the implanted chips, but they never had a chance. Those guys could have been on another continent. Or in another country. Italy for instance. Or the Vatican…
They leapt up when Henry went down concussed early on. A brush with the shoulder, but the lad was genuinely dazed. They reckoned he’d been zapped. In the end Henry was ineffective, and they didn’t need to manipulate him in any way. Trezeguet? Speaks for itself, doesn’t it? These implants were done months ago. How did they know to put an implant in the head of a guy who was destined not to start a match?
And Zidane?... They didn’t even make the guy do something vaguely irrational. The people behind all this, the people operating those chips, they taunted everyone else by making Zidane carry out an act of incredible insanity.
Early this morning I sat high up in the stadium, looking down on seventy thousand deserted seats. That strange forlorn quiet of a once-busy arena, after it has emptied and all that remains is the litter and the remnants of the atmosphere.
“A great injustice has been done here tonight,” said Otto, who was sitting beside me.
“You think the whole thing was fixed?” I said. “Right from the start?”
Otto smiled and shrugged, then made an ‘isn’t it obvious?’ gesture.
“The penalty against Australia in the final minute…advancing to play the winner of just Ukraine or Switzerland, that was such a very set up… I will not say that it has all been a fix, but questions, there must be.”
There were a few guys around, wrapping things up for the night. The air was heavy and warm under a dark, dark sky.
“So how many people were murdered because of all this?” I asked.
He shrugged again.
“All this fuss, all this espionage,” I said, “all this money, these murders, all of this, it was just over a football tournament, right? It’s not that the future of humanity was at stake or anything?”
He smiled at me – in the way that he might have smiled at a small child, and you can imagine how annoying that was – then stood up and put his hand on my shoulder.
“It’s a beautiful game, Mr Thomson. The beautiful game.”
We shared a look. Just a look. No idea what it said.
“Can I go home now?” I asked.
He smiled again, this time with a bit more humour.
“It is done,” he said. “We can all go home. Until the next time.”
He turned and walked slowly up the steps to the exit, then he was gone and I was left alone with the stadium and the eerie quiet.
Down on the field a lone figure stepped out onto the park. Jeans and a t-shirt and a light summer coat. From the shape of the head and the way it had been beautifully shaved, I could tell it was Zidane. He looked up at me, and even from the distance I could see he was smiling. He saluted and bowed his head, and there was something knowing about it, and then he turned and walked back off the field.

Today was quiet all day. I’ve done the entire squad, all twenty-three of them. Done the backroom lads. Offered a cut to the manager, but he was having none of it. Even done a few people that just happened to turn up at the door, who didn’t appear to have anything to do with the team. There was a guy who was walking the earth and getting in adventures – left the UK on foot eighteen years ago with the intention of reaching Vietnam, still hadn’t made it through Germany – heard about me, was in town for the Final, and he pitched up. A lot of hair, but thinning, and I gave him a Zidane. Or a Henry, depending on how you look at it.
At 3:45 a guy came in, and without any fuss whatsoever, pulled a gun from his bag and pointed it at me.
“Come with me,” he said. “No fuss.”
He put the gun back in the bag, but held it there, ready for a quick withdrawal.
The fact that I’m writing this, kind of lets you know that I didn’t get a bullet in the napper. I was thinking at the time, well this is new. Never been held up at gunpoint before. So I went. No reason not to.
“You know, I’d have come if you’d just asked me,” I said. “You didn’t need to stick a gun in my face.”
“Oh,” he said. “Sorry.”
But he didn’t let it go.
I think he had originally intended to bundle me into his car – because these people always bundle into cars – but since I was cooperating so smoothly, he allowed me to just step into the car in a normal way.
I ended up in a small castle by a lake, after about an hour. Near the border with Poland, I’m guessing. He drove pretty fast. Into the castle, an elevator, a labyrinth… They didn’t blindfold me. Got put into an interrogation room and left me on my own for a while. One whole wall was a mirror, and we’ve all seen enough movies to know that they were on the other side watching.
Eventually the door opened and Otto came in. I think I’d been expecting it to be him. I was a bit disappointed to see that he’d had his haircut. A rubbish job ‘n all. He sat on the desk and offered me a cigarette. I shrugged, didn’t tell him not to be ridiculous, but you know…
“And so we come to the final act,” he said. I wondered if he was just about to burst into a rendition of My Way. “You have been brought here at great expense, Mr Thomson, and so far you have not paid your way.”
“You mean I wasn’t paid a million pounds by the FA just to cut hair?”
“Of course not, you fool!” he snapped, the accent becoming that little bit sharper as he spoke. “There is a massive conspiracy being conducted, Mr Thomson. We are all involved. Governments, the UN, the CIA, MI6. The Brownies. You must see that, you must have known.”
I yawned. You know, I didn’t mean to, it just kind of snuck out. Tough to disguise a yawn in a one to one situation. He smacked his hand down onto the desk.
“This is a serious business, Mr Thomson! Tonight there will be a great injustice, and you are our inside man, our special agent, tasked with preventing a calamity. Do you understand?”
I looked at him, then glanced at the mirror, wondering who was on the other side. Checked my watch, which I didn’t have to as there was a clock on the wall.
“I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about,” I said.
He took a deep breath, cracked his knuckles, straightened his shoulders…and explained it to me.

So the tournament muddles on to its conclusion, and here I am still in Germany, cutting the hair of one of the squads that has made it to the final. I do believe that’s what the Football Association had in mind when they signed me up, it’s just not the right team I’m working for now. Doesn’t bother me of course. Think I’ll make myself available to the Scotland team for the finals of Euro 2008. After all, we’ve only got the two World Cup finalists in our qualifying group, it shouldn’t be too difficult.
Henry came in last night, just as I was about to close up. There’s not been a lot to do, you know, most of the French guys have a number one all over and then they’re out the door. You’ll get a barber in London – and presumably Paris – who will take forty-five minutes over it with all the accompanying fluff and bluster and powder, but I’m from the west of Scotland. We do it in about fifty-three seconds up there. But it’s amazing, hardly any of them have got any hair. Maybe that’s why they’ve got where they are.
Some heads I have shaved. Gallas, Makelele, Barthez. A few others, guys in the support staff as well. Easy work. Just looking forward to getting home now I think. I keep checking the weather forecast in Scotland and wishing I was under seventeen degrees and rain.
Getting back to Henry. He sat down in the chair, looked in the mirror, and then waved a Gallic hand.
“You remember Clint Mathis?” he said.
“Johnny’s brother?” I replied glibly.
“Member of the US team in 2002. Had a beautiful mohawk. Tres jollie, non?”
Well, I hadn’t seen it, but a mohawk’s a mohawk…
“I doubt it,” I said.
“I want to look like him,” said Henry. “I don’t just want to be Thierry Henry, scorer of goals, winner of the World Cup. I want to be iconic.”
“Why don’t you draw attention to yourself by falling down clutching your face all the time, you’ve got a knack for it.”
He missed the sarcasm, or ignored it.
“No, it has to be the hair. Iconic hair, that’s what I need.”
“That’s the trouble,” I said. “You don’t have any.”
This, for some reason, seemed to be a moment of revelation for him, he looked very disappointed, and then gestured glibly for me to do my thing. I shaved his head with an unguarded razor, and sent him packing.
He’d been gone less than a minute, and by such small twists of fate is the future secured, when Otto the spy came rushing into the room.
“Henry!” he exclaimed. “He is gone?”
I shrugged.
“Aye,” I said.
Otto slumped down into the barber’s chair and put his head in his hands. Very thesp.
“He is also tagged, a small device behind his left ear.”
“I didn’t see it,” I said. “I just shaved his head.”
“It is miniscule,” said Otto. “Had you looked for it, you would have found it. We needed it removed. This whole thing is caving into bribery, corruption and espionage.”
I was about to shave Otto’s hair off, since he was sitting there, when suddenly he leapt up and charged out the room, muttering darkly about the future of football and of an evil threat rising in the south.
I closed up and went out for dinner. Half a roast chicken and a couple of glasses of South African white.
It’s nearly over.

Billy Connolly called it the ‘comb-over for the new millennium’. Disguising pending baldness by shaving your head. Funny, but you know, the combover in all its variations is the most embarrassing hairstyle ever created. Really. Worse than a mullet. Shaving your head is just shaving your head. Perhaps the reasoning is the same, but the effect is much improved.
Zidane was the first French player to come into my new shop yesterday. I have to give some credit to the French, they really came up with the goods. The barber shop they have in their squad complex is state of the art. If you’d ever seen anyone getting their hair cut on Star Trek, it would have looked like this.
“I’d like a short back and sides please,” he said. I must have looked a little non-plussed, and he burst out laughing.
“I already have a short back and sides,” he said, smiling. “It was a good joke, no?”
It was a crap joke, but there was something engaging about him.
“I want you to shave my head, no guard on the clippers.”
That made sense. I got to it. The completely shaved napper is the quickest haircut in the business.
“You know what happened to the last guy who was employed to cut our hair?” he asked, when I was halfway through the two minute job.
“I’m keen to learn,” I said.
“He was in a car accident,” he said. There was a bit of a smile on his face. “Very Lady Di,” he quipped. “Very mysterious.”
I continued to fly around his napper with the razor singing. You’ll see him on tv. Very chic.
“And the German guy, their barber, do you know about him?”
Shook my head, a movement he caught in the mirror.
“Kidnapped, sent to Baghdad and blown up in a car bomb attack on a market.”
Final few swoops down the back of the neck.
“The Italian’s hairdresser was drowned in a vat of styling gel, the Portuguese was suffocated under the enormous stomach of an overweight Turkish belly dancer.”
Last little jink around the ears just to make sure everything had been covered.
“These teams, they have been unable to find replacements, that is why the hair has been so horrible. But we, the French, we are fine. That is why we will win the World Cup.”
I finished off the shave with a dramatic last swoop over the apex of his napper, switched the razor off and started to brush around his shoulders.
“You seem very well informed,” I said.
“I work for French Intelligence,” he said. “Obviously that’s a secret.”
Removed the cape, another brush over the shoulders of his sports top, and then I backed away after the time-honoured fashion of the barber whose work is complete.
“And who is it who’s targeting all these barbers, then?” I asked.
He smiled, he winked, he clapped me on the shoulder, then he left.
“Am I next on the list?” I asked.
He turned at the door and shrugged in a French manner. Then he broke out once more into that big smile and legged it for the training ground. (Every player on every team is now spending an hour a day practicing falling to the ground clutching his face.)
I can’t say I haven’t been warned. No one else came along for a while after that, so I stuck a closed for lunch sign on the door and went off for coffee and a Danish.

Tuesday morning. Still here. Moved hotels and cities, even though the England guys said that my room was booked and paid for through the end of the week. They’d been so confident.
Got a call from the coach on Monday, from back in the UK. He called from a jacuzzi, which he was sharing with three women he’d met in a lift somewhere.
“I am naked, Mr Thomson,” he said, “but my tan is fantastic.”
I was drinking one of the local brews at the time, talking to him on my mobile. (You know, I’ve always preferred cell phone, but you can’t say it without sounding American, and once you start, the next thing you know you’re calling people dude and buddy and talking about time crunches.)
“I’m delighted to hear it,” I said. I mean, I wasn’t delighted, I couldn’t have cared less.
“I just wanted to thank you for all your work. I’m sorry that the magnificent hair you bestowed on the team was not enough to carry us through.”
“Well,” I said, “it wasn’t about the hair really, was it? Not enough talent, rubbish coaching, that’s what did it for you.” That was a bit harsh of me, I suppose, but you know… “You can only go so far on hubris,” I added, although that probably wasn’t helpful either.
He hung up. I don’t think he was upset with me or anything, but there was a lot of splashing going on. His last words were to say that he might use me again when he becomes manager of Chelsea.
I’d talked to him whilst sitting outside in one of those street cafés that you get in droves on the continent, watching the world go by, a world devoid of England fans following one of the Wives And Girlfriends around to see if they were about to buy any underwear. I was contemplating the four offers for my continuing participation in the World Cup. Portugal, $4million; Italy, $10million; Germany, $200million; and France, 200euros and free croissants every morning.
I made my decision. Didn’t need the money, I mean, it was bad enough that the English paid me a million. I’m spending the rest of my life living a quiet wee existence in Scotland, that’s the plan, I don’t need the money. And you also have to say that there’s a fair amount of pressure. Imagine someone gives you $200million to cut the hair of just twenty-three people. Just what kind of hair are going to expect for that kind of money?
I called the French guy, accepted their offer. Start work today. I’ll go along to the team camp, see what they want. It’s not like I’m going to have to do too much on Zidane and Henry, is it?
Late last night, I’d just moved into my new hotel, met a couple of lads in the bar – they were drinking milk, seriously – when Otto appears from nowhere. Following me around.
“Mr Thomson,” he said, a voice from the dark, as I padded up the stairs to the third floor. I’d recognise that groovy German accent anywhere.
“Otto,” I said. “Not surprised to find you here. What’s up?”
“This thing,” he said, “this whole sorry business, it is rife. It goes much deeper than the ultimately unnecessary implant in the head of the former England captain. It is all about the hair indeed. Why do you think Frings has been banned from the semi-final. Your predecessor in the England camp was castrated, disembowelled and beheaded. He will never work again. And now you must ask yourself, why are the French looking for a new barber so late in the tournament. Why are they all looking for a new barber?”
I turned and looked more closely into the shadows, but he was gone. Mystery and intrigue, and finally someone had told me what had actually happened to the ex-barber of the England team. Castrated, disembowelled and beheaded.
That, my friends, is going to hurt.

The day after the night before. England out, fancied I’d be on my way home. For sure, I’d had my mysterious note last night inviting me to some other room of the hotel before breakfast, and telling me that things were far from over. But you know, I wasn’t interested. Just wasn’t. I’ve had enough adventure in my puff. If I’d been a desk clerk all my live, if I hadn’t lived, then maybe I’d have gone looking for testicle-crunching adventure, but I’ve been there. I’ve drunk wine up the graveyard.
I ignored the note, went down to breakfast. Most of the lads were there. Some looked gutted, a few of them were quite chipper. One or two just looked like it was any other morning. Rooney came and sat down next to me. Didn’t look too happy. Think he sat next to me so that he didn’t have to talk to any of the lads. I mean, they’re supporting him in the press, but get any of them alone…
He didn’t say much, not at first. Ate his pickled eggs and smoked cheese – become quite European on his wee jaunt, the lad – and then he says, quite out of the blue, “I only stood on his knob, what’s the problem with that?”
I looked at him from behind my toast and marmalade and cup of English breakfast.
“I mean,” he went on, “a set of studs in your knackers never did anyone any harm.”
We didn’t say much more. In fact, I didn’t say anything. Finished up, said my farewells to the boys and went to the elevator. There was a guy waiting in there for me. 6’2”, black suit, oiled napper, tie sharp as a billiard ball. Portuguese.
“Mr Thomson,” he said, “we have seen the work you have done on the hair of the England squad. You took an average team, and by the dint of your magnificent hair cutting, managed to get them to the quarter-finals. You are a god.”
‘Thanks,” I said, because I wasn’t sure what else to say.
“We want you to work for Portugal. We will give you $4million!”
The elevator door opened.
“I’ll think about it,” I said.
I left him there. I was assuming that his had been the meeting which I had turned down, but as it was…
Got back to my room to begin the sad business of wrapping everything up, to find a bloke already in there. As usual.
“You did not make our assignation, Mr Thomson,” he said. “We are Italy. We would like you to come to work for us. Have you seen Del Piero? That’s what happens when you don’t have a seasoned professional, a master, cutting the hair. Work for us for the next seven days, and we will give you $10million.”
He pushed a card into my pocket and walked out, throwing the words, “Give me a call. You have until Monday 8am to decide.”
Quiet morning. Despite trying to get things closed up, Hargreaves came in looking for a Gareth Southgate. I think maybe the rest of the team have been picking on him because he's the only one who’s shown any sign of competence.
Late morning a guy comes in. Tall, brown hair, very slim. Dark grey suit, serious face, moustache. “We are Germany,” he began. “We have been following your work, Mr Thomson, and we are very impressed. We will give you $200million to cut the hair of the German team for the next week. I think we both know that your presence could make the difference.”
He smiled awkwardly, pushed his card into my hand, and left.
The day drifted on. Late on a guy representing the French team came in and offered me 200 Euros and a couple of fresh croissant every morning if I went to work for them. So, it’s true. They do treat the World Cup in the same way that they handle the Eurovision Song Contest.
Nice to be in demand all the same. Might take one of the offers, might get the plane home tomorrow. Might just wait for an offer from Scotland.

Watched the game from a position just behind the coach. Right in the middle of the tension. So I popped my feet up and read my Henning Mankell. Didn’t pay much attention to the match – it was complete mince after all - but got sucked in at the end. The coach wanted me to touch up the guys’ hair in the short break before the penalties, you know, right out on the pitch. They didn’t like that, of course, can you imagine John Terry having a cut and blow dry live on tv? No chance. So there was a bit of an argument, and the players told the coach where to stick it. I think Beckham was all for it, but then he wasn’t involved anymore. So then the coach told me to go and give Rooney a bit of a short back and sides to try and console him, and I finally had to say to the guy, I mean, to Erikkson, “It’s not about the hair.” That’s a pretty big thing for a barber to say to anyone, but I wasn’t about to go and present myself to the wee man and ask if he’d like a number two all over, an hour after he’s been sent off, and he’s a big tension bucket waiting to see if his team mates are going to screw up again. The coach looked very unhappy, pulled that mean Dracula-look thing that he keeps just beneath the surface, muttered something about how I was in his pocket, and then he turned his attention back to the matter in hand. He turned away from me and bumped into Lampard, so told him that he was taking the first penalty. I do believe that was just about all the thought that went into it. If he’d bumped into Kermit the Frog, he’d have got to take the first kick.
Might have helped.
Felt sorry for them. As I’ve been saying, we’ve been getting on ok, there’s a fair bit of good-natured Scottish-English banter, so it was tough. Poor bastards. They were miserable back at the hotel, of course, although some of them were lamenting the fact that it screwed up their chances of appearing in the next Pepsi advert. So on a personal level I was disappointed for them, but of course being Scottish ‘n all, I don’t care, not really. The upside is that I get to go home tomorrow. So I was thinking. My contract says that I get paid my million for the month regardless of whether the team survives in the competition, but if they go out, the FA can’t hold me to any other duties. They can’t ask me to go and work in London for a week or anything. So, I was looking forward to being back in Scotland by Sunday evening.
Got back to my room at just after ten. Watched half the France game and got fed up. Now, it seems that virtually every time I get back to my room, there’s someone waiting for me. Who knows how they get the key? It’s like any key on the planet, even one of those tiny padlock jobbies you get on kids’ money boxes, will do the trick.
This time is was a woman. Mid-20’s, too young for me, but very attractive. She rose seductively from her seat when I came in. She put her hand on my shoulder, and then she kissed me very slowly and erotically. Wasn’t complaining. Felt her hand brush against my trousers and I thought, here we go…and then she left.
“Good night, Mr Thomson,” she said, as she walked out. Strong German accent. “We will see each other again.”
I put my hand in my pocket and took out the note she’d given me.
Tomorrow morning 0700hrs. Room 132. It is far from over.