The tunnel has a camera because the tunnel is where things happen between players that the referee does not see. Every night at twenty five past seven, five minutes before a half past seven kick off, it records the tunnel full. Two teams in two lines, in kits from every decade the club has had, and at the back of the home line a boy in a mascot's kit, holding up a hand as if it were in a player's hand, and there is no player.
I am the head of matchday operations at a football club and the tunnel camera is the one I would not show a supporter.
The camera.
Over the mouth of the tunnel, looking down it, recording all the time, because the tunnel is where players say things to each other and the football authorities like to have a picture.
At twenty five past seven, every night, with no match, the tunnel is full.
The lines.
Two. Home on the left, away on the right, the way it is. Eleven a side, and the officials in front, and the lines are still, the way players are still in the tunnel, shifting from foot to foot, looking ahead.
The kits are wrong. Not wrong. From different years. A man in the home line in the kit from the seventies, the collar and the number on the shorts, next to a man in the kit from ten years ago, next to one in the kit from the sixties with the heavy shirt. The away line is the same, clubs I can name from the colours and years I can guess. They are not a team. They are every team, or the ones who are here.
And at the back of the home line, behind the last player, a boy. Seven or eight. In the mascot's kit, the full kit, the shirt to his knees, and his right hand is up, at the height a man's hand would be, held, and there is nobody holding it.
At half past seven the lines walk. Forward, out of the tunnel, into the dark, and the camera sees them go, and the boy at the back walks with his hand up, and the tunnel is empty.
What has been checked.
The camera, replaced. The lines are on the new one.
The tunnel, at twenty five past seven, by me, at the pitch end, looking in. It was empty. On my phone, on the camera, it was full. I walked in. On the camera, I walked between two lines of players, through them, and they did not part, and I felt nothing, and I stood at the back of the home line, beside the boy, and looked at him on my phone, and he was looking straight ahead, with his hand up, and I put my hand where his would be, at the height of it, and on the camera his hand was in mine.
I walked him out. At half past seven. Down the tunnel, with the lines, onto the pitch, in the dark, with my hand holding nothing at the height of a boy's, and on the camera a boy in a shirt to his knees walked out beside a man in a coat, and at the pitch the lines went to the centre circle and stood, the way teams stand, and the boy stood with me, and then they were not there.
Who.
The boy first, because he was easiest. The club keeps the mascot list. A boy, decades ago, a competition winner, who was to walk out with the captain at a home match and who had been in the tunnel at twenty five past seven, in the kit, and the captain had not been there, because the captain had been injured in the warm up and taken off to the hospital, and nobody had thought to give the boy to somebody else, and he had walked out at the back of the line on his own, with his hand up, because he had been told to hold the captain's hand and nobody had told him not to.
He had not, the woman who runs the mascots told me, had a good day. He had been in the paper. And she said that his family had written to the club and the club had written back and offered another match and he had not wanted it.
She did not know what had happened to him after. I do. I looked. It was not long after and it was not football and I will leave it there.
The players I cannot name, most of them. They are the club's dead, I think, the ones who played here, lining up for a match every night because it is the thing they did, and the away line is whoever they played, and it does not matter. What matters is the boy at the back, who was promised a hand, and who is holding it up.
What is done about it.
The tunnel recording is on the server every night and the football authorities have not asked to see it and I have not offered.
What I do.
I run matchdays.
I walk him out. Every night. I am at the back of the home line at twenty five past seven and I take the hand that is not there and at half past seven we go. It is not the captain. I am not anybody. But a mascot walks out holding a hand and I have one.
The captain of that night, I found out, was a man who played on for years and retired and is alive, and old, and in the town, and I have written to him. I have said that there is a boy at the club who was supposed to walk out with him, and did not, and that if he would like to come one evening at twenty five past seven, I would be glad to show him where to stand. He has not written back. It has been a week. I have a feeling he will, and I have a feeling that when he does the tunnel camera will record something it has not recorded yet, which is a boy at the back of the line with his hand in the hand it was for, and I have not decided what I will do with the recording, except keep it.