Part 371: Welcome to the Champions League
The game was three-quarters down in the hot humid air of the San Siro, yet he could still hardly believe it when the nod came his way and was told to peel the training jersey off his ready kit and begin warming-up. Adrenaline fired through the ripped physique of his 5ft10 body, excitement laced with a gut-churning nervousness; the young man did his best to keep this from his locked facial expression, clapping handshakes of support with the other remaining substitutes: former Leicester Fox Harvey Barnes, tight-faced and envious but still wishing him luck, and nearby old faithfuls Lascelles and Dummett, both surprisingly content that they were missing out on their Champions League debuts.
Trying to suppress the shaking in his strong body, Elliot Anderson moved away from them, doing more stretches as he took position between Howe and Tindall, ready to answer his coaches' summoning and step out onto the field. From League Two to the Champions League in 500 days, the fan-sites were saying, and it seemed like both yesterday and forever ago that he had been loaned out to Bristol Rovers and proving himself in a lower league - now about to be subbed on as a potential game-changer in Newcastle United's group stage clash with hosts AC Milan. Their first Champions League game in two decades, surrounded in hype for everyone involved, and a head-spinning opportunity for the 20-year-old midfielder in black-and-white.
To compound Anderson's nervousness and pressure, he saw who he was to replace: the club's own Italian stallion and the night's homecoming performance, 23-year-old Sandro Tonali. The tall dark winger looked grim and defeated as he stomped this way to be taken off, clearly disappointed not to land a goal or assist against his former club; a sense of overwhelming expectation rocked Elliot as he was slapped on the back by the gaffer and urged out into the floodlights, sent on to replace the Italian and to try and shift the tide of Milan's threatening shots-on-target. Never had the young footballer felt so nervous about a performance, nor so shocked to be selected, but he tried to look strong and confident as he jogged in from the sidelines, ignoring the strong urge to run and hide and tell his bosses he just had an upset stomach or something. Red-faced and impatient Haervey could go on, he thought, or Targett or Livramento or anyone... It was the kind of horrible pressure that professional footballers seemed never to admit to, and for a long moment the Whitley Bay youth felt on the verge of a panic attack, finding his position and watching the action resume around him.
But then, at just the right moment, there was a rough hand on his elbow, and then squeezing at his shoulder muscle through his Newcastle shirt. `Here we go,' grunted the rough Mancunian accent, familiarly reassuring, and he was squeezed briefly from the side by another thickset man of the same height. He glanced sharply to his side, glad when his eyes met the crystal-blue of the acting captain's - taking a moment's distraction from the game's final quarter, Kieran Trippier fixed him with a calming stare, holding his shoulder for a moment longer, but just long enough.
Hey,' Anderson panted quietly at the older man, feeling a strong pat to his lower back, and then catching the brief cheerful wink of Trippier's striking eyes. Let's finish this,' the Bury-born defender hissed fiercely at him, and gave him a slight push away directing him further towards the middle of the field - and Elliot did so in a fierce run, his nerves instantly settled and his determination recharged by the quick contact with his captain. Nerves were abandoned and the excited young midfielder sprinted into the game, ready for a last push against the host opposition.
The brief contact, the strong supportive touch, the deep reassuring eyes - it had all flashed the 20-year-old back to earlier today, and another gesture of faith and support from the experienced European contender. Fits and waves of this nervous energy had been slapping at Elliot all week in training, and especially on the Friday night journey into northern Italy, never mind in the slow afternoon hours that built up to the fixture.
Mid-afternoon and he had been pacing the hotel on his own, opting out of the pool and darts tournament that some of the other young players had instigated once their light training session and near-ceremonial lunch break were over. Excitement levels were high, of course, but nobody seemed to be admitting to the pants-wetting nervousness of stepping up to this big stage, and so Elliot himself was far too embarrassed to say anything. Instead, the muscular young midfielder had broken away from his pals and wandered the hotel instead, finding windows on the upper floors with fairly spectacular views over the city and its famous duomo.
That's where Trips had found him. The de facto skipper had been on the phone, to his wife by the sound of it, but brought the call to an end and joined him at the window, grabbing and squeezing his shoulder in exactly the same way as he did on the pitch just now. It had been less instantly gratifying in that moment of afternoon panic, but Anderson had still found himself turning pleading eyes and tight lips to the older player, and feeling glad to have someone as self-assured and calm as Kieran at his side.
`It's okay to be worried,' Trips told him, apparently a mind-reader.
`I'm just excited,' Anderson lied quietly.
`Oh fuck off. You're shitting your pants, who wouldn't be?'
`Is it THAT obvious, man...?'
`Aye. But don't fret. You don't think every lad on the team ain't feeling it a bit?'
Ah, dunno like, er...' He mumbled and slurred and pawed a clammy hand against the freckles and acne scars of his pale young face. Just embarrassing to feel scared, we're meant to be going out there all guns blazin', y'kna? Ergh. God, what am I like. Diven't tell anyone, skip...'
Stood next to him, the Bury-born man just scoffed and smiled, his own freckled face broad with smile and his eyes full of warmth. He nodded away. `Come with me a minute, mate.' And Elliot had followed unquestioningly, always comfortable with the confidence and reassurance of his right-back, even since... well, what had happened that night at Alan Shearer's. There had been many Sundays this year spent as a guest at the Trippiers' house for roast dinners, an intimacy that the gregarious team leader still didn't seem to have extended to many squad members.
In the top-floor suite that Trippier was sharing with another senior player, Anderson had felt himself directed quite roughly to the full-length mirror, handled with a close physicality that took him anxiously back to the whiskey haze of Shearer's party after the semi-final. Stood in front of his own reflection, he bristled with tension and felt an ambiguous thrill at that memory, and flinched then relaxed with Kieran's strong hands on each shoulder. Look at yerself,' Kieran grunted in his ear. Strappin' lad - ready to take on the world.' To the nervous young player, his own physical fitness seemed tangential from the psychological pressure of the sporting challenge ahead, but he was flattered by the older man's attention, and he laughed when Kieran stupidly lifted his heavy white t-shirt up to his pecs and exposed the ripped washboard of his abs. Look at the fitness on you, you mad bastard - you're a warrior, Elliot.' Anderson's mumbled humility was ignored, and Kieran shook and held him, showing him off to himself in the mirror, then reaching an unambiguous hand around; he watched it in reflection, the sight of those scuffed knuckles and stubby fingers, grasping about his bulge in his baggy jogger bottoms. Again, the flinch of the unexpected against his nerves, and then the comforting reassurance of Kieran's certainty. Big bollocks like these,' intoned the captain in his ear, `ready to take on the world.'
`Fuck yeah,' Anderson returned with uncertain enthusiasm.
Big bollocks,' Trips repeated, and bigger cock.'
`Er-'
The hand wasn't just on the bulge now - it was inside the front of his joggers, rubbing him in his briefs, and Kieran's face over his shoulder, meeting his eyes in the mirror. He stood there, tense with a mixture of nerves and excitement, and felt the knowing fingers on the outline of his cock, gasping but unsure what to say. Kieran's blue eyes stared deeply into his from the reflective glass, and he let out another faint gasp. Out came his cock, pulled free and stroked in the captain's hand. Big-dicked bastard,' growled the older footballer at his back, holding him still and stroking slow firm life into his manhood - touching him firmly but sensuously as he had on the rug of Shearer's downstairs study - and Elliot felt his own chest muscles swell with vanity, seeing himself like this, muscular and well-hung and prized. A big fucking lad,' the captain muttered, pulling back and forth on his sensitive shaft, and his other hand gripping at his bicep. A big hung lad like you, monster in your shorts, and all these muscles - you're gonna fuck up some Milan wankers, y'hear me?' Again the low growl of the skipper's voice seemed to read his thoughts: Dick as big as old Shearer's, and I tell you whose tasted better to me. You're ready for this, mate.'
`I am,' he wheezed in reply, his entire body tingling.
And just as swiftly as it had begun, the pressure around his mounting hard-on went away - just as it was coming alive, his whopper was pushed back into the loose folds of his joggers, although it wouldn't fit back into his briefs, and Kieran was just patting his shoulders and chuckling ambiguously. That's the spirit,' he said with sporting bravado, as if he hadn't just been handling his cock, and this was an ordinary pep talk. Elliot blinked stupidly and stared into his calm grin in the mirror, unsure what to do or say, but then just briefly massaged at the collarbone. Off you go then, lad - go get a nap or something before we have to report to the coaches downstairs, eh.'
For a few moments, the strapping young Geordie had faltered and hesitated, an obvious outline in his pants, but Kieran just blinking calmly with a thin smile and nodding him away to the door; no signs of sexual excitement of his own, just a calm and friendly encouragement. Anderson nodded at Trips and left in a stumbling shuffle walk, trying to find a way of moving without his hard-on being too obvious where it tented and poked, which was not possible. All the way back to his own room he was paranoid about it, but he passed nobody, and his own roomie was nowhere to be seen.
Alone, he let out a series of deep breathy gasps, and leant on the door, letting the startled frustration seep away - all turned on and then pushed away. And yet... something up there had done the trick. Catching sight of himself in an identical mirror on the wall of this suite, the Whitley Bay boy saw a powerful muscular figure, a hard-faced North East lad who was ready to square up to AC Milan. His hard-on wilted, but his renewed confidence didn't - and grabbed and reassured by Trippier on the pitch tonight, his cock and balls had tingled inside his Adidas briefs, reminded of everything the captain had muttered in his ear.
It was a draw that felt like a win, even without a goal; although other results across Europe put theirs to shame, the returning contenders were pleased to squeeze a point out of their hosts. The talk in the San Siro lockerroom and the bus back to the hotel was all of St James Park as a fortress where the real magic would happen, and how little chance AC Milan stood once those tables were turned. Proud even of his short appearance and limited contribution, Elliot was as loudly pleased as anyone else, swaggering about the changing rooms with his towel over his shoulder, big dick swinging, and joining a Geordie chant on the bus with Longstaff, Burn, Dummet, and Miley, happy to be the local pride heartbeat of an excitable squad on their way back to the accommodation.
Necking a beer in the hotel bar, the 20-year-old smiled and chuckled to think of his own nervousness, as if this was anything more than another football match, the same even challenge as every other. He thought he'd held his own in the time he had and that the bosses would give him more opportunity as the rest of their group matches came into focus, not just AC Milan but PSG and Dortmund.
The whole NUFC entourage were occupying the bar area, every player and travelling staff member, a collective sense of relief filling the room and revealing that Elliot's nervous dread had been far from unique. Everybody seemed glad to have gotten this first fixture out of the way, for their UCL journey to be underway. The team spirit across the bar was almost as if they'd thrashed the Italians 6-0, rather than a goalless draw, and Anderson was happy to be part of it, happy to enjoy the obnoxious gladness, happy to have popped his European cherry, and to be a key player at his boyhood club. His happy eyes sought out the figure of the night's captain, who was sat closely with the still-official leader Jamaal Lascelles, close to Eddie Howe too, proposing toast after toast with a pint of Italian lager. He wondered if he could have stepped onto the pitch and held his head high without that extra support of encouragement from the skipper, and felt a warm surge of gratitude and loyalty as the beer buzz tingled through him.
What a fucking great guy, Elliot thought, taking another long glug - a proper sound guy, the absolute backbone of this group of lads, why aye...
Next to him, the others were beginning to talk more about their next fixture, a Sunday afternoon in Sheffield - Sean Longstaff and Jacob Murphy were making loud predictions about steamrollering the newly-promoted Yorkshire team, and trying to involve Anderson in their banter, whilst on his other side big Dan Burn was enthusing about their impenetrable defence to fellow giant Nick Pope. But Elliot could barely hear them, putting the bottle back to his lips and studying the quiet confidence of Kieran Trippier, wondering at how much impact the Atletico Madrid investment had made in little over a season. He thought about the way the older guy had spoken to him in the afternoon, so perceptive and kind and... er, attentive. He'd made him feel like a fucking king. What a guy.
Oi,' shouted big Dan, elbowing him, are you wasted already, Baywatch?'
Shaking himself and laughing, Elliot returned to the room, and tried to zone in on the conversation fo the other guys. He was glad though to find his beer empty and to escape to the bar to get the next round, suddenly agitated and wanting to speak to his captain, wanting to say a proper thank you to him that had somehow slipped by in the group celebrations of ending the match without conceding. But the prospect of approaching and expressing his earnest thanks to Trips now, in front of everyone else, just felt a bit too cringe for him now, riding the wave of ego and bravado; it would have to wait. Beers were bought and drank, but the thought persisted: he'd been a nervous wreck all the way here from Newcastle's tiny airport, and Trippier's faith in him had been transformative.
It was still on his mind when curfew was called, Howe himself dismissing the celebrations with a loud hearty toast, and Anderson busied himself with the gentlemanly task of helping to collect glasses and bottles for the patient Italian bar staff. One of the staff members, a pretty dark-haired Italian chick who looked straight out of Milan Fashion Week, smiled coyly at him for his help and fluttered lashes for days - the 20-year-old Geordie could only grin awkwardly back at the female attention of the signora, admiring the tight fit of her crisp uniform and those supermodel looks, before shouldering away through the vague crowd of lads. Briefly, he was grabbed about the shoulders by Longstaff, who bluntly informed him `Miss Italy 2023 there wants a bit of Geordie in her, man!' before cackling stupidly and skipping ahead to leap piggy-back onto big lofty Burn.
The flirty moment escaped Anderson's attention: he was scanning the crowd for sight of Trips, thinking that he might be able to accost the skipper now and tell him how much his encouragement meant, how important his helpful words had been, not just tonight but since they became teammates - but he couldn't see the other 5ft10 football bloke, not in the melee of lads choosing between the lifts and the stairs, not anywhere in the opulent foyer they were crossing. Maybe he'd already headed up before Howe called time.
Three-beers-tipsy and fixated on this surge of gratitude, Elliot ignored the approving hug of passing Harvey Barnes, uninterested in his newer friend's well-meant compliments on the way by, and he just murmured a response when a typically impassioned Bruno Guimaraes hugged him on the way past, throwing some Portuguese moniker at him that Elliot couldn't remember the meaning of. He drifted past the elevators and into the quieter stairwell, scratching the back of his neck and taking the steps two at a time - he wasn't heading for his own suite on the third floor, shared with Chelsea import Lewis Hall, but for the top floor of the large square hotel, for the window view where Trippier had found him lost in his anxiety. Once there, he tried to remember what doorway he'd been ushered through, pausing only briefly to look out at the nocturnally transformed city view.
Anderson pulled at the neckline of the polo shirt he'd changed into, the same loose-fitting joggers swinging about his muscled legs. The need was so strong: the need to tell the team's captain that he was an inspiration and support, that his pep talks were everything a nervous young player needed to hear. It occurred to Elliot only in a detached and abstract way that there had been much more than a pep talk, much more than words; his entire body buzzed with the memory of that reassuring and ego-boosting touch, on his shoulder muscles and his six-pack and dipping into the crotch of his joggers... He was almost oblivious to the semi in his briefs, picturing himself in front of that mirror, seen through Trips' ice-blue gaze, stroked to alertness.
Here it was, the door to the right room. His hand went down to the door-handle without a polite knock, which was odd, but he was a little dizzy and out of sorts, and he just wanted to lunge in there and holler his sincere `Thanks!' at the captain to overcome this rush of admiration and respect - the knob twisted in his grips and the door pushed easily inwards, unlocked, but Elliot's tipsy rush slowed with an awareness of privacy broken - what a dick, why didn't you knock? But the door was yielding and the air inside smelt richly of an aftershave that he associated with his role model - well, one of his heroes, his most recent one, and he briefly pictured the sweaty lined face of his other, Newcastle's great striker, smirking at him over Trippier's bobbing head. Had he and Shearer really cum together at the sticky lips of the Mancunian?
On his way into the room, stumbling with quiet hesitation, the 20-year-old froze. His hand still gripped the loose doorhandle and he paused in the process of lurching forward, stopping himself instinctively even before he saw it. The doorway to the suite was in an awkward corner so that much of the room was angled away, and intruding Elliot found himself hovering in the cover of this corner, but staring around it, at the scene of the nearest bed, able to stare unnoticed. It wasn't his captain that he saw first, but the big figure on the bed, the unmistakable light brown of Callum Wilson's bare muscles, sprawled out sideways across the double bed. His big-muscled arms, covered in tattoo sleeves, were lifted up elbows in the air, hands pulled in over his face; more, his big striker's legs, lifted and parted, and Kieran down between them, head bent low over his crotch. Elliot felt not just admiration and gratitude for his captain, but a sudden burning envy - here was Trippier, gobbling down on the striker's black cock in the same way that he'd knelt for Anderson and Shearer, noisily sucking on another length of meat. Jealous or whatever, the youth's cock throbbed in his boxer briefs, and his grip on the doorhandle tightened.
But Trippier wasn't just sucking off the forward. As Elliot's dizzy eyes found focus and clarity, he realised why the hefty muscular legs were lifted and parted so much. He could below the wet base of the shaft, where Kieran's lips went up and down, drooling over shaven bollocks; he could see the tense muscles of the captain's own bare tattooed arm, and the way his hand was pointed in against where the striker's body met the bedding. Elliot stared wide-eyed as two slick digits came in and out of the man's arse-hole, frigging it like a pussy, and combining with lip service to elicit the deep manly groans that Wilson's clamped hands were barely suppressing.
Liminal and astounded, the 20-year-old footballer player froze on the threshold of the room, clutching the door and holding his own breath in silently. Inside his joggers and undies, the Geordie lad's cock and balls tingled and throbbed, and hard nipples chafed against the polo shirt. When, after the longest moment in the universe, he managed to tear his eyes from the sight of shirtless Trippier kneeling down at the side of the bed, his eyes flicked only to the full-length mirror on the wall, and he took in the exact same sordid scene, merely reversed and repeated: big manly Callum, sprawled out on the bed, and his NUFC and England teammate pleasuring him in two ways at once, making a lot of wet noise as he sucked his prick and fingered his butt-hole. Excitement competed heavily with shock and fear, and Elliot made his retreat as silently as he could, pulling the door to and stumbling backwards into the corridor. His brain and his cock were in conflict: one was pressing aggressively against the fabric of his keks, leaking precum in his foreskin, and the other was processing a profound distrust of Trippier's attention and support. A lifelong fear of fairies and anything `other' was rioting through the Whitley Bay lad and his working-class background. He remembered with disgust how he had felt after his first blowie off a man, Ryan Fraser's Scottish beard tickling his privates in the dark after a late-night drop-off.
Blinking furiously, Anderson wiped sweaty palms across the tummy of his top, and wheeled away down the corridor. Gratitude and admiration were forgotten, and replaced instead with fear and shame; the sight of the two senior players had shattered some vague acceptance that his limited naughty experience had opened up, and he need urgently to prove his own hetero virility to himself.
Barely twenty minutes later, Elliot Anderson's `hetero virility' was balls-deep in the dripping fanny of a hot Italian girl, making her squeal in the frosty cool of a walk-in fridge between the bar and the kitchen. It turned out that the girl's English vocab was as non-existent as Elliot's own Italian, but it hadn't really mattered. The awkward flirty look they shared at the bar had been traded for one of hunger and urgency when he returned downstairs and found her wiping down a table. Bodies had spoken louder than the words they failed to share, and now he was powering into her and making the metallic shelves rattle and creak, slamming his big veiny cock into her and interpreting her foreign gasps of delight as just as ego-affirming as any untrustworthy pep talk from Kieran fucking Trippier.
Proving his own straightness to himself, the hot young charva fucked hard and fast, using every well-trained muscle, utterly intent on her curvy body and gorgeous skin, and feeling her wet glory envelop him. But with every deep stroke, his hands clutched one at her waist and the other on a single exposed tit, neither of them having really paused to properly undress, the image returned to him: Kieran's digits pushing in and out of the brown-pink furrow between Callum's spread cheeks, spit drooling down shaft and balls and across his furry gooch. It was all he could see when he shut his eyes.
When he spent his load inside her, he shook and trembled more than he had with his pre-match nerves, and he sweated more than he had in the humid ferocity of the San Siro. Gasping and moaning, she tried in broken English to tell him her name and number, but he waved her away and staggered out of the cool walk-in, a dripping sticky mess on his way to the lifts, arranging and rearranging his cock in his joggers, and wiping his face on the backs of his equally sweaty arms. Inside the elevator, he could hardly look at his reflection, because he pictured Trippier's hands on him and his eyes over his shoulder, and the way the captain had massaged his ego and more.
He panted and closed his eyes, and waited for the ping of arrival at his own floor; he was shaken and confused, and it felt like something more had been popped tonight than his UEFA Champions League newness. A simmering awareness of something else burned on his pale freckled skin, and he let himself quietly into his room to a distant yawned greeting from sleepy Hall, which he ignored. He peeled clothes away, his body seeming to stink of her cheap perfume, and climbed into his bed with his cock still wet and tingling, and he tried not to picture what was going on tow floors above.
'Writer guy' - Premiership Lads on Nifty https://www.nifty.org/nifty/gay/celebrity/premiership-lads/
Amazon Wishlist here if you wanna say thanks LOL
https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/26BW3WSABBHNM?ref_=wl_share