699 Carl Spicer’s Hardcore Fan

When Carl Spicer's book was on sale, Twain received a signed copy. In the book, Spicer had written, "To my closest friend Tony Twain, wishing you all the best. Your life-long partner, Carl Spicer."

When Spicer gifted the book to Twain, he brought this matter up to the media. He bragged about the incident in his column.

"I wanted to see his reaction upon receiving the book!"

The relationship between Carl Spicer and Twain had always been tricky. In the past, Twain's hatred for the media had always been generic and not specific to a person. Now, Spicer had bravely stood out and raised a flag indicating that Twain was bad. How could Tony stomach such a brazen provocation? 80% of the people thought it would be uncharacteristic of Twain to not respond to this. Spicer thought so too. He was well-prepared to deal with Twain's revenge. He was ready for verbal warfare in the column and planned to use Nottingham Forest's recent unstable results to criticize Twain. He was beginning to grow impatient for Twain's inevitable revenge.

Since there was still half the day left, Twain drove around the whole of Nottingham to all the bookstores and newsstands, maxing out his credit cards to buy all the copies of "What Kind Of Man Is He: Uncovering The Mysterious Halo Around Tony Twain," in Nottingham.

Since the book was essentially mindless gossip, it was not selling well in Nottingham. Other than a portion of Notts County's fans who might buy the book, almost all of Nottingham Forest fans did not care about it at all.

Twain bought so many copies he could not store a single one more in his jeep. In the end, he had to tell the bookstores to pack the books the exact way they were sent and wait for him to call a truck to haul them.

※※※

BBC aired a program preview on television. In the new episode of Match of the Day, they were going to invite the popular soccer journalist, Carl Spicer, as a guest and discuss his thoughts on "What Kind Of Man Is He: Uncovering The Mysterious Halo Around Tony Twain." They planned to talk about interesting episodes during the creative process, and Spicer's personal opinions on Twain as a person.

The producer, Lineker, predicted that this week's program would attract widespread attention, and sure enough, two days before the recording of the program, he received an unusual bill of lading.

"What is this?" Gary Lineker looked confused as he held onto the bill.

It was attached to a letter which read, "For my dear friend Carl Spicer." The inscription made Linekar laugh. It was signed "Tony Twain."

The letter opened with a greeting for Lineker, thanking him for speaking on behalf of Nottingham Forest several times. At the end he raised a small request:

"I want to thank someone very important who spent close to half a year writing a book to log my achievements. To express my respect for him and my gratitude for his efforts, I have a presumptuous request: while interviewing this book's author, please ask the respected Carl Spicer to sign my copies. All of the books have to be signed; I want to gift the book to a few of my friends so I hope he can sign them. Of course, I'm not asking too much from him with this small request, right?"

Following that, Lineker ran out of the BBC building while holding onto the bill, and he almost fell when he reached the car park. Four trucks, weighing five tons each, were parked neatly in a row. The containers were covered by canvas and secured tightly by a rope. The truck drivers, who were huddled together and smoking, saw Lineker. One of them ran over and shook hands with him.

"Gary Lineker, I'm a fan!"

Lineker did not care about him, he was blankly staring at the four large trucks.

"This is…"

The drivers gave each other a look and broke out into laughter.

"We delivered props for your program on Tony Twain's request," said one of the men.

"Props?" Gary asked weakly.

The driver pulled Lineker to the back of one of the trucks and pulled up a corner of the canvas.

"All three of the other trucks contain the same thing."

A chill ran up Lineker's spine when he saw what the drivers meant by "props."

※※※

Adrian Chiles was a well-known BBC talk host. He was the host of Match of the Day: Sunday Edition and the episode where they interviewed Carl Spicer was his job. It was a lot better than Lineker's.

Carl Spicer was delighted during the show. He answered several questions, and both parties seemed to be able to talk a lot. Even though Spicer was criticizing Tony Twain on the show, the host did not comment much. On the contrary, he incited Spicer to say more groundbreaking words. They spoke about the motive behind the production of the book; Spicer thought research on Tony Twain had a lot of benefits to society.

"On the survey, 'I hate Tony Twain, he is a b*stard' made up 93% of the whole group, and only 7% voted, 'I like this guy, he is not bad.' It's worth mentioning that no one chose, 'Tony Twain? Who is that?'" Once they got to badmouthing Twain, Carl Spicer became overjoyed. He liked to see a strong figure beaten up in front of him, as it gave him a sense of achievement.

Many topics similar to this were addressed. Before the end of the program, the director had already received several calls of protest from Nottingham. The only positive comment about Twain was the sentence from the title page, "He is a phenomenon."

Towards the end of the program, Adrian Chiles spoke to Carl Spicer in a cryptic tone.

"Since the start of the program, the bottom of the screen has constantly shown that we would give you a mysterious gift at the end."

"I know, you brought it up earlier," Spicer said with a nod.

"We can guarantee the audience that this is definitely a mysterious gift and that we did not discuss this with you before the filming. This is a live broadcast."

Spicer nodded continuously to confirm that Adrian Chiles did not arrange anything with him beforehand. He smiled as if he were looking forward to it.

Lineker and his colleagues hid in the production room, giggling sheepishly while preparing for the surprise.

"This program is becoming more and more like an entertainment show," commented Mark Hansen.

Alan Lawrenson turned his head towards his colleague with a sharp grin.

"Isn't this great? We need to relax from time to time."

Adrian Chiles smiled like he knew a prank was about to unfold. The lights shone on his face, lighting it up until it seemed vibrant.

"Here's the thing, Carl. You have this extremely loyal fan. He keeps up with your various columns in the newspaper and is very supportive of your book."

Carl Spicer acted surprised, but inside he was flattered.

"What? There is such a reader? I didn't know about this."

Adrian Chiles nodded profusely.

"Yes, there is. To show his support and love, he used his own money to buy a lot of copies of this book." He waved a copy of "What Kind Of Man Is He: Uncovering The Mysterious Halo Around Tony Twain," in his hand. "He has a small request. He hopes that you can sign every copy of his books for his collection."

This boosted Carl Spicer's ego so much he might have even forgotten what his surname was. He waved.

"No problem, I am never stingy with satisfying other people's requests."

Adrian Chiles snapped his fingers and a worker from the back of the live broadcast room pushed a trolley that was especially for goods out onto the room. Loaded onto it was a stack of neatly arranged books, almost three feet tall.

"Ha!" Carl Spicer laughed a little. "He bought all of these? Is this fan hardcore or crazy?"

He reached into his pocket to fish for a pen, but as he did so his hand stopped. He had been grinning so widely he could not close his mouth, but as he looked up he became so frightened that his jaw dropped.

Following behind the first trolley was a second which had another load of books neatly stacked in another three-foot column. Then came the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh…

There were ten trolleys placed right in front of the stunned Carl Spicer. The front of the recording studio was completely blocked.

The screen panned from the top to the bottom. Adrian Chiles applauded, then he took one book from the first trolley and placed in front of Carl Spicer, flipping to the title page.

"You must satisfy this small request of your hardcore fan, Spicer!" Upon finishing, he turned and carried another ten books over and placed them beside Carl's hands. Spicer knew he had been had, but there was nothing he could do but reluctantly pick up his pen and start signing his big name on the first book.

At the same time, the screen began to roll the credits. First, a message scrolled across the screen.

Special thanks to Tony Twain for providing 11038 copies of "What Kind Of Man Is He: Uncovering The Mysterious Halo Around Tony Twain."

After came the normal name list of the production crew.

Under the credits, Adrian Chiles said something that devastated Carl Spicer.

"Sign slowly, Carl. This is not even 1% of all the books, there are still four more full trucks downstairs! Your reader is both hardcore and crazy, but I don't envy you one bit!"

The pen slipped out of Spicer's hand but he was not aware of it at all. He only raised his head and gasped while looking at the host who was holding in his laughter. At the same time, in the production room, Lineker and his crew could no longer hold it in and broke down into laughter.

※※※

"That was the most exciting episode of 'Match of the Day!'"

Before the start of training, the Nottingham Forest coaches were still excitedly discussing yesterday's television program. At the beginning when Adrian Chiles had signaled the crew to bring out the books, everyone had been as confused as Carl Spicer, not knowing what had happened. Only when the credits with the special thanks started rolling did they realize and burst out laughing in front of their televisions.

"Tony played this beautifully! Did you all see the expression on Spicer's face? It was simply too exciting!"

What happened in Wilford was not just an epitome. After that day, discussions about how Tony Twain made Carl Spicer admit defeat spread like wildfire. It was phenomenal; as the story spread, Twain sending Spicer four trucks of books eventually exaggerated into him sending ten trucks.

Carl Spicer also admitted in his column that he was utterly defeated by Tony Twain this time. However, he would not give up on this promising career of going against Twain.

"Despite being played by him, he still insisted that going against Twain was an interesting matter," said one reporter. "Undeniably, people do look forward to what other ridiculous tricks Twain will resort to."

Towards this, Twain's private evaluation was only a word: cheap. Twain did feel that everyone started to get busy near the end of the year, including those reporters, because news relating to him suddenly skyrocketed.

※※※

Once, Shania's news had been in a film magazine.

The magazines that arrived at Twain's house were ordered for Shania because of her interest in movies. Since it was her hobby, she would naturally want to learn more about it. However, when she went to the United States there was still a year before the subscription expired, so Twain just took over and occasionally flipped through them to see if he could find any good new movies. Soccer coaches were human too. They needed to rest and relax as well. Forgetting about all his worries and just letting his eyes flit about the pages of the magazine was a good way for Twain to let loose. He was not a film critic who needed to uncover a hidden meaning while watching movies.

He discovered Shania's whereabouts in the latest magazine issue. She appeared with Tom Cruise on the cover page. This issue introduced the new movie produced by Tom Cruise, "Florida's Summer." In the movie, Shania acted as a beautiful lady who participated in a party. She had a one-line dialogue with the main character. Afterward, she had another appearance without dialogue but with a 5-minute close-up. This portion did not have screen time and had almost no bearing on the plot, so one could say her role was just for the sake of appearing with the other main characters on the cover page of the magazine. It was evident Cruise had other intentions for partnering up with this new friend of his.

There was a paragraph in the magazine allocated specifically for an interview with Shania. The paragraph was not long, but it was almost as important as the other main characters' pieces.

All this attention Shania was getting could be because of her relationship with Cruise, but it was also because of the reputation she had already been building up in the modeling industry. Before she started acting, Judy Shania Jordana had been famous in the global modeling and fashion world. She had been a global supermodel at a young age and a spokesperson wanted for many big international brands. It was natural for people to pay attention to such a personality when she started acting.

Shania's interview was no different from others. Other than being asked about the issues in her work, she was also asked for the difference between walking the runway and acting in a movie, if there were any conflicts, and what she thought of the cast. Shania was a smart girl. When reporters asked for a male Hollywood star she liked, she immediately blurted out, "Tom Cruise," with a vibrant smile.

"Is this because of the intimate relationship you two shared?" asked the reporter.

Shania shook her head. "It is not that. I have rewatched every one of his movies several times, I do like him a lot."

Twain pouted upon reading this.

Then he thought back to when Shania had told him she loved him.

Liking and loving are two different emotions, but Shania also started with liking Uncle Tony which then developed into love, right?

He continued reading. In the final portion of the interview, the reporter started to pry into Shania's private life.

"From what the public knows, you have no other boyfriends save from the few rumors that have spread in the past. Since you're still single, could you reveal your ideal type?"

"My standards are very special," Shania replied.

"Exactly how special are they?"

"I like…older men."

The reporter was a little shocked. He wrote on the back of his handbook that he was indeed shocked by what Shania had said and that he'd only responded after a long while. Thinking that revealing those emotions was ill-mannered, he still pressed on.

"That is…very unique."

Shania jokingly disregarded the emotions of the reporter.

Twain stared in shock at this final conversation. Uncle Tony counted as an older guy, right? What was she trying to do, revealing her preferences so brazenly?

While he was still sitting there stunned, he received a call from Shania.

[Uncle Tony! I'm going to visit you the night after tomorrow. Help me tidy up the room ok?]

"Ah… the room has always been tidy, you can come anytime…"

[Ok, thank you, Uncle Tony! See you the day after tomorrow!]

Twain hung up. Why was she suddenly coming back to England? There were no other words exchanged, save for that redundant greeting. Was it possible that she still felt a little distant after that incident at the airport?

Indeed, he'd said he owed her an answer, but it was almost December now and the answer had not been given. On top of that, the results of the team, the financial crisis, and Chen Jian's issue had made him so busy that he had not had time to think it through properly.

All of a sudden, they were to meet so soon. When that time came, how could he face Shania? What if she asked him for that answer he owed her? What should he tell her then? What a pain. On and off the field, issues were giving him a headache.