Cal Roberts and the Moments That Defy Description

Cal Roberts’ return to Notts County matters not only because of what he may yet do, but because of what he makes supporters remember. Football fans live through moments, and the best of those moments lodge somewhere deeper than scorelines, dates or league tables.

Memories are foundational to our identity as fans and central to the fellowship of the fan community. They shape us as individuals and help create the narratives that bind us to our fellow supporters. But memories are not all of one kind. Factual memories are very different from memories of how we felt. We know instinctively that memories of how something made us feel can endure long after the finer factual details have faded.

There are many footballers from the past whom we simply remember. Others stir something in us that is more deeply embedded. When I saw Cal Roberts’ goal at Turf Moor, the first of his second spell, and heard how he described it in his post-match interview, it set me thinking about his type of footballer and what they mean to us, the fans. The season has only just started, and none of us knows how it will play out or what part he will play in it, but Roberts re-signing for Notts County feels like much more than a name restored to a squad list. For me, it is a homecoming that immediately summons images from the past. They are partly of Cal himself, of course, but they are also much more than that. It is as if a small door has opened in the mind, and behind it the noisy turnstiles and old stadium suddenly appear: the floodlights, the stoicism, humour and outrage of the terraces, the latter punctuated by that unconscious collective holding of breath when one player receives the ball and everyone in the crowd leans forward.

Some footballers receive possession as a duty, an obligation to be discharged safely. But a winger of the old, dangerous kind receives it as a dare. He waits while the defender sizes up the challenge. Then comes the dropped shoulder, the half yard of deceit, and suddenly the shape of the pitch changes. Space appears where none seemed to exist. The defender, a moment earlier so sure of himself, is left facing the wrong way, and the crowd makes that sound belonging only to football – the sound of recognition. Something might happen now.

That is the gift that Roberts brings. He plays with the bravery of a man prepared to lose the ball in order to discover something better than safety. He understands the old saying that football without risk is just geometry on grass. The full-back sees a line; the old-fashioned winger, or its modern-day equivalent, hears a question. The full-back defends a channel; the winger invents a road. Roberts has that glint about him, that sense of a player who knows something that hasn’t yet been revealed to the players around him.

And then there is the way he strikes a football. There are shots that are hit, shots that are struck, and sometimes, with Roberts, shots that are almost sung. He has already scored twice this season - both very well executed goals, but it is his first-half shot against Leicester which somehow comes to mind as I write this piece. It screamed over the bar after being hit with extraordinary sweetness as well as power.

There is that nickname, of course: the Geordie Messi. I understand the affection and humour behind it - truth disguised as irony, supporters reaching for language that captures what they have felt. And yet I have always felt a degree of discomfort with the comparison. Cal Roberts is not a version, an echo, or a local translation of anybody. He is the one and only Cal Roberts, and that, for me, is enough.

For me, he summons older ghosts. More than half a century has passed since I first became a Notts County supporter, though it scarcely feels that way. Time passes strangely. One moment you are watching a modern player drift in from the wing; the next you are young again, standing among the smells of tobacco, damp donkey jackets and fried onions, seeing Jon Nixon, Stevie Carter and Ian Scanlon. Their names return not as facts but as sensations: Nixon gliding, Carter turning and scurrying, Scanlon carrying that promise and challenge offered by players of this kind: give me the ball and I will change this match for you. As self-appointed custodians of suspense, they knew how to create not only chances, but anticipation itself.

Football has evolved: the boots, the shirts, the pitches, the language, the endless analysis, the data and the talk of systems and expected goals. Yet some things remain gloriously unchanged. A winger facing up to a defender near the touchline is one of them. It is football reduced to something ancient and simple: one against one, courage against caution, imagination against organisation. We may learn new words for the game, but our hearts still answer the old signals. The return of Roberts is a reminder that football at its best is still built on moments we feel and feelings we remember. These are the moments which combine to form the soul of our football club. Moments that can’t be quantified. Moments that defy description.

He left, as players do, and the years passed. Careers are fragile things, shaped and buffeted by injury, opportunity, form, luck and timing. Now he returns older, perhaps wiser, with more miles in his legs and more knowledge in his game. He also returns with that familiar, intoxicating mixture of anticipation and possibility that holds our attention and keeps us coming back. Three league games tell us very little about how Cal’s second spell will ultimately unfold. But this opinion piece is not really a judgment about Cal. It is an observation about us - how we have already been reminded of what kind of player he is, and why players like him so readily capture our imagination.

We all savour the rush of emotion when a goal is scored and the relief of the final whistle confirming victory. We take pleasure, too, in gritty performances, ruthless finishing and the skills of the players we admire. But what truly delights us, what lifts us, are the moments that break in and challenge our sense of what is possible. Cal Roberts is an author of those moments, and he knows it. He is one of those players who understands his power to change a game and, in doing so, to change us. Welcome back, Cal.