Football Crazy (17 page)

“
That's two,” announced Donny. “Only three more pub windows to crash through now and I’ll have made one thousand pounds for charity.”

In the meantime Parks, taking advantage of this stroke of good luck, was making himself scarce.

Then two things happened simultaneously. Several people, Donny's lovely wife Tracey Michelle amongst them, emerged from the Frogley Arms to see what was the cause of all the noise. And Cragg, noticing Parks disappearing into the distance, quickly raised the alarm.

“
Parksy!” he shouted, then pointed down the road. “See, the bastit's getting awa!”

The players immediately gave chase. Donny, up to then shielded from his lovely wife Tracey Michelle by the players, and quickly taking in the fact that he wouldn't be shielded by them for very much longer, had no option other than to join them in the chase, throbbing knee and elbow or no.

The time spent by the players falling over Donny, picking up Donny, and picking themselves up, had been put to good effect by Parks, who was by now a good seventy yards ahead of the chasing mob. Hiding in a shop while they passed by was now an option that had a distinct possibility of success. If he could just get round the next corner and into a shop before the chasing group rounded the corner he would be home and dry. And the next corner was just ahead. He rounded it.

The first shop on the street was Antonio's, Gents Hairdresser (formerly of Naples and Cleckheaton). Brilliant! A gents hairdressers was the last place they would think of looking for him. He made for the door. As he did a notice in the glass panel which at the moment said 'Open' was reversed to say 'Closed for lunch', then the door opened and Antonio stepped out.

“
Let me in,” Parks panted.

Antonio looked him up and down suspiciously. “You are a customer of Antonio?”

Parks thought quickly. He could lie, but the tone of Antonio's voice had suggested the hairdresser's question had not been an enquiry, more an expression of doubt as to Parks’ previous patronage of his establishment.

“
A thousand French letters please,” said Parks, desperation coming to his assistance. “Large, the most expensive you stock,” he added, in the hope this might persuade the hairdresser to accommodate what would already be a very profitable order, and also as a matter of self esteem.

“
I donna sell those things,” said Antonio.

He turned to lock the door. Parks looked at him in open-mouthed amazement. A hairdresser who didn't sell rubber johnnies? “What?” he said, once he had managed to close his mouth.

“
Is against my religion,” smiled Antonio, pocketing his key.

Parks cursed his luck. All the gents hairdressers in Frogley and he had to pick a bleeding Catholic.

He ran to the next shop. Except that it wasn't a shop. It was the police station. Even better! Because even if the players did see him go in surely the police wouldn't let them scrag him and march him off to have his hair cut, because that would be assault. He looked over his shoulder. The chasing group rounded the corner.

The first entrance to the police station available to Parks was not in fact to the police station itself but the gate to the police station yard. He quickly opened it and slipped inside. Seconds later the chasing group followed him in.

Superintendent Screwer will never know how lucky he was. If Sergeant Hawks, now with his leg drawn back to kick Scourge of the Terraces in the testicles, had proceeded to carry out that act, it would almost certainly have been the scourge, not of the terraces, but of Superintendent Screwer himself. However, at the very moment Hawks was about to deliver the
coup de grace
to the horse's stallion tackle, the police yard was suddenly invaded by what at first glance appeared to be Davy Crockett pursued by a Red Indian war party, but was of course Parks and most of the Frogley Town football squad and their manager. So instead of going absolutely berserk and possibly running into the gable end of the police station or the perimeter wall of the police station yard, probably crushing Screwer in the process, the horse took fright at the sudden sight of the advancing horde and merely reared up and threw Screwer out of the saddle, causing him to land on his head and consigning him to bed for three days with a severe headache and concussion.

Football is probably the only sport in which chants of
‘
You fat bastard’ can be directed at one of the players
by members of the crowd who are even fatter bastards.

Disingenuous was Joe Price's middle name, and he was far too wily a bird to employ Stanley Sutton's idea in the form in which Stanley had presented it to him. The pie manufacturer knew how far he could take his employees without risking open revolt, and knocking two hundred and fifty pounds out of their wages and giving them a Frogley Town season ticket in return for it was quite a few steps beyond the pale. Conveniently however, the sum of two hundred and fifty pounds was more or less the same amount as the three per cent wage increase the pie factory workers usually received each year. So, taking advantage of this happy coincidence, Price simply explained to his workforce that due to a levelling-off in the market conditions of the pie trade the company would unfortunately be unable to grant its staff the expected pay rise this year; while at the same time informing them that as he was now the owner of Frogley Town Football Club he was consequentially in a position to soften the blow by offering each and every one of them a free season ticket to the Town's games for the coming season. This he did in the form of a notice on the main factory notice board, a bulletin that was now being read by several of the firm's employees.

Having digested its contents fat-trimmer Joe Hesford was the first of the workers to make an uncomplimentary observation. “Well the crafty old sod!”

Cold water crust pastry-maker Arthur Jones was the second. “I just don't believe this!”

More comments quickly followed from the dismayed and angry throng.

“
He can't do that!” said gravy-maker Grant Chamberlain.

“
He's bloody well done it!” said gristle-mincer Ted Banks.

“
Language!” said pie tin-greaser Mavis Eckersley.

“
Language?” said oven-loader Jack Netherwood. “It's enough to make a parson swear!”

“
Fucking right,” said a parson, or rather an ex-parson who since recently being defrocked for an offence against a sheep had found employment at Price's as a meat-mincer.

“
I wonder how long it took that bastard Price to dream this one up?” wondered potato-preparer Seth Weatherly.

“
He didn't dream it up,” said a voice behind them. “I did.”

The aggrieved pie factory workers turned as one to see Bone Pulveriser-operator Stanley Sutton.

“
What?” said Joe Hesford, hardly able to believe his ears

“
It were your idea, Stanley?” said Ted Banks, no less surprised.

“
Oh yes, all my own,” said Stanley, as pleased as Punch with himself.

Fortunately for Stanley the blow from Jack Netherwood’s fist immediately rendered him unconscious, and the only injury he sustained was a black eye, for if the blow had failed to deliver him into the arms of Morpheus he would surely have received many more.

Screwer was disappointed to say the very least. “You didn't recognise any of them then?”

“
Not a one, sir,” Sergeant Hawks lied.

Screwer couldn’t credit his bad luck. “Only I didn't get much of a chance to get a good look at them myself.”

“
Well you wouldn't, sir,” said Hawks. Then, in case Screwer should detect any trace of sarcasm in his voice, and anxious to keep on the right side of someone whose chosen method of setting a horse in motion was to kick it in the testicles, he added, “Bleeding yobbos.”

“
Bleeding yobbos is right, Sergeant. And bleeding yobbos who will pay the price of being bleeding yobbos when I get my hands on them.”

It was Screwer's first day back after his enforced lay off nursing his wounds, which apart from the headache and concussion also included a grazed elbow, a few minor bruises, and, worst of all, his pride.

Three days of having been ministered to by Mrs Screwer, with her 'Are you sure you should be pricing cattle prods on the internet while you're in your sickbed, Herman?' had done nothing to improve the police chief’s temper, however he was sure things would improve once he got his hands on the miscreants who had been responsible for toppling him from Scourge of the Terraces. And that time wasn’t too far away. He set the ball rolling.

“
Get me the tapes from the surveillance cameras, then get every officer not out on duty in here to see if they recognise any of the bastards.”

Hawks muttered a quick silent prayer, then said, “I’m afraid there aren't any tapes, sir.”

Screwer's head shot back. “No surveillance tapes?”

“
Unfortunately the surveillance cameras were down that day for maintenance,” Hawks explained.

“
Shit!”

In fact the surveillance cameras hadn’t been out of action and the events that day had been fully captured but Hawks had thought it advisable under the circumstances to have the tapes wiped. As he had remarked to DS Love, “Christ knows what he'd do if he found out it was the football team; have them all hung then thrown into a pit of quicklime, probably.”

Severely miffed, Screwer turned his attention to other matters, matters that he could do something about. “Match this Saturday, Hawks. I want every policeman on the Frogley force in attendance. Put the one's not on duty on overtime. Compulsory.”

“
Sir.”

“
And book me a horse-riding lesson.”

“
One riding lesson, sir?” asked Hawks, doubt in his voice.

“
Sergeant?”

“
Well it's just that when people are learning how to ride a horse they tend to have a course of lessons. You know, like driving a car.”

“
It isn't a car, Hawks, it's a horse,” barked Screwer. “Or did I perhaps fail to notice its gear stick, its clutch, brake and accelerator pedals and its steering wheel?”

“
Sorry sir.”

“
You are, Hawks. You are indeed. A sorry example of a police officer. Anyway I won’t be learning to ride it, I already know how to ride it, I'm just a bit rusty.”

“
I'll attend to it at once, sir,” said Hawks, not risking offering any more advice.

While Screwer had been off sick Hawks had pondered long and deeply upon what, if anything, could be done about the fact that the chief of the Frogley Police Force was stark raving mad. The police sergeant was aware that in certain walks of life a little madness can of course be a good thing. Goalkeepers are an excellent example to which this maxim applies. Mountaineers are another. As are Wall of Death riders. And of course, in the case of Royalty, to be mad is apparently a prerequisite. But as a little madness can be a good thing by the same token a lot of madness can be a bad thing, and especially so when it is residing in the head a policeman of high rank.

Hawks realised this and he had no doubts that he should do something about Screwer, for if he didn't a disaster of some sort or other was going to happen sooner or later. But to whom do you tell that you suspect your boss would be more at home in the loony bin than in the office of a police superintendent?
His
boss, Hawks supposed. But if he were to do that what would be the position if Screwer's boss didn't share his opinion of the police chief’s mental state? Where would that leave a police sergeant not all that far from retirement on full pension? More to the point, where would it leave his pension?

So he did nothing, consoling himself that Saddam Hussein was a bloody sight madder and that it took donkey’s years for anybody to do something about him.

Had Hawks' immediate superior Inspector Blood been available he could have dropped the problem in his lap, but unfortunately Blood was away on a Search Under Suspicion and Advanced Baton Skills refresher course. So Hawks had decided, not without some misgivings, to keep his own counsel.

In the final analysis Hawks was correct in his suspicions. There was a disaster. Fortunately however there wasn't a great deal of damage, none that mattered anyway, and everything turned out all right in the end. But not before there were ructions.

Joe Price held up the new Frogley Town football shirt for Donny's and George's approval, although it was going to be the shirt that would be worn by the team this season whether they approved of it or not. It was an exact replica of the shirt worn by the team of long ago, the body of the shirt yellow and green quarters, with red sleeves and trim.

“
This is t' new shirt as t' team will be wearing this season,” he said, proudly. “It's exactly t' same as t' 1935 shirt in every detail.”

“
And very smart it is too, Mr Price,” said Donny, only too glad his playing days were over and he wouldn't be one of those unfortunate souls who had wear it.

George foresaw a problem. “It hasn't got our sponsor's name on it,” he pointed out to Price.

“
Sponsor?”

“
Smiths Suppositories, Mr Price.” Donny explained, “They give us twenty thousand pounds a year. And free suppositories.”

Price raised an eyebrow. “Do they now?”