Football Crazy (19 page)

Screwer himself was personally overseeing operations from a position near the dug out. The police chief had by this time had three riding lessons - the riding school proprietor had insisted he would need at least ten before he would become even halfway proficient on horseback - and having promised her that he wouldn't go out onto the streets until he had absorbed at least five lessons, Screwer had reluctantly eschewed Scourge of the Terraces for Shanks's Pony.

Now the police chief scanned the crowd, eyes narrowed in concentration, looking for hooligans. For there were hooligans out there all right. Oh yes. Well just let one of them step out of line, that was all!

Martin Sneed was in the press Box, wondering how he was going to be able to show Frogley Town in a good light in the next edition of the Frogley Advertiser, following their probable five - nil home defeat at the hands of Grimely Athletic. For a heavy defeat was what the Town were in for, Sneed was sure of that; Grimely were a good side, they'd narrowly missed being promoted in the play-offs last year and had strengthened their squad during the close season with a couple of League One Bosman Rulings.

Sneed couldn't do anything about the Town being defeated – nothing but the replacement of the Frogley Town back three with the Manchester United back four and the addition of Didier Drogba and Wayne Rooney up front at the expense of Darren Briggs and Darrel Lock could have avoided that - but at least he would be able to make the Town glorious in defeat.

He thought his report might go something like...'The five Grimely goals, all lucky deflections, which somehow eluded the cat-like reflexes of future England international Gary (Superman) Moggs in the Frogley goal, and totally against the run of play, only serve to demonstrate what a cruel game football can be, particularly when you include in the equation the fact that Frogley were unlucky enough to hit both uprights twice and the bar three times...'. Or something like that. He smiled to himself. Fleet Street and life on a red top tabloid surely beckoned to someone who could think up a load of old crap like that at the drop of a hat.

Joe Price was seated in the director’s box. He was the only director in the director’s box, since he was the Town’s only director. Filling the other seats in the directors box were none of the usual types who get themselves invited into directors boxes – men who had made it big in mobile phones, got lucky in one of the other new technological industries, or had got rich quick in dot com companies and had not yet got poor again - but local dignitaries, including the Mayor of Frogley, resplendent in his chain of office, accompanied by his Lady Mayoress.

Their presence there today was not because Price held local dignitaries and the Mayor and Lady Mayoress in esteem, he didn't, but because it was how he remembered it had been when he had first attended a Frogley Town home match at the age of ten with his father, then himself a local dignitary. That had been in an age when the Town was a successful team, and it was Price's absolute conviction that in recreating as many elements as possible of that successful era that he would be providing the key to success in the present era.

Ten minutes to kick-off. On the pitch not scantily-clad cheerleaders and a green-fleeced Freddie the Frogley Frog hopping about inanely and throwing cheap sweets to the children, but the Frogley and Gowhole Sidings Brass Band proudly marching up and down the centre of the pitch, their trombones, cornets, flugelhorns, euphoniums, and drums filling the air with 'Poet and Peasant', just like they’d done in the thirties, forties and fifties.

Many of the older spectators were enjoying the pre-match entertainment put on by the band; and even some of the younger male spectators, whilst they would probably have preferred Franz Ferdinand or the Kaiser Chiefs, welcomed the music, but only because it reminded them of Tara Fitzgerald in 'Brassed Off''.

In the dressing room Donny was about to give his pre-match team talk. The starting eleven he had chosen, lining up in a 3 - 4 - 1 - 2 system, was Moggs in goal, a back three of Rock, Cook and Cragg, with Stock, Parks, Links and Barrel in midfield, Briggs and Lock up front, with Dicks playing just off the front two in the role of detached striker, perhaps a fitting position for him as he had a detached retina. When Donny spoke the players hung onto his every word.

“
A game of football isn't about which team scores the most goals....well it is about which team scores the most goals, gets the ball in the opposing side's net more than the opposing side gets the ball in your net if you like. But it is also about which team
wants
to score the most goals, sticks it between their sticks with greater frequency if you like. Well that goes without saying. But it needs to be said. Because the team that wants to score more goals, hits the back of their opponents net more often if you like, will
score
more goals, just as sure as eggs and bacon. So in a way it
is
about which team scores the most goals. But more than that it is about how you perform out there on the pitch, how you acquit yourselves out there on the park if you like, that will determine which side scores the most goals, gets the ball in the opposing side's net more than the opposing side gets the ball in your net, sticks it between their sticks with greater frequency, hits the back of their net more often, breaches their defence if you like, that will determine which side scores the most goals, just as sure as God made little green men. But that's just looking at it simplistically. Putting it in a nutcase if you like. The main thing is that each and every one of you has got to go out there and take responsibility. That doesn't mean to say that I want to see eleven captains out there. Because that would only lead to there being too many bosses, a too many chiefs spoiling the broth situation if you like. No, it means that I want you all to captain yourselves. So out there on the park this afternoon I shall want to see a Captain Briggs, a Captain Crooks, a Captain Parks, a Captain Cook and a Captain Hook. So just go out there and enjoy yourselves. But not at the expense of getting slack. Especially at the back. You can afford to go out there and enjoy yourselves and get a bit slack at the front but get slack at the back and you will be punished for it. In diamonds. Very much so. So in short the main thing is to go out there this afternoon, at the end of the day, and enjoy yourself, not bother too much about getting a bit slack at the front, but under no circumstances get slack at the back. But in enjoying yourself while not being slack about it make sure you are positive about it, otherwise you might find yourselves getting too negative and get yourselves caught between two stoolpigeons.”

Thus inspired, the players were ready to repel all that Grimely Athletic could throw at them, and return it with interest.

Five minutes to kick-off. The brass band played themselves off with a rousing version of the 'Match of the Day' theme and left the field to generous applause. Many among the crowd were of the opinion that the band's performance was well worth the price of admission alone, although, brass band music not being to everyone's taste and the Frogley and Gowhole Sidings Brass Band not being the finest exponents of the art, a similar number of spectators swore to bring earplugs the next time if the band was to become a permanent fixture.

The crowd waited expectantly for the two teams to emerge from the dressing portakabin. In the press box Sneed took out his notebook and sharpened his wit. In the directors box Price handed out cigars to the civic dignitaries and the Mayor, and a box of Cadburys Roses to the Lady Mayoress. Near the dugout Screwer surveyed the crowd, his head a CCTV camera. Behind the goal Stanley waited in eager anticipation. High in the grandstand Dave Rave prattled on....

“
....that was a message from our sponsor, and it seems that with their special offer the month of August couldn't be a better time to die, so if coffins are what you are into, or what one of your nearest and dearest will very soon be going into, now is the time to buy. But not before you have listened to the commentary of Frogley Town's opening game of the season, right here on Frogley Radio. The two teams will shortly be appearing....sorry, here they are n....”

The Frogley Town team ran out onto the pitch. The buzz of anticipation from the crowd immediately became a stunned silence. All eleven players and the substitutes had the appearance, both physically and in their football attire, of a team from the 1930's. Close-cropped hair save for a fringe at the front, droopy moustaches, old-fashioned lace-up at the neck shirts and baggy shorts. It was like being transported back seventy years in time at the flick of a switch.

“
....Fuck me!” said Dave Rave.

“
Shit a brick!” said Martin Sneed.

“
Bleeding Nora!” said Superintendent Screwer.

“
Well I'll go to the foot of our stairs!” said the Mayor.

“
Why couldn’t I have a cigar too?” said the Lady Mayoress.

Stanley didn't say anything. He couldn't, for the huge lump in his throat. So he just looked. And now he did cry, twin tears dropping from his black eyes and down his cheeks and spilling onto his Frogley Town replica football shirt.

Frogley won the game one-nil, midfielder Steve Parks, in glorious compensation for surrendering his flowing locks to the barber, deciding an evenly-balanced encounter with a goal in the sixty-third minute. Whether the match would have been quite so evenly balanced had the Frogley Town players been turned out like normal footballers is a matter of some doubt, for the Grimely Athletic players seemed to be put off their usual free-flowing game by the bizarre appearance of their opposite numbers.

In fact Frogley went close to scoring twice in the opening five minutes, while the majority of the Grimely players were still having a great deal of difficulty keeping their faces straight. Sean Bamford, Grimely's ex-England Under-21 International central defender, failed in his efforts to keep a straight face for his entire time on the field and at one stage, just after Parks had rounded him to score the goal, had actually burst out laughing, which resulted in him being substituted and subsequently fined two weeks wages and put on the transfer list.

Growing in confidence following their two early attempts on goal the Town went on to play well above their form of last season, and as Grimely went on to play well below their form it had the effect of evening things up and making for a close-fought contest.

However there was more to it than that. The Town had gone close a couple of times in the opening minutes on previous occasions and had not then gone on to play well above their normal form, and far from going on to win the game one-nil had usually been comprehensively stuffed, as they say in the vernacular. The reason why things should be different this time was obvious to several people.

It was obvious to Joe Price. Tradition. Time-honoured tried and tested good old-fashioned principles. And bromide. Nothing more, nothing less. That's what the England side were short of if you asked him. Give them all a gradely haircut and keep them off the nest for a week or two and they might go a bit farther in the World Cup. Throw in a decent strip and get rid of that Eyetie ponce of a manager and they might even win it!

It was obvious to the players. They were happier. Well who wouldn't be happier on a diet of meat and potato pies and haslet and savoury ducks and black puddings, at the expense of the doubtful delights of grilled chicken and fish and pasta? That funny-tasting tea was good too, the sort of stuff that put lead in your pencil, although oddly enough lead had been in embarrassingly short supply in the pencils of all of them during the past couple of weeks. Their new diet had caused them all to put on a few pounds, but they were happy pounds, and as yet insufficient in quantity to slow them down to any noticeable degree.

It was obvious to Martin Sneed. Quite simply the players had been inspired by the two articles he had written about them in the Frogley Advertiser. Never mind the footballers of Frogley Town, had the footballers of Barcelona read about themselves in such glowing terms they would have played better. His pen portrait of Darren Briggs - 'the football brain of Di Stefano, the feet of Pele, the legs of Maradona' - was itself inspirational enough to harvest an extra ten goals from the striker this season, even allowing for the fact that the typesetter had had one of his Guardian-like days and had put Madonna instead of Maradona.

It was obvious to Dave Rave. When he had interviewed Briggs and Moggs for the Dave Rave Show Pre-Season Football Special he had noticed that the feng shui of the portakabin that served as the home team dressing room was all wrong. With the aid of some of the players he had moved it on its axis some fifty degrees to the right, thereby ensuring optimum happiness of its occupants (apart from Crock, as in manouevring the portakabin it had slipped off its bricks and crushed his foot, therefore rendering him a crock by nature as well as by name, and putting him on the injury list for the next eight weeks).

It was obvious to Donny Donnelly. It was because he now had a mistress. Obviously. True, he had yet to have sex with her, because try as he might he could not get anything resembling an erection. No amount of stimulation either physical or cerebral seemed able to inspire his errant member to stop pointing in the direction of his feet and start pointing in the direction of the sun. “It doesn't have to be the mid-day sun,” he had said in his prayer to God, “Eleven-o-clock will do, ten at a pinch. Even if it only points at the sun at sunrise it will do. I'm not asking for the moon.”

It was obvious to the residents of the Frogley Mental Hospital. There was a full moon that night, and strange things happen on days when there is a full moon, especially if you happen to live in a mental hospital. In addition to Frogley Town's thrilling win there had been several other strange occurrences that day. Mr Fortescue, on being served the usual Saturday fare of mince, boiled potatoes and two veg had picked up his plate and silently thrown it at the dining room wall (whereas in the past, whenever mince had been put in front of Mr Fortescue, he had picked up his plate and thrown it at the dining room wall with a shout of “If you think I'm eating this shite you must think I’m mad!”). His nurses, ever optimistic, took this new turn of events to indicate that he was gradually getting used to mince. His fellow patients knew better. They knew that it proved only that the full moon had taken its toll on Mr Fortescue, since anyone who had started to like the abominable mince better than they had previously must clearly be getting madder, not saner.