Big and Clever (22 page)

Raks scratches his head.

“What sort of line-up's that, then?” he asks. “Do you think we'll try to change the way we set our team out? Push a defender out and fill up the midfield?”

Ryan laughs.

“Don't be soft. If John Whyman even thinks about a formation more technically advanced than a 4-4-2 he has to have a lie-down.”

Billy Scanlon, the Whitbourne keeper, has finally arrived in our goalmouth. He's quite a big-boned chap, and the first choruses of
You Fat Bastard
fill the air. Everyone's in their places now. Leroy Lewton's got his foot on the ball, waiting for the whistle. When it comes, he rolls the ball to the side for Carl Butterworth to knock it forward in the general direction of Leon Marshall's head. It's not one of his better passes. As it sails into the upper tier of the Main Stand, a groan goes up. The scoreboard timer says we're six seconds in.

The first quarter of an hour is fairly aimless. It's more or less what you'd expect of two teams down at the bottom of League Two. Misplaced passes, mistimed tackles, a couple of offside flags every minute. Nothing to write home about. As the timer ticks over to 16:00 though, things take a turn for the worst.

Martin King, the Whitbourne number 19, picks the ball up in the centre circle and heads out to the left. Before he gets very far, Mark Sheedy barges into him. King goes down, doing a passable imitation of a dying fly, and the referee summons Sheedy over.

Twitchy Bloke is shaking his head.

“Don't book him ref,” he shouts. “He only makes about three tackles a season.”

But the ref isn't booking Sheedy. He's sending him off. As the red card appears, people start looking at each other in disbelief. The Whitbourne fans start to cheer. Carl Butterworth's arguing, but there's no point. Mark Sheedy heads for the tunnel.

It's taken a few seconds, but gradually it's sinking in. We've had someone sent off for nothing more than a badly-judged challenge. Against Ashborough, Dave Nicholson only got a booking for a much worse one. A proper clattering. And we
wanted
him to get sent off. To really round things off, Martin King is back on his feet, looking very sprightly for a man who seemed to be in agony a few seconds ago.

“It's a miracle,” someone yells from behind, showering me with spittle. “He is risen.”

A barrage of boos and whistles cascades down from all parts of the ground. We start a chant of
Cheat Cheat Cheat
and follow it up with
Who's The Wanker In The Black?
However loud we shout though, it's not going to change the facts. We're down to ten, and we're not much good when we've got eleven men on the park.

The free kick after the sending off comes to nothing. It's a half-arsed punt into our area that Jimmy Knapper collects without any trouble. Two minutes later though, and we're 1-0 down. Tony O'Neill nearly has his head taken off by a ball from Dave Nicholson, and before he has the chance to control it, Martin King has nipped it off his toes. O'Neill tries to bring him down, but King skips out of the way and sends a ball through to Andy Miller, who's got a clear run on goal.

Miller looks about half a mile offside. Tommy Sharp and Paul Hood put their hands up to signal to the assistant, but the flag stays down. Jimmy Knapper comes off his line, but it's too little, too late. Miller takes the ball round him and sticks it into the empty net.

The Whitbourne fans explode in celebration and we start booing and whistling again. We're being cheated.
1-0 To The Referee
rings out, blending into
You've Only Got 12 Men
. Already though, there's a sort of hopeless feeling in the air. It's just not going to be our night.

As the Whitbourne fans' cheering dies down, there's a surge on their side of the barrier. A bit of gesticulating and name-calling kicks off, and a few of our lads start advancing towards the fencing. The stewards have seen what's going on, and they're marching up the steps, trying to keep people apart.

My heart leaps. I'm ready get involved. I look across at Raks and Ryan.

“Here we go,” I say, grinning.

Raks smiles, but Ryan shakes his head.

“Leave it for now.”

I pull a face, confused.

Ryan jabs his finger in the direction of the fence.

“It's not just stewards tonight.”

I look across. He's right. Interspersed with the stewards are police officers in helmets and visors. They were outside last time, but tonight they're inside, and there are lots of them.

“We're not going to go steaming in now,” Ryan says. “Because if we do we're going to get our collars felt, and we'll be out of the action before it's even started.”

I nod. Ryan's made his point.

The rest of the half is garbage. The minor outbreak of hostilities after the Whitbourne goal only lasts a few seconds, and apart from that, all we've got to keep us entertained is what's going on out on the pitch. The referee's coming in for some real flak now.
You're Not Fit To Referee. The Referee's A Wanker
. All the old favourites.

When we're not barracking the referee, we're giving Martin King a hard time. Every time he touches the ball, a chorus of jeering goes up. It doesn't seem to be having much effect though. At one point the little bastard cups his hand to his ear so he can hear us better. In the meantime, our players are flapping around like headless chickens. Fat Boy Scanlon in the Whitbourne goal hasn't had a shot to save yet.

We're already going down the steps when the halftime whistle goes. Another round of booing erupts.
Let Me Entertain You
starts up on the PA while I head for the toilets and Raks and Ryan join the food and drink queue.

When I've finished in the toilets I stand watching the TV screens in the concourse. It's not
Sky Sports
tonight, it's
LTTV
, the Letchford Town closed-circuit channel. They're showing replays of the Whitbourne goal, over and over again. It's just the way it seemed from the Kop. Andy Miller was yards offside. The only two people in the ground who didn't spot it were the ref and his assistant. Next up it's the sending off. From this angle it doesn't even look as if Sheedy made contact. Martin King fell over the ball.

Pessimistic Granddad is standing next to me. He's not happy. He points at the nearest screen.

“Corruption,” he says. He has a slug of his hip flask and wanders off.

Raks and Ryan are finished at the kiosks. Raks has got a hot dog. Ryan's got a cup of coffee and one for me. He hands it over then we all go back out to see what's going on.

Apparently we're having a fancy dress competition tonight. The contestants are making their way onto the pitch, where Letchy The Lion is waiting. We've got four Santas, an Elvis, a pantomime cow, two girls with flashing orange reindeer antlers (one ninety-nine from the club shop), and a man in a blue leotard with an Irish flag draped over his shoulders. I'm not sure what he's supposed to be.

The tannoy announcer is asking the crowd to cheer for each of the contestants in turn. The
Cheerometer
, he calls it. The contestant who gets the loudest cheer wins the prize. A ten-pound voucher for the club shop. Generosity knows no limits in Letchford.

When the punters have lined themselves up, the
Cheerometer
gets under way. The Santas and the pantomime cow get a bit of half-hearted applause. The bloke in the Elvis costume has made the mistake of thinking he's some kind of personality and he gets booed. When the bloke in the leotard steps forward, the silence is so total, you could hear a pin drop.

Finally, the girls with the reindeer antlers take their bow, to the nearest thing we've heard to a cheer all evening. The prize is theirs. They have their photographs taken with Letchy and then
The Final Countdown
comes over the PA.

I check my watch. The second half should be starting any minute. The tannoy announcer fades down the music to give out a message.

“A date for your diaries,” he says. “The match against Mackworth, scheduled for Saturday December 16th, has been switched to Friday December 15th, kick-off 7.45 pm. This is to allow live coverage on
Sky Sports
. Letchford Town would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused.”

I sip my coffee and turn to Ryan.

“Should be good, playing Mackworth on a Friday night,” I say.

Ryan nods.

Then it hits me. Friday December 15th. Eight o'clock in the Alderman Richard Martin drama studio.
Oliver
. I slump forward against the crush barrier and close my eyes. A horrible sickly taste starts clawing its way up my throat. Letchford Town or
Oliver
? Or more to the point, Letchford Town or Zoe Gifford?

I open my eyes. I know I really shouldn't have divided loyalties. It's Zoe's big night. A once in a lifetime thing. I've just got to go haven't I? I've got to do the right thing. The problem is, I've got a nasty feeling that this time the idea of doing the right thing might be going straight out of the window.

I'm still feeling sick when the game kicks off again. If the first half was bad, the second half is terrible. Letchford start quite brightly, and we get behind them with a few blasts of
Come On Letchford
. Five minutes in though, and we're 2-0 down. Martin King sends in a corner from the left, our defenders don't bother to challenge for the ball and Andy Miller nods it in at the far post.

Twenty more minutes of headless chicken football and there's mutiny in the air. We've stopped giving Martin King and the referee gyp and we're turning on John Whyman. Chants of
Johnny Johnny, Sort It Out
go up. The consensus is that Danny Holmes is the man to save us. A couple of goal scoring substitute appearances and he's the new Messiah. We want Danny up front with Leroy Lewton, but Whyman takes Leroy off and puts Patrick Agamoa on, to the strains of
You Don't Know What You're Doing
.

The substitution's not popular but it almost pays off perfectly. A cross from Tony O'Neill flashes through the Whitbourne six yard box and finds Agamoa unmarked, two yards out. He's got time to control the ball, sit on it and light a cigar, but instead he swings at it and sends it over the top of the scoreboard and out of the ground.

People are literally howling in anguish. For some of them it's the final straw. A steady trickle starts heading for the exits, even though there are still twenty minutes to go. Big Fleece Woman has had enough. As she comes past us, there are tears in her eyes. The Whitbourne fans are loving it, pissing themselves laughing, singing
Cheerio Cheerio Cheerio
and
Can We Play You Every Week?
Up at the back of our section, someone starts chanting
Whyman Out
. Plenty of people join in.

As the timer hits 83:00, things are looking desperate. If we're going to get anything out of the game, we're going to have to score now. Sean Andrews has won a corner out on the right. Instead of just banging it into the box, Carl Butterworth and Tony O'Neill are having a discussion about what to do.

“For fuck's sake,” someone screams. Another shower of spittle sails by. “We're two fucking nil down. Stop fannying about and get it in the fucking mixer.”

It's all pointless though. To no-one's great surprise, we try a short corner routine and lose the ball. John Whyman comes out into the technical area, arms waving, but he gets so much abuse he retreats back to the dugout.

Raks puts his hands over his eyes.

“I can't watch,” he says.

Ryan shrugs. He's resigned to the outcome. He's seen Letchford lose a lot more times than we have.

“Told you we'd be fucked if we started off kicking this way,” he says.

Everyone knows the game's effectively over now. The Family Stand and The Main Stand are virtually empty. The only part of the ground still packed is the Kop. And nobody on the Kop is paying much attention to what's happening on the pitch any more, because the ritual manoeuvring of the troops is getting under way. It's the familiar pattern. The non-combatants are moving out of the way and the soldiers are getting into position.

Looking through the wire mesh, it's pretty clear that Whitbourne have come prepared. Castleton had a firm of fifty or sixty. Ashborough only had thirty or so. Whitbourne look to have at least eighty. We probably outnumber them, but there's not much in it, and they're all big bastards. Grown men. It's like it said on the Internet.
Should b tasty
. I start to grin. The hairs on the back of my neck are standing on end. I'm nervous, but in a good way. I know, I just know that when it all goes off, I'm going to be ready. I'm not going to let anyone down.

A few of the Whitbourne fans have broken through the cordon of stewards and police along the side of the fencing and they're gripping the mesh, shouting abuse, going through the motions of pretending to climb into our section. It's just a show of strength, a big
Fuck You
to us, but plenty of our lads are rising to the bait, trying to get at them but being held back.

I glance across at Raks. He's been a bit subdued this evening. I think he's upset that he missed out on the action at The Shakespeare. There's a glint in his eyes that tells me he's ready to make up for it. He watches another couple of lads try to go through a gap in the line of green jackets and get pushed away.

“Pussies,” he hisses. “Come on. Let's show them how it's done.”

Before he has a chance to make a move though, Ryan has laid a hand on his arm. Not for the first time tonight, he's the voice of caution. It goes with being a general in The NLLF army, I suppose. It's not just about fighting. Sometimes it's about tactics. Strategy.

“Now's not the time or the place,” he says. “Use your brain. It's swarming with Old Bill in here. Same as I said to Tom. You'll be out of the action before it even gets going.”

Raks shakes his head. He's feeling gung-ho.