Football Crazy (14 page)

Screwer’s face was now lit up to Blackpool Illuminations proportions. “Would there be a stable in it?” he asked.

“
And three wise men and t' babby Jesus if tha's a mind.” said Price.

Donny stepped into George's office.

“
George, what's bromide?”

“
Bromide? Well it's a sort of medicine.” He began to enlarge, “It stops you getting....”

But Donny, feeling the need to explain his enquiry, interrupted George before the club secretary could tell him what it stopped you getting. “Only I was thinking of putting some in my tea as well as the players’ if it's as good as what Price claims it is.”

George knew he shouldn’t but couldn't resist it. “....getting....tired. It stops you getting tired. Yes, it's a sort of super multivitamin,” he said.

“
Yes I thought it must be something like that, what with Mr Price telling me to give it to all the players. I shall have to try some of it myself then, give it a whirl if you like, because obviously I will be needing lots of extra energy now I've got a mistress. The more the merriment.”

That Donny had a mistress was news to George. “Your advert in the paper worked then?”

“
Well of course it did. Didn’t tell you?” Donny produced a letter. “This is her reply to my box number. I'm meeting her in a couple of days for a drink. Yes, she sounds like a very nice girl, Tracey Michelle.”

“
Tracey Michelle?”

“
Nice name, isn't it,” enthused Donny. “Classy.”

Alarm bells rang in George's head. “Isn't you wife called Tracey Michelle, Donny?”

Alarm bells were quite absent in Donny's head. “Hey, yes. I hadn’t realised.” He smiled. “What a coincidence.”

Once Sneed had realised that if he played his cards right then the distinct possibility of a career in Fleet Street was firmly back on the agenda, courtesy of Joe Price, the Frogley Advertiser Chief Sportswriter had spent a great deal of time thinking up possible ways in which he might ingratiate himself even further with the football club’s new owner.

The writing of fulsome and glowing match reports wouldn't be a problem. Sneed not only had the ability to make a four-nil defeat read like the team had gained a glorious victory, but also had the brass neck that the writing of such garbage required, so there was little chance the team would be short-changed when it came to having lavish praise heaped upon it.

Getting it printed would not require the removal of any obstacles either. As the chief sportswriter it was within Sneed's remit to fill the column inches of the Advertiser's back pages with whatever copy he saw fit, and if it meant shortening articles or news items about other sports, or even omitting them altogether, in order to include more titbits about the goings on of Frogley Town, then that is what would be done, and without hesitation or the slightest compunction.

In fact not so very long ago the sport of synchronised swimming had received more coverage in the Advertiser than it had in the rest of the country's newspapers put together, due to the fact that at the time Sneed had been having an extra-marital affair with a synchronised swimmer; and the sport would still no doubt be receiving the same amount of coverage to this day had the aquatic wrongdoer not taken umbrage with Sneed and put an end to their liaison after she’d asked him to give her oral sex and he had readily agreed to provided she lent him her nose-clip.

What Sneed required was a good human interest story, something which whilst appealing to lovers of football could also be enjoyed by non-lovers of football, in the hope that the latter, having become interested via the human interest element of the story, might then cross over. Such a story could well lead to more support and supporters for Frogley Town, something for which Sneed was sure Price would be very grateful, and would do his chances Fleet Street-wise no harm at all.

Sneed found his story in the unlikely shape of Stanley Sutton. At Price's summons he had gone along to the pie factory so Price could go through the newspaperman's next article, and approve it or otherwise. That approval would be forthcoming without the necessity of changing a single dot or comma, of that Sneed was quite certain, because if what Joe Price wanted was bullshit Sneed could bullshit with the best of them. Consequently his article was full of references to 'this shining light which has illuminated the dark abyss that was once the dwelling place of Frogley Town' (Price), 'this collection of footballing maestros who, when I observed them in training the other day, made me think I was watching Brazil' (the team), 'this Stade de France of the future' (the stadium), and 'this epicurean oasis in the desert of football stadium catering, surely not far away from its first Michelin star' (the pie shop).

When Sneed had arrived Price had only a few minutes previously been in receipt of Stanley Sutton's great idea. After he had read and approved Sneed's article the reporter had mentioned the human interest story he was planning to do, once he could find the right subject. With Stanley still fresh in Price's mind the pie manufacturer could think of no better or more deserving subject of a human interest story than the faithful Chairman of the Supporters Club, and had promptly pointed Sneed in Stanley's direction.

In the players portakabin dressing room Cragg, now with the beginnings of a moustache decorating his top lip, as was the case with the majority of the members of the team, was standing outside the lavatory door.

“
Anything yet, Locky?” he enquired, of the footballer within.

“
Not a bliddy thing, man,” came the reply.

Cragg wasn't at all sure his team mate might be a bit wanting in the effort department. “Ye're concentrating on it proper, are ye?”

“
'course I'm concentrating!”

Parks wandered over. “Has he tried a suppository?”

“
Piss off and comb yer hair, Parksy,” said Cragg. The Scot, like the majority of the rest of the team, was not a fan of the hirsute midfielder.

Higgs joined them. “
Has
he tried a suppository?”

“
He's nae constipated, he's trying tae get a hard on,” explained Cragg.

Behind the lavatory door, shorts and underpants round his ankles, Lock was perusing the pages of a porno magazine. Now he looked from the magazine to check if there had been any growth in his penis. There hadn't, not so much as a millimetre so far as he could determine, and it certainly wasn’t any harder, softer if anything. He sighed and turned his attention back to the enormously-endowed black man doing unusual things to the enormously-titted white woman.

It suddenly dawned on Higgs. “Hey, I haven't had a hard on for ages myself, now I come to think of it.”

Parks hadn't either, but wasn't going to admit it.

Cragg was more open about it. “Nae have I neither. I haven’t had one since last Wednesday.”

Cook had picked up the conversation and now joined in. “What night was Blue Peter on?”

“
Wednesday,” said Parks.

“
I haven't had a hard on since Wednesday then, either,” said Cook.

“
Bliddy strange,” said Cragg. He called over to Stock. “Have you had a hard on since Wednesday, Stocky?”

“
Which Wednesday?” asked Stock.

Suddenly from behind the lavatory door there came sounds of exertion.

Cragg took it for good news. “Have ye got it up at last, Locky?”

Lock's voice came back through the door. “What? No I can’t, so I'm having a crap. Well I might as well while I’m sat here.”

Following further enquiries it appeared that not a single member of the squad, or at least those of them who would admit it, had attained an erection for getting on for a week. Nobody had a clue as to why. Strangely enough their form on the football field had improved. Nobody had a clue as to why that should be either. They would never have made the connection in a million years.

The human interest story about Stanley was going to test Sneed's journalistic powers to the full.

After having met and interviewed Stanley, if Sneed had been required to pick one word with which to describe the chairman of the Frogley Town Supporters Club the word would have been 'twat'. If he'd had to pick a word he could have printed in his article it would have been 'totally useless', which was two words, but Sneed felt he needed an absolute minimum of two words to fully describe Stanley's uselessness, and even two words was pushing it.

Sneed had questioned Stanley about his life for over an hour. After forty minutes not one remotely interesting fact had emerged, not a single entry had been made in the newspaperman's notebook. Then, in the forty first minute, Stanley let it slip that he sometimes slept in his replica Frogley Town football strip. Sneed had seized on this titillating piece of information like a vulture seizing on the remains of a wildebeest the minute the lions had turned their backs. This was more like it! Echoes of disgraced Member of Parliament David Mellor, who once shared a similar taste in bedroom attire when entertaining his mistress, reverberated around Sneed's head.

Armed with this potential scoop Sneed had then asked Stanley if he found that sex was better when he was wearing his Frogley Town kit to bed. Stanley had told him that he didn't know because he had never had sex while he'd been wearing it. Sneed had asked him what was the point of wearing it then? Stanley had said it was because it made him feel good, why else would anyone wear their football team's colours to bed? Sneed had shaken his head uncomprehendingly, made a note, and had carried on with the interview. Twenty minutes later he called a halt. The note about the wearing of the football kit to bed was the only entry in his notebook.

Now, as he sat at the keyboard of his computer about to start writing the article, Sneed reflected that Stanley was without any doubt the dullest, most boring person it had ever been his misfortune to interview in all his years as a journalist. For apart from following Frogley Town Stanley had apparently done nothing. Rumpelstiltskin had done more whilst he’d been asleep for twenty years. Stanley had no ambitions, other than those which related to the fortunes of Frogley Town, no interests other than Frogley Town, and no feelings other than those he had for Frogley Town. In his entire life he had never travelled beyond Gateshead to the north, Plymouth to the south, Colchester to the east and Tranmere to the west, and he had only travelled to those places because they were the venues of Frogley Town away games. He had never been to the theatre. The cinema held no interest for him. Television likewise. He never went out for a meal, unless one were to include the half-time pie and Oxo at Frogley Town's matches. And he had only ever read one book, 'A Tale of Two Cities', and only then because a workmate had kidded him on that it was about Frogley Town's visits to play Chester City and York City.

So the task now facing Sneed was to compose a human interest story about a subject who no other human being could possibly be interested in, by dint of the subject of the story never having done anything remotely interesting; on the face of it an impossible task.

As he looked at the bitless screen of his computer monitor wondering how he was ever going to fill it with bits, Sneed was about to call it a day and search for inspiration in the bottom of a pint glass at his local when he suddenly recalled from the depths of his mind another seemingly impossible task that had once taxed the ingenuity of members of his profession.

It concerned events in the offices of a boys’ adventure weekly. The story went that the comic's ace writer, who was responsible for penning the periodical's most popular serial, 'Jack's Great Adventure', had been laid low to his sick bed. The task of writing the next episode had been handed to another of the periodical’s staff writers. The serial always ended in a cliffhanger, and the situation Jack was left in at the end of the previous episode was that he was bound hand and foot to a tree; immediately behind him was a three hundred feet gorge; to the front of him, no more than ten yards away, thirty war-whooping Red Indians were charging at him on horseback, tomahawks raised; to his right two dozen crocodiles formed a welcoming party; to his left fifty man-eating tigers lay in wait; at his feet ten thousand red ants had already started to make a meal of him.

Faced with this situation the staff writer racked his brains, but try as he might he could see no way out for Jack, and was finally forced to report his failure to his editor. All the other staff writers were consulted. None of them could see a way out for Jack either. Freelances were asked. Nor could they. Nor could the editor himself. Finally in desperation, with a publication deadline to meet, the editor had no alternative but to ring the ace writer in his sick bed to ask of him how they might possibly continue the story. The ace writer told the editor to arm himself with a pen and pad, then began to dictate: “With a single bound, Jack was free....”

As he recalled the story Sneed smiled to himself. It was as easy as that. Just ignore anything that got in the way and get on with the story.

He cracked his fingers and began to type. 'Football fans come in all shapes and sizes. Stanley Sutton, the Chairman of the Frogley Town Supporters Club, comes in the small, slim variety. He is a quiet, unassuming man. Yet women beat a path to his door. Currently the squeeze of Kate Moss and attracting the attentions of Naomi Campbell, amongst other top models, Stanley, or Stan the Stud as he is better known, this Frogley Town football kit-attired fornicating philanderer....’