Football Crazy (24 page)

Home from his 6 - 2 shift at the pie factory Stanley sat in the house, his head buried in his hands. Whatever was he going to do with himself tonight when the Town were playing? The prospect was truly awful; it just did not bear thinking about.

He would be able to listen to the match on the radio, he supposed. Or stand outside the ground and try to follow the action by the roars of the crowd. He could do both, and probably would, it would certainly be better than sitting in the house, moping. But he knew it could never get anywhere near to replacing the real thing. Nothing could. The only place to be that night was at the match, in his usual spot on the terraces, supporting his team.

He wondered how much it would cost to hire a helicopter to fly around over the stadium for ninety minutes, or one of those airship things that the TV people used for overhead pictures, but even as the idea came to him he knew that whatever the cost was it would be too much.

He sneezed again, still full of a cold, and it reminded him of the reason he was sitting in the house feeling sorry for himself rather than looking forward to the match tonight. Superintendent Screwer.

Stanley was not a violent man but at that moment all he wanted to do was to punch Screwer on the nose. Hard! And had thought of doing so. However common sense had prevailed. For where would it get him if he did? Not back in the Offal Road Stadium, that’s for sure, but back in jail, and back in jail for a lot longer than he’d been in it the last time. And not in the Frogley police station lock-up this time but in a proper prison like Strangeways or Wakefield, and if that happened he wouldn't be able to see the Town play again even if Screwer did leave Frogley, and he certainly couldn’t allow that to happen.

And that was the way things would have remained had not fate taken a hand, and from a most unlikely source. For salvation came to Stanley in the shape of a Sikh door-to-door salesman.

“
Afternoon,” the Sikh said, opening his battered brown suitcase the moment Stanley answered the knock on the front door. “Is t' wife in?”

“
No, she's out,” said Stanley. “Anyroad tha'd be wasting thee time even if she were in, she never buys at t' door.”

“
How about thee then?” the dusky Hindu persisted. “How are t' off for razor blades and shaving cream?”

“
No thanks.”

If the Sikh, like so many of his compatriots, had been an immigrant to Great Britain, that might have been the end of the matter. However, as is the case with many of his brothers and sisters, the Sikh had been born and bred in England, and not too far away from Frogley at that, in nearby Rochdale, so both his accent and dialect were not dissimilar to Stanley's. In addition he was slightly built and about the same height as Stanley. These two things together might by themselves have triggered the thought process that gave Stanley the idea that was to see him in the queue outside the football ground that night, but what made it absolutely certain the notion came to him was the fact that the Sikh was wearing a Frogley Town football shirt.

“
Are tha a fan then?” said Stanley, indicating the Sikh's shirt.

“
I am that, lad,” replied the Sikh. “I'm going direct to t' match as soon as I knock off.”

“
Is tha turban for sale?” asked Stanley.

“
Snap!” said Dave Rave in triumph, reaching through the bars of the adjoining cell and scooping up the pile of cards.

“
Are you sure you can't play any other card games?” complained Martin Sneed. “Not even Rummy?”

“
What's wrong with 'Snap'?” said, Dave, adding the pile of cards to the bottom of the stack of cards in his hand.

“
It gets a bit boring after eight hours,” said the newspaperman disdainfully.

It was five-thirty p.m, two hours to kick-off time in the Frogley v Brailsford game, on which Dave Rave would not be broadcasting his usual match commentary and Sneed would not be writing a report about, for their sins (which neither of them knew the nature of, since Screwer had not yet deigned to inform them).

The highest bidder for Sneed's story had been the Daily Sport, at £2000. Unfortunately for the newspaperman the editor had cut the article drastically to make space for an important story about, and a picture of, a Slovakian air hostess with three breasts. This had more or less killed any hopes Sneed had entertained of impressing the nation's red top newspaper editors into offering him a job.

Even more unfortunately for Sneed, what remained of the story contained his byline and his observation that likened Screwer to the Mad Hatter, and, the Daily Sport being by far the most popular newspaper with the members of the Frogley Police Force, this information had been picked up by several of them. When it was brought to the attention of Screwer the Frogley Advertiser Chief Sportswriter was as good as behind bars.

Dave Rave's broadcast had been heard by Constable Beaver, a fan of Dave, though not a big enough fan to disregard him calling a policeman a shithouse and several other shithouse-based names. Consequently Screwer had been informed, and the same outcome befell Dave that had befallen Sneed.

Feng Shui with Mr Wong had been heard by DC Armitage's wife, who saw his description of Screwer as a shithouse as just the opportunity she had been waiting for to get her own back on Mr Wong after she’d recently followed the Feng Shui expert's advice to re-position her Aga on the landing, for 'optimum happiness of occupants', which had resulted in the optimum unhappiness of the occupants of the house, especially the cat, when the Aga fell through the ceiling and crushed it.

Mrs Armitage had subsequently told her husband that Mr Wong was using the airwaves to call Screwer a shithouse, and even though DC Armitage shared the Feng Shui expert's opinion of his boss, the appeasement of his wife came first, therefore Mr Wong's goose was well and truly cooked.

Or it would have been if Mr Wong could have been found, but as yet, and despite a countrywide alert and the involvement of Interpol, he had yet to be run to ground, having seemingly disappeared off the face of the Earth. Dave Rave, of course, could have told Screwer that Mr Wong had never been on the face of the Earth to begin with, and that he himself was the Feng Shui expert, but remembering what had happened to him the last time he’d told Screwer that he'd used an alias he thought it prudent to keep this information to himself.

Sneed put the ten of diamonds on Dave's two of clubs. “If we had another one I could teach you how to play bridge,” he observed.

“
What?” said Dave, putting a seven of hearts on Sneed's ten of diamonds.

“
The horse could make up the four,” Sneed explained.

“
Neigh,” said the horse.

Stanley, the Sikh's turban on his head, his face now a deep brown, a suitcase by his side, knocked on his own front door. Sarah Jane opened the door, took one look at him and extended to him the very short shrift she gave all doorstep salesmen.

“
I don't buy at t' door,” she snapped, starting to close the door before it had barely had the chance to get used to being open.

“
No it's me, Sarah Jane,” Stanley blurted out.

Sarah Jane blinked in surprise, then looked more closely at him. “Stanley?”

“
It's me disguise,” said Stanley. “Couldn't tha tell as it were me?”

Sarah Jane wrinkled her nose. “What's that smell?”

“
Gravy browning. I used it to make me face brown.”

“
Tha smells like a Sunday dinner,” Sarah Jane observed, then added, ruefully, “Well as I remember Sunday dinners smelling, it's that long since we've been able to afford meat.”

Stanley ignored his wife’s jibe. “Couldn't tha tell as it were me?” he asked her again, eager for Sarah Jane's rubber stamp.

“
Well now tha'rt talking I can. But keep thee mouth shut and tha could pass for Gandhi.”

Stanley smiled, satisfied. If he could fool the woman who shared his bed he could certainly fool whoever happened to be on the turnstile at the Offal Road Stadium that night.

“
Have you all got that?” said Screwer.

“
Sir!”

In the light of recent developments Screwer’s plan for a smaller police presence at the match had gone by the board and now at 6 p.m. the police chief was giving some of his charges a final briefing before they set off for the football ground. The ten constables in question were all dressed up as Brailsford Wanderers fans in blue and white striped football shirts. A few of them had their faces painted in the club's colours and all were armed with baseball bats.

Screwer surveyed them. “You!” he suddenly barked at one of them, Constable Atkins. “Tell me what you're going to do tonight.”

Atkins took a deep breath, closed his eyes for a moment to aid his memory, then recited, parrot fashion. “At eighteen thirty hours we will proceed through the town centre to the Offal Road Stadium, chanting 'Brailsford are Kings, Frogley are shite', pausing only to kick in a few shop windows on the way. Once in the stadium we will position ourselves adjacent to the Frogley Town fans and the inmates from the mental hospital, who will be with Constables Noblett, Hibbert and Mourne. On the signal from you, Constables Gibb, Arnfield, Sledge, Grimm and Wain will start throwing firecrackers at the Frogley Town football fans and Constables Cuthbertson, Sprake, Tonypandy, Banderjee and Gartside will throw firecrackers at the inmates from the mental hospital, at the same time shouting vile obscenities. Then....”

Screwer cut in. “Such as?”

“
Frogley Town fans are all sheepshaggers, their wives are all whores, their sons are all shitstabbers and their daughters are all ugly sods who couldn't get a shag off Blind Pugh, Sir!”

“
Good,” said Screwer. “Then?”

“
Then we lay into them with our baseball bats and beat the shit out of them.”

“
Seven sorts of shit.”

“
Seven sorts of shit, sir.”

“
Mercilessly.”

“
Mercilessly, sir.”

Screwer scanned the line of constables with his piercing eyes. “And make fucking sure you do!”

An hour later, outside the stadium, the forty lucky inmates from the Frogley Mental Hospital filed off the coach, were counted off by Constable Mourne and herded together by Constables Noblett and Hibbert. All of them were wearing Frogley Town football shirts, provided by Superintendent Screwer from police funds. Being keen fans quite a few of them already owned replicas of the club's shirt, but last season's, and these were the new shirts without Smith's Suppositories on the front which had only gone on sale in the club shop the previous Saturday, and which they now wore with pride, except for Smith, who preferred last year's shirt.

Screwer, mounted on Scourge of the Terraces, watched the inmates disembark from the coach with an approving eye. He liked the look of some of them, liked the look of them very much indeed, especially the one with the eye patch and the large scar running the length of one of his cheeks. He noted with pleasure that his request for Stevie Wonder to be included in the party had been honoured. He looked forward to personally braining him. Following Stevie Wonder off the coach was Mr Greaves, who didn't really like football, but who did like the idea of being let loose on the fun side of the hospital gates for a couple of hours. Screwer smiled contentedly to himself. He was going to enjoy himself tonight!

He had enjoyed himself last night too, when a cocktail of gin, tonic and three of the date rate pills had worked on Mrs Screwer and they’d had sex. Not only sex but Screwer’s favourite kind of sex, as in addition to the act itself he had given his wife a good verbal fucking at the same time. And now he was going to fuck the football hooligans of Frogley! And to some tune!

When the last of the inmates had left the coach and the constables who had been given the responsibility for their welfare had started to shepherd them towards the nearest turnstile, Screwer turned his mount and made for the main entrance.

After having once being thrown by Scourge of the Terraces the police chief had had serious reservations about ever getting on a horse again but the recurring picture in his mind's eye of the Policeman on the White Horse controlling the crowds at Wembley was never far from his thoughts, and the lure of the opportunity to emulate his hero had proved to be irresistible. He had still taken only six riding lessons, four less than the absolute minimum prescribed by the riding school owner, but what did she know, after all he wasn't like one of her normal clientele, some twelve-year-old schoolgirl still growing her fanny hair, he was a fully grown man, and a police superintendent at that.

Stanley, in the queue next to the one that the inmates were now joining, chanced another glance at Screwer. Like the police chief Stanley was going to enjoy himself tonight too. And, again like Screwer, he had already had cause for celebration, when his dog Fentonbottom had returned, completely out of the blue, or perhaps completely out of the black, as from the state of its fur it looked like it had been down the nearby disused coal pit for the entire time it had been missing.

Stanley had been overjoyed to have his dog back, even though, probably thinking that Stanley was a Sikh, it had bitten him when he’d tried to stroke it. However once Stanley had spoken to Fentonbottom it had recognised his voice immediately and had started to lick his face, which Stanley had enjoyed but had had to discourage as it was licking all the gravy browning off it - much to the disappointment of Fentonbottom as it hadn't eaten for three days and had been enjoying it.