Football Crazy (25 page)

Screwer had been stationed outside the ground when Stanley arrived. On seeing the police chief Stanley very nearly turned back, even though he knew that Screwer couldn't possibly know it was he under the turban and not a genuine Sikh. And, as Sarah Jane had said, nobody would as long as he kept his mouth shut. Which he firmly intended to do. So he had steeled himself and carried on, the urge to see his beloved Frogley Town overcoming whatever fears he entertained about what Screwer might do to him if he was discovered.

And it was going to be all right, he was sure now, because he had walked within five yards of Screwer and the police chief had taken no interest in him whatsoever. Even so he still felt uneasy being so close to Screwer and was relieved when the superintendent started to head off in the direction of the main entrance. Good. Screwer would soon be out sight and he himself would soon be safe and sound inside the stadium. There was nothing to stop him now.

Then, just as Screwer passed by him, Stanley sneezed.

Half an hour later Stanley took a bone out of the barrel and tossed it into the Bone Pulveriser.
Clunk, crunch
, it hit the blades.

Not wanting to go home, but wanting to do something, anything, to take his mind off what had happened to him outside the football ground a short while ago, Stanley had gone in to work, remembering that his opposite number Albert Humphries had wanted to visit his wife in hospital.

On immediately recognising Stanley by his sneeze Screwer had dealt with him, summarily and swiftly. Stanley had fought and scratched and kicked and struggled as Constables Noblett and Hibbert had carried out Screwer's orders and yanked him from the queue. The threat from Screwer that if Stanley ever came within a hundred yards of the stadium ever again he would personally rip his head off and shit in the hole rung in his ears as the constables had half marched, half dragged him away.

He threw another bone in the Bone Pulveriser. The thigh bone of a cow.
Clunk, crunch!
He wished it was one of his own bones along with all the rest of his bones. Then, pausing as he picked up another bone, he thought, “Well why not?” Because what was the point of going on? There was nothing left to live for now. No Frogley Town to watch every week meant no life. Well not a life he would ever be able to come to terms with.

He dropped the bone back in the barrel, pushed the red stop button and the Bone Pulveriser ground to a stop. Then he got down from the platform and started to look around for something that would be long enough to reach the start button from the inside of the Pulveriser.

After twenty minutes play the score was Frogley Town nil, Brailsford Wanderers two, with Brailsford rampant and looking like they might score a hatful. The home side was not as sharp as they had been in the match against Grimely, and by some stretch. The reason for this may simply have been that Brailsford were the better team, it may have been because the Frogley players' unusual diet was beginning to take its toll, but it was probably because, to a man, and in direct contravention of Joe Price's orders, each of the players had had sex the night before the match, and the vast majority had had sex on the day of the match also.

On the Monday Donny had run out of the bromide Price had provided him with and when he had telephoned him for more supplies Price had been unavailable. Donny had made a note to call again but had not yet done so, not seeing it as being critical if his players went without their vitamin supplement for the odd day or so, and anyway he couldn't have given it to them even if he'd had it to give them as they were all still in jail at the time.

Consequentially by the Tuesday evening when they were released all the players were getting erections again, and not having had any for over two weeks had immediately set about putting them to good effect. All of those who had wives or girlfriends had had sex with them at least twice, most of them more than that; Parks had had sex with all three of the girl fans with whom he had failed to have sex with after his heroics in the Grimely match; the two players who hadn't got a wife or a girlfriend had masturbated at least twice; and one of the players who had a wife and a girlfriend had had sex with both of them, twice, and a wank for good luck.

Donny too had found himself to be the proud owner of an erection, and with the Brailsford match in mind, and still not sure if only having given his mistress a fish supper really qualified him as having a mistress, had quickly got in touch with her and had given her much more than a fish supper. She in turn had given him syphilis, although he had yet to find this out.

Screwer, astride Scourge of the Terraces on the popular side, now gave the signal that would very soon make it the unpopular side. On his signal, Constable Gartside opened the box of firecrackers and started to distribute the contents to the constables who were dressed-up as Brailsford supporters. Thus armed, they quickly lit them and commenced to throw them at the nearest Frogley Town fans, most of whom happened to be the Frogley Mental Hospital inmates, strategically placed there by Constables Noblett and Hibbert precisely for that purpose.

In no time at all absolute mayhem broke out as the inmates, in an effort to stop more firecrackers showering down on them, charged the constables. The resultant pandemonium quickly spread to include other nearby Frogley fans, who despite their usual peaceful behaviour needed little excuse to join the fight as throughout the match the constables dressed as Brailsford supporters had been shouting vile insults and obscenities at them.

Screwer surveyed the scene. He thought it was quite wonderful. All the football hooligans who had been festering had now erupted in a pus of red, green and yellow shirts, just as he had forecast they would, just as he knew they would. He signalled again and now twenty uniformed policemen armed with riot shields and batons burst out of one of the portakabins and joined in the melee in an attempt to restore order and make arrests. Soon policemen were battering football fans, football fans were smashing policemen, policemen were braining policemen, and football fans were walloping football fans. Bones were broken and blood flowed. Now Screwer himself charged into the fray on Scourge of the Terraces, wielding his favourite lead-tipped truncheon, and commenced to rain blows on whichever head happened to be the nearest, football fan, maniac or policeman.

Several of the inmates of the Frogley Mental Hospital liked a good fight, in fact that was the reason some of them had been put in there in the first place, and were thoroughly enjoying themselves. The evening out was turning out to be even better than they had expected; a football match
and
a fight. This was better than a cup of cocoa and ‘Emmerdale’, and then some!

None of them were enjoying themselves more than Greaves, and now he was about to start enjoying himself even more, as the free-for-all, which had caused Constable Gartside to lose contact with the box of firecrackers, now brought Greaves into contact with it.

Greaves loved fireworks, especially ones that exploded and made a very loud noise, but not unnaturally fireworks were banned at the mental hospital so he never got the chance to have any. Seeing the firecrackers, and starved as he was of fireworks for the last eight years, it seemed to Greaves that all his birthdays and all his Christmases had come at once, not to mention the last eight November the Fifths, and he immediately set about the box of firecrackers like some pyrotechnic demon, lighting and throwing them at anything that moved, which for thirty yards around him was just about everything.

At the height of his enjoyment he scored a direct hit on Stevie Wonder's (Mr Hargreaves) head, rendering him temporarily blind, thus saving him the trouble of pretending to be so afflicted for the next couple of weeks. Then, whilst in the act of arming himself with another firecracker to throw at the Brailsford goalkeeper, something very heavy and smelly bumped into the back of him, knocking him to the ground. Picking himself up he turned to see, literally in his face, the big white hairy behind of Scourge of the Terraces. Even as he realised what it was, the horse, its rider seemingly having little or no control over it, backed into him again, knocking him over again. Cursing, he got to his feet.

Greaves didn't particularly dislike horses, in fact he was rather fond of them, but the fact was that this particular horse had knocked him over twice and there was no guaranteeing it wouldn't knock him over a third time if he didn't do something about it. Apart from that it was stopping his fun as it was now directly over the box of firecrackers, effectively stopping him from getting at them if he wasn't to risk being kicked or trampled on. So, his fun being more important to him than the condition of a horse's behind, even if he was rather fond of horses, he lit the firecracker he had intended to throw at the Brailsford goalkeeper and rammed it up the horse's rectum as far as it would go. One second later it exploded. One nanosecond later the horse itself exploded into a crazed gallop. Screwer, hurled forward by the motion of the horse, hung on to it for dear life, his arms clasped tightly round its neck. Scattering football fans, maniacs and policemen left and right the deranged horse ploughed a way through them towards the exit.

A couple of minutes before Greaves had done the equivalent of putting a match to the blue touch paper of a skyrocket, a steward, seeing the mayhem inside the ground, and in response to the pleas of fans who just wanted to get out of the madhouse the Offal Road Stadium had turned into, had opened a couple of gates, and now Scourge of the Terraces shot through one of them at about forty miles an hour and out into the streets of Frogley.

Stanley stood up in the Bone Pulveriser and poked the long metal rod through the safety guard. He had decided to end it all, and in a few seconds the pain of never being able to see his beloved Frogley Town ever again would be gone forever. Soon his bones, along with the rest of him, would be ground up like the thousands of tons of bones he had fed into the Bone Pulveriser over the years.

He aimed the end of the metal rod at the green start button, but six inches away from making contact with it the rod stopped, too short to reach it. Stanley stood on tiptoe and strained to reach the start button, but he was still a couple of inches short. He cursed at the delay, but consoled himself that it wouldn't be for long, just as long as it took to get a longer rod, and that would take no time at all. He pushed back the safety guard and climbed out.

Price's Pie Factory is only two hundred and fifty yards from the Offal Road Stadium as the crow flies, three hundred yards as the horse gallops, and if one were to go down Offal Road for about two hundred yards then turn left into Pork Street and continue straight on for a hundred yards one would arrive at the factory's rear entrance. Which is precisely what Scourge of the Terraces now did.

Normally at eight-o-clock the gates would have been locked, but twenty minutes previously Stanley had opened them to admit the lorry that called twice a day to pick up the bags of ground-up bones for the fertilizer factory. Having loaded the lorry its driver had gone to the works canteen for a cup of tea. Pork Road is a cul-de-sac and had the gates been closed Scourge of the Terraces would have had to pull up sharply, an action that would probably have caused Screwer to shoot off its back and crash into the gates. In the event Scourge of the Terraces continued on through the gates before finding the huge bulk of the Bone Pulveriser blocking its path, so it was then that it pulled up, causing Screwer to shoot off its back, execute a perfect arc, and drop into the Bone Pulveriser.

It all happened so fast and in such a blur that Stanley, who had only just that moment climbed out of the Bone Pulveriser himself, didn't realise who it was who had replaced him within it. All he knew was that from the corner of his eye he had seen someone on a horse and now there was just a horse. Then he looked down into the bowels of the machine and saw that the someone was Screwer. Without even a moment’s consideration or even the slightest sign of a doubt that what he was about to do was not a right and proper thing to do he closed the safety guard and pushed the start button.
Clunk, Crunch,
Squelch!
And five seconds later Superintendent Screwer was no more.

As he turned away to select another bone from the barrel Stanley caught a glimpse of himself in the highly polished brass plaque. He would have expected to see guilt written on his face, or maybe remorse, even pity, but there was not so much as a trace of any of those emotions. What was on his face though was the expression he had seen on Mr Price's face when he was with him in his office a couple of weeks earlier and had given him his great idea, the look he had never seen before and had failed to recognise. It was the look of respect.

“
And Liverpool are all in red” - Any football commentator.

Well of course they’re all in red, did we think three of them
would be in red, three in blue, and the rest in yellow?

Once Screwer had departed the stadium the fighting soon stopped and order was quickly restored. Twenty two football fans and seven policemen were taken to Frogley General Hospital to have various fractures, cuts and bruises attended to, and eight Frogley Town fans, two of them inmates of the mental hospital, were taken into custody and charged. Three inmates of the mental hospital, including Greaves, absconded, and a week later two of them were still at large. After suspending play and taking the two teams off the pitch shortly after the rioting had started the referee re-commenced the game twenty minutes later. Frogley Town lost the match five-nil.