Saturday's Heroes - Skinheads, Sex and Football Violence!

by Joe Mitchell

  Once on the train, the MSS soon found the other Gillingham hooligans occupying the best part of a smoking carriage. Some of the boys had found a couple of birds to chat up, and even the bloke who had been wandering around like a random motion machine after the first bit of trouble had perked up enough to join in the singing.

  Big Trev's left eye was coming up a treat. He would need a bloody big steak to take that swelling away, and Alan's joke offering of the beefburger he had bought at the station cafe was met with the derision it deserved. "Fuck off, you cheeky bastard!"

  The train was soon on its way through the Lancashire countryside and heading for Manchester. Then it was a quick dash over the bridge to another platform, and the boys were on an Inter-City to London which, to everyone's delight, had a buffet car.

  While stocking up on cans of beer, Billy stumbled upon a couple of skinheads from Luton who had been working in Blackpool, and he brought them back to where the others were sitting for the usual chat about music, birds and football.

  The journey south passed quickly thanks to the flowing ale, and in next to no time the train was pulling into Luton. The two skinheads said their farewells to the Gillingham boys and promised to keep in touch. A few tins and a couple of hands at cards later, and the train had arrived at Euston station.

  Euston was well-known as a war zone for rival mobs. So many different supporters passed through it on a Saturday, either on their way to games in the capital or games up north, that it was inevitable that there would be trouble. Inside the station wasn't the ideal place to kick things off though due to the presence of security cameras, but the streets around Euston had seen many a battle in their day.

  The MSS had no time to hang about tonight, however. Two taxis were summoned to cart them across the city to Charing Cross to catch the train to the Medway Towns that would get them back before closing time. Lady Luck had obviously taken the day off though and they missed it by a matter of minutes.

  "Oh well, might as well find a boozer," said Tony after seeing that the next train home didn't leave until twenty past midnight.

  "That'll do me," enthused Billy, with visions of a new fruit machine to conquer.

  It wasn't hard finding a pub. A little street just off Charing Cross Road offered a choice of two and the boys chose the first one they came to.

  "Six pints of lager and two pints of bitter please guv," shouted Tony as he tried to attract the attention of the landlord. The bloke behind the bar was in his forties, was overweight and balding, but he looked like he could still handle himself.

  "I'll serve you and your mates, but I'm not serving him," the publican said, pointing a fat finger in the direction of young Simon.

  The poor kid's face turned bright red with embarrassment, and the others didn't help matters with comments about bed-time and the like. Still, at least he had a couple of cans to keep him warm as he took his leave and waited outside for his mates.

  Paul picked up a pint of lager and a pint of bitter, and walked over to Billy who was in his element with a choice of two machines. "Having any joy?" he asked.

  "I'm trying out a system that bloke Dave from Luton told me about. It's all on the nudges." Billy hadn't even turned around. His eyes were too busy working out fruit permutations.

  "Here, I'll put your pint up here," said Paul, not wanting to disturb the master at work. "Give me a shout if you win anything." And with that he walked back to the others who had found themselves a window seat. A low curtain on a rail prevented the passing public looking into the pub, but both Big Trev and Alan were kneeling on the seat so that they could look out at Simon shivering away with his can of lager. Just to rub it in, both were blowing into cupped hands, as if they were keeping warm themselves.

  "Leave the kid alone," Paul said. "I tell you what, he handled himself well today."

  Alan turned around from looking out the window. "Yeah, I know. I saw him give some casual a kick in the balls that he won't forget in a hurry."

  "The little bastard is even getting his end away with that bird he sometimes knocks about with," said Wayne. "You know, the fat slag in the school uniform."

  "Who told you that then?" asked Paul.

  "He told me himself", Wayne explained in between gulps of lager. "Reckons all he had to do was tell her he loved her and she was letting him do all sorts."

  "Yeah, in his fucking dreams," said a dismissive Big Trev who just couldn't accept that the little runt was enjoying the good things in life when the nearest he'd come to a screw in the last six months was visiting his brother in Ashford nick. "When I was his age I was lucky to get a handful of tit."

  "That's more than you've been getting lately my son!" joked Wayne with a laugh.

  It wasn't that Trev was particularly ugly or had a bad case of body odour. It was simply that his social world revolved around football and getting bevvied with his mates, and neither provided a perfect setting for bird-pulling. Even dances and gigs usually had the blokes outnumbering the girls five to one.

  * * *

  Leroy and Mark were Arsenal supporters. They had watched the gang of skinheads coming into the pub from their small round table over in the corner by the toilets. And what they saw were the dregs of society. Working class Neanderthals who inhabited concrete jungles in ever- decreasing numbers. Like the dodo, they were becoming extinct.

  Leroy in particular hated the bastards with the little brains and the big boots. As a fourteen year old he had been beaten up by a gang of Chelsea skinheads because of the colour of his skin. Black. That's all they knew about him and that's all they wanted to know. What made it worse was that the attack happened during the rush hour in a passage connecting Underground tube platforms, and not one of the countless passing faces tried to help him. Not even the black London Transport employee, who pretended he hadn't seen anything so that he didn't have to get involved.

  Mark was white and had nothing against skinheads in general. Some of his best mates at school had been skins as had his two older brothers. As he was fond of saying, he held no prejudices. He saw everyone as fair game for a slapping if he thought they deserved it. Blacks, whites, pakis, chinks, aliens from out of space even. And tonight, he was as certain as Leroy that someone would deserve it, whether it was the buffoon at the fruit machines or one of the other arseholes acting like six year olds over by the window.

  * * *

  The pub served a decent pint which made the high London prices a little easier to swallow. There was nothing worse than paying over the odds for piss-poor beer. Alas all good things must come to an end, and after their second round was near completion, Tony gestured that it was time to be off.

  "I need a slash, so I'll catch you outside," said Paul before heading for the bogs.

  "Shake it more than three times and you're wanking!" bellowed Trev 's voice just before Paul reached the door marked Gents.

  As he went in, Paul didn't notice the two blokes sitting by the door get up and follow in his foot steps. Even when he was pissing into one of the three urinals, the sound of another person or persons in the toilets didn't give him cause to worry.

  Careful only to shake his dick twice, Paul zipped up his trousers and turned to make his way back into the hustle and bustle of the pub. "Alright mate," he said, as he passed the black guy standing by the door, who was evidently waiting for his mate who was over by the sink. But everything wasn't all right.

  Just as Paul went to pull open the door leading back into the pub, Leroy pulled an empty beer bottle from inside his jacket and smashed it over Paul's head with enough force for it to smash on impact. Paul fell forward, crashing against the door. Before he could steady himself, both Leroy and Mark were booting fuck out of him. Paul tried to curl up in a ball, his arms cradling his face in an attempt to stop the blows, but before any time at all, he was just a crumpled mess lying on the toilet floor. The alcohol consumed during the day was helping to numb the pain, but even in his half-conscious state Paul could taste the blood and vomit that he was
coughing up.

  * * *

  After leaving the fruit machines, Billy decided he'd take a pee too before joining the others outside. It wasn't until he tried to push the door open that he heard the sound of fighting above the noise of a pub full of rowdy drinkers and a blaring juke box.

  Someone was obviously getting the shit kicked out of him just the other side of the toilet door. Billy froze for a moment, then turned away. He didn't want to get involved. Didn't want to risk getting it himself. Instead, he turned and headed into the street to join the others - without saying a word about what he'd heard.

  * * *

  Knowing that at least one person must have known something was up, Leroy decided to bid farewell to the unconscious skinhead. Reaching into his inside jacket pocket, he took out a small CS gas can. He then turned the skinhead's face towards him, propped open his eyes with his fingers and sprayed some of the contents of the can directly into them. Paul writhed and screamed in pain as his burning eyes brought him back to his senses.

  "Hope that blinds you, you fucking bastard!"

  * * *

  Outside the pub, the conversation had moved on to sunnier climbs. With little else to do, Simon had spent the last half hour looking at the cards in the travel agent window directly opposite the pub. And now he was teasing the others with tales of holidays to Jamaica for only £349.

  "Yeah, but you wouldn't be able to go to Orange Street or Prince Buster's shop," complained Alan. "It's in the middle of a ghetto and you'd get your head cut off quicker than you could say Red Stripe!"

  "Surely Prince Buster isn't still there is he?" asked Tony, certain that the ska legend wouldn't be standing behind a shop counter twenty years on selling mint copies of Al Capone.

  Before he could get an answer, the pub doors opened and everyone turned expecting to see Paul. Instead two blokes stood there, solid-looking lads, one black one white. "I don't want to worry you," said the black one, as he passed Big Trev. "But I think one of your mates is being sick in the toilet."

  Trev let out a laugh. "Never could hold his drink that one! Cheers mate, I'll go and see how he's doing!"

  "No problem," said the darkie as he joined his mate and headed off towards the bright lights of Regent Street.

  At first, Trev couldn't open the toilet door. Something was blocking it from the inside. He was about to call the landlord when he heard someone moaning and coughing. He tried again and this time managed to get his head around the door. He looked down and saw Paul lying there, all curled up in a ball, spewing his guts. The shattered glass all around him, and the blood coming from the back of his head and face, told Trev immediately that it wasn't just the drink that had taken its toll.

  Pushing the door open, Trev squeezed through and crouched down by Paul.

  "What happened?" he said, trying to bring Paul back into the land of the conscious as he spoke. "Who did this to you? Was it that black bastard and his white mate?"

  Paul could hear Trev's voice and was glad to know that the cavalry had arrived, but he was in no fit state for explanations. He wasn't even sure what had happened himself. All he knew was that he wanted to get out of the toilet and into the fresh air.

  Paul's eyes were streaming from the effects of the CS gas, but at least he could still see. The burning sensation was easing, but the rest of his body was a mess of bloody cuts and pain.

  Trev saw that his mate was trying to stand and helped him to his feet. "Come on, blue," he said. "Let's get you home."

  Chapter 8

  NEARLY a week had passed since the Bolton game and Paul was almost back on top form. Even so, he had to miss Tuesday's session down the pub. True to his word, he had gone out on Monday looking for a job and had come up trumps with a full-time job, filling shelves on the nightshift at the new Saveshop supermarket on the outskirts of Gillingham.

  It wasn't the best of jobs, stacking tins of fruit and packets of icing sugar, but it would put money in his pocket at the end of every week. And once he had put enough by, it would be his passport to Hull and Carol. Something he wanted even more after what had happened to him on Saturday.

  Working across the aisle from him was one of his old schoolmates, Tommy Peters. He hadn't seen Tommy for six or seven years, and come the half-hour meal break, they had a lot of catching up to do.

  "What the fuck were you doing in London anyway?" asked Tommy as his friend complained about the weight of some of the boxes causing his aching ribs some serious grief.

  "It's a long story mate, but I was on my way back from the football."

  "Don't tell me you're still involved in football violence?" asked Tommy with disbelief written all over his face. "I thought you would have grown out of that phase by now!"

  Paul had first got involved with football mobs when he was fifteen, and as a fifth-former had already developed quite a reputation as an aggro merchant. Paul remembered Tommy was as impressed as the others back then, but the passing of time had obviously taken the shine off things.

  It was okay for the likes of Tommy though. He didn't even go to matches. He claimed to support Manchester United, but all that amounted to was watching them two or three times a season on Match Of The Day. Hardly number one fan material.

  To Paul, football violence wasn't something you could just walk away from. Not unless you had a magic ticket to the executive boxes or wanted to fork out for a seat in the stand with the granddads and the halfwits. If you stood at an end, giving vocal support to your club, then like it or not, football violence would come looking for you. A mob following the away team would turn up at your end of the ground and try to take it. You could either run away and let them. Or you could make a stand. And as far as Paul was concerned, there was no alternative to taking them on.

  "Maybe if a few more people supported their local team, nobody would try it on and we wouldn't need to fight," said Paul, having a dig at Tommy and the thousands of others who turned their back on Gillingham in favour of some distant team that they owed no loyalty to that you could put your finger on.

  "Sorry, Paul, but I don't see how fighting with other fans does Gillingham or football any good at all. No wonder gates are at an all-time low."

  "So what am I supposed to do then? Shake hands with some bastard who tries to take the Rainham End and buy him a pint after he's kicked my head in? We're talking real world here, not Jimmy Hill."

  Tommy wasn't convinced. "So what happens if the next bloke you thump dies from his injuries. What would you do then? Put that down to defending the good name of Gillingham?"

  Three or four years ago, Paul would probably have answered yes and not given a fuck. But the older he got, the more he realised the damage he could inflict on another human being. And more to the point, the damage others could cause to him, especially with the increasing use of weapons at and around football games. If he could walk away, he probably would have done, but it wasn't as simple as that. His life revolved around following Gillingham, and if rival fans wanted to mix it, he wasn't going to stand by and watch his mates take a good hiding.

  "Smoking kills too," Paul said, pointing to the fag hanging out of Tommy's mouth. He knew fine well he was dodging the issue, but at three in the morning he just wasn't in the mood to argue the toss.

  "Fancy a drink?" Tommy asked as he got up from the table and walked over to the soft drinks machine.

  "A can of beer would do nicely!"

  "I'm sure it would Mr. West. But you'll have to wait until you leave here to satisfy your thirst." The voice coming from behind him was that of the night manager, Steven Reid. It was Reid who had given Paul the job and for a boss he was not a bad bloke to work for.

  "Only joking, Mr. Reid. Believe me, the last thing I want now is a can of beer," Paul replied, his mind flashing back to the foul cocktail of beer, sick and blood that had filled his mouth a week or so before.

  "Good to hear it. Now is there any chance of those fruit shelves being filled by eight o'clock? I don't want to rush you, but we would like t
o let the public in sometime tomorrow. Preferably in the morning."

  With those words of sarcasm, Steven Reid turned to address the others sitting in the staff canteen. "Okay, boys and girls. Let's get back out there and get the job done." And as people started to get to their feet and make their way back to work, he added for the benefit of Hill Street Blues fans, "And remember, be careful out there."

  With his aisle completed, Paul headed for the warehouse where all the stock was kept. Out on the shop floor, the night manager and his henchmen could keep a close eye on whether you were working or not, but it was amazing the time you could waste pissing about in the warehouse. It was almost as good as the walk-in freezer where nobody ever went without the thermal clothing needed to stop you turning into a giant ice pole.

  Paul had only worked there a couple of days, and already he'd been amazed by what went on in that warehouse. On his first night, he'd been sent there to sweep up and had stumbled across the young kid who did the washing powder shagging one of the married thirty-something women from diary products. Then there was Roland, a fat bbloke in his twenties, who was in there every half hour eating his way through a packet of biscuits or a few bars of chocolate.

  It was also the easiest way to get knock-off food and other goods out of the store. All you had to do was get what you wanted from the warehouse shelves and pass it under the gates or over the wall in the delivery yard to a waiting mate. Two of the blokes were supplying a market trader with enough tinned fruit every week to feed an army. And the Chinese army at that.