Frogley Radio's Number One Presenter now switched on his tape recorder and spoke into the microphone. “With me now is the new Chief of the Frogley Police Force, Superintendent Herman Screwer. Tell me Super, as a Super, what is your reaction to the news that meat pie magnate Joe Price has bought Frogley Town?”
He held the microphone in front of Screwer and the superintendent spoke into it.
“My reaction is that it is now probable, in the not too distant future, that the club will become more successful than of late,” said Screwer. “And whereas a successful football club can be a good thing for a town, it is equally true to say that it can also cause problems. Because with football, where you have success, along with it comes even more hooliganism than you had before. Well just let the Frogley Town hooligans start. Just let them, that's all! Are you listening out there, you brainless bastards? Just you start something on Superintendent Herman Screwer's patch and see where it gets you!”
Dave switched off the tape recorder and said, “Actually, Super, you never get any hooliganism at Frogley Town matches.”
Screwer glared at him. Not another one! Ostriches with their heads in the sand were alive and well and living in Frogley, by Christ were they! He shook his head and said to himself: “Why does everybody keep denying there's any hooliganism at Frogley Town?”
“Because there isn't any, Super Duper,” said Dave.
Screwer, if he was listening, chose to disregard him. He continued, to himself, “What is everybody trying to hide?” Then something registered deep inside his policeman's mind and he looked at Dave with deepening suspicion. “What did you say your name was?”
“Dave Rave.” Dave packed away his microphone and made to go. “See you around then, Super Duper. Rock and roll.”
Screwer clapped a restraining hand on the radio presenter’s shoulder, dragged him back and turned him round. “Rave? What sort of a name is that?” He turned to Sergeant Hawks. “Sounds like a hooligan sort of name to me, Sergeant. Rave by name and rave by nature I shouldn't wonder. Lock him up.”
“What!” protested Dave. “What for? What am I supposed to have done?”
Hawks knew there was no sense in Dave arguing, even if Frogley's leading radio presenter didn't. He stepped forward. “If you’ll just come along quietly with me, Mr Rave.”
Dave was mortified. “But I haven’t done anything!”
“Dave Rave?” said Screwer. “With a name like that I’m sure we’ll find something. In the jug with him, Hawks.”
“No! No, please,” begged Dave. “You’ve got it all wrong; Dave Rave isn't my real name!”
Screwer's head jerked back. “No?”
“No. Of course not.”
“I see. So what is your real name?”
Dave certainly wasn't going to tell Screwer his name was Clarence Shufflebottom as the police chief might think he was taking the piss, and he didn’t want to risk upsetting him any more than he already had. He searched frantically for a name. The first one to come into his head was Charles Manson, probably because he’d been reading a book about the mass murderer the night before.
“Charles Manson,” he said, and knew the moment he said it that he shouldn't have. He tried to put matters right. “Not that Charles Manson. Shit!”
“So the name Dave Rave is an alias then?”
Dave breathed a sigh of relief. The shithead didn't know who Charles Manson was, otherwise he would have been on to it like a pack of wolves. Phew, that was a close one. He still wasn't out of the woods though because now he was being accused of using an alias. Stall for time Dave, he said to himself. Play dumb. He played dumb. “Er….an alias, Superintendent?”
“An alias,” affirmed Screwer. “An assumed name. Chosen by you because it sounds sufficiently hooligan-like.” He turned to Hawks. “In the slammer with him, Sergeant, we'll see if a week on bread and water will cure him of his hooligan ways.”
“No!” screamed Dave at Screwer. “You can't do that!”
But he could.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“We will definitely need a cushion when we go over there for the second leg. Two cushions would be better. A settee would be even better still because then we'd have something to sit on if we get held up at the airport” - Football manager
Stanley had held on to his great idea for almost a week before passing it on to Joe Price. Even when he did let go of it he did with great reluctance, aware that once he had delivered it into Price's custody it would be gone forever. It would still be his great idea, but he would now have to share it with everyone else, which wasn't quite the same thing, nor as good. He knew however that it was something he would have to do sooner or later, for the greater good of Frogley Town, and what better reason to give it up than that?
When Stanley delivered the idea to Price his employer had looked at him in a very odd way, in a way in which nobody had ever looked at him before. It wasn't a look that told Stanley he had done something wrong, and was in trouble because of it, because having received many such looks over the years he would have recognized it immediately. The look hadn't conveyed suspicion either, the sort of look Stanley’s dog Fentonbottom gave him whenever he got the paint out. It certainly wasn't a look of indifference, because that was a look Stanley knew all too well as the look he usually got whenever he attempted to get people interested in Frogley Town. Nor was it a look of tolerance, which was the expression his wife Sarah Jane usually wore whenever she looked at him, although recently this had been increasingly replaced by a look of intolerance, which it wasn't either.
Stanley could have conjectured at the meaning of Price's look until the cows came home but he would never have deduced what it was. This was simply because in his entire sixty three years on Earth nobody had ever looked at him in such a way before. For the look that Price gave Stanley was a look of respect. He was to see it again, and quite soon. But next time it would be etched on his own face.
*
Superintendent Screwer was having his meeting with Joe Price.
“Your club secretary informs me that you have plans to refurbish the stadium?”
Price agreed without showing the slightest inclination to throw any further light on the matter. “Some.”
Screwer was undeterred by Price's apparent lack of enthusiasm. “And would these refurbishments include making the stadium hooligan-proof?” he asked.
George Fearnley had taken the precaution of filling in Frogley Town’s new owner on the subject of Screwer's alarming ideas on stadium security, so Price was ready for the police chief. “Well it doesn't include snipers sat in t' floodlight pylons if that's what tha means,” he said, with sufficient force to get home to Screwer that he would be unlikely to brook any argument on the issue.
Screwer corrected him. “Not snipers. Police marksmen.” Then he enlightened Price further. “In my experience a strong visible presence of police marksmen has a positive influence in minimizing football hooliganism. They wouldn't be armed. Well they would be armed, but they wouldn't actually have one up the spout. Unless a situation of a threatening nature was to break out of course.”
Price was adamant however. “There'll be no police marksmen in my stadium.”
Screwer knew how far he could go when it came to putting in place measures that would render a football stadium into what in his opinion was a fit condition to contain outbreaks of hooliganism, and having a police marksman mounted on platforms halfway up each of the floodlight pylons was a bridge too far, or in this case four floodlight pylons too far. “As you say,” he said. He knew he was on much safer ground where the secure nature of the fence was concerned however. “Now about the barbed wire perimeter fence. I advise a....”
Price broke in, as adamant as before. “There'll be no barbed wire fencing round my ground either.”
Screwer smiled. “I think you'll find that you will have to bend to my wishes when it comes to the security of your football stadium where the perimeter fence is concerned, if I may say so, Mr Pr
ice.”
“You may say so,” said Price. “But it'll do thee no bloody good. Because t’man hasn’t been born as Joe Price bends to.”
Screwer hit him with both barrels. “Failing that it is within my powers to close your stadium.”
Price knew the police chief was right. He also knew how to deal with self-important tossers like Screwer. “It would be a shame to waste good brass on barbed wire when I intend to pull down t' old stadium and build a new one,” he said, then added, meaningfully, “A stadium with a state of t’ art underground police operations centre.” Screwer’s face lit up at this. Price added the icing on the cake. “With en-suite personal accommodation for whoever was in charge of police operations.”
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 la
st, 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.
Football Crazy Page 10
