Football Crazy

by Terry Ravenscroft

  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.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “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.

  The following day, with Superintendent Screwer still missing, Dave Rave and Martin Sneed were released on bail without being charged, although the hunt for Mr Wong went on.

  The day after that Donny obtained further supplies of bromide from Price and started putting it in the players’ tea again.

  On the following Saturday Frogley Town lost three-nil away to Bletchfield Rovers. Goalkeeper Gary Moggs was man of the match, and in a post-match interview with Martin Sneed put his performance down to black puddings and an abstinence from sex.

  Three days later the football club doctor examined Donny Donnelly and told him he had contracted a particularly virulent strain of syphilis and that he must inform any person with whom he had been sexually active recently. Donny said “Well obviously,” at the same time wondering if this unfortunate by-product of lust had ever visited Ron Atkinson, Malcolm Allison, Tommy Docherty and Bobby Robson, when they had taken mistresses, and if it had how had they gone about telling their lo
vely wives that they had passed it on to them, because there was certainly nothing about it in The Psychology of Football with a foreword by Ron Atkinson.

  The day before Frogley Town's next home game, nine days after Superintendent Screwer had gone missing, Stanley called in at the police station to ask if the order banning him from the Offal Road Stadium could be lifted.

  “Oh I don't know about that, Stanley,” said Sergeant Hawks, shaking his head. “I mean Superintendent Screwer might turn up yet, and if he found out about it he’d have us for breakfast, you and me both.”

  “He won't be coming back.”

  Stanley had said this with such cast-iron certainty that Hawks couldn't help but suspect it was more than wishful thinking. “Oh?” he said, raising an eyebrow.

  “I think,” said Stanley, now wishing he hadn't sounded quite so certain about it. “I mean I think he won't be coming back.”

  “And what makes you think that, Stanley?”

  “I just do.”

  Following Screwer's disappearance every nook and cranny of Frogley had been scoured, the entire seven mile length of the Frog Valley had been searched, the nearby moors combed, the River Frog dragged and the canal dredged, but not a single trace of the police chief had been found, no clue as to what might have happened to him had emerged, although it is probably true to say that a large proportion of the searchers hadn't been looking very hard.

  Offal Road is even quieter than the rest of Frogley at eight-o-clock on a Wednesday evening and only the drivers of two cars, both travelling in the opposite direction to Screwer, had seen the police chief galloping down the street on his horse that night. Neither driver had seen the horse enter Pork Street. The only person to have seen it on Pork Street was one of the town drunks, who had not only seen Screwer on the horse going through the gates of Price's Pie Factory but had seen the horse coming out, minus Screwer, a few seconds later. However he hadn't bothered to report it to the police as he was always seeing unusual happenings where animals were concerned, although they usually came out of walls not factory gates, and the last time he had reported one such unusual happening to the police, when he had seen snakes coming out of Tesco's gable end on Tripe Street, they had locked him up for the night.

  Scourge of the Terraces, who had disappeared into the night after depositing Screwer in the Bone Pulveriser, was discovered the following morning standing outside the premises of Frogley Veterinary Services, but whether it was there by accident or because it was aware that only the attentions of a veterinary surgeon would ease the throbbing pain in its bottom remains a mystery. Unfortunately the discovery of the unhappy horse didn't contribute towards the success of the search for its owner in any way.

  In fact for the search for Screwer to have met with any success it would have had to cast its net a little wider, for after the police chief had passed through the Bone Pulveriser, along with a few hundredweight of assorted animal bones, Stanley had bagged up the granulated police chief along with the other granulated bones and put the bags on the back of the fertilizer lorry, which had then transported them to the fertilizer factory in Halifax, some twenty miles away.

  Subsequently the bags had been included in a batch of the fertilizer factory's Famous Farmer Hoof, Bone and Blood Mix, which had in turn been packed into 500g cartons and had since been delivered throughout the UK to garden centres, nurseries and other outlets of agricultural supplies. In fact Mrs Screwer, a keen gardener, had already bought a packet and had dug some of it into her roses as a late feed.

  Hawks considered the situation Stanley had faced him with. Stanley knew something about Screwer's disappearance, he was quite certain of that. But what Stanley knew about it he didn't know. What's more, he now decided, he didn't really want to know. What was done was done, if anything had been done. Having reached his decision he wagged a finger at Stanley and said, “If Superintendent Screwer shows up I shall have to ban you again, you know.”

  “He won't show....” Stanley started to say, then stopped as Hawks put a warning finger to his lips.

  “Off you go then,” said Hawks. “I hope you win tomorrow.”

  “Thanks,” said Stanley. “We will.”

  EPILOGUE

  “Every dog has its dinner” – Big Donny Donnelly

  For those people who like to know 'what happened next' or 'whatever happened to....?' the world-famous Frogley soothsayer Norman Stardust was asked to look into the future on their behalf. Detailed below are his predictions.

  Following a string of defeats Big Donny Donnelly will be sacked six weeks into the new season. On receiving his marching orders he will say “Well that's the way the cookie curdles.” Two months later he will obtain a position as manager to a team in the Blue Square Conference. He will stay with them for four unsuccessful years before being sacked for taking them down to the Blue Square North. He will blame his failure on not having a mistress. He will then disappear from the soccer scene for a few years, then, thanks to his old friend Dave Rave, who will by then be a major television personality, he will be taken on by ITV as a football pundit. As, like all TV pundits, Donny has always been much better at talking about football than playing it, he will be ideally suited to this job and will be a huge success, eventually take over from the recently fully reinstated Ron Atkinson as chief match analyser. On being told that Donny is going to replace him Ron will say “Well that's it then, game, shot and match.”

  After Donny's departure, and before a new manager can be appointed, Joe Price will become incapacitated for quite some time. His illness will be triggered off at a trade fair when he is sampling what he thinks is a rival firm's meat and potato pie. On being told that it is in fact a Linda McCartney Vegetarian Deep Dish Country Pie he will choke on it, which will cause him to have a stroke. In his absence George Fearnley will appoint a new manager and give him full control over all team affairs. In deference to Joe Price the new manager will retain some of Price's ideas, although in a modified form. He will keep the new strip and team haircuts, seeing them as a unifying, team-bonding influence. Haslet, brawn, black puddings, savoury ducks, sugar butties etcetera will be kept on the menu, but only as a reward for winning matches, otherwise a more normal diet of pasta, chicken and fish will be eaten. Bromide will still be put in the players' tea but only on the day before the match. These initiatives will have some measure of success and from November onwards the team will begin to stage a recovery and will finish the season in a creditable fourteenth position. In the long term the team will continue to improve and in 2013 will be promoted to the McDonalds Big Mac (ex-Coca-Cola) League One. Everyone at the club will be over the moon.

  Martin Sneed will continue to write glowing reports about the Town’s performances on the field and at the end of the season Price, true to his word, will be influential in getting him a job in Fleet Street. The position will be with the Daily Mail, where he will thrive, becoming chief football writer in 2014. The following year, on the retirement of Jeff Powell, he will be considered as a replacement for the famous Mail columnist. Although he will be judged to be neither as gung ho nor enough of a stuffed shirt to fill Powell’s boots completely, his extremely flowery style of writing will pull him through and he will get the job.

  In 2011 Dave Rave will leave Frogley Radio to seek fame and fortune in London. After six months on the dole, where he will be considered by his local Job Centre to be virtually unemployable, he will apply for a job as a disc jockey on BBC Radio One. At the interview the Controller of Radio One will find Dave to be inarticulate, brash, and to constantly talk a load of shite, so he will be given a job immediately. He will prosper in his new occupation and two years later will move on to television where he will be a huge success. In 2015 he will achieve his ambition and present the Brit Awards. Sir Ringo Starr and Lord Liam Gallagher will renounce their titles in protest.

  Stanley Sutton will continue to support his beloved Frogley Town. In 2018 the club will reach the third round of the FA Cup where they will be drawn at hom
e to Manchester United. When the Town take an early shock lead Stanley will die of a heart attack. He will die a happy man.

  ****

  If you enjoyed reading Football Crazy would you mind doing me a favour? If you are a member of facebook, recommend it to your facebook friends, if you have a Twitter account, tweet your opinion of it, or if you have neither simply tell anyone in your email address book who you think might like it. Failing that your next door neighbour will do.

  Thanks for this

  Terry Ravenscroft.

  ****

  Also by Terry Ravenscroft and available on Amazon Kindle

  ZEPHYR ZODIAC

  Dolly was rinsing the tea cups in the sink when Don came in, quite agitated.

  “There’s a young couple sat in our car, Doll!”

  “A young couple?”

  “Teenagers by the look of them. Sitting there as large as life.”

  “In our car? Are you sure, Don?”

  “Come and have a look if you don’t believe me.”

  Don took Dolly’s hand and led her to the front door. When they looked, the young couple were still in the car. Dolly took in the scene and turned to Don.

  “What do you think they’re doing there?”

  “I’ve no idea.”

  “They look very young.”

  “Not to mention scruffy. I sincerely hope they don’t soil the leopard skin seats.”