Football Crazy (10 page)

Screwer's head was about to shoot back again but, remembering the painful encounter with the wall the last time he affected surprise, he just managed to stop himself in time.

“
I could get you a portakabin, I suppose,” George offered. “Or a caravan maybe.”

“
A caravan?” Screwer almost shrieked it. “I'm a police officer, not Gipsy fucking Petulengro! Or perhaps you'd like me to start telling fucking fortunes at half time?”

George tried to pacify the police chief. “They can be quite roomy, caravans.”

Screwer fixed George with a baleful glare. This man was even more stupid than he looked. “It isn't the room I am concerned about, it is the construction. It takes more than a bit of plywood to contain drug-crazed hooligans.” Fortunately he had just the thing for such contingencies. “I'll use one of our mobile armour-plated jobs until you've had time to build something proper out of reinforced concrete.” He referred to his list. “I've priced some barbed wire. That razor stuff they use for cattle.”

George didn't really want to ask but forced himself. “What for?”

“
Round the perimeter fence, of course.” Christ he might be the secretary of a football club but he wouldn't last five minutes in the police force. “You haven't got any on it. Unless some has suddenly rooted and flowered while I've been in here with you finding out all about your non-existent ways of dealing with football hooligans and informing you what you're going to have to do about it.”

“
We don’t have any hooli....” George stopped himself. What was the point?

“
It'll cost you two thousand two hundred pounds,” Screwer went on. “If you go through me.” He explained. “As a regular and long time valued customer I can get you a good discount. All completely above board, this isn’t graft. You'll have to erect it though. To my specifications of course.”

At this point George decided he had no alternative than to pass the buck, the only option that seemed open to him under the circumstances, and one he wished he had thought of doing ten minutes earlier. “Look, I'm not at all sure about this,” he said. “I'll have to put your suggestions to Mr Price.”

Screwer scowled and said, “I'm talking to the oil rag then?”

“
Yes. But Mr Price did mention to me that he had plans to improve the stadium. Nothing specific yet, but....”

“
Ah. Then he'll no doubt appreciate my input on that score.”

From his brief acquaintance with Price George doubted very much that his new boss would welcome Screwer’s input. He was not about to reveal that to the police chief however, because the sooner he got rid of him the better he’d like it. He borrowed a phrase from Donny. “Well obviously.”

Screwer got to his feet. “Make me an appointment.”

Dave Rave had been a regular visitor to the Frogley Mental Hospital ever since one of the residents housed within its walls had written to him telling him how much Frogley Radio was enjoyed by all the patients, especially his Frogley Town match commentaries.

Dave was a young man who firmly believed that show biz celebrities should not only connect with their fans over the airwaves but also in the flesh whenever and wherever possible, and whilst some of his peers might not have been over keen on being seen on the wrong side of the chain link fence of a mental hospital Dave had no qualms about it whatsoever. These are the people who put me where I am, was the way Dave looked at it, and will help put me where I am going. True, he had been a bit nervous about it at first - especially as the patient who had written to him had signed the letter 'Rasputin' - but after a few visits he had come to realise that whereas none of the inmates was a full shilling, otherwise they wouldn't have been in there in the first place, it was by no means apparent in the behaviour of the majority of them; and even the ones who did act a little oddly from time to time were in no way dangerous. Greaves could be a bit of a trial at times, but he was more mischievous than malevolent, and Napoleon could be a bit of a problem when he was in one of his Empire-building moods, but apart from that they were fine.

Take Stevie Wonder for example. Who was to say that a man was off his rocker just because he chose to wear his hair in dreadlocks, sport a big hat and sunglasses and pretend he was blind? They certainly don't accuse the people who get dressed up as pop stars and appear on television in 'Stars In Your Eyes' of being mad, do they? All right, so the people who go on 'Stars In Your Eyes' don't dress up like their pop heroes all the time, nor do they drag out their white piano into the grounds whenever it's a nice day like Stevie Wonder had done today, but it was all a matter of degree, wasn't it. Where do you draw the line? When do you stop being eccentric and start being mad? Christ, in certain societies people would claim Elton John should be locked up in a rubber room just for going about his day to day business!

No, if you asked Dave, there were people in this world to be found on the outside of the perimeter fences of mental hospitals who were far bigger nutters than most of the people on the inside of them. (It had never crossed Dave's mind that as a man whose ultimate ambition in life was to be a Radio One DJ and present the Brit Awards that he himself might be regarded by the majority of people as someone who, for his own safety, ought to be locked up in a lunatic asylum.)

Today when the radio presenter arrived at the mental hospital it was a bright and sunny day, and because of this most of the patients were relaxing in the grounds. Quite a few of them were being entertained by Stevie Wonder, today wearing a rather fetching white leather hat, and who at the moment was treating them all to an especially spirited rendition of 'Sir Duke'. The performance had distracted Dave from his mission at the hospital that day, and, being something of an aficionado of the coloured American singer, once distracted he found it difficult to drag himself away.

The song finally came to an end, and when Stevie turned from his piano to take the generous applause of his audience Dave made to leave, but just as he did a squabble broke out when another of the inmates, pretending he was Paul McCartney, tried to get on the piano stool with Stevie for an impromptu rendition of 'Ebony and Ivory'. However this was quickly resolved when Stevie head butted Paul on the nose and told him to fuck off back to Liverpool. A little disappointed, for Dave was a big fan of Macca also (despite his having written to the rock superstar when he married Helen Mills and suggested to the ex-Beatle that he might write a song called ‘I Want To Hold Your Leg’ in her honour, and not receiving a reply), and would have welcomed a rendition of the duet, he got down to business.

He soon located Fred Oakes and gave him the football the Frogley Town team had kindly autographed for him a few days previously.

Oakes was effusive in his thanks. “I will treasure this, Dave. I will cherish it for the rest of my life. It was very, very good of you.”

“
My pleasure, Fred,” said Dave, magnanimously.

“
I owe you one, Dave.”

“
No you don't Fred, because there's something you can do to pay me back right now. See I'm doing a Dave Rave Show Pre-Season Football Special and I'd like to interview you, if that’s all right with you?”

Oakes had been looking fondly at the signatures on the football with the pleasure that ownership of something coveted brings. Now, however, he suddenly looked surprised. “How long has Zinedine Zidane been playing for the Town then?” he asked, puzzled. “Did he change his mind about retiring?”

It was Donny’s turn to be puzzled. “What?”

“
Zinedine Zidane.” Oakes pointed at a signature on the football. “There you are see, next to Carl Crock.”

Donny smiled. Those guys! Weren’t they just something else! Even so, amusing as it was, he would have to have a stern word with the Frogley players about it. All right, a joke's a joke, but these were fans we were talking about here. “Just a little joke, Fred,” he explained to Oakes. “One of the lads.”

“
A joke?” Oakes considered this for a moment. Then he smiled. “Yes, of course. I should have realised. I mean why would Zinedine Zidane come to Frogley Town when we already have a wealth of talent in midfield? Well you know that better than I do, Dave, I mean you yourself are always going on about our strength in the middle of the park.”

“
The Town have never been stronger in the engine room, if you want my opinion, Fred.”

“
I remember you saying those very words before Dave,” recalled Oakes. “In the build-up to the Harlingford game. When they beat us six-nil.”

“
Yes, Harlingford had a lot of luck that day,” said Donny, then, anxious to change the subject, “Shall we get on, Fred?”

“
Of course, Dave. Fire away.”

Dave switched on the microphone of his portable recorder and tested it. Satisfied it was working he started the interview. “It's the Day....ayve....Rave Show. With me is an inmate of the Frogley Mental Hospital, Mr Fred Oakes. Tell me Fred, as a maniac, what is your reaction to the news that meat pie magnate Joe Price has bought Frogley Town?”

Oakes thought for a moment. “Well obviously Dave, I'm just over the moon about it.”

Dave stopped the recorder. “Er....do you think you could say something else, Fred? Only the players said that, and if you say the same thing my listeners won't be able to tell the players from the maniacs.”

There was bad blood between Oakes and Greaves. There was bad blood between most of the inmates and Greaves. This was because the vast majority of the patients, although to some degree not quite right, were at heart decent, caring people; whereas Greaves was an out and out copper-bottomed shit. However the blood between Oakes and Greaves was especially bad, due to the latter's favourite dessert being rice pudding.

Oakes, not being a fan of desserts in general and rice pudding in particular, being more of a cheese and biscuits man, had until a short time ago, being aware of his fellow patient's love of rice pudding, been in the habit of giving his rice pudding to Greaves whenever it appeared on the hospital menu, which it did quite frequently as the chef had a penchant for rice pudding himself. However two weeks previously, Greaves, perhaps unfamiliar with the expression 'killing the goose that lays the golden egg', had proceeded to do just that and had brought an end to the situation vis a vis Oakes's rice pudding. For it was then that Greaves had started to spread a rumour that Oakes's imaginary dog had started leaving imaginary dog turds all over the hospital and the hospital grounds, and that he himself had personally had the misfortune to imagine he had stepped in three of them. Oakes, who was meticulous to the point of fastidiousness in the use of the pooper scoop when it came to the matter of his imaginary dog's imaginary turds, had, not unnaturally, taken offence. Retribution was immediate, and came in the form of Oakes cutting off Greaves's extra rice pudding supplies.

Since then Greaves had been looking for an opportunity to exact revenge. A short while ago, whilst he had been with the others watching Stevie Wonder perform, such an opportunity had presented itself when he happened to observe Oakes in the company of that bloody lunatic Dave Rave. So, while Oakes had been chatting to Dave, Greaves had detached himself from the Stevie Wonder gig and surreptitiously taken cover behind a nearby tree.

Now, as Dave put his mike to his lips to re-record his interview with Oakes, Greaves struck. With a blood-curdling yell that would have done justice to Geronimo he leapt out and plunged a knife into Oakes's football, in-between Zinedine and Zidane. It burst with a loud bang. Oakes looked down at the football, which in its newly-deflated state looked not unlike Stevie Wonder's white leather hat, and burst into tears. Greaves jabbed a finger at the football.

“
The Phantom Rice Pudding Avenger has struck again!”

And with that he was gone.

Donny's second attempt at picking up a girl in order that she should have the doubtful privilege of becoming his mistress had been more successful than his first effort. In fact it had been one hundred per cent more successful, a least as far as the picking up part of the procedure was concerned. Even after they’d gone back to her place and she had told him that on no account must he kiss her, then had held out her hand, he had still been quite happy at the way things were panning out, putting her request for no lip contact and the proffering of her hand down to the fact that she was Irish, and thus probably a Catholic and a bit shy. It was after he'd shaken her hand and she had asked him what the fuck he thought he was playing at that he began to have doubts.

Five minutes later he was back outside, his wallet lighter to the tune of fifty pounds. In an attempt to hang on to his hard-earned money he had offered the girl a Frogley Town season ticket as an alternative payment for the services he didn't require of her, but that she had insisted he pay for, but all this had got him was another demonstration of her extensive knowledge of Anglo-Saxon epithets. He was just glad that nobody had seen them together, that was all. Someone who might have recognised the two of them. Especially one of the team!

The very thought of such a disaster befalling him had made him go weak at the knees. He had put himself in the position of one of his players, players who knew he had a lovely wife Tracey Michelle. If the boss had to pay a prossie for sex what was that all about? Had the missus stopped his tap? Well obviously. And if he couldn't manage his wife what chance did he have of managing a football team? Hobson's chance, that's what. No, he had counted himself a very lucky man indeed to have got away with such a narrow escape.