Football Crazy (13 page)

Everyone had tried sugar butties, and to a man had experienced great difficulty eating them, principally because as soon as they lifted them to their mouths to take a bite all the sugar fell out from between the slices of bread. Hanks, elected as spokesman, had pointed this out to Price, who in turn had asked Hanks how much butter they were spreading on the bread first. Hanks had told him they weren't spreading any butter at all on the bread, they were just putting the sugar directly onto the bread. Price had asked him how the bloody hell did they expect the sugar to stick to the bread if the bread hadn't first had a generous dollop of best butter spread on it. Once the correct way of assembling a sugar butty had been determined there were no further problems, and sugar butties were now being enjoyed by all.

Haslet, which the people at Perry's Pork Butchers (Frogley) Est. 1928 had informed the players was a loaf of cooked minced pig's offal, had been sampled, as had brawn, which the intellectual of the team, Crooks, whose sister had a dictionary, had discovered was the jellied meat from a pig's head. Both Haslet and brawn had been well received. Jacks was particularly enthusiastic about brawn, and had pronounced, probably because its main ingredient was brains, that it had definitely made him brainier as the day after he'd eaten it he’d got to a thousand pounds on 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire', whereas previously he’d never been beyond five hundred.

Dripping toast had been tried by one and all. Some had tried toast dripping with honey, some had tried it dripping with syrup, some had tried it dripping with condensed milk, some had tried it dripping with butter, and some, which had he been aware of it would have undoubtedly have received the whole-hearted approval of Joe Price, had tried it dripping with chips. None however had tried dripping toast dripping with dripping, simply because none of them had ever heard of dripping. Until on a visit to his native Salford to visit his sick grandmother Hooks had said he fancied a piece of dripping toast and had proceeded to spoon condensed milk on the toast. His grandmother had put him right as to what exactly dripping toast was, and now all the players had tried dripping toast with dripping on, and very nice it was too with plenty of salt and pepper.

Despite his being a son of Lancashire Moggs had never tried black puddings, his mother being more into the delights of take-away chicken tikka marsala and piece-a-pizza. But now that he had tried them, and although there hadn't yet been any evidence that the consumption of this northern delicacy had put any distance on his goal kicks, he had pronounced them to be one of the nicest things he had ever 'chucked down his gullet', his only criticism of them being that he could only have one on his plate at a time, as if he had two it reminded him of Ashley Cole's bollocks and took away his appetite.

Dave Rave was about to interview Superintendent Screwer for his Dave Rave Show Pre-Season Football Special. In addition to the Frogley Town players Briggs and Moggs, and the mental hospital patient Oakes, Dave had interviewed a total of twenty residents of Frogley, from various walks of life. Screwer would be his final interview, and then he could begin to put the show together.

He had asked each of the interviewees, with the exception of Joe Price, the same question: “What is your reaction to the news that meat pie magnate Joe Price had bought Frogley Town?” He had also started to ask Joe Price what was his reaction to the news that meat pie magnate Joe Price had bought Frogley Town when he realised that this sounded stupid, so instead, and with the forthcoming Dave Rave Show Pop Princess Special in mind, he had asked him whom he preferred, Kylie, Britney or Beyonce? Amazingly, well amazing to Dave Rave, Price had never heard of any of them.

Demonstrating once more the poverty of language skills common amongst some football people and lovers of football, four of the interviewees, including Donny Donnelly, when asked what was their reaction to the news that meat pie magnate Joe Price had bought Frogley Town had replied that they were over the moon about it. When Dave had asked them to think of some other suitable comment one of them, after a great deal of thought, had said that he was the opposite of under the moon about it, and another, an amateur astronomer, had said he was higher than the pockmarked and crater strewn lunar surface of a satellite three thousand four hundred and seventy-five kilometres in diameter and three hundred and eighty-four thousand kilometres distant from Earth, that rotates in the same time as it revolves around the Earth. Dave hadn't a clue what the man had meant but it had sounded really impressive, so he had left it in.

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.

“
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 Price.”

“
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.”