The government paid my rent and gave me £24.70 a week to live on, but this was no good to a man of my thirst, so I did lots of shit cash-in-hand jobs on the side. Obviously, it was my intention to declare these earnings, but alcohol has a terrible effect on the memory. When I wasn’t at the Triangle, I spent my time on Birmingham’s Hagley Road, either at the Duck Inn, or about fifty yards away at the Garden House pub. Life was simple. I never made any social arrangements. I knew that in any of these three places there would always be people I knew, and lots of drink to be drunk.
I had been going out with the same girl, Sally, since the first year of the English course. She was my first-ever posh girlfriend, short, dark and curvy. I liked her accent. It made her sound cultured and proper, which, in some ways, I suppose she was. Our relationship worked in a very similar way to that of Lady and the Tramp. As a boyfriend, I wasn’t a very easy gig. Once, after a particularly heavy night, I pissed the bed with her in it. I woke up the next morning and tried my stock excuse, ‘Phew! I was really sweating last night’, but her sniffing and suspicious looks told me that it wasn’t going to work. ‘I don’t think this is sweat,’ she said.
‘I know,’ I said. Then, trying my best to look pained and hesitant, ‘I think you’ve pissed the bed.’
Ten years later, during which time I’d incorporated this story into my stand-up act, she turned up at my dressing room after a gig at Leicester’s De Montfort Hall and had a go at me for what I’d done. She’d had a slight doubt in her mind ever since that damp awakening, but my re-telling of the story on stage that night had finally put things straight. Of course, if I’d known she was in the audience, I would still have blamed her.
Sally also had to cope with a particularly weird period of my life when, at the age of twenty-eight, I became slightly obsessed with South African runner Zola Budd. I used to cut pictures of her out of the papers and even started going to athletics meetings where she was running. I eventually wrote her a steamy letter explaining my devotion, and she sent me back a signed photo that said ‘Thank you for your interest, Zola Budd’. What a flirt! Looking back, I can’t work out what I saw in her. Maybe it was the bare feet. This was at a time when – certainly at the Triangle – it was frowned upon to eat South African apples, so wanking off to one of their athletes was definitely a political no-no. Perhaps that was it. She, like the apples, fell into that most alluring of categories, forbidden fruit.
Meanwhile, bed-pissing, sherry for breakfast, dancing and singing ‘The March of the Siamese Children’ with my pants round my ankles in front of Kenny Ball and his Jazzmen, after they had dropped in at the Duck one Sunday lunchtime, all seemed like normal behaviour to me, but the hangovers were getting worse and lasting longer. I had made that most dangerous of all discoveries for the drinker, ‘the hair of the dog that bit you’. This is when you drink to get rid of your hangovers. I would keep a large bottle of sherry on my bedside table for this express purpose, having several man-size swigs, most mornings, even before I got out of bed. When I say large bottle, I used to buy what they called ‘loose sherry’, which was served from a plastic barrel at the local grocers, so you had to take along your own bottle. I would usually take a two-litre one that had originally contained Pineappleade. It stopped me getting edgy about the prospect of running out. I have got there at nine in the morning when there has been three or four people queuing with their bottles, waiting for the shop to open. I remember saying that they should open a special twenty-four-hour off-licence for alkies, that just sold Special Brew, Thunderbird, loose sherry and cider. It could be called ‘Desperate Measures’. Of course, whether I actually was or, indeed, am an alkie, I don’t know, but I think it’s fair to say that I had what you might call a ‘drink problem’.
On my second day in Seoul, I went off to see the Korean Mr Keepy-Uppy. Keepy-Uppy, as you may know, is the art of keeping a football off the ground for as long as possible by bouncing it from foot to foot, up on to the thighs, the head, catching it in the nape of the neck and so on. Robbie Williams, the rich, good-looking, very talented singer, is good at it. That’s fair, isn’t it? Needless to say, I’m shit at it, but happily, I was to be just a spectator on this occasion. The Korean Mr Keepy-Uppy, Hur Nam Jin, was giving an exhibition of his skills at a trade fair in downtown Seoul.
There is something heroic about the story of Hur Nam Jin. He was a promising footballer, expected to turn pro, when a terrible injury halted his career. Several of his amateur team-mates progressed into the professional game, and it was surely his cue to become a disenchanted, hobbling misanthrope, wincing at the mere sight of the sports pages and ending up swinging from a light-fitting, with a bottle of scotch and a melodramatic note left on a nearby table. But no, instead of drink, Hur turned to Keepy-Uppy. It was less of a strain on his injury than playing in a proper game, and he started to practise day and night, like Bruce Wayne weightlifting and studying chemistry as he trained himself to become Batman. Now Hur holds the world record for Keepy-Uppy. He Keepy-Upped (I believe that is the verb) for eighteen hours and twelve minutes, including, he pointed out through an interpreter, eight hours of heading. I was very determined, when I arrived in Korea, not to start doing a lot of gags about people’s odd-sounding (to me) names or asking if they had a TV medical drama called E.L., but when the interpreter introduced me to Mr Keepy-Uppy and said ‘This is Hur’, it took a gargantuan effort for me to not say ‘Who’s Hur, the cat’s mother?’
Mind you, jokes about domestic pets are also a bit of a no-no in Korea. The Koreans are slightly touchy about references to their tradition of eating dogs. Brian told me, during our traditional meal, that he was pissed off that someone had suggested that a country that ate dogs was not a suitable venue for the World Cup. He pointed out that no one had moaned about the French eating horses when the 1998 World Cup was being discussed. Considering that as a result of sitting on the floor for an hour and a half, I had become completely paralysed from the waist down, I didn’t give a fuck either way, but I don’t really see the difference between eating dogs and eating cattle. In fact, when you consider that you never see a picture of a little kid in the paper who had to have fifty-six stitches in his face because he was attacked by his neighbour’s cow, you can’t help but think that dogs, as a breed, deserve to be scoffed more than cows, pigs or sheep do.
Either way, Korea is not a country where ‘Man Bites Dog’ is news. Bernie told me that the Korean footballers eat dog before a game to improve their stamina. I’m surprised that the team-name ‘Rovers’ isn’t more common.
Anyway, I took my seat in front of the small stage in the corner of the trade fair hall, and waited for Hur’s exhibition. After an exciting film-montage of great moments from previous World Cups, two very sexy Korean girls in matching outfits walked on stage. I suppose if you’re known as Mr Keepy-Uppy, girls will inevitably come flocking.
Then, after their introduction, out came Hur in his footie kit, and the tap-tap-tap of ball against boot began. Soon it was ball against thigh, shoulder, knee and anything else that wouldn’t constitute hand-ball. This man didn’t DO keepy-uppy, he WAS keepy-uppy. He rolled on his back, did hand-stands, and circled the ball with his foot while it was in mid-air, like a kid drawing circles with a sparkler. He had redefined keepy-uppy into an art-form. I could feel tears in my eyes.
Then suddenly, he stopped, and the large crowd of business-types who had gathered round screamed and applauded like crazy folk. I was as loud as anyone. I was elated and emotional. I loved Mr Keepy-Uppy. And then he stepped forward and offered me the ball. I felt like someone had hit me hard across the shoulders with a cricket bat.
Somehow, the ball was in my hands. I walked towards the small stage. Here I was, the unofficial representative of the home of football. The crowd fell silent. You could have heard a Hur Nam Jin drop (Korean rhyming-slang). I stood on stage, holding the ball and facing maybe two hundred ladies and gentlemen of the Korean business fraternity. Still silence. I could feel my palms, my thum
bs, my fingers clammy against the plastic covering on the thirty-two little leather panels. So much of my life, personal and professional, had centred around football and now, once again, I had to confront the fact that our relationship was purely platonic.
The crowd were starting to look puzzled. Mr Keepy-Uppy himself gestured subtly for me to begin. I took one last look down at that hand-stitched, inflated symbol of my physical inadequacy. (I’m talking about the football.) On one of the panels, it said ‘Made in Vietnam’. It was a name that, throughout my childhood, had been associated with anguish and shame. I took a breath and lobbed the ball into the air.
Whenever I kick a football, I always think that something will have happened to me since the last time I kicked one that will suddenly have made me a much better player. This is probably because I fantasise about being a great footballer so much. Whenever I’m on the toilet, I imagine that I’m Chris Collins who started playing for West Brom when he was sixteen, stayed there for ten years of glory, and then moved to Barcelona FC for another ten-year stint and another mountain of silverware. I then moved back to Albion for six years and at the age of forty-two returned to Barca to see out the twilight of my career. I have a clause in my contract that prevents me from being picked for either side if they meet each other in European competition because I love them both so much. Currently, in order to sustain my career for as long as possible, Barca use me as a sort of pinch-hitter, only playing me when absolutely necessary, and taking me off after I’ve banged in a quick hattrick. There was a mid-season scare when I was crippled by a vicious tackle from a Real Madrid defender, since forced into exile by threats from Barca fans who regard me as their adopted son. However, I made a miracle recovery and clinched the Spanish title by coming on in the second half and scoring three goals against Real at the Nou Camp.
Meanwhile, I arrived on the scene too late for England to qualify for the ’74 World Cup but, since then, I have acquired six World Cup winner’s medals. My domestic honours are too numerous to list. I have no qualms about playing against Spain because I consider myself an adopted Catalonian. I speak the language fluently, and am generally regarded as the greatest player of all time, but am sometimes condemned for my arrogance and womanising. When I leave the toilet, I’m me again. And no, tragically, I’m not joking.
You know, the last time I kicked a football in the real world, I scored that penalty at Villa Park. Maybe it was a turning point. If I believe like I believed then, I know that anything is possible. If I just believe.
I kicked the ball twice with my right foot and it spun off into the crowd. They returned the ball and I tried again. Sort of three times this time, but the last one came off the outside of my knee. The crowd looked shocked and confused. One of the pretty girls said something into her offstage microphone. Mr Keepy-Uppy looked slightly wary, like he was afraid of catching whatever it was that I’d got. Everyone’s face seemed to say ‘We were having a really lovely time and now the white guy has spoiled it.’ Then I noticed Bernie, sitting amongst them. She seemed much less business-like than usual. In fact, I would go so far as to say she was pissing herself laughing.
Then a Korean volunteer stepped up. He looked about nineteen and was wearing wholly inappropriate shoes, sort of zip-up platform boots. He tossed up the ball and kept it in the air for about thirty touches. The crowd cheered. The world was a lovely place again. But not for me. Mr Keepy-Uppy’s manner had now gone from horror to pity and he was trying to engage me in a game of head-tennis. I headed three high over his head and one down at his feet before he gave up. He had started to look scared again, like I was a virus that might get into his keepy-uppy computer. He suddenly gestured towards me, the way a pretty girl in a sparkly leotard might gesture towards a conjurer who had just performed a breathtaking illusion. The crowd instinctively applauded. I decided on an ironic bow. This being Korea, of course, they all bowed back.
As I looked for a place to hide, the interpreter came across and explained that the pretty girl’s comment into the microphone was ‘The handsome foreign gentleman is having quite a difficult time up here.’ This made me feel slightly better. Handsome but shit. It was like being in a boy band.
As I left, a PR man from the sponsors presented me with a football. He did so with the kind of facial expression one might adopt when presenting Peter Stringfellow with the Complete Works of Shakespeare. I just wanted to die.
As I neared thirty, strange things began happening to me. There was something about the big Three-O that made me start to wonder about what I was doing with my life. It seemed to be happening to a lot of my mates as well, as we all headed for this grim milestone together. They started wearing trendier clothes, dumping their girlfriends, changing their jobs and, of course, doing sit-ups. I think we could all hear the shovel hitting the soil.
I finished with Sally. She was living in London by then, which suited me because absentee girlfriends don’t get in the way of a man’s drinking habits the way ever-present ones do, but I felt I had to move on. I got the train from New Street to Euston, and the tube to her flat. I walked in, told her, and walked out. I got on a tube and caught the next train home. I was in London for less than an hour. It’s a lousy way to end a six-and-a-half-year relationship. But, what’s the nice way?
Over the last few years, my reading habits, Samuel Johnson, Auden, Tennyson, Shakespeare and Gerard Manley Hopkins, had started to move in other directions. I was reading stuff by and about Lenny Bruce, the dead American comic. I didn’t get all the references, and it wasn’t as funny as the Two Ronnies, but something about it really touched me. I liked his honesty, his use of language, and his sexual frankness. It made me think that a stand-up comic could do more than tell jokes about an Irishman going into a pub, he could talk about himself. I was half-way through Bruce’s How to Talk Dirty and Influence People when I was in the Duck one night, and a bunch of us were hovering round a couple of girls we hadn’t seen before. One of them said, ‘Wow! You’re all very chatty aren’t you?’
I said, ‘Yes. But chatty is what men become when they sense the possibility of a quick shag.’ The girls got pissed off and left, and then my mates got pissed off as well. But I felt exhilarated. It was so true. Of course, I knew it would blow my chances with the girls but I think I liked saying it more than I would have liked the quick shag. To me, it seemed like Lenny Bruce would have approved. I’d said funnier things in my time, but this was something else. I liked cutting through the bullshit. I think maybe I’d stood on another butterfly.
During the same period, my reading was also becoming very Roman Catholic. An interesting combination, Jesus and Lenny Bruce, but they both seemed to do it for me. Clearly, something draws me towards Jewish men who have a way with words. (Even ones that support Chelsea.) The fact was, on the religious front, I was getting a mega-urge to rejoin the Catholic Church. I dreamt of incense and ‘Soul of My Saviour’. Actually, speaking of dreams, I had a dream during this period that was as vivid a dream as I’ve ever had. In fact, it still seems sunlit and crystal-dear as I think of it now. I was clambering up a steep mound of soil. I could smell its soiliness. The surface fell away from under my hands and feet as I struggled upwards. Standing on top of the mound, as if on a cliff’s edge, was a tall, slim male figure that I knew was God. He wore a black suit, a black stove-pipe hat, and a white shirt. He looked like Abraham Lincoln, black beard but no moustache. As I clambered nearer, he leant forward and said, ‘I’m already here.’ I noticed he had very bad teeth. That’s it. One for the dream-analysts, I guess. I can see the struggle for religious certainty. I can see Lincoln, ‘Honest Abe’, as a symbol of truth, but I don’t get the bad teeth. Maybe a suggestion that even God has imperfections? As for his words, oh, I don’t know, I’ve never really worked it out, but I suppose it means something like stop splashing about and just float for a while. Or, alternatively, you don’t need organised religion – the man looks like a, Bible-belt preacher with that outfit and facial hair, but his teeth suggest corr
uption. You don’t need churches to find God because he’s already here. But then why does the corrupt preacher get that line? Oh, I just don’t know. I once dreamt I was having sex with the tennis star Virginia Wade, and she turned into a blue-perspex pyramid. Answers on a postcard.
Anyway, I started reading lots of books about Catholicism. I’d made quite a fuss about leaving the Church and it had caused big family disruptions. I’d feel a bit of a prat being seen to return after all that, so I tried to talk myself out of it. I read any anti-Catholic book I could get and chucked in a few pro-ones just for a bit of texture. I felt sure the urge to return was just a result of indoctrination at an early age, and insecurity and weirdness as I approached thirty. But the urge wouldn’t go away. I started going to Mass, but just sitting at the back and not taking Communion. Communion was for the proper Catholics. I was just an observer.
I read a book by the theologian Hans Kung, who had pissed off the Church with his unorthodox views. In this book, Kung said that he felt the Catholic Church was on the right road to truth but it went down the odd unhelpful cul-de-sac on the way. This was similar to the conclusion I had arrived at myself. I felt it was a good enough reason to go back, so I went and saw my local priest, Father Stibbles. I chatted to him about the last twelve years of my life since I had left the Church, my doubts, my opinions and so on. Towards the end of the conversation, he started to mutter and began making the sign of the cross. It slowly dawned on me that, for the first time in twelve years, I’d been to Confession. The next day I went to Mass. Being midweek there were about fifteen people there, and I took Communion. I was back. It was the 5th of June, the Feast Day of St. Boniface, the patron saint of brewers.
Frank Skinner Autobiography Page 25