by Dan Tunstall
I look up. Dave’s smirking. He shakes a box of Swan Vestas in the air. It’s his latest prank. He pushes the box open, lights another match and lobs it across at Ryan. Before the match has even had a chance to land, he’s lit a third one and chucked it at Raks.
“Come on you miserable fuckers,” he says. “You’ve got faces like a row of fuckin’ smacked arses.”
Everyone laughs. Just for once, Dave’s need to entertain has been put to some use.
I reach into my jeans pocket and get out a twenty-pound note.
“I’ll get the next round in,” I say. “It’s my birthday today, so I’m a bit more flush than usual.”
Dave holds his hands up.
“Don’t be fuckin’ soft. If it’s your birthday, the fuckin’ drinks are on us.”
Chris stands up. He looks at Dave.
“Pints and chasers, yeah?”
Dave nods.
Chris makes two trips to the bar this time. He’s back with five Carlings first, then he follows it up with five tumblers of neat whisky. As he sits down, he raises his pint glass.
“Happy birthday to Tom, then, yeah?”
We all pick up our pints and take a mouthful.
“Happy birthday Tom,” everyone says.
I’m touched.
“Cheers.”
Chris smiles. He puts his pint down and picks up his whisky, shoving the other tumblers across the table towards the rest of us.
“Come on then, Tom,” he says. “Lets see what you’re made of, yeah?” He downs his whisky in one, and sits grinning at me.
I’ve been feeling quite nice and mellow, but now I’m on edge. This is a challenge. I pick the tumbler up and raise it to my mouth. The smell of the whisky makes my eyes water. I take a breath, then knock it back in one gulp. I swallow, then put the glass back on the table as the whisky burns down my throat.
Dave and Chris start to clap.
“Fuckin’ hell,” Dave says. “The lad’s a fuckin’ natural.”
I laugh. I can feel the whisky going to work inside me.
“You could say it’s in my genes,” I say.
Dave puts his whisky away in one, then laughs at Raks and Ryan as they struggle to keep up, coughing and spluttering, eventually draining their glasses. He shakes his head slowly.
“You two are fuckin’ piss-poor,” he says. He lifts my arm by the wrist. “Tom’s the champion.”
I grin. I know he’s only arsing around, but it still feels good. I check my watch. It’s nearly ten to seven. Fifty-five minutes to kick-off. A nice little burst of adrenalin courses through me. I take a swig of my third pint and look around. Over at the bar, something dodgy is going on. A couple of lads in McKenzie sweatshirts are counting out a wad of notes, passing the money across to the barman. He ducks under the counter for a second or two then reappears with the black plastic bag we saw earlier. It’s handshakes all round, then the lads are off, the one in front carrying the bin bag.
Chris has another swig of Carling. He looks at Raks, Ryan and me.
“Whitbourne tonight then,” he says. “They’re usually up for a bit of aggro. You boys ready, yeah?”
Raks nods.
“Too right.” He’s pissed and he’s brimming with confidence. “We fucked up the Castleton mob, we bricked the Ashborough buses. I shouldn’t have thought we’ll have too much trouble tonight. We’re on a roll. Someone will write a book on the NLLF one day.”
Dave smiles.
“Funny you should fuckin’ mention that,” he says. “A bloke was going to write about us once.”
“Oh yeah?” I say. It sounds like a piss-take, but from the look on his face, I can see that he’s not joking.
Chris joins in.
“Yeah,” he says. “That’s right. It was back in 1990. The start of the season after the World Cup in Italy. Football was dead popular – Gazza and all that shit, yeah? – but there was quite a bit of aggro going off on the terraces. It was all over the newspapers.”
Dave nods. He adjusts his identity bracelet and takes up the story.
“This fuckin’ journalist latched himself onto us. Jeremy something, his name was. Wanted us to call him Jez. Fuckin’ bright lad. Public school, just out of Oxford. You know the sort. Some geezer had told him we were the top brass in the LLF. He wanted to follow us around for a season, see how it really was for lads like us, then write a book about it.”
Ryan looks up from his phone and scowls.
“A posh kid slumming it, then.”
Dave carries on.
“He told us he was going to produce a fuckin’ serious anthropological study. Whatever that means. We just said fuckin’ yeah, okay. Whatever. Thought there might be a few quid in it.”
Chris starts laughing. He lights a fag.
“He didn’t last long though, old Jez, yeah? He tried a bit too hard to be one of the boys.”
Dave’s laughing his Muttley laugh again, shoulders jogging up and down.
“First game of the season he got a right fuckin’ kicking from some Mitcham fans. The next weekend he got arrested for being drunk and disorderly when we went to Peterborough. The week after that, someone pinched all his fuckin’ stuff. Tape recorders, microphones, electrical bits and pieces. The works.”
Chris taps his fag into the ashtray. He frowns, looking thoughtful.
“To this day, I can’t imagine who’d have pinched his gear, yeah? Can you think who it might have been, Dave?”
Dave’s laughing so hard now, he can hardly speak.
“Fuck knows,” he splutters.
Chris grins.
“Well anyway,” he says, “Jez pissed off after that. He’d rented himself a shitty flat down in Blue Gate Fields, but when we went over to see him, he weren’t there, yeah? He’d cleared all his clobber out and gone back home to Mummy. Never did get round to producing his serious anthropological study.”
I smile, nodding my head.
“I bet you wish he’d gone ahead with the book now though, don’t you?” I say. “You could be one of these celebrity hooligans. On the telly talking about cracking heads back in the day.”
Chris laughs.
“I’ll survive.”
I stand up and nip to the toilets for a piss. As I’m coming back, I have another look round the pub. The place is packed with Letchford fans now. It’s mainly the replica shirt and woolly hat-wearers, but there’s also a fair number of our sort of people, the short hair and sports gear mob. There’s no sign of Gary, Rob and Jerome, or Jimmy and Scotty, but there are plenty of lads I recognise. It’s pretty cramped in the back bar, but people seem to be happy enough, standing together in groups, drinking and laughing. The atmosphere’s quite relaxed.
I sit back down and take a swig of my pint. I’m just about to say something to Ryan when I notice him straighten up in his chair. He looks past me and narrows his eyes.
“What’s up?” Raks says.
Ryan’s got a stern expression on his face.
He nods towards the other side of the pub.
“Whitbourne lads,” he says.
I look across. A bunch of four blokes, in their late twenties or early thirties has just come in. They’re standing halfway between the door and the bar. They’re all quite thick-set. Short hair and zip-up jackets. There’s no visible clue that they’re Whitbourne lads, no green and white scarves or replica shirts, but if Ryan thinks they are, I’m not going to contradict him. It’s like Gary Simmons said. Ryan’s got a nose for trouble. As I carry on watching, four more men come through the door. There’s quite a posse growing.
Dave and Chris are instantly on the alert. They’ve noticed what’s going on and they’re sitting upright, casting glances across the bar.
Raks lifts his pint glass and watches the bubbles rising to the surface.
“They can’t be Whitbourne lads,” he says. “It’s only five past seven. The away coaches don’t usually come until fifteen or twenty minutes before kick-off. Half an hour at most. It’s too early.”<
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Chris adjusts a couple of his sovereign rings. He shakes his head.
“Raks, lad,” he says. “Let’s be honest, yeah? You might get the odd one or two, but the proper lads don’t come on the bus. That’s the bobble hat brigade. The proper lads come under their own steam.”
Raks still looks confused.
“But when we ran the Castleton lot, they headed straight for the buses.”
Ryan rolls his eyes.
“They were just trying to get out of the way,” he says. “They’d have got into an ice-cream van if there was one standing there.”
I have another swig of beer, fiddling with my T pendant. I look back across towards the door. There’s a gang of about ten there now. Some of them have been served at the bar, and they’re standing around holding pint glasses and bottles. They’re all flicking their eyes around, sussing the place out. Any remaining doubts I might have had that they were Whitbourne lads are disappearing. They couldn’t look any shiftier if they tried.
The atmosphere in the pub is changing. The jukebox has been playing quietly in the background for all the time we’ve been here, but now it’s run out of credits. As the music fades away, a sort of ominous silence comes down. The only sound is the wind howling outside, whistling through the hole in the wall and making the awning rattle. All eyes in the room are turning towards the group by the door.
Dave and Chris are grinning from ear to ear. It’s like all their Christmases have just come at once. They’re not allowed to cause trouble at football matches any more. But now the trouble looks like it’s come to them. As I watch their grins get wider and wider, I feel my own face breaking into a smile. My heart thuds against my ribs. I’m starting to feel dry-mouthed and out of breath, tingling with nervous energy. Dave and Chris aren’t the only ones who live for moments like this.
The silence is stretching on and on. I’m just about to reach out for my pint again when there’s a whistling followed by a sound like an explosion. Instinctively I duck down, hands over my head. The next thing I know, I’m covered in beer and fragments of glass. I peer up at the wall behind us. Beer is cascading down the Stripers poster. A piece of green glass is sticking out of the propeller of the Spitfire. Another bottle comes hurtling through the smoky haze towards our table. It ricochets off the wall and ceiling and hits a bloke standing just over to our right.
Suddenly there’s blood everywhere. The bloke who’s been hit by the bottle crashes to the ground and all around him people start diving for cover, crushing into the corner near the fruit machine and the toilets, shouting and screaming. In the blink of an eye, a big space has opened up in the middle of the floor. The Whitbourne crew are up at the far end, jeering, trying to yank the chained-up stools away from the bar, beckoning, inviting us to come and have a go.
We don’t need to be asked twice. Dave and Chris are the first onto their feet, hurdling the table and charging across the room. Ryan and me are right behind them and a load of other Letchford lads are bringing up the rear.
Immediately I’ve sobered up and I’m at absolutely 100% of my full capacity. My brain is operating at warp speed. In the couple of seconds it takes to get to the other side of the bar, I’ve sized everything up, calculated all the possible angles of attack, selected a target, assessed the danger. You name it, I’ve done it. As I pile in, I’m as prepared for combat as I possibly could be. It’s becoming second nature now.
Like the skirmish with the Castleton fans, the whole thing is over in a few seconds. As soon as they realise we’re up for it, the Whitbourne boys don’t want to know any more and they make a bolt for the door. I manage to land a couple of punches on my target, a fat bloke in a denim jacket, and I get a kick in at another lad as he jumps out of the way of a righthander from Chris, but that’s about it. Nobody manages to lay a finger on me. In a funny sort of way I’m slightly disappointed.
We chase the Whitbourne mob out across the car park and into the street but they’re running like rabbits, skittering through the traffic on the main road and heading down into the Industrial Estate. There’s no point going after them.
I nod at Ryan. He smiles.
“Advantage Letchford,” he says.
I look towards the Industrial Estate again. The Whitbourne lads have vanished. In the distance, the lights of Southlands are filling the sky with a white glow. My pulse rate is coming down. I feel an odd mixture of satisfaction and frustration. We’ve scored a victory, but it wasn’t enough. I’m like a junkie who’s been given just a little taste of gear. I want more. I need it. I touch my T pendant, puff out a breath and follow Ryan, Dave and Chris back into the pub.
Inside, the clear-up operation has started. Nobody really seems bothered that there’s just been a near-riot. Everything’s calm again. The bloke who got bottled is sitting at the bar with a Fosters towel clamped to his head. I think of the cover of Terrace Warfare. By the looks of him, he’s OK. He’s probably going to need a few stitches though. Most of the broken glass has been swept away and the splashes of blood have been wiped off the furniture.
We head back to our table and sit down. Raks is still there, looking dazed, picking bits of glass out of his hair.
“Sorry lads,” he says. “It all happened a bit too fast.”
Chris laughs.
“Don’t worry about it,” he says. “I think you need to cut down on your booze intake though, yeah? It’s interfering with your hooliganism.”
Dave leans back in his chair. The grin on his face shows no signs of going.
“That was fuckin’ great,” he says. “Just like the good old days. Away fans trying to take over our boozer, getting sent off with their tails between their fuckin’ legs.”
I look down at my trainers. There’s a scuff on the left one, but it’s just superficial. I lick my finger and it wipes straight off. The first two knuckles of my right hand are red, and there’s a little indentation on one of them. It could be a tooth mark. I smile. Scars of battle.
“Do you think that’s it from the Whitbourne lads?” I ask.
Ryan shakes his head.
“No,” he says. “That was just a minor squabble. A run-in with the scouting party.” He finishes his pint and puts the glass down. “After the match. That’s when the real battle begins.”
fourteen
The first thing I notice, arriving at Southlands, is that there are a lot of Police around tonight. As we come round the corner of the Family Stand and head along towards the North Stand turnstiles, there’s one everywhere I look. They all seem twitchy and on-edge, as if they’re expecting some bother. Word has probably reached them that there was a bit of trouble at The Shakespeare. They’re taking people at random out of the queues, patting them down for concealed weapons. They don’t seem to be interested in us.
As I go through Gate 20, I notice Comb-Round Man’s having a night off. In his place there’s a fat bloke with stubby little fingers. He’s red-faced and sweaty and his breath’s wheezing in and out like he’s got a punctured lung. I hand over a twenty-pound note and get twelve quid change, then I meet back up with Ryan and Raks inside Gate 19.
We don’t bother hanging around in the concourse. Kick-off’s in less than five minutes. We head straight across and up the steps to the top of the terracing. Ready To Go by Republica is on the PA. Perhaps it’s just the alcohol making me sentimental, but there’s something magical about the way the stadium looks this evening. Everything seems to be gleaming. The grass seems greener, the pitch markings seem whiter, the floodlights seem brighter. There’s a good crowd in tonight. At least 7,000, I’d say. Looking over to the right I see that Whitbourne have brought a pretty decent travelling support, too. At least as many as Castleton. Maybe more. The fans are evenly spread out across the concrete slope. St George flags with Whitbourne and Seasiders painted onto them are attached to the Perspex panels at the back of the stand and are hung over crush barriers near the front.
“Evening boys,” a voice says.
I turn to my left
and see Gary Simmons. Another one of his sudden appearances. He’s with Rob and Jerome, as usual.
“Gary,” I say. “Fancy seeing you here.”
Gary laughs. He points over to the Whitbourne fans. One or two are already rattling the fencing separating them from our lot. Doing their best to stir up trouble.
“They look lively,” he says.
I smile and nod.
Gary carries on.
“I’ve heard there’s already been a bit of a barney tonight. Down The Shakespeare. Some Whitbourne lads tried to smash the place up and got a good hiding for it.”
I smirk, scratching my nose.
Gary does a double-take.
“Fuck me. It was you lot wasn’t it?”
Ryan pats him on the shoulder.
“Gary,” he says. “I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”
We leave Gary and the lads laughing and set off down towards our crush barrier. As we get there, all the usual punters are standing around, present and correct. Pessimistic Granddad hasn’t started moaning yet, but it won’t be long. Twitchy Bloke is chewing his fingernails. Big Fleece Woman has got her phone in one hand and a cup of hot chocolate in the other.
I peer through the mesh into the Whitbourne section. A couple of stewards are trying to persuade the fence rattlers to pack it in, but they’re not having much success. I start scanning faces, trying to pick out the lads who were at The Shakespeare. I can’t see them, but it doesn’t really matter. There’s something in the eyes of all the Whitbourne fans. They know some of their boys got a kicking earlier on. They want to even the score. One lad has seen me looking, and now he’s trying to stare me out. I wink at him and blow a kiss, mouthing wanker at him as he does his best to look threatening.
On the PA, Ready To Go fades out as The Boys Are Back In Town fades in and the teams run out. There’s no confetti tonight, but in the Family Stand there’s an outbreak of black and orange balloons. The wind’s getting stronger, and it doesn’t take long for the balloons to start blowing around on the pitch, swirling in circles with bits of paper and crisp packets.