Football Crazy

by Terry Ravenscroft

  In an effort to keep their seats on the board along with the excellent seats in the directors box that went along with them, Fielding, Heyworth and Liversedge had proposed to Price that it would be advantageous to the club if he were to keep them on as non-shareholding directors, 'seeing as how they were all skilled businessmen.' However Price had informed them, after going over the club's books, that it was abundantly clear to him the only business in which the three of them were skilled was monkey business, that their further participation in the affairs of the club would only be advantageous if the club wanted to go up shit creek without a paddle farther than it was up it already, and to clear off out of it and bloody quick about it before he brought the law in.

  *

  To Donny Donnelly it meant several things. He had heard of Joe Price of course, who in Frogley hadn't, and knew him to be a very rich and powerful man. Donny knew as well as anyone that you didn't ride around in a Roller if you were on the breadline. He also knew that rich and powerful businessmen of Price's ilk bought football clubs as toys for themselves, much as they would buy a teddy bear or a doll for their children, and whilst they didn't bring much in the way of football knowledge to a club when they acquired it what they did bring was even more important; money. As far as Donny was concerned what the arrival of this rare commodity at Frogley Town meant would be new players; a full-time physiotherapist instead of the ten hours a week but I'll have to fit you in when I can physio that was all the club had been able to afford in the past; a proper office where he could hold proper press conferences instead of a portakabin which, judging by the smell of it in warm weather, had been used as a urinal in its previous incarnation; better training facilities, more ground staff, and lots of other things too; but more than anything what it meant to Donny was that he would be able to have a number two.

  Nobody in football was more aware than Big Donny Donnelly that all managers have a number two, and the fact that he hadn't got one really hurt him. Really hurt him. All managers had a number two, that was the way things worked, it went with the territory. He couldn't think of one other manager in the whole of the Football League who didn't have a number two. Some of them even had a number three! Through his dealings in the transfer market he knew that most of the managers in the Nationwide Conference had a number two too. Even the manager of the Unibond League side that had recently stuffed them had a number two. Probably Archbishop Desmond Tutu had a number two too. If they could all have a number two, why shouldn't he have a number two?

  When Donny had first joined the club some eighteen months previously he had made getting himself a number two his first priority. On the very day he took over the managerial seat at Frogley he had gone to the board of directors and asked them if he could have one, making it very clear by the tone of his voice that a reply in the negative wasn't an option. The board had agreed to his request unanimously and without argument. Donny had been over the moon. However he had very soon been back under the moon, because having agreed to Donny's request for a number two Grant Fielding went on to say that it was of no concern to the board what style of haircut their manager chose to adopt and that if he wanted a number two he could have a number two; and James Liversedge had added that as far as having number twos was concerned shitting was free and Donny could have as many shits as he’d a mind to.

  So eighteen months later Donny was still number twoless. But now he was going to have one!

  *

  To the Frogley Town players it didn't mean very much at all. Their job was out there on the park, doing their best for Frogley Town. Trevor Hanks, the ‘you fat bastard you ate all the pies’ of the team - leastwise according to the supporters of whichever team were providing the opposition for the Town that day - expressed the hope that Price might offer the players a discount on his range of pies; Darrel Lock suggested that with Price at the helm they probably wouldn't have to threaten the board with violence in order to get their pay packets, as they'd had to do on more than one occasion last season; and Des Barrel expressed a hope that they would now be able to fill the communal bath with more than the six inches of water they'd been restricted to in the past, on the grounds of economy. But apart from that it didn't much matter to the players who was the owner of the club, be it Joe Price, Katy Price or Our Price.

  *

  To George Fearnley it also meant very little. Not because any changes at the club would not affect him, as club secretary they were bound to, but because he was due to retire at the end of the coming season and whatever changes were made would be unlikely to affect him very much beyond then.

  He wondered about Price though, and the pie manufacturer's sudden involvement with the club from absolutely nowhere; as far as he could recollect Price had never shown the remotest interest in the club. He admitted though that this judgement might be doing Price a disservice as he himself had only been with the club since 1968 and it was possible Price might have been a regular visitor to Offal Road in the early sixties when the club, if not in their pomp, were still a decent First Division side. Maybe Price's visits, like those of so many other fans of long ago, had dropped off in direct proportion to the team's fortunes on the field?

  This was neither confirmed nor unconfirmed when Price had telephoned George the day after news of the takeover broke. After exchanging pleasantries, or as near as Price ever got to pleasantries, the new owner of the club informed George that he would be visiting his new acquisition the following Tuesday at ten a.m. on the button, and that George and Donny were to make themselves available. George had remarked that before the takeover he hadn't been aware that Price was even interested in football, never having seen him at a Frogley match. Price had replied that it was precisely because he was interested in football that George had never seen him at a Frogley match as there had been fat bloody chance of him ever seeing any there.

  *

  To Martin Sneed it meant he had found a new enemy. Price had got on the wrong side of him by telling the national newspapers about the takeover before the Advertiser had had the chance to reveal the news. Well Martin Sneed would show him! His articles and match reports on the Town's fortunes might have been scathing in the past but they were as nothing to what they would be like in the future.

  Price hadn't seen anything from him yet! Headlines continually jumped into his mind. 'Frogley Town – The Team You Wouldn't Pay To Watch At Any Price'. 'Another Stale Performance From The Pie Men'. 'The Price Is Wrong For Frogley Town'. Snatches of copy followed - 'If ever the meat wagon fails to show up at Price's Pies factory leaving them short of filling for their meat and potato pies Joe Price need look no further than the Town back four for an adequate substitute to mix in with the potato'. 'Price may be a success as a meat pie manufacturer but it takes more than filling a pastry case with meat, fat, gristle, sinew, offal, bone, snot and God knows what else that goes into his pies, to make a successful football team, as last week's dire performance clearly demonstrated'. 'The Town played so badly that when three of the players picked up bookings the referee, instead of giving them yellow cards, would have been more than justified in exposing them as the cripples they are by handing them green cards'.

  Even the muse struck him.

  Simple Simon met a Pieman

  The Pieman was Joe Price

  Said Simple Simon to the Pieman

  Frogley, Conference, in a trice

  Sneed rubbed his hands together. The new season couldn't come too quickly for him.

  *

  To Superintendent Screwer it meant there would probably be even more football hooligans to deal with. It was a simple equation - more money to spend equals bigger crowds equals more hooliganism. But it wouldn't be anything he couldn't handle. They wouldn't be dealing with his predecessor at Frogley, that soft touch Superintendent Soft Twat or whatever he was called, the barmy bastard whose apparent method of policing football matches was to get Constable Balfour to drop in. Not a bit of it. Things would be different. They would be facing Superintendent Her
man Screwer now. They would be dealing with a man who had previously held the unofficial all police divisions in-house record for personally braining football hooligans for four years on the bounce; and some of the bastards he’d brained had bounced!

  Screwer’s stunning performance, in both senses of the word, was nine hooligans and a man carrying a sandwich board bearing the legend 'The End Of The World Is Nigh', who happened to get in the way. After Screwer had finished with him his end very nearly was nigh, and would have been nigh if it hadn't been for the skills of the doctors at Leeds General. No, to Superintendent Screwer it was just a little more grist for the mill, with the football hooligans of Frogley being the grist and himself being the mill.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “And that is only the third time a player has scored the opening goal on his birthday in the Premiership this season, and the twenty fourth time I have come out with yet another load of meaningless trivia during this commentary” - John Motson

  The players were usually given the day off after a match, but the day previously the Town had lost three-nil to a Blue Square North team and Donny had brought them in for extra training. He had emphasised to them that this wasn't intended as a punishment, merely to get their fitness levels up.

  In the post-match briefing he had told them that overall he was pleased with the result, at the end of the day, as it was proof they were turning things round, and that if any proof of this were needed they only had to look at their last two results - in the match before last they had lost four-nil to a team in the Unibond League, and in the last match they had lost only three-nil to a team in the Blue Square North, which meant they had lost by one goal less to a team from one league higher. In turn this meant that if they were to continue this rate of improvement it would mean that if they played a team from the Football Conference, one league up from the Blue Square North, they would lose by only two-nil. Carry the theory through to its logical conclusion and it would mean that they would only lose one-nil to a Coca-Cola League Two side, draw nil-nil with a League One side, beat a Championship side one-nil, and if they were to play a team from the Premiership they would beat them two-nil.

  Although a few of the players harboured the odd doubt that they would struggle to win two-nil away at Chelsea or Manchester United their manager’s reasoning seemed to make perfectly good sense so they were putting a really big effort into their training that morning.

  From the direction of the portakabins Dave Rave, carrying his portable recording equipment and a football, now approached the pitch. As he climbed over the perimeter fence he called out to the players, “Hi fellas!”

  The nearest player to him was the Geordie midfield man Darrell Lock, ex-Bolton Wanderers, ex-Swindon Town, ex-Darlington, ex-any use, who raised a hand in salutation and greeted the local radio legend. “Hey up, Dave man, how's it gannin’.”

  “You know me Locky,” said Dave. “When was Dave Rave ever down?”

  “When you’re giving somebody a blow job,” said Darren Briggs.

  The rest of the players had a laugh at Dave’s expense following this brilliant shaft of wit, which the radio presenter took in good part. Dave didn’t mind the player’s joshing him, it made him feel like one of them, like one of the lads, something a good DJ should always try to be.

  “What's brung yow here then, Doive?” asked Hereward Stock.

  “The number nine bus,” said Jimmy Floyd Cragg.

  Two of the players groaned but the remainder of them laughed, and even the two who didn’t laugh thought it was funny and wished it had been they who had said it.

  “Big Donny has given Frogley Radio's fave DJ the OK to interview a couple of you for the Dave Rave Show Pre-Season Football Special,” said Dave. He remembered the football he was carrying. “Oh, and one of your fans at the mental hospital asked me if I could get you all to sign his football.”

  “So we're still popular at the mental hospital then?” said Lock.

  “I have it on the authority of no less a person than the Chief Psychiatrist that the one time the inmates can safely be left on their own is during my commentary of your matches,” said Dave, with some measure of pride.

  “Noice to know our efforts is appreciated, ain't it lads,” said Stock.

  “Even if they are nuts,” agreed utility man Chrissy Knox.

  Dave corrected him. “Disturbed. Disturbed Chrissy, not nuts. There but for the grace of God, and all that.” He looked around. “So which of you guys would like to be interviewed?”

  “Me,” said Moggs, elbowing his way to the front.

  “You, Moggsy?” ridiculed Cragg. “Who wants tae listen tae an idjit like you!”

  The big goalkeeper turned on the Scot. “Who asked you to stick your bleedin' oar in, Craggy?” Then he said to Dave. “Put me down Dave.”

  “That's one then,” said Dave. He turned to Briggs. “And how about you for another, Darren?”

  Briggs shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly. “Yeh, why not.”

  Dave switched on his tape recorder, tapped the microphone to ensure it was working, then sang into it. “It's the Day... ayve...Rave Show.” He turned his attention to Briggs. “With me now is ace Frogley Town striker Darren Briggs. Tell me Darren, as a Frogley player, what is your reaction to the news that meat pie magnate Joe Price has bought the club?” He held the microphone out to Briggs and the striker spoke into it.

  “Well obviously Dave, I'm just over the moon about it.”

  Moggs protested immediately. “Hey I was going to say that!”

  “Well you'll just have to fink of somefink else to say then won't you Moggsy my son,” said Briggs.

  “Moggsy?” said Barrel in disbelief. “Do us a favour Briggsy; he won't be able to think of anything else.”

  Moggs turned on him. “Oh yes I will, Barrelly! We're not all thick Yorkshire bastards.”

  “No, some of ye are thick Lancashire bastits.” said Cragg.

  “Piss off, twatface,” said Moggs, bringing the eloquent repartee to an end for the moment.

  *

  Donny and George were in the latter’s office awaiting the arrival of Joe Price.

  Even though it was his first job in football management and he had yet to prove himself Donny had no doubts whatsoever about his skill levels in his chosen vocation. Why should he have? He had everything required of a modern young manager; he had an FA coaching badge; he had a wealth of experience as a player for six league and three non-league clubs; he had a lovely wife Tracey Michelle; and, like Ron Atkinson, he had a Mercedes. (Donny's favourite anecdote about his hero concerned the time that Big Ron had taken over the manager's seat at Manchester United. Apparently when it came to the question of a car the chairman had offered him a Rover. Big Ron had told him that he didn't want a dog, he wanted a car, and had promptly demanded, and got, a Mercedes. When Donny had taken over at Frogley Town he hadn't even been offered a dog, much less a car, so he had been forced to buy his own Mercedes, a P registration job, but a Mercedes nevertheless).

  Despite his qualifications and obvious suitability for the job Donny was as aware as anyone that a footballer manager's job is never likely to be vying for top spot in the Job Security League, that his position is at best insecure and at worse bloody precarious. So, ever mindful of the tenuous nature of his profession, he had put a great deal of thought into his appearance for this, his first meeting with the club's new owner.

  Donny had seen Price on three occasions in the past; once when they had both been boarding the train for Manchester, the other two times when Price had passed by in his Rolls-Royce. He had also seen Price's photograph in the local several times. On each occasion Price had been wearing a bowler hat. Well aware that to copy someone is the sincerest form of flattery Donny had considered wearing a similar type of headgear himself for their first meeting. The problem was that if he were to do this it would cover up his Ron Atkinson hairstyle, and that was just not an option. He had then considered wearing a bowler hat for Price's arrival, then
taking it off and carrying it under his arm, like they did in old wedding photographs, thus getting the benefit of both worlds. This seemed to him to be the ideal solution and the one he adopted.

  He had previously noticed a bowler hat in the window of the local Age Concern charity shop and had gone in to try it on. Unfortunately the hat had been much too large and had fallen down over his eyes. However the old dear behind the counter, who looked to Donny more like she should be receiving some of the profits of Age Concern rather than helping to create them, had seen a possible sale, and was now firmly intent on getting it. She took the hat off him and quickly lined it with folded newspaper. He tried it on again and now it fitted perfectly. The old dear clapped her hands together in delight and assured Donny that he looked very nice in it. Donny looked in the mirror and could immediately see why she should think this. Then she proceeded to put her foot in it by going on to tell him that he looked quite the little gentleman. As Donny had already half-convinced himself that the bowler hat made him look even shorter than he already was the old dear's confirmation of this was all it had taken to decide him against it. But he did want to impress Price. Which is why he decided to take the bowler hat but to just carry it under his arm.