Football Crazy

by Terry Ravenscroft

  Mr Evans (Napoleon), who in his twenty years at the hospital had never shown the slightest interest in life on the other side of its perimeter walls, had taken French leave.

  Alcoholic beverages were not allowed in the hospital; however the residents included among their number two home-brew wine makers who put to good use the abundant fruit and flora freely available in the hospital gardens. The hospital also boasted a struck-off pharmacist who was skilled in the art of distilling. The combined efforts of the three meant that an adequate supply of wines and spirits were always readily available. (Some people were of the opinion that it was the product of the threesome’s fermenting buckets, stills and demijohns which was largely responsible for keeping most of the inmates in the mental hospital, and without its effect on them they would probably have been discharged long ago). Thus the Frogley Town victory was toasted in elderflower champagne and blackberry wine, and celebrated further with rhubarb sherry and 'Old Straitjacket', a brandy-like concoction of distilled crab apple and oak leaf wine, with a dash of metal polish.

  The only disappointment for the inmates was that they hadn't actually been at the match. Nor, given their current circumstances, could they ever be. All they could hope for was that some time in the future they might get to see their favourite football team in action.

  Their hopes were to be realised rather sooner than they might have supposed.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Probably the best football commentator since Kenneth Wolstenholme has been

  Martin Tyler. Depressing, isn’t it.

  Screwer lay in bed wide awake, sleep a million miles away. Something was bothering him, nagging away at him. Apart that is from the fact that Mrs Screwer had spurned his advances yet again and was now fast asleep beside him snoring her fool head off.

  It was the hairstyles of the Frogley Town football team that were causing Screwer so much unrest. Where had he seen that style of haircut before? Where had he seen those footballers before? Somewhere, he was sure. Once again he went back to five minutes to three on Saturday afternoon and pictured the team trotting out on to the pitch, each of the players with that same close-cropped hair with a fringe at the front, and concentrated his mind. Strangeways? Was it there he had seen it, on his recent visit to the Manchester prison in pursuit of his hobby of convicted football hooligan spotting? No, prisoners nowadays were allowed to wear their hair pretty much how they wanted, just as though they were still on the outside; it wasn't like the old days, more was the pity, when all prisoners were summarily shorn of their hair along with their self-respect just as soon as they’d been thoroughly hosed down and de-loused with DDT. Where was it then? Where, for Christ's sake?

  The answer eventually came to him in a dream, after he had eventually dropped off to sleep in the early hours of the morning. In the dream he was back in the saddle of Scourge of the Terraces, but this time he wasn't in the police yard but at Aintree Racecourse, Liverpool, lying in third place in the Grand National, halfway round the second circuit. Why he should be in the Grand National Screwer had no idea, because he had no interest in horseracing at all, and now, since Scourge of the Terraces had thrown him the other day, a bit less interest in horses. There was just no logic to it, but then who ever had a logical dream?

  In the dream Screwer had raced on, almost deafened by the cheering crowds, his mount still held on a fairly tight rein. In front of him Richard Johnson, the sometime boyfriend of the Princess Royal's daughter, was leading on the favourite My Prerogative, followed a length behind by Frankie Dettori riding The Princess Royal. They approached Bechers Brook. My Prerogative cleared it. The Princess Royal cleared it. Screwer was fast approaching it on Scourge of the Terraces, but just as he was about to jump it eleven heads with close-cropped hair and fringes suddenly popped up from behind the fence. In the split second that was all the time it took for Scourge of the Terraces to rear up and throw him off, Screwer recognised the heads as the heads of the Frogley Town footballers he’d seen at the match last Saturday. And when his head hit the ground, exactly as it had hit the ground a few days previously, he remembered where he had seen them before.

  *

  “It's two-clock in the morning,” protested George Fearnley, standing at the front door of his house, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

  “I don't need some hairy-arsed football club secretary to tell me the fucking time,” Screwer snapped. His gimlet eyes bore into George. “I want the names and addresses of every football player on the Frogley Town books and I want them fucking quick.”

  The night air was cold. George pulled his dressing gown closer around him protectively and said, “What for?”

  “I ask the fucking questions,” snarled Screwer. “You provide the fucking answers.” He treated George to an even icier stare. “Well come on! Or do you intend keeping me on this doorstep all fucking night?”

  The bedroom window of the semi next door opened, its owner wondering what all the noise and foul language was about. To save any further disturbance George saw no alternative but to ask Screwer inside, although it rankled with him. “You'd better step in I suppose.”

  But Screwer was already pushing past him, beckoning to Sergeant Hawks and Constable Balfour to follow him.

  The other two uniformed constables in the party took up position at either side of the door whilst their superiors inside were going about their business.

  George closed the front door. What on earth did the police want with the names and addresses of the players in the middle of the night? Or any other time for that matter?

  *

  “It's ten to free in the morning,” complained Darren Briggs.

  Screwer glared at him. “If one more of you footballers tells me the time again I will fucking swing for him!”

  Four of Briggs' team mates were already in the Black Maria parked outside the Frogley striker's flat. Briggs was the fifth footballer to be visited. “What do you want?” he asked of his tormentor.

  “Your bollocks on a shovel,” said Screwer. He nodded to the two constables flanking him. “Arrest the twat.”

  Briggs jumped back in alarm. “What? What have I done?”

  “You'll find out soon enough.”

  Constables Adams and Dobbs made to take Briggs in charge but he backed off, protesting, “Hang on, hang on, give a geezer a chance to get dressed will ya!”

  “No time for that,” said Screwer, then to the constables, “Grab the bastard.”

  “But I've only got me boxers on,” Briggs said, rather unnecessarily.

  “You're in luck then,” said Screwer. He pointed to the Black Maria. “I've got two of your mates in there strip bollock naked.”

  *

  By six a.m. all the players that made up the Frogley Town squad were behind the bars of the four lock-up cells that comprised the Frogley Police nick.

  Apart from three who were totally naked, most variations of night attire were represented, some interestingly so. Links was wearing his wife's baby doll negligee. Hooks and Crooks, who shared a flat together, also shared a pair of pyjamas, Hooks the tops and Crooks the bottoms, a particular that gave rise to much speculation from their colleagues as to the sexual preferences of the two, despite protests from Hooks and Crooks that they chose to share pyjamas not for reasons of perversion but on grounds of economy.

  The players were incarcerated four to a cell, with one extra in one of the cells, not counting the horse. Screwer had not troubled himself to inform them why they had been arrested. Joe Price was the first to find out.

  “Riotous Assembly”, Screwer told him, when Price had demanded to know.

  “Riotous Assembly?” echoed Price.

  “For starters,” Screwer went on. “Plus assaulting a police officer during the course of his duty. And anything else I can dig up.”

  George had phoned Price and Donny as soon as Screwer had left him. Price had arrived at the police station before the Black Maria had arrived with the players, Donny shortly afterwards, and they had
been waiting since four-o-clock, almost two hours, to find out what all the trouble was about. Now they were with Screwer in his office, doing just that.

  “And when does tha intend letting them go?” Price demanded.

  “Letting them go?” Screwer laughed. “Are you fucking joking?”

  “What?” said Donny, alarmed. “What do you mean? You'll have to let them go, we've got a game on Wednesday night.”

  Screwer fixed Donny with one of his icy glares. “Are you telling me what I can and can't do, little man?”

  Donny's lack of moral fibre came to his assistance immediately. “No. Obviously. I mean....”

  However Screwer, now eyeing Donny suspiciously, broke in before the Frogley manager had a chance to say what he meant. “Didn't I see you with your load of rabble in the police station yard the other day when they caused me to fall off my horse?” he demanded.

  Donny was aghast. “Me? Oh no Superintendent. Very much so no. No, in fact I wasn't even in Frogley that day. What day was it?”

  “Monday.”

  “Well there you are then, I was on a scouting mission in Scunthorpe.”

  Screwer thought for a moment then amended his answer. “No, I tell a lie, it was Tuesday.”

  Donny was out of the blocks faster than a nandroline-assisted Linford Christie. “And Tuesday. Brighton. A new winger.” Then, inspired. “An ex-policeman. Good lad, should go all the way.”

  Donny, feeling much better now he had provided himself with an alibi, breathed a sigh of relief. Screwer wasn't about to let him get away that easy however. He fixed Donny and said, “But you are responsible for the conduct of your players, are you not?”

  Donny jumped back on the flap wagon. “Wh....what?”

  “Are you deaf as well as daft?”

  Donny squirmed. “Well....”

  Fortunately Price came to Donny’s rescue, saving him any further embarrassment. “No he isn't responsible for t’ players,” he said. “I am. And I’m telling thee, Superintendent Screwer or whatever thy name is, that tha can't lock my footballers up indefinitely.”

  Screwer turned his attention to Price. “I can do what I like, Price. Now fuck off out of my office the two of you before I have you thrown in the slammer as well!”

  *

  Sneed was seated at the keyboard of his computer, absolutely elated. It was the best break he’d had in years. Handled the right way, written up with the typical Sneed élan, it could very well get him into Fleet Street, even without the help of Joe Price.

  This was still Monday and the Frogley Advertiser wasn't due out until Wednesday, but the sensational story of an entire football team being jailed for rioting was clearly a story for the national dailies, maybe even a front page story, and Martin Sneed was the man to do justice to such a story.

  The red tops would go for it, he was quite sure of that, and probably the Daily Mail too, which despite its pretensions to quality was a red top of the deepest crimson in all but name, especially in its sports coverage. Maybe even one of the broadsheets might be interested? One of the dailies would anyway, certainly; he’d pick the one that coughed up the most, or better still offered him a job on their staff. He smiled to himself. He was going to enjoy this. He began to type.... 'JUSTICE FOR THE FROGLEY 17! By Martin Sneed, The Man They Can't Shut Up. Early this morning, in the sleepy ex-cotton town of Frogley where Lancashire meets Yorkshire, seventeen sons of soccer stand charged with a crime they did not commit; accused, but surely as innocent as the Birmingham Six themselves.'

  He paused and read through what he had written so far, made a note to work 'dark satanic mills' in somewhere in the re-write, then carried on. 'I have yet to make the acquaintance of Superintendent Herman Screwer, the man responsible for perpetrating this outrage, this gross injustice which would be risible were it not of such tragic proportions, but when I do meet him I expect him to be wearing not a police hat but a top hat bearing a price label, 10/6d, because if he is not the Mad Hatter incarnate then I am not Martin Sneed The Man They Can't Shut Up. These magnificent footballers, stars to a man....'

  *

  “....and that was the very latest from one of Dave Rave's very own favourites, Beyonce. Would you? Wow! Now a reminder that earlier today, in a dawn swoop, that prize shithouse Superintendent Screwer arrested all seventeen members of the Frogley Town football squad. Regular listeners to Frogley Radio will need no reminding that Screwer is the shithousing twat who locked up Frogley Radio's Number One Presenter for four days and who I intend to sue for every penny he's got, once I can find a solicitor who’ll fight my case. However, probably because of last month's Dave Rave Show Bent Frogley Solicitors Expose Special, I'm having a little trouble finding one. Now it's time once again for Feng Shui with Mr Wong, so it's over to you Mr Wong....”

  “....Gleetings honolable popuration of Flogley, Mr Wong here again. Tonight on Feng Shui with Mr Wong I will be terring you all about that shithouse bastard Superintendent Sclewer and what he done to Flogley Town footborrers and honolable fliend Dave Lave, and how Feng Shui can help you stop him flom rocking you up in his jail too - simply le-allange all your furniture in a big pile behind your flont door and stop the shithouse getting in....”

  *

  After checking up with the firm's solicitors Price discovered that it was quite within Screwer's rights to keep the players under lock and key, and without even charging them if he so desired, for a period of twenty four hours. Then, using the extra powers granted to those holding the rank of superintendent and above, he could detain the players for an additional thirty six hours, again without charging them. Thereafter, if and when he did charge them, they would still be held in custody until such time as they appeared before a Magistrates Court, up to another twenty four hours.

  Altogether that came to a total of three and a half days, taking it into Thursday, and the team was due to play Brailsford Wanderers on Wednesday night. Even then there was no guarantee they would be released as Screwer had made it abundantly clear that he would vigorously oppose bail, and even if the Magistrates were disposed to allow the players bail he would demand that it be set at a very high price indeed. To quote the police chief, “Fucking millions!”

  *

  Price's friends and contacts were many and varied, but none unfortunately were in the upper echelons of the Police Force, or indeed in the lower echelons. He had always had a healthy distrust of policemen ever since, as an eight-year-old, he had discovered one on top of his mother on his parents bed after having been sent home from school early with toothache.

  As a consequence of this he had never attempted to cultivate any friendships with our guardians of the law. Keep your nose clean and you will have nothing to worry about as far as the police are concerned, had been his dictum, a precept which had thus far stood him in good stead, although John Halliday Christie's lodger Timothy Evans might have argued against its efficacy.

  Now he was wishing that he’d perhaps bought a few tickets for the Police Ball when that constable had come knocking on his door instead of telling him that he didn't go to dances and if he ever did it wouldn't be for the benefit of bent bloody rozzers. Consequentially there was no one in the Police Force with a higher authority than Screwer to whom he could turn to in his hour of need.

  In desperation, and one would have to be truly desperate to adopt such a policy, he tried to enlist the help of his Member of Parliament. But Arnold Rutt MP, New Labour, had told him that while he had every sympathy, and that lessons had been learned, there was nothing he could do and it was time to move on. This was Rutt's standard answer to any plea put to him, but in this case he was right, there was nothing he could do, as Screwer was firmly within his rights.

  After thinking back to his initial meeting with Screwer, Price had then telephoned the superintendent and, in an effort to twist his arm a little, had told him that after having had second thoughts he had decided to dispense with the high tech police facility and stables in the plans for the new stadium....unless
that is Screwer could perhaps help him vis-à-vis releasing his footballers in time to turn out against Brailsford. Screwer had asked Price if he was trying to bribe him. Price had said no, but how did fifty grand in old notes in a plain brown envelope sound? Screwer had told him that he was talking to the wrong man.

  Price didn’t doubt this. Screwer wasn't a bent copper. He was a warped copper. Which is something entirely different, and far more dangerous. And someone who would be a thorn in his side during the coming football season, of that Price was sure.

  *

  Thirty six hours after the players had been arrested they were still in custody and no nearer to being released than the moment they’d been jailed. With Screwer still having a further twenty four hours to play with before he had either to charge them or let them go there seemed little chance they would be released in time for the Brailsford match, or, given Screwer's threat to oppose bail, any other match for some considerable time. That they were released and that the match took place was entirely due to Sergeant Hawks.

  “Shame about the hooligan problem isn't it, sir,” he had said to Screwer.

  “What?” said Screwer, who was at that moment preoccupied with the thoughts of Mrs Screwer and how she had lost all interest in sex since going onto that bloody HRT crap.

  “The bastard hooligans, sir.” A good man, Hawks didn't like calling people bastards, but as he wished to appear to be on Screwer's side and was aware that Screwer absolutely loved calling people bastards, and also because he knew that Frogley didn't have any football hooligans and therefore he wasn't calling anyone a bastard really, he permitted himself to use the term on this occasion. He went on, “I mean they'll still be out there, won't they.” He searched for an expression that might appeal to Screwer. “Festering.”