Football Crazy

by Terry Ravenscroft

  “No you won't,” said Sarah Jane, “He's got two black eyes now.”

  Screwer jumped on this possible evidence of hooliganism immediately. “How did he get them?”

  “Mind your own business,” said Sarah Jane, and slammed the door in his face.

  *

  Stanley had chanced upon the Frogley Town's open-top bus tour of the town centre by accident, following his continued his search for Fentonbottom. Had he known about it in advance he would of course have gained the best vantage point possible from which to view the celebrations, possibly seated on one of the granite lions which sat guarding either side of the Town Hall steps in stony silence, but unfortunately he hadn't.

  Most of the townspeople hadn't heard about the triumphal tour either. This was because Donny had wanted to get the tour in before the next match and, time being limited due to the team having been incarcerated in prison until the previous evening, there had been little chance to publicise it, announcements on Frogley Radio's Feng Shui Phone-in with Mr Wong and the Dave Rave Show being the only exposure it had received. As the Feng Shui Phone-in had only sixteen regular listeners, and the Dave Rave Show, if one were to disregard the show's listeners at the mental hospital, had even less, it meant that very few townspeople had been aware of the tour until it actually took place.

  When Feng Shui devotee Martin Sneed had heard about it he had immediately got on the phone to Donny and had begged and prayed with him to hold off the tour until he'd had the chance to publicise it in his Advertiser column, going so far as to promise the Frogley manager that he would include in the puff the news that probable guests of the team atop the bus would be Pele and Girls Aloud, but even this had failed to tempt Donny, who had averred that “Psychological considerations didn't allow an off-putting of the schedule, it was something that had to be done immediately, a striking while the iron is in the fire situation if you like.”

  Unfortunately by the time Stanley had met up with the bus it had already passed the Town Hall and sitting on one of the granite lions was out, so he contented himself with walking alongside the bus, much like as a boy he had happily marched along with the council steamroller whenever it had passed by, or happily walked alongside the Co-op horse in the hope it would pee so he could float paper boats on the river of urine as it flowed down the gutter; but even happier than that.

  And he would have remained happy had the bus not turned into Tripe Street and proceeded to go down it in a northerly direction at the same time that Superintendent Screwer and Constable Balfour entered the street from the other end and proceeded up it in a southerly direction.

  Screwer recognised Stanley immediately, his two black eyes making him stand out like a panda in a group of polar bears. Even so, he checked with Balfour, demanding, “Is that the bastard?”

  If Balfour had had any foreknowledge of the treatment Stanley would receive at the hands of Screwer he would have said, “No sir, that's some other bastard with black eyes”, and would have made every effort to get Stanley out of the country at the earliest possible opportunity. But he didn't. So he said, “Yes sir, that's Stanley Sutton”, thus sealing Stanley's fate. And Screwer's.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The perfect footballer would have the guile and ball control of Zinedine Zidane, the dead ball skills of David Beckham, the speed of Cristiano Ronaldo and the wages of a bus driver

  Stanley, naked, wet through, looking very sorry for himself, was in the police interview room, tightly bound by ropes to a wooden chair. Sergeant Hawks stood by, looking as sorry for Stanley as Stanley was looking sorry for himself. Constable Evans, guarding the door, looked sorry for neither of them, but still looked sorry because he had lost a bet with Constable Norris that Superintendent Screwer would torture Stanley.

  Stanley sneezed for the tenth time in the last five minutes just as the door opened and Screwer came in. The police chief marched over to him, stopped, loomed large over him and barked, “Talk.”

  “What about?” said Stanley.

  “Don't come the smartarse with me Sutton. I want to know all about your football hooligan activities. Then I want to know the names and addresses of all your hooligan associates.”

  “I keep telling thee, I'm not a football hooligan!” Stanley protested for the seventeenth time that morning.

  Screwer thrust his face nearer to Stanley's. “And I keep telling you that you are! So sing!”

  Stanley paused for a moment, gave Screwer an odd look, shrugged his shoulders and started singing, “She’ll be coming round the mountains when she comes, she’ll be coming….”

  Screwer cuffed him round both ears with the back of his hand and screamed at him, “Not that sort of singing you stupid little cunt! Talking! Spilling the beans! So do it. And quick about it before I lose my fucking rag with you!”

  Stanley sneezed again then looked at Screwer with enmity. “Tha'd no right firing that water cannon at me, tha's given me a shocking cowd,” he admonished the police chief.

  Screwer couldn’t have cared less if he’d given Stanley double pneumonia. “Are you going to tell me what I want to know, Sutton, or do you want another visit from Mr Truncheon?”

  “Tha's no right hitting me like that neither, I haven't done nowt.”

  “I have a right to do anything I fucking please,” snarled Screwer.

  He turned away from Stanley as if to leave, paused for a moment, then suddenly turned back to face him, now with a smile on his face. Stanley didn't like it when the police chief smiled, the last time he’d smiled the water cannon had appeared shortly afterwards.

  “But I don't have to hit you to hurt you, do I Sutton?” Screwer went on. “I know how to hurt you a lot more than simply tickling you with a truncheon. Oh yes.” He thrust his face so close to Stanley that their noses touched. “You're banned from the Offal Road Stadium for life!”

  The enormity of Screwer’s words hit Stanley like a sledgehammer. His throat, in stark contrast to the rest of his body, suddenly went bone dry. “Wh....what?” he croaked.

  “Yes, I thought that would wake you up,” Screwer gloated, then, turning to Sergeant Hawks he said, “Get a mug shot of him, Hawks. I want a blow-up of him distributed to all officers and one posted up inside and outside every turnstile entrance of the football ground.”

  Stanley was absolutely horrified. “No! Tha....tha can't do that!”

  “Watch me,” said Screwer, and turned on his heel and marched out.

  Stanley shouted out after Screwer but another sneeze cut short his cry of protest. It wouldn’t have made any difference.

  *

  Screwer was a happy policeman. He had put paid to his first Frogley football hooligan - probably the ringleader, although the little toerag wouldn't admit it - and now after much thought he had the beginnings of a plan that would drive the rest of the hooligans out into the open. It wasn't a complete plan yet, not the finished article, but it was well on the way. He now set it into motion by sending for Sergeant Hawks.

  “I believe some of our policemen have formed themselves into some sort of operatic society, Hawks” he said.

  “Yes sir, Gilbert and Sullivan,” said Hawks.

  Screwer looked disappointed. “There's only two of them in it then?”

  “What? No, I meant it's a Gilbert and Sullivan society, sir. Very good they are too. They did 'The Mikado' not long back. Constable Evans was an excellent Nankypoo.”

  This was exactly what Screwer wanted to hear. “Good. Because I could do with a few actors to help me prise the football hooligans of Frogley out of the woodwork.”

  “All the spectators were very well behaved on Saturday, sir,” Hawks felt constrained to point out. “I mean....”

  Screwer broke in. “I hope you aren't going to tell me that Frogley Town doesn't have any football hooligans again, Sergeant?”

  Hawks wasn't. Not now, anyway. “Er, no sir, of course not.”

  “Because hooliganism is there all right,” Screwer went on. “I can sense it..
..what was that word you used, I’ve forgotten it now.”

  “Festering, sir.”

  “That’s it, festering. Bubbling under the service. Well I'm the man to bring it to the boil. So inform Wankypoo and nine of his mates that I shall need them to play the part of football hooligans at Frogley's next home game on Wednesday night. After they've cracked a few heads the genuine hooligans are sure to crawl out from under their rocks and join in. They won't be able to stop themselves if I know hooligans. Oh and order some firecrackers. Large”

  “Sir.”

  “Then arrest Dave Rave and Mr Wong.”

  “On what charges, sir?”

  “Riding a bike without lights. Jaywalking. Piracy on the high seas. Anything you fancy. Just do it.”

  The mention of Dave Rave's name jogged Hawks' memory and because of this he made the chance remark that was to provide Screwer with the rest of his plan. “Oh and sir,” he said. “The list of names which that Dave Rave character gave us from the mental hospital....”

  Screwer waved a warning finger at Hawks. “Don't go telling me they're not football hooligans, Hawks, or I will have your balls!”

  “No sir. But the thing is, they never get the chance to be football hooligans; they only ever follow the team's fortunes on the radio.”

  “On the radio?”

  “Yes sir. They're never let out without an escort. According to Constable Stone, sir. He has an identical twin brother in there. They do a swap sometimes when he fancies a day out.”

  But Screwer wasn’t interested in Constable Stone’s brother, for with Hawks’ news the rest of his plan had fallen neatly into place.

  “Just thought I'd mention it, sir,” Hawks went on, “Save yourself a journey, save you having to pay them a visit on your horse.”

  Screwer beamed. “Yes. Thank you Sergeant Hawks. Well done. Don't forget those firecrackers now. Large. A thousand should do.”

  “Yes sir,” said Hawks, wondering what he’d said that had brought the beam to Screwer’s face.

  Hawks started to leave, more worried than when he had entered. He didn't like the idea of Screwer beaming any more than Stanley Sutton had liked the idea of him smiling.

  Screwer called after him. “Oh and get me a couple of dozen date rape pills, Sergeant. Large.”

  Hawks didn't want to know why. “Sir.”

  *

  Stanley was bereft. He would never see his beloved football team run out onto the Offal Road pitch ever again. At least not while Superintendent Screwer was alive and well and in charge of police operations at Frogley, and that could be for ages, he'd only been in the job for about a month and the previous superintendent had stayed for years.

  The chief of the Frogley police had been as good as his word. Outside every entrance to the football stadium a poster bearing a photograph of Stanley and the words 'THIS HOOLIGAN IS BANNED FROM THIS FOOTBALL GROUND FOR LIFE' had been pasted to the wall. Similar posters had been displayed throughout the town in shop windows and other prominent places, so Stanley was now a marked man in more senses than having two black eyes and several large purple bruises in the vicinity of his kidneys, courtesy of Screwer’s truncheon.

  At the moment Stanley was looking at the poster of himself that was displayed in the window of the Frogley Sex Shop. Flanking the poster were a price list for dildos and a special offer on inflatable rubber women.

  These days tears were coming easily to Stanley, and as he looked at the poster, thoroughly ashamed, it all became too much for him and he began to cry again, the tears added to the ones he had shed the night before when he had cried himself to sleep.

  When Screwer had released him Stanley's first thought had been to go to see Mr Price. For Mr Price would be grateful to him for getting him all those extra supporters, surely. Yes, he’d see Mr Price, he was the one to sort Screwer out! But when he had asked to see Price his foreman, aggrieved more than most with Stanley for losing him his next pay rise in return for a season ticket, had told Stanley that he'd already done enough damage the last time he’d gone to see Joe Price and to get back to work and keep his bloody nose clean in future.

  The following morning, still intent on getting Price's help despite his foreman's warning, Stanley had waited outside the factory main gates, hoping to catch Price's eye as he passed through in his Rolls-Royce, but Price had had his head buried in his newspaper.

  Now, outside the Frogley Sex Shop, a kindly old lady stopped to ask Stanley why he was crying, and tried to comfort him. Was he perhaps crying because he wanted to buy an inflatable rubber woman but hadn't got enough money, despite them being on special offer, she asked, only if it was she could let him have a pound towards it if it was any help? Or, if he fancied a real rather than a rubber woman, she herself was unattached since burying her husband last year. Stanley stopped crying for long enough to thank her for her concern and the offer, and to tell her that he was all right now, and went on his way.

  But Stanley was far from all right. He didn't think he’d be all right ever again.

  *

  “Oh, I don't know about that,” said Dr Barker, the Chief Executive of the Frogley Mental Hospital, in a tone of voice that didn’t augur well for Screwer’s plans, when the police chief asked him if he could take a party of inmates along to watch Frogley Town play Brailsford Wanderers that evening.

  “They would be in very good hands,” Screwer assured him.

  “Oh I'm sure they would. And it's very generous of you I'm sure, Superintendent Screwer, very generous indeed. However some of the patients can be quite violent.”

  Screwer's eyes lit up like Xenon headlights. This was going to turn out even better than he had imagined, if only he could swing it. He fought to keep the excitement out of his voice. “Violent?”

  “Oh yes. If they become too excited. I shall need a minute or two to think about it, weigh up the pros and cons.”

  “Of course.”

  Dr Barker's office overlooked the grounds of the hospital and as the doctor was considering Screwer’s proposition the police chief happened to glance through the window just as a black man in dark glasses was passing by. After having made enquiries Screwer now knew that Stevie Wonder was a black man and he wondered if he was now looking at him. He certainly looked like a hooligan in that silly woollen hat and sunglasses. Big lad too, he noted, he'd be good in a fight.

  Barker spoke at last. “If I allowed some of the patients out you would need to keep a very close watch on them.”

  Screwer latched onto Barker's use of the word 'would' immediately, and now did his utmost to turn it into a 'will'. “I shall personally see to it that twenty hand-picked bobbies will have them under constant supervision at all times, Doctor Barker. And I will be in attendance throughout personally, of course.”

  “What about their travel arrangements?”

  “We would pick up the loon....the patients, on a coach, a secure coach, and bring them straight back here to the hospital immediately the game is over.”

  Barker was aware that many of his charges were keen fans of Frogley Town. Indeed he encouraged their interest. Under normal circumstances it just wasn't practical for them to attend matches, but this idea of Superintendent Screwer's sounded promising, for surely they couldn't come to any harm with the local police force looking after them? However the patients weren't allowed out of the hospital after six p.m. and although this rule wasn’t written in stone and the board of governors allowed the Chief Executive some latitude he was still not completely convinced about the wisdom of Screwer’s proposition, and this showed on his face.

  Observing this Screwer coaxed, “It would do them a world of good, I'm sure. Take them out of themselves for an hour or two. And you can be sure they’d be quite safe with my men to protect them, I’m absolutely convinced of that.”

  Barker allowed himself to be persuaded. “Yes. I suppose. Yes, then.”

  Screwer smiled like the cat that had not only got the cream but having drunk it had found a mouse at the
bottom of the cream jug. He had one more request. “I would especially like Stevie Wonder to be in the party.”

  “Stevie Wonder?” Barker was puzzled for a moment, then realised, “Oh, you mean Mr Hargreaves.” He smiled. “No, he just calls himself Stevie Wonder.”

  Screwer's head jolted back. “It's an alias, then?”

  “An alias? Yes I suppose it is.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “When the seagulls follow the trawler it's because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea” - Eric Cantona.

  “When the seagulls follow the trawler I shoot the bastards” - Eric Twat.

  Home from his 6 - 2 shift at the pie factory Stanley sat in the house, his head buried in his hands. Whatever was he going to do with himself tonight when the Town were playing? The prospect was truly awful; it just did not bear thinking about.

  He would be able to listen to the match on the radio, he supposed. Or stand outside the ground and try to follow the action by the roars of the crowd. He could do both, and probably would, it would certainly be better than sitting in the house, moping. But he knew it could never get anywhere near to replacing the real thing. Nothing could. The only place to be that night was at the match, in his usual spot on the terraces, supporting his team.

  He wondered how much it would cost to hire a helicopter to fly around over the stadium for ninety minutes, or one of those airship things that the TV people used for overhead pictures, but even as the idea came to him he knew that whatever the cost was it would be too much.

  He sneezed again, still full of a cold, and it reminded him of the reason he was sitting in the house feeling sorry for himself rather than looking forward to the match tonight. Superintendent Screwer.

  Stanley was not a violent man but at that moment all he wanted to do was to punch Screwer on the nose. Hard! And had thought of doing so. However common sense had prevailed. For where would it get him if he did? Not back in the Offal Road Stadium, that’s for sure, but back in jail, and back in jail for a lot longer than he’d been in it the last time. And not in the Frogley police station lock-up this time but in a proper prison like Strangeways or Wakefield, and if that happened he wouldn't be able to see the Town play again even if Screwer did leave Frogley, and he certainly couldn’t allow that to happen.