England Away

by John King

  Like this time we played in Denmark and, truth be told, the Danes were friendly as well, though they knew what to expect. Every nutter in Denmark had made the pilgrimage to Copenhagen to see the English in action. First copper we come across walks up and asks when the fighting’s going to start. Not long, pal. We were down this square in Copenhagen with shopping precincts running off from a market. The English were having a sing-song. The Danes were peaceful and you’re not going to smack blokes who don’t want to know. Then they have a couple of lagers and start taking the piss. You feel like a cunt letting them in. We piled into the cunts, and those who didn’t leg it got a pasting. The whole thing turns because these wankers couldn’t take their drink. England go on the rampage and everyone says how bad we are. We go through the shops and cafés smashing the place up, doing anyone who wants to have a go, the scousers tagging along on the side doing some shopping. It was ages before the old bill arrived and they didn’t have a clue how to handle the situation. They were shitting it, trying to nick people who didn’t want to get nicked. Trying to hush everything up. Calm it all down. Trying to get their heads round what was happening. We walked off as the riot vans arrived. Flagged down a couple of cabs and went straight to the ground.

  The Scandinavians and Danes are too fucking honest. They’re too nice. They don’t realise what’s happening and think we’re all gentlemen with monocles and bowlers. That Gary Lineker rules the waves. So we just walk into their supermarkets and help ourselves. Go through the Tivoli Gardens and enjoy everything for free. Load up on cases of Elephant lager and lob bottles at shop windows for fun. We can drink in their bars then rob the till and smash the place up if we fancy it. We can do whatever we fucking well want because we’re England and nothing can stop us. It’s a massive beano. The Scandinavian old bill haven’t got it worked out properly, though the Dutch and Belgians know what they’re doing now, and the Germans don’t fuck about. They’ve got the tradition. The Stasi and the Gestapo. When it comes to the Italians and Spanish, they hate the English and are straight in hammering anything that moves. The papers try and blame it on Heysel, but it was going on long before that. They fucking love it because they’re scum. Look at Man U in Portugal. Women and kids trying to watch a football match and the old bill think they’re on a firing range. We hate the Latins but they hate us more. Their police are always having a go at the English. Makes you laugh, seeing the reaction to Rome. The media gets a glimpse of the real world and doesn’t have a clue what’s going on.

  It’s great when you’re in these northern countries though. Whistle at the girls and they love it. Big smiles on their faces giving us the nod. Suppose you feel bad for the decent people for a few minutes because you do get some English who go overboard, getting so pissed they don’t know what they’re doing. Feel sorry till you come round the corner and the local nutters have mobbed up. Trying to pick you off and do you through sheer weight of numbers. That’s what it’s all about. But eventually everyone learns and now when we go overseas the old bill are ready and waiting. It gives them the chance to batter a few Englishmen without any come back. The embassies don’t want to know, because they hate us like all the rest. Bunch of cunts the lot of them.

  – You have to smile, says Harris. The newspapers really wind things up. There’s going to be enough soldiers going over to Berlin anyway, and now they’re organising a recruitment drive for us.

  None of us is bothered because the more English come over the better. It’s a load of shit what these papers do though. They’ve probably given some unemployed kid from East Berlin fifty quid to spout off. During the build-up to Euro 96 they had this bloke from Derby boasting on the radio about how the Turks were going to get murdered. The media like stirring things up, and then when they’ve got people listening they deliver a lecture. I’m sitting there on the forklift at work listening to this radio programme and everyone’s laughing because they’ve disguised the bloke’s voice so he sounds like a poof.

  – The Germans will give it a go with or without these stories, says Harris. Their papers will make sure of that. It’ll be a fucking good laugh. It’s going to be a classic in Berlin. It’s been quiet here so far. We went down to Rotterdam and met up with some of the Feyenoord crew last night. There was a row in this club, but nothing major. How was the crossing?

  We fill him in. How the seasiders went to war. He laughs and shakes his head.

  – We’ll see them again, Harris says. I know that Portsmouth mob and they’ll be back. It’s typical Facelift as well. He won’t bother giving it another go. All you’ve got to do is go to a different port and the old bill are so fucking thick they won’t get you a second time. I’ve done it before. They wouldn’t let me go to Turkey one time. I had the ticket and they wouldn’t let me out of Heathrow, so I got a coach to Gatwick and bought a standby and ended up having three days in Istanbul. That was mental. The Turks are dangerous. There’s fucking thousands of the cunts and a lot of them are tooled-up. We did alright. You’re in the Third World over there and there’s none of these bars showing porn films. Istanbul’s dirt poor. Shitty food and drink. At least over here you can have some fun. Decent food, drink, music and the women are sitting in the windows gagging for some English cock.

  Harris has been following England for donkey’s years. I’ve been at least fifteen times now and it’s always been lively. Mark usually comes, and Rod’s done a few.

  – Yes, lads, Amsterdam is as good as it gets, Harris laughs. We’re in the centre of the civilised world here. You can drink as much as you want, do some drugs, and then go and fight and fuck your way through the tourist attractions. This is European civilisation at its best.

  Harry caught up with the others early evening. He found them easy enough because they were still in the bar where they’d planned to meet Harris at twelve. They started telling him about some film with a blonde bird and a William Hague lookalike who had a Rottweiler on a lead, but he didn’t understand what they were on about. There was a big skinhead behind the bar playing a Madness tape. The sound was clear and he liked the bar, and he wouldn’t have minded a drink, but the others were going for some food. Harris had been to a good place the night before and there were six of them following the leader. Harry could stay and have a beer or go with the rest of the boys. Harris said it was an Indonesian and the food was tasty and cheap. Harry thought of the satays and made up his mind.

  The sunny weather had been replaced by a dark sky and it was spitting, but Harry was still in a good mood. His head was light but he was together. He had a bit of blow in his pocket from one of the girls in Rudi’s Bar, a nice gesture making visitors welcome. It showed how it didn’t pay to slag people off just because they had long hair. It worked both ways. He was going with popular opinion now and following Harris and Carter and Tom and Mark and a couple of other Chelsea boys he didn’t know towards the Indonesian. The colours had changed from this morning, but the drizzle livened things up and made the streets smell fresh.

  The man nearest the door didn’t seem too pleased when seven half-cut Englishmen stumbled in, but then he recognised Harris and his face cracked into a grin. Suddenly he couldn’t do enough for them, leading the lads to the best table in the house and getting the waiters to pull an extra table up so there was room for the customers to spread out.

  – He likes you, Mark said. You could be in there.

  – He’s alright, Harris replied. Left Jakarta ten years ago after some problems with the government. Until two days ago I’d never had any Indonesian food. Knew fuck all about the place to be honest. I had a satay in Johan’s and yesterday I came in here.

  Harris joked with the owner and ordered seven bottles of lager. Harry was enjoying himself. There was a lot of bamboo and wood carvings were scattered around. It was great how it worked. Inside a day they’d set up in Hank’s, had found themselves a local, and were sitting down for some cheap and tasty food. In each place they were in with the owners. They’d got their base sorted out and everything
was ticking over nicely.

  Mark seemed more pissed than the others and started going on about how Amsterdam was alright, but that didn’t mean he wanted to be part of Europe. Tom joined in and Harry was listening to them going on about England and Europe and how it was all a load of bollocks, how they were going into the centre of the conspiracy and planning to wreck Berlin, that it was the master plan of big business and the financial institutions, and suddenly he was sitting there, minding his own business, and it was a line he went along with – most people did when you stopped and thought about it – but then he started thinking that they were talking shit. Sure, he’d come over and seen the Channel as the big barrier, those pirate crews from Southampton and Portsmouth feeling it more than most, but he was mellow after the blow and didn’t really give a toss. That was the problem with blokes like Tom and Mark. They were too wound up, like they were on speed the whole time. There was too much of the geezer about them. They needed to calm down.

  Harry had been in enough bother when he was young, but was a peaceful man at heart. You had to grow out of those things. If he got the chance he’d rather be a lover than a fighter. He didn’t go looking for trouble like the others did. Thing was, now he was lost in the tangle of Amsterdam’s canals and side streets he didn’t give a fuck about all the usual nonsense. That’s what the place did to you. It showed you there didn’t have to be all that mental bulldog stuff, crunching his eyes to peer through the smoke, watching those two nutters across the table turning their heads and eyeing up the classy Dutch birds passing outside who smiled through the window but kept going, taking everything nice and easy, nice and mellow, Harry sipping his lager and thinking about his mate Will at home, a big influence with his outlook on life, and how he’d helped Balti through the bad times, signing on and everything.

  – Those Germans won’t know what’s hit them, Mark said.

  Maybe Europe wasn’t such a bad idea after all. Look what you got in return – civilised drinking so you could go out any time you wanted and have a few sherbets; soft drugs legally available so you could sit back listening to old Stones songs playing in the background, taking things easy; and there were the birds as well. He was watching the two girls at the other end of the restaurant ordering, full of confidence. There were no small-minded wankers shouting for everyone to get a move on please, drink up gentlemen, get outside in the rain and piss off till tomorrow. There was none of the corruption and short-term thinking that turned your streets into traffic jams and meant you rarely got a say in what was going on around you. Look at the football. Everyone rated the Dutch. A small country like Holland had produced so much world-class talent over the last twenty years it was unbelievable. They played football for football’s sake, and it was only the peso and lira that saw the talent leave. They were class, but couldn’t compete with the finance of the Spanish and Italians. Now the English game was going the way of the Latins, with money dominating everything.

  Harry wasn’t bothered, because he had more interesting things running through his head than football. If he lived here he didn’t think he’d ever see a game. What was the point when you could drop into a warm friendly bar and sit around with good people enjoying life, floating on a cloud like some zapped-out old hippy. That’s what the herb had done to him. It had made Harry relaxed and happy. If this was Europe then it made perfect sense. Just lie back and let the world get on with things. The drug got rid of the need to fight back in a battle you were never going to win. If you didn’t care what was going on outside the window, it didn’t matter. The politicians and businessmen could do whatever they fucking well wanted, carve everything up between themselves, so Harry could see how it was better to have a smoke and let them get on with it.

  – You remember that league we had? Carter asked, bringing Harry back out of Rudi’s and into the Indonesian.

  He had to think and didn’t have a clue what the sex machine was on about.

  – That Sex Division we had, Carter laughed. You haven’t forgotten already, have you? It wasn’t that long ago. I was playing total football, like the Dutch.

  Harry remembered. He’d been relegated. But he didn’t think of that any more because it tied in with Balti. He didn’t want those kind of memories. Things had to be good. He just smiled.

  – We had this league, Carter said. You got ten points for shitting in a bird’s handbag.

  Harry pictured Balti and wished Carter would leave it alone. It had been a bad time. Shortly after that Denise had married Slaughter and two weeks after they’d come back from the honeymoon someone told Slaughter that Carter had been servicing his blushing bride. Slaughter was a psycho, went mental and had gone after Carter with a machete. Denise was lucky, because she’d gone to Guildford for the night with her mum and dad. Carter had told Harry down The Unity soon after the event, hand shaking as he lifted his pint.

  It was a Sunday morning and Carter was coming home after a hectic night with some half-decent tart from Blues. He was feeling pleased with himself because he’d been after this bird for a while. He’d got home and there was Slaughter standing in a doorway and the headcase had come and jammed the machete against his neck. Slaughter pushed Carter back against the wall and pushed hard on his jugular. It was sideways on but the blade was cutting his skin. Carter kept still. He saw his throat sliced open and the blood drained. He told Harry he’d been shitting it. Fucking shitting his load. He was about to die like a pig. Slaughter was crying and telling Carter he was going to kill him for fucking Denise. Did he understand that he was in love with the woman. The thought of you, you cunt, fucking my Denise makes me fucking sick. It makes me want to slit your throat and cut your bollocks off and that’s what I’m going to do because they call you Carter and you think you’re a sex machine but to me you’re just a cunt, a fucking piece of shit who fucks up people’s lives and you don’t do that to me, you don’t fuck me about you fucking slag, you don’t take liberties and think you can walk away, you fucking cunt.

  Carter was quick to think and said it wasn’t true. It’s not true. Someone’s taking the piss. Who told you that? Someone’s telling lies about me. I’m not that sort of bloke – yes I am, of course I am, Slaughter’s a stupid cunt but he’s not that stupid, he’s never going to believe that – she’s not that kind of girl. Denise isn’t some old slapper is she? Do you really think Denise would do that to you? She fucking loves you. Denise would go out and top herself if she thought you had her down as a slag, just some whore who goes round fucking anything that moves. Do me a favour. Do Denise a favour. More than that, do yourself a favour Slaughter. Denise is a classy lady. It’s just not true. I swear on my mother’s life, there’s nothing between me and Denise and there never has been (and even faced with having his throat cut Carter thought of the day after the newly weds came back from their honeymoon, and while Slaughter was at work he’d gone round the flat and Dirty Denise was up to her old tricks, fucking gagging for it, the dirty talk and everything).

  People heard what they wanted to hear and that was the thing to remember. It worked in everyday life and it worked in the long term. That was why he was the sex machine and got the women. He told them what they wanted to hear and made them feel good about themselves. He was doing them a service talking shit. The shit made them feel good and he got his reward. The shit smelt good. Shit smelt like Chanel for these birds, and that’s how he lived to shag again. He applied logic in a near death situation and simply treated Slaughter like a bird and told him what he wanted to hear, that his wife was a good, clean woman who was honest as the day was long. Carter told Harry he was standing there with that machete ready to cut his throat and Slaughter’s face changed and he thought about what he was being told so Carter could almost hear the gears clanking. After a couple of minutes Slaughter told Carter he liked him, and that maybe he was wrong, jumping to conclusions.

  Slaughter gave himself some more time to think about this and then he backed away and apologised. He even begged Carter not to say anything to
Denise about what had happened. He felt really bad about all this now. What was he thinking of? It was the overtime he was doing. It was hard getting by sometimes. Everything was so expensive and they’d had the honeymoon in Greece. That hadn’t been cheap. Sorry Terry. And Carter’s first thought was to lay into the cunt and give him a kicking because the whole time he’d been thinking of Balti and how the poor cunt died on a Sunday morning in the street outside his home, and how it was all going to happen again. But he held back because he’d have to kill Slaughter and he wasn’t going that far – don’t worry Slaughter, just make sure you get the cunt telling lies about me, this wanker slagging off your wife, making out she’s a slag.

  Slaughter nodded and walked away. Next day Carter heard one of the regulars in The Unity had been found sitting at a bus stop with his face slashed. It had taken thirty stitches to sew the cunt back together. The bloke told the old bill he didn’t recognise his attacker, even though the attack had happened during the day. Carter had a quiet word with Denise and she started shitting herself. She was happily married and didn’t want to die. They knocked it on the head, at least for a while.

  – Shitting in a bird’s handbag? one of the blokes with Harris asked. Did anyone do it?

  – This mate of ours managed it, Carter said, looking to Harry in apology. Did six of them. Lined them up and filled the lot.

  – That’s brave of him. He was lucky they didn’t kill him. No bird likes getting shat on.

  Harry thought of the kids on the boat, with sick in their hair and clothes. It could’ve been worse. He wished Carter hadn’t brought all that up now, when he’d been on the puff and was feeling mellow.

  – You can get all that kind of porn here, Harris said. You can get birds covered in the stuff like they’re auditioning for some rap film. Birds getting golden showers, birds with midgets, birds with horses.