by John King
Bill Farrell and Bob West watched the images and heard the outraged moralising of a politician demanding instant cat-o’-nine-tails retribution. National Service was mentioned. The politician’s message was followed by the ecstatic self-congratulation of a social commentator. Farrell wasn’t exactly impressed, but his nephew Vince had gone to football when he was younger so he knew something of what happened. West, though, was shocked and angry at the behaviour of the thugs. They were nothing more than a lawless bunch of vandals dragging the good name of England through the mud.
The barmaid Denise was talking with her husband, a local man with a reputation for extreme violence, and didn’t seem too upset by the burning cars, looted shops and flying bottles. The man was known as Slaughter and was encouraging the rioters. He was telling them to ‘do the old bill’ and ‘kill the fucking cunts’, while his wife shushed him and tried to pick out the faces of people they knew. Another man, who they called Rod, was moaning about how he was missing all the fun stuck at home with the wife. He wished he was over in Europe with the rest of the boys and bet they were having the time of their lives. Just to wind up Denise he said Carter would be chasing everything that moved. He’d be doing two or three girls a night down the red light, not to mention the ones he didn’t have to pay for in the bars and clubs.
Slaughter laughed and Rod told him that Tom, Mark and the rest of the English would be running the Dutch mobs ragged. Rod had heard that Carter had been servicing Denise behind her husband’s back and threw the red light comment in for fun, acting ignorant. Slaughter said it wouldn’t just be Carter, because all the lads would be shagging and rioting right through to Berlin. Rod nodded, because he was never going to live this down. He noticed Denise making herself busy washing glasses and he was sure her cheeks were red.
West was starting to seethe, hearing the men at the bar and seeing the hooligans on the screen. Moral disgust at the disturbances swamped his own uncertainties. He was surprised at Denise. She was a nice, decent girl and he expected her to show some shock at this stain on the country’s reputation. Instead she was looking for people she knew as though it was a game of I-spy.
Farrell finished his pint and said his goodbyes as the presenter shook her head sadly and bemoaned the state of the nation before moving on to the happier news that an English firm had secured a multi-million pound contract to help build a new state-of-the-art prison in the Middle East. There was a short discussion about the gallows the company was going to include, with a civil servant pointing out that this was a question of democracy rather than morality. With a dismissive laugh he said that just because the gallows were built for executions didn’t mean they would necessarily be used. Anyway, it wasn’t the manufacturer’s responsibility what went on in another country. The report faded inconclusively and the programme continued.
Farrell put his empty glass on the bar and Denise told him to have a nice time. She was a sweet girl and said Farrell looked smart in his jacket and tie. She’d forgotten Terry and was glowing with the knowledge she only had another week behind the bar before she was off on holiday – a two-week last-minute package in Greece. Denise was looking forward to some sun, sand and sangria. Her husband and the other man smiled and nodded, and Farrell left the pub as the midday news moved to a story of bravery in the Solent, a teenager saving a young boy from drowning just off Hirst Castle. The shaky hand-held film showed a skinhead with a red rose tattoo on his arm and a surfing towel around his shoulders explaining what had happened. The youth was shivering but happy he’d saved a life, while the presenter had adopted a condescending tone in the voice-over as the event was relegated to an amusing happy ending.
With a double whisky inside him Farrell felt confident. He was glad to leave the pub and the news behind. He could see West boiling up inside and didn’t know why he got so upset. Maybe he was trying to shift his own feelings of blame, clutching at the righteous citizen angle. Farrell knew West had to sink or swim by himself. There was nothing anyone could do for him in his situation. He had to sort things out himself.
Farrell was leaving West behind and going into the unknown. It was all a game with the reassuring Teacher’s warming his blood and giving him courage. There was a nice breeze and he felt good about his decision. He turned right and walked towards the station, passing through shoppers and skiving children, past the amusement arcade with its napalm graphics and man-animal-machine super-heroes, on to the dirty chimes of London Underground. He heard the rattling of a train but didn’t rush. He was early and too old to run for the tube. There’d be another one along soon enough. He bought his ticket and went through the barrier, down the steps to the platform. He sat on a bench and waited. The man explaining the gallows situation came into his head. It was hard to understand his logic.
I stick my head in the next compartment and Kev passes over a bottle of vodka. I have a swig and hand it back. It’s cheap and tastes like shit but washes away the dryness. You have to be friendly. There’s eight Northerners packed in playing cards and laughing about last night – Kevin, Crewe, Bolton, three Blackburn lads and two younger boys from Birmingham. They’re having a sociable drink and playing for guilders as we hurry towards Berlin and our meeting with the Hun. The train is packed with every kind of Englishman, with a few rivals naturally enough keeping their distance – Man U and Leeds, the two Bristol clubs.
– I wonder how that nonce’s head is today, Kevin wonders. It was the scousers who pointed him out. I hope we got the right bloke. You never know with scousers. I fucking hate scallies.
Man U and Liverpool is another war zone and I can’t imagine Burnley and Blackburn sharing the same cards. I continue along the carriage and go back to my seat, squeezing past this long-haired Arsenal man who’s already been nicknamed Student because it’s rumoured he did a night course in engineering. The long hair seals his fate.
We’ve got this old boy in the middle of our compartment. Fuck knows where he turned up from, but he must be fifty if he’s a day. This bloke’s glad to be travelling overseas and experiencing foreign cultures. He works on a sewage plant somewhere outside Swindon and keeps reminding us that it’s only the condoms that survive. Says it gives a man like him confidence knowing the rubber he buys in the pub can stand the toughest battering. He could tell us a few stories about the married women of Swindon and the surrounding countryside. He’s a tall man with bottle-top glasses. Drinks from a duty-free bottle of Gordon’s. He’s told us five times now that he deals in shit. That he hasn’t slept since he left Swindon for Paddington. And that last night he was stuck in a carriage full of Dutch who were so fucking boring he had to take some kind of action.
He smiles and says there wasn’t any room to stretch out and they were so clean-living and healthy he decided on some chemical warfare. He was silent but effective. He laughs and tells us younger lads that nothing upsets the Europeans more than being stuck in a confined space with someone who’s got rotten guts. Says they hate it when the smell starts leaking out. But these health-food nutters weren’t to know he dealt in shit. Yes, he deals in shit. Sixth time. We should’ve seen their faces when he shifted his arse and eased another one out. At first they tried to ignore his bombing runs, but fifth raid in they were struggling. Naturally they looked his way, because he was the outsider and the English are barbarians in their eyes, but he acted innocent and continued with the assault. We laugh and look at him in a different way.
Mr Shit says that a couple of minutes after he started farting the compartment was clear of foreigners. He was scorching the earth and clearing the land. The Dutch went and stood in the corridor muttering to themselves, so he shrugged his shoulders and tried to look hurt. He told this woman there must be something wrong with the bog, but winks and says that really it was the baked beans on the ferry. That beans means Heinz and the krauts wouldn’t even have noticed. You’d need a vindaloo for those Germans. The woman didn’t believe him, but with space to stretch out he was able to relax and take his shoes off. Still co
uldn’t get to sleep he was that excited about seeing England play. He loves upsetting foreigners and says you have to do it the right way. Says he stopped in Amsterdam for a few hours. Just enough time to have a drink and a meal, then knob this big black girl in the red light district. He paid her well and got her to lick his arse. He deals in shit. Mark calls him a dirty cunt, half with humour and half fed up listening to the bumpkin voice. Tells him that if he does his baked beans routine in here he’ll be doing a flying header off the train. Mr Shit nods and smiles back, but a few minutes later he goes into the corridor himself and starts talking with Student. Then when Student eventually blanks him he fucks off to another carriage.
– Thank fuck that cunt’s gone, Mark says. He was doing my head in. I haven’t come over here to spend my time listening to some mangy old fucker going on about his guts.
– I wonder how much he paid that whore to lick his arse, Harry slurs.
– You’d do it for half the price, wouldn’t you? Carter says.
We all laugh and Harry tells him to fuck off. He just wondered, that’s all.
I open a bottle of lager and have a drink, washing away the vodka. Look outside and watch a village flash past. Small column of Nissans and Volkswagens waiting for the train to pass. The Japanese and German industries did well out of the war. Lose against the Yanks and they’ll rebuild your economy for you in return for some fast-food outlets. These decent German citizens are living well and not bothered by the contents of the carriages heading East. Not bothered by the glazed eyes of Fat Harry looking their way, getting stuck into the drink like there’s no tomorrow. I look at him as he asks us to imagine a poor little prostitute having that lanky Swindon cunt standing there in his birthday suit, making her kneel down and tickle his bum. We nod, but what does he expect? That’s what they do for a living. It’s their role in life. Paid to service the menfolk and keep them happy. Mr Shit gets to play the big hard master for fifteen minutes. She only has to say no and keep her tongue clean.
Harry nods and moves on. Starts winding Carter up asking the sex machine why he’s only got his leg over once so far. Has his big end gone or is it just the rust? Carter the rust bucket runaround clanking to a halt on the Great West Road. Carter ignores this best he can, but Harry’s in one of those moods. He’s pissed as a cunt and I watch Carter steer him away from sex and onto something a bit more healthy.
– Remember that time we were coming back from Bristol and the coach broke down at the services, he says. Don’t know if the big end had gone, but we were stuck outside Swindon. Do you remember, fat boy?
– What were we doing in Bristol? Harry asks.
– Coming back from that Cup game against City. We were at the services and that Tottenham coach arrived and we were going to kick them off and hijack the driver.
– The time when Chelsea did that pub and you got bitten by some farmer with rabies.
Carter goes red. It must be the one. I ask Carter what happened.
– There was this pub full of City and Chelsea steamed in, Harry says. We were fighting them out in the back of the pub in a car park and this scrawny little cunt jumped on Carter and bit his arm. The bloke dug in and wouldn’t let go. Must’ve held on for at least a minute. We thought he had rabies. He was a fucking wild man. Nobody went near the cunt after he let go. He was spitting and dribbling and walked through us. He was a fucking dangerous man. He’s probably still around, in a farmworker’s cottage baying at the moon then going along to Bristol to see City play. I wouldn’t want to be a Rovers fan with that loony around.
– Forget the fucking Wolf Man, Carter says. I was thinking about that Spurs coach right behind us. Remember we all piled off and queued up waiting for the yids to come and get it, but they wouldn’t get off. They were sitting there shitting themselves. We wanted their transport but they wouldn’t open the fucking door.
– That’s right, they wouldn’t get off, Harry laughs. They were dying for a piss and some bagels and then they finally get to a kosher services blessed by the rabbi and there’s this mob of Chelsea in the middle of Wiltshire waiting for them, eating bacon rolls. Balti put a bottle through the back window and Martin Howe was trying to open the emergency door when the yiddo driving said enough’s enough and went back on the M4.
– The best bit was these younger lads on the coach nicked all the ice-creams from the shop and the old bill turned up. The silly cunts got done for robbing lollies.
– The services usually got robbed of something, Harry says, getting all nostalgic. There used to be a lot of trouble at the motorway stops. You wouldn’t get away with it now.
– You can’t get away with anything today, Mark sighs.
– We always had a good time in the West Country, Carter tells Tom. There was this stampede years ago when we played Reading in the League Cup. All these Reading wankers were down the side of the ground behind their fence mouthing off and there was this steward or something fucking about with a gate.
– I remember that, Harry says. Chelsea jumped him. The gate swung open and they piled through.
– Never seen anything like it. It was the same as one of those wildlife documentaries studying buffalo on the plains of Africa. There was probably fifty Chelsea who got through the gate and the whole of the Reading side started running. It was like they were bouncing in the air. It was fucking brilliant. The Chelsea end was pissing themselves.
– It was the same at Burnley when we lost 3–0. There’d always be a crew who left the ground ten minutes from the end and tried to get in with the home fans. The old bill were busy changing positions preparing for crowd control outside and in they’d go. It was seeing so many run from so few that made you laugh.
Go back ten or so years and a mob went in the Stretford End at the end of a midweek game. The United crew down the side were going mental seeing Chelsea doing damage in the home end. We were kept in and filled the ground with WHAT’S IT LIKE TO RUN AT HOME? Shift forward through the years and Kevin could’ve been a kid as well in the streets around Old Trafford trying to do the cockneys, while there could even be a Reading fan on the train. None of that matters right now and the memories don’t include faces, just shapes. Everyone gets lost in the crowd. Travelling through Holland and Germany we see the features and name tags. Picking up speed and getting tighter as Germany closes in.
The train was racing and they’d crossed the border into Germany an hour before, a Doctor Mengele ticket inspector coming along and sneering at the English until Mark asked him what the problem was, do you think you’re Goering you German cunt, and because Mark was on his feet Mengele backed away and bottled it, then pissed off down the carriage. Harry took a long drink from his bottle of lager and laughed. Mark and Tom didn’t stand for any nonsense, and it was a good job the death-camp doctor had decided to fuck off. Nobody liked people who experimented on children. The Angel of Death was a fucking nonce. Harry would’ve let it go with some verbal because, after all, the world was full of cunts in uniform searching for a plum position where they could unload their frustration and tell every other cunt what to do, tie them down and start experimenting, sharpening the scalpel and playing God with mice and rabbits and dogs, playing Frankenstein with Jews, pikeys, queers – doing the vivisection routine with whatever came off the conveyor belt. Now they got rabbits and pigs. This week’s special offer on items that nobody cared about. But Mark and Tom, they didn’t fuck about and Harry could see Mengele joining the sewers cunt on the road running along next to the railway track.
Harry made his point and Tom was agreeing, forgetting his story of Chelsea and Leicester’s Baby Squad to tell the boys that the world was full of wankers, and how much he hated small-minded cunts trying to tell you what to do all the time, and did they see that wanker at Harwich, the Customs cunt questioning him about his drug use? He couldn’t fucking believe the bloke. Only Mark remembered and he didn’t seem to care, and as far as Harry could make out it was a small incident not worth its weight, just part of the every
day routine. The old bill, ticket wardens, security guards, bouncers, all of them only obeying orders. Tom said he’d been on the verge of nutting that wanker at Customs and had to use all his self-discipline, and Harry had to admit that was a bit over the top because after all, they may have been small-minded little cunts – the world, like Tom said, was full of small-minded little cunts; in fact when you really stopped and thought about it, being a small-minded cunt had to be one of the main qualifications for getting a job in politics, the police, whatever; all you had to be was be a small-minded, petty little fucking cunt – but every cunt had a job to do. Fucking hell, how many bottles had he drunk, because he was well pissed and they were still a few hours from Berlin.
Harry sat back and listened to the others laughing and joking and enjoying the journey, Carter punching him playfully on the shoulder and saying remember that time when we played Sunderland in the League Cup semi-final, the game when Dale Jasper thought it was a basketball tournament and gave away two penalties. That was a mad night and did he remember how that copper had come up to Balti and smacked him in the bollocks with his truncheon. Stroppy little cunt hit him right in the balls and somehow Balti had done the iron nuts routine and stood there and told the wanker to come on, let’s see how fucking hard you are. He never showed the pain, and it had hurt, but he wasn’t giving the copper the satisfaction. Carter laughed and explained to the rest of them that this small-minded little cunt looked at this nutter in front of him who could take a truncheon in the bollocks and feel no pain, and he’d just bottled out and legged it. There was no way the old bill could deal with that. They’d nicknamed Balti Iron Bollocks for a while, but eventually he’d got a new name because of the amount of Indian he was eating.
Then Carter was telling Tom and Mark and Gary, and Billy Bright and Harris and a few others who were hanging around the door, how after the game when everything was kicking off and Chelsea were fighting the old bill and Sunderland, how Harry had walked right up to this copper and nutted him, then disappeared into the darkness. Tom said nice one and Harry could tell they were impressed, because the way Carter explained it the head butt was perfect and the copper went straight down. But it was a long time ago and Harry didn’t think of those days very often, had forgotten a lot of what went on and saw himself in a different light to the person Carter was describing. Carter asked Harris if he remembered that night, and Bomber said of course he did. Sunderland had their coaches done with baseball bats back at the Bridge, the benches had come out as Chelsea went on the pitch, and then they’d had a go at the old bill outside. Harry was listening and wondered if there were any Sunderland on board and Tom must’ve been on the same wavelength because he was saying how funny it was being on this train with all these different clubs who Chelsea had probably done at some point over the past ten years.