by John King
The burgers were greasy and smelt like shit, and he didn’t need that on a nice day like today. They were worse than the dog food you found outside football grounds. They reeked and even Carter wouldn’t have touched them. The slags pushing the pushchairs had stopped to argue with the drug dealers and the snotty-nosed kids were looking on bored because they’d seen it all before. There was an argument and some bloke rolled over the street. A big fucker with tattoos up his arms and a long scar from cheek to chin, pissed and jabbering, having his say, and then suddenly they all strolled off in three separate directions as though nothing had happened.
Harry moved out of the shadows and into the sun, crossing a bridge and passing several small, busy cafes. There were decent Germans here sipping small glasses of spirit and watching the world. Harry kept going along wide roads lined by run-down, empty buildings. The cars were spewing out fumes and he was sweating, but finally found the street he was looking for. There were a lot of bars and a quieter atmosphere, but he didn’t stop, taking notice of the bars as he’d be back. At the other end of the street he turned and found some grand buildings, a big church and the oversized communist architecture of Alexanderplatz. He looked at the church or cathedral or whatever the fuck it was for a couple of minutes, but he was fed up with religion and headed for Alexanderplatz itself.
Harry stood in the square and looked around. The buildings were major. There was a row of flats and the kind of building he’d only ever seen on the telly, big and grey and communist, most of all impressive. It reminded him of the photos of Hitler’s buildings. These dictators knew how to build big and he supposed that when you could do whatever the fuck you wanted you tended to think big. He doubted whether Stalin or Hitler had to answer to an accountant when they went on a spree. He sat down on a bench and looked around. Alexanderplatz wasn’t bad and it felt different from West Berlin, less commercial. When the Wall was still standing it would’ve been different again, one side free and packed with adverts, the other confined and advert-free, but despite the misery there had to be a strong belief in what they were doing. Maybe not, he didn’t know. It was better to have everyone in together.
Harry drank his lager and watched the people pass outside. Alexanderplatz was something he’d never seen before and he preferred it to West Berlin. He was getting into the feel of the place now, having a cold drink in this small corner of the city wondering what time things livened up. He looked at his watch and it was almost six. A couple of women wandered in and sat at the bar, and the barman put some hip-hop or trip-hop or whatever on, but at least he kept the volume down. Harry tapped his foot and sipped his lager, relaxed and calm, Nicky in her right place and at peace with the world, getting into the European state of mind, loving every minute of his time on the Continent without any kind of media propaganda, doing his own thing, loving everything he saw. The tang of cold German lager tickling the back of his throat as he took things nice and slow.
Must be Millwall going into NO-ONE LIKES US substituting English lions for the lions of New Cross, the sound drifting down the street, and I’m walking back from the Kasbah after a shower and then some whizz with the rest of the boys, and we get back to the bar where there’s more English than before and a couple of police vans parked across the road now that the evening’s coming and the English are pissed up singing TWO WORLD WARS AND ONE WORLD CUP pointing at the old bill, trying to wind them up, and then moving straight into ONE BOMBER HARRIS and I wonder if the old bill know that we’re taking the piss trying to wind them up about Dresden, Bomber doing Stalin a favour there, wonder if the cunts can understand English humour, but we’re peaceful enough and this speed is good blowing my head off and I’m feeling fucking brilliant now looking at the lights, slowly clocking the street and for a few seconds I imagine we’re in Hong Kong or somewhere, before the Chinese took the place back, typical English honesty that, keeping to agreements but suppose it had more to do with the Chinese army and a million men in uniform, but who cares about a chinky outpost because it’s only money and the lights go on as the sun starts sinking and the cheers go up as a bird across the road blushes with hundreds of Englishmen singing DO YOU TAKE IT, DO YOU TAKE IT . . . a thin girl in her twenties with a short skirt and nicely tanned legs . . . DO YOU TAKE IT UP THE ARSE? and she understands what’s being said and her face is red through the bronze skin but she waves and shakes her head, so the England boys give her a big cheer and she waves back, and everything’s funny again because it’s an old football favourite, and I’m thinking of the Charity Shield when David Beckham came down to the end where 30 or 40,000 Chelsea were sitting and started warming up and suddenly this mass of supposedly New Football Fans – the megastore, club-shirted, middle-class family support – suddenly 30,000 people (mostly working-class men – thirty-year-old men – men with short hair – those men – men like us – men like me), 30,000 geezers are taking the piss out of the bloke singing SHE’S A WHORE because lucky David’s going out with a Spice Girl, and he holds his hand to his ear and asks for something better seeing if the Chelsea boys are still up to scratch and within seconds there’s 30 or 40,000 Chelsea singing DOES SHE TAKE IT UP THE ARSE? again and again until the stewards come over and off Beckham goes. It makes you laugh. Makes you grin. Makes you want to go over to that fräulein and give her one. Even the bird four rows down was singing at Wembley, my head racing ahead to the next game at Coventry and at half-time they bring on this troupe of thirteen- or fourteen-year-old girls in skirts and pom poms, get them doing the cheer-leader routine, a few harmless movements dancing about playing at baby pop stars, the way the media does, lowering the age of consent all the time, spreading fashion further down the scale just making a living, but the PA is turned up full crank and one or two blokes remember the David Beckham incident and try to get something going but nobody joins in because these kids are too young, knowing the boundaries, and then they come over and line up in front of 4,000 Chelsea, who are mainly half-cut blokes in their thirties sweating in the sun, and the girls do their routine and Chelsea give them a chorus of IF SHE DON’T COME I’LL TICKLE HER BUM WITH A LUMP OF CELERY, and I’m standing in Berlin and this comes in with the rush seeing that bird across the street, having another drink with the boys and there’s a mob who were following England in the early eighties, someone says the Salonika 7 are there, and they start something the others pick up on, a golden oldie, singing OLD TED CROKER SAID, WHAT IS HAPPENING, WHAT IS HAPPENING, WHAT IS HAPPENING, OLD TED CROKER SAID, WHAT IS HAPPENING, AND THIS IS WHAT WE SAID, OH, THE ENGLAND BOYS ARE ON THE PISS AGAIN, ON THE PISS AGAIN, ON THE PISS AGAIN, THE ENGLAND BOYS ARE ON THE PISS AGAIN, THIS IS WHAT WE SAID, and I hold my bottle and half drain the lager and I suppose we’ve been making life hard for the FA for decades now, wherever they go the England mob are already there, shagging the local women and giving the local hooligans a slap, ready and waiting, spoiling the FA’s foreign travel, and I’m feeling fucking great, feeling fucking brilliant, and I know it’s going to be a good night as a few of us walk away following Harris, leaving the main mob of English behind – they’re behaving themselves and not looking for trouble, minding their Ps and Qs, acting like gentlemen with none of those bad German swear words, ambassadors for Tony Blair and the suits at home, the G&T fossils in the British Embassy – walking away and turning down a side street to a taxi office.
We order two cabs driven by Nigerians – big old boys who’ve escaped their government and the oil industry – eight of us off to meet the Germans – do something for international relations – Billy says neo-Nazis from the East – distant tower blocks covered in football graffiti – no jobs and too much time – fed on hatred for their old controllers – bitter memories – and I sit by the window with the sun down – can’t believe the time’s gone – maybe the clocks are wrong – whizzing by the window – head on glass speeding through the present day – driver piling along – playing some classical stuff on the radio – friendly enough geezer – doesn’t know who he’s got on board
– travelling with a Billy Boy Gruff – how serious does he take the right-wing stuff? – grown-up and bad tempered – the driver saying how his mum and dad and brothers died and he came to Europe to earn a crust – talking loud about tribal wars and how bad these things are – booming voice fills my ears – then the sound dips down – watching the cars and buses and people strolling along – suddenly look up and see the Reichstag – fucking hell, it’s the Reichstag and Brandenburg Gate – seeing the sights but keeping it to myself – flashes of colour – drank too much and did the speed – gone a bit overboard if I’m honest – an Anglo-Saxon who likes his lager – but bollocks – it feels good and I fancy some more – dead silence inside the car – the music’s gone and I wonder what’s happened – the cab’s stopped and I don’t want to look – I mean, Brighty says he hates niggers and Harris likes cutting people – not enough to kill a man – not enough for Harris to lean over from the back seat and pull the driver’s head back – hold it firm – the Nigerian trying to struggle and get loose – doesn’t want to die like the rest of the family – doesn’t want to die like the German kids in their villages – just wants the angels to come and spare his life – wants to live to fight another day – Harris holding him firm so Reich-Bright can do his Aryan Brotherhood routine – pull out a razor and laugh in the face of the black man – lean over and cut the pulsing throat – lean in close with his face distorted – watching the blood pump in a slaughterhouse massacre – tribesmen shagging blue monkeys – greasing the primate’s arse and slipping in – buried to the hilt – only girl monkeys because there’s nothing the tribes hate more than queers – and I suppose the old monkey doesn’t have much choice – caught in a trap and brought into the village for some slap and tickle – slapping its face and tickling its bum – with celery – Reich-Bright leaning in close so the black man can smell the lager on his breath and the powder on his gums – leaning in close but saying fuck all – this deathly silence that does my fucking head in – knowing this is shit – fucking shit – just something Bright says for a laugh and I don’t want to see anyone die – tiredness and the sun and drink and speed taking advantage – burning everything as it races forward – brain bulging – the blood pumping from a severed jugular and hitting the roof of this beat-up car – thought the Germans built quality cars and empires to last a thousand years – rust on the doors and the smell of petrol – stink of blood hitting the roof and hitting my face – eyes buried on the dark tarmac outside – hard jungle red – the tinkle of green as I raise my right hand to wipe away the blood – get rid of the sweat – red turning to green so the car starts moving again and I hear the band strike up with DJ Bright the man at the controls . . . the Expeditionary Force moving ahead – the driver laughing and saying he likes the music – where did you get the tape? – and Brighty must be fucked as well because he starts asking this bloke all these questions like where did your family die and how old were you and it’s hard being an orphan and you better stop round the corner because the place we’re going might not be too friendly – says good luck mate as we shut the door and I stumble on the pavement – the second cab stopping behind – eight of us crossing the road and heading for a bar near some place Harris calls Alexanderplatz.
I stand in the shadows, tapping Harris for a top-up, and he’s ready enough. Hasn’t been drinking like me because he’s the leader of our team. Has to keep his head straight. Standing in the shadows knowing my head’s fucked. Left myself wide open. Don’t give a toss, because I make the effort and get the concentration pointing in the right direction here in some dark corner of East Berlin following the leader into this bar with the tinted windows, carved German words in the glass, walking in on a mini Nuremburg and a bar stuffed with fifty or so blokes, most of them in black combat jackets and DMs, feel like I’ve gone back a few years here though it’s a German style they’ve picked up along the way and changed from the original just like the style English skinheads picked up from Jamaica and changed, shedding some skin and some weight, marching straight in, and a few of the Germans turn their heads at these eight England boys strolling in without a care in the world and I’m glad to see Harris spot the blokes he knows. We’re soon sitting at the bar and the Germans are lining up the lager with a big selection of white noise sounding out, all Screwdriver and Skullhead and Blood & Honour tunes brought along by their own resident gruppen-DJ, keeping the reich-sounds going, settling in and taking a look at the bar, sipping lager with the whizz shifting my head forward a gear and cruising, because once you sit down and look at things more clearly they pan out, clocking the big reich-geezers, obviously the hardcore, and a mix of other blokes who look like they’re along for the night out, Harris introducing us to several of these Germans whose names I don’t understand, expecting them to launch into one and start going on about the Turks and asylum-seekers and the coming new world order, but they’re very formal asking us what we think of Berlin, and one bloke who you’d never guess was an animal-lover asks Mark if he’s been to the zoo. Mark obviously thinks it’s a trick question and pauses, that the zoo’s some inner-city ghetto full of Pakis, but the bloke’s straight up because there’s a panda on loan that they’re trying to mate with this other panda who’s also on loan as well but neither seems interested in sex, preferring the bamboo. We’re sitting in Nuremburg with Ian Stuart belting out a song and we’re in a conversation about pandas with this modern-day storm-trooper. Maybe the bloke’s speeding as well, maybe there’s a glut of the stuff and they’re giving it away with the frankfurters in the train station. Another zoo. Laughing now with these fucking nutters talking about how the pandas can’t be bothered having a shag because it’s too much effort and they’d rather sit in the bar and have a few beers and then piss off for a bamboo special with water chestnuts, and we say we know a lot of geezers like that back home in London, like old Harry Roberts who’s a good bloke but a pisshead who can’t be bothered half the time, him and a hundred other blokes just the same, and this German is almost pissing himself, almost crying with laughter because he says he knows these people, he knows these men dedicated to another kind of life, the bierkeller and burger men. There’s enough of them in Leipzig and every other German city. I say they’re everywhere because they just can’t be bothered with all that sex stuff when they can sit in front of the telly and have a wank over some skin flick of a bird getting serviced on their behalf. The old medical condition, Blow Job By Proxy, but then I go and spoil it all by saying that’s the fucking chinks for you, been smoking too much opium.
– Yes, this bloke says, it is a problem in Germany. The immigrants are taking over with their drug dealers and pimps. There are four million Turks in Germany and millions of Germans unemployed.
I nod and have another drink and let Brighty and Harris lead the conversation, looking round at the men drinking and laughing, and there’s quite a few with their hair grown out and a couple with flat-tops, and there’s this little geezer, a real wide boy with a jack-in-the-box manner, explaining to Mark how the Europeans look at the English hooligans, that whatever they say and do to us, deep down they respect England for the trouble we’ve caused through the years. Whatever happens, England is the role model for football hooligans. They can’t get over these mobs of barbarians who come over and raid their cities, pillaging but not raping, smashing up their shopping centres and causing havoc against the odds. Doesn’t matter whether they come from London, Birmingham, Leeds, Newcastle, whatever, they’re on a different scale that frightens the shit out of the Continentals. He says the English are rebels. Not in their politics but in their young men, the working class who drink and riot, it’s part of the Saxon nature to get pissed and have a laugh, and if anyone starts on them give them a kicking.
Have to admit this bloke knows what he’s on about and he’s not saying this like he’s trying to lick anyone’s arse. Has a feel about him that tells you he’s dangerous. He knows we’re Chelsea and says Chelsea have a cult support, a rebel following, and that the fa
ns have made the club famous through the years. That the Europeans always talk about Chelsea with respect, whether it’s Scandinavia, Germany, Croatia. He doesn’t know about the Italians and Spanish because they’re another set of people, fucking subhumans, and he starts going on about how Western Europe is split between the Saxons and the Latins, that the Germans and English share the same blood and that it was a tragedy how we fought each other during the war. With the English fighting next to the Germans, the Russians would have been annihilated, the Slavs working as slaves for their masters in the West. France wants to be Latin, but they can’t pull it off, though there’s no way you can connect the French and English or the French and Germans. Everyone does the French.
I think of that game in Paris and the French riot police were firing tear gas as the English gave a mob of French skinheads the run-around. I laugh out loud remembering Rod trying to piss on the eternal flame and wipe out their memories before he was nicked. Mark and the nutter look at me and another German leans in and says his grandfather died fighting the English. I don’t know if he wants to have a go or what, but then he says it’s stupid this was allowed to happen – friends fighting among themselves when there are better enemies to join forces against. We all nod because there’s logic in that, what’s the point of killing each other, and I’m off thinking of Vince Matthews and the stories he told us once about the World Cup in 1982 and how the Spanish riot police were always after the English, the police and local fascists both thinking along similar lines, cornering small groups of English when they had the numbers, and how the English were always up for it. The Spanish went for the race connection because we’d given the Argies a good kicking in the Falklands, and when England played Argentina in Mexico a few years later, when Maradona punched the ball over Shilton, the England boys mobbed up outside waiting for the Argies who bottled out, but even so, I don’t know about the English and Germans joining up because I hate the idea of European union. We have to keep ourselves separate, have a drink but go our own ways. I want to tell Hans or whatever the bloke’s called that the English don’t kill women and kids in concentration camps, no fucking way. It’s an essential difference. I know it’s not a good idea right now but I can feel the words forming, wondering if I should mention the bombing of London and the plans the Nazis had at the end of the war to execute English prisoners of war, and if that had happened I doubt we’d be sitting here now. But I know it’s not the time or place and I have to fight back against laughing, so I look over and concentrate on these birds in the corner, focus on their tits and forget about the heavy stuff. There’s three of them and they’re fucking beautiful with the speed getting me in that mean-sex frame of mind so I want to go over and drag them in the bogs and fuck the arse off them one by one, humming under my breath THE GERMANS COME IN ONE BY ONE, AND ONE BY ONE THEY ALL GOT DONE to the tune of When Johnny Comes Marching Home, adapting an old Chelsea song from West Ham to Germany, looking at the man next to me and fighting the urge to nut the cunt, what’s he fucking looking at, shifting back to the women.