The Football Factory

by John King

  He was having an excellent game. It was the Cup Final at Wembley and he was on a hat-trick. His first goal had come just before half-time as he finished off a long run, which had seen him cover the length of the pitch, by rounding the Man United keeper and slotting the ball into the back of an empty net. The second was scored midway through the second half, a diving header from a pinpoint cross from the left wing, Sid ducking his head in among the flying boots in a magnificent display of sporting bravery.

  Now he was considering the options on how to complete the scoring. Leaning his back against the cold metal of the lorry’s wall, he hitched faded jeans over a sweltering beer gut and decided on another pitch-length sprint with a pile-driver of a shot which burst the back of the net and sent the commentators into a frenzy of familiar football clichés. The voices of Brian Moore and John Motson echoed through the living rooms of a watching nation, the praise of Alan Hansen and Gary Lineker hailing the young West Londoner as the greatest living footballer since that Argentinian hand-of-God merchant Diego Maradona. Sid was a George Best for the modern game. A worthy QPR addition to the Rodney Marsh/Stan Bowles hall of fame. He closed his eyes to stop the flood of sweat from blinding his view, watching his own celebrating run towards the royal box, where Princess Di cheered her favourite player with a look on her face which meant one thing and one thing only. Romance.

  —You want a cup of coffee Sidney? Tom asked.

  —No sugar or milk. I’m trying to watch my weight. I’m up to seventeen stone again.

  —Right.

  The Chelsea bastard pissed off to the hot drinks machine and Sid was left with the image of a beautiful princess spread out on his bed in a silk negligee, looking seductive. Her elegant fingers were covered in diamond and sapphire rings, and she wore a sparkling tiara. Sid had other things on his mind though. He was running around the room making sure there were no journalists hiding in the wardrobe, sticking their lenses through his dirty washing stacked up in a corner. Once the bedroom got the all-clear, he tried clicking back to the expectant royal awaiting his plebeian touch, but he wasn’t much good with pure fantasy. There had to be a bit of reality to make the daydream work. He had too much respect for Lady Di. Anyway, he’d read somewhere that she’d had that illness girls got sometimes, where they stick their fingers down their throats and make themselves sick so that they can stay skinny. It was disgusting. All that skin and bones. They’d never catch him making himself sick just so he could lose a bit of weight.

  Sid wondered if he was pushing it a bit by scoring a fourth goal in injury time, just so he could rub Man U’s nose in shit. Why not? You only lived once and he’d got his second wind after completing the hat-trick. Steve was busy messing about with that last pallet they’d loaded, trying to work the forklift into the grooves, the sound of creaking wood and nails vibrating through the trailer. Sid switched back to the Cup Final, immediately setting off on an intricate dribble, a slimmed-down vision of his former self, ten years ago as a twenty-year-old, twisting and turning this way and that, nutmegging the centre-half and chipping the keeper. He ran to the QPR fans and sunk to his knees, enjoying their hysteria. Grown men spilled onto the pitch and hugged him. Sid was a hero.

  —Here you go, Tom said. You look fucked. Out on a bender last night were you?

  —Seven pints of London Pride and a couple of cans of Tennants when I got home. I was only planning a quick one, but it was Kevin the landlord’s birthday and he had a bit of a lock-in to celebrate. You can’t be rude.

  —I thought you were going to lose some weight?

  —I was. I am. Starting today. There’s no time like the present.

  Steve finally got the troublesome pallet up and moving, and soon had it stacked in the shelves. Tom dragged a new one into the trailer, as far as it would go up against the boxed pressure cookers rising above them, and they started the process again. Sid pulled boxes out and threw them to Tom, who formed precise rows. On the next pallet they would change over. It was a shit job, unloading these big efforts, but it did make the time pass if you could keep your mind busy, and Sid was having no trouble there.

  He had won the pools and was signing on the dotted line. He was the biggest winner the competition had ever known, a cool forty million pounds topping up his savings account, which at the moment stood at a modest seventeen pounds and fifty-six pence. He had decided to buy up Queens Park Rangers Football Club, thereby fulfilling a childhood dream which showed no sign of fading. He would invest in new players and assume the managerial role. True, he had not played the professional game himself, though he’d had trials with Watford and Orient as a kid, but so what? He was an innovator ready to break the rules. He was rich. The rules didn’t mean a thing if you were loaded.

  —Slow down a bit will you Sid, Tom said, grinning. There’s no rush. You’re getting a bit excited up there. You’re not imagining yourself in the cab with that French bird are you?

  —I just won a fortune and bought Rangers, and was planning my first signing, he said, slowing down. He liked Tom.

  —Hear that Steve, Tom shouted, turning towards the forklift driver. Sid’s just bought your club and he’s going to sign a team full of Catholics. He’s signing Fenians behind your back.

  —He fucking isn’t.

  —QPR, mate, QPR. I’m not interested in your Jock football. It’s all haggis and kilts in the centre circle at Ibrox.

  Sid had his say and didn’t wait for a reply. He was back at Loftus Road with Rodney Marsh and Stan Bowles sitting on either side of him in the director’s box. Chelsea were getting hammered 5–0 and he’d tipped the old bill off. He laughed as Tom and his nutter mates were led down the tunnel for a good spanking. He didn’t approve of hardline policing, especially at football grounds, but neither did he like trouble-makers spoiling things for everyone else. He was a football fan. A programme collector. A third of the way to being a trainspotter. He was busy building a team the fans would love to watch and he had already halved admission prices. Soon he would redevelop the ground and crowds of fifty thousand would be common. The whole of White City and the surrounding area would flock to see his team of stars perform. Rodney, Stan and Sid would wave to the punters and share an after-match pint or three with Gerry Francis and Ray Wilkins.

  —That new bird in the office is well nice, Tom said, watching Janet walk past on her way to the foreman’s office.

  She was. Very definitely. Sid couldn’t disagree. But he was too busy in the director’s bar to bother about fanny, sitting at a table with Rodney and Stan and Gerry and Ray. It was Gerry’s round and he was on his way to the bar as Tom spoke. Rodney and Gerry had become best of mates and it was turning into a good evening. Gerry came back with five pints of the new Dave Sexton Best Bitter which Sid was having brewed on the premises. They were a bit pissed and talking about going for a sitdown curry when the bar closed. Terry Venables was coming along a bit later, when he’d got his England squad sorted out, as there’d been important matches played that evening and there was bound to be five or six players reporting themselves injured.

  —Hurry up Gerry, you grey-haired tosser, Rodney shouted.

  —Oh Rodney, Rodney … Rodney, Rodney, Rodney, Rodney, Rodney Marsh, chanted Ray, obviously unable to handle the Dave Sexton Best.

  —Shut up you bald sod, Stan mumbled. You’ll get us kicked out and we’ll have to fuck off down the Springbok.

  —Baldness is a sign of virility, I’ll have you know, Ray said. Remember that next time you’re doing the business. Anyway, how many caps did you win for England?

  —It’s you wearing them every night in the bath that’s turned you into a baldy bastard, Stan laughed, secretly cursing the former midfield maestro for highlighting his own lack of international recognition, simultaneously comforting himself with the knowledge that he had just been too talented for the limited thinking of the England set-up of his day.

  Sid thought about telling the lads not to worry about getting kicked out because he owned the bar, the g
round, everything, but he didn’t want them to think he was a bighead. He kept quiet. Gerry was downing his pint in one and Stan was smirking to himself as he watched the former England skipper, at the same time trying to open a pack of salted peanuts he’d been saving since Sid bought the first round. Good old Stan. A great player. Unique talent. Sid was in heaven. A rich man surrounded by the greatest players he’d ever seen. All of them QPR men. He wished the night would last for ever, but knew time would pass quickly and they’d have to get down the curry house fast before the Indians locked the doors in the vain hope of keeping out the drunks who treated every tandoori house like an assault course. Sid was well used to eating his prawn vindaloos surrounded by rambling men, but tonight he preferred a quiet corner where he could talk the lads through the four goals he’d scored at Wembley, then tell them how he’d felt lifting the FA Cup, and how Lady Di had slipped him her number on a piece of paper torn from her autograph book.

  —I heard about you and the princess, Stan whispered when they were outside the ground, waiting for their cab to arrive. She’s a fine-looking woman, though I heard she sticks her fingers down her throat and makes herself puke.

  —That was years ago, Sid said, keeping his voice down, because although he respected Ray and Gerry and Rodney, he was a discreet character. There were no kiss-and-tell betrayals falling from the lips of Sid Parkinson.

  —Lovely princess, Stan whispered again, nodding his head thoughtfully. I remember the day of the Royal Wedding. A fine event. A day of celebration for the entire nation.

  Sid thought of their first meeting. It was in McDonalds in Shepherd’s Bush, just after midday, and they’d spent the afternoon window shopping before Diana had hopped on a bus back to her own manor. She’d had two hamburgers, small fries and a large strawberry milkshake. He timed her when she went to the Ladies, but she’d been quick, too fast to make herself ill. She really was cured. He had made the decision that their relationship would remain purely platonic. He was at the peak of his football career and in the finest physical condition. He couldn’t afford rampant unbridled sex sessions with a member of the aristocracy. He knew Di wanted more, but he remained firm and knew that his moral stance was understood. She was a class act.

  —I’ve got to be honest lads, said Rodney, once inside the taxi and racing towards the White City Balti, I don’t fancy the old ethnic food much. Let’s go to Tel’s club and have a few sherbets there.

  Sid felt a bit disappointed at first, but then reasoned that Rodney had been in the States so long that he had fallen behind in his understanding of British culture. Anyway, it would prolong the meeting of five great footballing brains, and Tel was bound to turn up sooner or later. Sid leant forward and told the driver the change of destination and, with the screech of tyres and a few choice words, the car was on its way to El Tel Palace in Camden Town. They raced along the Westway at seventy miles an hour, passed Baker Street tube and then cut past Euston to Camden. Once safely inside El Tel’s, the Rangers contingent pushed their way through the hordes of blonde-haired Page 3 girls crowding around them to a private table boxed in with mahogany wood panelling. A bouncer stood nearby deterring the beautiful women pestering Sid and his mates, while El Tel’s favourite hardcore beats blasted from an adjacent sound system. Sid thought he recognised Mixmaster Incie playing the England manager’s CD collection, but knew he must be mistaken.

  —It’s five past eleven, Tom shouted, obviously narked.

  El Tel’s vanished in a sea of cardboard boxes and Sid was sweating in the back of a forty-foot lorry. He had lost five minutes of his precious tea break and wasn’t too pleased. He left Rodney and Stan and Gerry and Ray without a word and went into the warehouse, swore as he had to return for his cup of coffee, then entered the tea-room. The rest of the warehouse crew were either playing cards, reading their papers or staring through the glass partition towards the loading ramp, waiting for something to happen.

  —That driver’s been in his cab with that French bird the whole time we’ve been unloading, Tom said.

  Nobody answered. A couple of card players looked towards the lorry and then returned to their hands, a stack of small coins piled in the middle of the table waiting for a winner.

  —There should be a law against us working our bollocks off while he’s on the job emptying his, he added.

  Still nobody answered. Why torture yourself with visions of female beauty and the joys of sex when hours of mindless warehouse tedium was the best you could hope for from the rest of the day?

  Sid stood up and took his sandwiches out to the ramp; round the corner and out of sight of his fellow workers. He had to graft with these men five days a week and wasn’t in the mood to share his tea break with them as well. Good luck to the driver if he was getting his end away. He watched cars and people arrive and leave the car park. He saw Janet getting into her company car. She waved and he smiled. Then she was off. Heading to El Tel’s midday ambient room perhaps. He shook his head sadly. What would he really do when he won the pools? He liked to think he’d make QPR a power in the land, but would he when it came to the crunch?

  First off he’d buy himself a flat and move out of the dump he rented at the moment. He’d tell the landlord what he really thought of him, the arrogant bastard. He’d spread a bit of wealth around to family and friends, maybe one or two blokes in the warehouse, though he wasn’t sure about that one. He’d have a holiday and go somewhere interesting. He fancied Brazil. A trip down the Amazon and the street carnival in Rio. Maybe meet Ronnie Biggs and discuss the talent crowding the Brazilian beaches. He’d invest his millions, but then what? Money for players? Wages of fifteen or twenty grand a week? He didn’t think he could justify the expense. Professional footballers were over-paid as it was. Would he really want to meet Rodney and Stan and the rest of them? He’d gone to the Rodney Marsh–George Best roadshow at the Beck Theatre in Hayes, and much as he loved Rodney and those childhood memories of genius with a ball, the bloke was a bit disappointing, with his comments about British passports and the Indians in Southall. Most of the crowd laughed, but Sid thought it was all a bit naff. He expected more. Footballers were just that, footballers.

  When he had his millions invested, perhaps he’d look into doing something with the homeless. Or start up an organisation to help people with psychiatric problems. Buy up some old houses and turn them into homes for the kids who ended up on the streets of London and were forced to sell their bodies to paedophiles. If he had all those millions of pounds in his account he’d help the doctors and nurses struggling against Government cut-backs, or aid protests against vivisection and the veal industry. He’d pour funds into a non-aligned progressive programme for the prisons which would re-educate people rather than drive them to suicide and a hardening attitude to the world. There was a lot Sid could do with the cash and when he heard the foreman shouting that it was time to get back to work, that there was work needed doing, he knew he had a good line of thought which would take him right through to dinner. Then there would be the short walk to the bookies, for a fiver on Sir Rodney, running at Cheltenham. Sid was feeling lucky.

  ROCHDALE AT HOME

  I’m late meeting the others. Had to finish off the lorry from France we started in the morning. A late delivery arrived at two which needed seeing to and then it was back to the French job. Untold pressure cookers and the driver’s a flash cunt with a tasty blonde bird he takes into his cab and gives a good shafting while we’re breaking our backs in the trailer. Couldn’t exactly hear him doing the business, but it wasn’t hard to imagine. Specially when you’re knackered and just want to get away, and Glasgow Steve’s going slow on the forklift because he’s angry with the foreman.

  It’s six o’clock and there’s a crowd building up on the Wimbledon-bound platform at Earl’s Court. There’s a fifty-fifty mixture of Chelsea going to the Rochdale cup game and smartly dressed wankers from Fulham and Parsons Green. Always makes me laugh the rich cunts who live around Stamford Bridge. They mus
t hate us lot coming along, messing up their Saturday afternoons. The blokes act like they’re lord of the manor and the birds all think they’re the Queen. They look down their noses at the world, but it’s a doddle staring them out. Every single time they look away, shitting themselves.

  A train shows on the board and the coppers standing by the stairs check their watches. The attendance will be low tonight which translates as easy money for the old bill. A grey evening and it’s been raining on and off all day. A midweek League Cup game against Rochdale isn’t going to stir up much passion and I need a drink to warm my spirits. I’m on edge. It pisses me off when the warehouse interferes with Chelsea. Beggars can’t be choosers, but I do my duty and want to leave on time when there’s a game on. Steve can rant and rave about Glasgow Rangers, but the Scottish cunt should learn to move a bit quicker when Chelsea are at home.

  The train pulls in nearly empty and it’s a quick ride through West Brompton to Fulham Broadway. I flash my ticket and dump the Standard I’ve been reading since Hammersmith in a bin. There’s print on my hands and I’ll get rid of it in the pub. Paper says Chelsea are in the market for a goalkeeper. I wait for the lights to change and cross over. The kebab house on the corner stinks. Reminds me of Tottenham. Mark and Rod are by the door with FA Henry, a funny-looking bloke with thick glasses and FA Cup handle ears. Only comes along to the midweek games because he works on Saturdays.

  —Alright Tom, lager? Mark says as I walk in and he empties his glass. Perfect timing. Henry’s getting married next week, aren’t you Henry? Lucky bastard.

  —Congratulations Henry. I mean it too. He deserves a bird in a white dress even though it’s all a big con. He’s a romantic bloke. Wouldn’t hurt a fly. We’ve known him since we were kids.

  —Who you marrying?

  —Lisa Wellington. Henry’s chest puffs up with what I imagine is pride. You remember her from when we were at school, don’t you?