The Football Factory

by John King

  —I didn’t give you the copy, just forgot about it, but it’s got to be somewhere. I’ll dig it out and pass it on.

  —You sure? Rod looks worried. Then starts laughing. You’re winding me up. I know you are. Why would you make a copy? It wasn’t exactly a pro job. The picture was out of focus half the time. It’s not like you’re going to make a packet selling it to Marshall.

  —Just forgot about it, that’s all. Mark’s voice has an edge. If you don’t want the tape I won’t bother.

  —I was pissed and did the business when I shouldn’t have. So what? Rod tries the big bluff but he’s looking bad. Poor cunt. Why crucify the bloke for making a prick of himself?

  So he shagged a whore on stage in front of his mates. He was out of it and everyone makes mistakes. Better than going out and raping someone. Or watching squaddies doing it on video for you. We’ve all followed the urge and serviced things that didn’t need servicing. Why have regrets? There’s no place for sentiment, though Rod’s only bothered because he’s worried about Mandy somehow getting a glimpse. Who cares. None of us are into being a spectator. Leave that to the pundits on telly. All those nobody gameshows. The cameras looking for a bit of football violence, getting off on the lads steaming in. But it’s a con. If you want something like that go out and get it yourself. Don’t sit at home flicking channels expecting someone to live your life for you. We may be cunts but we’re not hiding the fact. Unlike the docile majority. So silent you can hear their thoughts quivering with outrage. I tell Rod we’re joking and he says he knew it all the time. We start laughing. There’s twenty minutes till kick-off but bollocks, we’ll have another quick pint. It’s cold outside. We need the warmth.

  Shame it’s not someone like West Ham tonight. It would be good to have a bit of a punch-up. We don’t have to justify ourselves to anyone. Like those wankers running the army or killing grannies because they won’t give them enough money to pay their heating bills. Kicking fuck out of someone is excitement. It gives you a buzz. You can dress violence up anyway you like but it’s still there. Why play games and try to justify your actions? All these plonkers with their politics and moral outrage are kidding themselves. The kick is seeing your first ruck, a mob of Cardiff chased down Fulham Broadway and battered by Chelsea when I was a kid. Pure and simple. No explanations. I ask Rod if he remembers Chelsea running Cardiff that time. He does. Says it was justice. Paid those five Taffi back years before the event. That he was looking ahead even in those days.

  HOOLIGANS

  Powerful winds battered the multi-million pound structure, yet for the assorted players, officials, sponsors and media personnel cocooned inside the East Stand it could just as easily have been a warm summer’s evening. The last spectators had left the stadium, driving rain forcing hunched shoulders deep inside coats, the visiting contingent facing a tiring trip north, clothes soaked and a heavy defeat for cold comfort. The glow of floodlights had vanished, brilliant illumination replaced by deep shadow. Stamford Bridge stood out against the rolling clouds, light from a near-full moon catching the angles of the towering main stand.

  In a corner of the bar, Will Dobson was educating Jennifer Simpson, a rather attractive young hopeful, in the wicked ways of the press. Will was a good teacher who knew the football world inside out, all the gossip and a few of the facts, filling his belly with bottled bitter and a steady stream of double vodkas. It was humid and sweat stained his white shirt, every now and then his eyes straining for a peak at Jennifer’s slender legs.

  —It wasn’t how I thought it was going to be, Jennifer said, learning the lesson and downing half a glass of white wine in a single gulp. There wasn’t much of a crowd and those who came were pretty quiet. The game was very boring as well, don’t you think? Where were the hooligans we read so much about?

  —In here, Will laughed, tapping his temple. A figment of the imagination. An editor’s wet dream. Sadly our hooligan friends are a thing of the past.

  Jennifer let her eyes wander to the bar, allowing Will an escape route from any embarrassment he might feel at the sexual reference, watching casually-dressed young sportsmen rub shoulders with older, heavier men in suits. Will didn’t seem bothered about such niceties though. He probably thought a new man was a type of service robot, and in a way he would have been right. Jennifer congratulated herself on the humour, and determined to use it some time in the near future.

  The bar blended athleticism and new money, its own small world lost in the enormous concrete structure, an almost unique aura of big pay cheques and wholesome job satisfaction. Jennifer was aware of Dobson’s occasional glances under the table but not averse to letting the old boy get a glimpse of her legs. She knew she was good looking and didn’t believe in false modesty. He wasn’t a bad sort and it did no harm. If she was going to make a career for herself in journalism she would need all the help she could get. Connections were vital in every walk of life, probably more so in this particular line, and even the likes of Dobson might prove useful in the future. She wondered what he had meant by a figment of the imagination.

  —The hooligans faded away after Heysel, Dobson confided, lowering his voice because the subject was a taboo which turned off the sponsors. Before that they were a bloody nuisance, but they shifted papers and journalism’s all about circulation figures. My theory is they either got into drugs like ecstasy which destroyed their violent tendencies and/or organised crime, or got married and settled down, and the kids today can’t afford to go very often which means there’s no new blood coming through to fill their shoes, Dr Martens if you like, so the hooligan drifted towards extinction, just like the dinosaur. The police became experts in the field of crowd control and introduced video cameras and the yobs decided enough was enough. A few tough sentences and they handed in their Stanley knives and started new lives. There’s a pitch invasion now and then, but that’s just a handful of idiots pissing in the wind, if you’ll excuse my French. Football violence is dead and buried. Society is much better balanced these days. The Tories have eradicated the class system. The angry young men of yesteryear are either sitting in bed smoking cannabis or wandering around their local homestore trying to decide what shade of paint to buy for the baby’s room.

  —What about the trouble at that England game? Jennifer asked, remembering the televised pictures and endlessly reproduced face of a frightened child, the wide eyes sticking in her mind, the media’s innocent-victim line of emphasis working a treat. There always seems to be a riot of some kind when the national side plays overseas.

  —I’m not saying there aren’t one or two bad boys around, but they know to behave themselves, more’s the pity. I had my best bylines during the hooligan era. All you needed was a half-decent photo and it didn’t matter what you wrote. There was a lot of glory to be had back then. You couldn’t fail. But that’s progress I suppose. Then there was the Taylor Report and the clubs aren’t stupid you know, they’ve increased their prices and blocked out a lot of people, priced the hooligans out of the game. When they go to Europe the policing’s not up to scratch so the thugs see their chance and go on the rampage.

  —Well, if they do that, then they must come from somewhere, surely?

  Will had given up looking at the girl’s legs and was concentrating on the alcohol situation. That was the trouble with these bloody women, they never got their round in because they were always too busy asking pointless questions. Things changed and he was the first to welcome progress, sound investment and all that, and a lot of people were getting mega-rich from the beautiful game now it was adopting sensible business practices. His own match-day experience was vastly improved, but women should remember to move with the times as well and get the fucking drinks in. He liked Jennifer’s legs but wasn’t sure about the rest of her, the knowledge that she was studying at university a major turn-off. They thought they knew everything, these further-education people, and he wasn’t conned by her mild manner. She was an arrogant bitch if ever he’d seen one. He had only b
rought her along as a favour to the editor, who was a lifelong mate of her father, a bigshot in the armaments industry with serious political clout. Then he remembered he was drinking at the paper’s expense so didn’t need to worry about enforcing equal rights, but he was too late.

  —Would you like another drink, Jennifer asked, standing and walking through the crowd to the bar once the experienced pro had delivered his order.

  Will was feeling tired, what with filing his report, walking to the bar and drinking his fill. Chelsea were on his patch and the old hooligan-heavy days really were a thing of the past. It was a shame as well, because apart from the opportunity to file some fine moral outrage and amuse the sub-editors, a punch-up was an exciting distraction from the dire games he’d been forced to watch through the years. As much as he loved football, and he honestly did, he wouldn’t have paid to see more than five or six matches a season, and with so much football on television now he would probably just stay at home. The atmosphere wasn’t like it used to be, whatever the vested interests said, and if the major clubs kept alienating ordinary fans and trying to attract a so-called upmarket clientele, they would eventually go bust. There was no loyalty in money. Even Will Dobson realised that much. But football was his livelihood and he had done very well for an ordinary lad from Swindon. He couldn’t complain. He preferred to go with the flow.

  —How many games do you watch during an average season, Jennifer asked, carefully placing Will’s order on the table, not waiting for a reply. Did you go to the Tottenham match at the weekend? Everyone seems to be talking about it at the bar.

  Will’s eyes widened. The Spurs-Chelsea fixture of the previous Saturday had shown the sport at its very best, a great advertisement for the modem game. There had been plenty of goals and goalmouth action and the crowd had roared its appreciation. In the old days that particular London derby meant trouble, but now the spectators were as well-behaved as a party of boisterous school children. True, there had been a few anti-semitic songs which the club was trying to stamp out, and the usual gestures, but nothing particularly violent.

  —Mind if I join you, David Morgan asked, arriving on the scene and taking a chair between Jennifer and Will. Bloody terrible match wasn’t it? They should refund our money.

  —But we don’t pay, Will laughed.

  Morgan worked for a rival paper and was a full-time shit-stirrer. He had been widely accepted as having his finger firmly on the pulse in the mid-eighties. While he’d never pushed himself more than his contemporaries, he always seemed to be in the know. Will suspected that this was because he was a little more liberal with the truth than the others, which in turn reflected the attitude of the title paying his wages. A readiness to shell out hard cash for dramatic pictures of supposed hooligans was legendary. He had his story and the subjects of the photos were generally well pleased with the extra cash and fleeting fame. The lads had welcomed the attention at first, treating the hacks as an amusing sideshow, pissed old geezers chasing ghosts, always a mile or two behind the action. Professional football journalism was a small circle and they were doing very nicely thank you. If people on the outside took some of their stories a little too seriously, then whose fault was that? Will raised his glass for a toast, eyes bleary from the blend of beer and spirit.

  —Here’s to the next round.

  They drank up and Jennifer felt part of the gang. She had accepted the chance to get involved with the sports desk even though her eventual aim was to write celebrity features for a better-class newspaper. It was all worthwhile experience and would stand her in good stead when it came time to send off job applications. Looking around, she had to admit that they were a bit oikish, the lot of them, and the hooligans had rather let her down, but at least she would be able to tell her friends that she’d been to a football match. She could always lay it on a bit. She thought of her part-time boyfriend Anthony, assistant editor on a trendy style magazine which was forever pushing imagined left-wing credentials. Jennifer was always taking the mickey out of poor Anthony, asking him what expensive clothes, consumer pop and an obsessive interest in bisexuals had to do with socialist politics.

  Jennifer smiled as she remembered Anthony’s warning that same afternoon, delivered via his company mobile from a champagne-lunch CD launch party in Soho. He really cared for her and had insisted that the Chelsea crowd revelled in indiscriminate violence. He firmly believed Stamford Bridge was a breeding ground for white supremacists, where black players had been hounded off the pitch and black spectators went in fear of their lives. She should watch herself. Chelsea fans were brain dead and even capable of gang rape on terraces which no longer existed, rambling on about the notorious Shed and those metal kung-fu stars which would blind her for life, a backing soundtrack of synthesised music filtering its way down the phone line.

  Anthony was drunk and had tried to talk her out of attending the match, but Jennifer had been determined. It was a shame he had been so mistaken, though she would lead him on all the same. She had a vindictive streak and enjoyed his discomfort. He was rather childish sometimes, possessive and even hinting at love, yet was little more than a convenient London stopover. He came from money and was well-meaning, but lacked the calculation Jennifer found so attractive in a man. She was meeting him after the game, although her thoughts were with Jeremy Hetherington, who she had recently met at university. She was visiting his parents’ manor house in Oxfordshire the following Saturday and was looking forward to following their initial drunken coupling with something a bit more satisfying. They would make the most of the countryside during the day, then attend the local hunt ball in the evening. It would be an experience.

  —How did you find the game? Morgan asked. Will says it’s your first time inside a football ground.

  —It was interesting.

  —You should have taken her last week against Spurs, Morgan said, turning to Will. Now that was football at its best. Passing and movement from two teams dedicated to the art. But you know, those bloody little North London sods only scratched the side of my Volvo. I managed to squeeze a line into the end of my report concerning the state of today’s youth, but those moronic subs chopped it out. The politics of envy I’m afraid to say are alive and fermenting. It might not have been football fans of course, just the local population moaning about its lot, but it’s going to cost a bit to get fixed. I’m taking the car to the garage tomorrow for an estimate. The paper will pay the bill but it makes me angry when the have-nots take their petty frustrations out on me. It’s a bloody nuisance more than anything else. I’m a busy man.

  They had another round of drinks and Morgan took over in his usual way, bending Jennifer’s ear with the story of a politician who had been discovered in Brompton cemetery with a thirteen-year-old rent boy, a young lad from Burnley whose homelessness was a direct consequence of Government cutbacks. Apparently they’d been caught at it in one of the crypts, a family vault with ripped coffins stacked on shelves along the walls. It was an excellent story, and Morgan had toyed with the idea of somehow introducing vampirism and AIDS, but due to political considerations the papers were hushing up the affair, and even if there had been a decent left-wing paper it would have ignored the story, dealing as it did with homosexuality and the individual’s right to privacy. If they could just get hold of something similar on a high-ranking Opposition figure they’d be away.

  As Morgan talked, Will started drifting. He vaguely heard his colleague listing the buzzwords and phrases which made for a good hooligan article—‘scum’, ‘mindless yobs’, ‘thugs’, ‘ashamed to be English’, ‘not true fans’, ‘bring back the birch’, ‘give them a good thrashing’ and ‘now is the time for the courts to hand down tough custodial sentences’.

  —Just shuffle that lot around and you’re there, Morgan laughed, subtly checking the girl’s legs under the table, marvelling at the texture of her skin and deciding the stockings she was wearing went right up the crack of her arse.

  —First comes the titillati
on and gory details, then the condemnation which masks the pleasure the reader’s had from the story. Call for the return of the cat o’nine tails and demand some good old fashioned square-bashing and everyone’s happy. It makes the public feel secure.

  He had little call for such specific vocabulary now, with the death of the hooligan and his own shift to more meaty subject matter—the general moral decay afflicting society, spongers living off the taxpayer and any kind of violent sex or sexual violence involving the rich, famous and/or politically unsound. Homosexuality within the clergy was another favourite. It was an interesting job and if Jennifer ever fancied discussing her future career she should give him a call and perhaps they could meet for lunch. He had seen everything during his time as a roving reporter and could share some interesting stories which had never made it into print. There was an excellent Italian restaurant he frequented in Knightsbridge. It would be his treat. He handed her his card.

  —Perhaps I’ll take you up on that, she replied, smiling, and adjusted her legs so David had a better view of her upper thighs, filing the old lech’s face in her memory and his card in her purse. He would certainly be more useful than Dobson who was an old duffer in comparison.

  When Morgan offered him a lift home, Will gladly accepted. Jennifer was meeting Anthony in a restaurant on the Kings Road and David was more than willing to drop her off on the way. They drank up and left the bar, surprised by the ferocity of the wind when they got outside. Jennifer sat in the back seat as the two journalists talked about mutual friends, a Frank Sinatra CD playing in the background. They pulled away from the stadium and Jennifer checked the streets for life. A couple of nearby pubs were doing good business with groups of men staying on till closing time, features distorted through the windows. The streets were windswept and empty. It was a pity. A gang of hooligans on the rampage and a quick exit in a fast car would have made up for a wasted ninety minutes watching the football.