The Football Factory

by John King

  LIQUIDATOR

  The editorial team was in place and ready to get down to the evening’s business. There was a lot of planning to do for the next issue and once the content had been decided on there wasn’t going to be much time left to write, edit, design and get the pages down to the printer. If they missed their allocated slot it would mean a two-week wait, and a lot could happen in that time. It was the difference between a well-run operation with its finger on the pulse and a cowboy outfit that trailed in the wake of its contemporaries.

  The editor came into the room with a wooden tray, carrying mugs of steaming hot coffee. Maxwell was a big man with badly cut hair and a chubby face. He had bushy eyebrows and a square mouth. He placed the tray on the table and the rest of the editorial team took their drinks. Maxwell lowered his bulk into the editor’s chair and picked up his clipboard, paper and pen which had been cast aside in the rush to make coffee. Maxwell was one of the troops and didn’t want his colleagues to think he was taking the piss. There was a chocolate cake and plate of crackers for those who fancied something to eat. Maxwell had already cut himself a slice of cake and took a big bite, then leant over and added three spoonfuls of sugar to his coffee. He stirred the mixture and marvelled at the whirlpool effect.

  —Issue two sold well, said Vince, who was new to the team. Two thousand copies is a lot of magazines to shift in two months. You must have been so busy flogging them I’m surprised you had time to see any football.

  He had been introduced to the others by his younger brother Chris, and they found him an interesting character, having spent two years in Asia before travelling to Australia where he’d worked on the railways. He was a bit older than the rest of the squad and had a good knowledge of Chelsea history. He was planning a return to Australia at some point so his contribution wasn’t going to be long term, but the more people they could get interested the better. The editor had been going through the mail before the rest of the lads arrived.

  —We’re picking up momentum, said Maxwell, who had been nicknamed after the slightly more famous Robert. We doubled our print run for the second issue and sold out. We’ll be challenging the other Chelsea fanzines soon if we keep going at this rate. We’ve got twice as many letters as for the first issue and there’s still a couple of days left till the deadline. We’ve also had three articles sent in that aren’t bad; one on the Rangers-Chelsea connection, another moaning about the lack of skill in your modern professional and the last one going on about the club in general.

  No Exceptions had started up in the wake of the more established Chelsea fanzines The Chelsea Independent and Red Card. There was no serious sense of competition despite the editor’s remarks, but more an attitude of if-they-can-do-it-then-why-not-us? Maxwell was the first to acknowledge the Independent’s determination at getting the punters a say in how their club was run. Indeed, he had every issue lined up next to his programmes. Like many others, he strongly believed that the club belonged to the supporters, because the players, chairman and backroom staff came and went through the years, but the hardcore fans were there from child to pensioner. The name of the fanzine had been Maxwell’s idea and he was proud to have come up with such a clever title. It had been lifted from the club’s own terminology when telling people about ticket arrangements. To buy tickets for big games there were often long lists of conditions and qualifications with NO EXCEPTIONS tagged on the end to prevent further discussion. The lads felt it summed up Chelsea’s attitude perfectly.

  As well as the Matthews brothers, Tony Williamson and Jeff Miller were also making the most of the coffee, cake and crackers, both of them long-time mates of Maxwell. The core three had inevitably been strongly influenced by When Saturday Comes, and their broad socialist/anarchist approach to life meant they appreciated the worth of fanzines such as the Independent in reflecting the natural grassroots acceptance of black players within the English game. All three had been at the Crystal Palace-Chelsea match in the early eighties when Paul Canoville had been booed by a big chunk of the Chelsea support when coming on as a substitute. The arrival of a black face in the Chelsea first-team had upset a lot of people and many had walked out, the three of them talking about it in the pub later that evening.

  Maxwell had argued that it was a beginning, though, and Canoville soon won over the majority of Chelsea fans, his performances on the pitch and some vital goals putting an end to the abuse. Since then numerous black players had become big crowd favourites. The editorial team believed hat football more than any other area of society, with the possible exception of popular music, had accepted the shifting make-up of England’s working-class population. It had done this without the help of any of the latter-day interest groups which, now that they felt safe to get involved in football following a middle-class media-inspired acceptance of the game as something other than the domain of Neanderthals, had jumped on the gravy train ten years after the event. Maxwell, Tony and Jeff agreed that those who had founded fanzines such as the Chelsea Independent should be getting the credit, not people within the media establishment who had spotted a good career opportunity.

  —How about a cartoon strip? Vince asked, shifting the conversation. I’d be up for doing it. It would be this character Liquidator, after the song. He’d be this bloke with a mean streak mixed with a Robin Hood sense of justice, and he’d go about righting wrongs at Chelsea and within football in general.

  —We need a few images, said Chris. It’s all text and a few lifted newspaper photos at the moment, which never show up all that well. It’s either arguments about team selection or club politics. We need to lighten up a bit and keep expanding without losing the edge. After all, two thousand happy customers can’t all be wrong.

  Maxwell nodded and heaved himself up from his chair, then walked to the bathroom for a piss. He left the door open a bit so that he could hear what the other lads thought of the idea. If Vince was good with a pen then why not? He made sure he hit the side of the bowl and avoided the water. The rest of the editorial team seemed enthusiastic, discussing various ideas and laughing as they pictured Liquidator in action. Maybe they could do something about Dean Saunders. Liquidator could take Paul Elliott along with him on the mission. Maxwell shook himself dry and washed his hands. He examined his face in the mirror. He was an ugly bastard and hadn’t been near a woman in five months.

  This made him feel like a professional publisher, or maybe a journalist working on one of the tabloids or a shitty football magazine. They were the scum of the earth, some of them at any rate, and he was happy enough as he was, driving a delivery van and taking the No Exceptions pages down to the cheap printer they’d found in Crystal Palace. They used paper plates which meant costs were kept low and the manager even looked a bit like Dave Webb, which was a bonus. It was fine as a hobby but he wouldn’t want it as a job. Maxwell was honest if nothing else. He turned away from the mirror in disgust.

  Vince, meanwhile, was busy giving life to his creation. Liquidator would be a bit of a boy, he wasn’t going to make him into one of these TV celebrities who went on about football but when questioned a bit more closely knew few of the specifics and skirted the issues. Liquidator would have a semi-aggressive appearance and would go to the heart of things. Perhaps he would be half-man, half-machine. There would be no trial by jury and his justice would be instant and final. Vince tried to think up a story-line, veering from the hypocrisy of politicians and those running football to the money-madness the game had developed. All the time he was looking at the wider angle, football a microcosm of society.

  —I reckon something about football’s pricing policies would be well appreciated, said Tony. Everyone I speak to thinks they’re being stitched up, no matter what club they support. It’s going to hit breaking point and then they’ll just give up.

  Jeff was weakest on this angle, trying to convince the others that while he didn’t agree with the price hikes, if English teams were going to compete with the big boys in Europe, the Italians and Spanish c
lubs which were backed by corporations and seemed to have their own mints built into stadiums that easily held a hundred thousand people at a go, then money was needed. There would only be a drain of talent to Milan or Barcelona and where would that leave the English game? Top players were going to go where the money was and, if they were honest, wouldn’t any one of them jump at the chance to live in Italy and earn twenty grand a week? The others nodded, quickly pointing out that from Chelsea’s point of view the argument about a player drain didn’t hold. The Italians and Spanish wouldn’t want any of their lot.

  Maxwell said it was sickening the amount footballers were paid. How could anyone justify ten thousand pounds a week and up? Vince agreed, though they weren’t exactly going to turn it down. But it was a subject that needed addressing and Liquidator would deal with a couple of well-paid Tottenham stars and their agent, but first he was going to settle old scores and pay Thatcher and Moynihan a visit. Vince let the story develop, the pictures he would draw already forming, revenge the driving force as he thought about identity cards and expensive seats in all-seater grounds.

  Liquidator was on a train south to Dulwich, bunking the fare and covering the walls with marker-pen graffiti. He’d heard Maggie was at home after her latest world tour and would probably be suffering from jet lag. He knew the address, found the house and climbed over the back garden fence. He broke a window and was soon inside. Denis was crashed out on the couch with an empty bottle of champagne discarded on the floor. Liquidator kept moving. Thatcher herself was upstairs in a deep sleep. The house was expensively decorated and ornaments from all round the globe were positioned in strategic places. Vince was impressed by the Iron Lady’s choice in artefacts, but Liquidator told him not to be such a prat, that they were on a mission. He told a humble Vince that they were probably fakes and the originals stashed in a bank vault. Maggie would be saving her treasures for a rainy day.

  Liquidator was looking good. Vince had the curves of the face and the assassin’s expressions perfectly formed in his mind. He thought about doing something with the eyes, making them oversized or filling them with reflected images, but decided it would just make the CFC superhero look a plonker and anyway, it would be too difficult. He didn’t know how good his drawing was going to be yet. Liquidator was casually dressed in jeans, trainers and black jacket. His hair was short but not shaven. All he had to do was transfer this mental prototype to paper and he would be away. That was the hard part.

  Liquidator led the way upstairs and stood over the former Prime Minister, the woman Vince whispered would have been Queen if the Queen had allowed such a constitutional oddity. She was bald and a wig rested on the bedside table. The Iron Lady was getting old. Now that Liquidator was in a position of power Vince didn’t know what to do. Murder and torture could well upset those readers who had an inbuilt respect for the fairer sex, not to mention age, so instead he chose a tattoo. Using chloroform to anaesthetise her, Liquidator added the original club crest to the Iron Lady’s right forearm. The next time she shook hands with a foreign dignitary it would catch the cameras, the Chelsea lion wrapped in a Union Jack. Thinking about it, the flag probably wasn’t such a good idea, only adding to the nationalistic mystique. On the way out of the house Liquidator ransacked Denis’s drinks cabinet.

  Vince knew the plot wasn’t strong enough. His audience would demand a more decisive thrust if the Chelsea hero was going to live up to his name. That was the modem way. Things had to be clear-cut, with good and bad aspects separated and no common ground in between. Moynihan was next. Perhaps he could do better there. Moynihan was working as a newspaper boy in Surbiton and Vince decided on a puppet characterisation. Once Liquidator had recovered from his Thatcher-fuelled hangover, he tracked Moynihan down and, using the chloroform, bundled him into a suitcase. He would keep the former Parliamentarian in cold storage until the Millwall-Chelsea game which had just taken place. Then he’d take him down to South East London and at the exact moment when the two mobs were about to steam into each other he would produce Moynihan and, in a frenzy of working-class recognition of a common enemy, they would join forces and rip him apart.

  Maxwell came back into the room and took his place. He felt like a major publisher right enough and wasn’t there something about the big boys being able to do whatever they liked? Imagine having that kind of power, influencing and deciding democratic elections, forming opinion in millions of people around the globe. What would Rupert Murdoch do next? He only had the job for a year and then it was going to switch to Tony or Jeff. They’d adopted a democratic approach to No Exceptions. Maxwell cleared his throat and prepared to speak. He was gearing up for something profound, about to stun his comrades with insight and publishing acumen, but bollocks to all that, it was only a bloody football fanzine, it wasn’t like they were trying to bring down the Government or something. He was thirsty despite the coffee.

  —Does anyone fancy going down the pub for a bit of inspiration? We can continue the editorial meeting down there. The Harp does a decent pint and they’ve even got Liquidator on the jukebox. Anyone thirsty?

  The team collected their coats and Maxwell switched off the lights. Everything was going well. He could murder a nice pint of Guinness.

  SOMETHING SPECIAL

  The nurse adjusting my pillows smells of roses. Something like that. Some flower melted down and turned to liquid, stuck in a bottle and flogged for a small fortune. She’s a nice looker. The uniform does her no harm either. Not that I’m into birds in uniforms in the sense of shafting them just because they’ve got the official stamp, but this one makes her different. Something a bit special. Nurses serve time helping the likes of me and that makes her more a woman than the mouthy regulation slags you pick up, shag, then never see again.

  Mind you, there was this time in Chesterfield, coming back from a game up north. Can’t remember where, though it might have been Oldham. We ended up at this club full of off-duty coppers. I was pissed, drinking shorts, past the point of no return, and I’m sitting at a table talking to this woman in a black pencil skirt with fishnet stockings wedged up her arse and Gary Glitter heels on her feet. She wasn’t bad and I was getting in there. Then she leans over and tells me she’s a copper. Tells me she loves being in the force because she can sit back watching the world go by, knowing she can nick anyone, anytime, anywhere.

  I was gutted. She was filth and I was lining up a good bit of sex and I find she’s got the plague. But I got myself back in the swing and started thinking what a laugh it would be shagging a copper. It would be a crack telling the lads I’d knobbed a WPC. I tried to imagine her in uniform, but it didn’t work. She looked like any other Saturday night bike ride. Then she starts going into one about how she’s got the cuffs tucked away in her handbag and if anyone starts anything she’ll be over in a flash, kick him in the balls, then nick the bastard. She says she’s not scared of anyone tonight. She’s got plenty of work colleagues around to back her up.

  My head was spinning and I went into one saying how much I hated the old bill. That I’d love to fuck one up. Luckily the music drowned me out and she just smiled and rolled her eyes like any other bird looking for a bit of stiff. She was pissed as well, so nothing was making much sense. I realised what I was saying and toned it down, still thinking I was in, but ended up getting blown out. It would have made a good story, but soon as she pissed off I had a word with Mark and Rod and we got out sharpish. That’s all you need, socialising with the old bill on a Saturday night. I’ll have a drink with almost anyone, but there’s a limit. You have to have standards.

  The nurse asks how I’m feeling. Not too good, I’m afraid. Still, that’s what happens when Millwall get hold of you. I tell her I must look a right state with two black eyes and cuts and grazes all over. My body aches from head to toe. She says I look worse than I am. I’ve got three cracked ribs, a fractured cheek bone and bruising over a good chunk of my body, but I’m lucky it isn’t worse. She says there are some sick people in the world.
That she can’t understand why a gang of men would attack someone just because he supports another football team. I shrug my shoulders. The slightest move hurts. I say I don’t know either. It doesn’t make much sense. She tells me I probably owe my life to the policemen who got there in the nick of time.

  —There’s so many people come in here suffering, really suffering, that when drunks arrive with sick down their clothes and their heads split open from fighting each other, I feel more angry than anything. They’ve got their health and money in their pockets, and yet they go out and get into fights for nothing.

  Her name’s Heather. Comes from the West Country. I think of Bristol City and Rovers. Always football. Heather is a Lady With The Lamp throwback. Suppose all the nurses are really. A romantic view because there’s no glory emptying bed pans and scrubbing the incontinent, but maybe there should be, because the cunts who get the headlines and congratulations deserve sweet FA, earning more in a week than nurses do in a year. It’s all about public service.

  —You get kids come in here with cigarette burns all over their bodies, where the parents have stubbed them out, tormented all their lives. Little bodies covered with cuts and bruises and hair pulled out in lumps. Then you get the men at closing time full of beer and filthy language. You hate them because they just see themselves and nothing else. They’re angry but they don’t know why. They don’t try to work anything out. They spend a fortune on drink and drugs and where does it get them? Their Saturday entertainment is damaging people.

  Heather has a chirpy voice despite what she’s saying. It’s positive. She’s tidying my bed, clearing away a plate and cup. Keeps moving, doing things the whole time, twisting her body, almost breathless the way she darts around. No pause for rest. Nurses don’t have time to hang about talking rubbish. Every second counts. They have to keep cheerful otherwise they’d crack up seeing all that misery and shit every time they come into work. There’s no way I could handle it.