Chapter 11 of "The Knock 'em Down Boys" - Sparky and Robin.
Sparky invites Robin to a match without consulting Rat - and Rat is not best pleased.
Chapter 11
Bristol Rovers – Home – Tuesday, October 10th
We had Bristol Rovers not long after Southend.
That was when I found out from Sparky that he had been meeting up with Robin on his own, which wasn’t a surprise really.
Turns out that they had been meeting each other off and on for a while now.
I got the sense that Sparky really liked Robin.
She seemed to like us too, so we just sort of let her in I suppose.
I don’t know exactly how to put it in words, but sometimes Robin didn’t seem like the other girls we knew from school. For a start, she was interesting, and not the typical reality TV star wannabe we had got used to. We could talk to her like, well, like she was one of the lads.
You probably don’t know what I mean because there aren’t too many girls like that around.
It felt like we could say pretty much what we wanted around her. We didn’t have to filter and we didn’t have to think about asking the question: would a girl be upset by what we were about to say?
The simple fact is that we liked her.
Both me and Sparky had been texting Robin for a while now and the three of us used to meet up in town sometimes.
But Sparky had been texting her that he wanted to meet her alone. He really wanted to meet her alone.
He fancied her, simple as that.
And I suppose she felt it was the right thing to do, meeting him.
Even though we didn’t see it like that, she must have felt sort of like she owed us something so she had been meeting Sparky alone too, when he asked.
Nothing had happened between them, as far as I was aware. And I was sure that Sparky would tell me if it did.
As I let the deodorant under my armpits dry off after a shower, I laid my clothes out neatly on my bed: polo shirt, jeans, and a new Henri Lloyd jacket in navy blue.
I had persuaded my mother to part with fifty quid to buy me a pair of suede navy blue Addidas runners to set my uniform off perfectly. They were sitting at the foot of my bed, unworn, and ready for their first outing.
I bought the jacket myself.
I sat on the edge of my bed. I had been looking at the kind of physiques that made me think I’d like a body like that.
Apparently, teenage boys are more body conscious now than ever before.
Using my tablet, I just typed “the perfect male body” into Google, and these were one of the first sets of images that came up.
They’re rugby players, and normally I’m not really into rugby. It’s just one of those things, isn’t it? A lot of football lads haven’t got time for rugby, and vice versa too.
Say what you like about rugby as a game; these players were fit.
I’m not sure if footballers have taken pictures of themselves, without clothes I mean. Maybe they have. But none came up in my search.
They’ve taken these pictures that I’m looking at for a charity calendar or something like that anyway. They’re lying down like they’re Romans at a luxurious banquet or standing in action poses as they look directly at the camera.
A rugby ball is positioned over their groins.
The rest of their bodies are visible, showing the power of each man, and the way he has worked at sculpting himself into something muscular and impressive, beautiful and intimidating – all at the same time – like Greek or Roman statues showing the best of their men physically and mentally.
Images of these ancient statues come up in the search too. But these aren’t in colour, and it’s hard to measure yourself against a statue anyway.
Bristol Rovers, we knew, could be trouble. Gasheads by name – Gasheads by nature. They could be mental.
We’d met Rovers before.
We’d been bouncing around the lower leagues, just like they had, for a good while. Their lads had been full of hot air and bravado last time that we met. But not pseudo-andreia. Because behind the hot air, insults and psyching themselves up – there was some steel. They weren’t Southend and they got the better of us the last time that we met. Fairplay to them. They were disciplined. They were organised. They were nasty. We learned a hard, and important lesson in that meeting – no compromise.
By now, The Gasheads would have seen what we did to Southend’s boys. And while you couldn’t compare Southend and The Gasheads, it was still a good show from us. And the qualities of our performance would not be lost on The Gasheads’ Top Boys.
As usual, I’d uploaded our video from an anonymous PC at a town centre internet cafe. I regularly frequented these places, uploaded video, and then destroyed the USB stick.
You can’t be too careful these days.
To be honest, I was fuming as I made my way to meet Sparky. I’d been on Facebook the night before and those Poxford bastards had been properly at it.
They’d obviously seen our ace showing at Southend and just ripped the piss out of us all night on Facebook, and now and then they dropped something onto Instagram to really wind me up.
Basically, because they’re just Poxford, and we’re The Dog’s Bollocks, all they can do is chat shit online because last time we met, we absolutely hammered them. Their uploads are a joke. Me and the lads only watch them for a laugh. You can learn a lot from watching how something shouldn’t be done, can’t you?
Since Southend they’ve been posting crap on Facebook showing themselves up for exactly what they are – cowards without any class.
I mean, they can post as many times as they like that they’re not scared of the Swindon Town Arsehole Boys, which is what they call us, but the fact is our class is there for everyone to see online – and they post themselves hurling abuse at other lads from behind a well-placed line of coppers.
As usual before a match, I met Sparky at McDonald’s in the town centre. We ate before we fought, but not McDonald’s rubbish. Fast food joints are ideal meeting places because they are both convenient and anonymous due to the large amount of random footfall. They’re places to just meet and blend into a crowd.
Useful when you’re not looking for attention.
We liked to plan before a match, and we liked to meet together and discuss strategy before we joined up with the rest of the group. The plan was to get The Gasheads into the backstreets around the County Ground and use our territory against them.
We’d done it before; the lads knew the routine. There wasn’t that much for us to talk about. After our last success at Southend, we would be the decoys again. Only this time, it was just us. Just our mob as the decoys. Ghandi didn’t need to escort us this time.
The plan was simple.
We would plant ourselves ahead of The Gasheads on their way back to the train station. When we felt that they were in the right place, we’d attack. Ghandi and the others would be watching and ready to pounce at the right moment.
The stewards would keep The Gasheads penned into the away end long enough for us to get out of the ground and get into position for the attack.
But I remember that Sparky seemed different that day. A bit distracted. Not like himself at all.
It was like he was looking for someone in amongst the crowd outside when he should have been concentrating on the game.
“Something on your mind?” I tried to snap him out of the kind of trance he was in.
“What?” He looked at me with his usual level of intensity – like molten lava behind his eyes.
“Is there something on your mind? Because you don’t seem all that bothered by what I’m saying.”
“I am.”
“Well, you don’t look like it. Who are you looking for?”
“What are you banging on about?” He took his first drink then.
“You. You keep looking out of the window.”
“So?”
“So, it’s like you’re looking for someone. And whoever it is, she must be more interesting than the date you’ve got with the flipping lads cos you’re not taking in a word I’m saying.”
“Yeah, sorry, you’re right. Look it’s just...”
Sparky cut himself off in mid-flow and dragged both hands down his face before letting out a deep sigh.
“What is it? Just tell me. It’s obvious that there’s something up, and we’ve got a job to do today. The Gasheads’ll be up for it after the game – especially if we win. We need to be at our best today. Ghandi won’t be holding our hands this time. It’s another test. The test. You know that. And we have to pass. Otherwise, we won’t really be in with them.”
Sparky nodded.
“And I suppose you’ve seen what those Poxford twats are saying on Facebook?”
He nodded.
“So,” I went on, “tell me then. If you’re not focussed today, then it’s the rest of the lads who’ll suffer. You’re the leader. You have to be the example to follow. You can’t be distracted. Whatever’s bothering you, tell me. We can’t risk anything but the best today. We need you, and you need us. So tell me and let’s sort it out before the match.”
“Alright,” Sparky rubbed his chin, “I saw Robin a couple of days ago. She’s coming to the match. We’re meeting her soon.”
I was shocked – really shocked. I mean, nothing had interfered with the football before.
“You’ve done what?”
“You heard. Robin’s coming in with us. Have you got a problem with that?”
I stared at him for a while, rubbing my tongue left and right over the top of my teeth – a sure fire sign that I was pissed off. Neither of us broke eye contact.
I broke the silence first.
“Has your brain stopped working or something?”
Sparky looked at me intensely, concentrating all the energy of his molten anger on my face.
Sparky had a habit of not saying a lot. Laconic is the word for it. Comes from Laconia, another name for the area in Greece where the Spartans had their city. Spartan warriors were known for thinking very carefully about what they were going to say, and then saying it – in as few words as possible.
Sparky was like that. Somewhere in the furnace of his head, he was hammering out exactly what he wanted to say, and the exact words, in the exact order, that he wanted to say them. Until his words were forged and ready, he’d say nothing. He’d just glower at me, his eyes thinning slightly, and his entire expression burning with the concentrated effort he put into framing the best possible response to my accusation.
I couldn’t be bothered with waiting any longer, “So your brain must have stopped working, because if your brain was working, you would never have invited a girl, especially today.”
My voice had risen to a shout by this point and a member of staff moved cautiously over to us and asked if everything was ok.
I snapped back at him, “Yeah, other than the fact that my mate’s brain has clearly stopped functioning, everything’s great.”
Sparky sniffed and the member of staff switched his attention from me to him.
“Everything’s fine,” said Sparky. “There’s no problem here. It would be best if you moved on.”
Smiling uncertainly, the staff member shuffled off. He swept at an already clean floor as he walked backwards, seemingly unwilling to turn his back on us.
“I thought you didn’t want to draw attention to us? You wanted to be discrete and anonymous.”
Sparky just stared at me for a bit longer before starting the conversation again.
“She’s not meeting us here.”
“So why are you looking outside constantly?”
“She’s meeting us at the top of the street.”
Sparky gestured to the middle of town where the two main streets intersected each other. We could just about see the top of the street from where we were sitting.
“So, what are you looking for then?” I asked.
Sparky stared out at the window still.
“I’m looking for her. I want to see if she’s coming.”
I shook my head. “And if she does, what then?”
“Then we take her with us.”
We waited for a while longer, sipping drinks and saying nothing – until we saw her.
She was wearing a tight jacket, zipped up, some plain grey jogging pants and trainers. Her hair was tied tight in a ponytail on the top of her head. We left McDonald’s, and headed to meet her.
Robin was smoking, leaning with her back against a wall and staring at the people passing by – staring at them, but not looking at them. Her eyes seemed to follow their shapes, but I could see that she was somewhere else.
“Hey boys,” she said as we neared her. “Am I dressed alright?”
Now we were close enough, we could see she was made up too: eyes, lips, and cheeks.
Sparky nodded to her and signalled for us to move off.
It was a short walk from the centre of town to The County Ground. Sparky was walking in between me and Robin.
When we’d been walking for ten minutes, and we were halfway to the ground, it happened.
I could have been mistaken, but the way Sparky kept looking at Robin, and the questions he was asking her, seemed like he was flirting.
This was a lad who had the word laconic designed for him. But right now, he was making small talk. Sparky, engaged in chit-chat? It was something new to me.
When we got to the ground, I could feel myself getting excited.
A few weeks ago, some lad, we didn’t recognise him, took offense at something the opposition goalkeeper had done. So he ran on the pitch, squared up to the goalie, and then set upon him, kicking and punching him into his own net before the stunned stewards could get him out of there.
The lad was some sixteen-year-old from town who ended up with a life ban for his performance.
To be fair, their goalie got back up and in goal but you could see, as he kept looking over his shoulder, that he was shitting bricks. I mean, who wouldn’t? He could see another thousand of us behind him – each one of us a potential head-case ready to run on and smack him into next week.
For me, the lad who did it was a bit of a dick really. I mean, a life ban from your own club? That’s stupid. Saying that, we just had to move forwards a little bit and that keeper was off his line like a shot. So we timed putting the fear of God into him with our lads’ attacks – and had a laugh into the bargain too.
We won the game 3-0. Their goalie had a nightmare. So maybe the lad got what he wanted after all?
We stopped outside the ground so Sparky could explain some guidelines to Robin.
“We’re going in The Town End with our lads,” said Sparky. “I’ll pay you in and we’ll stand up near the back. The Lads’ll win and we’ll have a laugh.”
Robin smiled.
“What’s happening after the match then?”
I was talking to Sparky and there was an edge of irritation to my voice. It was a bit higher, sort of a bit thinner, and enough for Sparky to detect that something wasn’t right.
“What do you mean?”
“What happens to her after the match?”
“I am right here in front of you,” said Robin pushing between us. “So you don’t need to talk about me as if I’m not here.”
Sparky looked a little uncomfortable, “You’ll need to head home after the match. Will you be ok? We’ve got a meet.”
“I’ll be alright thanks.”
We paid in and took our place at the back of The Town End stand, away from most of our lads and the opposite side to Ghandi, Scratch and the main mob.
The uncovered away end was full of Gasheads, chanting incessantly and goading us. Their flags were up with blue, yellow and white and the silhouette of a cutlass wielding pirate.
In fairness, as far as club badges go, the Gasheads are up there. We’ve got a train and a robin, which is hardly threatening. A pirate swinging about a machete – you can’t argue with that.
If Robin had come here looking for entertainment – then she was in for disappointment.
What we served up that day was typical around the country outside everywhere but the most expensive of grounds.
The Gasheads came with a plan.
Big fast lads up front and on their wings, and two built like brick shithouse central defenders ready to kick the living daylights out of any of our lads who might venture near them.
Their plan was simple.
Kick our best players until their shins shattered and thump the ball forward hoping that one of their fast lads might just outpace ours and hoof the ball in the net.
And that’s exactly what happened.
The Gasheads’ lads at the back belted the ball forward and their fast lads chased it. Route one it’s called. Run as far as you can while the ball is in the air, get your foot on the end of it before a defender, and hopefully smack it in the net.
And if you don’t succeed – try, try again.
Whatever Pablo, our manager screamed from the bench, and whatever Julio, our best player, tried to do on the rare occasions he got the ball – it made no difference. The Gasheads’ bulldozer trampled over our lads and the game ended 1 – 0 to them.
Hundreds of hopeful punts forward and one success – but one was enough.
There wasn’t much for any of us to get excited about, let alone shout about.
Robin seemed indifferent throughout the game, and you could hardly blame her. It was like she was seeing out a duty. It wasn’t that she actually said anything, but you can just tell, can’t you.
At the end of the match, and after some half-hearted booing, we filed out of the stand and onto the car park behind the ground.
“What did you think of the match?” Sparky asked Robin.
“It was alright, and thanks.”
“For what?” Sparky asked.
“For bringing me. I’ve never done it before.”
For a moment, I thought I could see a flush of something like embarrassment colouring Sparky’s cheeks. But as soon as it arrived, it was gone and Sparky was Sparky again.
“I’m going to put you in a taxi.” Sparky walked off to find one and Robin came closer to me.
“You know that I wasn’t keen on that, don’t you? But thanks anyway.”
I nodded.
“Aren’t you going to speak? You’ve hardly said anything to me all afternoon. Have you got a problem with me or something?”
I looked at her and she was making one of those kind of half-smiles that don’t know what they’re supposed to be doing on your face and kind of flicker like a dodgy light bulb before settling on going out.
“No, of course not,” I said.
“Well, what is it then?”
I looked around for Sparky and then turned to Robin.
But she spoke first, “Are you a bit shy around me?”
I grimaced at her.
“What’s your setup Rat?”
“What do you mean?”
“Girlfriend? Good looking lad like you can’t have avoided girls this long.”
She smiled at me.
I didn’t really want to answer the question, so I diverted the flow of the conversation, “The thing is, Sparky likes you. Haven’t you noticed?”
She smiled, “Of course I’ve noticed. He’s a bit obvious really.”
“Well, then you know why I can’t have this conversation you are trying to have with me. He’s my best mate. Full stop. You know what that means, right?”
She nodded her head.
As Sparky returned, we both made it seem like we’d been talking about nothing more than the match.
After a few minutes or so more of what felt for me like a pretty awkward conversation, we saw our lads milling around The County Hotel pub.
At the same time a taxi appeared and we put Robin safely inside.
Sparky paid the driver in advance and leaned in close to him through the window.
I knew what Sparky was saying, even though I couldn’t hear.
I’m not sure what the driver was thinking. From where I was standing, he looked somewhere between insulted, embarrassed and threatened. The driver was at least twice Sparky’s age, but I knew better than anyone how menacing Sparky could be, and the taxi driver was getting a taste of it now.
El Pigface was making sure that all the lads were together when the taxi left us.
We walked over to the pub to meet them, and as we walked it was almost like the humanity and friendliness that had squatted temporarily on Sparky’s face drained away as the serious, concrete expression of battle took its place, locking his jaw firmly in place, thinning his lips and sucking all emotion out of his now cold and calm eyes.
El Pigface was smiling and nodding his head as we joined them on the corner outside of the pub.
None of us had the slightest idea how badly the smile would be wiped from his face before the day was out.
If you want to find out what happens when the boys come across The Gasheads in the backstreets of Swindon then: like, subscribe, share or leave a comment.