Chapter 7 of "The Knock 'em Down Boys" Dogga and The Fish - The Oxford Boys.
Meet Dogga and The Fish, Rat and Sparky's opposite numbers in the Oxford United youth hooligan firm - and find out why the Swindon boys dislike them so much!
Chapter 7
Dogga and The Fish
There are two other people I need to tell you about: Dogga and the Fish.
If anything could be the opposite of what me and Sparky were trying to achieve, it was these two. These two jokers were the “Top Boys” of what passed for Oxford’s youth firm, and I say this using the term “firm” about as loosely as it would be possible to use a word.
If you don’t know much about the city of Oxford, you’re probably finding it difficult to believe that they even have a football club, let alone any lads.
But they do.
When you think of Oxford, you probably think of all those beautiful, ancient University buildings forming the city, and all those loveable students riding around peacefully on bikes and burying their heads in their thousand year old books. And you’re right. Go up there any time in term and you’ll see that.
It’s exactly what I want to be a part of.
But scratch the surface, or look behind the window dressing, and you’ll see something very different in Oxford too.
You’ll see The Blackbird Leys housing estate – a place that is rough enough to give anywhere in the country a run for its money.
If the old medieval buildings of the town centre are the brains of Oxford, then The Blackbird Leys is surely its arsehole.
And streaming out of this arsehole, flow pieces of shit – like Dogga and the Fish.
Dogga and the Fish called their lads The Gravediggers, which made us piss ourselves laughing. Trust Poxford to come up with a firm name that sounded like some tacky Amercian wrestling tag team.
While our lads had been improving our reputation bit by bit, showing what we were made of on social media, the Poxford lads seemed to be more bothered about trying to discredit our performances, rather than enhance their own. You could guarantee that whatever we posted, Dogga and The Fish would write some comment trying to undermine our work.
Last time we met Poxford, we arranged the off around a league cup match and gave them a proper kicking.
They ran.
They won’t ever admit it, but they did. And it’s a good job too, because we were absolutely battering them. They were weak, loud, and disorganised. No match for us. And when Dogga got away, he got away at the right time, because Sparky was properly going to town on him.
Perhaps that’s why Poxford hate us so much. They ran from us. And they know it. And nothing hurts a coward more than the truth, does it?
Dogga is their Top Boy.
I use the term “Top Boy” here pretty loosely too, because as far as we could see, Dogga’s credentials for being Top Boy of their mob seemed to be that he had scared some old ladies on a street corner, knocked a few feeble Uni students around, and he owned a pair of Addidas Gazelles.
Dogga’s nickname came from his voice – a rough gravely bark, like a dog’s, whether he was shouting or not. To add to the unsavoury image, Dogga barely had a neck, his hair was shit, and he still thought Kappa trackie tops were the dog’s bollocks.
The Fish, Dogga’s second, was no different in his dress sense, following his leader in every mistake he made.
The Fish got his name from his face.
He looked like a fish. Not a normal fish mind you. You had to see this carnival freak to believe in him. He looked like a fish dropped in nuclear waste and crossed with a human.
The skin on his cheeks was scaly. His lips were puffed out and swollen and his bulbous eyes stuck out unnaturally from under his forehead.
It was break-time Friday, the day before the trip to Southend in the cup, and I was sitting on a wall in one of the school’s quadrangles when Sparky came over.
I had been flicking through youtube videos on my mobile when Sparky slammed himself down beside me.
“What are you watching?”
“Us,” I said, showing him the video of our last performance.
“And them,” I said, showing him Poxford.
Sparky watched the video of Dogga and The Fish’s Poxford boys, shaking his head.
He didn’t have to say anything. They were disorganised, loud, and they seemed to follow no rules. Everyone knew that stamping on a lad when he was down was out of order.
Not Dogga and The Fish though, who were jumping up and down on some lad. We could hear them laughing as they flattened him.
We couldn’t even be sure from the video that Poxford were taking on another firm. They claimed that they were taking on Crewe Alexandra. It was news to me and Sparky that Crewe even had any serious lads, but who knows.
“Go onto our last video,” said Sparky.
I did as he asked.
“Scroll down to the comments.”
And there they were, Dogga and The Fish.
It wasn’t what they said that got on our nerves.
It was the fact that they were saying anything. They had no right to comment, especially when you looked at their video.
Even though I hadn’t told him what I was going to do, Sparky knew.
“Do it.” Sparky nodded to me without needing words.
I began typing underneath the comment and made it clear to Dogga and The Fish that they were welcome to come and try their luck in Swindon anytime; that we’d had a good laugh at their pathetic videos; and that we looked forward to causing them to run off with their tales between their legs – again.
I finished by telling them to look out for our next off, the planned meeting with Southend.
If they wanted to wet themselves worrying about whether we might actually come looking for them to finish off the job we started before they ran away, then all they had to do was keep their eyes open this weekend.
Keep an eye out for the real deal – S.T.A.B.
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