Chapter 9 of "The Knock 'em Down Boys" - getting to Southend and laying the trap.
Follow Rat, Sparky and the boys to Southend where they meet Ghandi and Scratch, some noisy Essex boys - and lay their violent trap.
Chapter 9
Noisy Essex boys and “The Plan”
Sparky was going through the muscle memory routine again as we travelled between London and Essex.
Like meditation, he was oblivious to the rest of us around him. And, to be fair, we were all going through whatever personal routine each of us had because we knew what was coming.
For me, I was thinking about how, if we followed the plan, we’d be outnumbered at first – well outnumbered. That would be our moment – mine and Sparky’s. If we could show the right bottle, then no one could deny that we were good enough to be part of the firm – maybe even better than some of the lads running with it now.
While Sparky flexed and dodged the blows he imagined would be aimed at him, my mind flexed and reached back through some of the battle History that I had read.
You might think History’s a bit boring, but not military History – at least not for me. Planning, preparing and tactics, that’s what I was looking for in the books.
Strategy.
What we were preparing to do was risky.
Me, Sparky and our small group would act as a decoy, as bait to encourage Southend’s boys into a false sense of security, while Scratch and the advance party lay in wait to snap shut the vice of our trap.
We were all excited, looking forward to the challenge ahead in our own ways.
Each of us was ready to defend his mates and take serious hurt, rather than let one of our group down.
Like I’ve said before, I’m not stupid.
So I asked myself: what gives some of us the courage to stand and fight when others run?
I shut my eyes and scrolled through the remembered fragments of passages I’d read when it hit me:
“How does a Spartan who is a sensible man, conquer a fear of death? He simply contrasts this fear with a greater fear. That of dishonour, exclusion from the pack.”
And that was it.
Looking around, I could see the same determination in all of our eyes. The total and complete desire not to let any of the group down. To meet the challenge. To display courage and, whatever the cost – loyalty. To continue to belong to the pack.
And people can say what they want about us.
They can call us: hooligans, or mindless thugs, or savage animals, or even morons. But they’re all wrong. Because we belong. There is a glue the binds us as a group. A collective meaning to our relationship. A purpose to our actions. Value in what we do.
Marcus Aurelius, a famous Roman Emperor, said that a man should be judged by what he values, and not his value.
And that’s the thing with us. What you do gains you credit with this pack. People can call us what they want, but achieving value from our actions, standing firm and together with our mates, testing our skills and qualities against worthy competition must be nearer to the ideals of the great men – the great warriors – of the past.
And if the great men of History valued actions, honour, duty and challenge above everything else, then who am I to criticise that?
When we arrived at Southend Station, it was clear that at least some of Southend’s boys were waiting for us.
We’d made it common knowledge that we’d meet in the station’s pub.
As we expected, around thirty or something Essex boys were chanting, gesticulating and explaining as explicitly as they could that we were going to get our fucking heads kicked in.
This was typical pseudo-andreia, pretend courage that told us more about them than they would like us to know.
Our lads had seen this kind of show before; looking confident and being confident are two different things.
The heads kicked in cliché wasn’t the only one the Essex boys rolled out that day either. It didn’t take long for them to start shouting “Sheep Shaggers! Sheep Shaggers!” on account of Swindon being considered South West farm country.
This really winds a few of the more Town proud lads right up.
Personally, I couldn’t care less.
As we walked down the platform to the station pub where we were going to meet with Ghandi and the others, we got nearer to the barriers and the police, separating us from the boys from Essex.
Obviously wound up by the chants of the Southend boys, one of our lads who hadn’t been running with us for that long, started to give a bit of verbal back to them. Loud, aggressive, drawing too much attention to us, and not very classy. You know the type of stuff, “You fucking what? Fucking come on then? You’re fucking nothing Southend!” The kind of off the peg insults stored on hangers in the closet of any young lad’s head. Not what our firm is associated with.
I remember that I was thinking how the locals must have heard about us if they were employing such a security presence, when Sparky walked up behind our shouting lad and smacked him hard across the back of his head – almost like a Dad roughly chastising an unruly kid.
The Essex boys started screaming and howling like monkeys at this.
Sparky stood staring at them without flinching.
I knew what he was thinking – every word of it. This front was all bullshit and these lads, assuming that they faced us, would get what was coming to them.
Sparky might as well have been taking their pictures on his mobile, because each of the faces now insulting him were being cauterised on his memory. He’d deal with their Top Boys first when we faced up to them. No mercy. No remorse. And when he’d dealt with their main faces, then all of these mouths in front of us would just run.
We left the Southend boys and made our way down the platform to the pub.
Ghandi and a small amount of the firm were waiting in the station pub when we arrived. Ghandi was talking, and the lads were listening. Each was dressed in a similar way: short jackets, decent jeans, and pairs of Gazelles or trainers like them.
We walked into the pub with a minimum of fuss, especially since Sparky had sorted our lad out who’d been mouthing off before, and our calm exterior had been restored.
It was match day, and a Saturday, so everything was busy. We didn’t want a drink either, so we weren’t breaking any laws. Sparky walked up to Ghandi with me, while the rest hung back a little.
As soon as we were recognised, stools and tables were found for us and we all sat down, with me and Sparky nearest to Ghandi.
“Any problems with the welcoming committee?”
“No,” I said waiting a couple of seconds before speaking, so that I could be sure that Sparky wanted me to.
“Good, let’s go over the plan then, just to make sure that we’re all on the same page.”
Sparky nodded.
“Most importantly,” said Ghandi, “is that these Southend muppets think that we’ve got no plan. We might need to act it up a bit. Just like those amateurs on the way in. Give it some verbal, obvious gestures, that kind of crap. Let’s make ourselves obvious enough as we head down to their ground.
“They’ll have scouts out, and they’ll be able to let their lads know where we are. About a mile from the ground, on the right, there’s a Post Office depot. When we see it, that’s our cue to stop. We should be a small enough group to draw them to us. They’ll outnumber us. It’ll give them confidence, so they’ll mob-up and come to set on us where we stop. “
We all nodded.
“Outside the Post Office depot, Scratch’ll be inside a plain rented van with the rest of our lads, waiting. The trap’s simple. The layout’s simple. There’s the Post Office depot on the left, the entrance to its car park in the middle, and a factory to the right.
“As soon as we see Southend, we make out that we’ve lost our bottle and run in what looks like a panic, straight into the car park and into the middle of the space. They’ll follow us in because this is their town, and they know it’s a dead end inside. They’ll think we’re trapped – and outnumbered. And they’d be right, because the only way out would be through them.
“We’ll need to keep moving back, as if we’re stalling for time, and try to get them into the middle of the car park as we seem to be backing into the wall at the back of the car park. There won’t be many cars because few people will be working. Once they’re in the middle, Scratch’ll bring the van in through the entrance, blocking off any escape – for them.”
We all sat for a few seconds, replaying the key points in the plan, just to make sure we all committed it to memory.
“If we all understand,” Ghandi said firmly as he stood up, “then let’s go and enhance our reputation.”
I might have been a bit off the mark, but I was sure that Ghandi was directing his points towards us, staring right inside us once again to see if we had the nerve to stand our ground, to fight, and to act as bait in this trap.
We all walked out of the pub and headed in the direction that the police guided us in, through the town, and towards what was obviously the industrial estate area near the ground that we were aiming for.
Every now and then we could see this young lad, maybe around twelve, and on a mountain bike that seemed slightly too big for him.
He was always far enough away from us that we were no danger to him, but near enough to collect the information he had obviously been detailed to collect about us.
As we walked towards the ground and nearer to the Post-Office building where we’d snap our trap shut, this lad appeared in front of us at what were obviously pre-arranged intervals.
We knew we were about to get started when the lad on the bike appeared at his most obvious. We’d drawn within sight of the Post-Office building, and I could see the entrance we’d need to head down when the chase started.
And, parked innocuously outside the Post-Office building, was a white van – like Ghandi had said.
We could see the lad on his bike again, and he was brazenly talking into a mobile, directing the Southend boys exactly where they could intercept us, herd us, and then trap us.
Ghandi stopped, checked his mobile, looked into each of our eyes, and smiled.
Scratch and the rest of the lads were in place.
Thinking that we didn’t expect them, Southend’s boys came belting around a corner from behind us. They were shouting and screaming, pumped up about the fact that we were outnumbered, and they were probably more than a little bit drunk.
We played along and ran, looking disorganised and scared to anyone outside of our group. We moved towards the trap they thought they had lain for us, taking care to regulate our pace in order to make it seem like we weren’t sure about where we were going.
They were moving faster than us, and gaining on us in their excitement. We rounded to the right and through the gates of the car parking area – straight past the white van. We moved into the middle of the parking area, closed ranks and turned to face them.
We could hear the thud of feet coming to a stop just before the car park opening. They were obviously hoping to make a big entrance.
Me, Sparky and the lads closed together, like we’d done plenty of times before, and ready to look after the lad to our left.
Ghandi had been right about cars. There were only a couple in the entire parking lot. We took a look around the floor, surveying the area for potential weapons. There were only small stones and small slicks of oil from leaking oil sumps. All the better for a real, traditional: feet, fists, head, elbows and knees test.
When they came through the gates to stand in front of us, they had no order. They were just there. An amorphous mass with one after another breaking ranks to urge us to take them on.
We stepped further back to bring them further into out trap and reinforce the idea that we were scared.
A couple of their lads stepped even further forward; they were on their toes and bouncing up and down. They were keyed up and gesturing with that wide armed, swollen-chested, alcohol induced bravado that you can copy from any cheap hoolie-movie.
Me and Sparky stood still and locked onto some of the faces from earlier in the train station.
Sparky had selected the faces he would go for first.
So had I.
When it started, it started with a typical act, half stupidity and half cowardice on their behalf.
We hadn’t noticed what they carried as they walked in, but once the battle lines were set up, and we’d managed to manoeuvre them into the middle of the car park, they hurled half bricks and bottles at us.
Then, they bolted forwards while we side-stepped the missiles they had chucked at us. None of them connected but we made mental notes of exactly where each one had fallen, to use against them later.
We closed our ranks and readied ourselves with clear minds.
Clear minds record accurate memories.
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