"The Knock 'em Down Boys" Chapter 4 of a coming of age novel with a toxic twist - meet the boys at their football home.
Meet El Pigface and Rook as Rat and Sparky take you to a match at their football home - introduce you to the team that they hate more than anyone else - and set up the meeting with Ghandi and Scratch.
Chapter 4
The County Ground
We were playing Leyton Orient in the league the night we met Robin.
A lot of football fans will tell you that their ground is the best – and I’m no exception. The County Ground’s not one of those more modern stadia that all look the same. We have the old floodlights and four stands combination – nice and retro. As you approach the ground for an evening match, the floodlights seem to hover above you like four stars on electricity pylons, getting bigger and brighter as you get nearer. It’s a classic. There’s character here, and I’d like to say history too.
But I’d be lying.
Which makes it more important that we do our job right.
Oh, and our ground is definitely better than Poxford United’s. Their three sided cow shed of an excuse for a football ground couldn’t scrape up an atmosphere if they tried.
Like most football fans, I’ve got that irrational hatred of my nearest neighbours.
Think of football rivalries and everyone knows: Rangers and Celtic, Leeds and Manchester United, Sunderland and Newcastle, and fair enough because these are big old grudges.
But just because we’re lower down the Leagues, doesn’t mean we hate each other less. Derby games down here get pretty tasty – trust me.
Premier League cameras couldn’t care less about what we do. We’re just not news. And until we are, they don’t scrutinise us quite so much, which means that we can get on with our business.
We were meeting El Pigface and the rest of the lads outside of The Town End. Our end.
It sort of occurs to me now that I mentioned Ghandi and Scratch before as if you knew exactly who I was talking about. Let me explain.
Gandhi is the Top Boy in Swindon’s Adult mob. It’s a funny name for a hooligan I know. To think that the bloke who’s just kicked the living daylights out of you is named after a pacifist hero?
Ghandi got his name because he looks like Ghandi. That’s all.
And Scratch, he’s Ghandi’s second. Scratch has two scars: one down his right cheek and the other curving down from underneath his ear and around towards his neck. Both of these were picked up in proper tasty scraps, the worst one on the neck from a Stanley Knife Blade in a clash with Poxford a few years ago.
He’s called Scratch because when he got these scars he kept scrapping and told the other lads he wasn’t going to stop fighting because of a scratch.
The name stuck.
Ten minutes before kick-off, the Town End was about two thirds full. The Swindon Mob with Ghandi and Scratch were in their usual position at the back of the stand and to the left.
We took the back of the stand, in the middle. Sparky had been in contact with Scratch by text and when we got in he made his way over to them on the far Left, leaving me to tell the other lads about our pre-match warm up.
Standing where we always did were the lads from our little firm. The best of our lads were El Pigface and Rook.
El Pigface was our biggest lad. He liked the gym, but he would have been big whether he pumped iron or not. The gym just magnified things.
Rook was the opposite. He was thin, and from behind his jeans always looked like they went in a straight line down from his waist – no hips, no arse, and no excess flesh at all.
But the greatest difference between them was their faces – which was where their names came from. El Pigface had a round face and slightly small eyes. His nose was up turned so that when you looked at him straight on, you could almost see the full circles of his nostrils.
Round face? Upturned nose? Pigface. Why we gave him the “El” at the beginning, I don’t remember. Maybe it just sounded exotic.
On the other hand, Rook’s face was angular. It seemed like his head had been stretched out into an oval. His major facial feature was his nose which just seemed too big for his face. We decided his nose looked like a beak and so we needed a bird. One of us noticed a black, crow-like creature with what looked like a beak that was big enough, and strong enough, to cause some serious damage. Couple of seconds on Google and there we had our friend’s name: Rook.
It was a name that our friend tolerated from us, rather than liked. And a name that if you were at all precious about your physical safety, you didn’t use around him if you didn’t know him.
We all acknowledged each other as we moved closer together, and I looked out over the crowd, focusing initially on the away fans opposite us.
There were about three hundred or so Cockneys, huddled together in the uncovered expanse of the Stratton Bank where we always dumped our guests to take their chances with the British weather. They’d tied up a St George’s flag reading: East London is Wonderful – Orient on tour.
But East London isn’t wonderful. It’s shit. So they needn’t have bothered.
With only a few hundred Cockneys turning out, that night didn’t look like there’d be much excitement for us. Our scouts had told us that they hadn’t really seen any lads on the way to the ground, and we’d had no contact.
Sparky wasn’t back when the teams came out.
Everyone stood up and The Town End began to chant in Unison, “Super Pablo’s Red and White Army” over the electricity crackle of applause that was swelling in volume as the wind took hold of the sound in the different areas of the ground.
The players ran over to The Town End, applauding over their heads to acknowledge our support and a chant started from El Pigface and some of the other lads before it was picked up by most of the Town End.
“HOOLIO – OH – always believe in your so-oul.
You’ve got the power to know, you’re indestructible.
Always believe i-in HOOLIO – OH!”
We’d signed the Argentine left back Julio Arca on loan from a Premier League Club, until the end of the season. He couldn’t get in their side anymore, and was getting on a bit, but was still a bit of class down in our league with his devastating free kicks and a slouched over running style that made him seem deceptively slow before he’d skinned his man and was off.
Julio smiled, waved at us in The Town End and then dribbled past three of his team mates as if they weren’t there, just to show us what we could expect from him tonight.
At the end of last season we were relegated.
We were crap all season. The team tried to hang on by the skin of their teeth, but the players just weren’t good enough and we went down.
The old chairman went and the new chairman took a risk and brought in a relatively inexperienced bloke to manage the first team.
He recruited the flamboyant and controversial figure of Pablo de Linares Florido ex-Malaga, Glasgow Rangers, Chelsea, and Roma creative midfielder known for his consistent bullying of referees and theatrical dives as a player – as well as his brilliance as a goal scorer and creator.
Pablo advocated attractive, creative football played on the floor, and designed to entertain the spectator, not just win at all costs. And he felt that we could play this football in League two, which was a bit like expecting a synchronised swimmer to successfully play hooker for Gloucester Rugby.
We lost our first few pre-season games. We were getting restless. But the manager refused to change his football philosophy and he continued to ship out players considered not to have the relevant skill set for our style of creative, and match-losing, football.
The tide turned with a couple of sweet loan signings, like Julio Arca.
We started to pass the ball around, score more than the opposition and take the label the Entertainers of League two. And if we won tonight, we’d go top four in the league with a nice little unbeaten run developing.
When Sparky returned, the inevitable anti-Oxford chants sounded out in The Town End. I took part, as was expected, and made sure that I was seen doing it too.
“All of Oxford’s illegitimate. They have got no birth certificates.
They’ve got AIDS and can’t get rid of it. Dirty Yellow bastards!”
Not a pleasant little ditty, but pretty aptly summing up our love for our nearest and dearest.
The Merry little band of East Londoners made a bit of a noise throughout what was a bit of a dull match. A couple of lads had been waving their arms about and making some little gestures they must have picked up on some cheap DVDs with a few actors pretending to be hoolies. But, according to Scratch, there was nothing on the cards after the match.
We won the game 2:0 and once our players had made their customary gesture of acknowledgement to the Town End we noticed the Orient fans filing quietly out from the Stratton Bank end – hands in pockets, collars pulled high, heads bent and looking at the floor as they headed towards the train station for the journey home.
It seemed that all of the come-and-have-a-go-if-you-think-you’re-hard-enough, had leaked right out of the backside of their pants at exactly the same time as the gates to the away end had opened.
But we weren’t expecting much anyway.
Sparky told me what he’d been saying with Scratch as we were hanging around the car park behind the Town End terrace.
“We’re on for Southend.” Sparky was looking towards the County Hotel, the pub behind the Town End.
“You mean properly on for Southend.”
“Yeah, properly on for Southend.”
Sparky was staring at the pub.
“What’re you looking at mate?”
“The Pub. Scratch is gonna signal. Ghandi wants to see us first, remember?”
“Yeah, but just us?”
“Yeah, me and you. Better tell El Pigface and the others we’ll let them know the score tomorrow.”
I moved through the crowds dispersing from the ground and told the lads that we were meeting Ghandi and Scratch.
“So what’s happening Saturday?” El Pigface was kicking at some loose stones on the floor.
“Southend looks like it’s properly on. Sparky reckons that we’re invited and we meet Ghandi and the others at the train station.”
Pigface nodded.
“Anyway, me and Sparky are off to meet Ghandi now and find out the details so I’ll text when I know more.”
As El Pigface and the others left, I didn’t tell them that we would have to pass whatever test Ghandi and Scratch had in store for us first and that whatever we said in this next meeting would decide whether we would get the chance that we had all been working towards for ages.
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