Football Crazy (22 page)

Order restored and players firmly put in their place Donny set off for his office. Moggs called after him. “When will we be setting off then, Boss?”

“
In about five minutes,” said Donny. “I've just got something to attend to. Save me a place at the front.”

“
I want to report a dog missing.”

Constable Dredge, who was manning the desk at the moment, looked up from the police station's current copy of 'Loaded'. He regarded Stanley for a moment then said, “And what’s happened to you then?”

“
What?”

“
Who blacked your eyes?”

“
Bloke at work. T' wife,” said Stanley, matter of fact, pointing to each eye in turn.

“
Do you want to make a complaint?”

“
No I just want to report my dog missing.”

Dredge, anxious to get back to Loaded, especially the girl on page seventy seven with the python, didn't push Stanley. “Right,” he said, arming himself with his pen and taking out the relevant form from the filing cabinet. “Name?”, he asked, then quickly added “Of dog”, remembering that the last time he had asked the question of someone reporting a lost dog its owner had given her own name, Montmorency, and it hadn't come to light until he'd asked her “Name of owner?” and she'd given the same name. He'd had to rip up the form and start all over again and he didn't want the same thing happening again, not when there was a girl with bare breasts and a python between her legs waiting to be lusted over.

“
Fentonbottom,” said Stanley. “He's named after Billy Fentonbottom, t' famous Frogley footballer,” he added.

“
Very nice too,” said Dredge. He wrote it down on the form and moved on to the next question. “And what colour is Fentonbottom?”

“
White.”

Dredge wrote it down.

“
Well there were no darkies playing football in them days,” Stanley explained.

Dredge slowly looked up from the form, fearing the worst. “You mean that the Fentonbottom who played football is white?”

“
Was, when he were alive. Well there were no darkies then,” Stanley reiterated. “I think there were a Chinky as played with Stoke,” he added, helpfully. “Frank Soo I think he were called.”

Dredge knew the answer to his next question but had to ask it all the same. “Is your dog white?”

“
No,” said Stanley.

Dredge crumpled up the form, threw it in the bin and reached for another one. He wrote 'Fentonbottom' alongside 'Name of dog' then asked Stanley, “Colour of dog?”

“
Red, green and yellow.”

Dredge batted his eyelids. “Your dog?”

“
Yes,” Stanley confirmed. “Red, green and yellow. You can't miss him.”

“
No, I shouldn't think you can,” said Dredge.

Having been persuaded that the release of the Frogley Town team was the way forward Screwer now focused his attentions fully on the football hooligan problem that had yet to manifest itself. It was there all right though. Festering. Good word that, the word Hawks had used to describe the situation, festering, he would have to use it in one of his recommendations sometime, maybe the one he was currently formulating about castrating traffic offenders.

Oh yes it was festering all right. Bubbling just under the surface. No doubt about it, he could feel it in his water, and his water had never let him down yet, not even when he'd had that prostate trouble and hadn't been able to piss properly. Yes it was there all right. It was just that it hadn't come out yet. And football hooliganism that hadn't come out yet was worse than football hooliganism that had come out, it was the very worst kind of football hooliganism, because you didn't know when it was going to come out, when it was going to rise up and leap out at you and bite you in the bollocks, usually when you weren't looking, when you were off guard, when you’d maybe got a bit complacent and in your complacency had perhaps reduced a strong police presence at the stadium. Well Herman Screwer wasn’t about to get complacent.

Screwer mulled the problem over in his mind for a while, but despite all his efforts nothing came, no plan of action that would nip the problem in the bud and do away with it once and for all.

After making a mental note to ship in a few more Specials from nearby Naresbury for the next match, he was about to put it on the back burner and return to the problem of Mrs Screwer's declining sex-drive and what to do about it, when it suddenly came to him
. That
was why the hooligans weren't revealing their true colours! There were
too many
policemen. He needed a
smaller
police presence, not a larger one, because at the last match the crowd had seen how many policemen were in attendance, ready to whip them back into line if they dared to step out of it, and had thought better of it; they’d screwed the loaf and hadn't revealed themselves. Of course!

Screwer allowed himself a smile. Maybe they would come crawling out from under their stones if there weren't as many policemen around? Never mind maybe, they would, definitely. He made a note on his pad: 'Reduce police presence considerably at next match.
Covert
not
overt’.
He thought for a moment, then added, 'Lull the bastards into a false sense of security'. He thought again, then added, 'Try popping one of those date rate pills into Mrs Screwer's bedtime cocoa, see if that will get the bitch going.'

He was about to send for Sergeant Hawks to tell him to obtain a supply of date rape pills when Constable Balfour came in. He handed a sheet of paper to Screwer.

“
The figures you wanted on how many of the shops between the railway station and the football ground have security shutters, sir.”

Screwer took the report and began to read it. What he read clearly didn't meet with his approval. “Four?” he said. “Out of a total of one hundred and eight? Are you sure this is right, Balfour?” He looked up at Balfour to see the constable smiling to himself. “Said something funny have I, Balfour?”

“
What? Oh, no sir. Sorry sir. I was just thinking about what Constable Dredge told me a few minutes ago. Apparently Stanley Sutton has reported his dog missing and he's dyed it in the football club's colours.”

Screwer's head shot back. “And that's funny, is it? You find an act that could only have been perpetrated by a football hooligan amusing, do you Balfour?”

“
Oh Stanley Sutton isn't a football hooligan sir, he's....” Balfour said, but before he could go on to inform Screwer what Stanley was the police chief hit the roof.

“
Will you fucking people stop telling me that football fans aren't hooligans! Christ Almighty man, he's dyed his dog red, green and yellow, what does he have to do to qualify as a hooligan in your eyes, stick a corner flag up its arse?”

“
Sorry sir.”

Screwer got to his feet and started to button up the tunic of his uniform. “Where does the bastard live?”

“
Abbatoir Street I think, sir.”

“
Take me there. Now.”

After Stanley had reported Fentonbottom missing he hadn't returned home but had carried on looking for his dog, viewing the assistance of the local constabulary as an addition to the search rather than a replacement of it. Consequently when Screwer had pounded on the door of Stanley's home some ten minutes after learning of his existence he had first been asked by Sarah Jane if he was trying to knock the bloody door down, then, in answer to Screwer’s question about her husband's availability, had been told that he was out and where she didn't know, nor did she care.

Screwer had been greatly disappointed at this news, especially as since seeing Stanley's brightly-painted house a minute earlier he had been even more anxious than ever to get his hands on Stanley, having quickly formed the opinion that only a hooligan of the first water could be responsible for such an overt act of vandalism on his own property.

“
Have you seen this?” he had said to Constable Balfour, on first seeing the house. The remark was an expression of disbelief, but unfortunately Balfour had taken it to be a question.

“
Oh many times, sir,” he had smiled.

Screwer had found this very hard to believe, even after taking into account the ineptitude and dilatory manner he had come to expect from his underlings at Frogley.

“
You mean to say you knew about it?”

“
Everybody in Frogley knows about Stanley Sutton's house, sir. It’s a bit of a tourist attraction.”

“
Well I didn't bloody know about it!” Screwer screamed at him, showering him with spittle.

Balfour wondered if he was carrying any tissues. “Sorry sir.”

“
Why wasn't I told about it?” snapped Screwer, in the process making Balfour even more concerned about his tissue situation.

“
Well perhaps nobody thought it was important, sir,” Balfour said, knowing even before he said it that it was the wrong to say, but not knowing what was the right thing to say.

Screwer went berserk. “Not fucking important? I'm trying to bring football hooligans to book and you don't think it's important that one of the twats has painted his house from top to bottom in the football club's colours? And his dog. Are you fucking cracked, Balfour?”

“
Yes sir....no sir….possibly sir,” said Balfour, in a desperate attempt to find a reply that might be acceptable to this terrible man.

With a final withering look at the unfortunate Balfour the police chief switched his attention back to Sarah Jane, who had been watching, entirely unfazed by what she had been listening to. “Have you got a photograph of your husband I can have?” he asked her.

Balfour saw an opportunity to start the long journey back into Screwer's good books. “I know what he looks like, sir” he offered. “I'll be able to recognise him immediately.”

“
No you won't,” said Sarah Jane, “He's got two black eyes now.”

Screwer jumped on this possible evidence of hooliganism immediately. “How did he get them?”

“
Mind your own business,” said Sarah Jane, and slammed the door in his face.

Stanley had chanced upon the Frogley Town's open-top bus tour of the town centre by accident, following his continued his search for Fentonbottom. Had he known about it in advance he would of course have gained the best vantage point possible from which to view the celebrations, possibly seated on one of the granite lions which sat guarding either side of the Town Hall steps in stony silence, but unfortunately he hadn't.

Most of the townspeople hadn't heard about the triumphal tour either. This was because Donny had wanted to get the tour in before the next match and, time being limited due to the team having been incarcerated in prison until the previous evening, there had been little chance to publicise it, announcements on Frogley Radio's Feng Shui Phone-in with Mr Wong and the Dave Rave Show being the only exposure it had received. As the Feng Shui Phone-in had only sixteen regular listeners, and the Dave Rave Show, if one were to disregard the show's listeners at the mental hospital, had even less, it meant that very few townspeople had been aware of the tour until it actually took place.

When Feng Shui devotee Martin Sneed had heard about it he had immediately got on the phone to Donny and had begged and prayed with him to hold off the tour until he'd had the chance to publicise it in his Advertiser column, going so far as to promise the Frogley manager that he would include in the puff the news that probable guests of the team atop the bus would be Pele and Girls Aloud, but even this had failed to tempt Donny, who had averred that “Psychological considerations didn't allow an off-putting of the schedule, it was something that had to be done immediately, a striking while the iron is in the fire situation if you like.”

Unfortunately by the time Stanley had met up with the bus it had already passed the Town Hall and sitting on one of the granite lions was out, so he contented himself with walking alongside the bus, much like as a boy he had happily marched along with the council steamroller whenever it had passed by, or happily walked alongside the Co-op horse in the hope it would pee so he could float paper boats on the river of urine as it flowed down the gutter; but even happier than that.

And he would have remained happy had the bus not turned into Tripe Street and proceeded to go down it in a northerly direction at the same time that Superintendent Screwer and Constable Balfour entered the street from the other end and proceeded up it in a southerly direction.

Screwer recognised Stanley immediately, his two black eyes making him stand out like a panda in a group of polar bears. Even so, he checked with Balfour, demanding, “Is that the bastard?”

If Balfour had had any foreknowledge of the treatment Stanley would receive at the hands of Screwer he would have said, “No sir, that's some other bastard with black eyes”, and would have made every effort to get Stanley out of the country at the earliest possible opportunity. But he didn't. So he said, “Yes sir, that's Stanley Sutton”, thus sealing Stanley's fate. And Screwer's.

The perfect footballer would have the guile and ball control of
Zinedine Zidane, the dead ball skills of David Beckham,
the speed of Cristiano Ronaldo and the wages of a bus driver