Fan (16 page)
Authors: Danny Rhodes
‘Fuck me,’ said Jeff. ‘Fuck me in a British Rail toilet.’
Back from the north somewhere. Travelling the main artery, the train full to bursting. Cocksure little bastards, ready to let go for the first time in a week, rowdy as fuck as always, drawing attention, drawing complaints from Joe Public in the age of the train. The guard coming down the carriage, having none of it, some tough Scottish fucker with a point to prove. One after the next giving the guard a mouthful, the guard giving it back, meaning business because he was a Scotsman and he didn’t give a fuck.
Donnie Station. The guard holding the train, calling the transport police, having the lot of them chucked on to the platform. In the car park, Jeffery and his knowledge of the stations of the north. They hop over the fucking wall, slip through the goods yard and clamber back on the train before it pulls away. Jeff leads them to the mail car. The lads pile in, hide in the dark, keep their heads down in case the fucking guard comes back, not knowing what the fuck they’ll do if he does.
Forty-five minutes in the dark, splayed out on mailbags, Donnie, Retford, Newark, the old town, the church a fucking beacon, drawing them home. The guard’s face a picture as they run down the platform and out into the night.
Bolshie bastards. Little fuckers. Pissed-up wankers.
‘Gaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!’
The two of them laughed their sorry arses off talking about it.
‘Aye, we had some fun, mate,’ said Jeffery.
The smile drained from his face.
‘But I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Those days are long gone.’
A moment dropped between them.
‘So?’
‘So I’m wondering why you’re putting yourself through all of this.’
Finchy shrugged.
‘I didn’t intend to,’ he said. ‘I’d buried all of it. Or at least I thought I had. BJ’s phone call kicked it all up. That and Cloughie’s departure.’
‘Still, I’d try not to dwell,’ said Jeff. ‘Most of the past, most of that stuff, probably deserves to be left where it is. There’s not much to say about it really. We were just lads. We had fuck all else to bother ourselves with.’
‘That’s what Hopper said.’
‘Aye, well, you just have to deal with it.’
‘I haven’t dealt with it though, have I?’ he said. ‘I thought I had but I hadn’t.’
‘I’m not talking about finishing it all up. None of us have done that, mate. We deal with it by not dealing with it, by getting on with everything else, getting through each fucking day…’
He supped his pint. He stared about himself, lunch over now, the pub inhabited by drawn men and half-finished pints of ale.
‘I’m not sure that’s enough,’ said Finchy.
‘Of course it’s not enough. Of course it’s not. But that’s life, me old mucker. That’s fucking life for you.’
Finchy stared at his own half-drunk pint on the table, the dregs of beer sticking to the side of the glass.
‘Maybe I deal with it by dragging my arse along to watch the cunts play week after week,’ said Jeff. ‘Maybe I deal with it like that. And maybe BJ deals with it by kicking off every now and then. I’d rather do those things than deny it ever happened. There’s one or two of the fuckers who’ve done that, just buried it as if it never was.’
‘And Stimmo?’
‘He dealt with it his way. Perhaps that’s where we’re all heading. We just don’t know it yet. At least the soft bastard’s out of it all now.’
A shadow shuffled past and said goodnight. Jeff nodded in its direction.
‘No more bad dreams for Stimmo, eh?’
Finchy shrugged.
Jeff, staring into the depths of his pint glass, sluicing the remains around and around and around.
‘Okay, I’ll tell you this one thing,’ he said. ‘I have this recurring dream. Remember Newquay? Fistral beach? That fucking lifeguard dragging me out of the rip tide?
‘Aye,’ said Finchy. ‘I remember that.’
‘I have that fucking dream,’ he said. ‘Over and over. I’m in the water and then I’m under it. I’m thrashing about in the blackness, lungs burning, head fucking exploding. And here’s the thing. There’s a flood of blue light and I’m not on my own any more. I’m still fucking drowning but I’m in a sea of bodies, me and a thousand other fuckers packed into a space that’s too small. I can’t fucking move. I can’t struggle. I can’t do anything. And I can’t fucking breathe either. Fuckers are dying all around me, just going limp, staring off somewhere. There’s this bloke. His face is pressed against mine. I can feel
his fucking stubble on my cheek. His eyes are open but they’re not fucking looking at me. He’s not looking anywhere. A bit of dribble runs from his blue lips. I can’t breathe. I’m clearly fucking dying. And then some fucker grabs me and I wake up and I’m in bed, gasping for fucking air.’
Silence for a time. The two of them nursing their pint glasses, swilling the dregs.
‘The same dream, every time.’
‘Jesus.’
‘The missus says I cry out. I don’t know if I do but that’s what she tells me. I haven’t told her about the dream mind, I haven’t told anybody except you, here, now. Shit, mate, can’t we change the fucking channel? You’re a depressing bastard. Talk about opening a can of fucking worms.’
‘Aye, sorry.’
‘Don’t be sorry. Just keep schtum, that’s all. Especially when her indoors arrives. We’re all a bunch of fuck-ups when it comes down to it.’
Finchy smiled.
‘It’s just the past,’ said Jeffery. ‘Friendship groups naturally splitting apart, moving on to new things. Surely that’s all this is about, moving from one life to the next. It’s the same for all of us.’
Jeff fished in his pocket, pulled out a season ticket.
‘Look. They’re at home this Friday. I can’t get there. Have it on me. Just don’t lose the bloody thing. Drop it back here when you’re done.’ He placed the card on the table. ‘As for the other stuff, do you seriously want to dredge all of that up again?’
Finchy shrugged for the hundredth time.
‘It’s like I’m on a fucking train,’ Finchy said. ‘I can see the stations passing and I know it’s time to get off but the train doesn’t fucking stop. It just keeps going…’
‘Pull the fucking emergency cord. That usually does the trick. On second thoughts, don’t.’
Jeff laughed.
A woman appeared in the doorway. Whatever the plan had been, Jeff changed it, got to his feet, cut her off before she got hold of what she was witnessing.
‘I’ll see you around, mate. Don’t forget the game.’
‘I won’t, mate. Thanks.’
He stared at the ticket, at the Major Oak and the three lines, struggling to imagine himself back there, struggling to come to terms with something that ought to have been easy, hardly daring to touch the thing. And he remembered the rest of that evening after the Donnie incident, the rest of the story.
He didn’t go into town. He left them on the High Street, made sure his programme was on display in his jeans and went to get food instead, a good old curry, carried it back to the flat, back to the darkness. He sat on the yellow sofa and watched TV until he collapsed there, woke at five on the Sunday morning with a fucking sore head, a carton of rice on his lap and on the carpet, an impression in his lower back where the programme had nestled. He heard his flatmate coughing in his sleep, cursed his fucked-up body clock, climbed the stairs to his room and fell on the bed. It was Sunday. He pulled the covers over himself and rested in the cocoon like darkness, wishing Jen was with him.
But she wasn’t.
He’d opted for football, hadn’t he?
He’d opted for that.
Again.
26th February 1989
League Cup Semi-Final, Second Leg
Ashton Gate
A West Country Sunday in the sheeting rain. Ashton Gate rocking and rolling, pulsing and throbbing. Aggravation. Anger. Aggression. All fucking day. The Executive Crew out in force, a point to prove.
2–2 from the first leg. City rampaging in Notts town centre.
Everything to play for on the pitch and off it.
Stuff kicking off on every corner of every fucking street. Off the bus and straight into the thick of it. One hundred of the fuckers coming out of nowhere, a surprise attack. A cuff around the head for your trouble. You hop into some front garden, head ringing. A bemused woman stares out of a lounge window.
A piano, a cat, a set of silver ornaments.
Back on the street. Momentum reversed. Forest running the Robins now, chasing them down. On another corner, a burger van is tossed about in a sea of bodies, some poor cunt in chequered chef whites trying to clamber free. Hot fat, ketchup, five hundred burgers and bread rolls spill into the Bristol puddles. The burger van goes over with the bloke inside. Every fucker cheers. The guy crawls away from the van, mired in fried onions.
Poor fucker.
To the ground. To the game. Another packed terrace. February sleet. A barrage of noise. A barrage of coins. Some cheeky twat clambers on to hoardings and goads the City fans to do their worst. Coins rain in from the home end. Coins batter the advertising hoardings. Every fucker flinches.
A barrage of spite showers down on the Ashton Gate terraces.
The rain turns to drizzle, clings to the skin. Sweat and fucking drizzle.
The ebb and flow.
The blood and guts.
Football on a brown quagmire.
The great leveller.
In injury time City force a corner and Alan Walsh strikes the post.
Be still your beating heart.
One hundred and sixteen minutes of torture.
One hundred and sixteen minutes of pain.
One hundred and sixteen minutes in the rain at Ashton Gate, daring to dream, not daring to dream.
And then Clough’s layoff finds Webb. Webb’s hoists in a cross. Clough swipes his boot at fresh air but Garry Parker is in the box. Garry Parker has the ball at his feet. Garry Parker’s shot hits the roof of the net.
Every fucker goes mental.
Twenty seconds of madness.
Twenty seconds of ecstasy.
Twenty seconds where nothing else in the world matters.
Que sera, sera, whatever will be, will be
…
Shattered boys and shattered men.
On the pitch and on the terraces.
Bricks and bedlam on the Bristol streets.
Another bus window bears the brunt of Cup frustration.
It doesn’t fucking matter.
Forest have defeated Bristol City 1–0 at Ashton Gate.
Forest are going to Wembley.
And you are going with them.
‘You’re always at football,’ says Jen.
‘You knew that when we met,’ he says.
‘That was over a year ago,’ she says. ‘We never see each other.’
‘We see each other all the time,’ he says.
‘Lisa and Kevin are still going to Yarmouth.’
‘We talked about that,’ he says.
She gets up off the yellow sofa, coughs.
‘Your flatmate’s smoking shit again,’ she says. ‘I can’t stand it.’
She reaches for her jacket.
‘Where are you going?’ he asks.
‘Home,’ she says.
He sighs.
‘When the season’s done, we’ll go away,’ he says. ‘I promise.’
He grips her hand. She tears herself free.
‘I’m sick of Lisa and Kevin,’ she shouts. ‘I’m sick of football and I’m sick of you.’
And then she’s slamming the door, gone from the place. He doesn’t get up to follow her. He doesn’t do anything at all.
18th March 1989
FA Cup Quarter-Final
Old Trafford
Monday lunchtime. The Cup draw on the radio.
Not United away. Not United away. Not fucking Manchester United away
.
Manchester United will play … Nottingham Forest.
Highbury one year, Old Trafford the next. Forty-five thousand baying for blood but Forest impregnable. The classic away day. Franzie Carr jinking, twisting, turning, freeing himself on the right. Franzie Carr to the byline, Franz Carr squaring the ball, Garry Parker in the middle, Garry Parker in the centre of the goal. The simplest of tap-ins.
One Garry Parker.
One fucking nil.
The second half. Forest under the cosh, the Stretford end in full voice but ten thousand mighty Reds giving it back. Ebb and flow, end to end. Hodge off the goal-line. Sparky Hughes in the referee’s face. Thirty-five thousand in the referee’s ear. Ten thousand voices singing their boys home.
Wembley, Wembley, we’re the famous Cloughie’s army and we’re going to Wembley
…
Fuck me, you might be going three times.
The Simod Cup.
The League Cup.
The FA Cup.
Nottingham Forest are in the Semi-Final hat.
Norwich are in the Semi-Final hat.
Everton are in the Semi-Final hat.
Liverpool are in the Semi-Final hat.
Norwich (let it be Norwich).
Everton (you’ll take Everton).
But not the fucking Scousers again.
Not fucking Hillsborough again.
Not the fucking Kop again.
The same fucking arguments.
In the boardrooms and corridors.
In the pubs and clubs.
Behind closed doors.
The SYP.
The FA.
The strategy and the struggle.
‘I’d be happy with Leppings Lane.’
‘They had the Kop last year.’
‘Share and share alike.’
It doesn’t matter.
Because this year you’ll have the bastards whichever end you’re in.
It’s written in the stars.
You’re a believer.
The thousands in a crowd move as one,
with no shared intelligence.
Prof. Dr G. Keith Still
It’s dark when he wakes, dark when he cycles through the streets, dark when he arrives at the sorting office gates on this Saturday in April.
It’s dark when he steps away from his frame to check the boxes.
At 6 a.m. he goes out to the ramp and waits there, knowing he can’t bundle up yet, can’t bag up yet, knowing eyes are on him, knowing the limits. It’s too fucking early so he stands on the ramp and watches the black sky shift to cobalt blue, watches it brighten into a cloudless morning.
Back inside he readies the round. By 6.30 a.m. he’s out of the place, not hanging around, not looking over his shoulder as he slips out of the gates, not caring about Webster or anybody. He’s set on one thing today, one thing only. In six hours’ time he’ll be on the football special. In seven hours he’ll be on the Penistone Road, Sheffield. In eight hours he’ll be at Hillsborough, him and twenty-eight thousand Forest.
His heart skips a beat.
There’s a spring in his step as he makes his way up the path of the first call on Hope Close. There’s every fucking reason for it. Forest are flying, beaten just twice in twenty-two games since the turn of the year. They’ve won at White Hart Lane, Highbury, Old Trafford and the Baseball Ground. They’ve won the League fucking Cup at Wembley.
Everything comes easy on this morning. He glides from letter box to letter box, street to street. By 9 a.m. he’s back at the office. Harcross gives him the thumbs-up and ushers him out of the place before Webster and his cronies get an opportunity to stick their oar in.
At 10.30 a.m. he’s on the train, him and all of the others and then some. It’s an FA Cup Semi. Every fucker who is any fucker has a ticket for this one.
And every fucker who isn’t.
Nottingham station rammed with red and white, the football special awash with beer and song.
Langley Mill, Alfreton, Chesterfield, Dronfield.
Beer and song, all the way to Sheffield.
He loves it and loathes it in equal measure. Twelve hundred of the fuckers at Plough Lane two weeks earlier, twelve hundred diehards. Today there will be twenty-eight thousand at Hillsborough, four thousand more than the average home gate at the City Ground.
The station at Sheffield is top heavy with SYP. There’s nowhere to go except where the SYP want them to go, no chance of slipping the net. There’s a fleet of double-decker buses lined up outside the station and he files aboard the upper deck. It’s 1 p.m. on match day, zero minus two hours. There’s alcohol in the air but no sign of it anywhere. Not now. The top floor of the double-decker is manned by two members of the SYP. Some of the lads crack jokes but the SYP aren’t laughing. The SYP never fucking laugh. Not on match day.
It’s slow going through the city of Sheffield, slow going on the Penistone Road.
‘We could have walked there quicker,’ says BJ.
Finchy nods. Finchy looks at the old bill. The old bill stare back.
Finchy looks out of the window instead. There are fans streaming up the Penistone Road, fans draped in red and
white. There are fans spreadeagled on the grass of Hillsborough Park. The sun is shining. The sky is blue. It’s the perfect day to watch a football match.
The bus crosses the River Don and pulls in outside the Kop end turnstiles. It’s 1.30 p.m. A year ago they were straight in from here but they’re older now and some of the lads are looking for a drink. They mill about on the pavement outside the Kop, choices to be made. There’s talk of this pub and that pub, talk of time to enjoy themselves. He’s not up for it. There’s the SYP for starters. There’s the fucking part-timers.
‘I’m going in,’ says BJ.
‘I’m with you,’ he says.
Finchy hands over his ticket, shoves through the turnstiles and makes the steep climb up the concrete steps to the back of the Kop. He buys a programme, moves through the clusters already in place to locate a view similar to the year before. It means the others might find them later, if they’re not too fucking late. And then there’s fuck all to do but wait, room still to sit on his arse on the Kop and flick through the programme, to breeze over the message from the Sheffield Wednesday Chairman describing his ‘perfect venue’ overlaying a photograph of Leppings Lane, to glance at the ‘Flashback’ article of a year before, to enjoy the photograph of Garry Parker turning in Franz Carr’s cross for the winner at Old Trafford and Bobby Robson’s article suggesting the match ‘could be a classic’. He feels it too. Fifty-four thousand souls are feeling it, but there aren’t fifty-four thousand in Hillsborough, not yet, not by a long shot. The Kop is filling up, as are the North and South Stands but the Leppings Lane end is all wrong. The pens to the left and the right are only sparsely populated. Just the central pens are truly occupied.
‘What the fuck’s that all about?’ asks one voice to his left.
‘They’ve not sold their tickets,’ laughs another to his right.
He’s thinking the same, that there’s been some enormous fuck-up, that none of what he’s seeing makes sense.
And nothing changes as the clock ticks onward, except that the central pens become fuller, tighter, become a mass of heads and bodies and that some fans clamber over the lateral fencing from the central pens to the wing pens.
But he doesn’t know anything. He only knows that it’s 2.40 p.m. on match day, just twenty minutes before the biggest game of the season.
Outside the ground, in the narrow elbow of Leppings Lane, more than five thousand fans are still trying to get in.
And the Leppings Lane end has not reached capacity. There is room in the wing pens. Plenty of room.
But the wing pens will not reach capacity.
Not on this day in April.
Not on this day.