Knees Up Mother Earth

18

Jim Pooley awoke to a sunshiny Saturday morning.

Jim Pooley awoke to find Gammon smiling down upon him.

“Wah!” went Jim. “What are you doing in my boudoir?”

“Coffee and croissants, sir,” said Gammon, removing the silver dome from an eighteenth-century croissant dish and wafting delicious smells in Jim’s direction.

“What am I doing here?” Jim asked, a-blinking and a-rubbing of his eyes. “I am at the professor’s house and …” Jim did pullings at himself. “These aren’t my pyjamas,” he continued. “My pyjamas have the A Team on them.”

“You imbibed a little too freely last night, sir. The professor was pleased to put you up.”

“Oh,” said Jim. And, “How kind,” said Jim. And, “Pour me a coffee then, please,” said Jim also.

Gammon obliged and then bowed himself from the bedroom.

Jim sat up and sipped coffee.

“Imbibed too freely?” Jim shook his head from side to side. He didn’t have a hangover. What time had he and John left The Stripes Bar? Jim now cocked his head upon one side. What time had he actually arrived at The Stripes Bar? And what had actually happened at the Benefit Night at The Stripes Bar?

Jim Pooley made a very grave face. He had absolutely no memory of the evening before.

Scoop Molloy’s memories of the evening before had been put down upon paper even before the evening before was done. Scoop had viewed the smoke and the exploding exit doors and the fleeing folk through the rear window of Norman’s van in the car park, where he and Peg had retired to make the beast with two backs after John had disturbed their earlier tryst outside the fire exit. Scoop had been forced to excuse himself from the frantic coitus. He was a professional. The news always had to come first.

So to speak.

And upon returning to the offices of the Brentford Mercury with many pages of purple prose, he had been granted that moment so beloved of newsmen throughout the ages: that moment when they can cry, “Hold the front page!”

And, to his chagrin, Scoop discovered that the front page was already being held for information that was coming in regarding a lock-up garage in Abaddon Street that had apparently been destroyed by a terrorist bomb. The headline “BIN LADEN ATTACK UPON BRENTFORD” was already being set up in six-inch Times Roman lettering.

“You’ll have to put your piece on the sports page,” Badger Beaumont, the Mercury’s inebriate theatre critic, told him. “I was there, at the scene of the outrage, walking my old brown dog, and I got my headline in first.”

“But I have ‘HUNDREDS FLEE IN TERROR’,” said Scoop, “and I saw all kinds of weird stuff going on in The Stripes Bar after the fleeing was done. I peeped in through the doorway.”

“Sorry,” said Beaumont. “That’s journobiz, I guess.”

“But,” said Scoop. “But …”

“Butter?” asked Professor Slocombe. “For your toast, Jim?”

Jim now sat, with John, at the professor’s breakfasting table in his marvellous conservatory. It was one of those wonderful Victorian jobbies with all the cast-iron fiddly bits and the brass handles on the walls that you turn to engage complicated mechanisms which open upper windows. And there was all manner of exotic foliage and rare blooms perfuming the air, and it was all very blissful.

And Jim was in a state of some confusion.

“I can’t remember anything,” said Jim, accepting butter for his toast that he might enjoy a second breakfast, as in the manner of Hobbits. “I remember going home for a bath and that’s it. Waking up here this morning is the next thing I remember.”

Omally cast a cautious glance towards the professor.

A knowing one was returned to him.

“I expect it will all come back to you in time,” Omally told Jim, although John’s fingers were crossed beneath the table. “But suffice it to say, it was a most profitable night. We took almost two thousand pounds on the door alone. I haven’t checked the bar takings yet, but we have more than enough to pay the team for the next few weeks.”

“Oh my God,” said Jim. “The team – did they all get drunk?”

“No,” said John. “I told you, I—”

“You told me what?”

“Nothing,” said John. “The team all drank the Team Special ale I had the brewery lay on for them. It was non-alcoholic. They’ll be fine this morning.”

“Where are my clothes?” Jim asked.

“I’m having them cleaned for you, sir.” Gammon poured Jim further coffee. “You were a bit sick.”

“Oh my God once more,” said Jim. “Not here? I’m so sorry, Professor.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for, Jim. You acquitted yourself in a gentlemanly manner.”

“But I can’t understand why I can’t remember anything.”

“It’s all for the best, Jim. Trust me on this.” John raised his coffee cup to Jim. “Think only of today, Jim. Today is going to be a big day for Brentford United.”

Jim felt his stomach knotting. The prospect of the forthcoming match was terrifying in the extreme.

“Do I have to go?” Jim asked.

“You certainly do,” said Professor Slocombe. “But have no fear, I will be going with you.”

“You will?” said Jim.

“I will, and I will be sitting beside you on the bench.”

“That makes me feel a good deal better. What about the bus, John?”

“All arranged,” said John Omally, dabbing a serviette about his laughing gear. “Big Bob Charker will pick us up from your place at ten.”

“Will I have to walk home in these PJ’s?” Jim asked.

“I will fetch you some appropriate day wear, sir,” said Gammon.

And the new day came to Brentford.

To find many in the borough most unwilling to greet it.

The “STRIPES BAR HOLOCAUST”, as it would come to be known due to the six-inch Times Roman headline on the rear sports page of the day’s edition of the Brentford Mercury, would linger long in the memories of those who had been there to experience it. And those who had been there would speak of their experiences again and again over the coming weeks, each lingering long upon the gory details and even longer upon whatever deeds of personal bravery they claimed to have performed.

But upon this particular morning, all concerned were laying long in bed, trying to sleep the whole thing off.

Big Bob Charker, Brentford’s tour-bus driver, had always been an early riser and today was no exception. He was already at the depot polishing his bus.

The depot was more of a shed than a depot. In fact, it was a shed – a shed large enough to house a bus, but a shed more so than less. It was an aged shed that had once been an engine shed in the days when steam trains still ran from Brentford Station, days that were now far gone.

The yard, ex-railways and now the property of Brentford Magical History Tours, Ltd. looked just the way such a yard should look: decoratively decked out in rusted ironwork of the corrugated persuasion and flanked around by tall fences topped with razor-wire. A sign on the gate read “BEWARE THE SAVAGE DOGS THAT ROAM THESE PREMISES BY NIGHT” and a great many of those corroding oil drums that always look as if they must contain something very, very dangerous indeed.

Big Bob Charker was a man of biblical proportions and spoke in a manner appropriate to his stature.

“Dost thou truly think the team will win through to the FA Cup Final?” he asked Periwig Tombs, the mechanic, who was wiping his hands upon an oily rag, as mechanics will do whenever they are given the chance.

“Nope,” said Periwig. “Why do you ask?”

“Because John Omally spake unto me as one who hath the wisdom of Solomon, and did persuade me to provide free transport for the team in return for an endorsement upon their raiments.”

“Woe unto your house, then, Big Bob,” said Periwig sarcastically. “For surely it was written that he who giveth his services freely goeth without beer, but still must render unto his mechanic that which is owed unto him. Weekly.”

Big Bob placed his official cap upon his head. “Verily I say unto you,” he said, “that should the team fail to gain victory over the Pengeites, then lo, they will be walking home.”

“I’m not walking home in this,” said Jim. “I look like Bertie Wooster.”

John Omally cast an eye over Jim’s apparel, which consisted of a three-piece, plus-fours suit of green Boleskine tweed. “To be honest,” said John, his fingers crossed once more, but this time in his pocket, “it rather suits you, makes you look, how shall I put it …”

“A prat?” Gammon suggested, tittering behind his hand.

“A character,” said John. “Football managers are noted for their eccentricities – weird haircuts, unkempt eyebrows, odd regional accents, a penchant for blonde Swedish television presenters.” John made a wistful face at the thought of the latter. “And ill-fitting nylon tracksuits. You’ll cut a dash in that outfit. In no time folk will be copying you. You could well become a fashion icon.”

“Do you really think so?” Jim did a foolish kind of a twirl.

“Absolutely,” said John, bravely keeping the straightest of faces. “Now we really must be going. Big Bob will be on his way.”

And Big Bob was.

He drew the big bus to a halt before Jim’s lodgings and tooted the horn. Jim – who had, upon his return home in the company of John, been somewhat surprised to find that there were no clothes missing from his inextensive wardrobe and was demanding explanations, as well as stuffing his wallet and cigarettes into the pocket of his tweedy plus-fours and getting himself into a state and receiving no satisfactory replies to his endless questions – was hustled by John from the house and out into the street.

“Sodom and Gomorrah!” went Big Bob, taking in Pooley’s apparel. “Surely thou art Bertie Wooster himself.”

“Morning, Bob,” said John, smiling up and into the cab. “Looking forward to watching the team put paid to Penge?”

“Fear the wrath that will surely visit their failure,” said Big Bob in ready reply.

“I’ll take that as a yes, then,” said John. “All aboard now, Bertie.”

“What did you say?” Jim asked.

“I said, ‘All aboard, it’s nearly ten-thirty.’”

“You certainly did not.”

John and Jim climbed aboard.

“Can we go on the top deck?” Jim asked. “Sit at the front? We can stomp our feet over the driver’s head until he comes upstairs and threatens to chuck us off.”

“Sit there.” John indicated the bench seat next to where the conductor would be standing, had there been a conductor to stand there.

“Spoilsport,” said Jim, slumping down sulkily and taking out his cigarette packet.

Big Bob glanced back at him through the little glass hatch at the rear of his cab. “No smoking downstairs,” he told Jim.

John made his way to the driver and handed him a list of the team’s addresses. “As fast as you can, please,” he told Bob.

“You should have arranged that the team all meet up at the football ground,” Jim told John upon his return. “We could have picked them all up in one go.”

John shook his head. “I don’t trust them,” he said. “This way we can beat upon their doors and shout up at their bedroom windows. We’ll shout loudly, and they’ll feel too guilty to refuse us.”

“You don’t miss a trick, do you, John?” said Jim.

“I’ve missed one or two so far,” said John in an enigmatic manner, “but I won’t be caught out again.”

“Don’t forget to pick up the professor,” said Jim.

“He’s second to last on the list.”

And it was a struggle. And they weren’t keen. But, one by one, John and Jim winkled them out. They all looked in a bit of a state.

They all looked rather hungover.

“I thought you said …” said Jim.

“I did,” said John, and he addressed the team and the substitutes who now filled most of the bus’s lower deck. “I have something of which to inform you all,” said John.

“Oh yes?” came mumblings from here and there.

“None of you actually has a hangover,” said John.

There were mutterings at this, and the word “bollocks” was brought into service.

“No,” said John, as Big Bob took a corner sharply and nearly had him off the bus. “The Team Special beer that I had laid on for you was non-alcoholic. I did it for your own good, so that you would play at your best today.”

There were further mutterings, and then someone said, “We know.”

“Who said that?” John asked.

“Me,” said Dave Quimsby. “And don’t shout so loud, I’ve got a hangover.”

“You have not got a hangover,” said John. “It was non-alcoholic beer.”

“It may have been at The Stripes Bar, but it wasn’t at The Beelzepub.”

“What?” said Omally.

“After all the fire and chaos …” said Dave.

“Fire and chaos?” asked Jim.

“Fire and chaos,” said Dave. “Gwynplaine Dhark from The Beelzepub turned up at the ground. In this very bus, actually …”

“What?” said John once more.

“Short-notice booking,” Big Bob called back through his little glass hatch. “He had to pay double.”

“Gwynplaine Dhark took us all for a celebratory drink at his pub,” said Dave. “On the house. We didn’t get home until after three.”

“Treachery!” cried John. “Sabotage!”

“Not so loud!” cried all and sundry. Especially Dave Quimsby.

“This is bad,” said Jim. “This is very bad.”

Big Bob brought the bus to a halt at Professor Slocombe’s house and Jim helped the ancient scholar aboard.

“We’ve been sabotaged,” Jim told the professor. “Gwynplaine Dhark took the team back to his pub for a late-nighter. They’ve all got hangovers.”

“So much the better,” said Professor Slocombe.

“So much the what?” said Jim.

“Trust me.” The ancient fellow tapped at his ancient nose. “I think I’ll go and sit upstairs now,” he continued. “I’ve always wanted to sit at the front and stomp my feet over the driver’s head until he comes up and threatens to throw me off.”

There was one more stop to be made before the trip to Penge proper began. And this was at Mohammed Smith’s Sports Shop in the High Street. John had done a deal with Mr Smith. It was a sponsorship deal.

Bing and Bob made many “road” films, but they never made The Road To Penge. Although they should have, because it would have been a goodie.

There are so many exciting places to pass through on the road from Brentford to Penge. There’s Kew, Barnes, Putney, Wandsworth, Clapham, Streatham, not to mention West Norwood.

But as for Penge itself, well, what can be said about Penge? Well, it’s sort of Sydenham. And Sydenham is Crystal Palace, because the Crystal Palace was rebuilt upon the hill there when the original Crystal Palace in Hyde Park was demolished.

For those interested in the architecture of football stadia, the Penge ground was designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, the legendary designer of the K2 red telephone box. Who also invented Blu-Tack, Velcro and the jumbo jet.[27]

It is a truly magnificent stadium constructed from cast iron, teak and glass, with a saucer dome rising above four segment-headed pediments, reminiscent of the tomb of Sir John Sloane in St Pancras Churchyard and capable of seating nearly two people.[28]

“Behold the stadium,” said Omally, as Big Bob drew up the big bus before it.

“My goodness,” said Jim, “but surely that’s a telephone box.”

“Next to the telephone box, Jim.”

“Ah,” said Jim. “That’s a fine-looking stadium.”

“Park the bus around the back please, Bob,” said John.

“I wilst in but a moment,” said Big Bob. “But first I’m going upstairs. If the professor doesn’t stop stomping his feet, I shall cast him forth from the bus.”

“Is it just me,” said Jim, “or do we live in rather weird times?”

“It’s just you,” said Big Bob. “I’ll park around at the back. Verily.”

Penge had been having a good run of luck over the last few seasons. They’d won games and managed to run at a profit and they’d used this profit to do what is all-important in the world of the football club: buy in top talent.

Over the preceding six months they had taken on a new barman, a new plumber in residence, a replacement Scottish groundskeeper (the old one having run away to join the circus) and still had enough money left over for the manager to acquire a new bungalow, a new Ford Escort and a new mistress, who was a blonde Swedish television presenter.

And they had really smart shirts and a really smart changing room.

The Scottish groundskeeper led Jim, John, the professor, the Brentford team, its substitutes and Big Bob Charker to his office. “You’ll have to change in here,” he told the team. “We dinna hav’ a visiting-team dressing room – we knocked the wall out and extended the bar.”

“Perk up,” Jim told the team, who looked anything but perked up (hence his telling). “It doesn’t matter where you change, it’s what you do on the pitch that counts.”

“I think I’ll probably throw up on the pitch,” said Alf Snatcher, waggling his waggly tail beneath his tracksuit pants. “Or even here, at a pinch.”

“Why is it that I lack for confidence?” Jim whispered to John.

“I’ve no idea, my friend. Shall I pop into the bar and get us in a couple of beers?”

“Good idea.”

“And a small sweet sherry for me,” said Professor Slocombe. “My feet are sore from all that stomping.”

Penge even had a resident jazz band. James Barclay’s Rhythm Boys, they were called. They were a marching band, and they marched up and down the pitch belting out a selection of tunes which might possibly have been penned by present-day authors who were hoping to break into the music biz, but, given the law of diminishing returns, were equally possibly just old Kenny Ball numbers.

“Wasn’t that an Anne McCaffrey tune?” Jim asked John, who now sat next to him “on the bench”.

“No,” said John. “And we’ll hear no more about it.”

James Barclay’s Rhythm Boys lined themselves up in the middle of the pitch and to the great applause of the crowd (which numbered between two folk and several thousand, depending upon where you happened to be sitting) heralded the arrival of the opposing teams.

“Showtime,” said John Omally, sipping on a pint of ale. “Rubbish ale, by the way.”

“Are we really going to be able to pull this off?” Jim asked Professor Slocombe, who sat next to him sipping sherry.

“You gave them the pep talk before you came out here, and most inspired it was.”

“Yes,” said Jim, “it was, wasn’t it? I don’t know how this stuff comes into my head.”

Professor Slocombe tapped once more at his slender nose. “Enjoy the game, Jim,” said he. “Oh, and feel free to do a lot of shouting at the team as they play. They won’t be able to hear you, but they’ll appreciate it all the same. And it is expected of you.”

“What should I shout?” Jim asked.

“I expect you’ll think of something.”

And on they came, the Penge team resplendent in their colours of beige, light tan and buff (these being the new black this season. But as Wimbledon play in blue, which is often the new black also, it doesn’t really matter).

And the Brentford team in …

The crowd exploded into laughter.

“Oh my God,” cried Jim. “What are they wearing?”

“It’s the new kit,” said John. “I did a deal with Mohammed Smith at the sports shop.”

“They’re wearing kaftans,” said Jim. “They look like the cast of Hair.”

“I thought the cast of Hair were mostly naked,” said John.

“And what are those patches that are sewn all over the kaftans?” asked Jim.

“Advertising logos, Jim. Sponsorship deals, endorsements, you know the kind of thing. I needed kaftans to fit them all on. I’ve got almost every shop in Brentford signed up.”

“You crammed a lot of work into a single day.”

“The Miracle of the Mobile Phone.” John whipped this item from his pocket.

“Don’t put that thing near me,” said Jim.

The crowd had not ceased in its laughter at the Brentford team. And it looked very much as if the Brentford team was all for fleeing back to the groundskeeper’s office.

“They’re laughing at us,” said Jim.

“They’ll be laughing on the other side of their faces come half-time,” said John.

“How do you do that?” Jim tried to frown on the other side of his face but could not.

“One more pep talk required,” said Professor Slocombe. “Go to them, Jim.”

“What will I say?”

“You’ll find inspiration.”

And Jim did. He gathered the team about himself. He spoke honeyed words. Magical words. A very great many words. And they seemed to work. He even got one of those Maori war chant kind of jobbies on the go.

He patted backs and returned to the bench.

“I don’t know where I find it,” said Jim, “but I find it.”

“You certainly do,” said John, exchanging secret smiles with the professor.

And then the ref blew his whistle and the game was on.

To this day, no one knows exactly how it was done. The game was not recorded for television transmission and so no visual evidence remains to be analysed by football pundits. There were members of the press there, but they gave conflicting accounts of the game. And as for the crowd, well, a crowd of folk will rarely agree upon anything. Except to being stirred up by a single individual into doing something stupid.

And so exactly what happened upon that fateful afternoon in Penge must remain for ever a matter of debate.

Except for one detail.

And that one detail was beyond debate.

For that one detail was the final score.

It was the greatest defeat that Penge had ever suffered, greater even than the infamous “Day of Shame” when they were hammered five-nil by Orton Goldhay Wanderers. An occasion the ignominy of which was added to by Penge’s then manager and latterly convicted serial killer Wally “God-Told-Me-To-Do-It” Tomlinson, whose excuse for the team’s defeat was that they had contracted a dose of the King’s Evil at Madame Loveridge’s whorehouse in Pimlico.

“Eight-nil.” Jim Pooley counted eight goals on to his fingers. Jim was somewhat far gone in celebratory drink now. He was on the tour bus that Big Bob was driving back to Brentford. Big Bob was singing. The team was singing.

Up on the top deck, John, Jim and Professor Slocombe were drinking champagne.

“Eight-nil.” Jim counted his fingers again, just to be sure. “They were all hungover and they still thrashed Penge eight-nil.”

“I feel that we can chalk the tactics up as a success,” said Professor Slocombe.

“I think the kaftans helped,” said John.

“Impossible,” said Jim. “I must be dreaming this.”

“The price of endorsements upon the team’s strip has just doubled,” said John. “No, let’s be fair to the shopkeepers of Brentford – trebled.”

“I’m not sure that Paine’s Undertakers should have such a prominent position on the backs,” said Professor Slocombe.

“Eight-nil,” said Jim, losing count of his fingers. “Brentford won eight-nil.”