Pre-Season Friendlies
The 2001-02 Season
First off, problems. Saturday morning, heavy night previous, feeling a bit damsy so out I walk to the shop, getting ready to warm up the Bedford Rascal. We’ve got a trip to make to Wales, the old girl’s a bit leaky in the mornings, still got a load of red onions I’m supposed to be giving to some broad in Wendover.
Fucknuts, the van won’t start - grief. I’m beeling by this stage, and young Ian is struggling with the Saturday shoppers, early doors, get them eggs in before the old man’s awake and make him some breakfast. Doesn’t work out in my favour mind, I wake up alone, just an old Hessian sack to warm my face of a daybreak.
Anyhow - "Give us a lift to Amersham station Ian". Fine, easy does it we can make this day work. Train’s a daisychain, rolling through Rickmansworth, love their Red Delicious in that place I can tell you. Taste the drool, if you like. Not likely - I’m a goodfella.
Paddington, 10.36, happy faces, too many drunks mind. Not a fan of London, gabby totals, if you know what. Get my ticket, nigh on 50 notes, I’m no nonce but that’s criminal. Good job I’ve packed some fruit for the journey, banana energy, slip one to a good kid on the next carriage, make him smile and the trees slide past.
Heading west where the tatties grow. Some mouth on that train, burp-logic fending me off at Bristol, a catty family rendered on chips and pie, stocked up on duty free and cuddly toys. The only green they like is the mashed-up pea. Not a fan, do your own shelling, make the world a player.
Cardiff Town - drizzling rain, good for the marrows not for legs. Slip into some booze-store and drone a few light ales in. Stay steady, blaff some apples and walk to Ninian Park. Choice ample, 30 to 40 of them mouthing and trousering to the east. Bigshot, don’t mess. Keep em close and then march on a tidy foot. Castaway.
Inside, good turnout, healthy faces - some old names, young dreams. Game’s a bogey, Taylor wolfbagging his way out of the box and loosing his arms. Dazza does the dance and I go bendy. Style over score, can’t knock a trier. Flat out, firing away and winking with the best of them.
Postgame bunter - slide into the backstreets. Kathmandu babycham - I’m back on the train, darker now - give Ian a bell "How’s sales?" "Aye, no bad," he counters. Sweetness follows. He took me behind a disused railway line. Nip off at Reading. Got some business to conclude. She drives a mini metro and she dances in the sun. Evening love, simple. Day’s done, stay steady.
Night falls and all we have are the memories. Is the past dead or is it still existing somewhere? Raleigh Nightburner. Goodnight Irene, back off while you can. Played one, lost one, scored none.
Fruit of the day - Tomato
Wrexham home, 18 Aug
Gadge - cuts me off on the Missenden bypass, just because I’m in a Rascal you thinks he can act the giddy goat. I’ve got lemons to get back to the shop and I could do without any antics on the roadside. Zigga Zagga.
It’s Wrexham today, Welsh fellas heading down to AP for a dinner and a dance. I enjoyed my trip to Cardiff last week, especially on the way home. Cast iron. Tommy gun on the left, lets play ball.
Shop is ticking, Ian’s wearing a new shirt. Monsoon alley. Lets shift some produce. Ladies sampling the late summer strawberries, "that soft love? Like it a bit firmer" Oi, none of that. Karma Sutra? Karma coma.
Lunch is a nice plate of greens - Ian’s done me proud. Slip down dandy doo. A glance at the Bucks Free Press fires my dry. Where’s the influx Sanchez? Where’s the autumn spuds? Ah well, lets get it done - want a pipe and a pint in Wycombe? Aye - trippy trappy.
Town is ticking - folks walking up to AP with a gammy smile and a walnut wink. Park there son, come on, we’ve got dolphins to skin. Bad feeling about this one - weren’t looking too snoopy at Ninian Park, we need some banshai spirit.
2.56 - normal seat, normal aches. New stand gleaming, I’m still steaming. Could this be a gunship alley, or am I going to swallow the spelling gruel? Slam, bang, we’re 4-0 up. Summer romps, hay in the hair and a girl in a sultry barn. I’m higher than Zeus and we’ve only just started. Half-time is a opium den and I’m bloated on Kendal.
Brownie boosh’s it home, five alive and I’m nursing a hernia. More of this and I’ll dink the cummerbund. Two welsh goals don’t dampen me and we head for the exits with a valet limp.
"I shouldn’t be doing this" but it feels so good. Only one way to celebrate a victory and this is mine. Slide down on my haunches, the heat rising through the radiator "Who’s got the heating on in the summer?" Stay with it, no, let it go. Three points on the board and each one is like a pip in my mouth.
Root of the day: ginger
Blackpool away, 25 Aug
Wake up beeling, I've got fruit to bang out. Shop is struggling, supermarket economics licking my earhole. Terry Tesco don't play fair, I'm knocking on heaven's door.
Shut up shop Ian - we're going to the seaside. In the rascal? Aye, in the rascal. Jump her bones up on cheap fuel and lets hit that road. I'll drive to the bypass, you take over. Long journeys make me gargle.
Ian's driving, motorway smoothie. Nip in the services for some services. I've got tutti frutti on my shirt, lick it off Ian? No, just joking, keep on driving we'll never get there at this rate.
See a pile up near Preston, I feel like Ballard, pull over son, shit, no accelerate, there's nothing to see here. Northern spirit in my veins, I've got a cheap pager and a short sleeve shirt/tie combo. Rock hero.
Beachcombing, picking up the flak and dancers. Do you want some winkles? Well do you? Toblerone, it's quarter to. Get down the ground sharpboys, or we'll miss that kick off.
Wind tousles Ian's hair, he looks confused. He thought we were going to Stoke Mandeville for some lettuce. Two down, raging, Brownie's spot, placating.
Seagull waltz. Pump action until the flatliners arrive. Currie 2-2, let's eat sugar and spice and all things nice. Life is good when you're on the rob. Chips, cakes, cockles and crabs. Ian, let's leave this town. Some people are staring too hard.
Fruit of the day: Tangerine
QPR home, 27 Aug
Bank Holiday fever, is it a Saturday, no, is it a Sunday, no, is it anyday, no. London's calling and I'm out of Amersham early doors. Pushbike to the big house.
Let's meet with the Morris men, fairies in the clouds and the sunshine lights up your face. Where's Ian? Oh, he's minding the shop, no, he's tired anyway, yes, he really is learning his trade. What? Ah that's nothing, just a scab now.
Sweat runs like a river, canoe-livelihood and white water in my veins. Pride of West London? Aye, that's the Westway son - foot down and pull out of that hood. You'll never sell plums in Portobello.
AP bulging like a sack of spuds, men with no shirts, women with no shame. I'm chewing a pomegranate, spilling my seed on the melting tarmac. I'm whiting out and there's nothing I want more.
3.00 - roaring 40s. I'm jerking in excitement. Ground is billowing like a Japanese cotton shirt. Chairs on top, banging from the east. No goals but an air of hope that reminds me of VE Day. Harvest Festival is going to be good this year.
Second half, more of the same. Banbury man in the middle - he has nothing to offer. They don't eat fruit and veg up there, exist on a diet of earth and corpse.
Late doors - where's the exit, aye, I'm not doing a runner but I always prepare. Here comes a corner - popping eye Joe McCarthy, slide it in. Glance to the right, simple. We're in 3 point heaven and I'm choking.
Crop of the day: Spring Barley
Creamy bapstats. Sunday Sunday, tidy attire. Looking for the pain, ah, here it is. Bamshot headrush, I think, yeah, there I go, plates of vomit in an old French bin. We gubbed them Germans and I can barely see.
Ian, where the fuck is Ian? Ah, it's Sunday, shop shut, no-one here. Where's my beautiful wife, she is in Chalfont St. Peter with that crafty butcher. Onions for breakfast again.
Won't be going to Huddersfield, laydown party. Got a ratsnatch headache and the north looks frozen to me. Dog and Hen for me, nice pub - landlady's a good fella.
Lunchtime pander - slip down the Dog and Hen. Two pints of please Vera. Aye, bring em over. I'll have some nuts please. Right, that old gag, yeah, good one. I'm visualising greyhounds and I've got no hare.
Five pints in, afternoon slides into my ears like a riptide. Starting to focus left. In walks Julianne. Ah, Julianne, do you want a drink? I'm paying, aye, that's right. You sit down and sort my pipe out.
Ten pints handy - Julianne is telling me about her trip to Tenerife. Backdoor anterior. I'm reeling forwards, singing for my supper. Six O'Clock, on comes the football. We get a goal. I go to the car park with Julianne.
Gravel in her hair, grazes on her forehead. Put your anorak on love. I'm lager shandy. Insider - 2-1 down, Brown's shooting inwards. Poor display but I'm Farrah-damp and I need a bath.
Late doors - laying halfwards. Ah, sweet Julianne, you gave so much. It was only a summer fling but my hip is already bleeding.
Apple of the day: Red Delicious.
Chesterfield home, 08 Sep
Clammy dodo, something's amiss. The artichoke revenge making me shudder. Cloudy, windy, walking the giddy walk. I can't look forward so I always look back.
Shambles, dirty shambles. Carking to the east, lovenest feast. Ah Amy, you danced amongst the hay bales but the rats weren't feasting. Pieman, delivering your wares in my shedback.
Nevermind - I've been a shipman's gulley. Adams Park is my port and never a dock shall I dance inside. Chesterfield, a land of wind and bent spires. Why has it never fallen over. I curse my luck.
Bad week sales. Potatoes tumbling, groundswell rumbling. I am ever your dear servant. Von Goethe sliding through my mind. Suicide is never painless.
What a game - yawning gaps, yawning naps. Don't fight it feel it. Aye, simply done, walk that way. Drags on, fruitless. Competition al fresco. Save me from this nightmare sweet.
Drags on - mayfly buzzscream, I try to dream my dream. Cutting the end out I never forgave the innocents. What is going on, this game is breaking me. Derbyshire droneslags.
Ian's at the shop, he's dying though. We all are. We are dying and the endless long balls pumped into the ether just speed us to the graves. There has to be something better than this, but no-one's found it.
Game Over. Familiar words. Joypadrider, I am heading for the exit with my head in my hands. A speeding car shakes me to the edge but I do not fall. Trudge, keep going. Home.
Veg of the day: Savoy Cabbage.
Wigan home, 15 Sep
1975 it was, summer heat, left me gnawing. I had a 15 minute dash gap until the railroad shut. Heaving backwards, the taste was salty but I didn’t let go.
This was a chance to make a move, do something good for once. I was a young lad working in an Aylesbury market and there was fire in my trousers and brimstone in my legs.
Sally Anne she was. Danced like a muffinman bulitzer. Problem rising. I had no money, no transport to impress her. Cabbage ears and a leg of lamb. Meet me at the station, we’ll go up to London. Never showed up, never showed up.
Thought hits me like a rifle butt in the cold September coughwind that greets me in Wycombe. Sparrowfat anorak leaning in. Where do the good times go. Grey sky rapes my eyes and leaves me coughing into the future.
Wigan Pier. Dover Priory. I slump down, bouffant obscuring. There is no hope. I can’t do this anymore. Bailliff pizza - they’re coming Ian, they’re coming and my stuff is worthless.
But what. Good game, aye. Wycombe steeling, northerners reeling. Rammell legwarms, captain crescendo. The midfield roars to the Bucks End whores. I’m laughing from the mouth and the pain has gone.
More of this please doctor. Ahh, the doctor is gone and I am injecting air. Bang, bang, Taylor saves. I’m on my feet and when I close my eyes Sally Anne is still there, a lonely figure on Aylesbury station while I spit onto the toilet floor and whistle the theme from the nine o’clock news.
Nothing happens here anymore, that’s the way I like it.
Vegetable of the day: Spinach
Three stages of life
Reading away, 22 Sep I first attempted suicide in 1984, at the heights of the miner’s strike. Thatcher’s face leering out scooby
at me from the black and white in that flat in Chalfont.
Gubbed backwards, stopped eating fruit, always a mistake. Laying in my own vomit. Too much despair in
the world. One less greengrocer wouldn’t make a difference.
I’m not looking for a new shop I’m just looking for a new England. Laying forthright, this melancholy
just descends like the tide of the North Sea on a Brancaster beach.
Swung a rope over the beams and climbed up on a box. Still remember, banana box, shipped from
Costa Rica. Bananas, symbol of the end of austerity, launching me to my grave, my plot of land, where I
could grow my own veg in the purest way.
Reading 3.21, sobways. Bleeding tears. Two nothing down and Ian is bored. Too much brandy in the
Rascal on the way. Should have kept driving. He’s never seen Weston Super Mare, he’s soulless like that.
Game’s a bogey, lay down on the concrete. Steward’s hands always feeling, pushing you onwards.
Get out the ground sir, please leave now, we don’t want no trouble. I’m out of here. Wendy house. No thanks.
I never jumped, I tried to, but something held me back. Always more fruit to sell, always more veg to wash.
The dirt always stays on your fingers. Thatcher’s face smiling. Inside I’m crying.
Fruit of the day: Orange
Reading - despair
Brighton - joy
Port Vale - acceptance
Brighton and Hove Albion, home, 25 Sep
1990, summer of love. I was an ageing man, shot my bolt with the new romantics, left my heart on a pillar on the westway. Sun setting over Edgware Road and a bus driver looking the wrong way.
Fell into an Amersham crowd at the Blue Lion. Piled into a Cortina heading to Somerset. Driving for hours, drinking cider and doling out bananas. A constant. Potassium Mango. A Motley Crew all doing the business and I was tagging along.
They liked my tales. Fruitknow Alka. Slipped me some Doves and off we went. Wasn’t expecting a joyburst but that’s what I got.
Stonehenge looming, feeling the summer breeze rising up. Heathwards. Just keep climbing. I’m the best greengrocer in the world. Close my eyes and every apple ever picked in the world is tumbling towards me. I’m not scared, ride the wave of fruit, ride it til I am sailing off the end of the world.
Sliding into a new zone, I open my eyes and I’m in a new place already, darting, moving, smiling. More cider, I am too old for this caper, but I’ll be back next week.
Adams Park 2001, the night air making my pupils dilate, the floodlights playing in my mind. End to end, bang bang superman. One down, Rambo fires home, Albion beeling, lets play more. Cheers and shouts. Feel the goodness of it all in my arms. Remember this, aye I will.
Inevitable comedown, Cortina made a few more trips that summer but then the Blue Lion crew broke up. Two of them killed in Malaga in 1991, PhoneTone shot in the Hacienda. Back to doling out fruit. It’s better to have loved and lost, but sometimes knowledge can put a bullet in your heart.
Fruit of the day: Granny Smith
Port Vale home, 29 Sep
She should never have shot my dog but it was all she could do. Airgun raftmakers. Flying down the A40 with no cares for the curves. Inside she’s smiling but the worries are building up.
Outskirts looming, her voice booming. Snapshots of life fading into the adverts of north west London. Buy, buy, buy, this was 1998 and the time was ready to say bye bye.
Changes afoot, I should have seen them coming. War stories with no heroes, unmarked graves and shrapnel in my arms. Scars still itch now. Get over this, there’s nothing else to do or say.
She still shouldn’t have shot my dog. One shot to the head, it wasn’t hurt badly but the trauma left it gubbed. I had to bury it in the garden. The mundane makes it worthwhile, soil on my trousers.
Port Vale’s the same, start off well, life is promising, reach a plateau, level off. Walker’s crisp. This’ll do for the time being. I can take this. Ian is unhappy at the shop. Business struggling. Decisions to be made soon. Warmongering always reduces sales. No-one wants fruit before a battle.
Make the most of it. Backwards rising. The past is just prologue to this and I’m waiting for the next chapter. Must get home now. Three points is it? Aye, let’s get in the Rascal and get out of here.
Vegetable of the day: Radish
