Football

Offside

by Enormous on November 30, 2009

Audrey and I have not been verbally abused too much by the local idiots or their hideous offspring in the past few days, and I must say I’m rather pleased about it. It makes wandering around the phlegm and dogshit covered streets of the village slightly less nauseating than usual.

We did have to endure the misfortune of bumping into Nigel and Reg this morning, however.

Carrying on our tedious conversation of the previous week about rams and the local football team, for some unfathomable reason Nigel took it upon himself to begin explaining to me the offside rule.

He was getting rather excited about it all. Of course, I wasn’t paying any attention to him; my eyes kept wandering up to his greasy head. His hair always looks like it has been washed only once in a previous life.

‘Do you know what shampoo is, Nige?’ I interrupted him.

‘Pardon?’

‘It doesn’t matter. Look, as interesting as your account is, I shall have to take my leave as I seem to have suddenly lost the will to live.’

‘Are you being sarcastic?’ he asked.

‘Sarcastic? Me? Never.’

He thought for a second and then said, ‘Football has a lot of sexual energy, you know.’

Good Lord.

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Sky West and Furious

by Enormous on October 25, 2007

I was back in Sky West today – the hairdressing establishment on the market place where, a few months ago, I made a young trainee cry.
It was the same girl this morning who laconically invited me to sit in her chair.

‘Embarrassing trim, please,’ I said, trying to sound jolly. She did not react at all and nothing more was said until it was time for me to leave.

‘I’m really sorry if I upset you the last time I was here,’ I told her, ‘I was having a bad day.’

‘I never saw anybody so angry,’ she said.

‘I wasn’t angry,’ I replied, ‘I was furious.’ She looked at me blankly. I tried another approach: ‘I saw you at the football match on the rec’ last Sunday. Do you support the village team?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Do you?’

‘I don’t like football – I’ve never scored a goal in my life.’

‘I’m not surprised,’ she sniggered, pointedly. I have no idea what she meant by this.

‘Ah, touché!’ I said. I am fairly certain that she had no idea what I meant by my remark, either. I paid her and left quietly, feeling very awkward and unwelcome. I tripped on the pavement outside the shop and felt that this re-balanced the universe somewhat.

I told Nelson of my depressing conversation when I rang him later; but he only made me feel worse.

‘You’ve never won anything in sport, have you?’ he laughed.

‘It’s not the winning, Nel, it’s the taking part,’ I informed him.

‘You never take part,’ he said.

‘Well, it’s not the taking part,’ I replied, ‘It’s the sense of futile despair.’

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Motorcycle Morons

by Enormous on April 13, 2007

I’m beginning to sound like an old curmudgeon, moaning about this and that, but here I go again . . .

I bloody hate idiots. That is to say: I do not hate the unfortunate individuals who are idiotic in the medical sense, but in the general remedial sense and more specifically, idiots on motorbikes.

To specify even further, it is the idiots who insist on whizzing around the recreation ground at the back of our house on those ridiculous mini-bikes that really get my goat. They are not allowed to be there at all, but since they pay no heed to any rules or regulations designed to prohibit the use of such annoying machines on public land and because there is never anyone around to enforce this sensible policy, there they always are, sticking two fingers up to the law.

Watch them as they glide around: Oh what grace they display! Three or four large delinquents atop their comedy contraptions, making a strident racket, churning up the football pitch in readiness for the under-14s Sunday game, getting in the way of cheerful people out for a pleasant stroll, and generally making errant nuisances of themselves.
What annoys me most about them, apart from their death-defyingly tiny intellects, is their ignorant and anti-social attitude toward the general public. They pay no attention to small children, unless it is one of their own brood riding his or her own mini-bike; dogs; or the elderly while they are zooming around – the idiot bikers, that is, not the elderly who tend not to zoom around much at all.

Apart from anything else, what they are doing is dangerous. Before long, someone is going to get seriously injured. (I must admit, as well as my colourful vocal protestations that I often feel compelled to direct towards them as they pass, I would dearly love to hurt one of them. I would love to be the Moor that unhorses a few of them – on a regular basis – but, alas, due to the fear of imprisonment, one is forced to keep one’s violent compulsions carefully in check. And, apart from the risk of their inevitable retaliation, I am sure I would not receive any support from any official agencies if I were to bravely mount a physical challenge. This is of course depressing, but not surprising.)

Yesterday, whilst Audrey and I were enjoying our evening promenade, we were accosted by an oversized, vulgar young man (you could hardly see the bike beneath him) who was using his limited grasp of the English language to demonstrate his sadness that Audrey had wandered into his path. When I informed him that I and my dog had every right to be there whilst he, on the other hand, did not, he spat at me! As he trundled off into the night, angrily revving his little comedy engine, Audrey looked up at me as if to say: ‘Don’t – ’

‘Let’s go home, kid,’ I told her, after I had taken a moment to calm myself.

On the Fantastic hi-fi today:
Floored Genius: the best of Julian Cope and The Teardrop Explodes 1979-91,
At Folsom Prison – Johnny Cash,
I’m Not Following You – Edwyn Collins,
Pool It! – The Monkees
(Did you know, The Monkees didn’t write their own songs, didn’t play their instruments, and Mike Nesmith didn’t even wear his own hat.)

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Telling Teenage Fortunes

by Enormous on January 23, 2007

No.2 You will be picked last in games.

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Who Do You Go Home To? no.5

by Enormous on January 13, 2007

I found myself – rather uncharacteristically – watching the local team playing a football match today.

I was passing the sports ground near Townend Farm with Audrey, and for some unknown reason, she insisted on dragging me through the gate. (Admission was only a very reasonable £2.50 and since the bar was open and the sun was out, I decided to go in and watch the Shiners scamper around their muddy pitch.)

Once inside, I spied Bernard, leaning on his walking stick at the sideline, shouting. He was offering keen insights into the subtleties of how to play the game, like ‘Score!’ ‘Kick the ball!’ and ‘Run!!!’

It was the first time I’d seen my elderly, reclusive neighbour since the Christmas break so I wandered over and said to him, ‘Hallo, Bernard. Did you have a good Christmas? Get any interesting presents?’

‘Not really,’ he replied, gruffly, keeping his eye on the game. ‘Didn’t get what I really wanted.’

‘What was that?’

He looked at me as if I was implausibly stupid.

‘Knuckleduster,’ he snapped.

I stood in silence at Bernard’s side watching the filthy footballers for another ten minutes or so. I don’t think he was fully aware of our presence, so I nudged Audrey with my foot and we left to continue with our walk along the thorny lanes and soggy fields without saying goodbye.

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