The train was packed solid,
heading for Putney Bridge.
Three men in winter coats
stood balanced – as best they could - by the doors. They were in good spirits,
travelling to a football match, an FA Cup fifth round game between Fulham of the
English Premier League, and underdogs, Notts County of League Two – English
football's bottom tier. The latter had survived matches against insurmountable
odds to arrive at this point, including a tenacious victory away at Premier
League Wigan Athletic.
The newspapers were
predicting a close game but the bookmakers – hard-nosed realists one and all –
predicted a massacre in the capital.
So far, the anticipated
winter freeze and Baltic snowstorms had held off. The optimistically named
Green and Pleasant Land was covered in a bleak tincture of grey with not a beam
of sunlight to be seen penetrating the skies.
In the middle of the
magnificent Indian feast at Wingate's house last night, the host had invited
Buddy and Simon to a football match. The gesture was connected to the quest.
They would be meeting someone at the game who had something they were looking
for.
Last night, Wingate wasn't
letting on why, but he revealed that he could only meet his contact at the
match. It transpired that he had invited him for dinner on Saturday night but he
couldn't make it due to a prior engagement. His contact was, like Wingate, a
crazed Fulham supporter and never missed an opportunity to visit Craven
Cottage.
Buddy speculated that a
football match was a good place to mix with hundreds of people around where any
exchange of documents wouldn't be noticed. Buddy had seen enough episodes
of Columbo to know this was standard practice - more
hiding in plain sight for Mr. Wingate. Maybe he just wanted to go to the
football and wanted to show off the game to his American friends. It was
probably as simple as that – the Los Angelinos had nothing else to do that
Sunday.
The men readily agreed.
They had enjoyed Wingate's company and he had helped them make a huge
breakthrough – in Buddy's case, perhaps, an emotional one - and in a real sense,
he had improved their odds of survival. It was clear that he wanted to share his
passion for football too. How could they say no? Indeed, Wingate was confident
they would say yes. He had already paid for three tickets and he had said he
would come up to Kings Cross to meet them, a mainline station not ten minutes
from their hotel. He even paid for their one day travel passes, despite their
protestations.
Last night, Wingate had
buttonholed Buddy over cognac, a particularly fine vintage. “Besides, it would be good education for
you. You Americans could do with joining in with the sport played by everyone
else in the world. It might win you
some friends.”
Though Buddy laughed
convivially, Wingate was talking to the wrong man. He had been to just one
gridiron match in his life - the Eagles versus the Jets when he was in
Philadelphia ten years ago. As far as he was concerned, the world's sport could
be yachting and he still wouldn't give a flying shit about whether America
joined in or not.
He didn't mind some sport
and followed football on the TV in bars but it wasn't a major passion. He'd
hated team sports at college (many considered him a geek, though he was much too
hard for them to labour the point), and deliberately found ways to make himself
appear less skilled than he actually was so he would be ignored and shunned by
phys ed teachers. It worked. By fourteen, he was left out of every team sport at
High School and he could not have been happier. Buddy generally felt that sport
was a waste of good reading - and later, drinking time. With the exception of
horse racing, which he adored. His dad had taken him to the racetrack when he
was a teenager and they'd spent loads of time at Hollywood Park. He didn't once
complain about coming today because he was among friends in another country.
Besides, this wasn't football.
This was soccer, a game for Mexicans, crippled kids and
little girls, back home.
Here, they took it
seriously. Extremely seriously.
After the curry, back in
the hotel room, Simon had told him of a famous quote: 'Football isn't a matter
of life and death. It’s more important than that!'
So much so that his English
partner had threatened to refuse to talk to Buddy if he once described the sport
as soccer. ('I'll let you get away with it back home, Bud. But not here,
mate. Its football. Football. Okay with that?' Its
football')
"I'm not really keen on
sports. I prefer something more...interactive," he said to Wingate.
"We might get in a scrap.
That will be an interactive experience, Bud. You'll enjoy that."
"A scrap?"
"A punch up. A bingo. An
'off' I hear the kids at the Cottage call it. A fight." Wingate
said.
Buddy guessed that Wingate
was kidding. He was at least sixty five. "Well, we'll have to avoid that then,"
he commented..
"Hope not. Other week I
whacked a Pompey fan over the head with my umbrella. Being my age, he can't hit
me back."
Simon looked up from his
phone. "County got any fighting lads, Wingate?”
Wingate gave a sharp intake
of breath. "Hundreds. All police leave cancelled today. Hundreds of the
barbarians, mate. They've wrecked pubs, service stations, cafes, football
grounds all over the country. They're marauding over Watford Gap in their
hundreds. We're going to have to summon the spirit of Boadicea to stop
them!"
Buddy had heard about
violence at British football matches and part of him was looking forward to
seeing it go off.
It sounded fun, rather than
the intense, ultra-violent death antics of the LA gangs; the Baseball Furies,
the Uzimeisters, the Dalton pickets, the Monsters, the Thai Town Thugees, the
Compton Ninjas, the Crips and the Bloods.
He didn't want any part of
it though. He was still wound up after Monique's non-appearance on the phone
this morning. Valentine’s Day too. He was afraid that he would take it out on
someone and sometimes he didn't know his own strength. That scared him. All
things considered, he hoped that the match would pass off peaceably.
"Let’s hope we all have a
quiet day, huh."
"I went to see the Giants
once," Wingate continued. "Everyone mingling, tailgate parties, great
atmosphere. Loved it, even if the game was a bit slow. Soon after I got home, I
went to see Fulham play a team of tossers called Stoke City. Got my head kicked
in near Hammersmith tube station. I played dead under an A-board and when they'd
had enough of me, they started on some blacks on the corner going home from
church. Hundreds of them. Don't like Stoke City. They’re the Darth Vader of
British football. I'll never forget the contrast between that day, and the day I
had at the Giants. Incredible. Still, it’s all fun and games until someone loses
an eye..."
"I got my head kicked in at
the football too, up in Sheffield," contributed Simon. "Mind you, that was only
through chatting up the wrong woman in a wine bar after the match.”
The tube train reached
Putney Bridge and the carriage emptied. Buddy tensed.
This is it! Hundreds and hundreds of
people milled around the platforms all in black and white scarves. Both teams
played in black and white and it was difficult to know who was who without
listening to them speak. Cockneys and northerners, the ancient English division.
Hawk and drake. They passed through the turnstiles and into bedlam. Outside,
spivs and hawkers were in their faces like a cold wind. "Scarves, a fiver, just
a fiver, anniversary scarves, woolly hats, come on, come on, get your scarves
here, just a fiver...” several men were weaving and bobbing like boxers in and
out of the heaving crowds.
"Fancy wearing a scarf, you
guys?" Wingate reached for his wallet and grabbed hold of a young beefy with a
bonehead and a denim jacket. 'Three Fulham scarves, chief.'
"Fifteen quid,
squire."
He handed over a ten and a
five and passed a scarf to each man.
“Three Benny hats
too..."
Bonehead signaled to a
bespectacled pal who rushed over through the scrumming crowds. “These'll keep
you warm, chaps,” the tout said cheerfully. “Any tickets for today?”
When Wingate shook his
head, the wiry tout walked off into the crowd. Ticket touting was big business
in London with a thriving black market for every event. The sky above was a dark
accumulation, an upside-down carpet of pregnant grey, ready to burst. "Take
these back over to the States, Buddy. Tell the landlord of your bar that you've
been to see the mighty Cottagers!"
They tried to get in the
Eight Bells on the corner but couldn't. The pub was heaving with Notts County
supporters. They were singing loudly and bouncers were having trouble with the
snake-like queues outside. The trio had no chance of a pre-match drink and it
was two thirty - the match kicked off at three. Buddy had come prepared though.
"Here, try some of this." The recently purchased silver hip flask appeared as if
by magic. Vodka.
The three took hefty,
warming sips as they wrapped the scarves around their necks and mounted the
black and white hats.
Putney Bridge is
fundamentally an extensive park by the river and Buddy was fascinated as to how
green it was. Trees in neat order like tin soldiers. Neatly sculptured hedges
and lawns. Flowers dormant, the wildlife hibernating, waiting for the winter to
pass (and they had experienced a bad one, the moths and foxes and badgers and
voles and dormice of Putney Bridge).
Somehow, the biting wind
made it seem greener, earthier.
The trio integrated with
the rubberneckers along the River Thames. There were thousands of them but
Wingate's warlike portrayal of the visitors couldn't have been further from the
truth. A pleasure cruiser ambled along the centre of the river, the guests on
the balcony waving to those on the shore. The water was as murky as the winter
sky. Just down the way was the HMS Belfast, the Tower of London, the Houses of
Parliament, the Eye and all the great heritage of this maritime nation. Buddy
felt a sense of place. Simon tapped him on the shoulder as if detecting his
thoughts: "Cook started out here on his way to the South Seas. And the Golden
Hind too - I love the Thames..."
Soon, they arrived at
Craven Cottage, the home of Fulham football club.
They had to walk past the
hordes of County fans waiting to get in their enclosure surrounded by
yellow-jacketed Police. Wingate deliberately bumped into a County fan. "Oh sorry
mate," he said, though he was nothing of the sort.
The fan glared, but said
nothing. His girlfriend sneered.
Simon grinned. "You'll get
our ears clipped."
"We've got Buddy with us,
what's the problem. Northern cants."
There were some meaty
looking blokes hanging around among the throng, blokes who looked as if they
could handle themselves in a fight. One of them looked over and Buddy wasn't
sure whether he was looking at Wingate or not. They had mentioned that this was
an important Cup game and County were in a different division, the very bottom
division and Fulham were at the top.
They were expecting nearly
six thousand County fans to make the journey here from the north and here,
amongst them, there seemed double that on the streets of Putney Bridge. A mob of
County fans started to sing something and all around them, everyone joined in. A
song about a wheelbarrow. Buddy figured it was about their nickname, The
Wheelbarrows. He made a note to ask Wingate why they had been saddled with such
a nickname.
The three of them reached
the Fulham West Stand. “I've got the tickets.” Wingate assured them and they
followed him through a small turnstile. They queued up to get themselves three –
very expensive – beers and because Buddy hadn't been searched, they followed the
beers up with three warming sips from his trusty hip-flask.
Before long, the tannoy
announced the arrival of the teams. Wingate led them down to a row of empty
seats and he sat next to a man in a smart coat, a long blue coat and a yellow
and red scarf. No hooligan he, more like a banker or an architect. The man was
talking to someone on a cell phone, which must have been difficult because the
noise was deafening, particularly from the end full of Northerners.
Of the four sides of the
ground, only one was full – the away stand, and they were in good voice. Wingate
applauded the Fulham side in white and acknowledged the man in the coat who put
his phone down.
“Excuse me a bit, chaps. I
need to have a chat with young Harold here.”
Harold acknowledged the Los
Angelinos. “How do.”
The two Londoners went back
upstairs leaving Simon and Buddy to the game.
Buddy had never seen a
soccer game before, even on TV, and the speed and intensity of it was a marvel.
Crunching tackles, lightning passing, the ball sailing through the air and
heading - not something American sport contained much of.
Three match officials tried
to keep a lid on the passion. The organised torrent of singing from the County
end was something he hadn't heard before. The Wheelbarrow song, baiting the
opposition's lack of vocal support (“Shall we sing a song for YOU!”), abject
derision, (“Premiership, you're having a LAFF!”), and more of the wheelbarrow
song.
Clearly, this was their
favourite song – a weapon of psychological warfare – to which the West London
locals had no answer. The six thousand presented a deafening cacophony of noise.
A spectator in glasses and a red wool hat was clearly getting irritated. He
stood up behind Buddy. “CAMON, FULHAM – DO THESE NORTHERN FACKERS!! HIT THE
CANTS! ON THE BREAK, ON THE BREAK. TO THE BYLINE, THE BYLINE. CANTS, CANTS!” and
others joined in with his tirade.
Seemingly as if responding
to the man's taunts of encouragement, Fulham scored, a long range shot into the
corner leaving the County keeper no chance. Silence from the away end and
pandemonium from the home side. The man in the wool hat jumped on Buddy and
tried to hug him. Buddy was filled with the essence of humanity and joy without
fully understanding why.
Ten minutes later, Fulham
scored again, the gulf in class obvious between the two sides, one assembled at
great expense, the other put together for less than the price of one Fulham
player: The
British football experience encapsulated in one sentence, 'an allegory of
medieval feudalism', Simon said in the hotel last night. 'The rich stealing from
the poor to feather their own nests. The British game needs the US draft
system...' Watching the inequalities
underpinning this game of football, it was not hard to agree with that
assessment.
There was no sign of
Wingate. “I'll go and see where he is...” Simon said, leaving Buddy there
sitting there watching the game. A wrinkled old man with a grey, wispy beard and
wearing a black coat and two Fulham scarves turned to Buddy. “You a Yank,
then?”
“Sure,” Buddy
said.
“What do you reckon to this
caper?”
“It’s great fun,” Buddy
replied.
“Fun? Bunch of Northern
cants. Glad to shut them up with the brace. Faccers!”
“I'll bet.” Buddy said to
the second angry old man he'd met today - something which disconcerted him. The
old man wiped his nose and continued.
“I ain't kidding, mate. I
faccin hate them Northern cants. Coming down 'ere taking faccin liberties. I
wish I was ten years younger.”
“Sure...”
“I'd see em outside on the
High Street, I would. Cants...I'll give em faccin Wheelbarrows.”
“Hey, listen, I'm just
going to watch the game, pal, okay?”
The old man sniffed and
turned back to the game. Stood up and berated the Notts County full back who
carried on regardless.
Simon came and sat back
down. “No sign. And he's got all the stuff in that bag of his.”
“You think he's crossed
us?” Buddy asked
“I hope not. Mind you,
let’s be right. There are a thousand sixty year old blokes in black wool caps
here. Wingate could be anywhere... “The referee blew the whistle for half time.
“Let’s go get a Bovril.” Simon said.
“What's a Bovril?” Buddy
asked.
Simon grinned. “You'll love
it. It’s a national institution.”
As they reached the top of
the stairs, Wingate reappeared, this time on his own. He'd clearly enjoyed
another drink. “Alright chaps. We having another pint?”
Simon put his arm round him
as they queued up at the refreshment booth below for half time Bovrils. “Where'd
you get to. We thought you'd been kidnapped!”
“Business.” He opened his
satchel and showed them a brown envelope. “We'll open this later. I've been in
the Directors box with Harold.”
“To do with the
manuscript?”
Wingate nodded. “You're not
having a Bovril are you?” He asked.
Buddy pulled out the
hipflask. “I'd rather have a beer to cool this down.”
Simon, who was next in the
queue to be served, assured them both. “You pair of piss heads. I'll get both
then, shall I - beer and bloody Bovril.”
“Beer and Bovril, huh. A
lethal combination.”
“What is Bovril?” Buddy asked once more, passing over
the hipflask.
“You'll see. It’s a
national institution.”
“So folks keep
saying.”
He didn't have long to
wait. A steaming hot plastic cup was passed to him along with a plastic pot of
lager. Before he could handle both, he had to put away his hip flask, which was
getting toward empty anyway. He had to admit, he was curious to find out about
the Bovril.
“Go on then, Budster. Give
it a shot,” said Simon. He sipped his and so did Wingate.
“In for a penny...” Buddy
said and took a sip. Spat it out spontaneously, reflexively...
“Wow, that's disgusting.”
Half a lager went down his throat in an attempt to wash away the taste. “What
the hell is that?”
The Englishmen laughed, as
did several bystanders. “Bovril. A gravy based drink.”
“It tastes like warmed up
piss and shit!”
Simon and Wingate shrugged
their shoulders. “You're not far wrong there, Bud. Bovril made our Island the
nation it is...it built an Empire to last a thousand years! Here's to Empire
building drinks which taste of piss and shit.” The former said, raising his
Bovril pot.
“It’s true what we say
about you guys after all...gravy, Jeez...”
“Bovril and football go
together like Morecambe and Wise, “Wingate commented, sagely.
“Morec....oh don't worry
about it.”
“Jellied eels tonight, Bud.
Straight from the docks.” Wingate said.
“Jellied eels are a
national institution, Buddy.” Simon added.
Buddy put the full cup on a
stanchion. “You know what you can do with your national
institutions.”
The hipflask made another
lightning appearance and the three men emptied it of Vodka. The boys were merry
and in good humour when they took their places for the second half.
The County supporters to
their left had yet to stop singing and encouraging their team who were patently
outclassed in a horrible mismatch.
Soon, the West Londoners
found themselves three up.
Rather than pack up and go
home in the face of an embarrassing massacre, even as the Fulham team returned
the ball to the halfway line, the six thousand strong County army in the away
stand stood up as one, raised their arms in the air and started
singing...
“I had a wheelBARROW, but
the wheel fell off...”
“I had a wheelBARRow, but
the wheel fell off...”
...and the sound was
deafening.
Wingate had to admit it was
an impressive display of sheer bloody minded defiance in the face of adversity.
The Fulham crowd could only applaud their goal in comparative silence unsure at
how to respond to this reversal of crowd protocol.
This pattern was repeated
after Fulham scored the fourth and then mercifully, the referee called time on
proceedings and blew the whistle.
The three men stood and
applauded a cracking afternoon's sport. Buddy had experienced enough on and off
the pitch for him to enjoy the afternoon too and he was radiating a warm glow.
As they left through the open gates behind the stand, they blended into the
crowd. All around the ground fans swarmed, aiming for car, coach, bus and tube.
It was near dark and no-one knew who was who, made worse by the fact both sides
played in the same coloured strip. Twin black and white armies pouring through
the residential Putney streets. “Let's head to Hammersmith. I know a good pub
there called The Night Owl. They serve a good pint of Ruddles that will keep us
warm while we talk a final bit of business. Up for it?”
The two men nodded. Buddy
whispered: “Borrow your phone, Si?”
Simon flipped over the cell
and watched as Buddy called Los Angeles.
Three young men walked past
them looking as if they were ready for a punch up and they didn't care who with.
Snowflakes began to fall over Putney Bridge and the wind chill began to sharpen.
It was dark and the further they walked from the ground, the thinner the crowd
became as it dissipated this way and that.
Buddy waited, the cell
phone clamped to his ear. When he got through, he discovered that her cell phone
had been disconnected. “This number has not been recognized.”
All of a sudden, his warm
glow froze in the winter night.
What had happened to
Monique?
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