Dogshit. Swiftie?

I think it was 1992. It was definitely a Saturday and England were playing Ireland in the Five Nations as it was then. Of course it has now become the Six Nations because someone thought Italy were good enough to add to the competition. Ironically, nearly 35 years later, they have justified their inclusion by consistently finishing above Wales. Anyway, in 1992, the 38-9 demolition of Ireland by England would come to play a key role (possibly) in how this story concludes. 

At that time I lived in digs in Birmingham's very own Beirut, Acocks Green. Only a stones throw from The Moonraker I would often be disturbed by blue flashing lights accompanying the three various emergency service vehicles that would attend the pub to deal with violence, drugs, arson, stabbings and disorder. 

It was a delightful area. My next door neighbour and his wife would fight constantly until she was finally removed from the family home after stabbing him during a particularly vociferous argument. He was left to bring up the three kids. He was a raging drunk but to his credit, with him, the kids were clean, safe, fed and attended school most of the time. As a result of her removal she arranged some immediate retribution that eventually landed her in prison when she purposed three local nutters to do him over......at home....while his kids were there. It didn't end well for anyone in that he suffered a broken wrist, one of the assailants was run over by his own car, one was beaten with a car jack and the third was mauled by two police Alsatians after refusing to drop his knife. My landlady and another neighbour sat with the kids that night until their Dad returned with a plastered wrist. 

I reached my own personal low the night before the match. I had been persuaded to go for a 'swiftie after work' by Mitch. "Dogshit. Swiftie?" This was on top of the two hour 6 pint pub lunch facilitated by flexi time. Flexi time also accounted for leaving at 4pm so out of a working day I'd been in the office for 4 hours and in the pub for 2 hours! This was not a good idea but at 4.05pm that Friday afternoon the good intention, the honest intention, was a swift one and then home to sleep it off before the match.

I think it was about 10.30pm when we left The Ivy Bush and so, as was often the case, preparation had been less than meticulous. In the seven years I worked at General Accident on the Hagley Road a 'swift one' after work was never, not once, either swift or one! Six hours in the Ivy Bush after work the night before resulted in me being kicked off the No 11 bus route somewhere in Birmingham because I had been around twice whilst asleep. A taxi to the local kebab shop preceded me falling asleep again but this time on the pavement between the kebab shop and home. 

The true depths of the time were fully plumbed when the chief lord of all alcoholics, a destitute looking, meths drinking, shit stained, incoherent tramp of a man known locally for wondering around with only one shoe as the other ankle and foot resembled a melon in size due, almost certainly (although I can't confirm having never seen his medical records or indeed having the medical training to diagnose), to a chronic peripheral edema, stopped to wake me, help sit me up, get my bearings and walk me home safely! A man unable to wash himself or get from A to B without some form of fall, trip, hit by car type incident, wrapped his piss soaked coat around me to stop me from freezing and walked me home. There followed a few hours kip in the porch before finally making it into the house to spend the last few hours of kip on my bed, fully clothed and covered in kebab shop chilli sauce.  

I was forced awake by the landlady's cat doing the violent cat slap thing that cats do as it attacked my face. It was about 10am and it had got into my room because I had failed, in my drunken state, to properly lock my bedroom door which involved, at the best of times, a complex three tie rope around two handles locking system. It wasn't locked for my safety, or indeed that of my landlady, but was instead intended to keep the little violent devil clawed shitrag of a cat out. 

Having been forced from the relative sanctuary of sleep, my initial relief in realising the vindictive tramp piss smell wasn't actually due to me having pissed myself instantly evaporated when I became acutely aware of a throb in my head so painful that it felt like every single molecule of hydration had been sucked from my organs and my skin pulled so taut into perfect 'hospital corners', that a Sergeant Major could bounce a penny off my skin and declare me the finest example of military precision that any new recruit could aspire to. 

I dragged myself downstairs with the urgent purpose of unsticking my tongue from the roof of my mouth. My weapon of choice then, as it is still, was Coca Cola. Yes it can clean a penny, probably put a shine on it that the aforementioned Sergeant Major would be proud to keep in his pocket for bed testing, yes it will rot your teeth, yes you can use it to clean your toilet, but it is also the best 'hit' you can get at the start of any day.  The cold dewy metal of the can and the 'ktsshh' of the ring pull the precursors to a breathless multi gulp of the sickliest sweet of all treacley sweet hits. The fizz unlocks the velcro grip on the tongue as the liquid tears its way through a sandpaper lined chute before cascading into a puke ready stomach storing nothing but last nights ridiculously over sauced hot chilli soaked kebab swimming in a cesspool of Strongbow, Red Rock, vodka and whisky.

The ecstasy of that first hit is as fleeting a moment as the thought given to leaving the Ivy after the first pint the night before and leads, inevitably, to a violent chemical reaction of such force as to rip the lining off the stomach and propel it, wrapped in kebab, back up and out into the kitchen sink. An inexplicably carrot chunked black slick corrodes it's way to the plughole as I involuntarily dry heave until my natural defensive reactions are satisfied, as much as they can be, that the poison is expelled. Shitrag looks on from the edge of the sink, considers and judges, as I rinse the effluent away. 

Tongue unstuck and carrots moshed through the plug it's a quick shit, shower and shave (I always knew today was not the type of day to pull (no day ever was) but at the back of my mind nagged "you never know" so it had to be done), lucky boxers on, lucky white rugby socks, all day drinking Brownhills market Caterpillar boots, jeans (any that weren't covered in remnants from a previous night out), England Rugby Shirt (short sleeved, sponsor free, red rosed), wallet and can of Strongbow for the bus. It was a thing when leaving Acocks Green on the No 11 that the carrying of a can or bottle of alcohol was as much a requirement for travel as your bus pass or £1.20 all day saver ticket! Bus to Selly Oak and the mecca of early 90's Saturday afternoon drinking haunts -The OVT or Old Varsity Tavern later to be blasphemously rebranded as a flapper and somethingorother pub! A quick bacon, egg, sausage, mushroom and black pudding sarnie in Selly Sausage to settle the stomach and hold down the breakfast can from the bus journey, into the betting shop to do the footie predictions and first in the queue moments before the pub opened at midday.

Now, midday was considered by me as the true kick off time for an all dayer. You couldn't get in earlier in those days so opening time seemed the obvious choice for kick off. During every Friday night before a Five Nations game everyone else in the pub agreed, however in the cold light of day midday was, for many, way too optimistic a start time! So, armed with first pint od Strongbow and a copy of a shitty red top, I secured 'our' spot. The first is, of course, always the worst and would often take a torturous 45 minutes or so of delicate quaffing so as to not antagonise the delicate eco system so violently upset at the start of the day. 

Around this time Joe would rock up as the first to join me. As much a hater of England as a fan of Ireland he would mercilessly taunt me on behalf of any team that was against England in any sport. He was an Aussie during the Ashes, he was German during the World Cup, he was American during the Ryder Cup and, most venomously, he was an Ireland fan during the Five Nations. As proud as he was of his Irish Catholic heritage I think it truly grated on him when I would remind him that as a born and bred Brummie, however he likes to spin it, he was English. 

He had an advantage over everyone else, he drank the most and most often so had the least bad hangovers, he didn't give a fuck about his appearance and he lived the closest. He had gone on after the Ivy the night before to an Irish after hours drinking den and hadn't got home until about 5am. I could always rely on him to have a drink with, borrow drinking money from, cadge fags off (even though he knew I didn't smoke unless pissed) and get me into and out of the worst, trickiest and most ridiculous situations. For example on the Tour of Ireland just a few months later and after a 10 hour drink fuelled game of cards on the ferry to Cork, me and Joe were on our way to the car to leave the ferry. Joe went into the duty free shop, through the turnstile, then turns and mouths 'I'll grab the fags, rugby pass them to you over the turnstile and you leg it'! Before any of the message had sunk in through the Heineken haze (it was all they had on the ferry) a 200 pack of Embassy No.1 are in my arms having been perfectly spin passed to me from inside the shop and a grip of steel is crushing my shoulder as a very big, Greek security guard decides I’m up to no good. A split second later and Joe is trying to slide under the turnstile from inside the shop only to be caught up in his Rugby shirt. The guard grabs the fags and in the melee Joe sidesteps the guard to escape and I stagger off calmly, wondering if that actually happened?

Anyway, I digress, over the next hour or so until kick off the OVT fills to bursting, the chairs are removed, 'our' spot is now reserved for standing only. Joe is on his third Guinness and 5th fag when, in the warmest of cockney cockneyness, I hear "Oi. Dogshit. Fire 'em up!" Mitch rocks up armed with an excuse that he can't stay out all day as he has to get home for the dog. By which he means he's left the back door to his house open so his dog has free reign and he has 6 litres of White Lightning in the fridge waiting for his return. By which also means he is likely going to end up out all night or, as likely, to be ripped from us sometime after the final whistle when his exasperated girlfriend turns up to collect him. Mitch is my only ally (who would have thought that spelling is correct?) in our group and, without a doubt, the most persuasive person when attempting to lead someone astray. 'It's not a dress rehearsal' being his answer to any form of argument against his suggested wonder down an often alcohol depraved path. A more imaginative lyrical contortionist when using the word 'cunt' I will never meet nor has anyone come as close to making me pass out with laughter, regularly, as Mitch.

Nick is next to show as the Welsh representative. I think his parents were Welsh but he suffered the same ignominy (turns out ignominity isn't a word) as Joe in that he grasped longingly for his Welshness despite being born and bred in Oxford! After the alcoholic decimation of the night before he would often cite having to drive from Kidderminster as his reason for not drinking. Finally John turns up having made himself look just about the best he can but insisting on drinking only shandy until half time as he struggles to overcome the excesses of the night before. As a proud and actual Scotsman from Inverness his drinking never really lived up to the legend wrapped around those north of the border. And so there we were. England Ireland Scotland and Wales. Vociferous in our support and, for one season only, joined by a French student who, for four Saturdays in 1992, turned up without fail, in his colours to have a good drink and absorb, like no other, some horrific if friendly intended banter. A toute vitesse tres bien merci!!

After the match then final scores on the vidiprinter. By 6pm everyone has gone their separate ways, someone had won, someone had lost, someone had thrown up, someone else had lost their winning betting slip, someone had collected their winnings, someone had pulled, most were covered in booze and sweat and I had always completely lost my voice. A quality start to the day.

I got the train at Selly Oak straight through to Lichfield, no change of train required just a polite, if slurred, request for the train guard to wake me up at Lichfield please! 45 mins kip and thanks to the decent train guard I was in the Kings Head propping up the bar by 7pm before most people have finished scratching their Saturday afternoon balls, got ready and are heading out! Job well done.

The next couple of hours were standard, bottle of K, laced with vodka, drink, jukebox, K, more K, upset people, fail to pull without even trying, K, some more K, talk bollox, slag people off, K, upset people, K, bore people, K, K, talk to self, moments of maudlin and start to doze off. The night then switched gears and veered somewhat from its normal path. Each K was joined by a pint of Mild, not for drinking but for throwing and Mild is the cheapest pint, a beer fight ensues, full on, beer spitting, hurling and pouring, on others and self eventually leading up to Kings Head Jackie throwing me out at about 11pm. By now I was very very drunk. Staggeringly incoherent drunk. Way past the possibility of getting home drunk and really close to pass out and require hospital assistance drunk. From the £50 I started the day with I was down to my last £4 and the last train has long gone. I was very drunk, very soaked in booze, very smelly (Mild stinks) and very obviously English!

A pal I had played rugby with at school had been in the Kings Head and made a very kind offer to let me kip on his floor as I couldn't get home. This offer was particularly kind as it hadn't been many months earlier that he made a similar offer only to be woken in the early hours of the morning by the noise of trickling water and the frankly horrific sight of me pissing in his cupboard as if it was a toilet. Only to then see me finish off, tuck away, lower a non existent toilet seat and close the toilet/cupboard door before curling up in a ball on his floor with the generously loaned blanket as my comfort. 

With an offer to kip on the floor the last £3.85 was spent on a Beef Chow Mein from The Ruby then it was onwards in the freezing cold to my mates house. He was far less drunk, think slightly unsteady on feet but still with it and happy drunk. We then bumped into two more friends (brothers) who had been drinking in a more posh and more clientele picky type of establishment than the Kings Head. The older brother was driving and so was in no way whatsoever inebriated and the younger was probably at a five pints all night, steady on feet and high spirited level of intoxication.

In Lichfield the people i knew tended to drink in the Kings Head (accepted anybody), The Pig and Truffle (slightly more picky) and Ruskins (poncy wine bar you'll need to be female or adhere to a dress code of shoes trousers and shirt).  I was a weekend regular at the Kings Head. It was so popular at the weekend you had to queue up to the big old stage coach entrance doors where Jackie would open the small door hatch to consider if the next in the queue was to be granted entrance when space allowed. I often set an unpopular tone for the evening by ignoring the queue, walking up to the hatch and successfully queue jumping with my 'regular' card. On one occasion a non regular took issue with me being granted preferential entry to the point he shouted, banged the big wooden doors and insulted Jackie who had let me in. He regretted his actions instantly. The hatch opened in response to his remonstrations. I think he was expecting to be able to make his point. Instead, he was met with a full pint sailing through the hatch and dousing his shirt. Actually, that's not true. When Jackie opened the hatch she spat at him and followed up with a volley of abuse that would make a a grown make cry. Anyway, he didn't get in, I did, and that was the Kings Head.

I have strayed off topic again although at this stage I am not entirely sure what the topic or indeed the purpose of this jaunt is. Before it is completed I should clarify that over a two or three year period around this time I was assaulted three times in Lichfield. By assaulted I mean seriously assaulted but then by seriously assaulted I don't mean I was stabbed or bottled but I was knocked down and knocked out. The first time involved two scrotes following me through the market square and assaulting me in the doorway of the church by The Pig. I know this was the first of the three because I was drinking with school mates. This assault didn't bother me. It didn't knock my confidence, I wasn't worried or anxious as a result. It annoyed me but it was what it was. 

The order of the other two is impossible for me to say. They happened after the time of drinking with school mates and probably within 12 months of each other but I don't know in what order. One of the two I knew nothing about at all. All I know about it was relayed to me second hand by a barmaid I worked with in The Blake Barn. Her boyfriend, a Lichfield taxi driver at the time, returned home to her one night after dropping me home. He had found me unconscious on The Friary Road in the centre of town. I had facial injuries, marks on my forearms and a ripped t-shirt. Yes, it could have been a drunken fall but the evidence, as limited as it was, pointed to a beating. The point of not knowing anything about it was that I'm fairly sure it didn't bother me. If it was the first of the second two it didn't make me anxious. If it was the second of the second two then it didn't make me any more anxious than I had already become as a result of the first. If you see what I mean?

This one though, whenever it was, did affect me. The four of us (drunk and drunker and not at all drunk and barely drunk) rambled from The Ruby on St John Street towards Borrowcop Lane where my friend lived. We passed the City Frog which was closed by this time of night and is now a collection of city apartments. We passed St Johns Hospital on the right and crossed the main traffic lights with the intention of continuing under the railway bridge along Upper St John Street. We were on the pavement on the left and the chippie at the lights is on the right. Next to the chippie are two houses. As we passed the chippie two of Lichfield's finest undesirables crossed from the houses next to the chippie and came towards us. That's the two of them and the four of us. 4 v 2. We were double in numbers. I know they want trouble but for probably the first time ever there is no legitimate reason that such trouble should be aimed at me. I opened with "look lads we don't want any trouble" as I extended my arms to each side,  palms up in that innocent and non aggressive way a central defender pleads with a referee that his leg breaker of a challenge on the No 9 was fair and entirely above board. Well, one hand was palm up as the other was carrying my beef chow mein. My intention was to continue the sentence with "we're just on our way home" which never got to be said because undesirable number one's opening gambit was a ferocious and entirely unexpected dropping of the nut on me whilst I was mid sentence. The world, or at least my little bit of it, dropped black........................................

KICK BOUNCE 

KICK BOUNCE 

KICK BOUNCE 

KICK BOUNCE

KICK BOUNCE 

KICK BOUNCE

KICK BOUNCE

KICK BOUNCE

KICK BOUNCE

As I came to the kick and the subsequent bounce were all I was aware of. The kick was to the face and the bounce was the back of my head hitting the wall behind where I lay. I had instinctively put my hands over my face, my arms were tucked into my body and my knees pulled up to protect my nads. Its all I can do. Through the small gap in my fingers I see the flash of the white stripes on a green trainer becoming increasingly speckled with red. I realise its my red. It occurred to me that if they are Addidas Gazelle's he is gonna have a right game getting the blood out of the suede. I can still remember it clearly. As in the memory is clear although nothing could have been clear at the time. The attempt to protect was instinctive whereas the thought process was weirdly surreal. I was thinking this must really really hurt, although I am sure I felt nothing at the time, and that he is never gonna get those trainers back to their original brightness. 

At the same time the other undesirable is kicking and stamping lumps out of my legs but he is employing a different technique. As I remember it, and I accept there are many contributory factors that could lead to the assumption that I may be mis-remembering. Undesirable number one, or for the sake of brevity we will call him Spud, was the head kicker. He was definitely taking a step back before coming back for his shot. Think Johnny Wilkinson but without the measured, calm, calculated build up. Undesirable number two, or Craig, was much more of a fix into position and repeatedly kick. His support brace points were each hand flat on the wall above me approximately three feet apart and left leg rooted to the floor. This brace position allowed for a more concentrated short burst style kick with perhaps a slight compromise on power. Apart from the downstrokes. When switching to a stamp method midway through the brace position allowed for a solid direct weight backed downward stamp. Think Jimmy in The Suit Lounge making sure Billy Batts doesn't get up when Tommy flips his shit in Goodfellas. The difference here is that I never told either Spud or Craig to "go home and get your fucking shoe shine box". I didn't notice what footwear Craig was wearing and I didn't think to ask.

After a while they got tired and fucked off but not before one of them, Craig if I was guessing, came back to give a final, lazy, tired and thankfully directionless kick to the nuts! It took me a few seconds for my brain to realise this isn't a Saturday morning 5 years previous on a muddy rugby pitch. And with that I accepted the shit I was in.

It took a while for me to come to my senses enough to stand up. I don't know if I blacked out again or how long I was lying there. Staggering to my feet I could see no one. No sign of Spud or Craig and no sign of my three mates. I staggered towards the cop shop, Mild stained England shirt now a dirty crimson rag. The rose on the shirt had by now blended into the new blood sodden background. I couldn't quite see properly because my nose, cheeks and eyes had swollen to block the view and the blood in my eyes didn't help. The blood flowing down the back of my throat did nothing to sooth my lost voice sore throat from too much shouting at the rugby. My tongue kept falling out of the gap in my front teeth where I had lost both of my front crowns and I was aware that the cold night air would be teasing the exposed shattered teeth stumps. Thankfully, I felt nothing but numbness.

In my confused state I struggled to find the entrance to the police station and instead walked into the staff car park. You can sort of understand two coppers wondering what has gone on and treating me with suspicion. This prompted the question "what's happened to you?" The reply of "I've had my fucking handbag nicked what does it fucking look like?" probably explained the lack of sympathy and consideration from both PC Useless and WPC Wasteofspace. Looking back I don't really blame them.

To cut a long story short (should have thought of that earlier!!) I refused to go to hospital until the cops drove around to see if my friends were about as I didn’t know what happened to them. Had they met with a worse fate, had they been stabbed, were there other assailants that served them a similar beating, were they still unconscious somewhere? In hindsight I shouldn't have worried. They were all fine as they had promptly run off as soon as Spud and Craig approached us. While I was being driven about they were all tucked up safe and sound in bed. Their last view of me would have been the sight of me lying poleaxed in the road out cold. 

PC Useless and WPC Wasteofspace took me to The Vic. I knew the Vic from a similar previous visit in 1990. A nurse was picking glass out of my forehead. It came about following a drunken self glassing mismeasurement issue at an 18th Birthday party. The nurse had some stern words for me about drinking too much and delivered them line by line in between each shard being picked out. Back to this night, nurse Notinthemoodforthis also had a go at me for drinking too much. Although, as I tried to argue, if I hadn't been so drunk it would have hurt so so much more - an argument lost in slur translation with Nurse Notinthemoodforthis! Things were cleaned, gravel removed, butterflies applied, teeth packed, blood stemmed and ribs wrapped. Eventually I got to get some shut eye (not that I could have opened them if I wanted to) and rested down until the morning after one hell of a night before.

To the best of my knowledge the undesirables were allegedly Spud Kennedy and Craig Fitzpatrick. I knew neither of them before that night and thankfully I never crossed their paths again. I am guessing from the names they had Irish connections or family or allegiances and can only surmise that they took umbrage (no, I didn't think it was spelt like this either) with the fact that earlier in the day England had won the game 38-9 on their way to the 1992 Grand Slam. Either that or they were hungry and fancied my beef chow mein? I never did find it although the police weren't interested in looking for it.

The police took a statement from me, they failed to get statements from any of the three friends who were with me and they did nothing with the confirmation of the identity of the scrotes that did it. This information I obtained from a pub landlady who overheard the pair of them bragging about it to a scrote associate. The physical injuries healed relatively swiftly with no lasting long term effects. Psychologically, unlike the other two incidents, this one lingered considerably. I think because it was unexplained and unprovoked. I think, up until that point I was relatively fearless and probably overly confident. I don't think I was anxious until after that night. I do know that whenever I went out after that night I was a bag of nerves until I was at least three pints and a shot into the night. I was known for getting drunk quickly. Looking back that was because I needed to take the edge off.

I returned to work a few days later. Mitch sat just across the office from me. I was greeted on my return with " Oi Dogshit. I didn't think you could get any uglier! Fancy a swiftie after work? "

Many years later the Lichfield grapevine delivered news that one of them died. Here's hoping it was slow and painful. Much like the process of washing the blood stains out of my England shirt in time for the next 5 Nations match.