The late-80s was a time of contrasts and piss-poor football. United were crawling across that horrific trophy desert between the 1985 and 1990 FA Cups. Finishing 11th in the table was accepted with typical Tatlock resignation. 87-88’s second place behind the Scousers barely registered a blip on our footballing landscape. The collective Manc unconscious feared it was simply a mirage. Just like the one we saw dissolve after 10 amazing games in ’85. I spent 1986 in the Negev desert. With English lads watching the World Cup. Passing out from the beer and the heat. New Year’s Day ’87 it was OT. Hurling abuse at Geordies. I cannot recall other games. It wasn’t pretty.
In February ’88 it was luxury yachts in south Florida. Swimming with the manatees, drinking with pirates and smoking Killer Green Bud (KGB). By June I was pneumatic on the pavements of Ruislip with Spurs fans and Gooners. Tottenham was a different planet to Arsenal. Cheap sportswear bought for the job. Arse struggled to let go of cords, cardigans and designer shirts for the sake of navvying. They looked like granddads. Futuristic means waste means plastic. Arsenal detested shiny silk and Tottenham hated dowdiness. Mancs and Scousers nicked hundreds of Euro rail passes for the ’88 Championships. It was plastered all over the London tabloids. The media had finally worked things out and busily informed the Capital what was really going on. Cockney mates from Israel took me on some proper jollies and vice versa; July weekends in Bournemouth. Fighting Scousers outside shit clubs and copping for proper sorts. Saturday nights at Band on the Wall, tripping, speeding and dancing. Cockneys eyes popping at the scene. In September I moved back to Manchester. The novelty lasted 2 years. United were shite but it didn’t matter. Just going to matches was reward enough. Working round town on the furniture. Wheeling dollies and trucks down deep corridors in the heart of the city; Bruiser, PG, The Whit Lane Warbler and Bashem the United steward. How he held a job at OT I’ll never know. I first met Bash on a caravan holiday for underprivileged Salford families. Bruiser said they needed people to keep the kids in line and it was all paid for. A mass of shaggable single-parent units. Bruiser just wanted a boozing partner for the trip. So it was Miami to Mablethorpe in the space of 6 months. Bruiser lived off Liverpool Street and Bashem on nearby Ruthin Court. Bashem’s mam ran the City pub on Oldham Street. She once described him to me as the afterbirth of her daughter. It turned out he was an unexpected twin. A wafer-thin specimen who could dodge the radar of early-60s ultrasound and drink for England.
The trustee of the community fund lived in one of the newish houses that had replaced Edgehill Close. The most notorious maisonette in Greater Manchester during the brief period it stood. The houses weren’t much better. Diamond Lil was a Glaswegian maven of urban economics. Bleached hair and leather-clad long legs. Big rings with real stones in. Boyfriend with a leather jacket. Bruiser had burst his nose with a 2 by 4 when they were lads. But we were all big boys now. The lot of us boozed in the Clarendon Rec, Flat Iron, the Winston and the Brass Handles pubs along with others; DJs, grafters, market traders and mad lads. The boyfriend would put Tony Christie on the juker and describe it as “proper Quality Street music”. Personally I prefer KGB over chocolate when it comes to sounds but there’s no accounting for taste. The Winston, AKA The Waxworks or Fraggle Rock, was right near Ruthin Court and Lil’s house. The vault was arranged eerily similar to a classroom; small tables in rows. Packed with mischievous children of the Universe. Summer on Churchill Way. Pure bone-white Jack Russells gambolling among the council plants. Guns ‘n’ Roses and the bluest skies. Then it was autumn.
Mablethorpe was shocked and awed. We flopped pints for a week confronted by an angry silver sea. Not sure what the kids got up to, like. 12-year olds taking the piss royal. Bashem made me a caravan curry. Ridiculous amount of hot powder in it. A failed practical joke; I wolfed the lot without fuss, my brain having acquired immunity to chilli many bardos previous. I sold my Walkman that last night, desperate for beer money. 22 years old. In the Camp Disco a monumental sight greeted me; Bruiser, his missus, Bashem and the rest, dancing proper. Like dynamic fluid. Stylised, kinked and evolved on the streets of Salford and Cheetham Hill. Northern Soul. I ran away, horrified at my relative lack of skill and coordination. Drank and watched that alien Lincolnshire sea alone. The beautiful East.
Back home we grew closer to the conspirators. Split our time between PG’s crew in town and Diamond Lil’s firm. Ran errands and decorated Lil’s house. Me and Bashem with paste and brush going at it like pros. Bashem quit the furniture when PG called him a cunt once too often. A cultural misunderstanding between Manchester and Glasgow. I grew accomplished in the art of computer-moving and code-cracking under PG’s wing. Plus stale beer supping in the Cross Keys, Pen and Wig and Mark Addy. Late-night taxis from town to my Lower Broughton flat or the Precinct flophouse cost next to nowt. From Bashem’s 15th floor pad we could see into the Flat Iron. Like hawks waiting for early doors on the lash. High-rise living felt like Continental or summat. Industrial Butlins. I signwrote the Precinct’s mobile chippy that was infested with money spiders. Painted vinyl banners for Renault in Blackfriars and the odd shop or two. But there was more than mahl-sticks and sable bristle. This was sunny Madchester. A constant stream of booze, drugs and money. Lil’s fridge was permanently stocked to the gills with purple tins. Tennents-a-plenty. She told us to help ourselves and regretted it instantly. Autumn 1989. The fund took the Salford families to Pwllheli. I drove a hired minibus to Wales on a scoping mission. Bruiser, me, a local vicar and a gaggle of decent birds whose other halves were gangsters and imprisoned blaggers. Me and the Warbler joined the actual holiday a day late having attended Cousin Michelle’s wedding on the Saturday; a big do just days after Uncle Norman’s Salford funeral. Michelle’s dad. They lived on Edgehill for a while in the 70s. The Pwllheli bus went all round coastal creation.
We thought we knew what to expect this time. We didn’t. Pwllheli wasn’t Lincolnshire; there were Scousers there, quite a few at first. In our absence Bruiser and Co. had made some Scouse friends. Singing “Matchstalk Men” and everything, after hours. United by poverty, Strangeways and Walton. Every morning 300 poor Salfordians stampeded for bacon and eggs. Served by the lingering Redcoat petals of September. A Scouse cracker I could have nemmed if not for my stupidity. And a Sicilian girl whose boyfriend lived in Miles Platting. She planned to go there when the season ended. I wrote “knuckle mafia” on a RizLa+ packet and insisted she gave it to him. It was the beginning of the footy season 1989-90. One morning Bruiser took a spherical Butlins bread roll out of the breakfast hall. Lobbed it to a swan in the lake outside. Unfortunately clocked by a Salford urchin. Having completely twatted all their Scouse peers they were hungry for victims. The following morning every single Salford kid smuggled several bread rolls out. The swans were blitzed; bread rolls bouncing off their bills and heads. I love all animals (except people) but was laughing too hard to stop the little fuckers. The Queen would have been livid.
Finally the towers beckoned and we boarded the coaches home. Our driver was a large man with a wild expression on his face. Bruiser calmly and gleefully explained who he was; he’d once entered the Mariner pub with his two brothers. Demanding protection. The inter-personnel dynamics of Salford publand were instantly triggered; they were confronted by a sensational marine beast that cut them down in short order. A tattooed dervish with orange hair and an Old School ‘tache. It was Uncle Norman. Bruiser – a capable man in his own right – giggled in manly admiration; Norman fucking pasted ‘em. On his own.
As we pulled away a radio was turned on. It was Derby Day and the chatter was instantly silenced. Kick-Off was imminent. A Scottish commentator – possibly ex- United or City or both – was rhyming off all the derbies. Saying no derby held a candle to the Old Firm; there just wasn’t the hatred and passion outside Glasgow. The game was seconds old. His proud statement was interrupted by the situation in the North Stand. United’s lads were dispersed and things settled down again. That wasn’t a pleasant coach ride. 5-1 to the Losers. The Hughesers. What a volley. The coach stopped in a tiny Welsh town and I nemmed a book about the SAS for the remainder of the trek. Quite proud of meself. Until a ten-year old dragged an antique wooden barometer aboard. An intricately carven monolith with a glass gauge set in the top. His mam was dead proud. Other kids appeared with preposterous booties; stacks of useless postcards, pies, deckchairs and a car radio. The usual. None of them had been “awked” – nabbed and turfed out – and they spent the rest of the ride wincing at the match commentary and “rawling” about in their seats. All future members of the United community.
Those kids will be in their late-20s and early-30s now. Moaning about Glazer’s debt and TV’s love of all things not United. It goes with the territory. But recall the late-80s and the debt grows sweeter; our initial northern English convulsion diagnosed as lingering Tatlockism. A typical old Albert’s response to irresponsible money matters. It’s all just numbers. It’s not real. Ask anyone involved in the world of finance. Remember the late-80s. Do you really give a fuck about the debt if we win the Double again this year? Honestly? I knew it.
