Regress with me, me hearties, to the days of olde; when Coventry and Wales had that same bizarre Admiral kit/tracksuit. White bands running vertically up the front of each leg onto the shirt and curving away down the arms. A darker, thinner stripe running along the centre of Big White. Fucking shite. Especially the Coventry away; purple-brown like a savoury vinegar crisp bag. It was a novelty then to own a football kit from another city, excepting arch-enemies. Football was life. It enlightened, salved and saved us. Today we never tire of discussing those childhood footy fixations. But some fixations have a shelf life; the white away kit with the black stripes down one side, for instance. The sports merchandise equivalent of Bowie’s Quicksand. But it’s old news, mate, so sling yer ‘ook.
Young vandals ran riot in 1977. Doc’s Red Army won the cup. Tib Street Joke Shop became a skateboard store overnight; Fibreflex decks, Gullwing trucks and Kryptonic wheels. The aromatic reek of grip-tape adhesive. Elvis died and “Way Down” released posthumously. The Stranglers’ “Straighten Out” was in the charts. Streets alive with junior hooligan chatter, shit little cars and rancid furniture; Crazy Trev’s parents assembled a wardrobe/dressing-table in his bedroom one Saturday. Trev’s magic marker was employed immediately they left; giant cocks and bristling scrotums splayed comically beneath wobbling tits and hairy fannies. “Man Utd” and “Scouse shit” scribbled on pristine white formica in a few hysterical seconds. Toilet paper wouldn’t budge it. He was straight downstairs to Mother’s cleaning supplies. Returning confident with bucket and various detergents. Frantic wiping did nowt. Foam all over his crotch, he vigorously lathered his groin, desperately skriking for comic effect. Fucking head-the-ball. A sellotaped array of Pink Final pics temporarily obscured the graffiti. Months scrubbing secret sins followed. Tunnelling to freedom behind dot-matrix newsprint of Stevie Coppell and Gordon Hill.
Trev’s CB handle was “Red Devil”. Nerve-stretching missions for broadcasting accessories occurred nightly; hop catlike onto window-sills. Occupants watching telly within. Rapidly unscrew the ariel from its mount. I’d be handed sections, nuts and bolts, cacking myself; flickering screens and curtain-muffled conversation sent me mad with terror. Silently dismantling free-standing 60-foot antennae with spanner and screwdriver like an SAS man on speed. Redneck mechanics from across the Valley in Clifton hunted Red Devil relentlessly following on-air verbals. The sly fox always evaded them.
But it ends, innocence. Usually with alcohol to help it on its way. Stolen beers behind Prestwich Church Institute was my first with Cloughie and Tiz. A virgin taste of emotional freedom. It grew habitual, Saturday ritual with Kenny; the offie was my responsibility ‘cos I looked the oldest. 2 litres of French wine in less than 20 minutes. We called it “pump action to the pedestal”. Behind privets on Bury New Road. Or we’d ascend the reservoir, an ancient world of cobbles and concrete. Highest point in Manchester. Supped our summers away talking football, fashion and bollocks. 1980, 81, 82…Girls sent us in and out of love every other week. The Rezzie afforded an unobstructed 360° view. North was nowt to write home about. South was town, not a bad picture. But east and west were the biggies, the latter somewhat bigger than the former: Victoria Avenue East and Salford Precinct. High-rise estates. Viccy Ave flats glowed white on summer evenings and we asked ourselves, where the fuck is that? We knew where the Precinct was. Forever hazed in an orange particulate sunset like the pyramids. We had no intention of approaching “the Old Country” hostilely.
The alien worlds east of Heaton Park were a training ground for Merseyside. We played it like The Warriors; nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Teeming with lads game as fuck. Blackley was a 2-level business; Riverdale high-rises at lower and those big bastards way up higher. Riverdale was a starting point. Piping (staring) contests. Some warm-up running and flapping. Its inhabitants frequented the Belmont and Lithuanian Club on Middleton Road. One night four of us got steamed by fifty of the fuckers. Kezz and Crazy Trev covered in bruises like nothing I’d ever seen. We knew a couple of them from the match and they let two of us go. Illustrating why we usually went east of Prestwich looking for fun and games and not west. And then on with the mission; there was a youth club halfway up Viccy Avenue. Close to an enchanting maisonette that glowed with near-Continental splendour. We were quickly surrounded by many curious specimens in Puma and Adidas. Fortunately they were peaceful. Some of them knew us or knew of us, thanks to birds from school. Onward and upward to those white megaliths. We knew when we got there it would be a different story. We never made it. Despite several missions up the Avenue our bottle always went; we were fortunate to return unscathed to the glade of Prestwich Clough for drink and song. The Avenue turned us back with tails between legs but Kezz always pushed it to the limit. Two-thirds of the way up we’d decide to abort before an inevitable sandwich manoeuvre trapped us. Observed the entire way by unseen agents. A couple of years later I saw Victoria Avenue East up close; in a car driven by Dave-D-. Himself, me and Dave-B- passing a joint around with Talking Heads on the stereo. A boring Sunday afternoon in faded Levis and winter snow. By then we were 18. Fighting people for nothing seemed ridiculous. The cosy brown embrace of methadone and Moroccan was a double-bubble inscrutable and fearless. Tower-blocks were a fixation that trumped old away kits like Bewlay Brothers trumped Quicksand. No pun intended.
Trips west of Prestwich were fraught with horror. It was Salford, a savage realm where murder and mercy were inversely correlated with regard to cocky fuckers like us. Being from there originally might afford us a night of trouble-free mayhem. All batting for the same team. But not often. This was the era when Kersal was at war with the Precinct. And we were at war with Kersal. And Whitefield and Bury were at war with us. A diminishing technological relativity that began with Pendleton’s Roman-like superiority and ended in the Ecky Thump and lagging dress-sense of tribal black pudding land. Sometimes a load of us would cram into a car and drive round Kersal flats. Themselves no small potatoes in the Greater Manchester high-rise league. If Blackley was a training ground for Liverpool then Liverpool was a training ground for Kersal. The flats were loaded with Reds and the single pub, the Castle, was a notorious den of glam-rock iniquity; older 70s wallahs who didn’t give a fuck. It was their younger lot we both identified and tangled with. They dressed in the very latest and were proud of it; Gold cords, leather Mickey jackets and St. Etienne shirts. Saw nights with dozens going at it – the bottle game. This was no place for small groups to explore. You went team-handed or you got seen off royal. When the Precinct attacked the Kersal funfair in 1980 our borderland was unpoliced; the Kersal Boys were off defending their turf against a mob estimated to be 150 strong. One lad was stabbed and killed. The estate that towered in the west reinforced its sinister image through such shocking acts. To meet them was a conundrum; the coolest accent and always dancing. Why would happy people do such evil things?
On our way to the Derby in ’81 we took a detour. Kenny wanted to demonstrate how town resembled Birmingham from an alleyway off Chapel Street so we humoured him. We passed some Kersal and they chased us down narrow factory ginnels. There’s a posh bridge there now with a spike and cables. They caught us up and Crazy Trev copped for a prize punch. A neck-slapper off Jimmy Jones. On the forecourt we merged with a giant team in tennis shoes and Patrick cagoules. Off to patrol the surrounding area, splitting into groups amid loud chatter. More Kersal, but they accepted us warmly. Obviously hadn’t heard about the neckslap incident. Trev was still MIA. He spent the day with older Prestwich lads having joy and fun. City on the run. The forecourt was like a supersized blunderbuss back then. Its flared muzzle spitting gobs of designer thugs by the barrel-load in all directions. They were’t’ days.
Now it’s all same old same old. Using semi-illegal software to defeat Ticketmaster’s captchas and buy up vast numbers of Madonna and AC/DC tickets. Employing Photoshop to bang out sweatshirts emblazoned with Yankees and Patriots logos. Banging out the moodies at the tailgate parties outside gleaming stadiums. Then there’s the dull commute between office and clinical trials. My office is an abandoned farmhouse in the sticks. The trials take place in a gigantic shopping mall in the city. My most recent product is very interesting; the Love Bomb. Took me years to perfect but I’m there now. Burned midnight oil as I dripped solvents from separatory funnels, distilled and concentrated on roto-vaps, tweaked by microgram amounts of Ololiúqui analogues. Not a test-tube in sight. It’s a myth. We professionals use centrifuge tubes. I drop Love Bomb on blotting paper and toxicity testing begins. That’s where the shopping mall comes in. Teenagers. You’ve gorra love ‘em. I was one myself once and it was fucking great.
It’s not easy being an international criminal mastermind. I still pine for those simpler times. Touring the skateparks by bus and bicycle; Stalybridge’s asphalt wonder. Hard Surf in Middleton with its terrifying Pandora’s Box. The indoor gaffs at Salford’s Rialto and Bolton. Even the Precinct had some decent paved bankings. OT looks like shite in those old pics but we thought it was a futuristic paradise. And the drugs. Oh, the drugs. But you’re too hard for the SAS and you think I’m a divvy, I know, so I’ll shut up now. I could never know what you “proper lads” know, but let me guess: That old yellow and blue Arsenal-style third kit was your real fave. And you’ve always loved the Bewlay Brothers…fuckin’ nice one, Cyril.
