Serene, spent and sober
Jeremy Clarke
Sunday afternoon and I was going home with that 'making love and walking home alone' kind of feeling. A blowy Sunday afternoon and the high street strewn with litter. What I really fancied next was a nice cold pint of lager. Lately, I've switched to Fosters, and Fosters and I are still in our honeymoon period. Ideally I would liked to have drunk Fosters in a pub that was showing the pay-per-view match, Man City v. the Hammers, on the large screen.
It was a must-see game. West Ham had to win to stay in the Premiership. And as the manager, Glen Roeder, had collapsed after the Bolton game last week, there was the added interest of seeing the legendary Trevor Brooking temporarily in charge. (The official version given out by the club is that Roeder has suffered a minor stroke. My friend Mick, however, a season-ticket holder with friends in the know, says that Glen Roeder is actually rumoured to be suffering from Sars — Sudden Awareness of Relegation Syndrome.) But I wasn't optimistic about finding a pub that was showing it — not in this small new-age rugby union-oriented West Country market town.
There are five pubs in the high street. None had the football on and all were more or less empty. The only one with the telly on was showing Leinster v. Perpignan. My last hope, a faint one at that, was the Fortune of War. just off the top of the high street. The Fortune of War is a smallish hick biker pub. Heavy metal belting out of the juke box. If you smoke pot in the beer garden they turn a blind eye. The landlord has big gothic tattoos up his arms and his wife, who's got some terminal illness or other, sings with the band on Friday nights, She and her husband are reputed to be big in the local BDSM scene and when they occasionally host one of their fetish parties in there, anything goes, they say.
The curtains were drawn. I pushed diffidently at the door. It gave way, and — yes! fantastic! — they had the telly on in there and it was 0-0, West Ham in possession kicking from right to left, eight minutes into the second half. Eight drinkers — drawn exclusively from the hick part of the Fortune of War equation — and all clearly the worse for wear. They'd obviously been on it all day and the Bacchic spirit had left them and been replaced by a sullen nihilism. I was ideal baiting material for them, perfect for 'starting' on and I could almost feel the boredom lift as I walked in. But none of them had seen me before and sociologically — especially for drunken hicks — I'm hard to place. My clothes are themeless and I'm wearing these Himmlerstyle glasses. I speak Essex. And, as I say, I was serene and spent. And on top of everything else I was perfectly sober. The hicks weren't sure; they were uneasy. I was given a minute or two's probation before they 'started'.
Well, whatever you say about me, I'm West Ham through and through. The whole family is, and has been since the days of Jimmy Ruffell and Vic Watson. It's in the blood. Sad but true. I take a sip of lager, turn to look at the telly and see Les Ferdinand being loaded on to a stretcher and from then on I'm off on one. I'm possessed. I'm heading every ball and flinching at the challenges and appealing with outstretched arms for every decision, A near miss and I'm down, crouching in the foetal position. My hands are trembling and I'm chain-smoking. I crash back four pints in 20 minutes and send another one flying off the table. As far as possible I'm ordering and paying for the drinks and lighting my cigarettes without taking my eyes away from the screen. I'm there. I'm playing. Then the miracle happens. With ten minutes to go there's a goal-mouth scramble, the ball rolls along the goal line and Freddie's there to stab it in from six inches. I'm punching the television screen, then I'm hugging it and kissing it. Then I'm running around the bar with my knees up and both arms raised, fists clenched, head back in ecstasy. I've climaxed.
Then I was calm again, flaccid, and came to my senses for a moment. I looked round at the other customers. They weren't hostile. They weren't seeing the funny side either. When I looked at them they kept their noses in their glasses or looked the other way. I'm a looney, the decision was. Possibly dangerous. You know — no limits. A different league altogether. So when the final whistle went ten minutes later and I returned to the street, wishing everybody a cheery good afternoon as I went, only the barman wished me it back.
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