Not the best of weeks chez Zagger. Yours truly has come down with the 'Rona and it ain't nice. Friday may just be the nearest I've ever felt to death. No exaggeration. Of course, being off work, as I still am, might be seen as a bit of a bonus during a World Cup, but clever-bollocks here has publicly avowed his intention to watch precisely none of the whole charade, so I'm scuppered with that then. Getting quite the expert on Antiques though and now know my art-deco from my art-nouveau courtesy of a non stop diet of Bargain Hunt.
Been reading a lot too. Finished Scouse-separatist Tony Evans' splendid Good Guys Lost, a powerful political polemic laced with lots of music, crime, murder, scallydom and a light sprinkling of football. A cracking read and, note cynics, brutally honest and reflective re Heysel. Recommended.
I'm blaming Tony's book for the bizarre sequence of thoughts that passed through what passes for my soul at the precise point where I thought I was on my way out. 82-86 in Liverpool has been much on my mind since reading it. For what did pass through my head was a very vivid recollection of my first experience of acid, approx 200 yards from Goodison, November '83.
Coughing mercifully paused, on regaining full consciousness, my brain's opening gambit ... the mightily profound: "Jesus Christ Hooker, the sucker almost had me." I'd imagine Mrs Z would have preferred something a little more appreciative of her efforts to care for me and an outpouring of my love for her, but nope. A cheesy line from a truly terrible 80s cop show. And it was terrible, even the episode we'd watched whilst tripping that night, an episode with a guest appearance from Leonard Nimoy, Spock no less. You can 'enjoy' it here, but you'll need to be desperate. Or avoiding the World Cup.
Nonetheless, it would seem my final thoughts were destined not to be of family, loved ones, adventures, great places, but of a night in a terrace in Walton, watching TJ Hooker. We've decided the quote can go on my grave. She's good, Mrs Z.
TJ Hooker and Brookside. An episode featuring the hapless Alan Partridge (Dicken Ashworth), embroiled in yet another stormy row with the -out-of -his-league love obsession, Sam (Dinah May). Alan was an early IT geek and Sam had been up to something with his disks, eliciting the harrowing, repeated cry to accompany a compete breakdown in the Close: "Sam, me floppies. What have you done with me floppies." Sam's other magnificent and timeless catchphrase, btw: "Ace, Sam".
Alan, in typical pissed, angry state, worrying about Sam and his software... but it all ended happily despite Sam having had him beaten up at one point
Now, to yer average inhabitants of planet Earth, neither of those two quotes might seem that remarkable, but to two cosmic adventurers in a pokey L4 living room, they were seared - forever, it would seem - into our minds. To add to the 'hilarity' of the entire situation, we had one of those awful but brilliant Wembley Trophy footballs in the house. Brilliant because for those of a certain age, they remain the epitome of the desirable childhood ball. Awful, because if you pumped them up properly, they were unusable. Especially when cold. Painful. Like kicking concrete. Or heading concrete. Or worse still. getting smacked in the face with concrete. Or your nuts. Smacked in the nuts with the Wembley Trophy, not smacked in the face with your nuts. Stop it. You know...
Those familiar with the hallucinogenic effects of acid will find it no problem at all to spot the uncanny likeness between the Wembley Trophy ball, especially when wrapped 'Guy-like' in a nice bit of knitwear, and the distressed Brookie character. In fact, if they're familiar enough and still experiencing flashbacks, they were probably there ahead of me here. Cosmic. Anyhoo... the fun to be had accosting random people on County Road, introducing them to the Alan-ball, but not Alan Ball, clearly meant a lot to me as that was my dominant dying-of-Covid thought, along with Hooker, in the desperate film reel of my tragic life revisited in fast forward. How we survived unsmacked I have no idea. We being me and the devilishly handsome Tony, talented athlete, musician, possessor of the most astonishing calf muscles ever, along with a season ticket at Oldham Athletic. Tony was a fanny magnet. Women swooned. Men too. Other than his devastatingly gorgeous sister, very much a female him, he's the only person I know from Oldham. Maybe it's a civic characteristic.
Whatever, we survived unscathed, really our second lucky escape of the day. Maybe the third. Flag story to follow, but playing Pool in the Royal Oak in our state had also probably been risky. Aside from the chemicals, we just didn't fit right. We'd both adopted a sort of scally meets post-punk look that just didn't work. Haircuts that were neither one nor the other and clothes to match. Nods to each but really a bit of a failure. Bloody students, eh? The only time 'the look' nearly delivered was over a few weeks when a lovely looking little scally girl seemed to be trying to attract my attention in the State Ballroom. Her modus operandi was to repeatedly flick peanuts at me. Like I say, for a few weeks. I assumed she just thought I was a twat. Curiosity (and possibly speed) eventually got the better of me. "Yeah, I really do just think your're a twat." From which unlikely seeds blossomed a wonderful romance that lasted all of one day. She had work the next day, so I dropped her off in a cab from the State somewhere posh looking South-side. Next night we went to an arty film at the Bluecoat Gallery. Bloody students, eh? Turned out work was school. Exam year. Girls' school, green blazer and all that. Possibly Holly Lodge, as I recall. The film and a cuppa was it. She was quite the thing though. Knew more about life, music, film, art than I did. Probably still does.
Back to the story. The first close-shave , certainly, had come at Goodison earlier that same day. We'd been to Ev v Forest, a pretty dire encounter in front of a meagre 17 and a bit thousand, about typical for the Toffees at that time and the reason I'd splashed out (£18, think it was) on a season ticket. Pity! Andy Gray had just signed and there was no hint of the brilliance to come, although the line-up was taking shape. That afternoon, November 12th 83, Adrian Heath scored the winner and the defeat for Forest was no surprise whatsoever, given a dismal run of results there going back several years. We were a good side, finished 3rd, UEFA Cup, Celtic, Anderlecht and all that, but dreary defeat at Goodison always felt a bit likely, however bad Everton were at the time.
Just back to the attendances for a sec. Younger readers might be shocked at the low averages throughout the top division. We weighted in with a middling 17,000 ourselves:
Back to the match. We'd headed for the Enclosure, accompanied by a devastatingly fit but possibly psychotic girl of Irish-Republican Evertonian leanings, whom I had that week helped stitch lettering on her Irish tricolour Ev flag. This was to be her flag's debut. She was unusual for sure. Sold the Next Step, paper of the hardcore Revolutionary Communist Party, on Church Street of a Saturday morning. I was no Revolutionary, but you'll recall, I think, that I mentioned that she was fit. And I didn't have Tony's advantages - we may be back to the Oldham ST here.
So I carried her canvas bag for her. The one with the flag in. As luck would have it, a helpful officer of the law, or to her "a nazi scum class traitor", asked to see in the bag and, confonted with a flag that could clearly, errr, inflame local passions one way or another, decided to confiscate it. I know at the time that was a lucky break and am still thankful. I'd watched the Orange march down our road and safe to say it was still a testy and testing time. We'd never have got out alive.
Her banner hadn't been my first attempt at one, in a time when such things were really for cup finals and special occasions only. For the League Cup final of '78, the snotty nosed street-tough-punks that we were decided to make one that said "Fuck off Kop, Trent End's Top." Except we were soft as fuck 14 year old lads from West Bridgford and we needed my Mam to help sew it. So we ended up with a much toned down "Move over Kop, Trent End's Top", which took a lot of work before we forgot to pack the bloody thing on the big day. We didn't dig it out for the replay either.
Talking of which, decent banners and flags are a good thing, aren' t they? This one, another LFC reference, I'm afraid, is an all time favourite.
It's genius because it's true. The Grafton, a truly scary dance venue, was a proper meat market, but absolutely magic. Scene of more epic pulling fails, usually with out of towners on a coach trip. Think a gang of tanked up nurses from Warrington and you'll be getting there. In fact, think of that and you're exactly there. Add a penchant for heroin and you've got precisely the frustrating object of my desires for about 18 months of my life. Courtesy of the Grafton. And heroin, of course. Bought her a poetry book once. And gave her my signed copy of Ocean Rain. Sold both for smack within the day! You live and learn.
Banners. The 'form' one from Newcastle sticks in the mind, for its wit and self-deprecation, as does the 'Dietmar Hopp in the crosshairs’ banner which brought chaos to German football a year or two back.
For our friends in Köln, the loss of a banner in 2018 had massive repercussions and set off shock-waves which still resonate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERGEIycGd3A The 'Boys banner Incident', as it happened!
Founded in 2001, the prominent ultra group Boyz Köln had to press the self-destruct button after hated rivals 'Gladbach managed to steal their banner. Köln/Gladbach derbies are fraught, frequently violent affairs. In the 2018 match-up Boyz managed to dress up as stewards, infiltrate the Gladbach terraces and steal a banner. Later the same season, Gladbach fans travelled 250k to Hoffenheim (for a match they weren't playing in - these guys are devoted), bought tickets close to the away Köln section and stole part of the Boys banner during a massive pyro. The upshot of all this. The Boys had to stand in their own stadium and announce their demise to the crowd. The resonance continues as member so the dissolved Boys have formed other partnerships, including with some Dortmund elements and PSG, some of which are reputed to have led to the recent problems in Nice. Mad world. But kind of great.
Surely Forest's most famous banner is that touted, for decades now, by German super fan, Ebby. It's been through a couple of iterations, but has been a re-assuring constant in a world of change. From League One and back to the Prem. Man, if anyone deserves us to do OK this season, it's got to be Ebby!
Then there's the great productions of the Forza Garibaldi group, which I'm a big fan of. My favourite. The smallish flag with just the hint of the curves of the corner of the tricky tree on it. Seductive. Then there's the Munich van banner, based on the iconic photo from '70, which I don't think I imagined seeing in the BC Upper a while back. Great stuff (and possibly also linked to Forza?)
The Forzas' tifo-type stuff is perhaps a different matter though to the banners made by individuals or smaller groups. Of the latter category, we seem to predominantly see the Cross of St George-Smalltown-Postcode-Tricky Tree-Three Lions model. Tin hat on here, but I'm not the biggest fan. Even taking out my apathy/antipathy towards the England scene, I still find these a bit, err, smalltown, lower league, "you're' shit aaah." Maybe it's just me. Maybe the schoolie in the State was right. No doubt someone will let me know. ;-)
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