Obtuse World #3

Since taking up writing to help fill the time as I wend my way up hill and down dale (in my head) on the imaginary road to meet my maker and check if I’m allowed to enter, or must follow the dulcet tones of the Devil’s lift attendant beckoning me and enquiring “going down?” By and large I have avoided football. Since the early 1950’s when my dad took me to Maine Road and sat me on the wall at the scoreboard end to watch a game and before my oldest brother Billy took me to Old Trafford, took me up the concrete steps before I was passed down to the front by many willing helpers cracking jokes while I wondered what the hell was happening, I have loved our national game. I liked Red better than Light Blue and because dad fast walked me miles from our Ardwick home. Billy took me by bus and train. I find it strange my rarely, if ever, looking back at much involvement with Football, or Soccer as our cousins across the pond like to call it. There are of course reasons, but whereas my sober mind is of a peaceful persuasion, things change when John Barleycorn sings my allegiance tunes. Well! just what has stirred me into action? Of course, there is a wealth of anecdotes, some funny, some sad and many lost in the fog of a drunken haze that should be shared before the old grey matter slowly turns to mush. Oh! And sadly, Bobby Charlton died yesterday.

That which sticks in my mind more than following the crowd and moaning at the players, referee, programme seller, gate attendant, pie seller, beef tea merchant or even the floodlight bulb changer when our team either played badly, got beat or drew the match against an opponent ‘we should’ve murdered,’ our Billy rarely complained. He loved football, took me along to watch the Youth team, and Reserve side as well as the first team and the odd away match. I often quizzed him as to what went wrong. (They were too good for us) Why we missed a penalty (he had a squint) or could I bring along the family rattle which was so heavy I couldn’t turn the contraption so he would get lumped with it, (if yer do I’ll throw it in the cut), and so a bond was created, and I endeavoured to be his good companion. I hated to watch United lose but he would just shrug his shoulders and on the way home take me into a café on Ashton Old Road, buy me some chips and spend what he had left playing the Bally-o machine. The owner, I think he was called Stan, would stand behind his counter and watch, cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, and every so often running what resembled an old floor cloth back and forth along the counter. There were two old crusty pies under a plastic dome which he lifted now and then to let the odd inquisitive Bluebottle inside. Billy told me it was so he could call them ‘Meat Pies.’

“Don’t tilt it Billy,” he would insist, his cigarette ash defying gravity. “You might as well throw yer money in the bin.” The lights flashing and pinging while Billy flicked the silver ball up and back amassing numbers on the dial between the laughing clowns and upside-down Trapeze artists. Bang! He lifted and pushed, kneed and hipped once too often and the non-compliant contrivance went dead. “What did I tell yer?”

“Split this Stan,” Billy said while shrugging his shoulders and flicking another half crown onto the counter. “A couple more games and we’ll get going Podder.” He returned over his shoulder to me. Always ambivalent and phlegmatic and not even stopping to rub his knee.

As we crossed Pin Mill Brow on the short walk home I asked him did he win, and if not why play it? He just laughed and said, “I hope the old fella’s checked his pools before we get in.” I was puzzled but it was instances like that and his seemingly lack of concern which more than likely shaped my way of thinking. As one of my drinking partners often said whenever United lost “Win or lose, we’re on the booze,” And in the great scheme of things such is the way to play down the impact, even though deep inside, it hurt like hell. Which of course begs the question my wife often puts to me. “Why do you put yourself through it?” As we sweep up the glass from another smashed window.

Those two FA Cup Finals in 1957 & 8 when we were mugged and beaten with the latter just 2 months after the Munich Air disaster would be enough to test any man’s love of Football and Manchester United, but I was really too young to fully understand. Besides, our city was in post-war recovery and people were still celebrating coming through that ordeal wiser and more confident of what the mosty important things in life were. We all began to shrug shoulders together, because that was the only reaction certain disappointments were worth. Like the local street fighter who often said after losing, “It’ll wash off in the morning,” to the over-burdened housewife on learning she was pregnant again, “Never mind, I’ll be rich when they’re all working!” Humour and playing down consequences had become the norm.

I soon branched out and attended United games with different sets of lads, usually from local café’s such as Rezzano’s and Sivori’s, enjoying the banter, witnessing different reactions to losing and making sure we stuck together if bumping into or even watching the game amongst opposing fans home or away. I imagine that was when the songs came into being, not just in support when going, but also in defiance when losing. We rarely wasted too much time picking over the minutiae of what we had seen, rather looking forward to the next game when the players would hopefully put things right.

Billy’s untimely death in November 1963 made me angry and for a couple of years I did run with the crowd but in time I could see that that was futile. He had gained a fierce reputation for fighting whilst serving his 3-year sentence in Hollesley Bay Borstal but warned me off becoming involved. Hiding in numbers for personal safety wasn’t his way, and I took heed. Besides, I wanted to be a lover, not a fighter ha! ha!

I was married in 1967, and although still attending games, I became more interested in playing football for my local public house, the Prince of Wales. Viv and I lived in a side street next to Gorton Park, and with pals I regularly trained in the odd evening after work before enjoying a pint afterwards. It was about that time a younger, diminutive gobby lad joined in with us. He wouldn’t be able to play for the team, but he was extremely talented, and quick-witted to boot. Those that knew him called him ‘Roote!’ (his spelling, it emblazoned on every shop door, church door, trapdoor and police section-house door in the area) and my life after pretty much changed forever. To be continued…..

Part Two…. In the swim. Now where was I? Oh Yes! I helped teach my children and grandchildren to swim. Thankfully they were still in receipt of the added bonus of attending schools which encouraged this necessary attribute, them more than aware that we live in a country notorious for floods. Since my schooldays less and less schools were funded enough to pay for what I consider a ‘no-brainer.’ Even nowadays I meet people at the pool I attend twice a week who have only recently learnt the skill and look wistfully back on all those missed occasions when they excused themselves while friends excitedly rolled their ‘towels and cossies’ up and disappeared through the doors of their local pool. Although water can be dangerous, it being great fun easily outweighs any pitfalls. For instance, on holiday at the beach or by the pool, I’ve witnessed many a parent sitting baking on that sun lounger wishing the youngest would go for a paddle in the kiddies pool so they could join them and cool off.

Through life and as we get older other interests intervene from time to time, such as meeting girls, drinking beer, nightclubbing, sport attendance, employment etc but swimming, like riding a bike, is a skill which stays with us. I know bicycles become too small, so does the swimming costume, and bikes become racier, so do swimming costumes, and bikes get stolen, but I cannot remember my ‘cossy’ being robbed so there is another plus. My personal preference for many a year has been swimming shorts rather than ‘Budgie smugglers’ as some of the scantier types are comically called, but not only is that a matter of taste, I think some men really need to take a long hard look in the mirror before parading around the place with little left to the imagination. During the 60’s when Pop stars appeared on the telly in skintight jeans it was rumoured they would shove spent toilet rolls down and gyrate, well that wouldn’t work down a ‘wet cossy.’

For the last 7 or so years I have been swimming at the Eastlands Pool, Beswick. It generously built for the local population by the middle eastern owners of Manchester City (spit). I also attend at the recently refurbished Manchester Aquatics on a Sunday, a lovely venue built for the Manchester Commonwealth games in 2002. Swimming is free for the over 60’s in Manchester courtesy of a free-thinking council who generously still consider the wellbeing of their ‘Old folk,’ and during school holidays for the under 16’s. I rise at 5am twice a week and get to swim at 6.30, a wonderful time to stretch those muscles, get the body moving and release those euphoric inducing endorphins. I could honestly run home afterwards, but where I live they would think I’m a Burglar and call the Police. There are 2 pools, a large pool with a depth of 10 feet, and a smaller shallow pool for beginners and those who attend classes to keep fit or lose weight. In the smaller pool a number of, shall we say, ‘local females of advanced years,’ meet every morning and call themselves The Mermaids. They have fun, led by a raucous, blousy female who swears so much she would make a Salford Docker blush. They walk up and down the pool carrying weights and continually laughing out loud at some of the dirtiest ribald tales not heard since the demise of Potty-mouthed Plonkton, the Blue Comedians even Bluer Comedian. Men exiting the larger pool would dread walking past and woe betide should they drop their goggles or earplugs, they daren’t bend over and instead kick them out. The leader of this gang of racy broads is Mandy, a rough diamond with a heart of gold who collects some of the more infirm others and drops them off home afterwards. She organises concerts, theatre runs, eating out and all you can eat breakfast meals, collects their dues and has them to a woman in constant danger of drowning they laugh so heartily. Swimming has never been so much fun. I don’t necessarily believe the staff buy into the constant jibbing and raucous laughter at their expense, but I suppose it’s better than three hundred cheeky kids pissing in the water.

Then there are the over 60’s early rising geriatrics, of which I am a fully unpaid-up member. Big Mick the retired Carpenter, so big when he dives in 3 thousand gallons dives out. Him and Mandy don’t really get on, his droll humour fading into mere sidelines when she is on a roll, he now whispers his insults. Then Tommy the ex-scaffolder and recent recipient of a new Heart and Lungs to hear him tell it, mind you, a triple heart bypass is difficult enough to survive so we must accept his medical verisimilitude. He always arrives 20 minutes in, strolling around the pool chatting to all and sundry who can stay afloat long enough to blurt the odd sentence out, his audience of doggy paddlers lapping up every word; often about yet another Funeral he recently attended. I don’t know if he reminds me of a Butlins Redcoat or the Black Death. I think the youngest is the French Forensic Scientist Sophie with whom I share a lane, and believe you me, I am highly honoured. She doesn’t ‘hide her light under a bushel.’ What’s needed to be said is said, and she trucks no interlopers unless they know her rules. Nobody could send her ‘to Coventry,’ she would make her own way, never yielding a single centimetre. Even in work she admits her fellow workers and her don’t get on, but just shrugs her shoulders and say “C’est comme ca!” (It is what it is). She readily complains should any man stroll within 50 metres smelling of Brut or Imperial Leather aftershave, and to her all the women are ‘fat foreigners.’ I once told her to dive to the bottom until they went past but realised she wouldn’t get many lengths in or probably drown.

So! What I suggest is all parents should lobby their kids school, their local council, the government and even the local press to ensure all kids will be offered at least one swimming lesson per week while at school. I recently underwent Physio for a shoulder injury and so visited the pool during the daytime. When the lucky kids whose schools still maintain this grand tradition and are nosily splashing about their joy is unbounded. Through the terms it is noticeable how quickly their swimming prowess evolves, and before end of term and they finish for holidays and they are free to do what they want, the noise is unbearable. Good on em!

Thank You.