Episode 11: The Biggest Racket

My friends seemed to keep a calendar of what sport suited the time of year. Football; cricket; tennis, Football, cricket etc....I had only two categories: the football season, and the rest of the year when I would refuse to play cricket, because it didn't interest me. Tennis I could play anytime. I was a schools doubles finalist in the second year, thanks largely to Derek. He was shit hot. I was shit, but I'd been whacking the ball around for a few summers now. Usually into other people's courts. We played 'til sunstroke and a yob would break the drinking fountain. I'd joined a club the previous summer as an opportunity to play table tennis and hear Punk on the record player. Practically nobody talked to me so I had no incentive to improve my game. Cliquishness originated in tennis clubs. However, Rumpkin Simpson had recently deserted Derek for Heather Lacquer, so his choice of doubles partner was limited. I think he actually picked me to start arguments with opponents. He knew I had a shaky grasp of the rules and would argue interminably over a 'foot fault'. I also suspected that everybody who played tennis was middle class and looking for ways to cheat me. I also had incidentally (on a good day) a serve.

We made it to the final by winning a couple of matches and our opponents defaulting on about three more. To be a winner didn't come easily and I found myself regarding the Hornets with increased resentment. This quickly passed. At Shrapnel, we touched the hem of school privilege for the first time; nodded at vaguely by teachers in corridors and receiving a mention in Assembly on the morning of the final. That Friday, we were allowed to leave school after the first lesson and walked through the playground to Whiskey-Gommorah's waiting Rover. Barbara Kent and Susan Stacey were inside. They'd made it to the girls' final. I squeezed in beside Barbara, my leg hair bristling as it brushed against her thigh. Whiskey revved the engine and my heart began to pound. Shrapnel was having a good year. Our football team had won the Schools Cup 7-0 (King and Kane covering themselves in glory) but Doubles was more my thing. Derek and Susan maybe. Me and Barbara. I breathed deep and got drunk on nervousness. Fifteen minutes later, the sun baked like clay on my face, we pulled into Beaufort's Grove. I stared at a dream-like scene. A warm summer haze. The grass hot and perfect, and the whole institution cordoned off by trees as a haven of English gentrification. Our opponents hadn't turned up yet so Whiskey-Gommorah waved us in the direction of the practice court.

"Why don't you have a bit of a knockabout, eh boys?"

Likeable, unconventional, shell-shocked Whiskey.

We wandered onto a delicious choc-mint 'Dalek Death Ray' lolly court, the likes of which were familiar only from TV. Middle-aged people parted at my mildest behest. Our game took flight that first half hour and I matched Derek stroke for stroke. After 45 minutes, I admit our standard had started to drop a bit. After an hour, it was time to stop. Immediately. Give up now. Derek was flagging, but I had gone completely to pot.

We sat against the fence, suddenly aware at the enormity of what we'd done. Those fucking swots had known we wouldn't be used to this luxury and had deliberately let us play ourselves out. And look, here they finally were. They asked for a fifteen minute warm-up and we weren't going to argue. Every extra minute of recovery time for us was essential. The fact that they would then be at their peak was immaterial. Right now, I couldn't have beaten an egg.

Our two enemies sauntered onto the court and started unveiling their expensive clothes and equipment. The taller of our opponents had a large racket and put a strange spin on his service that didn't seem to have much effect. Their kit belied their ability. This was their tactic: intimidation. Ours was unconventionality: uncoordinated kit and tactical improvisation. All the other matches were entering their final phases, if not already completed. But our ordeal was still to come. Whereas nervous energy would normally now auto-pilot us to triumph, all I felt was numb. All my natural adrenaline had evaporated and I could barely get the ball over the net.

Derek dug deep into his resources. Somehow we went 3-0 up. The match went on. By sheer concentration, I was remembering how to play. Then we lost six games in succession. One set to love to the Slazenger boys. The second set began. We were playing so badly and they were so talented yet they were only just beating us. As a counter to indulging in an elitist pastime, both Derek and I would hang around at the back of the court rather than follow the 'one back' 'one at the net' formula. At this level it didn't do much harm as Derek in particular would simply fire his smashes at whoever was unlucky enough to be up front, which would usually hit them, or force them to play a stroke of self-defence which never went anywhere. I've not seen this tactic used in the professional game and perhaps it's considered bad sportsmanship, like Bodyline bowling, but it was certainly effective, at least if there was enough power in the stroke. As my serve made a comeback, we went 3-0 up again. Then they won the next six games and we'd lost the final. I remember the last point as if it was yesterday. I ran further than I imagined possible to return a ball that was autographed match point. I got it as far as the net. And flash ponce was waiting to tap in the winner. I was flummoxed. I felt cheated. I knew that if we hadn't had that sixty minute practice before the match, I wouldn't have played so badly. I threw a Mcenroesque tantrum in the changing room and swiped my badge from the sympathetic official. I felt like smashing his court up, beaten by those posh cheats...Next year, I teamed up with Ferdie Parr as Derek had wisely got himself a new partner. Yet to no avail. The managed to lose even before we did. Whereas with Derek, I'd had no coaching and no style; over the following months, I had developed some style (with no coaching). Ferdie though, was as bad as I'd been the previous year. We scraped through to the quarter finals where our by now generously over-stretched luck ran out. The competition ended the following year so I confined myself to occasional matches for the school, with indifferent results.

As one sports obsession was wilting on the baseline, another was hitting a brick wall. James Hunt's season of glory, and it was a remarkable year by any standards, had managed to almost completely pass me by. It was only by chance that Hornets changing room banter alerted me to the possibility of the Marlboro McClaren Man becoming World Champion that afternoon. Like the proverbial magic lantern given a Castrol GTX polish, the whole Formula One circus was suddenly illuminated. The cars were going through an incredibly colourful and weirdly shaped few years: Black and gold cigarette packet-style Lotuses; Patriotically panel-marked blue white and red Brabham-Fords; Bug-like, six wheeler Tyrells. I was knocked completely off my feet. Hunt inhabited an alternative universe to my own, and just like Luke and Obe Wanker in the Milleinium Falcon, his latest escapade was running into trouble. Hunt had got his nicotine-stained fingers on the prize amidst the monsoons and track spray of Mount Fuji the previous year, but now he was trapped in a technologically redundant vehicle, outpaced by the visor-screened, hideously deformed figure of Nicki Lauda. I concentrated on directing the force of my nervous energy towards him from the sanctuary of my living room on Sunday afternoons. It seemed as real as lending support in the flesh at Silverstone amongst all those flag-waving idiots. You could buy beautiful Matchbox miniatures and race them round the lounge, mirroring Hunt's heroic slides back through the field while watching the sun sink below the horizon and fretting over homework still undone. I felt for him a couple of years later when he finally ran out of competitive resources. He'd struggled against mechanical failures and the bigotry of the English sporting press for too long. But he was still an idol in my eyes. Much more so then when shacking up with Jane Birkin or being patronised by Morecambe and Wise in his championship summer. Within three editions of its launch, his monthly magazine was impossible to find. Few seemed to care as he walked away from the track that final time. The millionaire playboy who'd risked his life to save that of fellow driver, Ronnie Peterson. And his decline afterwards drew something akin to mockery. But I admired him tremendously.

Episode 10 Bootboys

The idea of the Saxon Hornets hatched back in the summer of '75. Today, half a dozen  teams compete in their black and gold strip and their reputation in Rottenbrough league football is formidable. But in my day, things were tougher. The Hornets formed out of the worst half of the Turrets Juniors team, the nicer boys being almost by definition, sporting liabilities. I persuaded them to come training and with much hassling of my helpful father, put together a team in time for the 1975-6 season. A hammering was a regular feature of the Hornets enterprise. As time went by I developed a phobia of Sundays when the massacres would take place. Still, for most of the season, I led the Hornets' quest for tragedy. I was nominated Player of the Year by my father-manager and threw in the towel finally after four and a half years of fear and despondency. But Hornets' buzz lives on.....

Something else that made secondary school weekends unique was the Scottish Sunday Post. I don't know what claim this tartan tabloid had to our living room, maybe a sop to daddy's highland ancestry, but I knew that buttered scone and hot Tetleys hits throat thrill of Sundays stretched out of the fire lapping up stories of sectarian violence on the Clyde. I became obsessed with the idea of the Scottish hard man. It was the Post that alerted me to the TV premier of 'Just a boy's game,' the Monday Play blueprint for my nightmare north of the border vision, and rarely was there a more drizzlingly depressing portrayal of a culture in thrall to the feud. If you want to know how Simple Minds created 'Reel to Real Cacophony' or what lent The Skids their grandeur, or alternatively, why Vinnie Jones, Guy Ritchie and the whole Brit gangster shtick just won't do, see this programme and salute the musical clans that made such fear and adrenaline resound.

Solomon and Seamus

The giving, as opposed to the taking, as in giving money to perfume and clothes manufacturers, and taking stuff back when your relatives weren't completely satisfied, remains my abiding memory of Christmas shopping with Seamus. We gave over our entire Saturdays to the task, scouring Rottenbrough for knockdown versions of whatever we'd been asked for, and hitting the department stores where I watched Seamus swap labels on perfume bottles, literally saving himself pounds....I always associated Seamus with the market, although Solomon worked there more often. He was the original artful dodger, though the one time he did a full Saturday, he was paid in change, which was desperately short of the 50ps he'd expected to discover...Saturdays revolved around Solomon's second-hand  stall. Collecting the singles I'd missed over the past couple of years was a jumble of thrills. Even though remembered from a couple of years back, seen on Top of the Pops or occasionally heard on the radio, the full power of the tracks really hit me when played at volume. Solomon was crucial in this respect, already visiting Rough Trade at 12. his fascination for New Wave and the independent labels at this stage eclipsed even mine. The Police's debut single, only 500 made, he let me have free because he hated it and I thought it was brilliant. Of course, it rocketed in value once they'd become famous. Solomon won out in the end though, swapping the Jam's debut with me in order to re-obtain his freebie. Two weeks later, my rarity was rendered worthless by a reprint. You couldn't hold it against him though. Solomon was always there first: With the Rezillos wraparound shades, the biggest marbles in the school, and a willingness to walk on the wild side, or at least, scurry nervously, and in Rottenbrough, this was sometimes the only safe form of locomotion.

Episode 9: Cycle of Despair

So your bike's boring the pants off you, and you're tired, yet secretly excited, by talk of Coupe de Menthes and Ten-Gear racers as you cower in one of the semi-safe areas of the playground with your 'Trump Cards' willing yourself invisible. In the end, these two wheel contraptions that won the Japanese the war or whatever become a kind of obsession. You know you'll never get one. And someone will nick it if you do, but you can't be seen dead in public again with your Noddy trike. Raleigh convertibles may be beyond your grasp, but there's always the working class alternative. Destroy your own safe and sensible big wheeler. Wrench off the handlebars and stick on a pair of 'cowhorns'. Tear away the mud-guard and flaunt your dirty back tyre, as brazen as a monkey's anus. You've got yourself a 'Tracker'. Just like safety-pinning your flares or pulling a bit harder on that ripped up school jersey....Who am I kidding? The old jalopy never adapted to its new image. The cowhorns made no hands steering an even more impossible dream and no mud guards meant a sack of dust and the dirtiest rear end in town. But customising, once grasped, is a principle you never lose sight of.


My Bloody Valentine

Even the reproach was considerate:

"...You're not supposed to write your name in it, Leonard!"

The card fell in the drawer and the class howled aloud with laughter. Oh, I could have died! But in truth, it wasn't the first time I'd let my affections get the better of me. At 6 or 7 years old, I'd let the 5 or 6 girls in my class know my feelings through a series of Valentines handed out as they passed my desk. I noted with pleasure the smiles and waves from those I was acquainted with, but Liz Willbery took hers straight to Mrs Wallis.

"Leonard, can you come to the front, please?"

Speaking quietly, with the class supposedly working, but straining desperately to hear the conversation, our overseer began, "It's nice  we're all friends here..." in a manner hinting she could imagine a less appealing version of my 'friendship' come puberty. Luckily, a veil descends over the rest of the discourse, but I recall a feeling of pride at having been martyred on the altar of cupid. And was it really any surprise I should offer a Valentine to our Geography teacher five years afterwards..?

Brother where art thou?

The essence of an only child is isolation. They tend to be either ridiculously introspective or idiotically social in order to hide their crippling urge to be stand-offish. Leaving the room suddenly, having won everybody over with their bonhomie, because fundamentally they feel the best conversations are had in your own head.

And they invent great toys, or at least games, which involve a multitude of characters, but can be played by only one, though occasionally they might ask others to join in, recognising swiftly the futility of trying to find others with similar outlooks.

My personal preference was for sporting contests using plastic figures from box-games such as 'Subbuteo' or 'Soccer Strat'. One way of idling away the hours was to balance four such markers, bearing the name of a favourite performer from the world of track and field, at the top edge of an angled picnic table. Dropping a dice near the base, the vibrations would send the figures hurtling down the surface, and in a matter of seconds, gold silver and bronze positions, or more likely, progression to the next round, would be decided.

Christmases were more social. It was games all the way. The oh-so generous 'let your parents open their amateurishly wrapped gifts first so that you can have an orgy of frenzied paper tearing all to yourself at the end' policy usually paid dividends. Such decadence rolled round only once a year. Who wanted your pleasure or disappointment interrupted with rounds of "Aren't you lucky??!!" or "That's nice!" Or even worse, having to conjure up an expression of undeserving gratitude. Then 'Let the games commence...!' as your parents fucked off to the drinks cabinet and you got stuck into your presents with your cousins in your pyjamas, or got stuck into your cousins in your pyjamas with their presents. Rebound, Crossfire, 'Olympics' (naturally) Donkey Derby (with Sid James:) These were our creme de menthe and egg nog., though you could consider yourself lucky to have struck gold in the December 25th exchanges.. Taken in by Palitoy and Ronco again! The instructions and intricate board game arrangements were the inevitable mid-day, lunch due, losing interest corollary to the initial rush. Never fear. Days and weeks of softly-softly, "My games's brilliant but..." bargaining lay ahead of you. The ones you played forever might arrive months down the line with fading elastic and lost balls you'd adapt the rules for, or if you could be bothered, write to the manufacturers to obtain anew.