Here We Go Gathering Cups In May. Nicky AlltЧитать онлайн книгу.
‘Your Mick said if I see yer, to tell yer they’ll see yer at Folkestone.’
Vinnie’s platform-ticket plan had gone pear-shaped. Platform tickets were just tuppence each and were for waving goodbye only. He said there were about twenty-five Scousers trying the same thing. They were all smiling and waving to strangers on the London train as it pulled away. ‘They must’ve thought we were all on a day out from the fuckin’ loony bin,’ he said. Bizzies and train guards were well onto it and moved in. There were still a few specials due to leave, but the odds of him bunking on one looked impossible. ‘I’m gonna try the ladder,’ he said, meaning coming in via a fixed metal fire-escape ladder that led into the station from Skelhorne Street – a known bunker’s route that brought you out further down platform nine. His parting words were ‘God loves a trier’, then he passed me his sarnie bag. I watched him go, knowing deep down that he had no chance.
The next half-hour in the queue was heart-pumping stuff. I joined in the singing: ‘Tell me ma, me ma, I don’t want no tea, no tea, we’re goin’ to Italy, tell me ma, me ma’. Adrenalin diluted the ale inside me and replaced it with nervous butterflies. This was it. Five weeks of scrimping, saving, stealing, fiddling and dreaming was within touching distance, and the way I felt at that moment every single second of worry and struggle had been worth it. Passing through those gates onto platforms eight and nine was like being liberated.
I boarded the train and right away bumped into three Kirkby pissheads: Mick and Gilly Stewart and Ged Wainwright. They were all wearing white jeans, which were bang in fashion for the trip; hundreds had them on. Mick pulled a piece of coal out of his jeans pocket … the others did the same. I was snookered till they told me the score. Years ago, during the War, it was tradition for loved ones to pass coal to soldiers before they set off for battle – ‘Keep the home fires burning for a safe return’ – so Mick’s nan had given them a piece each.
It sort of captured the feeling and spirit of the whole thing. It was as if we were all going on a war crusade to some foreign land and the people had come in their droves to see us off. The scenes as we pulled out of Lime Street still give me goosebumps. Bodies and flags waved from every window to the deafening sound of cheers and applause from women, kids and well-wishers in the station. I’ve never felt as proud or as much a part of something in my whole life. It was a touching and unique Scouse send-off.
Train and Boats and Pains
Anyone who ever travelled on a footy special in the 1970s will understand the meaning of the word ‘rough’ – and boy am I talking rough. They carried 400–500 people in conditions that nowadays wouldn’t be fit for a robber’s dog to travel in. The carriages were ramshackle – some with compartments, some with tables, all with the kind of seats that had your arse begging and pleading for a cushion. Most of the time they were laid up, festering in the sidings at Edge Hill station, skulking in the shadows, hiding from the scrap-man before being dragged out screaming every Saturday to transport footy fans around the country with all the grace and comfort you’d expect from being pulled over cobblestones for hundreds of miles in a rickshaw.
The one I boarded was the table type: four seats facing each other with a table in the middle, similar to today’s trains. But let’s get this right: similar only in design. I wandered through it in case our kid and the lads were on board. The buzz inside the carriages drowned out the eardrum-bursting racket of the moving train. It looked and sounded like the wine lodge on a Saturday night: people standing up, loads of laughter and loud talking. It was supposed to be a dry train, but everyone seemed to have a drink in their hand. We hadn’t passed Edge Hill when some fella in his mid-50s handed me a can of McKeown’s Export. ‘Wet your whistle, son,’ he said. I stayed with him and his mate while I drank the can. They were both Shankly fanatics who’d seen action at Anzio during the War. One had been shot and injured. ‘Last time I was in Italy, the Germans battered us. It’ll be the other way round on Wednesday,’ he said.
They were great to listen to. Anyone their age on a footy train nowadays could only reminisce about battles at away games. But those old Shankly boys were the real deal. The likes of them made the trip possible. They were the reason why the train guards weren’t wearing jackboots or the trains themselves weren’t gonna be shelled or blitzed in Europe – although, saying that, I think by the time we got to Rome it looked like they had been.
In every carriage, plastic bags were stacked up on tables alongside jumpers, cardies, scarves and rolled up flags. More gear was stuffed underneath. It took ages to weave my way through. I was surprised how many women were on board, mainly older ones dressed in red fancy-dress costumes and hats, singing their heads off in that whining old pensioner’s voice – the type that’d shatter a glass from fifty yards. The whole train was rammed. The only empty spaces were in the no-man’s-land between carriages where the bogs and train doors were situated, and where the racket of the train was deafening. Those places were always freezing and were often referred to as ‘mingebag alley’ because of the minges you’d see there having a sly smoke to save them flashing their ciggies around. But this trip began like a Red Cross mission. By the time I got to the end of the train, I’d been given a can of ale, a bag of crisps and a packet of beechnut chewies. The exuberance was so full on that even tight-fisted bastards were acting like Mother Teresa.
Our kid and the lads weren’t on board, so I made me way back down the train, scanning round for a seat. The five-hour stint to Folkestone was only the first leg of a 3000-mile round-trip, so I badly needed to park me arse. It was starting to get a bit nippy, which was nothing new on a special, with the heaters always being fucked. They were a waste of space. To be honest, the only time I was ever roasting on a footy special was when some bastard set fire to the next carriage on the way home from Leicester in ’75. But bringing a coat to Rome was unthinkable. Of the 26,000 who went, I was one of the 25,999 who didn’t have one. I took me chances with a black V-neck jumper over a white T-shirt, a pair of Levi’s (Lionel Blairs) and a pair of Clarks boots.
By about half ten things had settled down. The singing had fizzled and the wine-lodge buzz had faded to backdrop, replaced by the racket of the moving train. Halfway through a carriage I heard ‘All right bollocks!’, then saw a couple more Kirkby heads. There was an empty seat by them. Wardy was wearing one of those floppy Liverpool hats and was grinning, with a can of ale in his hand. It was a sight I’d get well used to over the next few days and how I’ll always remember him. Jimmy had the same hat as me and thousands of other Reds – the thin-nylon peaked type with red and white quarters. My abiding memory of him is of a fella permanently blitzed. His raw, croaky voice sounded like he’d been inhaling smoke from a bus exhaust. He passed me a can: ‘Ee-arr, swallee that,’ he said.
I ‘swalleed’ it with three cheese sarnies. My food supply was half-gone, but I knew I had Vinnie’s as backup. A fella on an overloaded table opposite started moaning about the lack of baggage space. Wardy reassured him: ‘At least it won’t be like this in Europe. I believe the trains over there are brilliant.’ As far as statements backfiring go, that has to be on a par with Neville Chamberlain’s 1938 ‘Peace in our time’ speech, when he waved that white paper and said that Hitler was a great fella. To be fair to Wardy, at that time nobody knew what the rail networks on the other side of the Channel had in store for us – thank fuck.
By midnight the carriages were quiet. We were catching a ferry in the early hours, so we all needed some kip. The cold woke me a few times. I remember curling up on the seat and wishing I’d brought a flag to wrap around me. When Wardy woke me at Folkstone Harbour station, I was completely zombied. ‘Come ’ed, it’s D-Day,’ he said, grinning, with a can in his hand. Jimmy was sprawled across the table, using his plastic bag as a pillow. One side of his head was matted with sweat.
I was surprised how big the ferry was. I’d only ever sailed over the Mersey on the Royal Iris. As we boarded, everyone had their beige cardboard passports ready, but no one asked to see them or even bothered checking our tickets. The boat was chocka. A lad called Ammo told me that our kid and the others had got the earlier ferry: ‘Your Mick said if I see yer, to tell yer they’ll meet yer by the Colosseum somewhere.’
Below deck the bar area seemed as big as Anfield.