Post by Antonio Fargas on Dec 21, 2017 12:29:03 GMT
Higgs’ Ghost
Higgs was gone. There was no doubt about it. Everyone had said so. It had been on the BBC football site, Points West, the ITV news. Even the Bristol Post had cut and pasted something about it, probably. And now Wael was in charge.
It was with some trepidation that he climbed the many steps to the top of the Dribuild (or whatever it was called these days) to survey the ground. To his right there was the Blackthorn End (or whatever they called it these days), a proper stand for proper fans. And to his left, the South Stand (or whatever they called it these days), a sad, dismal tent. And Wael wondered, looking from left to right, and back again, do we really need to move grounds?
Then there was the pitch. It was mostly green, and the groundsman had done a decent job, considering, but it wasn’t Stamford Bridge. It was Christmas Eve and a busy Christmas schedule was sure to take its toll on the playing surface, thought Wael as he gazed out across to the West Stand (or whatever it was called these days).
And as Wael looked on, the cut-up clods, the bare earthy patches, the shallow puddles where we had been having trouble with drainage for the past few seasons, seemed to coalesce. They swirled around Wael’s brain and before his very eyes took on a terrible form. Large and foreboding, stout around the middle, and sort of shortish, the form seemed to be the very image of Nick Higgs.
Nick Higgs’ body, when everyone thought he was gone, was standing in the centre circle, under the dismal floodlights, seeming to shout a warning to Wael. It seemed to be saying ‘You-We!’, or something. Then just as suddenly, Wael was shaken from this reverie by the bing-bong man, just testing the pa equipment, in readiness for the Boxing Day game. Bing-Bong, flur blur di blrigits bnlur,’ the Bing-Bong man seemed to say. And Wael was once again aware of where he was. He hurried from the Dribuild Stand (or whatever it was called these days), wrapping his coat around him, and made his way to the club offices, in the dark heart beneath the stand.
Hamer was hard at work. Wael only paid him slightly below minimum wage, which he hoped might not be a problem going forward, although the investigation into low pay in football was probably going to dig that sad fact up sooner or later. Hamer looked up as Wael entered; he was scribbling a note to the youth development officer at Stoke City, or something.
‘I was wondering, Wael,’ he asked plaintively, his breath visible in the frigid air, we couldn’t afford to have the heating on on non-match days. ‘Could I go home half an hour early, today? After all, it is Christmas Eve. And Tiny Tom has physiotherapy.’
Tiny Tom had come to the club about six months before. He had been bullied because of his small frame and inability to stick the ball in the back of the net. Everyone had been pleased to see him when he arrived. But now he was ailing. He could barely pick out a man from ten yards, unmarked, and increasingly as the season went on, he would keep his head down and only play the safest of balls. Everyone thought that he wouldn’t make it past the winter, so sickly were his performances.
‘Go home early,’ repeated Wael sarcastically. ‘I don’t pay you slightly below minimum wage in order for you to go home early! In any case you need to search FIFA18 for a new left winger. Again.’
…
Later that evening, settling down in his bed at the Premier Inn Bristol Filton, which was handy for Parkway Station, he could hear the chill winter wind howling around the double glazing. Had Wael drifted off into sleep, or was he still awake when a loud sound started him, and the door to the bathroom flew open. ‘Bah, Humbug,’ exclaimed Wael, as the figure of Nick Higgs walked in from the bathroom, stark naked but for a towel with which he was drying some of his more intimate bits.
‘What are you doing here?’ said Higgs indignantly, ‘this is my room.’
Wael fumbled for his keycard, and offered it as evidence that this were indeed his room. ‘In any case,’ he pronounced bravely to the horrific apparition which stood dripping in front of him, ‘you are gone. I do not believe you are still here. They said the ghost of Nick Higgs would haunt me were I to buy the club. But I don’t believe in ghosts, or magic, or things like that. I believe in evolution.’
And with such a display of logic, the ghost of Nick Higgs was banished. It dwindled and faded in the air. Its face contorted as if in pain, as the remnants of the awful apparition dropped its towel and disappeared. And the only sound left on the air was the terrible preternatural wailing. ‘You-We! You-We!’ it seemed to say.
The First of the Three Spirits
Refusing to be moved by the strange visit of Nick Higgs, Wael settled his night cap and nestled into his bed clothes, and soon he was fast asleep, or so he may have wished. But not a moment passed (or was it an age) when two footballers burst into his room. Were they burglars? Could this be a smash and grab raid? They were carrying a Watney’s Party Seven which they were struggling to open, but still the worse for drink. ‘We hate you, we hate you,’ they seemed to be singing in their stupor. And Wael was afraid. But no, it was not that. ‘Eight-Two, Eight-Two’ it was. The two fellows, bedecked in yellow with black shorts and covered in mud, were celebrating a famous victory. ‘That might make a decent away kit,’ thought Wael.
‘We are the ghosts of Rovers Past,’ exclaimed the footballers. ‘This is what it’s all about . Muddy fields in September, Bovril and Kit-kats, both sets of fans in together having a banter, all good clean fun, having a few pints at half-time even if you were playing, crunching tackles, no diving, no money, open racism and getting your head kicked in. This is what it’s all about. This is the true spirit of football. Money can’t buy you that!’ they exclaimed with the air of strange spirits (Cinzano and Babycham, probably).
‘What about GPS?’ asked Wael rousing from his slumber, ‘and computer analysis. What about scientific diets and computer analysis? Physiotherapists with actual qualifications? Computer analysis, coaching badges and…’
The spirits' wailing drowned out Wael’s protestations. ‘What about flowers behind the goal? A spiritual home? Parking on the motorway. The feeling of belonging to a family? What about no buying and no selling, local players in your local team, everyone knowing each other, helping each other out, training on Eastville Park, change from two and six, taking three days to get to Burnley away?
‘Blimey, that’s a bit boring, you sound like a couple of clowns on an internet message board,’ thought Wael and fell back to sleep.
The Second of the Three Spirits
It was unclear to Wael exactly how long he had slept, but it was some time near the very darkest moment of the night when he was awoken once more. This time, it was not by two joyous footballers, nor by a naked Nick Higgs, but by a most terrible and wild creature. The feral form was covered in straggly hair, almost man but almost animal, and when it spoke it was barely intelligible. Was it some long extinct ancestor, or was it a monster from our worst nightmares. It was John-Joe O’Toole.
‘Alright’ he sniffed. ‘I’m too good for this level, probably, but I’ll show you round if you like.’
And suddenly they were transported. They were in the Mem car park. ‘Oh, please don’t hit me,’ said Wael. ‘Nah, don’t worry, it’s not that sort of car park meeting. This is to show you the true meaning of Rovers Present.’ JJ pulled his hair back and put it up in a pony-tail, and however terrible and wild he was with his hair all free and unkempt, seeing his face was kinda worse.
A few sad fans traipsed past on their way to the away end. There was only about thirty of them, they were from some non-league team, but the author couldn’t even be bothered to name them, so tiny, insignificant, and non-league were they. Probably Barnet, though, coz they seem to get upset about stuff like that.
‘Don’t look at me,’ said JJ, ‘if anyone offers me anything, I’ll be off. I’m good enough to be bottom of League 1 with Northampton, probably. That’s what I read in an Irish newspaper, anyway.'
And then, beyond the pair of them Wael spied a most preposterous vision. Of all the unearthly things, phantasms and spirits, jinns and spectres, that Wael saw in his imagination that night, this was by far the most terrible and by far the most unbelievable and by far the most inexplicable. For in the middle of the car park, there stood a dirt-white water-stained box, a sort of cabin wherein no doubt lay a drunken and debauched Father Christmas and outside proudly declaring itself, as if pride were a thing that this box could claim, ‘Santa’s Grotto.’
Wael woke with a start back in the Premier Inn Bristol Filton. ‘What the f**k,’ he exclaimed. ‘What the f**k, what the f**k, what the f**k did I just see?
The Last of the Spirits
And lastly, that night, a dark and gloomy spirit woke the president, and took him back to the Mem. The spirit was unseen, shrouded in a long black cloak that trailed in its wake like death. It took Wael by the hand and they turned off of Filton Avenue and walked slowly towards the Memorial Gates, as a condemned man walks towards the gallows.
And there by the gates was a great party. Many people all in red, barely able to make intelligible sounds ambled around, like crooked goblin folk. They were laughing and dancing. Some of them sprayed red paint upon the Memorial Gates. Some were setting fires. Some were having their way with close relatives in the nearby bushes. The red-clothed creatures were celebrating. They were in the Prem. ‘Yay, we are in the Prem,’ they shouted, because they didn’t have a lot of imagination and weren’t generally very eloquent.
Two sad-eyed orphans stood by, away from the crowd, they were dressed in ragged old Rovers kits from the late nineties, the last time they had had any hope, and as they watched the City fans celebrating, they began to cry. And Wael began to cry, too.
And as he did, the black-robed figure that had led him there threw off its dark cowl. ‘Ah-ha!’ it exclaimed, ‘I said there would come a time when they didn’t talk about Rovers anymore!’
The creature looked like death. It was grey and pale, yet for all its pallor it seemed to be rosy cheeked. The sinister blood of death and iniquity seemed to rise in its very visage, declaring its malignancy to all the world.
‘This is Rovers Future!’ it declared with glee. ‘Rovers are dead. It all started when you didn’t build UWE and sold Bodin!’ the spirit boasted.
‘I reckon we’ll be in Europe in three years,’ it said. ‘But I have to go now otherwise I’ll be liable for income tax.’ And it disappeared.
The End of It
And it was morning, Wael dressed quickly, and rushed down to breakfast because it was free with the room. But he knew what he must do. He quickly sent a text message to Hamer. ‘Hve day off but offer BBB x2 xxx.’ Then he sent another ‘offer him x3 srs’. Then he went to phone UWE.
And sure enough, by the time he had finished his call to UWE and made his way down Gloucester Road, the whole deal had been leaked. Fans were in the streets celebrating the fact that Rovers were going to build the UWE after all. Someone on a message board said it had been a master stroke of bluff and double bluff, and now Wael had saved us. Billy Bodin soon announced that he had agreed to a new three year deal with no buy-out clause. And everyone was laughing and dancing and singing Goodnight Irene. They even opened the Queen Vic one last time for the occasion.
And even Tiny Tom scored a goal. God bless them, everyone one. Well, the one, anyway.
Higgs was gone. There was no doubt about it. Everyone had said so. It had been on the BBC football site, Points West, the ITV news. Even the Bristol Post had cut and pasted something about it, probably. And now Wael was in charge.
It was with some trepidation that he climbed the many steps to the top of the Dribuild (or whatever it was called these days) to survey the ground. To his right there was the Blackthorn End (or whatever they called it these days), a proper stand for proper fans. And to his left, the South Stand (or whatever they called it these days), a sad, dismal tent. And Wael wondered, looking from left to right, and back again, do we really need to move grounds?
Then there was the pitch. It was mostly green, and the groundsman had done a decent job, considering, but it wasn’t Stamford Bridge. It was Christmas Eve and a busy Christmas schedule was sure to take its toll on the playing surface, thought Wael as he gazed out across to the West Stand (or whatever it was called these days).
And as Wael looked on, the cut-up clods, the bare earthy patches, the shallow puddles where we had been having trouble with drainage for the past few seasons, seemed to coalesce. They swirled around Wael’s brain and before his very eyes took on a terrible form. Large and foreboding, stout around the middle, and sort of shortish, the form seemed to be the very image of Nick Higgs.
Nick Higgs’ body, when everyone thought he was gone, was standing in the centre circle, under the dismal floodlights, seeming to shout a warning to Wael. It seemed to be saying ‘You-We!’, or something. Then just as suddenly, Wael was shaken from this reverie by the bing-bong man, just testing the pa equipment, in readiness for the Boxing Day game. Bing-Bong, flur blur di blrigits bnlur,’ the Bing-Bong man seemed to say. And Wael was once again aware of where he was. He hurried from the Dribuild Stand (or whatever it was called these days), wrapping his coat around him, and made his way to the club offices, in the dark heart beneath the stand.
Hamer was hard at work. Wael only paid him slightly below minimum wage, which he hoped might not be a problem going forward, although the investigation into low pay in football was probably going to dig that sad fact up sooner or later. Hamer looked up as Wael entered; he was scribbling a note to the youth development officer at Stoke City, or something.
‘I was wondering, Wael,’ he asked plaintively, his breath visible in the frigid air, we couldn’t afford to have the heating on on non-match days. ‘Could I go home half an hour early, today? After all, it is Christmas Eve. And Tiny Tom has physiotherapy.’
Tiny Tom had come to the club about six months before. He had been bullied because of his small frame and inability to stick the ball in the back of the net. Everyone had been pleased to see him when he arrived. But now he was ailing. He could barely pick out a man from ten yards, unmarked, and increasingly as the season went on, he would keep his head down and only play the safest of balls. Everyone thought that he wouldn’t make it past the winter, so sickly were his performances.
‘Go home early,’ repeated Wael sarcastically. ‘I don’t pay you slightly below minimum wage in order for you to go home early! In any case you need to search FIFA18 for a new left winger. Again.’
…
Later that evening, settling down in his bed at the Premier Inn Bristol Filton, which was handy for Parkway Station, he could hear the chill winter wind howling around the double glazing. Had Wael drifted off into sleep, or was he still awake when a loud sound started him, and the door to the bathroom flew open. ‘Bah, Humbug,’ exclaimed Wael, as the figure of Nick Higgs walked in from the bathroom, stark naked but for a towel with which he was drying some of his more intimate bits.
‘What are you doing here?’ said Higgs indignantly, ‘this is my room.’
Wael fumbled for his keycard, and offered it as evidence that this were indeed his room. ‘In any case,’ he pronounced bravely to the horrific apparition which stood dripping in front of him, ‘you are gone. I do not believe you are still here. They said the ghost of Nick Higgs would haunt me were I to buy the club. But I don’t believe in ghosts, or magic, or things like that. I believe in evolution.’
And with such a display of logic, the ghost of Nick Higgs was banished. It dwindled and faded in the air. Its face contorted as if in pain, as the remnants of the awful apparition dropped its towel and disappeared. And the only sound left on the air was the terrible preternatural wailing. ‘You-We! You-We!’ it seemed to say.
The First of the Three Spirits
Refusing to be moved by the strange visit of Nick Higgs, Wael settled his night cap and nestled into his bed clothes, and soon he was fast asleep, or so he may have wished. But not a moment passed (or was it an age) when two footballers burst into his room. Were they burglars? Could this be a smash and grab raid? They were carrying a Watney’s Party Seven which they were struggling to open, but still the worse for drink. ‘We hate you, we hate you,’ they seemed to be singing in their stupor. And Wael was afraid. But no, it was not that. ‘Eight-Two, Eight-Two’ it was. The two fellows, bedecked in yellow with black shorts and covered in mud, were celebrating a famous victory. ‘That might make a decent away kit,’ thought Wael.
‘We are the ghosts of Rovers Past,’ exclaimed the footballers. ‘This is what it’s all about . Muddy fields in September, Bovril and Kit-kats, both sets of fans in together having a banter, all good clean fun, having a few pints at half-time even if you were playing, crunching tackles, no diving, no money, open racism and getting your head kicked in. This is what it’s all about. This is the true spirit of football. Money can’t buy you that!’ they exclaimed with the air of strange spirits (Cinzano and Babycham, probably).
‘What about GPS?’ asked Wael rousing from his slumber, ‘and computer analysis. What about scientific diets and computer analysis? Physiotherapists with actual qualifications? Computer analysis, coaching badges and…’
The spirits' wailing drowned out Wael’s protestations. ‘What about flowers behind the goal? A spiritual home? Parking on the motorway. The feeling of belonging to a family? What about no buying and no selling, local players in your local team, everyone knowing each other, helping each other out, training on Eastville Park, change from two and six, taking three days to get to Burnley away?
‘Blimey, that’s a bit boring, you sound like a couple of clowns on an internet message board,’ thought Wael and fell back to sleep.
The Second of the Three Spirits
It was unclear to Wael exactly how long he had slept, but it was some time near the very darkest moment of the night when he was awoken once more. This time, it was not by two joyous footballers, nor by a naked Nick Higgs, but by a most terrible and wild creature. The feral form was covered in straggly hair, almost man but almost animal, and when it spoke it was barely intelligible. Was it some long extinct ancestor, or was it a monster from our worst nightmares. It was John-Joe O’Toole.
‘Alright’ he sniffed. ‘I’m too good for this level, probably, but I’ll show you round if you like.’
And suddenly they were transported. They were in the Mem car park. ‘Oh, please don’t hit me,’ said Wael. ‘Nah, don’t worry, it’s not that sort of car park meeting. This is to show you the true meaning of Rovers Present.’ JJ pulled his hair back and put it up in a pony-tail, and however terrible and wild he was with his hair all free and unkempt, seeing his face was kinda worse.
A few sad fans traipsed past on their way to the away end. There was only about thirty of them, they were from some non-league team, but the author couldn’t even be bothered to name them, so tiny, insignificant, and non-league were they. Probably Barnet, though, coz they seem to get upset about stuff like that.
‘Don’t look at me,’ said JJ, ‘if anyone offers me anything, I’ll be off. I’m good enough to be bottom of League 1 with Northampton, probably. That’s what I read in an Irish newspaper, anyway.'
And then, beyond the pair of them Wael spied a most preposterous vision. Of all the unearthly things, phantasms and spirits, jinns and spectres, that Wael saw in his imagination that night, this was by far the most terrible and by far the most unbelievable and by far the most inexplicable. For in the middle of the car park, there stood a dirt-white water-stained box, a sort of cabin wherein no doubt lay a drunken and debauched Father Christmas and outside proudly declaring itself, as if pride were a thing that this box could claim, ‘Santa’s Grotto.’
Wael woke with a start back in the Premier Inn Bristol Filton. ‘What the f**k,’ he exclaimed. ‘What the f**k, what the f**k, what the f**k did I just see?
The Last of the Spirits
And lastly, that night, a dark and gloomy spirit woke the president, and took him back to the Mem. The spirit was unseen, shrouded in a long black cloak that trailed in its wake like death. It took Wael by the hand and they turned off of Filton Avenue and walked slowly towards the Memorial Gates, as a condemned man walks towards the gallows.
And there by the gates was a great party. Many people all in red, barely able to make intelligible sounds ambled around, like crooked goblin folk. They were laughing and dancing. Some of them sprayed red paint upon the Memorial Gates. Some were setting fires. Some were having their way with close relatives in the nearby bushes. The red-clothed creatures were celebrating. They were in the Prem. ‘Yay, we are in the Prem,’ they shouted, because they didn’t have a lot of imagination and weren’t generally very eloquent.
Two sad-eyed orphans stood by, away from the crowd, they were dressed in ragged old Rovers kits from the late nineties, the last time they had had any hope, and as they watched the City fans celebrating, they began to cry. And Wael began to cry, too.
And as he did, the black-robed figure that had led him there threw off its dark cowl. ‘Ah-ha!’ it exclaimed, ‘I said there would come a time when they didn’t talk about Rovers anymore!’
The creature looked like death. It was grey and pale, yet for all its pallor it seemed to be rosy cheeked. The sinister blood of death and iniquity seemed to rise in its very visage, declaring its malignancy to all the world.
‘This is Rovers Future!’ it declared with glee. ‘Rovers are dead. It all started when you didn’t build UWE and sold Bodin!’ the spirit boasted.
‘I reckon we’ll be in Europe in three years,’ it said. ‘But I have to go now otherwise I’ll be liable for income tax.’ And it disappeared.
The End of It
And it was morning, Wael dressed quickly, and rushed down to breakfast because it was free with the room. But he knew what he must do. He quickly sent a text message to Hamer. ‘Hve day off but offer BBB x2 xxx.’ Then he sent another ‘offer him x3 srs’. Then he went to phone UWE.
And sure enough, by the time he had finished his call to UWE and made his way down Gloucester Road, the whole deal had been leaked. Fans were in the streets celebrating the fact that Rovers were going to build the UWE after all. Someone on a message board said it had been a master stroke of bluff and double bluff, and now Wael had saved us. Billy Bodin soon announced that he had agreed to a new three year deal with no buy-out clause. And everyone was laughing and dancing and singing Goodnight Irene. They even opened the Queen Vic one last time for the occasion.
And even Tiny Tom scored a goal. God bless them, everyone one. Well, the one, anyway.
