| The Warky League One Report: Oxford United (h) 14:38 - Feb 23 with 1497 views | Warkystache |
There I sat, in pusillanimous solitude, watching old episodes of 'Minder' on some catch-up channel with an emptying bottle of half-decent Merlot and a lip-stained wine glass, my dark red moustache deepening with each sip like a small kid with a beaker of Ribena. As Friday's go, it wasn't perhaps the greatest night.
Tel stood me up. We'd agreed a Friday meet back when he had doubts about his job. Ironically, for a bloke who specialises in good predictions on a football bet slip, he'd failed to foresee the likelihood of a working Saturday. It meant, although he was available for the usual curry'n'chat, he couldn't have a beer with it. Lest he lose his licence. True, zero alcohol beers were available, but the disdain in his voice when I mentioned this on Friday evening when he called me back was the very match of your average SBR Lower fan on Will Keane. He didn't quite swear, but the sentiments were the same.
He couldn't make Saturday either, or today. "Wife wants ter go'n'see Tone and Sandy on Sundy so we're 'avin' a night in on Sat'dy, bit'o' fish'n'chips from the chippie in Mann'tree an' probly summink rubbish on the telly, few beers'n'tha'". He paused, and coughed down the line, making me go temporarily deaf. "Fink ah'm geddin' a cold" he said, dubiously. "Still, we'll 'ave summink nex' weekend ter make up ferrit. Ah'll ring yer in the week". With that he rang off, his footy bet added to mine on his account via his Samsung mobile.
The week had started so propitiously. He had two days off, so we went down the pub on Monday night when I drove home. I've had a few 'issues' at work this week which meant time spent with my manager in what he likes to call his 'meeting room' and what the staff all call the 'B*llock Parlour' on account of it being the sort of room he favours to impart his constructive criticism. It's not a nice room. The blinds have been broken for a while now and the Canaletto print on the right wall has faded like our promotion run. The rubber plant in the far corner now gathers dust as its main duty. I've cocked up a bit recently. Nothing bad, but more than once, on stuff I should know and do almost like an automaton. He wondered if 'everything was alright?' in tones I'd expect a psychiatrist breaks the ice with once you're settled on the leather couch.
Truth is, I'm bored. But I'm also lazy. This is a bad combination. It means I keep rotating in the same rut, like my dad's old vinyl LP of "Astral Weeks" used to on our record player when I was a kid. Madam George went on and on, into infinity, until you realised you'd heard the same bit about fifteen times in a row. Then you jogged the stylus and it skipped to the middle of Slim Slow Slider with the sort of screech The Dukes of Hazzard used to make in the General Lee, and you got shouted at by a short-fused parent. Then the vinyl was recovered, tenderly, and slipped back into the paper sleeve with a reverence he rarely showed to any other inanimate object, me included.
So 'everything wasn't alright'. But I lied and said it was, too drained to be bothered scrutinising why. I'd just had a bad week. It was 'one of those things'. I was tired after the long commute and days spent refereeing the deep grudges and personal spats between staff and junior managers. I didn't say that, of course. I made up some rubbish that I now cringe at. He believed me. We parted on good terms and he mentioned, casually, that he and the wife were having a dinner party in a few weeks, at their new home in Solihull, and would I like to come as a guest? I mentally pictured wife swapping orgies and cheese and pineapple on sticks with Black Tower wine. I must have smiled, because before the mental image of me being led by his wife, in her best Victoria's Secrets bra and knickers to their bedroom by my tie had faded, he said "Good. I'll be in touch" and was gone.
So, treated with the sort of kindness that staff and managers treat their underperforming embarrassments to, I left early on Friday. I rang Tel to meet up, and he rang me back, sounding as though he were simultaneously calling me whilst riding shotgun on the wall of death. "Speakt'yer later" he screamed through the background noise. "Ah'm jus' leavin' Wroxham wiv 'alf'a'load'o'trellisin'" Then he was gone.
He called back in an hour. "Ah'm at some Maccy D's near Thetford. Callum fancid a Big Mac, though 'e's bin in there abart fifteen minits so I reckon 'e's 'avin' a dump'n'all. Wotcher want anyway?" I wondered if he was free to meet up at the pub. "Nah, working' termorra, can't drink like an' I gotta drop these at some place near Noomarkit by six ternite". We chatted, as above. I wendered home, stopping at the local Tesco for wine and the makings of a single supper, half-heartedly sticking it on my credit card as my bank balance looked a bit thin.
Saturday dawned, with a bracing wind and Constable sky. I did some cleaning and hoovering and washing and fed the birds, all in a sort of haze of stale alcohol hangover and the smell of nicotine.
The time for footy dawned quickly and I walked in a stiff breeze to the station, my coat flapping like Craig Forrest at a deep cross. I met with my mates in the pub at 12pm. We had rather a lot to drink. By 2.45, I was rolling out, more than three sheets to the wind, teeth numb, alcohol slopping in my guts like my clothes in my washer. The ground was thronged with people. It could've been three quarters ablaze, frankly. I fumbled for my season card from my wallet and gave it to the girl on the gates. I went through sideways (I'm too fat for face first these days sadly) and up the flight marked 'Seats 92-106' to my perch just higher than the goal in SBRL.
The police had been noticeably more present in the town and I wondered if Oxford had a bit of a reputation. The thought was easily dismissed. It was Oxford, the town of Brideshead, Morse, quaint colleges and DM'd students. It wasn't Millwall. Even accepting that this was their big day out, they'd hardly have come reinforced by local louts. A pint of best and a few murders solved by old and young coppers, that was their trademark.
We started well. Then the fact we hadn't scored began to grate. I settled for drunken amusements, trying to hit Dolly's bald bonce with the packet of fluff-ridden extra-strong mints I found in my coat pocket. Then they scored, and the sudden, drunken, realisation that we were 1-0 down to this lot began to sober me.
I left on 88 minutes. It was obvious we wouldn't be troubling their goalie. Several others had the same idea. I floated back to the railway station, very red-faced and cold. I missed Tel. He'd have said something crass and angry, no doubt, and he'd have annoyed me, no doubt at all. But it would have been good to have seen him.
I went down the pub instead, watching the late game (Leicester?) with half an eye, slurping another beer and wincing at the incipient headache. The blokes playing pool jeered at our loss. They became matey when they saw my face. I eventually left at half eight, drunk again. I stopped for a takeaway curry and walked it home, reheating it in my oven. I plopped open another bottle of wine and carried on with 'Minder'.
Back to the regime tomorrow. Must think up an excuse why I can't make Solihull. But mustn't make it one of the ones I've used for skiving a sick day. It's a tricky feat. Trickier than making the League One Play-Off's when you should really be winning the bloody league. Still. Can't win 'em all.
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| The Warky League One Report: Oxford United (h) on 15:57 - Feb 23 with 1411 views | strikalite |
Great as always Warky...
"Truth is, I'm bored. But I'm also lazy. This is a bad combination. It means I keep rotating in the same rut"......yep, that's certainly me too..
Loved this..." my coat flapping like Craig Forrest at a deep cross."....... |  | | |
| The Warky League One Report: Oxford United (h) on 16:50 - Feb 23 with 1369 views | Ace_High1 |
Another great read, although I often read your reports and think wow he does like a drink! |  | | |
| The Warky League One Report: Oxford United (h) on 17:05 - Feb 23 with 1337 views | BanksterDebtSlave |
You should go.....take him a pampas grass! |  |
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