Frying Pans & Felons

Two-one.

One-two.

Two-in-one. Two for the price of one. Two become one.

Curse that squalid combination in all it’s manifestations, eh, Black and Whiters? Together, it’s been no less than a hex on our season thus far.

But, negative mathematical karma aside, last Saturday came and it went, and that’s a fully-upholstered fact.

Despite the sadness of stepping outside the boundaries of my beautiful SW6 for a day, me and my brogues limped into Aston with a cheerful aspect.

With time in hand, I sat down in the park by the ground to savour a pre-match spread; a tart blackberry sherbet, and a chive and parsnip pasty done my palate proud. It was mildly idyllic save for the M6 droning away over my shoulder.

Mid-tucker, an elderly fellow wandered past (be-suited, and smart as shoeshine he was), and nodded a greeting. He had the beginnings of a dowager’s hump, it’s true, but for eighty years old he was sprightly and bright enough to be the envy of all of us thruppeny squirts.

He stepped off the path and wandered over for a spot of chin music.

On learning of my London leaning, he recounted how he once lived in Stoke Newington and was married to one of the Christies.

My noggin creaked and groaned as it tried to place the name. No! Surely not! Your wife wasn’t related to that murderous wrong ‘un from Rillington Place, I asked him?

No, he said, Christie’s that world famous auction house dynasty. Oh well, you must be quids in then mister, I thought, hastily scribbling a begging letter behind my back.

The damn and blast of it is, that he didn’t find out his wife had the keys to the vault ‘til after they’d separated. Going once, going twice…a lifetime of regret sold to the dapper gentleman with the stoop!

He also related how he had once worked in The Castle on City Road and, following a bit of a hoo-ha involving the Kray twins, turfed the monozygotic maulers out and sent them packing all the way back to Valance Road, despite frantic mimes from the landlord to the contrary. What a terror!

Talking of villains, that stadium of theirs was like nothing more than one big frying pan, weren’t it, my overcooked chums. I kept expecting a giant-sized Ainsley Harriot to suddenly loom up over the Holte End, and toss in a touch of Tabaso.

And what was cooking in that pan (apart from us Cottagers lined up around the edge like sizzling little shallots), but one enormous footballing curate’s egg.

How can our mighty boys be so fluent, so imposing, and so tenacious for a spell, and then a single segment of orange later, become so gossamer-thin, so ephemeral, and so infuriatingly will-o’-the-wisp?

That’s a quandary to ponder, if ever I met one.

And ponder it I did as I stood there, post-defeat, ‘neath that incessant Birmingham sun, getting slowly casseroled whilst waiting for one of the two omnibuses provided to escort a near stadium-full of souls back to the city centre.

And tho’ the scene indeed resembled something Biblical, the feeding of the five thousand it weren’t.

With that in mind, and if not before then after, I’ll see you for the joust with Jolly’s boys at the weekend.

Flamin’ scallions and Up The Fulham!

Dislocations & Daydreams

Subdued Autumnal-type tidings, cottaging crew-mates.

I’ve been taking time out from pie-eyeing all the glad-ragged polonies mewling and gassing along North End Road, to ponder the strange and raggedy start to our season.

I spent much of yesterday idling by the parapet at the mid-point of Mr Bazalgette’s beautiful bridge, gazing most of the day long into that eternal tide.

It’s a unique set-up, and that’s no lie, what with having a church poised at either end. Yet, despite this reassuring symmetry, I was feeling a tad dislocated, as is the way with some of our players’ limbs at the moment.

Stripping fibrous strands from a stick of celery and letting the wind lift them from my fingers, I watched them see-saw down into the ebbing flow beneath. As I did so, I wondered within my adolescent bean if our fortunes were going to be the same: unpredictable and inconsistent, prey to sly-eyed forces beyond our control.

Have the Fates formed an anti-Fulham federation? Are they, clad in luminous shirts (you know the ones), whispering viciously even now as they plot to undo Mr. Lawrie’s grand plan?

Or, will that very plan be shown to be little more than “sound and fury, signifying nothing”?

The screech of a number 14 arrested my reverie, and prevented (hallelujah!) the formation of yet another tawdry metaphor for you to negotiate.

Enough! I challenged myself. There’s been too much dwelling in penny-farthing hells, too much belly-aching, and too much hangdogging around here.

So, grasp the nettle and follow me to far-off Aston. And when we win, I’ll be standing you all a slice of cob and a celebratory quaff of tar water.

As sure as shallots, I’ll see you there!

Flamin’ scallions and Up The Fulham!

Sparklers & Squibs

Quit cabbaging, dozing associates of mine, I’m pregnant!

Pregnant with anticipation that is!

Did you really think I’d casually scuppered eons of evolution with a mere semantic bauble!

The blue touch-paper of the forthcoming season is about to be lit and I, for one, am not about to retire to a safe distance. Fertilised or not, I’m gonna be cheering for two, and that’s not even close to a lie.

I’m keen as kippers to get my sticky mittens on Mr Sanchez’s newly-purchased little sparklers. Will they be exciting sixpenny fizzers, or the same old damp squibs?

Can I now limp game-wards with some freshly-laundered hope in my ticket pocket? Arrive with renewed promise reflecting in the gleaming, elbow-greased, toes of my brogans?

Whatever the prospect, my favourite half-lined trousers will be there this Sunday coming, and I’ll make pig-sure I’m inside ‘em, dressed and ready for the set-to with Wenger’s Originals.

Once inside, I’ll be carousing around the aisles in my steam-fresh, cadet-grey whipple hat. I’ll be freely distributing punnets of hand-picked, locally-grown, nouns and verbs from within my trusty tan leather valise, for you all to construct your own, personalised, pro-Fulhamer chants with.

If things start to turn a little queer late in the game, I’ll have an emergency supply of potent expletives ready to pass around for you to curse the footballin’ gods with. Handle them with care though - you might wake the gooners!

So prepare yourself, chums; it’s time to pull the ring finger of fate.

Flamin’ scallions and Up The Fulham!