Fellow great escapees of a black and white hue, concur without embarrassment or delay that being aligned to The Fulham Football Club is, at times, a pleasure akin to squatting on the very doorstep of Number 1, Heaven Place, dressed in one’s craftiest schmutter, whilst chomping nonchalantly on a freshly-baked Banana Inbetween from the Well Bread bakery.
Even I, playing fast and loose with Mr. Einstein’s enshrined decrees as I am wont to do, could not have conjured an ‘up’ from a ‘down’; but that is what our esteemed Mr. Hodgson somehow managed to achieve. And we are all, are we not, still feeling ourselves borne aloft on the balmy zephyr of exultation that emanated from that logic-defying feat.
So, my post-celebratory, premier-league-dwelling chums, where in the name of Mr. Murphy’s numinous noodle have I been?
Developing a steam-powered pencil-sharpener?
Playing Yahtzee! with the Glitter Band’s drum technician?
Wrong times two my chipper little sticklebacks.
But fret not, and quell your collective curiosity forthwith. Replace your foaming pints of wallop upon the nearest table, and allow your befuddled craniums to become becalmed.
For I continue to dwell, as I always will, within the Fulham demimonde. I cannot leave, and it cannot leave me.
The simple, copper-plated fact of it all, is that I’ve been nowhere of note, doing nothing noteworthy, not knowing nor caring what is not mine to negotiate. But that’s fine and I’m a little dandy: for it’s the more prosaic pursuits what throw the highlights of our little lives into such sharp relief, is it not?
Whilst your still bathing in the fragrant cloud of existential clarity that I’ve just expelled, I shall pencil in a little detail for the more bewildered amongst you.
Specifically, I‘ve been populating this typically barren between-season hinterland with my usual concerns: limping gamely along the glorious thoroughfares of this parish (Racton, Ringmer, Hestercombe – why, the very names chime) whilst seeking variegated detritus to sell in an illegal under-age fashion at Ma’s stall; throwing sprouting tubers and bruised Delbard Estivales at unwelcome market interlopers; and pining like an unlicked pup for the flower-seller’s daughter.
When not engaging in any or all of the above, I gad about in a dim and unguarded manner, aspiring to mirth and mischief with my like-witted pals. Polishing door-knockers for cash, admiring Miss Wetherby’s (next door-but-one) furbelow, and sabotaging understrappers from rival manors with cunning ruses.
But without doubt, the most fruitful excursion of recent weeks was on that singularly effulgent Sunday in May. The one that’s branded itself upon our memories forevermore. Me and my chuckle-headed pal, Lil’ Larkins, well, we jigged ourselves into a deranged, hyperventilating delirium in the garden of the Golden Lion that day. Fuelled by a bevy of bracing cordials, we fizzed like a brace of 5 year-olds dosed-up on ‘E’ numbers.
Afterwards we repaired, pleasantly spent, to Bishop’s Park. By now, my braces were sagging, and the Larkins’ whipple hat was flaccid from the absorption of a continuous rain of airborne ale, sent into orbit by the carousing throng.
But we didn’t care: we were in raptures.
Woozy in the afterglow, we spent a few shining hours constructing a life-sized effigy of the aforementioned Mr. H. from discarded cardboard clappers, right there in the shadow of the ground. It was a famous creation, fashioned in gratitude and respect, and if it survives the attentions of the local mutts, it could well become a pre-match shrine for the Cottage-bound faithful.
I know where I’ll be worshipping next season.
See you soon if not before!
Flamin’ scallions and Up The Fulham!
Monday 16 June 2008
Friday 11 April 2008
Meringues & Malingerers
Fellow Fulham-leaning down-in-the-mouths.
We remain, do we not, collectively hunkered down ‘neath the swirling clouds of foreboding what’s spiralling up from the Stevenage Road environs; the fallout of this wretched season settling on our psyches like toxic dust on lush foliage.
I reckon soon they’ll need to create a dedicated FFC ward at the Royal Hospital & Home for Incurables, Putney. Padded in black and white it’ll be, with restraints on the beds, and Andy Williams crooning on a never-ending loop.
For solace, I’ve been petting the flower-seller’s daughter’s Maine Coon. It’s a mutually-beneficial pursuit: the cat likes it, and I get to loiter around the lass with the latch-keys to my heart. One day she’ll notice me.
Those of you that have no recourse to feline fondling, consider this lively tonic:
Strip to your skin. Then, patiently re-adorn yourself in your dandiest schmutter. Flick a freshly-laundered silk fogle over your forehead, assume a forthright aspect, and inhale defiantly.
Now re-established, cast a panoramic eye over all the associated joys of your lives in order to swathe these prevailing football-flavoured agonies in a contextualising blanket. This dilemma won’t seem so bad then.
Newly invigorated, reward yourselves with a cunning shufti at my humble lexicon before life swindles you irretrievably.
But first, I sense you wondering where I have been.
Playing gin rummy with a tripe dresser in the back of a maroon Morris Oxford?
Skinny-dipping in a teacup outside Lotte Berk’s?
No, I’ve been needling away at life, with only my innately retarded glee to chivvy me along, spending most of my time, yes, looking like I’ve just found a badger’s nest and can’t stop laughing at the eggs.
But even the slow workings of my dense noggin have revealed to me that, as a club, we most assuredly have our eyebrows on the Queen’s iron. Yes, we are incarcerated in relegation chokey, gazing ‘tween the unforgiving bars as the Premiership escapees gambol in the exercise yard.
Now, I’m not about to drown myself in a half-empty glass of misery water – life has too many greater tragedies to warrant dangling oneself like a human pendulum from Bishop’s Park’s sturdiest bough - but recalling pleasurable instances from this season is like trying to extract winkles with a claw-hammer.
I think it’s true to say that by now the whites are well and truly beaten. Perhaps this is what you get from trying to make a meringue with addled eggs? And who is the man wielding the whisk of blame: Commis Chef Sanchez, or Head Chef Hodgson?
It’s a queer old kitchen whichever serving hatch you look through.
And yet, the sterile parish of Reading calls me thither.
Are we to witness once more a gaggle of flimsy malingerers defiling the sacred black and white? Or will they rally, like the condemned man granted a last repast at the foot of the scaffold?
Whatever the conclusion to this miserable procession of performances, we remain shackled to the source of our misery, for better or worse. All spouses lose their looks eventually, but love, if unconditional, will prevail.
As for making a weekend in Burnley or Barnsley romantic: now there’s a challenge to consider.
Flamin’ scallions and Up The Fulham!
We remain, do we not, collectively hunkered down ‘neath the swirling clouds of foreboding what’s spiralling up from the Stevenage Road environs; the fallout of this wretched season settling on our psyches like toxic dust on lush foliage.
I reckon soon they’ll need to create a dedicated FFC ward at the Royal Hospital & Home for Incurables, Putney. Padded in black and white it’ll be, with restraints on the beds, and Andy Williams crooning on a never-ending loop.
For solace, I’ve been petting the flower-seller’s daughter’s Maine Coon. It’s a mutually-beneficial pursuit: the cat likes it, and I get to loiter around the lass with the latch-keys to my heart. One day she’ll notice me.
Those of you that have no recourse to feline fondling, consider this lively tonic:
Strip to your skin. Then, patiently re-adorn yourself in your dandiest schmutter. Flick a freshly-laundered silk fogle over your forehead, assume a forthright aspect, and inhale defiantly.
Now re-established, cast a panoramic eye over all the associated joys of your lives in order to swathe these prevailing football-flavoured agonies in a contextualising blanket. This dilemma won’t seem so bad then.
Newly invigorated, reward yourselves with a cunning shufti at my humble lexicon before life swindles you irretrievably.
But first, I sense you wondering where I have been.
Playing gin rummy with a tripe dresser in the back of a maroon Morris Oxford?
Skinny-dipping in a teacup outside Lotte Berk’s?
No, I’ve been needling away at life, with only my innately retarded glee to chivvy me along, spending most of my time, yes, looking like I’ve just found a badger’s nest and can’t stop laughing at the eggs.
But even the slow workings of my dense noggin have revealed to me that, as a club, we most assuredly have our eyebrows on the Queen’s iron. Yes, we are incarcerated in relegation chokey, gazing ‘tween the unforgiving bars as the Premiership escapees gambol in the exercise yard.
Now, I’m not about to drown myself in a half-empty glass of misery water – life has too many greater tragedies to warrant dangling oneself like a human pendulum from Bishop’s Park’s sturdiest bough - but recalling pleasurable instances from this season is like trying to extract winkles with a claw-hammer.
I think it’s true to say that by now the whites are well and truly beaten. Perhaps this is what you get from trying to make a meringue with addled eggs? And who is the man wielding the whisk of blame: Commis Chef Sanchez, or Head Chef Hodgson?
It’s a queer old kitchen whichever serving hatch you look through.
And yet, the sterile parish of Reading calls me thither.
Are we to witness once more a gaggle of flimsy malingerers defiling the sacred black and white? Or will they rally, like the condemned man granted a last repast at the foot of the scaffold?
Whatever the conclusion to this miserable procession of performances, we remain shackled to the source of our misery, for better or worse. All spouses lose their looks eventually, but love, if unconditional, will prevail.
As for making a weekend in Burnley or Barnsley romantic: now there’s a challenge to consider.
Flamin’ scallions and Up The Fulham!
Wednesday 27 February 2008
Mutton & Materialism
Debauched friends, grant me a pause in your wallop-soaked badinage, and allow me to decant these musings into your gaping maws.
Yesterday morning, as I idled along Fabian Road toeing a bundle of rags I’d snitched from the recycling bank, I visualised myself as an elegant arabesque of poise and balance. In actuality, I lumbered forwards lop-sided as a paper kite.
I was on my way to Maisie Cloves’s flat in the Samuel Lewis Trust Dwellings. Ma had sent me there to collect an upside-down shallot tart that Maisie had baked for her in return for disinfecting her chute.
I was anxious. Although antiquated and barely six stone seven-pence, Maisie is a redoubtable article, especially to a diffident, short-harrissed chit like me. Keen as a Loch Fyne kipper and wiry as a whippet’s whisker, she looks like she’s had an onion and chive pasty inserted under the skin of each upper arm, so proud are her biceps.
Even today, she could strangle a goose with one hand, whilst churning her cast iron mangle with the other. It’s little wonder she was the North End Road carpet-beating champion of 1947. The dust devils she conjured from that finely-woven Oriental throw were still swirling through the neighbouring streets the following day. Residents along Lillie Road thought that hostilities had resumed, and that a radiation-tinged miasma was descending upon the Fulham borders.
Her physique is the product of long days toiling as a stove blacker on Strutton Ground, longer evenings ironing pound notes on Cold Blow Lane. Back then, it was blunt maternal devotion that enabled her to put steam and prayers on the table for the four hungry children whose scruffs she was single-handedly responsible for.
Her selflessness and fortitude got me thinking about professional footballers, and how flimsy and acquisitive most of ‘em are. Instead of seeing solemn endeavour as a reward in itself, they crave ostentatious baubles of every voguish brand: mock-croc washbags; vulgar, plate-sized timepieces; and a Bentley on a stick, "to go."
These days, there’s pressure on us to acquire every jot and tittle what’s dangled it front of our little lamps. We all know the devil’s in the retail, and these fellers have got more coinage than their tufnells can contain.
Yet, how flaky they present when confronted with adversity. They buckle and fold like cheap umbrellas in a squall.
It’s a shame that Mr. Vuitton doesn’t sell own-brand “hard work”, or the House of Gucci knock out Limited Edition “gumption”. Maybe then these players might be tempted to spend some of their easy-earned cutter on something less frivolous, and of a tad more merit to us long-suffering supporters.
I know it’s not like I’ve got any choice, but I don’t particularly hanker for this consumerist society’s over-egged desiderata. A well-turned trouser: yes. A sturdy-soled brogue: naturally.
Most days however, a fresh mutton fritter and a swig of Heathen’s Disdain and I’m as chuffed as a butler in the buff. Yet even those paltry delights cost copper. If we’re talking bona fide buckshee, there’s always a firm-handed ruffle of the hair from a kindly market aproneer; that, and a benign wink from their autumny eyes, and I’m set steady for the rest of the day.
Despite my parsimonious leanings, if Mr. Jimmy manages to whistle in another one of those speculative benders on Saturday, I’ll gladly shower him with all my worldies. A meagre pledge, I know, considering there are days when I struggle to muster tuppence, but if he delivers, watch out for fifteen pair of threadbare braces raining down on the Bullard bonce.
Anyway, mustn’t dwell, Ma’ll have my giblets for mincemeat if she notices I've sloped away.
Flamin’ scallions and Up The Fulham!
Yesterday morning, as I idled along Fabian Road toeing a bundle of rags I’d snitched from the recycling bank, I visualised myself as an elegant arabesque of poise and balance. In actuality, I lumbered forwards lop-sided as a paper kite.
I was on my way to Maisie Cloves’s flat in the Samuel Lewis Trust Dwellings. Ma had sent me there to collect an upside-down shallot tart that Maisie had baked for her in return for disinfecting her chute.
I was anxious. Although antiquated and barely six stone seven-pence, Maisie is a redoubtable article, especially to a diffident, short-harrissed chit like me. Keen as a Loch Fyne kipper and wiry as a whippet’s whisker, she looks like she’s had an onion and chive pasty inserted under the skin of each upper arm, so proud are her biceps.
Even today, she could strangle a goose with one hand, whilst churning her cast iron mangle with the other. It’s little wonder she was the North End Road carpet-beating champion of 1947. The dust devils she conjured from that finely-woven Oriental throw were still swirling through the neighbouring streets the following day. Residents along Lillie Road thought that hostilities had resumed, and that a radiation-tinged miasma was descending upon the Fulham borders.
Her physique is the product of long days toiling as a stove blacker on Strutton Ground, longer evenings ironing pound notes on Cold Blow Lane. Back then, it was blunt maternal devotion that enabled her to put steam and prayers on the table for the four hungry children whose scruffs she was single-handedly responsible for.
Her selflessness and fortitude got me thinking about professional footballers, and how flimsy and acquisitive most of ‘em are. Instead of seeing solemn endeavour as a reward in itself, they crave ostentatious baubles of every voguish brand: mock-croc washbags; vulgar, plate-sized timepieces; and a Bentley on a stick, "to go."
These days, there’s pressure on us to acquire every jot and tittle what’s dangled it front of our little lamps. We all know the devil’s in the retail, and these fellers have got more coinage than their tufnells can contain.
Yet, how flaky they present when confronted with adversity. They buckle and fold like cheap umbrellas in a squall.
It’s a shame that Mr. Vuitton doesn’t sell own-brand “hard work”, or the House of Gucci knock out Limited Edition “gumption”. Maybe then these players might be tempted to spend some of their easy-earned cutter on something less frivolous, and of a tad more merit to us long-suffering supporters.
I know it’s not like I’ve got any choice, but I don’t particularly hanker for this consumerist society’s over-egged desiderata. A well-turned trouser: yes. A sturdy-soled brogue: naturally.
Most days however, a fresh mutton fritter and a swig of Heathen’s Disdain and I’m as chuffed as a butler in the buff. Yet even those paltry delights cost copper. If we’re talking bona fide buckshee, there’s always a firm-handed ruffle of the hair from a kindly market aproneer; that, and a benign wink from their autumny eyes, and I’m set steady for the rest of the day.
Despite my parsimonious leanings, if Mr. Jimmy manages to whistle in another one of those speculative benders on Saturday, I’ll gladly shower him with all my worldies. A meagre pledge, I know, considering there are days when I struggle to muster tuppence, but if he delivers, watch out for fifteen pair of threadbare braces raining down on the Bullard bonce.
Anyway, mustn’t dwell, Ma’ll have my giblets for mincemeat if she notices I've sloped away.
Flamin’ scallions and Up The Fulham!
Monday 21 January 2008
Comrades & Corsairs
Rainy days and Mondays getting you down, fellow Fulhamers?
Where have I been, I hear you speculate as you toss back another thimbleful of whisky to deaden the black and white ache that afflicts us all.
Indeed, my anguished allies, where have I been?
Deflowering pious spinsters in a secluded rotunda?
Practising the lindy hop on Holcroft Pavement?
No, not in any way or by any manner, my little piccalillis. When not flinging chipped oxbloods at Lil’ Larkins, I’ve been wiggling a butter knife in the slot of the old honesty box to extract a few opinions for you.
And it’s my sincere view that football down Fulham way is something of a hard-fought field at the moment. Our boys were certainly given the runaround this last Saturday - and I ain’t talking about gruff cockney Mike Reid’s deranged televisual shenanigans – ‘though that’s what our band of midfield munchkins recalled at times. Mr. Murphy and his mates may as well have been milking pigeons.
And now it feels like our whole season is disappearing backwards down a muddy track strapped to the roof rack of a rusting Ford Corsair. And we all know who the stern-rimmed chauffeur is that reversed us into that quagmire, don’t we.
By the players demeanour you’d think they were sitting in the back of a cart trundling up Holborn Hill, on a one-way trip to Tyburn. The prevailing fear is that they’ll be collectively up for the final drop come season-end. It might have provided entertainment for our Victorian ancestors, but that’s one grisly spectacle I don’t want to witness.
It appears that rank disenchantment ain’t just the preserve of grumpy-eyed fussbuckets anymore: it’s afflicted all of us. Even perennially philosophical ganders like me.
Well, I know it’s true that I spend most of my time looking like I can’t help it - I’m just a cork-brained hemp whose marrowbones knock like they’re grinding mustard when I walk - but I think I like Mr. Hodge.
I’m particularly tickled by the way he articulates that little roll on his ‘r’s. It makes him sound like a particularly well-to-do Dickensian philanthropist. Whereas The Sanch bristled, all Kray-flavoured authoritarian menace, RH resembles an esteemed professor, imparting good and bad tidings with clinical equanimity.
You’ve just got to hope that a manager that uses words like “mendacity” and “Churchillian” without flinching, is similarly erudite with regard to footballing matters.
Anyway chums, I’m off to bathe in the limpid refrains of migrating curlews, whilst having my feet lathered by voluptuous concubines.
Ha! Ha! Not really mates! More like rummaging around in the decaying organic detritus what lines the floor of North End Road for the rest of the day or, at least, until the streetlights flicker on, refracting through the drizzle, and Ma comes a-calling for me.
In the meantime, cultivate comradeliness and keep ‘em keen: the revival’s on it’s way!
Flamin’ scallions and Up The Fulham!
Where have I been, I hear you speculate as you toss back another thimbleful of whisky to deaden the black and white ache that afflicts us all.
Indeed, my anguished allies, where have I been?
Deflowering pious spinsters in a secluded rotunda?
Practising the lindy hop on Holcroft Pavement?
No, not in any way or by any manner, my little piccalillis. When not flinging chipped oxbloods at Lil’ Larkins, I’ve been wiggling a butter knife in the slot of the old honesty box to extract a few opinions for you.
And it’s my sincere view that football down Fulham way is something of a hard-fought field at the moment. Our boys were certainly given the runaround this last Saturday - and I ain’t talking about gruff cockney Mike Reid’s deranged televisual shenanigans – ‘though that’s what our band of midfield munchkins recalled at times. Mr. Murphy and his mates may as well have been milking pigeons.
And now it feels like our whole season is disappearing backwards down a muddy track strapped to the roof rack of a rusting Ford Corsair. And we all know who the stern-rimmed chauffeur is that reversed us into that quagmire, don’t we.
By the players demeanour you’d think they were sitting in the back of a cart trundling up Holborn Hill, on a one-way trip to Tyburn. The prevailing fear is that they’ll be collectively up for the final drop come season-end. It might have provided entertainment for our Victorian ancestors, but that’s one grisly spectacle I don’t want to witness.
It appears that rank disenchantment ain’t just the preserve of grumpy-eyed fussbuckets anymore: it’s afflicted all of us. Even perennially philosophical ganders like me.
Well, I know it’s true that I spend most of my time looking like I can’t help it - I’m just a cork-brained hemp whose marrowbones knock like they’re grinding mustard when I walk - but I think I like Mr. Hodge.
I’m particularly tickled by the way he articulates that little roll on his ‘r’s. It makes him sound like a particularly well-to-do Dickensian philanthropist. Whereas The Sanch bristled, all Kray-flavoured authoritarian menace, RH resembles an esteemed professor, imparting good and bad tidings with clinical equanimity.
You’ve just got to hope that a manager that uses words like “mendacity” and “Churchillian” without flinching, is similarly erudite with regard to footballing matters.
Anyway chums, I’m off to bathe in the limpid refrains of migrating curlews, whilst having my feet lathered by voluptuous concubines.
Ha! Ha! Not really mates! More like rummaging around in the decaying organic detritus what lines the floor of North End Road for the rest of the day or, at least, until the streetlights flicker on, refracting through the drizzle, and Ma comes a-calling for me.
In the meantime, cultivate comradeliness and keep ‘em keen: the revival’s on it’s way!
Flamin’ scallions and Up The Fulham!
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