“Hargreaves. What fucking use is he?”
“Come aaaaaahhhhnnnn!!!“
“He fucking headbutted me first.”
“Leave it.”
“He fucking headbutted me!”
“Fight! Out the front, you cunt!”
A tide of people surged towards the back of the pub.
“Naaah. Out the back, mate. Come on, then. Come on!”
The tide instantly changed its mind and desurged towards the front of the pub. The fight commenced at the back of the pub. The tide then decided that it actually wasn’t in immediate physical danger itself, so would be better placed in its original position at the back of the pub, in order to get a better view. I began to feel sea-sick.
We leant on the bar. Inger-land type chanting surrounded us as we gazed up at the big screen.
“This is a midlife crisis thing, isn’t it?” pondered Short Tony.
I had to agree. But we all try to recapture our youth at some point, and for Big A this had meant organising us into the town centre of King’s Lynn to watch the football match with the proletariat. I have nothing against the proletariat as such, and in fact can be a bit proletariaty myself on occasions, but there is proletariat and proletariater, and we were in the proletariatist pub in town.
Big A stood at the bar, enraptured by the surroundings. “Roooooney!” he shouted.
“Rooooooney!!!” shouted everybody, except me, who said “a pint of bitter, please.”
They was no bitter, so I had a Guinness instead. I really only usually drink in the Village Pub, and this place didn’t really seem to have much to recommend it in comparison, apart from it had a really big screen showing the football, the beer was cheaper, there were lots of fit women in there, there was a pool table and the barmaids were better looking and more likely to sleep with you than the Chipper Barman would, even if he had been drinking heavily or you offered him some chips.
A bemulleted youth, draped in a St George’s flag and with an England top hat, leapt around all over the place, unable to contain himself. “England!!! England!!!”. He approached a man who was standing quietly, watching intently. “Come on!!! Come on, give us some chanting!!! You gotta have passion.“
“Fuck off.”
I continued my beer, reflecting that there is no better sight in life than that of a crestfallen twat.