OCCUPIED COUNTRY

Sport (The Odd Boy)

Go on – look the title up !

3rd form at the local grammar school, around 1967-68. Picture the scene: It’s just after ‘games’ – football if I remember correctly. Around 40 to 50 13 and 14 year old boys are milling about the changing rooms in various states of undress. Some are in the showers that are, strangely, situated in the centre of the changing rooms with 2 open ends. You just walked in and out. I think there were 3 or 4 shower heads on either side.

Because of the design of the showers one of the best ‘games’ we used to play was a kind of ice hockey using a bar of soap as the ‘puck’. 2 teams of 2 or 3 bollock naked kids would slide around on their bare arses whacking the soap with their hands. What made this possible was the fact that all the showers would be on at the same time - creating enough water to aquaplane on. The object, of course, was to get the soap through the open ends.

This activity however was severely frowned on by the PT masters. To be caught in the act brought severe (and extremely corporal) punishment down on the heads of the perpetrators.

As a recipient of punishments diverse and varied over the entire period of my attendance at this place I had decided that, henceforth, my behaviour would be as pure as the driven snow. On this particular windy March afternoon it wasn’t a hard decision not to get involved. It was bloody freezing !

I still needed a shower though as I was covered from head to foot in mud. Normally – being a 13 year old –you just knew that you didn’t need a shower at all. If there was no crap on your face you’d simply whip off the footy kit and whip on the uniform and no one would be the wiser. Underneath the clothing you could be almost baking in solidified clay, Thing-like. But, as I said, no one would have the faintest idea. (At least until they spotted the sediment dusting the floor where you stood as the clay dried.) But today I needed a shower. I did. Unfortunately I was covered from head to foot in a combination of God’s own earth and whatever fertiliser the caretaker had been spreading on it !

So I kept out of the way till the others grew bored of aquaplaning and decided to start kicking a football about instead.

This was my cue to get in the shower and NOT get involved in the ball kicking.

So there I am washing the effluent out of my hair, nostrils and armpits, when the ball bounces into the shower through one of the open ends. Tantalisingly, it hung at about knee height - right in front of me. I defy anyone who has ever kicked a ball in anger to be able to resist the opportunity of volleying it as far and as hard as you possibly can - in that situation.

And I did. Christ I DID !! Sweet as a nut. I connected with my unshod foot and cracked that ball better than any Pele, Charlton or Ronaldo..

The next 3 seconds or so took around 5 minutes to evolve. I watched open-mouthed as the ball bent perfectly round the open shower-end. I bent the bastard like Beckham. My chin dropped to the floor as that ball inexorably motored towards the windows that ran the full length of the wall at around 8 feet off the ground.

“Oh for f*ck’s sake !!!” It almost went straight through the window. But, content just to smash it, the ball fell back to the floor. A second of shocked silence, then the entire place erupted into a crescendo of spotty adolescents pointing, jeering and laughing. “Bugger ! I’ll not get away with this.” Too many witnesses you see. Too many to keep ‘em all quiet. Too many that weren’t exactly members of my fan club anyhow. Not that I was unpopular, far from it. I made and kept some good mates at school. But the dynamics of school life ensured that, eventually, someone would ‘sing like a bird’.

Desperate times demand desperate measures and my solution was desperate indeed.

I would own up. I would tell them it was me. I did it ! That smashed window was my fault. Bravely I would go to the gym teacher and admit all !

I just wouldn’t tell them I did it kicking a ball that’s all ! I mean, sod that !

Remember, these were the days when punishment WAS punishment. They used to hit us with canes. Sticks. Hands, shoes, huge, weighty tomes.....anything they could get their hands on. You know - ‘Spare the Rod’ !!

As my plan developed, I became increasingly confident. This was copper-bottomed, gold-plated genius. Leftfield, blue sky thinking ! I was so proud !

My idea was to tell them I was closing the window on account of the freezing cold weather. As I was engaged in this activity, the high winds, (no lies there, it WAS extremely windy), blew the window shut......and the force smashed it as it closed.

Heh Heh.......beautiful.

So, off I went in search of authority – someone I could spill the beans to. It took me at least quarter of an hour before I chanced upon the Deputy Headmaster. Harry Travis was a strange amalgam of a human. Upright – as you’d expect, deputy head of a grammar after all – but somehow vulnerable. We always knew it, even as 1st formers. We could sense that he didn’t have the absolute authority of the Head and, moreover, some of the bog-standard teaching staff were more Gestapo-like than Harry.

His nickname, for some reason that I don’t think any of us knew, was Harry Bogg. Strangely it was always spelt Bogg, not Bog. I suspect it was handed down from some earlier 4B, 3C or 2A. As far as I recall he wasn’t christened by any of my contemporaries. No doubt if I posted a request for info on friendsreunited I might find the answer. But I digress.

I confessed to Harry. He was delighted. I – being an uncharitable oik from 3c – immediately reasoned he was just happy because he had a child to beat. But I was wrong. Harry Bogg was so impressed that I’d had the courage, the nerve, the honesty to come forward and admit to my accident that he took me to see the Headmaster.

Skinhead (aka The Headmaster) was also suitably impressed. The pair of them stood there in the Head’s study praising me like they were the media in general and I was David Beckham. Phrases were bandied about: “proud of you”, “this shows character”, “backbone”, “Empire” and Christ knows what else.

After a suitable amount of time - and praise, it was decided I would take Harry to the scene of the crime. I can remember that walk. “Thank God for that. They fell for it. Whoa am I good ? Or am I good ? Phew! “

I can remember actually walking into the changing rooms.

I can remember looking up at the broken window before Harry could’ve done. After all, he didn’t know where it was, did he ?

I can remember the cold horror of realising that not all the windows opened.

I can remember zooming in on ‘my window’. It didn’t open. The wind couldn’t have blown this shut – it was fixed, and had been since the jolly glazier chap first fixed it.

Alibi blown out of the water. Newly acquired reputation shot to buggery. Life = ‘hell from now on !’

Is there a moral here you ask ? Yes there is.

Next time you find yourself in a position where you have to lie through your hind teeth. Do some basic research BEFORE you open your mouth. ESPECIALLY in times of warfare.