Thanks, no thanks – Shrewsbury

Thanks – 2001

Those who have read my book (Suited and Booted, still available to buy in the sidebar to your right) will know that Shrewsbury holds a special place in my heart. For a few months almost two decades ago, I spent a lot of time in Shropshire. Not enough to realise it’s also referred to as Salop, that I found out last year, but enough to visit the clubs, see the sights and fall in (and out) of love. Ahh, how sweet.

I never thanked the place for making me so welcome. I appeared on the front cover of the Shropshire Star, not for being me, but as Poacher when I attended to 2001 ‘Battle of the Mascots’ organised by Lenny the Lion, aka Ron. I liked my time flitting between lincoln and Shrewsbury and it’s sad that Ive only ever been back for football (incidentally, we’ve won every game I’ve watched there since).

To finish, I thought I’d add an extract from my book for those that have not read it.

We were informed that we would be doing two visits prior to the big match. Ron had arranged a photoshoot at a local cinema, followed by a quick visit to a christening, where he had promised a friend that the mascots would appear. One by one we collected our suits, put them on (bar the heads) and boarded a bus. Rob was the last on, still clutching his bottles of beer.

We were now joined by Benny the Buck from Telford, a notable absentee from the night before. They were the Shrews big rivals, and he was greeted with a chorus of boos, to which he simply repeated his catchphrase time and time again: waaay heeey.

The costume’s head had a comical deranged look to it, with eyes peering at angles to each other, and he complemented it with a Union Jack g-string under his shorts. He took every opportunity to show that off as well, pulling his shorts down at the merest hint of attention. He accompanied everything he did with that distinctive laugh. Waaaay heeey. It got annoying the third time.

Each laugh became more and more irritating, every repeat grated on us more and more. The less beer we were drinking, the more acutely aware we became of being hung over, and his bloody laughing was pressing all the right buttons. As the church lumbered into view a plan was being hatched, we had to ditch the mental bastard. Still, we had a christening to get through first.

I’m not sure why it didn’t ring alarm bells as we got off the bus, but Ron had arranged it and already we followed him like a Svengali figure. If Ron said go in the church, we went in the church. So, we got off the bus and without warning stormed into the church.

As the doors opened the whole congregation turned and looked at us with the sort of distaste that I imagine God would give the Devil himself if he stormed in on a ceremony. The main problem, and there were many problems, was that the christening wasn’t for another half an hour and we had just piled through the door of an everyday Sunday Service. Another problem was communicating that to twenty-five or so men in mascots suits, in various states of inebriation. The chaos lasted around five minutes, but for the poor vicar I bet it felt like an eternity.

We waited outside whilst Ron popped in and explained exactly why the football mascot world had just disrupted the Sunday service. He found out the christening was later and opted to wait for a short while to keep his promise to his friends.

Outside, the world of God seemed many miles away as drunken and tired grown men dressed as animals amused themselves. First it was kicking a football against the church. Then it descended into a chant of ‘who the effing hell is Jesus’. In amongst all the chanting a lone voice kept crying ‘waaay heeey’ as loud as he could. Enough was enough.

We grabbed Benny, lifted him up into the air, and stuck him head first into a tall litter bin outside the church. We pushed him down as far as he would go, so that all that was visible was his kicking legs and a sneak preview of a Union Jack g-string. He kicked a bit, he struggled a bit, and then he stopped moving. The only sound you could hear was laughter from his assailants. We turned back to our games, satisfied we had nullified the threat, only to be disturbed by a muffled cry of ‘waaaaay heeeey’.

We all got back on the bus after a while, Ron’s christening hadn’t started, and as the only member of the group who had to live in Shrewsbury, he felt it best to get us off the streets as quickly as he could. My only thought was that we could have had an extra two hours in bed (or drinking in Rob’s case). The bus left with all of us on it and set off for Gay Meadow.

All of us except Benny of course. We left him in the bin

Great days…..