The rare oul’ times

Raised on songs and stories,
Heroes of renown,
The passing tales and glories
Before we were struck down.
We can’t afford detergents
To spray the terrace weeds,
But still we crave resurgence
For Shelbourne and for Leeds.

Ring-a-ring-a-rosie,
Weekly pantomimes
I remember Leeds and Shelbourne
In the rare oul’ times.

Oh where did Eddie Gray go,
Paul Reaney and Mick Bates?
And Sheridan and Geogho,
Along with Stephen Yeates?
The older fans remember
And whisper mighty deeds
Of Bobby Browne and Bremner
For Shelbourne and for Leeds.

Ring-a-ring-a-rosie,
Weekly pantomimes
I remember Leeds and Shelbourne
In the rare oul’ times.

Clarke and Jones play nightly
When Elland Road is dark.
Ben Hannigan looks spritely
And glides ‘cross Tolka Park.
The prayer-books need re-braiding,
Replace those worry beads,
For the ghosts are slowly fading
At Shelbourne and at Leeds.

Ring-a-ring-a-rosie,
Weekly pantomimes
I remember Leeds and Shelbourne
In the rare oul’ times.


The years have made me bitter
But still I come as planned
And watch the wind-strewn litter
That blows across the stand.
I watch the clubs endeavour
To nurture fertile seeds
And yes, I’ll cheer forever
For Shelbourne and for Leeds.

Ring-a-ring-a-rosie,
Weekly pantomimes
I remember Leeds and Shelbourne
In the rare oul’ times.

A Tolka Murder Mystery by Christie Agatha

Chapter Seven – McBiscuit sets a trap

With a legal zeal that would have had the late Ollie Byrne drooling in admiration, Shelbourne’s solicitors quickly secured the release of goalkeeper Dean Delaney, arguing that the police had not a shred of evidence to link the giant goalkeeper to the double murder.
The move did not go down well with DI McBiscuit, who was now back to square one. Broodingly, he handed the stone to his constable who immediately threw it onto square nine and hopped and scotched up to that number with whoops of delight.
“Constable, I want you to conduct door to door enquiries of every road in the neighbourhood,” said McBiscuit decisively. “And don’t just ask the doors – ask the people behind them too. Somebody must have seen something.”
“Right away, sir,” replied the constable. “Can I go for the ten now, sir?”
While the constable was away, McBiscuit leaned back in his chair and chewed his pencil thoughtfully. When this didn’t work, he leaned back in his pencil and chewed his chair. He closed his eyes to concentrate his thoughts and promptly fell asleep.
“Nothing to report, sir,” said the constable, entering the office several hours later. “Not one hall door saw anything. You had any luck, sir?”
“I have been using the little grey cells,” replied the DI enigmatically.
“You mean, the ones we keep our suspects in, sir?”
“No, you fool. The grey cells of the mind. I think in order to catch our murderer, we have to set a little trap.”
“Not allowed to do that anymore, sir. The animal rights people won’t allow it. They say it’s inhumane.”
“But we’re the police,” said McBiscuit. “We’re allowed to do anything we like, aren’t we?”
McBiscuit had his way and at the next Shelbourne home game, which happened to be against a team called Crumlin United, a posse of crack undercover police officers mingled unobtrusively with the home supporters in the two stands. A discerning eye might have noticed their police helmets bulging beneath their red and white bobble hats and the smell of eau-de-Bridewell aftershave was quite overpowering for some but any suspicion they aroused was immediately dispelled by their loud comments that the team should keep the ball on the ground and that Bisto would probably get a hat-trick.
McBiscuit walked around the two sides of the pitch, a posse of armed police in his wake. Occasionally he talked into his sleeve and seemed quite surprised when his sleeve answered back. When the teams came out onto the pitch, he ostentatiously turned to face the crowd, his shrewd eyes scanning the faces before him for any trace of panic, his nose alert to the smell of fear, the hairs on his chin bristling like antennae.
The first half came and went, as first halves often do. “When are we going to spring the trap, sir?” asked the constable, practising beating people with his truncheon.
“We’ll leave the stew simmering for a while longer,” replied McBiscuit briskly, licking the wooden spoon and adding a handful of chives.
As the second half began, McBiscuit’s razor sharp instincts could feel the nervousness in the crowd begin to grow until it became a NERVOUSNESS. He smiled, yet it was a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, mainly because he couldn’t get his lips up that far. “Just a while longer,” he muttered to himself. “Don’t leave it too long,” advised his sleeve.
Halfway through the second half, McBiscuit decided the time was ripe. He pointed an accusatory finger at his earlobe, the pre-arranged signal to the PA announcer, and informed his sleeve to keep a watch out for anybody leaving the ground in a hurry.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” intoned the PA, during the next break in play. “A bloodstained knife has been found in the ground. Will the owner please pick it up from in front of the new stand?”
A hush went through the ground. McBiscuit’s head swivelled right and left. Curiously his body stayed where it was. A man rose in the new stand; a family started to come down the steps in Section A; a whole gang of oul’ fellers started trooping out of Section D muttering about Ben Hannigan.
McBiscuit’s sleeve breathlessly reported that at least a hundred people were heading towards the exit and wanted to know what to do. His head swam, first the crawl, then flipping over and doing the backstroke.
“Constable!” he yelled. “What is happening? Are they all in it together?”
“They’re in it right enough, sir,” replied the constable. “Crumlin have just scored.”

Taking it on the chin

When you lose a game that’s easier to win,
When the underdogs wipe off your foolish grin,
You wish that you possessed a thicker skin,
But have to take it staunchly on the chin.

Undone by one small lapse in discipline
That sees the ball despairingly roll in.
As, all around, detractors make a din,
There’s naught to do but take it on the chin.

The final whistle puts you in a spin,
The yan is ripped asunder from the yin.
You think you might become a Capuchin.
No hiding place – just take it on the chin.

The doubts about reality begin,
The line ‘twixt black and white grows pencil thin,
The punishment, it seems, outweighs the sin –
Sometimes its hard to take it on the chin.

The gutter ball has sailed past every pin
And dreams of gold have turned too rusty tin
By one false bounce that ricocheted off shin.
What else to do but take it on the chin?

Betting slips despatched unto the bin
And, serving you another shot of gin,
The barman asks you for your next of kin.
But no.
You simply take it on the chin.

A Tolka Murder Mystery by Christie Agatha

Chapter Six – McBiscuit makes an arrest

DI McBiscuit’s cunning plan to have his constable infiltrate Shelbourne Football Club disguised as Neil Dubble, a recent signing from St. Albans, seemed to be bearing, not only fruit, but some vegetables and dairy products too.
McBiscuit had been afraid that the constable, the possessor of two size thirteen left feet, might not have pulled it off as a semi-professional footballer, but he slotted into the back four quite nicely and even made the sub’s bench on a couple of occasions.
Inside the dressing room, the constable kept his ear to the ground until people told him to get up. He would pretend to be tying his bootlace when other people were talking on the phone. Sometimes, for a bit of variation, he would pretend to be talking on the phone when other people were tying their bootlaces.
“I want you to watch everyone like a hawk,” McBiscuit had instructed him and the constable took him at his word, sitting on the lampshade for hours with a mouse between his toes.
Naturally, talk of the two murders at the club was rife with many of the players speculating as to the murderer’s identity. For some reason, goalkeeper Dean Delaney had been singled out as the most likely suspect, after Mark O’Brien had commented on his “big strangling hands.”
During training one morning, the constable suddenly clutched his calf muscle in apparent agony and limped off painfully in the direction of the dressing rooms.
“Brilliant ruse,” thought McBiscuit, watching from Section E through a pair of binoculars. “That boy’s going to go far.”
Once inside the dressing room, the constable’s limp miraculously disappeared and he felt under the bench for Dean Delaney’s kit bag. Hurriedly, he pulled open the zip, took one look at the contents and closed it up again.
“I think you’d better come and have a look at this, sir,” he said through the tiny microphone strapped to his left nipple. “And bring some back up.”
Seconds later, seventeen combat vehicles burst through the Tolka Park gates, discharging almost two hundred highly-trained marines onto the playing surface. As the players made a run for the tunnel, the sky grew black with paratroopers descending from unseen aircraft and an aircraft carrier positioned itself behind the Riverside Stand to cut off any means of escape.
“Would you mind opening your kitbag, sir?” McBiscuit asked the tall goalkeeper in the comparative quiet of the dressing room. There was a quiet menace in his eyes and a definite sense of threat in his left ear.
Dean Delaney bit his lip nervously. Then he chewed his nose. Suddenly, and with a sense of defiance, he strode over to his kit bag, yanked open the zip and stood back.
Like a cat circling a trapped mouse, McBiscuit slowly meandered over to the kit bag, thrust his hand inside and pulled out a potted geranium. There were loud gasps of astonishment from all present and even from some who weren’t.
“It’s a plant, I tell you!” the goalkeeper yelled. He tried to make a run for it but Daisy Hedderman slid in recklessly and sent him flying. The constable whipped out some thread and a needle and meticulously sewed the keeper’s arms behind his back.
“You’ve stitched me up good and proper,” snarled the net minder savagely.
“Take him away,” said McBiscuit, almost purring. Then he lifted up his leg and licked himself gratifyingly.
“I don’t get it sir,” said the constable afterwards over a large blackcurrant on the rocks. “What was his motive?”
“What’s a motive?” asked McBiscuit cautiously.
“The reason why he did it, sir. You need to prove he had a motive.”
“I do?” said McBiscuit blankly. “When did that rule come in? Surely the geranium is all the proof we need?”
“Don’t think so, sir. How exactly does the geranium prove his guilt anyway?”
“Oh, I suppose we need to prove his guilt now?” shot back the DI. “Take my word; he’s as guilty as hell. But just to be on the safe side, you’d better get back inside the dressing room and see if you can get me the proof.”
“Sorry, sir. Can’t do that, sir,” said the constable. “The manager’s after transferring me to Bray Wanderers.”

Losing to Bohs

It isn’t quite the deepest of our woes,
It’s somewhat untraumatic, I suppose,
To lose a League Cup fixture to the Bohs.

At other times we’ve writhed in fevered throes,
Shivering from our temples to our toes,
Assailed by hosts of bitter-minded foes
Like ghoulish rooks and sombre hooded crows,
That from the seeds of jealousy arose
When we were overstretched. And goodness knows,
Within the scheme of things, defeat to Bohs
Just merits one small line of sorry prose
Upon the tide of fortune’s ebbs and flows.
Sometimes you lose. And that’s the way it goes
And, beaten in the League Cup by a nose
Won’t count as one of Shelbourne’s deepest lows,
For, though we’re feeling somewhat bellicose
That things did not turn out the way we chose,
We shouldn’t stir unduly in repose,
But lie abed, at peace and comatose,
Saving stress for far more fiercer blows
Than losing in the League Cup versus Bohs.

A Tolka Murder Mystery by Christie Agatha

Chapter Five

“Let us recap, constable,” said DI McBiscuit. “Quasimodo O’Shaughnessy and John Clapper were both murdered in Tolka Park. Now what is the connection between the two?”
“They’re both dead, sir,” replied the constable smartly.
McBiscuit knitted his eyebrows. Then he crocheted his moustache and wove his nasal hair.
“It’s a very violent underworld that we find ourselves in, constable,” he said. “There’s plenty of attacking football, killing the game off, stabbing balls home, shooting on sight, fighting to the death, burying the ball in the back of the net and murdering a pint. It’s a wonder there aren’t more fatalities.”
Suddenly the phone rang. The constable picked it up, listened for a few seconds and then handed it to McBiscuit. “It’s for you, sir,” he said.
“Thank you, constable,” said the DI, stuffing the phone into his pocket. “Now let’s get down to Tolka and see if we can nab ourselves a suspect.”

The groundsman was clearly puzzled. “I am clearly puzzled,” he said, removing his cap and scratching the back of his head.
“Is that better?” asked McBiscuit, scratching the parts of his head that the old man couldn’t reach.
“Thank you, officer. It’s all much clearer now.”
Forensics had come up with the conclusion that the latest murder victim, Quasimodo O’Shaughnessy, far from having been hung, drawn and watered, as initial examinations had suggested, had died from being force fed shovelfuls of gravel. And then hung, drawn and watered.
“So you are saying there was a pile of gravel here a few days ago?” queried McBiscuit, pointing down at a particularly gravel-free piece of concrete by the side of the New Stand.
“Yes, sir,” said the groundsman. “Can’t fathom it?”
“Maybe the victim was made to swallow all of it?” suggested the constable.
“I don’t think so,” murmured McBiscuit. “He’d have been too heavy to hang from the crossbar. Besides the chief pathologist said there was only enough gravel in his stomach to build a small path from his patio to the shed.”
“Maybe there was some more lodged in his… What’s the name of that canal that goes right through your stomach, sir?”
“Alimentary, my dear constable. No there was none found there.”
“But why would anyone want to steal a mound of gravel, sir?”
“To hide the evidence, of course. The question is – where would they hide it?”
“Maybe they scattered it all over the pitch, sir?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, constable. This is the League of Ireland. Nobody would dream of spreading gravel over a football pitch.”

“We have one victim flattened by a roller and another one force fed small stones, constable. What does that tell us about our murderer?”
“That he’s a member of the Rolling Stones, sir?”
“Too easy, constable. Though it could be someone is trying to frame a member of the band. Find out where Charlie Watts was last Friday, will you?” McBiscuit placed a suitcase on a chair and then squatted down in the corner of the room, staring at it intently.
“We need to look at this case from a different perspective, constable,” he continued. “I think we need to call the manager in for questioning.”
“Surely you don’t suspect him, sir?”
“Listen, constable. Has he, or has he not, got a gravelly voice?”
“So has Rod Stewart, sir. And Bonnie Tyler.”
“Then bring them all in for questioning, constable. Let’s see what they’ve got to say for themselves.”
Although she had no alibi, Bonnie Tyler’s assertion that she was lost in France at the time of the first murder was accepted by McBiscuit. Similarly, Rod Stewart’s defence that he had been off sailing seemed to be verified when he produced a mackerel from his trouser pocket.
And despite the constable’s suggestion that they might all be “in it together,” the manager’s blunt statement that he had thirty witnesses to the fact that he was on the team bus to Galway at the time of the second murder seemed to make further questioning unnecessary.
“Who shall I call in next, sir?” queried the constable. “BB King? Bryan Adams? Maybe Janis Joplin?”
In reply, the DI jumped off the merry-go-round. “We’re just going around in circles, constable,” he stated impatiently. He pushed a thumb tack into the wall and watched it fall out again. “I think we ought to try a new tack, constable,” he said. “I want you to go to Tolka Park and pretend to be a new player recently signed from St. Albans or somewhere like that. I want you to be my eyes and ears inside that football club.
“And, while you’re at it, give yourself a ridiculous name. How about Neil Dubble?”

Of football pitches and gravel

In life, there’s things,
Like Lords and Rings,
That seem to go together.
Wingers, crosses,
Foul mouths, bosses,
Bank Holidays, crap weather.
Whiskey, soda,
Shoes and odour,
A district judge and gavel,
But two distinct
Things are not linked –
A football pitch and gravel.

Columbus sailed,
His ship prevailed,
But nowhere could he berth it.
Poor Scott toiled on
Till hope was gone –
The journey wasn’t worth it.
Useless trips
On skis, on ships –
But who would think to travel
To Donegal
To watch a ball
Get punctured on the gravel?

A dead-eyed sleuth
Seeks out the truth
And clears up any mystery.
From Holmes to Morse,
They oft recourse
To precedents in history.
But no event
Or incident
Can help us to unravel
The clue that showed
Why someone sowed
A football pitch with gravel.

From RTE Sport 1st May 2009

"Finn Harps' home fixture with Shelbourne was postponed tonight after match referee Tommy Connolly deemed the Finn Park playing surface too dangerous.
Connolly conducted his pre-match pitch inspection in the company of his assistants Terence Moyne and Pat McLaughlin, and after mulling over the state of the pitch for 25 minutes, decided that 'in the best interests of the safety of both sets of players it was not safe to play the game'.
In an attempt to dry out their muddy playing surface, in the fortnight between their last home game against Waterford United game and tonight's visit of Shelbourne, Harps officials spiked 80 tonnes of sand into the pitch.
On his inspection, Connolly was unhappy with small gravel-type stones that were mixed into the sand, and after consulting with his assistants and making a call to the league authorities, postponed the game an hour before kick-off.
No date for the rescheduled fixture has been decided on."

Horribly wrong

The oasis has shrunk as the sand dunes encroach.
The nomads move on with no word of reproach.
The farmers still struggle to till the dry land
But can’t call a halt to the onrushing sand.

The night has extinguished the clear light of day.
The walls of the temple begin to decay.
The firm fleshy tubers lie blackened and dry
Upon the proud furrows that plead with the sky.

Suddenly all has gone horribly wrong,
Since two weeks ago when the Reds were on song.
The summer rain flees from the drought from the north
And from top position, we’ve now slipped to fourth.

A Tolka Murder Mystery by Christie Agatha

Chapter 4 – Of murder and marmalade
.
Even a hardened detective like McBiscuit was so upset at the sight that greeted their eyes in Tolka Park that he could barely finish his third packet of Hunky Dory’s.
From the crossbar at the Ballybough end dangled the lifeless body of a man (“between twenty and ninety” noted McBiscuit carefully), a taut Shels scarf from the Deportivo era wound around his neck. Beneath him lay a puddle of water, drops still cascading off the ends of his trousers. A watering can lay in the vicinity like a nearby watering can. On the penalty spot stood an easel.
McBiscuit glanced at the sheet of paper on the easel. It was a charcoal and pen drawing of the scene, composed of bold strokes that hinted at authority yet captured pithily the pathos of the scene with its undercurrents of social exclusion and otherness.
“What are your thoughts, constable?” said McBiscuit with a sharp intake of breath.
“They mainly revolve around a Swedish air hostess and a jar of marmalade, sir,” responded the constable warily, with a sharp out-take of breath, which McBiscuit in-took quickly.
“Do we know who the dead man is?”
“Yes, sir. He’s the victim.”
The D.I. felt the dead man’s wrist. “I’m sure there was no dead body here at the last home match,” he mused wistfully. “The assistant referee would surely have noticed it when the netting was checked. I therefore deduce that the crime was committed since then.”
“But the watering can, sir?” asked the constable. “And the charcoal and pen drawing of the scene, composed of bold strokes that hint at authority yet capture pithily the pathos of the scene with its undercurrents of social exclusion and otherness?”
McBiscuit stroked his chin. Then he stroked the constable’s chin. He moved to the edge of the penalty area and squatted down, holding his arm out in front of him like an amateur golfer pretending to know what he is doing. Then with a triumphant “Aha!” he whipped the unabridged copy of the Encyclopaedia Hibernica out of his inside pocket and leafed excitedly through volume eighteen.
“Got it!” he yelled, his finger pressed to the page. “The easel. The watering can. This explains everything. Constable, it appears our man here is the first recorded case in four hundred years of somebody who has been hung, drawn and watered.”

The dead man was eventually named as Quasimodo O’Shaughnessy. “Bit late in the day to be naming him,” spat McBiscuit caustically. “That should have been done when he was born. Imagine the poor chap going through life without a name.”
“Quasimodo?” mused the constable. “That name seems to ring a bell.”
McBiscuit strode to the filing cabinet and pulled out a file. Carefully he manicured his finger nails with it.
“Seems he was a bit of a Shels groupie,” he said. “Always hanging around Tolka Park. Bit of a hanger-on. Used to phone up the club and then hang up. Used to hang out in a hangar out in Baldonnell, eating hang sandwiches. I can’t help thinking that somewhere there’s a connection between his lifestyle and the way that he died.”
“I’ve taken statements from everyone at the club as you instructed,” said the constable, whipping out his notebook.
“Anything curious?” answered McBiscuit, sitting up, all ears.
“Well, just one thing,” said the constable, glancing nervously at the vast collection of ears in front of him. “It appears that many people think that peanut butter would spread better than marmalade.”
“I see, constable,” pondered the D.I. doubtfully. “And the case?”
The constable glanced down at the suitcase he was standing on.
“I’m on it, sir,” he announced.

“Another Murder at Tolka!” trumpeted the headline in the Independent. “What is McBiscuit doing?” clarinetted the Irish Daily Mail. “Playboy Sex-Swap Pig Farmer was my Gay Lover!” glockenspieled the Sun.
The newspapers lay on the desk of Commissioner Salami. In front of him, McBiscuit stood in an old shirt and work trousers, having been given a good dressing down. Commissioner Salami scrunched up the newspapers and flung them on the fire. The flames soared.
“You may call me Kildare County. I need results!” he hissed at McBiscuit. “I’m beginning to feel the heat.”
“Yes sir. We are following a definite line of enquiry, sir.”
“And what might that be?”
“We are asking everybody if they committed the murders and watching their eyes carefully, sir.” Suddenly McBiscuit let his suitcase slip but managed to catch it before it hit the ground.
The Commissioner appeared mollified. “Very well. You appear to have the case under control. Carry on.”
As McBiscuit turned to go, the Commissioner added, “And tell your constable that I’m partial to a bit of apricot jam myself.”

Mrs Ingle, please pray tell

Mrs Ingle, please pray tell
(For my nerves are shot to hell)
Tell me how young Wesley’s doing over there?
Is he pining for his home
Far away o’er sea and foam?
Is he getting any tender loving care?

There were times he seemed so small,
Defenders shrugged him off the ball,
Maternal instincts flared with every foul
And the day he went away
We begged him on our knees to stay,
As his forlorn figure chilled us to the bowel.

Up to Livingstone he went,
Where the poor wee wretch then spent
A lot of time out injured eating porridge.
Then to Blackpool where his skill
Mesmerised the fans until
Money talked and off he went to Norwich.

We had heard that your last coach
Utilised the wrong approach
To get the best from players such as Wes.
But it seems our darling son
Is now on something of a run,
At least that’s what a friend in Wymondham says.

Yes we miss him very much,
Miss that feint and great first touch.
Since he went away we haven’t been the same.
And of course we wish him well
But Mrs. Ingle, please pray tell
Do you think that he will make it in the game?

(The following reply was received by Norwich City poet SB Ingle on the www.footballpoets.org website)

Greeting Pete: Carrow Road: Chez Wes

.

Hoolahan could be a hero

A fans favourite elsewhere

He's been slow to settle in

But now he's reaching for fifth gear

Wes is only five foot six

We play "little man - little man"

Strike force rubbish aerially

We need a cunning plan

Cureton is five foot eight

Our attack is lacking height

We need a leg-up to climb the league

The bottom rungs in sight!

A Tolka Murder Mystery by Christie Agatha

Chapter 3 – The Murderer Strikes Again

The discovery of the body of football triallist John Clapper beneath the roller at Tolka Park had caused quite a stir at Shelbourne Football Club. This was never more apparent than in the game against Limerick FC, when DI McBiscuit insisted that the murder scene remain cordoned off and the players were told to avoid the ten yard square area of pitch at the Ballybough end.
The receipt of a sick letter from the murderer had given McBiscuit a lead but unfortunately when he followed it up there was a vicious Jack Russell on the other end of it and he had to run into the local Spar to evade its snapping jaws.
Back in the office, the constable patiently explained to McBiscuit that the phrase “being on trial at Shels” did not have criminal implications.
Somewhere over the city, a clock struck ten times.
“I have a feeling he will strike again,” said McBiscuit.
“No, sir,” said the constable, checking his watch. “It’s only ten o’clock.”
“No, the murderer, I mean. I have a definite hunch.”
“Oh, it’s not so bad when you stand in profile, sir,” offered the constable.
McBiscuit suddenly strode over to the fridge, flung open the door and pulled out a battered old suitcase. He felt it carefully. “The case is growing cold, constable,” he announced mournfully.
“Yes, sir. What we really need is another murder, I suppose.”

It was a glorious sunny day as the squad car drove through the town of Athenry, heading westwards.
“Look at the way those free birds are flying,” murmured McBiscuit. “Curious, eh?”
“It’s a result of the prevailing geographical phenomena, sir,” answered the constable. “They’ve no need to fly particularly high because, as you see, the surrounding fields lie very low.”
The journey had begun earlier in the day when, as a result of secret surveillance, several of the major suspects of the murder had been seen to board the same bus in Dublin.
“Maybe they are all in it together?” surmised McBiscuit, as the bus left the Pale. “Did you ever see Murder on the Orient Express?”
“Or maybe it’s the team bus and the players are on their way to Terryland Park to play Mervue United,” replied the constable, a remark which had the DI brooding darkly for an hour or more until he found that brooding lightly was more comfortable.
The constable’s suggestion proved correct and the bus disgorged its plethora of players outside the revamped Terryland. McBiscuit watched them closely as they alighted but was disappointed that none wore the tell-tale signs of a murderer, except perhaps Alan Keely, whose beard immediately marked him out as a person of ill repute.
“Just a moment, driver,” said McBiscuit curtly, flashing his wallet as he ascended the steps.
“Your Dunnes Stores Club card?” replied the driver evenly.
McBiscuit flicked his wallet open again and this time proffered his police badge. The driver shrugged and the two men walked down the bus.
“What are we looking for exactly, sir?” asked the constable.
“Clues, constable, clues!” came the curt rejoinder. “Honestly we’ll never make a detective out of you.”
He stopped suddenly and bent down and picked up a copy of Nuts from the coach floor. “A forestry magazine,” he said, reading the title. He flicked through a few pages. “Good Lord, constable!” he uttered. “What do you make of this?”
Pages six and seven were full of holes as though somebody had cut letters out of the articles in order to compose an anonymous letter.
Before the constable could answer, McBiscuit’s phone rang. He answered it and listened as an excited voice on the other end relayed some urgent information. Then he said “Right!” and thrust his phone back in his pocket.
“What is it, sir?” asked the constable.
“It’s a phone,” explained McBiscuit. “A device for communicating with people who would ordinarily be out of earshot. Come on, back to the car!”
They jumped down from the bus and sprinted over to their car like a police constable and his superior officer.
“Where to, sir?” cried the constable, starting the engine.
“Back to Dublin!” responded the DI. “There’s been another murder!”
Leaning back, he pulled his battered old suitcase off the back shelf, where it had been sitting in the sun. He felt it carefully.
“Do you know, constable,” he said at last. “I do believe this case is hotting up at last.”

Slow start to the season for Ghent?

Chilling words

When you plummet from the summit
To the bottom of the hill
And your body’s lying, badly bruised and broken,
There are words, once for the birds,
That send your blood into a chill –
Words you never dreamed you might hear spoken.

“There’s quite a crowd,” you say out loud,
When the numbers reach four figures.
“It’s really great to see a large attendance.”
“Brilliant play!” you’re heard to say
(As the Bohs supporter sniggers)
At three passes you’ll recount to your descendants.

The perspective is subjective,
Things are diff’rent looking up –
The same events but viewed from a new angle.
A single win can now begin
To be “a good run in the Cup.”
The draw to play Dundalk makes nerve-ends jangle.

But last week, ‘twas more oblique.
And they cut me long and deep,
Recurring words that haunt me constantly.
It’s a phrase that doth amaze
And it’s caused me loss of sleep –
“Next week the Big One – versus UCD.”

A Tolka Murder Mystery by Christie Agatha

Chapter Two – The Murderer Sends a Letter

“Any man that chooses to dress entirely in black has to arouse suspicions,” remarked Detective Inspector McBiscuit to the constable at his side. “I wouldn’t be surprised if his name was Genghis or Grizzly Pete. Find out who he is and tell him I want a word with him.”
“That’s the referee, sir,” replied the constable, who was well up on the ways of football. “I can’t really haul him in for questioning during the match, particularly after Bisto’s goal. We’d have a riot on our hands.”
“The Referee, eh?” said McBiscuit. “Is that some kind of criminal code-name like The Viper or The Squirrel?”
It had been several days since John Clapper’s body had been found beneath the roller at Tolka Park and McBiscuit was no nearer to solving the case. Forensics had examined the pitch with a fine toothcomb and then with a pair of nail scissors and some tweezers. Specially trained sniffer dogs had merely sniffed haughtily and urinated over the roller. The state pathologist had come up with a theory that the victim had been drowned, though McBiscuit suspected she was a pathological liar.
Acting on McBiscuit’s assertion that the murderer always returns to the scene of the crime, the D.I. and the constable had taken their places in Row D as the crowd started to come in for the game against Wexford Youths.
“Suspect everyone and suspect no-one,” whispered McBiscuit, as the place started to fill up.
“Erm, what exactly are we looking for, sir?” asked the constable.
“Watch their faces, laddie. Anyone who looks guilty or has a bloodstained shirt.”
Despite scrutinising the crowd, players and match officials intently, McBiscuit admitted at the end of the game that the exercise had been worthless, (“apart from the three points of course, sir.”) As they left the ground, several reporters moved forward and climbed onto the D.I’s brawny shoulders.
“The press are really on my back now,” gasped McBiscuit.

There was another murder committed the following morning but it was only on The Marino Waltz. “It’s no use, constable,” said McBiscuit, laying down his violin and pacing the floor intently.
Keeping out of his superior’s way, the constable paced the ceiling intently and said nothing.
McBiscuit produced a door handle from his trousers pocket and tried to screw it onto his suitcase. After as minute or two he gave up.
“I can’t seem to get a handle on this case at all,” he said forlornly.
Suddenly, the door opened and the postman handed the D.I. a letter.
“What is it, sir?” asked the constable curiously.
“It’s a letter, constable,” answered McBiscuit, eying the other suspiciously. He laid it down on the table. “Open up! This is the police!” he shouted through a megaphone.
After several minutes crouched behind his computer, he straightened up, marched over to the letter and slit it open with a flamboyant swish of the letter knife. Quickly he unfolded it and began to read.
“Good Lord, sir, is that blood?” remarked the constable.
“It is, constable,” answered McBiscuit drily. “I appear to have sliced my thumb off. Kindly call forensics and get someone up here with a needle and thread immediately.”
As the constable reached for the phone, McBiscuit re-read the letter. “You’ll never catch me McBiskit he he he,” he read out loud. “Clapper was a fool and deserved to die. The next one will join him soon.” Beneath the writing was a picture of a packet of Coco Pops with a knife stuck through it.
“Good God, constable. We’re looking for a cereal killer,” he exclaimed. “One with fairly atrocious handwriting too.”
“I think you’ll find he’s cut the letters out of magazines, sir,” replied the constable.
“The fiend!” yelled McBiscuit. “The next person who wants to read it will have terrible trouble. Is there any other clue to this murderous magazine mutilator’s identity.”
“Just one, sir,” said the constable. “He seems to have inadvertently signed his name and address at the bottom.”
“I knew it!” declared the D.I. “They think they’re so clever but they always make one small mistake. Come on, constable. I think we ought to pay this Mister Red Herring a little visit. Let’s go and catch us a murderer.”
“Where to, sir?”
McBiscuit unfolded the letter again. “Number 32, Tony Sheridan Gardens,” he yelled, and promptly passed out through loss of blood.

The Table

I once had a bedside table
Which came all the way from Rome.
It was owned by Betty Grable
So I’m told.
And I miss our gate-leg table
That stood proudly in our home,
The one my sister Mabel
Went and sold.

That full-sized snooker table
Was my father’s pride and joy.
It was kept inside the stable
Where we’d play.
And my uncle’s coffee table,
Built when Adam was a boy,
It propped up the Tower of Babel,
So they say.

Yes, my granny’s drop-leaf table
Under which her gin was hid –
It became the stuff of fable
In our school.
And the periodic table
Always stumped me as a kid.
Perhaps that’s why folk label
Me a fool.

My old television table
Which was painted brilliant white –
It would hide the TV cable
And its strands.
But I don’t think I am able
To recall a finer sight
Than the First Division table
As it stands.

Starting off the season with a win

Photo by Maurice Frazer (Ringsendred)

It’s not a thing we do with regularity.
In fact, it’s more exception than the norm.
To start the season off with more than parity
Ain’t typical of Shelbourne’s normal form.
In years gone by, we’ve ladled out the charity.
Our first opponents go home with a grin,
So it was a first day peculiarity
To start a brand new season with a win.

Against the Youths, our game showed much diversity.
‘Twas short and sharp, or hoofball o’er the top.
You don’t need to have been to university
To know that’s how to catch teams on the hop.
With spirit we won out against adversity
And took their equaliser on the chin.
And when the whistle blew, through sheer perversity,
We’d started off the season with a win.

A decent start is always a priority,
Though it’s not happened much down through the years.
A few games we have won, but the majority
Of first day matches often end in tears.
And I have been informed on good authority
That this is how a good team should begin.
So thankfully the Reds’ superiority
Has started off the season with a win.

A Tolka Murder Mystery by Christie Agatha

Chapter One – Murder by Death
.
The police constable pulled the roller off the flattened figure on the pitch, and Detective Inspector McBiscuit reached down and removed a wallet from the breast pocket.
“Hmm,” he mused, and scratched his nose thoughtfully. When this didn’t work, he scratched the constable’s nose thoughtfully. “John Clapper,” he said. “Clapper? Clapper? That name rings a bell…..”
“On trial with Shels,” volunteered the constable. “Or, rather, he was…”
“Thank you, constable,” remarked McBiscuit. “Are you any relation to the famous landscape artist of the nineteenth century, by the way? Never mind. Now, does anything strike you as remarkable about the body?”
“You mean, apart from the fact that he’s twelve feet long, eight feet wide, but only an eighth of an inch thick, sir?”
“Yes, constable. Look – he was found beneath a roller. Does it not strike you as suspicious that there should be a roller here, on the pitch in Tolka Park?”
“They use it to roll the pitch with, sir,” replied the constable, eying his superior with a puzzled expression
“Exactly, constable. I’m starting to smell a rat.”
“Yes, sir, they come up out of the river, sir.”
“No, no, you misunderstand me, you buffoon. I mean that I am starting to suspect that something may be afoot.”
“That big pink thing there,” pointed the constable. “I think that’s a foot. God, what a mess!”
“Foul play!” continued McBiscuit unperturbed. He removed a packet of walrus flavoured pretzels from the pocket of his trench coat and offered one to the constable. As the latter put out a hand, McBiscuit quickly withdrew the packet and sniggered. “I suspect foul play, constable.”
“At Tolka, sir?” replied the constable. “The season hasn’t even started yet and Longford aren’t due to play here until May 8th.”
“I believe this was the perfect crime,” continued McBiscuit. “What a fiendishly clever place to hide the body! Beneath a roller on a football pitch in the close season. It could have lain here until...until...”
“Friday, sir. Season starts on Friday. Playing Wexford Youths.”
“Really, constable? What’s that stuff I see on television?”
“That’s called the Premier League, sir. Soap operas for men. Doesn’t really exist. Only actors, sir.”
“Is that so?” mused McBiscuit. “I never knew that. Tell forensics to get cracking. I see some footprints all around the body. We are looking for a murderer with very small circular feet.”
“They’re football studs, sir.”
“I knew that,” retorted the D.I. sharply. “A footballer, eh?”
“Yes, sir. Almost as implausible as the roller, what?”
McBiscuit removed the pipe from his mouth. Strangely enough, it was three feet long and made of galvanised steel. He idly wondered why he’d had it in his mouth in the first place. Suddenly, he got down on all fours and began examining something in the grass through a magnifying glass. After about five minutes, he beckoned the constable down beside him.
“What do you think this is?” he asked, handing him the magnifying glass.
“It’s a magnifying glass, sir,” replied the other.
“Thank you, constable,” replied McBiscuit, straightening up. “Just as I suspected. Now, tell me, who found the body?”
“The groundsman, sir. Quasimodo O’Reagan.”
“Quasimodo? Quasimodo? That name rings a bell. Bring him to me. I want to question him.”
As the constable disappeared, McBiscuit paced the touchline with a frown. Then he sent the frown away and paced the touchline with a grin. Finally he tried it with a frown and a grin at the same time.
At length, the constable approached with a wizened old man. “Quasimodo O’Reagan, sir,” he announced.
“No, I’m D.I.McBiscuit, constable. Try and remember that. Who’s this?”
“Er, the groundsman, sir. You wanted to see him.”
“I know that.” McBiscuit then turned to the old man in front of him and opened his notebook. “You are Quasimodo O’Reagan?”
“I know.”
“First name?”
“Yes.”
“So far so good. Now Mr. O’Reagan, can you tell me where exactly you were on the night in question?”
“I can do better than that, officer,” responded the old man. “I wrote it all down for you.” And from a pocket, he produced a crumpled paper handkerchief, covered in writing. “I hadn’t got any proper paper, see,” he added, offering the object to the D.I.
McBiscuit took it and scanned it quickly. Then he held the offending article up. “I put it to you, Mr. O’Reagan,” he announced dramatically. “that this is a tissue of lies.”

Do we want to do it all again?

Oh do we want to do it all again
And suffer all the darts that lie in store
As part and parcel of the new campaign?

Oh do we want to risk such dreadful pain
As that we felt ‘pon Lim’rick’s seismic score,
When emptiness was all that did remain?

Oh would it not be wiser to refrain
From hope that leads you glibly to the door
Then slams it shut with cavalier disdain?

Oh must we ever bear the mark of Cain
Occasioned by events three years before
Condemned to linger on this barren plain?

What oracle exists that can explain
Why Tolka’s floodlights should be such a draw
On filthy nights of cold and constant rain?

Oh why should we subsist on this terrain
Where earth is hard and nutrients are poor
And break our backs for very little gain?

Oh is it right for hopeful men to deign
To suffer angst, yet still come back for more
When hope runs out and light begins to wane?

Oh yes.
Can’t wait to do it all again.

New season upon us. Here we go again

Ten days

It’s now ten days
And still my mind
Is in a haze.

The wound is raw,
Still not resigned
To that late score.

My cheeks are dry,
But still I’m blind
In either eye.

Could God above
Be so unkind?
The God of love?

Ten days have passed
But still I find
The feelings last.

And tears of rage
Are not confined
To tender age,

For, though I’m old,
You can’t rewind
A bell that’s tolled.

In all my years following football, I don't think I've ever experienced such a low. Thirty seconds from the end of the match and we were going up. Then a late, late Limerick equaliser and Dundalk couldn't believe their luck.

Last match terzanelle

The fates have set November’s sky aflame.
Like Lazarus, we’ve risen from the dead
And now it all comes down to this one game.

The night was dark; the hopeful stars had fled
But then we started this unbeaten run.
Like Lazarus, we’ve risen from the dead.

Dark clouds had blotted out the summer sun
For football can be cruel as well as kind,
But then we started this unbeaten run.

But still our season waits to be defined –
A season’s work may hinge on one mistake,
For football can be cruel as well as kind.

And Limerick may get a lucky break!
Who knows what way the fickle fates may turn?
A season’s work may hinge on one mistake.

Above the ground, our aspirations burn.
The fates have set November’s sky aflame.
Who knows what way the fickle fates may turn,
As now it all comes down to this one game?

A Tolka Romance by Bill Zunmoon

Chapter 17.

The trial, Lionel thought, was a complete farce. The barrister’s trousers kept falling down and the judge was mistakenly accused of having an affair with the usher, whose wife made sudden sporadic appearances with a rolling pin and curlers.
The impartial jury of six men, five women and a chipmunk called Marvin, who had been constantly chanting “Hang him! Hang Him!” all during the trial, got their desire when the judge donned his black cap and sentenced Lionel to be hung by the neck until he was dead. Fortunately, the clerk informed him that capital punishment was no longer on the statute books due to health and safety concerns and the sentence was commuted to four weeks imprisonment.
“Four weeks!” yelled Lionel. “That means I’ll miss the end of the season! Can you not let me go now and I’ll serve four weeks after the Limerick game?”
The judge however was adamant, even going so far as to do the silly Prince Charming dance with Diana Dors. Lionel was led off in handcuffs and tears, as the chipmunk pelted him with salted peanuts.
The warders in the Joy proved to be curiously unsympathetic to Lionel’s requests to have access to Shelsweb on Friday nights to keep up to date with Shelbourne’s final few matches of the season. His plaintive appeals of “Don’t you know how important this game against Longford is, you morons?” fell on deaf ears as well as on other parts of the body that were hard of hearing too.
One evening a pigeon landed on the ledge outside Lionel’s cell while he was lying on his bunk, dreaming of the late departed Karen and the alluring way that a big green bogey used to dangle elegantly from her nasal hairs. Lionel had once seen The Birdman of Alcatraz – the film, not the actual birdman – and he recognised the poignant bond that existed between the prisoner and the bird.
“Food!” he yelled, making a grab for it. With a dummy and a feint worthy of Sparky in his heyday, the pigeon hopped further down the ledge. Suddenly Lionel had an idea. If he could tie a message onto the pigeon’s leg, he could get word of how Shels had done against Lokomotiv Fingal.
He ran back to his writing desk and began to write, the pigeon following him curiously and leaning over his shoulder, correcting spelling mistakes. The pen is mightier than the sword, he thought, though it probably wouldn’t be my choice of weapon in a duel.
He wrote to Zug, who was now living in Slovenia with her “Uncle” Reuben. He poured out his heart to her, though the ventricles kept smudging the ink. He told her how he felt about her – thirteen pages of aching words of love that had the pigeon gagging uncontrollably – and then he tied the letter to the bemused pigeon’s leg.
Carrying the bid to the window, he kissed it on the head and threw it gently through the bars, where the weight of the paper caused it to plummet three floors to its death.
The days dragged. Lionel heard on the grapevine that Shels had drawn 0-0 with Hajduk Fingal and he heard on the banana vine that a McAllister penalty had disposed of Waterford. It was all down to the final game of the season! This was the most important game in Shelbourne’s history since the last one and Lionel couldn’t believe he was going to miss it over a trifling little crime like murder.
The day of the match loomed grey and Novembrish and Lionel used the bucket seven times during the day, which irked Crusher McBonehead, his cellmate, to the point of violence.
Only thirty minutes to go, thought Lionel, trying to unwrap his left leg from around his throat. What I need is a miracle.
Suddenly the door flew open and there was Karen, as lovely as he remembered her, her golden hair flowing mellifluously from her ears.
“Karen!” he yelled.
“Yes I know,” she said.
For a moment neither of them spoke. “Lionel, I’m sorry I was so late,” blurted Karen eventually. “When I got swept out to sea, I thought I was a goner but fortunately I got harpooned by a Japanese whaling boat and brought back to Ibaraki. It’s a long walk home and I’ve only just arrived. I’ve told the police everything and they say you’re free to go.”
“Er, yep, sorry about that,” mumbled the police officer in the doorway. “Off you go then.”
Lionel looked at Karen. Karen looked at Lionel. Then they rushed into each other’s arms, embracing long and passionately.
“Oh Karen,” whispered Lionel, coming up for air from between her enormous breasts. “Let us never be apart again. Let us get married and have many children and bring them all down to Tolka…”
“Tolka!” yelled Karen. “Haven’t we a much more important match to attend to first?”
And arm in arm, giggling like a couple of love-struck teenagers, they ran out the door.

The End

A Tolka Romance by Bill Zunmoon

Chapter 16
.
In the interrogation room, the Chief Inspector huffed and puffed in his attempts to batten down the hatches of a large suitcase full of Garda t-shirts and swimwear. Eventually, with the help of a burly PC, he managed to click the locks shut. Turning to Lionel, he snapped his fingers and exclaimed, “The case is closed.”
Lionel felt very alone at that moment, notwithstanding one of Zug’s goats who had agreed to attend the interrogation. “What do you mean?” he stammered.
Sighing, the Chief Inspector went back over to the suitcase. He snapped open the locks and lifted the lid. Then he closed it again. Then he opened it and closed it once more.”You see, it’s an open and closed case,” he said.
“Say nothing,” whispered the goat. “I sense a trap.”
“People have come forward to say that they witnessed an altercation between yourself and Nigel de Havilland Ponsonby Smythe on Richmond Road on the night in question,” said the Chief Inspector. “Mr Smythe has never been seen since.” He slid the suitcase over to the radiator. “This case is hotting up nicely,” he added.
“How many times have I got to tell you?” shouted Lionel, as the goat laid a restraining hand on his shoulder. “Yes, we had an altercation. But in the middle of it, a rogue satellite crashed back to earth instantly vapourising both Nigel and itself. If Karen was here, she would tell you!”
“Ah yes, Miss Strangely-Buoyant,” responded the Chief Inspector, leafing through his notes. “Tell me again. What exactly became of her?”
“She tripped and fell into the Tolka, never to be seen again,” muttered Lionel, the defiance visibly seeping out of him.
“And three days later you moved your Mongolian mail order bride into the flat and into Karen’s bed?” He produced a sheet of wrapping paper and a roll of sellotape from behind his back and proceeded to parcel up the suitcase. “I’ll soon have this case wrapped up,” he said.
“You’ll never take me alive, copper!” snarled Lionel, which caused the Chief Inspector to furrow his eyebrows and look darkly over at the defendant. Then he strolled over to the suitcase and jumped on top of it. “Be very careful,” he warned, “The Chief Inspector’s on the case.”
Back in their cell, Lionel and the goat continued to pace up and down, though the goat kept tripping over. “Don’t know why they removed my shoelaces,” he said gruffly.
“Maybe we can tie some sheets together to make a rope and escape out the window,” suggested Lionel.
“You already tried that,” said the goat, nodding at the bare bed. “You forgot to tie one end, remember?”
Suddenly the cell-door swung open. “You got a visitor, Snitchie,” said the screw, laughing cruelly. (Due to cutbacks, prison warders had been replaced by pieces of ironmongery) “Oh good,” said Lionel and the screw stopped laughing.
“I have some good news and some bad news,” said Zug, her fingertips pawing the glass pane between them. “The bad news is, my darling, that I never loved you and I only agreed to marry you so that I could rip you off and claim EU citizenship. I have sold your apartment – you’re going to be banged up for 30 years anyway, so you won’t be needing it – and on the proceeds, Reuben and I are going to get married and live in a dacha in Slovenia. The baby was his all along, not yours, and I didn’t put Geogho down on the birth cert– we called him “Robbie Doyle” instead. Grandma has given a statement to the police that she swears she saw you washing blood out of Karen’s clothes before you incinerated them and you’ve been disowned by your entire family who have told the papers they always knew that you would come to no good.”
Lionel gulped visibly. The six inch nail by the wall glanced over at him, truncheon at the ready. “And the good news?” he stammered.
“You beat Wexford Youths 1-0,” answered Zug. “Great diving header from McGill. Still top of the table on goal difference from Dundalk. Longford Away and then Torpedo Fingal at home.”
“Yessssssss!” yelled Lionel at the top of his voice and was immediately hopped on by two raw plugs and a picture hook who proceeded to hammer the bejaysus out of him before dragging him back to the cell.

We need goals

We need goals, goals and even more goals,
Kneel down contritely and sell off your souls,
Blow them in, suck them in, summons dark holes,
All we need now is a hatful of goals.

Lets get right at them and knock it around
We look quite a team when its played on the ground
So lets play the football for which we’re renowned,
Pass it and move as we knock it around.

A dead eye for goal we’re relying upon,
Our shooting boots must be the ones that we don,
Don’t be afraid or the chance might be gone,
A dead eye for goal we’re relying upon.

The fans must be vocal and urge them to score,
Not one or two but a dozen or more
Let’s spur them on with a deafening roar
Raise the roof loudly whenever we score.

Certainly we must be firm in defence,
Losing eight-seven does not make much sense
The games left are few and the atmosphere’s tense,
But they say that attack’s the best form of defence.

We need goals, goals and even more goals,
The season’s near over, we all know our roles,
Give us one more of those Tolka Park strolls,
With some goals,
Lots of goals,
A whole netful of goals.

Legend nearly played at Tolka this year?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/chrischarles/2008/10/review_of_the_week_5.html

"Never mind the Borats, there was only one story that really caught the eye last week - the news that Morrissey is a Millwall fan.
The sardonic genius/grumpy old git (delete where applicable) has been swanning around LA in a Lions top bearing the legend 'Mobster' - and the famous quiff could be putting in an appearance at the New Den this Saturday when Millwall take on those other shrinking violets, Leeds.
At first glance the lentil-munching, Thatcher-hating, gladioli-wearing pop star and the club whose anthem is "No-one likes us, we don't care" make for strange bedfellows. But then this is the fella who penned tracks called Sweet and Tender Hooligan and that popular ode to Dennis Wise, Bigmouth Strikes Again.
In another startling revelation, Millwall number two Joe Gallen revealed: "Me and Morrissey have been best mates for years and he's always emailing me to see what's going on at the club. He's obsessed with Millwall and its culture." Extraordinary.
Gallen added: "He kept badgering me to ask if he could play 10 minutes in our pre-season friendly against Shelbourne but we couldn't do it. He hasn't been to see a game at the Den yet but he says he is going to try and get over for the Leeds match."

A Tolka Romance by Bill Zunmoon

Chapter 15
.
From the ashes of disaster grow the roses of success, as Georges Pompidou once remarked to Lionel Ritchie. Shels’ demoralising defeat in Oriel Park, followed by the frustrating goalless draw at home to Waaaaterford, seemed to be the last iced bun that broke the camel’s coffin, but subsequent victories against star-studded Kildare County and the Magic Mons breathed new life into Shels’ promotion charge.
For Lionel, the talk of building for next season had been replaced by the need for Shels to beat Athlone and Wexford. He argued constantly with Zug’s Cousin Genghis over whether Bisto should be brought back into the team for the two matches. Lionel’s point of view was that the aforementioned striker’s presence was vital to the team. Cousin Genghis merely drew his hand across his throat and grinned menacingly which, to Lionel, did not constitute a well-reasoned argument delivered in a cogent and lucid manner.
On the Wednesday evening between Claudia Winkelman and Coronation Street, Zug gave birth to a healthy baby boy. “What is it?” called Lionel over the heads of the goats, who had gathered round to watch the birth. “It’s a baby,” snapped Zug’s grandmother. “What were you expecting, a vaccuum cleaner?”
“I think I will call the baby Geogho,” said Zug, cradling the tiny infant in her arms. “Look at his moustache and the little jink he does when he runs up to take a penalty. You are happy with this, Lionel?”
Lionel could not have been happier. He had heard rumours that mail-order brides do not often work out but here was Zug, producing a son for him only six weeks after they had met. He couldn’t wait to teach the child how to execute a perfect slide tackle while unobtrusively kicking his opponent with his trailing leg. He couldn’t wait to bring him to Tolka and show him how to abuse the opposition players. He couldn’t wait to smack him around the head and tell him not to be leaving those magazines where his mother might find them.
Curiously Zug’s Uncle Reuben, who shared a bed with the happy couple, also took a great shine to the baby and insisted on breast-feeding it during the night. However, Zug assured Lionel that this was the custom in her native Mongolia. Also, she suggested, it would be an advantage to put Reuben’s name down on the birth certificate, purely for tax reasons, to which Lionel acceded willingly.
On the Saturday afternoon of the Athlone match, Lionel was preparing to leave when Zug announced she was not feeling well and would prefer to stay in bed. Full of concern, Lionel offered to stay behind with her but she assured him that Uncle Reuben had already volunteered and that she would not want to spoil his enjoyment of the match.
He kissed her tenderly and loaded up the 93 Sunny. Grandmother took the baby in the back with Cousin Genghis while one of the goats sat in the front seat. The other goats, tethered to a piece of washing line, trotted along behind. Glancing up at the bedroom window, he could see Uncle Reuben standing there in his underpants and idly wondered if he had turned the heating up too high that morning.
The procession started off down the M50, the goats paying their way handsomely by bunching up as they passed the toll plaza, thus concealing the number plate from the camera. They turned off onto the N4, with Grandmother softly singing “When Jayo went to Poland” to the baby and Cousin Genghis amusing it by pretending to decapitate it with his scimitar.
They were just about to branch off onto the N5 when Lionel noticed the blue, flashing lights in his rear view mirror. Well, they were actually behind him, not in his mirror, and by the time Lionel realised this, the car had pulled up alongside and the long arm of the law was telling him to pull over. Being a law-abiding citizen, Lionel did so, though the goat in the passenger seat urged him to make a run for it.
“I was only doing 20mph, officer,” said Lionel, puzzled, as a team of marksmen took up position around the car.
The policeman leaned into the car and spoke through a megaphone. “Step out of the car and lie down on the ground with your hands behind your back!” he yelled, waking the baby.
Slowly, Lionel did as he was told, as did Grandmother and the baby and the goats. Only Cousin Genghis defiantly drew a finger across his throat until a bullet in the thigh put an end to his bravado.
Lionel felt the handcuffs click round his wrist.
“Lionel Snitchie,” shouted the officer through the megaphone. “I am arresting you for the murder of Nigel de Havilland Ponsonby Smythe.”

The First Division Championship

She is slim, she is brash,
She’s beguiling
In her low-cut flamenco red dress.
If you flash her the cash,
She’ll be smiling,
But its no guarantee of success.
And the suitors surround her,
They’re always around her,
They all try to woo her,
She beckons them to her.

She is wild, she likes fun,
She laughs loudly,
As you grasp her cold hand with intent.
Your actions are done
Very proudly,
Yet she’s of a flirtatious bent.
She dances with passion
In amorous fashion,
She twirls you intently,
Then lets you down gently…

The men almost fight
To escort her,
But she’s an incredible tease.
Deep into the night
They exhort her
With plaintive and heartrending pleas.
For everyone knows
At the evening’s close,
With a flick of her head
She will bring one to bed.
And I’m hopeful this time,
She will indicate I’m
The one she’ll hold tight
At the end of the night.

Classy pic

Pic by Ringsendreds

A Tolka Romance

Chapter 14
.
Even Tosh Moher, the kindly and affable man that organises the supporters’ buses for Shelbourne away trips, drew the line at livestock. Irish Rail were similarly unimpressed, so Lionel was forced to hire a mini-bus to get himself, Zug (his Mongolian mail-order bride), her extended family and the family’s herd of goats down to Limerick for what was Shels most important game of the season since the last one.
“We win this and we go second,” he explained to Zug. “Then, all we have to do is beat Dundalk away and Waterford at home and Bob’s your uncle.”
“She already has an uncle,” muttered the old man passing behind them, pointing angrily at his own chest. “If this Bob shows up, I will slit his throat.”
“Oh you make it sound so easy, Lionel” sighed Zug, laying her head on Lionel’s chest. “If only it could be this way all the time. We’d soon be back up among the higher echelons of Irish football where we belong.”
Lionel stroked her hair gently. She really was perfect in every way, he thought. His life had really changed for the better that dreadful day three weeks ago when Karen had been swept downstream by a raging River Tolka, never to be seen again.
After the match, as they drove the minibus down to Henry Street Garda Station to collect Zug’s grandmother and the goats, she nuzzled up to him again. “This James Keddy, he is a great player, no?” she asked. “Why are you laughing?”
She slept beside him on the minibus on the long drive home, waking only when Grandmother and Uncle Reuben broke into a particularly rowdy verse of “We’ll keep the red flag flying here.”
As the Dundalk match neared, the tension grew. Grandmother wandered around the apartment muttering “G’wan Shels!” to herself and Cousin Genghis came down with a particularly nasty case of itchy bowel syndrome. Even the goats refused to give milk, though as they were all male, this was probably not too surprising.
“You must believe!” said Zug to Lionel, whenever he got into one of his pessimistic moods. “Have you never listened to Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers? We can do anything we really want to. He is not big in Ireland, no?”
“Darling, I really don’t know how I’d get through this without you,” said Lionel, nibbling her fingers affectionately.
“I wouldn’t do that,” she warned him. “I’ve just been trying to milk the goats.”
The day of the match dawned hot and humid. Well, it was hot and humid in Yemen but in Drumcondra it was overcast and grey. Lionel climbed over Uncle Reuben and the goat on the bathroom floor and put his head under the tap. After about thirty seconds he turned it on.
“We will win Lionel!” called Zug. “I felt the baby kick me three times. In Mongolia that is a sign that we will win 3-0. One for Bisto and two for Forsyth, I think. Believe!”
“You sure?” asked Lionel doubtfully. “Unborn babies can predict football scores? This is a proved medical fact?”
“In my country, yes,” said Zug simply. “In your backward Health Service, who knows?”
Buoyed by this premonition, Lionel’s mood lightened and even the grim discovery that one of the goats had eaten his vinyl copy of “Dancing on the Ceiling” during the night could not stop Lionel grinning. He whistled as the party tore up the M1 in the outside lane at 30kph and waved cheerfully back at all the drivers who waved their fists at him as they overtook on the inside lane.
Grandmother tethered the goats to the railings of the railway station and the party made their way into Oriel Park. “They have funny grass here,” remarked Zug wistfully, as the rain came down in bucketfuls. “No wonder it is so green with all this rain.”
When Dundalk went ahead on the quarter hour mark, Lionel looked quizzically at Zug. “Believe!” she said. “We can still win 3-0.”
When the second blasted past Dean Delaney, she shrugged and went silent. Lionel’s optimism evaporated and the tears ran down his cheeks, down his arms, twice round his midriff and finally streamed down his legs. Alan Keely’s consolation goal near the end set up a grandstand finish but it was not to be.
When the final whistle blew, Lionel just sat there, while Cousin Genghis shouted at the Dundalk fans and drew his finger across his throat. At last he spoke.
“Of all the liars,” he said. Zug blanched visibly. Then she blanched invisibly. Then she blanched in and out of vision.
“Of all the liars,” he repeated, “that there baby of yours is the worst I’ve ever come across. I’ll not believe a word out of its mouth when it’s born.”

The end of our season?

The optimists tell me I ought to believe,
But after Dundalk, sure, I just want to grieve.
How we’ll get promoted is hard to conceive,
Defying all logical reason.
I’m a mis’rable sod, wear my heart on my sleeve,
And it looks like the end of our season.

The damage was caused in our midseason slump.
It took us too long to get over the hump.
When it started to rain, we could not find the pump,
Though to say so was very near treason.
Our aces were no match ‘gainst Dundalk’s late trump
That effectively finished our season.

To look at the table, they’re too far in front.
That recent defeat means we’re out of the hunt.
Our defence was too porous, our attack was too blunt.
The footballing gods need appeasin’.
Ideas were reduced to the long hopeful punt
And its spelling the end of our season.

And so, as we’ve sown now, we surely shall reap.
Our boat is too flimsy, the water’s too deep.
The hare gives a laugh and the tortoise a cheep,
There’s no word yet that Hell might be freezin’.
Crawley and Giller will not fall asleep
And be caught at the end of the season.

But football, I’m told, is a funny old game.
A horse on the gallop may well pull up lame
The moth can’t give up, he must seek out the flame,
The north wind shows no sign of easin’.
Failure might hurt but it doesn’t bring shame
If we fight till the end of the season.

A Tolka Romance by Bill Zunmoon

Part 13
.
Lionel was so upset by the sight of Karen disappearing down the swollen River Tolka like an upturned whale that he could scarcely finish the Snickers bar that he was eating. After going home for a leisurely bath and a meal, he immediately phoned the police, the coastguards, the lifeboat service, Tesco home delivery service and anybody else he could think of. An air-sea search and rescue operation was launched but it unfortunately proved fruitless except for a crate of nectarines discovered near Poolbeg Lighthouse.
The tragic and traumatic circumstances of Karen’s disappearance and almost certain death were slightly assuaged however by Shelbourne’s 5-0 drubbing of Longford Town, a scoreline that renewed hope among the faithful that a serious attempt at the title could be launched. Okay the defence was still as watertight as a colander but sheets had not been renowned for their cleanliness of late and Lionel clutched at every straw that blew his way.
Ten days had passed since Karen’s untimely disappearance and Lionel realised that the time had come to let go. What they had had, had been beautiful, he thought, though not nearly as beautiful as stringing three consecutive “hads” together in a sentence. But everywhere he turned in the small flat reminded him of his one true love.
There was the dirty underwear scattered over the bedroom floor; the wart cream in the fridge; the dentures still grinning madly by the side of the bed; the chicken leg she had playfully discarded down the back of the settee. Like an enduring old composer, the Liszt went on. There was her wooden leg still propped against the wardrobe; the surgical stockings dangling from the lampshade; her underarm hair scattered over the chest of drawers.
Lionel realised he would have to make a clean break. “I’m sorry, darling,” he whispered as he stuffed everything in a large black sack and tiptoed to the skip down the road at two o’clock in the morning. He felt as if he was betraying her memory, as if he was finally cutting the strings and letting her fall over the cliff to be lacerated by the jagged rocks below. The guilt washed over him like a giant wave of chocolate custard and he hesitated before the skip. “Sod it,” he said and threw the sack in.
Without Karen’s personal belongings, the flat somehow felt emptier and Lionel realised in a there’s-a-hole-in-my-bucket sort of way that he would have to fill it up with non-Karen things. He immediately sent away for a Mongolian mail order bride called Zug and was pleasantly surprised when she arrived two days later with her extended family and a herd of goats in tow.
He brought them all up to Morton Stadium on the Friday night to see Shels play Torpedo Fingal. He was delighted that he was able to get all thirty eight of them in on a family ticket for €20, though he had to leave the goats with the police at the gate, as they constituted a potential hazard in case of fire (the goats, that is, not the police)
Zug became animated when the match began and insisted on asking the name of every player who touched the ball. “Hed-der-man,” she would repeat and nodded sagely as she said the name over and over until he passed it. In broken Egyptian, she confided to Lionel that she had followed Shels 2004 European run from her yurt outside Ulan Bator and still couldn’t believe how Jason Byrne’s lob had missed by so much in the game in Á Coruña.
It was an awful game but Zug’s family seemed to enjoy it and her grandmother even initiated a chant of “We are Shels!” near the end of the match. Zug sensed Lionel’s despair at the three points dropped to the team just behind them and rubbed his buttocks frenetically to buck up his spirits. Karen had never done that, he thought, and then he was suddenly racked with guilt again, even though it was a whole fortnight since she had been swept to her doom.
As they walked home through Whitehall, Zug confided to Lionel that she was pregnant and he was the father. Lionel was delighted. All that effort trying to make a baby with Karen and here was Zug carrying his baby only 48 hours after they had met and before they had even slept together.
As he settled down on the bathroom floor between Zug’s Uncle Reuben and one of the goats, Lionel realised he was the luckiest man alive.

Another good chant...

...sung by Shels fans after the Reds had taken the lead against Dynamo Fingal -

"One -nil to the football club
One-nil..."

A Tolka Romance by Bill Zunmoon

Part 12

Once Lionel got the hang of it and didn’t need to consult the diagrams, he found that trying for a baby with Karen was actually quite enjoyable. These were the halcyon days of the summer of 2008 when gales ripped the country apart and flash floods brought back memories of the great Tolka inundation of October 2002, particularly to those who witnessed it and remembered the occasion.
Shels meanwhile found their scoring touch too, banging in six goals in two games against Athlone and Wexford to claw their way back up to third spot in the table. Even the perennial grumblers in Section D were heard to grudgingly admit that there was a touch of optimism in the air, even though “yer man’s no Val Harris,” which was true enough in its own unique way.
Far away in Beijing, a load of drug-fuelled sporty types competed in something called the Olympics, somebody in the news invented a place called South Ossetia to help start up a new cold war and a young man in Santry lost a pencil.
Lionel and Karen were blissfully in love. They snogged in the queue for the butchers and they snogged in the queue for the ATM machine. He put his hand on her backside in the queue for the bus and she, gigglingly, pushed it away, causing a slight dislocation of his elbow. Public Health officials were called in to deal with an epidemic of vomiting as they snogged in the queue at the Social Security office and the lovebirds even found themselves singing along to Boyzone songs whenever a DJ on the radio accidentally played one.
Of course such bliss could not last and from their apartment window, Lionel and Karen lay in bed watching the storm clouds gathering over Tolka. Someone called Dave Rogers was issuing a severe weather warning on behalf of Met Eireann and Lionel’s mind instantly flicked back to the volley against Hajduk Split.
“Ow!!” yelled Karen, nursing her hip gingerly.
“Sorry darling,” said Lionel, retrieving his foot from the rolls of flesh. “I was just remembering those golden days of 2004 when we were heroes.”
“Before you met me, you mean?” bristled Karen and Lionel knew instantly that he had put his foot in it, an image that is best left to the reader’s imagination. A drop of rain hit the window pane.
“It doesn’t mean to say there’s a thunderstorm coming,” advised Lionel, who had experience in such matters. A second drop hit the window. Then a third. Then there was a pause before another drop. Then a fifth and a sixth, though not necessarily in that order.
“There’s a thunderstorm coming,” said Karen matter-of-factly and sat up in bed, fumbling in among the sheets for her bra.
“Where are you going, love?” asked Lionel, idly counting the pimples on her back and suppressing an urge to squeeze a few of them.
“We,” corrected Karen.
“You don’t need to get dressed to go for a wee,” said Lionel, puzzled. Karen fished out what appeared to be a parachute from the bedding and put it on.
“No, darling,” said Karen, “We are going down to Tolka to see if they need a hand. The bar is below road level and subject to flooding, you know.”
As they stepped through the door, the rain bucketed down like buckets of rain. It hit the ground, bounced up six feet and came down a second time. Several ducks floated down the middle of the road, yippee-ing and giving each other high fives. Above, on the main road, a large black dog strapped a triangle on his back and swam around humming the theme tune from “Jaws,” until he was eaten by a shark.
“Come on!” yelled Karen, grabbing Lionel tenderly by the nose and ploughing gamely into the eye of the storm. They sloshed through the flooded streets, the water at times coming above the height of their flip-flops and soaking their feet. Lightning flashed and thunder crashed and Noah’s carpentry stores on the corner appeared to be a hive of activity.
Wading along in Karen’s wake, Lionel wished he was at home in bed again, flag in hand, preparing for another assault on Karen’s unclimbed south side. So deep was his reverie that he failed to see Karen stumble against the kerb and plunge headlong into the River Tolka.
“Karen!” he yelled, but if she answered, it was lost in the drumming of the rain on his head.

The rule book

The rule book’s writ in black and white
And Ollie, rest his soul, would say
That whether it was wrong or right,
It is imperative to fight
To make sure that the clubs obey.
And if a rule is deemed to be
An ass, as people oft maintain,
Then change the rule if all agree,
But keep the law’s integrity –
Thus Ollie often would explain.
For if a rule’s but half-observed
And not enforced by strength of law,
The game itself is badly served
And leads to madness, death and war.

And thus, when Shels were shown to breach
Financial rules, we’d no defence.
Our relegation sought to teach
The League of Ireland clubs that each
Should monitor their pounds and pence.
But now comes news that sev’ral teams
Are tottering upon the brink.
They’ve over-reached whilst chasing dreams
And wage caps have been breached, it seems,
And caused a large financial stink.
The current quagmire thus expels
An odour of the worst degree –
You cannot have one rule for Shels
While others walk away scot-free.

.

Cork, Bohs, Galway, Sligo and Cobh all believed to have infringed the same rules that got Shels demoted