By George - Hilarious Tales from England's Most Fanatical Football Supporters. David Stanfield
Town crew The MIGs, but in reality the only banning orders they’d had were from ‘All you can eat for £15’ restaurants.
The night before we left for Germany I went for a few drinks with Paul, Steve and Lee – trouble was, ‘a few’ turned into many and we ended up drinking Green Monster – my own lethal concoction of snakebite and blue curaçao. At about 10pm I went into the toilet and emerged as St George – the whole club was in uproar and people immediately broke into a chorus of ‘Keep St George in my heart, keep me English’, which happens quite a bit when we’re seen in our suits.
I’d intended to just put the suit on for a laugh, but with such a reaction I kept it on all night. Paul also changed into his suit: ‘Fuck me, now there’s two of them!’ someone shouted. ‘That’s right – I’m George the First, I announced, holding my arms aloft, ‘And this is George the Second!’ I added, pointing at Paul.
By the time the club shut, we were hammered – all except Lee who was on antibiotics. Not for a dose; the closest Lee had got to a bird’s knickers in recent months was hanging his Mum’s washing out. Anyway, Lee drove my van when we left the pub and we all went over to Ian’s house, even though Ian didn’t know we were coming. Now you’ve heard about the size of Ian, so waking him up was a risk to our health. But Ian was my oldest and best mate and where other people had to be careful of him, I could get away with murder. The only trouble was that for all his size, Ian’s going out with my sister Sharon (who stands a massive five foot three inches) and she was boss. It was her we really had to worry about.
We stood outside my sister’s house, and I came up with the clever idea of breaking in. The downstairs window was ajar so I got a screwdriver from the van, slid the screwdriver in, lifted the handle and opened the window. I climbed in and opened the front door to let Paul and Steve in.
Once in we raided Ian’s beer supply and I decided Steve needed a haircut, so I got my hair clippers out. We sat Steve in the dining room and proceeded to give him a skinhead, even though he’d only asked for a short back and sides. We hadn’t been cutting Steve’s hair for long, though, when there was a loud knock at the door. We heard movement from upstairs and started running around the house looking for somewhere to hide, as we knew my sister and Ian would not be best pleased firstly by whoever was knocking at the door and secondly by the fact that there were two St Georges and a half a skinhead in their house.
Ian charged down the stairs – we knew it was him as it sounded like a herd of wildebeest on the move – and he was screaming at the top of his voice ‘Who the fuck is that?’. This was quickly followed by my Sister screaming ‘I bet it’s that fucking stupid brother of mine’. How wrong could she be – they didn’t even hear me enter.
Ian wrenched the door open and came face to face with two old bill. ‘Do you know what fucking time it is?’ he asked (obviously his Mickey Mouse watch had stopped). The first copper told him that a neighbour had witnessed someone wearing a red cape breaking into their house.
My sister shouted, ‘Does it look like there is anyone hear with a fucking red cape on, burglar or not?’ At that point I came out of hiding behind the lounge curtains to reveal that the burglar in question was indeed her ‘fucking stupid brother’. The two policemen looked stunned when I appeared; my sister on the other hand, who wouldn’t put anything past me, said, ‘What the fucking hell are you doing here and how did you get in?’ Paul then emerged, holding Steve up.
The first copper said, ‘Excuse me, Madam, do you know these…?’ He wasn’t quite sure what to call us. ‘Yes, I fucking do know them. It’s my brother and his drunken mates.’ Ian was laughing as he wandered back up the stairs to leave my sister to it. His parting shot was ‘Don’t nick any of my lager!’
The police came in and I explained why we broke in and why we were dressed as knights. My sister didn’t seem to be listening – she was too busy looking strangely at Steve who looked like he’d got a bad case of alopecia.
The police apologised to my sister for disturbing her, and as they were about to leave the second copper asked, ‘Any chance of a photo, mate? The boys down the station are never going to believe this!’ So me and Paul stood either side of the copper, while his mate took a picture.
The two old bill left my sister’s and I waited for the torrent of abuse which was surely coming. She looked me in the eye, shook her head and started laughing. ‘Look, Shaz, sorry about…’ I began, but before I could finish she raised her hand and said, ‘Will someone please finish cutting that bloke’s hair? He looks fucking ridiculous.’ Then she turned and went to bed.
I finished Steve’s hair and we called it a night, after having another couple of Ian’s beers of course. Ian woke me at about 5.30am, while I was still sprawled out on his sofa. He’d already screamed at Steve and Paul and I knew it was my turn. ‘Come on, get up – we’re off to the World Cup now and we’re not waiting for you,’ he said. I walked into the kitchen where Steve looked like he was in a daze. He was in a house he’d never been to before and he couldn’t remember how he’d got there. I did have to laugh when he scratched his head only to discover that all his hair had gone. I said nothing, but he knew who’d scalped him.
Bruce, Dave, Jimmy and Lee arrived soon after and Jimmy looked at me and said, ‘Told you Stan would be hammered.’ The boys would be shocked if I wasn’t. We packed the bags into Dave’s van, jumped into Ian’s motor, and off we went. It only took Ian a matter of seconds to start telling the others of the previous night’s events, which they thought were hilarious.
On the way to the motorway, we picked Chubb up, who looked like death warmed up. ‘Fuck me, Chubb, what’s wrong with you?’ I said. ‘I’ve got the shits something terrible and I’ve been up all night,’ Chubb replied. Oh well – with all the S.E.C.E.F members now present and correct (well, sort of) we were off to Germany.
I slept all the way to Dover using Chubb as a pillow. He was quite comfy to lean on with the extra weight he carried – if you looked at him, you’d think he was hiding a beach ball up his jumper.
Once on the ferry we put the George suits on and this time we were joined by Bruce – arise, George the Third. The three of us stood at the back of the ferry, with the great shores of England still in sight, dressed as crusaders. We couldn’t believe the reaction – the boat was packed with English fans and they all wanted a photo with us.
Once off the ferry, it was time to pick up the most important thing to a Englishman: BEER and lots of it. We headed to a beer hypermarket and filled Dave’s van, and we even got Chubb a couple of bottles of Babycham. Our next stop came at a Belgian service station and Paul, Bruce and I got Georged up again before we crossed the border into Germany, almost invasion-style. When we got to the German border, they were checking passports. We were about forty cars from the checkpoint when the three of us stood up in Ian’s motor, with our heads sticking out of the sunroof, and started up a chorus of the theme from Dambusters. Arms raised like aeroplanes, we started belting out ‘Der, der, der, der, der der, der, der’ and the next thing we knew, all the English fans in the cars around us got out and joined in. The German border control didn’t have a clue what was going on and just started waving cars through without checking anyone’s passports.
Chubb had previously asked Ian to stop when he got a chance, as he needed the toilet, but had since fallen asleep. We were driving along the Autobahn, and I was thinking to myself how perfect everything was, when suddenly the car was filled with the most stomach churning smell of shit I’d ever smelt. ‘Oh my God, what the fuck is that smell?’ I desperately asked, trying to hold my nose. Ian slammed the brakes on, almost sending us all through the windscreen. Chubb, in his bad condition, had shit himself in his sleep.
We woke Chubb up as we piled out of the car. Everyone was retching, except