SHRIMPLETONS BY NAME; SIMPLETONS BY NATURE.

Editorial Note:

Roger Fitton is the long-term Morecambe FC correspondent for Vital Football, D3D4 ­and author of his own Blog: Shrimplythebestfootball.com. He also has a PhD in International Politics for his study of American Foreign Policy; the Angolan War and the role of ideology – including racism – in it.

Dr Fitton would like to make it plain at the outset that any similarities between the fictitious Khalistan Warriors and any other real-life Sikh-owned football syndicates – as well as parallels between The Bondage Group and any actual organisation with a vaguely similar name – is strictly and entirely coincidental.

We’ve all heard of the Simpsons and Family Guy. They are American cartoon variations of well-known TV Soap Operas which, in Britain, are a staple diet for most TV viewers. But it occurred to me recently that I’ve never watched Eastenders or Emmerdale and have little interest in Coronation Street either.

But who needs to watch any Soap Opera when you are a supporter of a certain football club to be found in the north-west corner of England? Four years ago, this seaside resort’s pride and joy was a proud member of League One of the English Football League: the pinnacle of their achievement in a century-old history. Uniquely among all EFL members – they had never been relegated from any league – Lancashire Combination; Northern Premier League; Football Conference; League Two or League One itself – of which they had ever been members. But the Plot Twists and Shady Goings-On since then which have seen the club fall out of the EFL altogether and face a further relegation out of the National League as well at the moment would put even the most outlandish plot to be hatched in Albert Square or Weatherfield firmly in the shade.

I think I’ve spotted a Gap In The Market which I intend to fill.

Most people like football, don’t they? Most people like Soap Operas as well apparently.

So why not write a new series which incorporates both?

Inspired by the club’s experiences which I have been recording on-line for twenty years or so of Blogging and being the Morecambe correspondent for various internet soccer sites, here’s my pitch for a brand-new soap, with a sort-of nod to both the Simpsons and Family Guy in the title at least.

Allow me to present to you The Shrimpleton Family (subtitle:) A tale of simple footballing folk.

Here we go:

Part One of The Shrimpleton Family; a tale of simple footballing folk.

Ordinary billionaire Essex used car dealer turned drug Baron Whit Jason is looking for a foolproof way to launder the massive amounts of money he is making.

So who is this bloke?

` Whit’s’ parents must have hated him: in choosing his preposterous Christian name as a tribute to their favourite Country Music crooner, Slim Whitman, they put a target on his back.  (It’s arguably better than naming his `Slim’, I suppose – particularly now in early middle-age with his triple chin and enormous beer belly.) But why would anybody give a kid a name like that which sticks out from the Johns, Peters and Davids like a sore thumb – and is a magnet for playground bullies?

Whit Jason has undoubtedly been scarred by this choice of his lifelong moniker. Just hearing a few bars of Slim Whitman’s Rose Marie or Indian Love Call is guaranteed to bring him out in hives and he’s never been able to watch the Sound of Music because of the threat of Alpine yodelling it contains. Any sort of yodelling to rival Slim’s own is the equivalent of Superman’s Kryptonite to Whit: to this day, it has the capacity to reduce him to a human jelly.

Psychologists might deduce that trauma brought-on by these experiences has produced a kink in Whit’s personality which explains the conscienceless, ruthless criminal Mr Jason has turned into. But they’d be wrong: Whit Jason is just one of nature’s naturally really unpleasant and nasty individuals – and always has been.

He graduated from selling dodgy high-end cars – some stolen; others two wrecks welded together into a single deathtrap – to a bit of casual street dealing of cannabis. But a man like Jason was never going to be satisfied being a Foot Soldier for some Drug-selling Mastermind living a life of luxury somewhere else entirely to the mean streets of London’s East End. He wanted to be the man giving the orders; the man hustling with rival global drug-dealers – the man in charge. And soon – he was precisely that.

From his shady contacts in the car theft/insurance fraud underworld, he made inroads to the really Heavy Duty but incredibly lucrative world of Organised Crime and international drug-running syndicates. He graduated from selling dope to specialising in Opiates which he got from the infamous narcotic Golden Triangle: the three-pronged supply chain starting in the poppy fields of Afghanistan and Pakistan and processed in out-of-the way laboratories in the peasant villages of relatively nearby Punjab – places nobody would think of looking for them, least of all bent coppers in a far-flung country who could be easily bought-off.

So let’s move forward to the year 2018. `Dahn the pub’ – the legendary Bristol (short for Bristol Rovers Return) – Whit regularly meets with-up shady Indian `businessman’ “Chopper” Ranjit Singh Chopra.

(Everyone knows you don’t mess with Ranjit – if you don’t want to get precious bits of your anatomy Chopra-ed off, that is…)

“’Ere, Chopper – I got this five ‘undred fahsand sittin’ in me bleedin’ khazi and doin’ nuffink! Wocha fink I should do wiv it Chief?” asked Whit one day.

`Chopper’ had an instant response.

“Nah!” said Whit, “I know it’s in me bleedin’ khazi but I got bog roll for that, inn-eye?”

So the Sikh came up with a better suggestion: why not invest in a football club and use its financial connections to launder the money?

 “Wot – Chelsea or Arsenal or summin’?”

But “Chopper” had an even better idea: Whit should buy a club that no-one has ever heard of and launder his ill-gotten gains that way.

Brilliant! – nobody had thought of that before, had they?…

But there was a problem. How could anybody select a club that no-one else has ever heard of… if no-one else has ever heard of it?

Fair point. This conundrum troubled the pair of them for quite some time; months in fact…

Eventually, though, they stumbled acrossthe home-town club of the small fishing community of Shrimpleton, hidden away off the north-west coast of England on Cumberside Island – that No Man’s Land outcrop of rock that lies between Merseyside to the south and Cumberland to the north somewhere in the Irish Sea. Shrimpleton Town Football Club could be found clinging to this barren, wind-swept limestone hernia in the Earth’s Crust in a Place Time Forgot.  No trains ran there anymore since Dr Beeching ordered the world’s longest iron viaduct from Crosby to be demolished in the 1960s – you must have heard of it. The much-vaunted tunnel to Barrow-in-Furness and thus eastwards to the M6 motorway had never materialised either. No such links – new or restored – were planned now or in the foreseeable future.

So for a drug-dealing criminal wanting to launder his ill-gotten gains, Cumberside Island was an even better bet than the Isle of Man, which lay less than fifty miles away to the West – and that’s really saying something, believe me. All Whit Jason needed to do this was to acquire one of the tiny island’s very few commercial enterprises. So The Shrimpies – as Town were affectionately known to the locals – was the answer to all his prayers. 

Shrimpleton Town was a family-owned club which had been happy to plough its furrow in the Northern Counties Islands and Craggy Outcrops League for almost the whole of the last century. It had absolutely no claims to fame; had never won any trophies of any sort and even its highest Official Home Gate – 47 for a 1912 local derby against Walney Island Nomads – was subject to doubt as it is suspected that a group of seals which were living on the nearby rocks had been included among the spectators. But was the club even for sale? And do seals even like football anyway?

Whit Jason could be very persuasive with his Cockney Wide-Boy car-selling patter when he put his mind to it. He offered the Shrimpleton family an eye-wateringly large amount of money for the club. And in return, he told whoever would listen that he intended to lead them to far better things – perhaps even as far as the Northern Counties Nonentities Premier League – in the very near future.

Well – who could resist an offer like that?

Pillars of the Establishment Lord and Lady Shrimpleton couldn’t, for a start. Sacks of cash: up-front too. And as much cocaine as they could both snort for the rest of their lives…

So a deal was struck.

The team immediately improved as soon as Whit took over. Seventh in the league in his first season. Sixth in his second – and so on until a place in the so far totally unattainable Northern Counties Mediocre Clubs Federation beckoned. Improvements at the club’s home ground – Shrimpleton Park – were implemented at the same time. The bike shed had a new corrugated iron roof fitted in Whit Jason’s first season alone. The single toilet had its door re-fitted during the second. 

Second-hand pylons from the National Grid were then exchanged with a local scrap dealer for a Beamer especially selected by Whit. These were placed at the corner of the pitch in his third season in control. (Sadly, the Scrap Dealer mysteriously died when the BMW apparently broke in two for unexplained reasons when travelling at speed on the precipitous Shrimpleton Coastal Road shortly afterwards.)  As a tribute to him, a Go Fund Me page was opened to provide the money needed to purchase the wiring; lighting gantries and – eventually – the bulbs to go in them to allow Shrimpleton FC to play in the Northern Counties Floodlit Wednesday League for the first time ever in as little as perhaps twenty years’ time. Oh yes – the Shrimpies were on the way up all right…

And – all the time – massive amounts of money from Mr Jason’s drug dealing were passing through the club’s books. Gate Receipts from home matches sometimes topped £300,000 – which, should any suspicious HMRC auditors investigate further – would indicate the highest entrance prices for any football club on the planet at about £30k per spectator. But the only investigation by such people was from the same accountancy company currently responsible for ticket pricing in 2026 FIFA World Cup and they naturally saw absolutely no reason for further enquiries to be made…

So the club moved at a steady – albeit rather slow – pace up the league year-on-year and further improvements – such as an ex-Cumberside Police Loud Hailer for the Match Day Announcer – were implemented. Just a month after the introduction of not just one but two brand-new Bus Shelters on the island had been front-page news in the Shrimpleton Bugle, (it was quite an event), they were stolen. Men with a low-loader and some angle grinders were responsible, local nosey-parkers reported on social media. Two months later, the Shrimpies unveiled two new dug-outs at Shrimpleton Park. It seemed a particularly thoughtful touch to have included a bus timetable Notice Board in the Away shelter, don’t you think?

“`Elps ‘em get away faster!” was Chairman Jason’s comment to the media in Essex when the story first broke and the finger of suspicion was pointed firmly in his direction.

As everything seemed to be going along swimmingly otherwise, however, Whit Jason took his eye off the ball. No – not the balls to be seen at Shrimpleton Park (the drug dealer wouldn’t be seen dead there) – but on the business side of things. He had established a number of legitimate companies and other interests with his ill-gotten drugs gains. You’ve probably heard of some of them…

Let’s take his top-selling – and very colourful photographic journal which once rated even higher than Vogue and The Field in terms of monthly sales – for instance.  He had bought this with laundered money from the very respectable owners of West Ham United Football Club – which obviously in itself gave it a cast-iron veneer of legitimacy.

And along with Tied-Up Readers’ Wives’ Gazette and sister title BDSM Beauties, his chain of Adult shops: Jason’s Thongs & Things and Pimps & Gimps were still bringing-in cash in large amountsto a business portfolio which he registered – with what he considered to be phenomenal creativity – as the Bondage Group.

With High End car salesrooms: Proceeds of Crime Re-sales Inc and Write-Offs Reborn PLC being added in the fullness of time,Whit was hoping to leave a kosher business legacy to his many children – legit or otherwise – in the unforeseen future.

But All Good Things (and Bad Things for that matter) Come To An End.

Over the years, on-line pornography made Tied-Up Readers’ Wives’ Gazette and its ilk rather tame things of the past and Business Rates, internet competitors and police raids made his sex shops finally unprofitable. Yes indeedy, the Bondage Group was actually tying itself up in financial knots…

Worse still, live and pending court cases involving his car sales companies and stolen vehicles was costing Whit more money in settlements than either of them were actually bringing-in. There was also a very worrying but increasing possibility – if not certainty – of impending imprisonment for his continual flouting of the law as far as his car sales were concerned.

So a point was reached when the only business he owned which actually made a profit was Shrimpleton Town. It was proving to be the Cash Cow keeping all his other failing companies afloat.

This fact did not go un-noticed in the criminal fraternity he associated with.

One night, `dahn the Bristol’, “Chopper” – usually so parsimonious with his money – showed a previously unsuspected generosity as he plied Jason with beer and whisky chasers for an entire evening.

The alcohol loosened Jason’s tongue and he told Chopper far more about his businesses – and the problems that he was experiencing with them – than he probably should have. But from the Sikh’s point of view – and it was noticeable that he was only drinking Mineral Water all night – that was the object of the exercise.

Just a week later, Mr Chopra told Jason that he had contacts with a syndicate which had its roots in India and would be very interested in acquiring Shrimpleton Town FC – at the right price.

“Oh yeah?” said Jason “An’ oo are these geezers then, Chopper? Wot kinda moolah do they wanna put on the table, eh?”

“The leader of the syndicate is Sarbjot Singh Pahwah, a young entrepreneur…”

“Whatevver turns you on…”

“Entrepreneur, Jase – you know – businessman…”

“If ‘e wants to enter uvver people’s Preneurs – know wot I mean? – that’s all right by me Squire!”

Chopper gave his Partner in Crime a suspicious look. Was he really as stupid as he seemed? (The answer was: absolutely yes… But the Sikh carried on anyway:)

“A 20-year-old Indian entrepreneur with interests in coc…”

“Cocaine?” asked Jason, guessing – correctly – what the source of this gentleman’s apparent wealth really was.

“No!” denied Chopper, perhaps a little too quickly; “He has interest in, em… cocoa. Oh…” (thinking on his feet) “I forgot: in Cola too! Er – he actually owns a company selling Indian’s favourite brand of Cola…”

“Wossit called then?”

“Er – Pep!” (it was the first thing Chopper had thought of for probably subliminal reasons. But, warming to his task, he added: ”It is a Cola specifically developed by the Sikh community and intended originally only for Sikhs…”

“Pep-Sikh Cola?” asked Jason, “It’ll never catch on, Chief!”

“But it has caught on in India, Jase! It has even been endorsed by the EFL!”

“EFL? Wossat then?”

“Some ropey organisation up there in Preston. Slip them enough Rupees; Pounds; Roubles – even Bitcoin; they’re not fussy – and they’ll endorse anything! And – talking about Rupees – millions of them have been spent promoting young Sarbot’s lovely new drink: “Put a Pep in your step!” – allIndians know that slogan thanks to television advertising! But Sarbjot is also a huge fan of your national game!”

“Cricket? Wot is it wiv you…”

“No- the other one! And he is prepared to make a significant offer for control of your football club.”

“Oh yeah? ‘Ow significant?”

“Six million…”

“Rupees?”

“No – six million of your British Pounds!”

“’An’ ‘as he got the dosh?”

“Well – he drives a silver Bentley.”

Whit looked suddenly worried. “’As it got a tendency to veer to the right – or left – when travelling at over fifty miles an hour?”

Apparently not.

“Or over’eat on a trip of over firty miles?”

“Not as far as I know, Jase! I do not have an intimate knowledge of my cous – my business associate’s – life!””

(“Fank Gawd!” thought Mr Jason, “It ain’t one of mine then!”)

Aloud, though, he asked:

“And this Sir Jot…”

“Sarbjot” corrected Chopper.

“Right! But oo-ever he is wants to give me six Marigolds for me footie interests don’t ’e?”

Mr Chopra was confused – as well he might be.

Six flowers? Six bunches of flowers? Six pairs of rubber gloves? What the hell was this idiot talking about?

“Young Sarbjot wants to pay you six million pounds for your football club” he repeated.

“Six million smackers?” Whit Jason said this almost to himself as the possibilities of what he could do with such a fortune seemed to be in danger of overwhelming him completely.

“I’ll `ave to fink abaht it!”

So Whit Jason did think about it. His accountant – known to everybody simply as `Dirty’ Dora because, apparently, she knew where a lot of dirty money was stashed away – even by people and organisations which might surprise you – did the sums.

Her conclusion was that six million quid still left a huge hole in Bondage Group’s coffers. They clearly needed at least twelve just to make ends meet…

“Just to make ends meet!” repeated Dirty Dora, laughing and pointing at one of one of Whit’s `periodicals’, which lay open on a desk across the room. “You naughty boy!”

I think it might be advisable to wrap-up the first episode here in case you’re reading this before the nine o’clock Watershed: what happened next is definitely X- Rated.

Would Jason sell his cash cow to the persistent `Sir’ Jot – or even Mr Chopra? Did Dirty Dora the Accountant succeed in making ends meet? Do seals dislike football because their goalkeepers always flap at crosses? These and other key questions will be answered in the next thrilling instalment of The Shrimpleton Family; a tale of simple footballing folk.