Part Two of The Sensational Shrimpleton Saga. Will Pep – Sikh Cola – ever catch on?

Last time, we left drug-dealing BDSM pornographer Whit Jason (and his phobia of yodelling) in the clutches of his Bondage Group accountant, `Dirty’ Dora. They were considering (among other things) whether or not Whit should accept a generous offer from shady Sikh `businessman’  “Chopper” Ranjit Singh Chopra of six million pounds on behalf of what might just have been a relation of his, the young Indian entrepreneur known as Sir Jot to Jason – but `Sarbjot’ to the rest of humanity. The six million quid would transfer the ownership of the star Northern Counties Islands and Craggy Outcrops League (Second Division) football club on the small island of Cumberside in the Irish Sea from Mr Jason to the `fizzy pop magnate’ as one respected British newspaper described the up-and-coming Indian billionaire.

This club is known as `The Shrimpies’: Shrimpleton Town AFC.

Read on and all will be revealed as we unravel the second thrilling instalment of

The Sensational Shrimpleton Saga…

“I wanna fourteen million bung to part viv the Shrimpers Chopper!” Whit Jason told his turban-wearing companion next time they met `dahn the Bristol’ (known to Soap fans over the years as the shortened form of the Bristol Rovers Return).

“Aren’t the Shrimpers Southend United, Jase?”

“Wot? Oh – I mean the Shrimps!”

“You own Morecambe Football Club?”

“Nah! You know: Shrimpleton Tahn, wotevver their bleedin’ nickname is! I’ve invested a chuffin’ fortune in furver improvements to the shi – stadium!”

Chopper looked sceptical – as well he might.

“Such as what?” he asked.

Chairman Jason explained that the single toilet which we noted in the previous episode had its door re-fitted also had the sign `Uni-Sex’ added.

Yes, explained Whit, he was very proud that his Shrimpleton Town were Ahead of the Curve in that regard. He produced a copy of the club’s match-day Programme, The Shrimpie (sadly, due to a printing error, it actually said The Shrim Pie, which had brought famous gastronomes from as far away as New York to the ground searching for this Northern Counties Delicacy – only for them to be disappointed.)

“Listen!” he instructed, pointing at part of an article in it and reading at the speed of an average five-year-old:

““There will be no gender stereotyping at The Black Pool as now both sexes can experience the total lack of toilet rolls and the broken sink on an equal footing.””

“See!” he continued, “That’s wot I calls equality in action! I fully support Women’s rights to cast off their shackles all over the world.”

Chopper looked even more doubtful.

“Er – except in your exclusive, top-quality magazines, presumably!”

The irony was completely wasted on Whit. He wanted to talk hard cash instead:

“Tell your Boy Wonder I want fourteen mil nicker for the club and not a penny less – I‘m diggin’ me `eels in!”

“Regretfully, Young Sarbjot has had to drop out of the bidding“ said Chopper.

“Cash-flow problems?”

“No – Kashmir-flow problems: the River Indus has broken its banks and flooded millions of Rupees of Sarbjot’s very valuable properties in said region.”

Whit seemed unsympathetic:

“Tell ‘im the price is still fourteen million smackers – an’ I’m not negotiatin’!”

“Fourteen million pounds is a lot of money Whit. What would you say if I offered you ten?”

Whit Jason thought about this for perhaps two or even three seconds.

“I’d say: split the difference?”

So Jason got his twelve million. That is to say, he agreed to sell Shrimpleton Town FC for twelve million pounds. But on the very day agreed for the sale to go through, he failed to sign the contract he had agreed with the Sikh buyers. Reassuring messages from him appeared on the club’s website regularly after that but then a series of self-imposed deadlines for completion were also missed. The local media in Cumberside and then in Essex started asking unanswered questions before, finally, the national media became interested. But Whit Jason seemed to have gone to ground.

In reality, he was holed-up in a poky bedsit somewhere near Dalston Junction with Dirty Dora. They had looked at the books – the financial books – again and discovered that things were actually much worse at his Bondage Group than they had previously realised. Jason actually did need fourteen million pounds just to clear its debts. And he made this reality known – surreptitiously – to the potential buyers.

But the potential buyers weren’t taking all this lying down.

Ranjit Singh Chopra gathered around him his most trusted acolytes in his syndicate. Together, they gave their organisation a name: Khalistan Warriors. Initially, they favoured the more alliterative Khalistan Killers as a suitable title but decided that gave too aggressive an impression to the general public in the UK at least.

Readers of the Daily Mail might take it at face value, after all…

Chopper appointed himself Chairman but other people close to him were given prominent roles within his organisation. Acutely aware that a tendency which he had tried – and failed – to knock out of himself to insert the term `isn’t it?’ randomly into English sentences (I’ve edited them out of the narrative so far) made him unsuitable for the job of communicating with the general public; Mr Chopra appointed someone who was.

”I’m both deeply flattered and profoundly humbled to be offered the post of Director of Communications for Khalistan Warriors” said the man chosen for the task. “I solemnly promise to uphold the highest standards of honesty, transparency, integrity and probity in this most key role as the interlocutor between the Warriors and Shrimpie fans, wherever they can be found in the world. I will continue in the role as long as I am needed. Once Khalistan Warriors takes control of Shrimpleton Town Football Club, I will be honoured to appear front and centre at all press conferences and events to publicise our new club – and do whatever else is required because I have the qualifications; the experience; the skill; the determination; the understanding and – above all – I live closest to the ground.”

(You may have seen some photographs of this man yourself once his organisation finally did take control of the Shrimpies. It’s him standing with former Chairman Lord Shrimpleton with the club scarf held aloft – and a catering truck advertising a new delicacy – Pukka Shrim Pies­- just visible in the background. But we get ahead of ourselves.)

On the day he was first appointed as Spokesperson for Khalistan Warriors, the Director of Communications continued:

“I furthermore wish to make it clear that if any UK government body suspects any impropriety or – god forbid – shady links between the esteemed Khalistan Warriors and, say, terrorist groupings in the Punjab, I will gladly relinquish all ties to the group and welcome the opprobrium of my peers, understanding from the outset that the Warriors will instantly disown me for the greater good of Khalistan!”

(“Khalistan!” yelled all the other members of the Warriors at this point, pointing their clenched fists and non-existent AK-47s at the ceiling when this speech was first run past them.)

I would like to reiterate what I have just written: there are absolutely no links whatsoever between the Khalistan Warriors and Sikh nationalism and not one of them has ever heard of Andrei Kalashnikov, let alone knows what an AK-47 actually is, never mind actually having owned one. Or two. Or even a hundred. Or any grenades or rocket launchers either.

Are we clear about that? Good – let’s continue then…

Sadly, though, the Director of Communications’ public utterances and pleas to Whit Jason to come out of hiding and do the decent thing fell on deaf ears. As did Questions in Parliament and an Open Letter to him written by the Labour MP for Shrimpleton (famous at the House of Commons for never having any holes in her arguments despite a tendency to be easily distracted) the aptly-named Dizzy Collander.

Everything seemed to go quiet. At the football club, staff and players remained unpaid for literally months on end. It started to seem that Shrimpleton Town would not be able to start the new season in the Northern Counties Islands and Craggy Outcrops League (Second Division) on time. Books in the style of Where’s Wally? started to appear and sell in huge numbers. These were called Where’s Whitty? and had a unique twist: search as you might among the crowd scenes in the pictures of football crowds; densely populated townscapes; packed beaches or wherever, `Whitty’ – unlike Wally – actually couldn’t be found… because he was never there.

Khalistan Warriors were not very happy about this. And to repeat what we said at the outset, it was best not to mess with Indian `businessman’ “Chopper” Ranjit Singh Chopra – if you didn’t want to get precious bits of your anatomy Chopra-ed off, that is…

Or have something else even more shocking happen to you…

Their Director of Communications lived-up to his title – and to the reputation that was soon to dog him once the Warriors acquired the club on the craggy outcrop somewhere in the Irish Sea.

He communicated with some `friends’ he had in India. Some very special `friends’: people who knew how to shadow enemies of Khalistan liberation; find out where they lived; what their regular movements around the locality where they could be found were; even the sort of car they drove. And – having done so, how to wire certain types of electronic devices under these vehicles – and how to activate them either using timers or real-time radio signals…

Staking-out Jason’s shops and car dealerships soon paid dividends. Professional snoopers were quickly able to follow Whit back to his flat at Dalston Junction. And then tail him as he carried on his nefarious business deals; creeping about between his car showrooms and remaining sex shops at dead of night. He always used the one High End car which he owned that hadn’t been stolen or welded back together. One fateful night, Dirty Dora and he had loaded several large boxes of battery-driven `adult sex toys’ into the back of his Jaguar XF Sportbrake Estate car, having met a trawler from Holland in a small dock on the Kent coast. Neither Dora nor he had any idea that they had been followed there. They were both totally oblivious to the fact that the people who had shadowed them had attached a remotely-operated radio device to the underside of Jason’s car. Nor did Whit know that four wires led from this device into the interior: two to the engine compartment – where they were attached to the Jaguar’s battery – and two to another device strategically placed on the floor right behind the driver’s seat.

Whit Jason had planned a circuitous route back to the big city and Dalston which initially involved a number of steep hills near the edge of the famous Chalk Cliffs. Perfect locations for a quick `knee-tremble’ with Dora. But also ideal places for an ambush – or an unfortunate `accident’.

Jason drove quickly as was his habit. Corners? Other road users? Who cared about them? – he was driving a Jag! If he actually had his eyes on the road, he might have noticed – in the moonlight which was glinting off the sea as Beachy Head lay somewhere in the distance – another car parked on even higher ground over to the north. Standing next to it were two shadowy figures. One was watching the Jaguar through a pair of Night Vision binoculars. The other was holding a radio control unit with an extended aerial of the sort you might use to steer a model aeroplane or a drone. As Jason’s car reached the peak of a steep hill with a sharp corner at the bottom of it, the figure with the binoculars raised one hand. In response, the other figure pushed a red button on the remote control unit.

Inside the big car, the result was not instantaneous. First, there was a distinct whirring sound as something behind the driver’s seat activated.

“What’s that noise?” said Dora, suddenly sensing – for whatever reason – that something was not quite right.

“One of them bleedin’ vibrators ‘as just turned itself on. That’s wot they is supposed to do, innit darlin’? And you should know! Ha ha ha! Nuffink to worry your pretty `ead abaht!”

But it was something for Dora to worry her very pretty head about. A split-second later, the deadly device so carefully positioned in the place where it would do maximum damage – already activated – actually deployed. But it didn’t cause a huge explosion or anything as crude as that. No – what this thing was about to do was far more subtle – and devilish…

The device was an old-fashioned CD Player. And it was loaded: the opening track of what would originally have been Side One of a classic album, strategically paused just before the chorus.

So – at about a billion decibels – the unmistakable tones of an American Country & Western crooner rent the silence within the car with these unforgettable words, yodelled to a pedal steel guitar in the background:

“Oh Rose Marie, I love you… I’m always dreaming of…”

Jason screamed and, letting go of the steering wheel of the speeding car, put his hands over his ears. The Jaguar, no longer being piloted, hit a small fence at the sharp turn at the bottom of the hill, smashed through it, turned onto its side and – in a shower of sparks as twisted metal loudly screeched its unhappiness with what was happening – shot over the edge of the chalk cliff alongside the road and headed, nose-first, down and ever down towards rocks and oblivion for poor old Dora and Whit a hundred or so feet below.

But – as luck would have it – Whit had actually signed the contract which had transferred ownership of Shrimpleton Town AFC to the Khalistan Warriors just before the unfortunate accident which was to prove to be his untimely demise.

As Detective Inspector of the Kent Constabulary – Beachy Head Suicide and White Cliff Accident Specialist `Chalky’ White (Call Sign: “Britain is Chalky White!”) – later told the media after the Jaguar and its sorry contents had finally been recovered:

“It’s almost as if someone had placed it there ‘cos it’s the first thing what we saw – yes, despite its bright yellow waterproof henvelope – when we hexamined the car’s hinterior. The signature of the deceased is not very distinct but our forensic experts hexplain what that’s probably due to hingress of sea water into its sealed, waterproof cover. In other words, there’s nothing even remotely fishy about this incident – apart from the sea water, hobviously – and the tragic deaths of Mr Jason and Ms Dirty are obviously hentirely due to a road traffic haccident and completely unconnected to an helectronic remote control device what we discovered attached to the car’s battery. The police would also like to quash rumours flooding the hinter-net what there is any connection between this regrettable hincident and a 1960’s Country & Western Star. We can refute hentirely the popular story currently doing the rounds headed The Phantom Yodeller Strikes Again. There is no evidence what-so-hevver to link Slim Whitman – who me and the boys like to listen to on our regular KKK evenings down the nick – and this most hunfortunate hoccurence. The case is closed.”

The Khalistan Warriors wasted no time setting up their new regime at Shrimpleton Town after this. They made a big fuss about settling the club’s debts and paying the staff. Good for them. But there was almost immediately fewer staff to pay. Because the Warriors also wasted no time in summarily dismissing the team’s long-serving and popular Dutch Manager, Adam deRek, despite the fact that he had single-handedly held things together – unpaid – as the crisis involving Whit Jason’s failure to sell deepened over many weeks and then months. The Commercial Manager soon followed suit, closely pursued by the General Manager; the Senior Safeguarding Manager; the Finance Manager; the Academy Manager and the club’s HR Consultant. Even the Head Chef got the boot and the rumours are that it was because he insisted “I don’t care if it could become a so-called `Unique Selling Proposition’! – there is no such thing as a Shrim Pie!” when the new owners presented him with a large tin of Pedigree Chum; a few boiled potatoes with the occasional pea and piece of cooked carrot, diced onion, Punjabi Special Vindaloo Curry Powder and some pastry cases.

But their key appointment – which they told everyone from the Washington Post to Delhi’s Indian Times about – was the team’s new Manager. This appointee was not only the sole Sikh and youngest Coach to be found in charge of any football club known to exist in Western Europe, he marked a complete departure from the expected norm. For seven-and-a-half year old Amandeep Singh had never played football in his life. His experience of competitive soccer began and ended with the FIFA 11 game produced by EA Sports. When asked in an early interview who his favourite football team was he replied “Cincinnati Bengals” – who, for those of us (like me) who know nothing of these things – play American Football in the NFL.

So the Warriors decided, in their collective wisdom, that naive youngster Amandeep needed a chaperone. The little chap could be shielded from difficult or trick questions by hard-nosed journalists by only having to answer pre-scripted , totally bland trivialities asked by his sixteen-year-old sister, Simran. This proved an immediate success. Even people with absolutely no interest in football would avidly watch their video conferences. Simran’s Bollywood-style allure and exotic good looks made whatever she asked or her little brother answered totally irrelevant: as long as the camera kept on rolling and she smiled or pouted (the lens was never pointed even once towards her younger sibling throughout these `interviews’) almost everybody was happy.

Except the fans. They wanted to know why Shrimpleton Town kept on losing and were becoming stranded at the bottom of the Northern Counties Islands and Craggy Outcrops League (Second Division).

But – in the sudden absence of a Director of Communications – who could possibly engage with them? Answer: the Chairman’s brother Baban, who was quickly seconded from his work with the Punjabi Popular Front in Rawalpindi to take-up his new post.

”I’m both deeply flattered and profoundly humbled to be offered the post of Director of Communications for Khalistan Warriors” Baban announced as soon as he was appointed. “I solemnly promise to uphold the highest standards of honesty, transparency, probity and integrity in this most key role as the interlocutor between the Warriors and Shrimpie fans, wherever they can be found in the world. This includes a pledge never to plagiarise the words of Directors of Communications who have held this post previously.”

“In this, my very first bulletin as the new Director (of Communications – not the club; let’s get that very straight in case I suddenly have to resign in the future), I would first of all like to wish Shrimpie fans everywhere – and indeed everyone – a very happy and peaceful Christmas, Diwali, Hanukkah or simple Yuletide.“

“I swear to you, here and now, the following, on behalf of my brother and the rest of the owners:”

“Khalistan Warriors’ commitment to this club is long-term, and we continue to fund operations while we implement many changes. We are putting in structure where there was none, adding expertise where it is missing, and setting the foundations for a sustainable, ambitious future.”

“We are not asking for blind trust. We are asking you to hold us to the commitments we are setting out today.”

“You will see us more.
You will hear from us more.
And you will see improvements quickly.”

“We will be sitting down with the Shrimpies Trust podcast as an ownership group, and we will engage directly with all the fans – Dave; Billy; Edna; Roy; Big Pete; Dicky; Psycho; Barbara; Little Phil and Zorba the Labrador – at the Forum in January. This is your club, and you deserve clarity, honesty and a plan you can believe in.”

“We are taking control of this situation and driving Shrimpleton Town FC forward. Thank you for your passion, your loyalty, and your belief in this club.”

“Together, we move forward, always stranger – sorry – stronger!”

“Cynics and unscrupulous rivals doubt the Khalistan Warriors’ vision for our club as outlined above. They say the syndicate should stick to things they know something about – like cricket… or international arms dealing. That the beacon of Sikh excellence they want to show to the world has already turned into a Damp Squib; a failure. That the Manager they have chosen is not only completely out of his depth – making Shrimpleton Town a laughing stock right across Britain and much further afield – but the worst appointment any footballing Board has made at any club in living memory.”

“But pay no heed to these dark voices of despair.”

“Under the dynamic leadership of the fearless and ground-breaking Khalistan Warriors, Shrimpleton Town has achieved precisely the position in the Northern Counties Islands and Craggy Outcrops League where it naturally should be:

On the Rocks.

Sat Sri Akal: Truth is Eternal.”

So there you have it: an outline of how my prospective Soap Opera – The Sensational Shrimpleton Saga – might play-out.

Do you think that its perfect mixture of football and intrigue has potential?

Or do you consider the whole idea to be too outlandish and frankly silly to be even vaguely believable?

I leave you to make up your own mind as you consider whether or not Official Spokesman Baban Singh Chopra was“’avin’ a Larf”, as the now sadly deceased former owner of Shrimpleton Town Football Club might have put it?

Or was he telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth – inadvertently or otherwise?

Would his promised meeting with Dave; Billy; Edna; Roy; Big Pete; Dicky; Psycho and the rest actually happen?

Could a new Chief Operating Officer for the Shrimpies transform its fortunes?

Would other aspects of the Khalistan Warriors’ involvement with the club go with a bang?

And why would a respected Peeress of the British Realm turn to the Viet Cong to try and get to the bottom of what was really going on at Shrimpleton Town Football Club?

All this and more will be explained in forthcoming episodes of the only footballing Soap Opera currently available anywhere on the British Media Landscape. Next up:

Part Three of The Sensational Shrimpleton Saga: the Peeress and the Soldier.

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