Episode Twenty-Five of the Sensational Shrimpleton Saga: The Shrimpleton Town AFC Summer Gala…

Last time, we left Garda Síochána Officer Pat McMullen in the depths of County Tipperary with a problem concerning his brand-new electric patrol car.

But, three hundred miles or so to the north east, things were not going as well as they might either for one James Churchill Proudfoot, a.k.a. Threefeet of the Yard. The day of the Shrimpleton Town AFC Summer Gala had finally dawned – yes, even though it was actually January.

The club’s Chief Operating Officer rolled over in his bed at the Shrimpleton Arms and groaned. The ale here on Cumberside Island was strong and the Moonshine he had been all too easily persuaded to imbibe with it last night was even stronger. He struggled to his feet and felt for a second as if he was caught-up in an earthquake. He had to steady himself momentarily as the walls around him seemed to shake, wobble and shimmer like they would in the strange Hall of Mirrors once to be found on fairgrounds all over the globe. His mouth tasted like the bottom of a Hamster’s cage – and, had he known it – his breath smelt even worse.

He held out a hand and tried to keep it steady. And failed – he had the DT’s for the millionth time. Years ago, he thought this was Bell’s Palsy – shakes caused by a particular brand of blended whisky which he had too much of a liking for – until he discovered that it described another medical condition altogether.

But he finally managed to pull on his creased clothes – including the polyester shirt which had stunk of stale sweat for two days now – and blunder his way to the Dining Room for breakfast. To his surprise, nobody joined him.

He hadn’t washed and the last time he had shaved was two days before his first encounter with Joseph Aleksandrovitch Kelly and his stubble had already sprouted into a perfectly white beard. Jim rather liked it. He thought it added to his gravitas in general. And sometimes, he had found bits of food trapped in it which helped to keep him going between meals…

Apart from his corner of it, the Dining Room was quite busy this morning. Locals – farmers, mostly – often called-in here before work during the week to sample landlord Amos’ famous Full English and today – being a Sunday – even more people than usual, many of them in their best togs, were starting their traditional day of leisure at the pub for a treat.  Jim ordered a large breakfast and asked for a beaten egg in a glass and a double vodka as a starter. Which he washed-down with a pint of Amos’ Extra Strong Bitter; home-brewed by his son Seth in the barn next door to the pub.

“This is the life!” he thought as he stuffed a large helping of bacon into his cavernous mouth. Exceptional booze. Great food. Decent location. Shame about the yokels. Even the sun had come out, however briefly. So all Jim’s cares about the Khalli Scallies; scary Russians or massive explosions were forgotten as the alcohol and the food worked their particular magic on him.

Until Amos risked entering the Proudfoot Halitosis Exclusion Zone to ask his unwelcome guest when the Summer Gala was going to start – customers were seemingly already quite excited about it.

“Ah!” said Jim, adopting his very best false smile and trying to think of something sufficiently neutral with which to answer the question: “I was just about to put the finishing touches to that! Another pint of your excellent ale, landlord and I’ll be ready to face anything!”

Notice the way he completely avoided answering the question? Maybe the Tory and Labour Parties had made a mistake turning down his candidacy after all…

But despite the false smile, Jim’s guts had turned to water in the instant Amos had spoken to him. He had slept badly because of a really disturbing dream about his current predicament he had experienced during the night. The sudden understanding that he was far from being out of the mire yet started throwing a shadow over him as harsh reality slowly dawned, despite his best efforts to fend it off with alcohol.

“Don’t be stupid!” he kept telling himself. “Dreams aren’t real! Premon-knittings don’t exist!”

Which is true when you come to think of it.

He added, a little harshly perhaps: “Just because you live among peasants doesn’t mean you have to think like one!”

He finished his second pint of beer and made his way a little unsteadily to the exit. Seth’s Extra Special Bitter had an original gravity of ten percent – in other words, as strong as some bottles of wine – and he had just knocked back two of them with a couple of double vodkas to help them on their way.

He thought the fresh air would help – but it didn’t. The wind blowing from the Irish Sea straight across the barren outcrop of limestone that was eastern Cumberside Island was coming straight from the Urals and Jim wasn’t either used to or dressed for it. He found himself actually shivering as he sought shelter on the quay in the lee of one of the cottages he had visited in the darkness of his first night on the island. But as he pushed himself up against the shelter of a whitewashed front wall, a door further down the street opened and a man he felt he recognised came out. Because in the dream which was haunting him, this same man had emerged in exactly such a manner and demanded to know what the hell he had done with the balloons and the figure Eight shape he had bought for his grand-daughter to celebrate her eighth birthday.

So – before this real local could say anything at all in a world which was no longer imaginary, Jim was on his way again. The icy-toothed gale drove him to the shelter of the nearby graveyard. He disturbed a woman dressed in black and wearing a dark shawl who was paused by the side of a newly-erected headstone. She turned towards him long enough for Jim to realise that she was crying. He found himself almost squealing and taking flight once more. Because in his dream, this same woman had demanded to know what sort of heartless scoundrel would steal flowers from a loved-one’s final resting place? How low and despicable must such a callous and selfish individual actually be?

He virtually ran towards The Black Pool to get away from these guilty thoughts and the people who were causing them, slamming the door behind him when he finally reached the Shipping Container which served as the General Office. There was an ancient Duffel Coat hanging on a hook attached to the inside of the door. Once he’d got his breath back, Jim put it on, pulled the hood up and stepped outside once more into the gale. There, he looked around at his sorry attempts to deck-out the football ground itself in a suitably celebratory manner that would be worthy of a Summer Gala of any sort.

In his head, garlands of bright flowers would welcome visitors along with strings of coloured flags and whole clumps of huge balloons, which children could take away as a keepsake. Visitors would be immediately served free bacon butties by the nicest-looking female teenagers in the neighbourhood, who would smile and pout as they dispensed their tasty wares and offered Brown Sauce into the bargain. There would be stalls giving-away home-made cakes; pasties and pies plus teas and coffees to keep the adults interested. Crisps and squash for the youngsters. A Mascot dressed as a Shrimp would be handing-out sweets to amuse the kids. Other touches would include simple games such as Hoop-la laid out on the pitch. A Bouncy Castle perhaps. Crazy Golf even. Other gorgeous local lasses dressed-up like Bunny Girls handing out sandwiches from golden trays. Champagne at a push. A Bar at the very least. It would be a Day to Remember for everyone…

But what he could actually see was not only very far from this vision of perfection, it was virtually an exact copy of what he had seen in his recurring nightmare. Jim, frankly, was depressed.

As he sat amongst the wreckage of crumbling furniture in the badly painted and rusty shipping container/Main Office later on, he was trying to make sense – for once – of how he had reached his current low ebb. He was remembering the episode at the local shop when he had tried – and totally failed – to buy decorations suitable for this celebratory event. He looked around The Black Pool football ground ruefully as he cursed himself. He should have just bought the stuff he needed and not attempted to haggle.

But it was too late now. Because even if the disabled woman didn’t set her huge Alsatian on him, the shop would be closed on a Sunday anyway.

So what in tarnation – as he believed the Gypsy community described themselves – was he going to do?

He looked around again in desperation and his heart sank still further.

There were no stalls. No Bouncy Castle. No Dolly Birds. No Bar even – Amos had upped his original offer to a down-payment of three hundred quid PLUS marquee hire before he would even consider providing one. No refunds.

In reality, all Jim had managed to provide were a few crummy paper flags which he had made himself from toilet paper which he had found in the so-called Referee’s Dressing Room – which was basically a stall with a bucket demarcated in one of the rusting Shipping Containers which surrounded the bumpy and threadbare pitch. He had stapled these to a washing line he had stolen from the same terrace where he had nicked the soft balloons and the figure Eight which had literally been giving him nightmares ever since.

He had taken these things from the cottage on the quay he had spotted when he initially arrived under the cover of darkness during his first night on the island. The balloons were now totally deflated and the Figure Eight was a shapeless mass next to them, roughly attached to the wall with Sellotape which was threatening to detach itself at any moment.

He looked at his Washing Line bunting and regretted it immediately. A combination of wind and rain had shredded the few pieces of toilet paper which remained stapled in place. He’d tied the line taught between the two goal frames at either end of the pitch originally. But it had somehow drooped and now was at a perfect height to garrotte anyone unfortunate to walk underneath it.

The flowers he had stolen from the cemetery had all wilted too and the lovingly-crafted GRANNY floral tribute he imagined he could re-arrange to say something suitable for a Summer Gala to celebrate the football club now seemed to be spelling out the word RANGY – or occasionally RANDY as the wind caught it – instead. What on earth was that supposed to mean? How had he managed to do it in the first place? 

He looked around at the wreckage he had personally so carefully curated, to use one of his own most favourite words of the moment. Even to an individual as self-delusional as Jim Proudfoot had always been, the resulting mess looked like something a gorilla with learning difficulties might come up with. On a bad day.

Jim looked desperately at his watch. Two hours to go before the Summer Gala was supposed to start. What he was looking at all around him was almost as bad as the dream he had been haunted by.

What was he going to do?

His instinct was to flee. But the next ferry wasn’t until tomorrow. Plan B was to get absolutely blotto. Even though he was well on the way to achieving this, that wouldn’t work on this occasion either: he wasn’t in his stinking pit of a bedsit in London anymore and he had the islanders to worry about currently in any case: they would need dealing with sooner rather than later.

At that very moment, his mobile phone vibrated.

He put his hand in his pocket to retrieve it and found quite a lot of banknotes stuffed in there with it. He suddenly remembered – as that sinking feeling he was already stricken by got even deeper and darker – that he had sold a number of what he had described as “Executive” Summer Gala tickets to selected suckers in the pub during the week. The drunken haze he had been suffering from at the time made the precise details of this exclusive offer vague in the extreme in Jim’s head. But he did remember the fee involved – fifty quid each.

How many had he sold? He had no idea.

So he pulled the cash out of his pocket and carefully counted it: three hundred and fifty quid! He must have sold seven Executive tickets! Oh Gawd – the punters would rip him limb from limb!

He shoved the money back into his pocket and then clicked his phone into life, as if by habit. In `notifications’ a link had appeared, presumably as he has blundered into an area on the island where the internet was actually available. It worked again as he opened the notification and read another bit of bad news about Shrimpleton Town Football Club. These were so regular – embargoes by the Craggy Islands league hierarchy; inquiries by HM Treasury followed by bans; links with terrorists in Punjab; club Directors fleeing the country – you name it – that even new default fans ones like Jim himself rapidly became so used to them that they usually ignored them altogether. But he took in the gist of the latest scandal which had replaced the previous one and then opened a single text message which had also arrived. This one was from Chopper himself. And it had an attachment – a video.

Jim opened this too and then quickly shut it down. Then he re-read the club news he had just skimmed-over – this time, much more carefully.

He looked towards the Heavens – and winked skywards.

Salvation had just arrived.

But he must be quick…

First thing he did was to return to the Shrimpleton Arms and persuade Amos to print-off some things he needed – urgently. The landlord drove a hard bargain: one quid per copy for all Black & White sheets; two pounds fifty for every colour sheet. Trying to bargain with him was fruitless:

“If you’re not happy – then go somewhere else!” said Amos before adding, after a suitably dramatic pause: “Oh – silly me! Except there isn’t anywhere else, is there? Not on a Sunday and not on this island anyway!”

Wondering “Are these islanders cloned?” Jim had no option but to pay up.

“I can laminate them if you want as well!” said Amos helpfully.

“Why would I want them sheep dippin’ – er: what you said?” asked a puzzled Jim.

Amos shared his puzzlement, then remembered that it was James Threefeet he was talking to. Sheep Dipping? In JimSpeak, this must be Lamb-inating, mustn’t it?…

“Have you seen the weather? Laminating will keep your posters dry!”

Jim looked out of the window of the pub and groaned. It was absolutely pouring down again.

“So that’s another twenty quid, I suppose?” said James Proudfoot, reaching for his wallet.

“Special offer for you Jim lad!” replied Amos cheerily. “Let’s say just forty quid for the whole kit and caboodle – prints; laminations and all!”

“And a free pint?”

“In your dreams, son!”

So the Chief Operating Officer of the island’s biggest football club reluctantly parted with two twenty pound notes. It was daylight robbery as they both knew but if it saved the worthless skin of Shrimpleton Town’s C.O.O., it would be worth every single penny…

On the ten A4 sheets in Black & White was written the following, in large bold capitals:

GROUND UNFIT – SUMMER GALA POSTPONED

Jim has wanted to add GROUND CONDEMMED but there wasn’t enough space to fit the second word on the sheet.

Then Amos printed-off five copies of the statement which Jim had picked-up from the internet a few minutes earlier at the football ground. To this, he added a few words of his own. See if you can tell which were which:

OFFICIAL STATEMENT

Shrimpleton Town Football Club can confirm that it became aware yesterday afternoon of a winding up petition that had been filed against the club seven days earlier by one of its suppliers, Cumberside Groundworks Limited, in relation to a legacy debt incurred prior to the takeover by Khalistan Warriors earlier in the year.

This was the first notification the club had received regarding this action.

Since becoming aware of the petition, the club has been in immediate dialogue with both the supplier and its legal representatives, with the aim of reaching an agreement to have the petition withdrawn at the earliest possible opportunity.

The club will continue to keep supporters informed and will provide a further update as soon as it is in a position to do so.

Wealth & Safety legi station dictates that the surface at The Black Poo is thus unfit for human consumption. Because of the risk of attack by rogue crock o dials on individual children from un charted parts of the pitch, the whole eddy face has been condemmed by Shrimpleton Town Council as of immediately now. The Summer Gala planned for Sunday has thus been cancelled. No refunds will be issued.

By Order

James Threefeet A.C.E. CDM

Chief Operating Officer Shrimpleton Town Football Club Co Inc PLC Ltd.

“That should do it!” he thought to himself with a self-satisfied smile.

But the landlord didn’t seem to be quite so sure. He was reading one of the colour sheets as the rest of them were slowly tumbling out of his printer.

“Who wrote this rubbish?” he demanded. And before a deeply offended Jim could lie, Amos added, pointing at the script:

“Look at this! It says that the club `became aware yesterday afternoon of a winding up petition that had been filed against the club seven days earlier’. Do you know what a Winding-Up Petition is?”

Sadly for him, Jim knew only too well – from personal experience. Several times…

“And look at this nonsense: `This was the first notification the club had received regarding this action’. My backside it was! A Winding-Up Petition is the last thing any creditor will use against any organisation to recover money owed to them! It costs a fortune for a start – with no guarantee that you as the creditor will ever get it back! If you ask me” he continued, waving the OFFICIAL STATEMENT contemptuously in his hand, “This whole thing stinks!”

He paused momentarily as he looked briefly at Jim with his worn, dirty Duffel Coat and his increasingly wild hair and bushy beard. It really was already making him look like the poor man’s Father Christmas which one of his ruder customers had already suggested to Mr Proudfoot earlier in the week. “This whole thing stinks!” thought Amos to himself again and was tempted to add “Just like you!” aloud. But he wasn’t quite thoughtless enough to actually do so. Instead, he said of the sheet of paper in his hand:

“This is utter rubbish from beginning to end – I don’t believe a single word of it! What kind of charlatans are these Khalistan Warrior crooks?”

Jim stared at the landlord in wonder, his mind going back to the House of Lords just a few short days ago. Lady Lynne had mentioned the same person when talking about the Khalli Scallies then. Did this Charlotte-Anne have a monopoly over legal matters as far as the Sikhs were concerned?

No matter – once he had the laminated sheets in his grubby hands, Jim made haste to return to the football ground through the rain, which had at least relented a bit. He found a box of drawing pins in a broken desk’s drawer and then set about affixing the messages to all doors available. Then he turned to the dilapidated barbed-wire fence which surrounded the bumpy pitch and strategically pinned more onto it. He concentrated on parts of it particularly close to the bit with cinders next to it: this space was used as a car park on match days. The Official Notices should warn any motorists off before they went any further, he reassured himself.

But before he did, he spotted a discrepancy between the two signs he had just printed-off. The one with the big letters said the Summer Gala had been `postponed’; the other suggested it had actually been `cancelled’. But he knew that there was a big difference between the two words – a potentially big monetary difference. Cancellations meant refunds; postponements didn’t. So, finding a big, black felt-tip pen in a drawer of his broken desk, Jim set about altering them all on the longer document; crossing out the word `cancelled’ and replacing it with the hand-written word `postponed’.

Exhausted by the unaccustomed effort, Jim then slumped into the wobbly chair which went with the broken desk and planned his next move. His instinct was to return to the pub and get wasted but even he wasn’t stupid enough to do so. For once, he had actually foreseen a problem which he would still have to deal with: the so-called `Executive Tickets’ he had sold. 

He knew that the `no refunds will be given’ bit of his poster would be ignored by most of the people he had ripped-off in the pub. But if – say – even two out of the seven victims were put off by this; that was – er – that was… a twenty percent reduction in his liability. Wasn’t it? Or was it a bit more? Or less? He started to count on his fingers. Seven. Take away two. What did that leave you with? A handful, that was what! Whatever – two fewer angry punters to deal with.

All he had to do was sit tight, wait for them to arrive and bluff his way out of his current predicament. He’d done things like this countless times in the past when coming face-to-face with unfortunates – sorry – suckers who he had ripped-off over holiday deals; cars; time-shares; apartments – you name it. And it would be easier than usual this time because Jim, for once, had a Plan…

As he stared out of the filthy polystyrene `window’ which someone had shoved into a large, jagged hole which had been cut into of the side of the Shipping Container with an angle grinder, Jim saw that the rain had developed from the showery stuff he had encountered earlier into a serious downpour. Peering through the murk across the angry sea in the background, even a city boy like James Proudfoot knew by now that the blue-black clouds which he could see broiling above the surface of the Atlantic in the distance meant a proper storm was on the way: imminently. And the torn plastic bags caught in the barbed wire that surrounded the football pitch plus the tattered remnants of the bunting he had tied between the goal frames were furiously trying to take-off and fly away as they were battered by winds which were unmistakably heading directly towards the island. Soon, he would be swamped. There may even be thunder and lightning.

Jim unleashed several strong expletives into the increasing darkness of the container. This was all he needed!

But then he reconsidered. A storm like this was precisely what he needed! Nobody in their right mind would come within a mile of the football ground in weather like this! And by the time it had passed, the planned Summer Gala would have been over anyway! Bingo! – he was completely off the hook!

Jim was tempted to dance a little jig with sudden happiness until his phone rang and he saw who was calling. He felt he had no option other than to answer it.

“Highness!” he said in his most obsequious voice, “How delightful to be… Chopper? Here at the Summer Gala now?… Of course he is, Majesty. Your plan to invite him to the event worked like a charm!… Who?… Oh – Simran! Yes my Lady! Looking as beautiful as ever!… Put her on? Put her on what Majesty?… Oh – put her on the phone! Er – I would but she is otherwise engaged at the moment… No – not in the toilet – but on the football field. She has been put on something other than a phone but a suitably fitting object I’m sure you would approve of, Graciousness!: a Throne! Yes: the Shrimpleton Town Summer Gala Queen’s Throne no less. It was a little idea of my own which will of course be reflected in…. Get her to ring you back? Sorry, Highness – you are breaking-up… Ich… barp… noop…” Jim started scraping a piece of metal he had spotted lying on the floor against his chair leg in a desperate attempt to replicate the sound of static before making other indecipherable phone-breaking-up noises and then cancelling the call before shoving the device back into his pocket

“Phew!” he sighed in the empty container. “That was a close call!”

But – if only he had known it – it was a much closer call then he actually realised: because, as Jim imagined Lynne to be at home in her posh Bloomsbury gaffe, Her Ladyship was actually speaking to him from a boat moored only twenty miles away from Cumberside Island as the fly crows crow flies at that very moment…

Was Jim out of the mire for now?

Whether he was or not – over three hundred miles away to the south-west, things had already gone very badly wrong for someone else…

Who could this possibly be?

Find out next time in the next umissable episode of

The Sensational Shrimpleton Saga…