Part Forty-Two of the Sensational Shrimpleton Saga: The Summer Gala Finally Goes Ahead…

The day of the much anticipated and recently delayed Shrimpleton Town football club Summer Gala had eventually arrived.

Yes, it was a cold Sunday in late January and not one at the height of the summer as initially planned – but Better Late Than Never, as they say…

Virtually the entire population of the island was packed into The Black Pool – Shrimpleton Town’s football ground – as the climax of the event approached. Many of these people had entered into the spirit of things and dressed-up in period costumes, as suggested by adverts in the local paper and a campaign waged on the internet by the Khalistan Warriors. So anybody from Winston Churchill to Bonny and Clyde to Lady Di and Morecambe and Wise could be spotted in the crowds as they moved between the various stalls set out on the football pitch.

Among them though, was a woman who really stuck out from the throng. You could hardly miss her. Tall, willowy. A fantastic figure which wouldn’t be out of place in the centrefold of Playboy mixed with an apparently completely natural allure straight out of Vogue. Long blonde hair and a face – big blue eyes; high cheekbones – to die for. She looked divine. She smelt divine. And her voice was – suitably enough – that of an angel, with perhaps the slightest hint of an eastern European accent; a very sexy and seductive accent at that.

Most of the other women crammed close to her in the ferry on the claustrophobic crossing to the island the previous day would do almost anything just to look like her even for even twenty-four hours.

As for the men: well: people had died for an awful lot less…

But what was a stunningly beautiful woman like this doing on an old tub on its way to an island that hardly anyone else had ever heard of?

Natasha Yurievna Kravtsova was not looking for romance, surely.

If so, it would not be hard for her to find. If sheep farmers and shrimp fishermen turned you on. But that was not what this particular woman was looking for.

She was looking for men wearing turbans. Men who might just be involved in Shrimpleton Town Football Club. Men who could be members of a shady organisation that Moscow Central Control – who she worked for – had identified as the Khalistan Warriors.

The FSB at Lubyanka Square in the Russian capital had been missing two of their most effective British operatives ever since a mysterious explosion had reduced the place in which they were living to atoms just a few short days ago.

Communications received from Agents Vladimir and Grigor before this unexplained incident had identified the Khalistan Warriors group as the most likely culprits for what had subsequently happened to them. Central Control understood that in their Dog Eat Dog world, their men had not only failed to strike first but been out-manoeuvred by what they had identified in advance was a dangerous enemy which needed to be immediately nullified. And this woman was the particularly delicious bait in the Honey Trap Moscow was hoping to set-up to ensnare these rogue Sikh terrorists.

So the task of this apparently carefree and extraordinarily beautiful woman was to use her utterly unique charms to track-down an enemy which had so far held the upper hand.

And then destroy them. Permanently.

Around her, the football ground looked immaculate. The threats Soldier Jay had made to local farmers and Hunt Leaders had well and truly paid-off. The pitch had been not so much cut and rolled as manicured: the white lines marking out the goal lines and whatnot perfectly clear and absolutely straight.

The goal frames had been painted; new nets hung on both of them and equally pristine red corner flags were being rippled by the slight breeze off the nearby sea.

Last week’s rusty and rotting containers had been completely refurbished with proper double-glazed windows, shiny red paint and even guttering. The crumbling dressing rooms had been repaired, tiled inside and painted both inside and out. All the plumbing had been replaced and connected to a state-of-the art boiler so that it worked properly and efficiently and the toilets it contained were absolutely brand spanking new.

A row of sentry-box-like WCs stood by the side of the resurfaced car park for the use of the public. White parking bays had been carefully painted on the new tarmac which had replaced the gravel and weeds which could previously have been found there.

A line of donkeys wearing silly hats and bedecked in streamers were patiently giving little kids rides up and down the side of the stadium, passing the newly rebuilt fences and the flower beds stuffed with begonias, geraniums and other colourful plants.

Someone had even got busy with the ex-National Grid pylons – they now not only sported proper gantries but had floodlights in them that actually worked.

It was frankly extraordinary what the death of the son of the local Laird and the threats which had been made to his local partners in crime could do.

Not one of the men Soldier Jay had threatened and otherwise terrified earlier in the week dared to provoke his future wrath and the results were here for everyone to see. The Black Pool had never looked better.

And as the people dressed in Period Costume mixed with the ordinary locals, Amos De Rowlocks, Landlord of the Shrimpleton Arms, was doing a roaring trade at the bar which had been set-up by the side of the Changing Rooms. Even his neurotic Chef – Evil Erik – seemed to be happy enough feeding the five thousand with the endless stacks of bacon and buns which local farmers had been generous enough to donate – gratis – to this day of all days.

Excitement was reaching fever pitch as the ale flowed and the freebies were consumed long before a curtain-sided truck was driven into place into the centre of the football field.

Workmen appeared and emptied the truck of its contents: speakers; lights; mixing desks; pyrotechnics for later on – all the things needed to make a day which was already memorable in the unremarkable history of Cumberside Island one that nobody who was there would ever forget.

By four, the new floodlights were on. Fairy lights came alive on all the buildings at the same time.

Local Heavy Metal Band The Psychotronics (no prizes for guessing who the lead singer was) had set-up on the bed of the truck, which – with a curtain on one side still rolled back – was doubling as a stage.

The rumour was that once the band had finished their set, the main event of the evening would follow shortly.

First, Shrimpleton Town C.E.O. Ranjit Singh Chopra would address the crowd and outline his vision for the football club. Then the moment everyone was waiting for would arrive: the appearance, in-person, of possibly the most famous sixteen-year-old in the world: the utterly sumptuous Simran herself!

—

As we have seen, though, a mile or so away, things had not been going so well as far as preparations for the evening’s show were concerned. Simran’s sudden acquaintance with two of the things Ian Dury assures us is all our minds and bodies need – Drugs and Rock & Roll – had not worked out well. But could James Churchill Proudfoot’s cunning plan to clutch victory from the jaws of defeat actually save the day?

Back at the football ground later on, The Psychotronics’ set had been a real hit too with the crowd but now – as the evening approached its climax – there was a change of mood in the assembled multitude. They were impatient to see the Star of the Show – Simran – and time was moving on with no support act to distract them – nor any announcement to the crowd as to when they might expect the nascent superstar to grace them with her presence.

Also – persistent rumours about the potential fate of the football club itself had been circulating all day. Freddy F Fazackerley’s article in the Shrimpleton Bugle hadn’t done anything to quash counter-rumours, either. Some Shrimpies’ fans were firmly convinced that what Freddy had written in his rag was true: that there really was a conspiracy against their beloved club at the highest level. But many other supporters were less convinced. They smelt a very large rat and were increasingly convinced that that particular rodent’s name was Ranjit Singh Chopra.

On the fringes of the crowd, too, there had been disquiet. An Irish group in the shadows seemed to be determined to cause trouble. Their general demeanour and the fact that some of them were clearly drunk didn’t help. A couple of these people had been making overtly racist remarks aimed at the tough-looking men in turbans who were part of the Khalistan Warriors’ entourage at the Black Pool. This was increasing the tension and a quite threatening atmosphere was developing just outside the ground close to where Chopper’s Chinook had been making regular trips ashore.

There was already unease in other parts of the crowd at The Black Pool by the time a large Sikh finally appeared on the back of the truck to face the huge crowd which packed the small football ground. Ranjit Singh Chopra had left quite a lot of anger in his wake by the manner in which his minders had simply shoved people – men, women and even little kids – out of his way as they piloted their leader through the masses. Masses who suspected that the time had come and gone when they had expected to witness an appearance by the one-and-only Simran, performing her latest sensational hit single – live! They were getting sick of waiting. But maybe the leader of the Khalistan Warriors was here to reassure them; to tell them that all was well and the global superstar’s appearance was guaranteed – and just about to happen…

So there was an air of general anticipation as Chopper stepped onto the truck bed and held up a conciliatory hand. He intended to deliver a speech which had been carefully crafted by expensive consultants over several weeks to placate even the most avid of Shrimpleton Town supporters.  He was going to acknowledge that – at this point in time – a club that had never been relegated in its entire 102-year history prior to the take-over of the Bondage Group and then the Khalistan Warriors was about to end the season in the bottom four of the Second Division as well. He would further accept that the Shrimpies were facing almost certain Re-Election. But then he would attempt to persuade them that this was actually the best thing that had ever happened to Shrimpleton Town.

But his conciliatory gesture had no effect. He could no longer ignore the jeers and chants in favour of his delectable grand-niece instead. So he nodded at the stage manager as he sat by the side of the mixing desk facing him from the crowd and beat a hasty retreat after merely asking the assembled multitude to put their hands together for the imminent arrival of the star of the show.

The lights that had been virtually dazzling Chopper as he spoke suddenly went out. As heavy rock music suddenly blasted at a million decibels from stacks of speakers by the side of the truck, clouds of Dry Ice was pumped into the space previously occupied by the big Sikh. As his entourage rushed him away towards the waiting helicopter in the darkness beyond, a massive pyrotechnic display launched itself from strategically-placed firework drums right across the pitch by the sides of the stage. The assault on everyones’ ears reduced as a clichéd track about who were the Champions finally finished to be replaced with another sound: the unmistakable drone of several sitars which gradually melded with other unmistakably Indian sub-Continental musical tropes.

The Dry Ice turned from white to blue and then green before it turned to red as the volume of the music increased. As it did so, a certain aroma – as if of a million joss-sticks – started to overcome the smell of fireworks in the air. Bright stroboscopic lights then played across the whole of the football pitch, blinding some people and mesmerising others with their hypnotic but irresistible regularity. The whole crowd fell silent as if entranced before the faint shape of a figure began to materialise at the back of the stage. A figure which gyrated to the music and grew ever more visible as it enacted a slow, sensuous dance involving the weaving and inter-weaving of several cotton veils whose colours sparkled and shimmered in the ever-changing light until the mysterious and very exotic person wearing them stopped gyrating right in the middle of the stage in perfect harmony with the music, which just as abruptly ended.

“Simran! Simran!” elements of the packed crowd continued to chant. If Jim Proudfoot – listening in a drunken haze from his locked bedroom not very far away at the pub – had been there to see it, he would have been utterly astounded by the way a crowd which was about to turn very ugly indeed moments earlier was seemingly completely transfixed and transformed by the assault on their senses which had just unfolded before their disbelieving eyes and ears.

The demands to see Shrimpleton Town’s very own Diva got louder and ever more urgent as they spread across the huge crowd facing a stage on which a figure dressed in flowing cotton veils of all the colours of the rainbow was now on all fours facing the audience but with its head bowed. Then three things happened all at once: bright spotlights bathed the prone figure in golden brilliance; a male voice with a very deep American accent invited everyone to stand to respect the latest Bollywood-bound sensation here and now at the little old Black Pool – and the centre of attention rose up and slowly removed the headscarves and veils which still hid its face.

Finally, it spoke:

“Hello everyone! My name’s Brianna! The lovely Simran couldn’t be with us tonight. In the true spirit of today’s Period Drama theme here at the football club, our Bollywood Superstar has provided a Period drama of her own – by getting the Decorators In!

Anyone fancy a refund? Please feel free to come up here and ask me for one!”

There was a lot of disgruntled muttering among the crowd, but only one person approached the stage. Brianna continued – before handing the microphone to the newcomer:

“But now, here comes the real star of today’s show! Please put your hands together for the Chief Executive Officer of our beloved Shrimpleton Town, the one-and-only, inimitable power behind the throne; saviour of the Shrimpies and leader of the world-renowned Khalistan Warriors, “ (he shouted at this point in the style of an MC at a wrestling bout):

“Ranjit Singh Chopra!”

There was a half-hearted ripple of applause from the parts of the crowd closest to where the big Sikh’s entourage lurked at the edge of the football field nearest to where his Chinook had landed in the adjacent field. Chopper looked around in the darkness, relishing his moment back in the spotlight. This time, with the crowd suddenly both cowed and silent, he intended to milk this for all it was worth…

“Friends!” he began. “Welcome one and all and Sat Sri Akal to each and every one from the bottom of my heart! Khalistan (there was an echoing chant of `Khalistan!” from parts of his entourage at this point) Khalistan Warriors is delighted to announce that it has received clearance from the Northern Counties Islands and Craggy Outcrops League to proceed with our plans for the future of Shrimpleton Town Football Club — marking the beginning of an exciting new chapter in the club’s proud history. My team will now finalise the deal in the coming days.”

“Since mid-2024, Khalistan (“Khalistan!” from afar again) Warriors have been providing financial support and outlining a vision built on sustainability, inclusivity, and long-term success.”

“This is more than a business venture; it’s a commitment to the fans, the team and the future not only of Shrimpleton Town FC but the entire community of Cumberside Island. Our aim is to build upon the club’s rich heritage, ensuring stability and fostering unity across all parts of the community. Khalistan (“Khalistan!”) Warriors would like to extend their thanks to the club and its Board of Directors for their co-operation in obtaining the League’s approval, and also to the Craggy Outcrops League for their patience and support in getting to this stage – and not asking for an even bigger bung than the one we agreed at the outset.”

As he spoke, there was movement in front of the stage. Skip had appeared and was talking urgently to Psycho and his crew, who had been working the PA from the table holding the mixing desk throughout The Psychotronics’ set and ever since. Psycho handed him a radio mike – as opposed to the one with a long cable that the CEO of Shrimpleton Town was talking into and watched as Skip jumped on to the stage and approached the seemingly oblivious figure in the centre of it. Chopper was warming to his task:

“Some people say our plans for our beloved club are unrealistic. From the bottom of the Second Division of the Northern Counties Islands and Craggy Outcrops League to the pinnacle of the English Premiership in just eight seasons may seem overly optimistic to cynics and doubters in our Big Project but…”

Sadly, we will never know at Chopper was going to say next because – at a signal from the Shrimpleton Town Skipper to the mixing desk, his mike went dead. Skip pushed him out of the way so roughly that the big Sikh fell into the shadows at the back of the stage. Then the ageing footballer started a speech of his own to the increasing stunned – and suddenly really angry crowd.

“I don’t know about any of you – but I’ve had more than enough of this man’s empty promises and lies!” he virtually spat into the mike.

“He cares as much about my football club – your football club; OUR football club as I do about last week’s scores in the Lancaster County Philadelphian Anabaptist Baseball League!”

(At this point, two men with beards but no moustaches; straw hats and dark suits without collars or lapels and a distinctly Amish look about them left the stadium with crestfallen expressions.)

 “The only reason these imposters have any interest in our club at all concerns the very ground we are all standing on now: The Black Pool!

Skip paused dramatically at this point.

 “The Black Pool” he repeated – “Think of it!”

I would respectfully invite you to do the same as we wind-up this latest episode right here.

Could the name of the football ground possibly provide a clue as to why Chopper and his friends in the Khalistan Warriors have such an unlikely interest in the Shrimpies?

All will be revealed next time as this scintillating Saga finally approaches its climax…