2- Dancing in the Dark
Thirty-five years; man and boy; secret sweet pilferer to frustrated fundraiser; obnoxious kid to junior coach; rebellious tyrant to long suffering committeeman; victorious and just as often vanquished on the field of play year after year. My life at Bolton Villas CC – Villas – as best as I can sum up after almost forty years. Bizarrely, and in no way poetically, my earliest memories are of an outdoor cesspit, the club’s only male toilet, complete with a rusting, corrugated roof and a smell I don’t think I’ve ever come across since apart from a few team mates I have had to change next to. This is my earliest memory of the beginnings of my association with Villas – a night of enlightenment and a formative experience that possibly shaped my entire life as a as far as the female of the species is concerned. And it all began in a darkened hut with an acrid smell on a cold winter’s night as several young males gathered to watch a beautiful young woman display all with a carefree bravado. Long before the nation had even heard of health and safety, child protection or Freeview this was undoubtedly the best night of my life so far…at the age of eleven.
At this tender age naturally the female form remained a mystery save for the furtive peaks at the BBC 2 French movie each Friday night, the odd smuggled German porno film – come on who’s never seen one of these – and a well-worn copy of Penthouse purchased as a syndicated effort from the subways in Bradford for sixty pence and hidden under my mattress. Each week I waited for my mum to nod off in her armchair exhausted from another week of terrorising the kids at my school as Chief Dinner Lady so I could quickly flick over to the continental fare all in the name of art. So when I heard rumours from the older lads at the club about a girl who could be forgetful with her bedroom curtains overlooking the field after having showered this seemed much better than sitting on a sofa with a cushion on my lap listening to my mum snoring. For weeks I begged the older lads to let me into the “gang” and take me behind the hut to the toilets. As I said I was young and impressionable. Where was the club’s Child Welfare Officer in those days I ask you?
Rumour Has It…
The older guys had whipped me and my best mate, Allan Stockdale – nicknamed Duck for reasons explained later – into a delirious frenzy with stories of wild, erotic and exhibitionist behaviour all available from our vantage point in the cesspit. This apparently culminated with what they could only describe as her performing the “Funky Chicken” as it became known which on reflection I would now guess was our imaginations fuelled by the odious fumes and simply her towelling herself dry. Who after all would guess that a dozen or so young lads would or could stakeout the local cesspit and survive to tell the tale. She was a legend and I had to see this. The “Promised Land” had finally arrived long before I heard Bruce sing about it, even though I would have to risk cholera, diphtheria and malaria to witness it. I consoled myself that this was what a true pioneer would have to suffer anyway plus a beating from my mum if she ever found out.
Finally and without hesitation we accepted the invitation from the older lads to meet them around the back of the toilets late one night and promised not to tell our mums and dads. It clearly was the age of innocence and nobody had ever heard of a Criminal Records Bureau check or Child Line so there I was in a filthy toilet with a bunch of older lads. What on Earth could Esther Rantzen have done about this anyway? Worse still, some of the lads were public school boys. Was I about to become part of some weird initiation ceremony – I was scared witless. We did as we were told though; we were careful and never touched the inner walls because the big lads said that was how they had caught the clap. At least it beat the old toilet seat excuse. The best vantage point in this bunker-like structure was not going to be easy to find as the bigger lads dwarfed Duck & I. It had a look out position like a German World War Two sniper post on Utah beach and faced the target house head on – perfect. You had to be careful though as getting too close to the front urinal – block wall with cinder ash on the floor – meant getting far too close to the unbearable noxious smell – although there were plenty of other noxious smells all competing for air space. It was the price you paid for being at least two foot shorter than the rest.
Darkness on the Edge of Town
I remember it was dark; my hands were shaking that much I don’t think I could have told the time – which was irrelevant anyway as my Timex had long since given up the ghost and Mickey Mouse had dropped off the dial and was looking up Minnie’s skirt. All I wanted to do was holler with excitement like a mad wolf as the anticipation built up but the other lads intimated that doing that would make me holler but not out of pleasure and that the cinders they would stuff my throat with would not taste that good. The regular voyeurs set the scene as we killed time awaiting signs of life in her bedroom. The routine usually began with the bathroom light flickering to life suspending all the pre-match pre-amble as several sets of beady eyes stared out into the gloom awaiting confirmation that the shower was on as steam filled the windows and water escaped down the drains…unlike in our stone age cesspit. Even at this tender age I felt a flickering of life in my Top Man nylon leopard skins. I doubted if I could contain myself.
As the older guys threatened to rip our heads off if we even made a squeak, suddenly on came the bedroom light and I shall never forget what happened next till the day I edge my last boundary through the slips. There she was, standing at the window like the Pope in St Peters Square seemingly addressing her adorning fans, who were a group of lads squeezed into a cess-pit trying to not to make a squeak in the smelly darkness. And she was absolutely drop-dead gorgeous – well I was eleven. Then, so beautifully, arms outstretched as if waving to us in the darkness, she dropped the protective towelling to the bedroom floor to reveal a magnificent pair of glistening, soapy beauties. I could hardly contain myself any longer but fortunately a hand clasped across my mouth suppressing a yelp. I think it was Brian Ackroyd, brother of Christa who went on to fame and fortune on local television and if you ever read this Christa, your big brother nearly broke my neck. However, there was no stopping my forward lunge on to the back of the bigger lads to get a better view of the much lauded routine grabbing at hair and necks as if rucking for England against the French at Twickenham. In triumph my arms shot aloft astride the bigger lads and crashed into the corrugated roof making such a clatter I thought I’d broken my hands.
Steam was pouring out of our vantage point so much so it must have looked like a giant kettle as hot teenage breath hit the cold night air. And in a flash it was all over, something I was to associate with visions of the naked female form for many years to come. Off went the lights and the entertainment was over and Duck and I scampered off home feeling that we had finally become men albeit slightly seedy ones. I can’t remember if we made it a nightly event, but I think she got wise when we started queuing up mid-afternoon and flogging binoculars if we heard a rumour that a performance was due. It gave a new meaning to the notion of open-air concerts but sadly it came to an end. No more funky chicken, she had moved on. I heard she had a steady boyfriend … with a car …game over. There I was back again on the sofa, glued to the sub-titles with stirrings under that cushion.
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