Give ’Em Beans! - Rest of the Best

A wild and crazy tale of dirty deeds and daring detection...

AFC WORRAB and the MISSING MILLIONS

"Of course I'm going to get AFC Worrab straight back up into the MG Ford League. It's what the fans deserve, and I've got the backing of the board to buy the best quality players I can find." This was the message that new AFC Worrab manager Grainy Housepaint gave reporter Ollie Click as he posed for a photograph for the local paper. Housepaint had just been appointed to the post following the resignation of Jimmy Cling who had led the side to relegation the previous season.

Though he had been Cling's assistant, his skill and experience in this role and his knowledge of the players around the Somuchtoanswerfor area won him the post over several other applicants from both the Worrab area and from all over the country.

Housepaint was a bit of a goofy looking man with a limp, buck teeth and a squashed nose, but he had a scheming brain and his wits were razor sharp. His first move was to get the board to let him have full control of the club's finances to enable him to get the best players to win promotion. This immediately put the fans in a state of total shock. The board, especially the secretary, Syrup Blackflank, whose large bald head and even larger beer belly made him the object of ridicule of the fans, had a reputation for being incredibly tight fisted. "Strange days indeed!" more than one fan was heard to say over a pint in the club's bar, whose haphazard paintwork and peeling wallpaper had led to its being dubbed the 'Spots and Leisions Centre.'

And sure enough, soon into the season, things began to go wrong for Housepaint as Worrab were beaten by local rivals Morescum in a game they could easily have won.

So Housepaint began to buy his new players and this was when suspicion arose that he was wasting the cash he was supposed to be using for getting players to Worrab. His first couple of signings took a long time to settle into the side and as they had cost £10,000 between them, the Worrab fans wanted more. And then a few days after they signed the local paper ran a story in which the chairmen of the two clubs from which Housepaint had bought them said that their clubs had received a total of £6,000. But when this was investigated by the Worrab board Housepaint bluffed his way out of it by telling them that the outstanding £4,000 had gone on signing on fees, and also on the team's travelling expenses to a recent away game. He said that he treated the team to a night in a five star hotel to prepare in comfort for the game against table toppers Scumport. And gullible as ever, the board swallowed every word of this story and the matter was forgotten.

At least it was forgotten by the board and by Housepaint, but not by the fans. The fanzine at AFC Worrab, Take My Pulses, carried a story in its next issue and editor Barton Andrew Fink Cresswell warned the fans about Housepaint and to watch out when he signed new players.

One of the existing Worrab squad who took the warning seriously was former England semi-pro captain, Glyn Aestivating. But he had been replaced as Worrab captain by Phil Remoulds, one of Housepaint's blue-eyed boys and had lost his place in the team to Sunny Mucous, another new signing. As well as that, it was rumoured that Housepaint had tried to force Aestivating out of the club by playing him out of position and only when he wasn't fully fit.

When he wasn't playing football, Glyn's main hobby was to sit in front of the TV with a curry and a few cans of beer and absorb as many detective series as he could. He could always solve a murder mystery on TV ages before the detective. It was well known that if someone hid a piece of kit from a player in the dressing room, then Glyn would walk in, find the missing item and name the guilty party within seconds without seeing or hearing any evidence.

Aestivating knew something wasn't quite right about Housepaint and he decided he had better do something before the club he loved even more than all those detective series was ruined. But when he approached the board with his suspicions they rejected them as 'jealous rumours.' Glyn became very angry and upset that they wouldn't let him solve his very first mystery, as he felt he could easily have obtained evidence of Housepaint's wastefulness.

But privately, one member of the board had begun to wonder if Housepaint really was the right man for the job after all. That night while Glyn was taking in every nuance of a satellite re-run of 'MacGyver', and a vicious Meat Madras, chairman Bill Ruffer rang the baffled midfielder and told him to keep his eyes and ears open for any shady dealings between Housepaint and his new signings and report back to him if he noticed anything odd.

So Glyn carried on as best he could, playing - occasionally - for Worrab and waiting to collect evidence to incriminate Housepaint. He certainly had plenty of opportunity for Housepaint signed a total of nineteen players in all, but for a while nothing happened that Glyn thought worth mentioning to Ruffer. But then Housepaint made a mistake which nearly cost him his job at Worrab and maybe his career in football - he signed the most honest man in all football and told his tale to the wrong man.

The new player was highly regarded Dutch Accrington Harry forward Jan Broody. He got a £500 signing on fee and Harry got £4,000 for him. Housepaint asked the board for £6,000 to cover all the costs, which they gave him after scraping together every penny the club had to spare. The deal went through without a hitch and it was only after a few celebratory drinks after beating Harry in a vital league game that Aestivating found out the details. Glyn cleverly got the team round to talking about Housepaint and the way he treated them after Glyn realised that Broody knew more than he was letting on about the transfer deal.

Broody had discovered that Aestivating was keeping an eye on Housepaint and being so honest he wanted to help Glyn in his search for evidence to prove his theory. After a short meeting to discuss tactics, they decided to approach Ruffer again and not the whole board.

Ruffer himself had started to try and track down clues to rid Worrab of Housepaint. He had actually begun to watch 'The Bill' to pick up tips on how to investigate people. He told Aestivating and Broody that he had tried to snatch a glance at one of Housepaint's bank statements. Aestivating told Ruffer he shouldn't have tried to collect evidence if he didn't know exactly what he was doing because he could be prosecuted for invasion of privacy. The three men discussed the case in the light of the new evidence. Ruffer felt that he could take further action if he consulted the rest of the board so he immediately called an emergency meeting with the intention of "relieving Housepaint of his duties."

At the meeting the new evidence was put to Syrup Blackflank and the other directors. They were totally behind Housepaint so Broody and Aestivating told the secretary that some of the local players had decided to take action of their own. They had evolved a plan to try and catch Housepaint out. Glyn had set up a deal with bottom of the table Fleecetree Town to sign a winger who he knew was absolutely clueless. He knew that if Housepaint watched the player he would invariably sign him and Aestivating would finally have proof of how Housepaint was squandering the club's playing budget. But Ruffer had other ideas. He told them all that he would be hiring a private investigator to do the job that Aestivating had previously been doing. Glyn thought this would be a huge waste of money and was furious his boss wouldn't let him continue to investigate. Ruffer countered this by telling the lad "You are too hot headed and too involved to go any further with this case." He thought this would sound impressive. It sounded to him like the sort of thing they would say on 'The Bill'.

As helpful as ever, Syrup Blackflank immediately piped up. "I know a bloke who could do it. He comes into the Kings a bit and he seems to know about people as soon as he meets them. He'll be cheap too. His name is Findout. Mr. I Findout. Do you want me to have a word with him when I see him?"

At the mention of the word 'cheap' Ruffer told Syrup to get Findout to meet him in the Spots and Leisions at 7.30 that evening.

A brief meeting in the bar saw Ivan Findout as the newest employee of AFC Worrab. This was to prove nearly as big a mistake as selling Charlie Valet to Gillingham Bynthonia... NOT!

Mr. Findout spent the rest of the evening in the bar "collecting evidence from fans," as he put it. Funny how this was incredibly similar to plying innocents such as Roly, Big Ted and Ernie with numerous pints of beer, thought Glyn. He wanted to keep an eye on the strange newcomer, who he trusted about as much as he trusted Housepaint.

But this new burst of life did nothing to get to the bottom of the case. It was only when Aestivating finally proved his theory by planting a tape recorder in the manager's office just before he negotiated the signing of yet another new player that the board woke up to the fact that Housepaint was spending vast amounts of money they didn't have and should be sacked.

When Aestivating presented the tape to them all the next day, even Syrup Blackflank looked shocked and he apologised to all and sundry for not giving Glyn the benefit of the doubt. Grainy Housepaint was immediately sacked and details of his departure reported to Take My Pulses for an exclusive in their forthcoming bicentennial edition. The tape went something like this...

Housepaint: "I'll keep £1,500 to buy yet another crap player from some Somuchtoanswerfor pub team and you'll get £200 signing on fee to keep your mouth shut until after I leave the club. Do you understand me, boy?"

Jason Buttonhead: "Okay Boss."

Housepaint: "Good."

Buttonhead: "Can I go for a pint now?"

Findout was also sacked but the expenses bill he produced and demanded the board pay for shocked everyone except Glyn Aestivating. The drinks bill ended up at £450.

"Now we know why he's such a good mate of yours, Sy..." but Ruffer's jibe was cut short.

Grimy Housecoat sat up with a start in bed in his flat in Somuchtoanswerfor. He was sweating. "Oh no!" he thought. "What a terrible dream. And why was I called Housepaint? And why in God's name would I want to manage that awful lot Worrab? They've never done anything, not like my roughy toughy babies, Haltingem Robins, under Jimmy and I. Oh well, it must be nearly time to get up." He reached for his alarm clock. It was just about to strike six-thirty.

"DDDRRRDDIIINNNNNGGGGDDGG!!!"

Gland Estevanfan woke up with a start on the sofa of his luxury flat in Ulverston. He was sweating. He had fallen asleep in his clothes again. Across the room the TV screen flickered and the set was emitting a high pitched tone. Eight or nine crushed empty Tennant's Extra cans lay in a small pile nearby. As he rolled off the sofa he put his foot in a silver foil container which held the fetid remains of a particularly noxious Chicken Vindaloo. "Bugger!" he thought. "What a weird dream. It's getting bad when you dream you're Grimy Housecoat dreaming you're being investigated by some idiot with a name very similar to mine. I shall have to stop eating these curries last thing at night. And what the hell is Aestivating anyway? Oh well, it must be nearly time to get up. I've got a big case today."

Gland was rapidly making a name for himself as the top lawyer in the North West. Today he was prosecuting a much publicised libel action involving the AFC Worrab fanzine Eat My Dirt.

"Maybe the case is getting to me," he thought. "Nah, it couldn't be. Those directors just don't have a leg to stand on. They should never have written in the programme that Dirt was foul-mouthed, dim-witted, obnoxious and puerile, even if it is. It's going to cost them a bundle, and with the money Dirt makes, it can buy the club from them and start running it properly!"

MC Messenger woke up with a start in his back bedroom in Torrisholme. He was sweating.

This work of, erm... fiction originally appeared in January 1995 in 'Lucky Thirteen'. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental, though a browse through issue 014's 'Spellcheck XI' and a passing acquaintance with the first Smiths album may be of use in making sense of some of the more extravagant names in MC Messenger's unlikely tale.