UNITED KINGDOM

 This is a story I'm quite proud of, but it has never received an especially wide audience. It was originally published online, at an arts mag called Smallfish Online (it's not still there, so don't bother looking for it). I thought it might make interesting reading in the light of some other stuff that's been up here recently, including the poem 'Plantations'.


 

Zack Wilson's  debut novel 'Stumbles and Half Slips'  is out, from Epic Rites Press. Also available from Amazon.com.

They see me on the bus and can't help it. "No surrender! No surrender! No surrender! To the IRA!" they chant. Two lads and a girl who looks like she knows better. Students probably, full of cooking lager and disappointment because England could only draw. They've seen the green flicker of my football top through the gap at the top of my jacket and made assumptions. I turn and stare at the taller of the two males. They're sitting in the sideways seats normally reserved for the disabled and I'm standing up at the front because I'm only on for the two stops.

My stare shuts them up for a bit. The girl's hands fumble with the scrunchy holding her blonde hair back, as she half giggles, "Don't, he's getting angry, don't." Her accent is southern and exclusive, as are those of her friends when they remark, "So what. Stupid paddy cunt," and, "fucking terrorist."

I decide it's time to speak. "Have you three got a problem?" I ask.

I think my Sheffield accent throws them. They were probably expecting Kerry or cartoon Belfast. The girl replies, giggling again and avoiding my sharp glare. "No…no," then her friends start chanting "No surrender" again, briefly. I shake my head and leave it. My stop's coming up.

There's a kind of quiet hostility on the bus. The other passengers seem to be trying to work out whom to hate most and can't quite decide, so they fear and mistrust me as much as the students. I can hear my three antagonists muttering and laughing, there's some kind of joke being told. The girl can't help her giggling, she keeps saying, "Shut up, shh!" then snorting and laughing again.

My stop arrives. The bus doors hiss open. I turn to the students and challenge them. "If you three twats want to make something of this then we can get off the buys now and sort it." I thought the lass would be flattered to be included.

"Just banter, mate. Just banter," the tallest of the three says from underneath his NY Yankees baseball cap. There's an expectant hush from the other passengers. I can feel their slight approval now. Taking control is something they can admire.

"T'int funny then," I reply. I stand and wait. The driver, a butch woman with boy's hair and nasal piercings, has left the doors open. I glance across at her. She's placid, waiting, looking ahead with no sign of irritation at all.

The students mumble. I lose patience, shake my head and tut. I raise my eyebrows inquiringly at the driver. She looks back with a sympathetic and world weary expression. I get off the bus, and the doors close.

The adrenalin's going and I'm full of empty, frustrated anger. I've got the game on the telly in the pub to look forward to anyway, and hopefully the boys can give the Danes something to think about and we can do better than England's pitiful draw at home to Macedonia. An away draw'd suit me fine and I feel better in the fresh air as I head to the pub.

It's not a part of town I'm used to, and I realise I've got off a stop too soon. Never mind, the walk'll do me good.

I'm almost cheerful again when I see three people up ahead, walking towards me through the yellow sodium light. As they get nearer I realise it's the students. They've got off at the stop I should've done and they're either lost or they've come to find me.

It takes them longer to recognise me, but they manage to do so at a distance of about thirty yards. They point and laugh. The girl seems to be trying to discourage the two lads from doing something. The lads begin to run towards me, chanting 'No surrender' at a quick rhythm.

Whether this is a joke or not I decide I've had enough. I stand and wait, next to a side road and a billboard. The first one to reach me gets my shoe in his groin, hard. He gasps and falls. That's him out of the game for a while. I see the other's face, washed out pallid in the streetlight, change its expression from sneering triumph to naked fear. My keys are in my left hand, and the long back-door key protrudes from amongst my fingers. I jab it into his solar plexus and he stops and totter back but doesn't fall. I smack my forehead into his nose and feel a satisfying squelch and crunch. He bends over and veers sideways, hands to his face. I kick his head and he falls into a foetal position.

His mate's lying by the billboard, trying to sit upright. I put my left foot in his chest and push him prone. I stamp on his elbow. Then I grind it into the pavement with my heel. He yelps and bleats. I pick up a decayed half-brick lying under the billboard and raise it above my head.

The girl's standing 10 yards away, frozen and crying. I raise the brick higher, yelling, "I'm gonna fucking kill ya!" I look down and he's shut his eyes. I bring my arm down hard.

The old brick breaks apart on the pavement six inches from his head. Lumps and rotten dust scatter and stick to the snot and tears on his pale, podgy face. I remove my heel from his elbow and spit. I breathe through my nose, deeply. All three of them are crying, moistly, childishly.

I lean over him and whisper. My voice is harsh and guttural as I give him some ancient words. " 'Our cry was no surrender/No republic we will join/And this will always be in mind/Derry, Aughrim and the Boyne.' My parents are Prods from Larne, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom," I add, as I turn away.

I leave them. I'm feeling quite good and I've got a taste in my mouth that only lager will shift.

Sometimes violence is the only thing these people understand.

 Zack Wilson's  debut novel 'Stumbles and Half Slips'  is out, from Epic Rites Press. Also available from Amazon.com.
____________________

Sheffield Fragments

This were originally published by Laura Hird at her showcase. I like them...

 FRIENDSHIP

-Shut tha face nob ead, Ah’m thinking.

-Thinkin? Thee? Abaht fuckin wot?

-Tha doesn’t need to knaw.

-Well, what’s tha doing ere den? This is no fun, dahn t’pub wi a fuckin depressive.

-Ah’m not a fuckin depressive! Just got things on me mind.

-What mind?

-Aa fuckin aa.

-Well, that’s it fo me. Ah’m gooin, Ah’m not fuckin sittin ere any longer wi thee.

-Aw, dorn’t be a cunt!

-Ah’m fuckin not!

-Orreight, Orreight. Fancy a peint?

-Aa, goo on then.

 Remember that my debut novel 'Stumbles and Half Slips'  is out, from Epic Rites Press. Also available from Amazon.com.

POLITICS

Ah’m fuckin sick on all this shit. It’s on t’telly evry fuckin day at t’minute. All t’fuckin Septics gooin on, whittling abaht t’Twin fuckin Towers. They neva fuckin learn. Ah mean, ma parents ad to move ouse twelve times during t’war cause o’t’fuckin Krauts. Mosta them cunts in them buildings were criminals anyway, robbin workin folk.

Ah fuckin ate Muslims too, mind. Cept Rafeeq, but e as a peint nah and then.


SEXUAL POLITICS

Winter fuckin Olympics! Why tha fuck is that on t’fuckin telly? Ah mean, speed skating. Ow many speed skaters does tha knaw round ere?

Mind you, look at t’ass on er! Ah do like a fit bird wot looks after ersen.

SPORT

Orreight? Ow’d Wednesday do? Ow many?! Ere, Stan, t’Pigs got done foar nowt! At Hillsborough! WAAaaay! Sometimes, tha knaws, Ah think Ah fuckin ate them moar than Ah love Uneited.

 WEATHER

Rainin! Fuckin rainin agean. Does mean we can’t do any work on that roof though. Ivry cloud…

Remember that my debut novel 'Stumbles and Half Slips'  is out, from Epic Rites Press. Also available from Amazon.com.

Lescar: Mayhem

My second collection of short stories, 'Lescar', was published a few years back by Blackheath Books of Wales. You can buy it directly from them HERE.

This is the first story in the book, introducing a character nicknamed 'Mayhem'...


 

Buy 'Stumbles and Half Slips' from Epic Rites Press. Also available from Amazon.com.

Code13 Archive: Has the RFL Forgotten Sheffield - Part One

Here is an article which was originally published at Code13rugbyleague.com, which argues the case for more support from the rugby league governing bodies for Sheffield as a city.

In the light of recent comments from Sheffield Eagles director John Whaling, it seems appropriate to re-publish the article here.


If a rugby league club told you that they had the support of the city council and chamber of commerce of the fourth biggest city in England, a place with a large number of well-populated satellite towns, and the backing of the local soccer team who have offered the use of their superb stadium long-term, you would probably think that they were in Super League.

That they have an ex-international player as coach, a charismatic cheerleader for the sport in an area outside of the heartland of the game, would only make them appear more of a top flight outfit. That the city is at the heart of England, a transport hub which connects the east and west coasts and the north to the south east of England, should surely only make it more of a nailed-on top-flight contender. A place where the RFL would surely want to be.

Given the fact that this would also be an ‘expansion’ team, then it might raise even more of an eyebrow of surprise. However, this team is not in Super League, and seems to have been forgotten about when it comes to raising the game’s profile outside of the M62 Corridor. Although it may surprise some people, Sheffield is the city, the Eagles the club.

Sheffield has never been part of rugby league’s heartland. Never. The round ball code has always been king here since the early days of organised ‘football’ in the 19th Century. Two of the world’s oldest football clubs, Hallam FC and Sheffield FC play here, while Sheffield Wednesday and Sheffield United are two of the game’s most famous names, despite their current lowly league status.

So, although it is in Yorkshire, its sporting culture is significantly different to somewhere like Leeds or Hull. Football, and cricket to some extent, are the chosen pastimes of athletes here, with rugby union well down the list and rugby league rarely mentioned or discussed. This means that, for our sport, it is as much an ‘expansion’ area as North Wales or London.

Yet this seems to have been forgotten by those in the game who crave expansion. Is it because it’s too close to the heartlands, too Northern, too flat cap industrial in the eyes of southerners, to really count as an expansion city?

If so, that is an incredibly short-sighted view. Sheffield has a huge population and huge hinterland and influence which stretches right through vast swathes of the northern and eastern parts of the Midlands. It is a gateway to so many other areas, as well as being in a superb location which enjoys easy transport access however one chooses to travel.

Yet the Eagles struggle for crowds, with awareness of the team barely registering when it comes to the soccer-obsessed public in the city. If only the sport was being punted with the kind of enthusiastic backing which rugby union receives in South Yorkshire, then this would change. Some serious investment in the marketing of the sport in Sheffield would surely bear fruit, with the two football clubs having had so little to celebrate recently.

The basic structures are all already there in place, thanks to the work of the international coach referred to above.

Sheffield Eagles are a shining testament to the work of Mark Aston and his dedicated team of supporters and backers. The fact that they even exist at all is down to his effort, after the original outfit, Challenge Cup winners in 1998, were clumsily merged with Huddersfield as Super League’s early traumas played themselves out.

He deserves credit for what he has achieved, sometimes in the face of odds which would make a lesser spirit quail. Aston, though, relishes the adversity.

“The club in general has only been going 20-odd years. We’ve only been going 12 as the current regime, and when we took over, there was literally nothing left because of what had happened a couple of years before,” he told Code13, referring to the merger with Huddersfield Giants which saw the original Eagles club effectively cease to exist.

“So now to have all that structure, all those schools and all that community from top to bottom is a tremendous credit to all the guys who have been involved in it.

“But also, it means that it CAN be done.

“Now it’s down to finances. What we want is for people to get on board. The council are still interested. We’re talking to them about what we want to do for 2014-15.

“Sheffield United and Bramall Lane are 100 per cent behind us. The Chamber of Commerce are behind us. Hopefully we’ll be in with a kick next time it comes to licence time.”

Zack Wilson is the author of 'Stumbles and Half Slips', available from Epic Rites Press and Amazon.com.

More Sheffield Eagles Anger

Sheffield Eagles director John Whaling has today expressed sentiments which in no way surprise me, but may well have surprised a few at Red Hall,where the Rugby Football League is based.

His statement in full can be read HERE, at the Eagles' official website, but it is worthwhile dwelling in a little more detail on a couple of the points raised.

Whaling said:

"When it was announced that there would be a mini round of licensing in the wake of the Bradford Bulls troubles the press release said it would involve Leigh, Halifax and Featherstone, why was this when Sheffield Eagles had also earned the right to apply for Super League status by virtue of making it to the 2011 Grand Final? When we queried this with the RFL we were told ‘failure to mention Sheffield is probably as a result of journalists errors rather than a proper assessment of which clubs might be a candidate for any mini-licensing process’ however when we queried it with the press we were told it was exactly as sent out by the RFL, it shows that South Yorkshire is nowhere near the front of people’s minds in Red Hall.

"When we queried why nothing had been released congratulating Sheffield and Doncaster on their Grand Final success we were told ‘after the Grand Finals last year we did issue something along those lines and it didn’t get picked up at all’, is this a good reason not to put anything out this year?"

The mealy mouthed nature of this alleged excuse is really something else. Excusing amateurism by saying we thought there was no point in doing it properly is poor.

There is also a coded accusation from Whaling that there is clear bias shown in favour of clubs from the 'heartland' over those in South Yorkshire in the press release. This is strange when the game's governing body is usually so keen to trumpet its achievements with regard to expansion.

Whaling continues:

"The RFL have thrown money at expansion in Wales, London and France and yet the closest place to the heartland receives very little encouragement and no financial support to help expand. Both Sheffield and Doncaster have to battle against other sports, mainly soccer, but the potential in both areas is enormous but we can’t be expected to do everything ourselves when we are already struggling with finance due to a downturn in the corporate market."

My own contact with the RFL regarding this matter has been confusing. The matter of general economic downturn does not seem to factor into their thinking. The fact that they are making money seems to shape a somewhat solipsistic kind of perception of what empty seats are actually caused by, something which is also found in the mainstream rugby league media.

There seems often to be a wilful blindness to just how difficult a task the Eagles have faced in building a club up from basically nothing, to where it is now, arguably, the most successful club currently outside the top flight.

Mark Aston's team has won honours on the pitch, the club has put down firm roots in the community and has contributed to the spread of the amateur game in South Yorkshire. Players from the region are coming through and playing first team rugby league, while there is also a credible commercial plan which  has made profit for the last two years running.

There are lessons to be learned from this, for everyone in rugby league. Yet the game's governing bodies seem time and again to avoid mentioning the Eagles at all. One wonders if there is some kind of clash of personalities in play. Perhaps it is just the traditional rivalry of those from the Leeds area with those from the south of the county of Yorkshire, but to draw no attention to the obvious success of what is an expansion side seems ignorant and myopic at best, contrary and stubborn at worst.

You can read what my thoughts were on this matter earlier this year in the next blog post HERE. This article comes from the Code13 archive, and includes another interesting chat with Mark Aston.

'Stumbles and Half Slips' by Zack Wilson is available from Amazon.com, published by Epic Rites Press.

Lescar: Sheffield Star Interview

My second collection of fiction is called 'Lescar', and was published by Blackheath Books of Wales a few years back.

You can buy it here. You can buy my current novel, 'Stumbles and Half Slips', from here.

I'll be blogging a bit about 'Lescar' later on here, but it was a series of stories set in a real pub in Sheffield, on Sharrowvale Road, near Hunter's Bar. It's a real pub and it's still there, but it was changed enormously in recent years. All of the characters are fictional though some names may be familiar...

You can find out a bit more about the book and its inspiration in this interview with Martin Dawes of the Sheffield Star...

 Lescar's new chapter


Published on Wednesday 31 December 2008 09:35

TO the Lescar Hotel at Hunters Bar to interview author Zack Wilson about his new 'chapbook' of stories set in the boozer.

Now this 17th century term is not one you hear much these days, but think bigger than a booklet, smaller than a book.

We arrange to meet in the Lescar itself. Zack, a former English teacher at Westfield School, hasn't been in there for getting on for three years, ever since he went on the wagon.

The book is set in what Zack insists is a fictional Lescar in 2004 so the fact that his Lescar has a landlord called Duncan McAllister and the real Lescar had one called Duncan MacFarlane, or the pub had a barmaid called Emma and the book one named Emily is purely coincidental.

It's perhaps best not to inquire if there really was a Jewish Dave or a Bob Brown, about whom it was rumoured... no, we shan't go on.

The one character Zack says is not a composite is Mayhem, a man devoted to the music of Status Quo.

"It's very definitely fiction but like all fiction every writer takes what they see and weaves into it their own experience. There are several things which really happened... but the details and context have been changed, usually for the sake of style," he says over a lime and soda.

The stories are written in a crisp, vivid style which often reads like reportage. There was a visit from the Blades Business Crew but, says Zack, he wasn't there at the time.

His stories started on the web, where much of his writing now is. He gave up teaching to work for the city council's youth offenders' service (another literary gold mine) but is now full time as the Premier League reporter for a football internet website.

It's not clear what the new management of the Lescar will make of the book. He's not told them but wonders whether they'd like to sell it on the bar.

The Diary asks why he needed to name the pub at all and not just make one up.

"I am drawn to fiction set in recognisable locations, as in James Joyce's Dublin or Irvine Welsh's Edinburgh. There is a recognisable context for what goes on," he says. Besides, the Lescar was then his local and had a heady mix of respectability and riff-raff. It was what you would call bohemian, a place where you could find people with recreational substances.

Those days have long gone, of course. We are intrigued to find the 2009 Lescar has a wine club.

The stories don't sound like they were written by a man who sat alone in the corner.

"I used to stand here at the bar. I hardly ever sat down," he says.

This collection of stories is the first volume. Another is planned for the spring and, sitting on the backburner at the moment, is one on the Lescar's women.

After all these years of self-imposed exile that will have to be done from memory. And any resemblance between fact and fiction will be purely coincidental.

Originally published at:
http://www.thestar.co.uk/lifestyle/features/lescar-s-new-chapter-1-264969  

Zack Wilson is the author of 'Stumbles and Half Slips', available from Epic Rites Press and Amazon.com.