Sports Day With The Saints

There are four patron saints of Britain: St David the Welsh guy, St Patrick the Irish guy, St Andrew the Scot, and good old St George, who wasn't even English but was some sorbet entrepreneur from Naples. They teach you this the first day of school, after you've re-created the battle of Hastings. Trust the goddamned English to have a way dodgy saint. Anyhow, St David wears yellow, like as in the cowardly Welsh, St Andrew of the Jocks wears his navy blue sporren, good old St George wears his red and white long johns and St Patrick wears his emerald green pixie hat. Our school used the four saints as 'houses'. Lots of British schools did, it was simpler and more patriotic than getting alcoholic teachers to think up other house names. Even though St George was an ice-cream maker by trade, because he slayed some dragon, everyone, naturally, wanted to be in St George. No one wanted to be in with St 'there's lovely now' David, St 'och aye the noo' Andrew or St 'to be sure to be sure' Patrick – apart from me. Why? Well, that's a long story, but, even now as I cast my pickled-mind back through the yawning chasm of Greenwich Mean Time, I can still see it all as sparkly clear as a champagne flute at a wake.
St George had won the annual house sports day for the previous one-hundred and twenty-six years, since St George himself breathed garlic on that tadpole actually. St David had never won sports day, and to be honest, attired as they were in canary yellow, that was no great surprise. St David was full of giggling girls and podgy boys all minus athletic prowness, oh, and me. I was choked-up the day they announced I was going to be in St David, mortified. Even more so when my mum forked out good family allowance money on that yellow shirt and socks. I got sort of resigned to the fact anyhow, up until the 29th May 1968. Prior to then, I'd been a claret and blue man. I had a West Ham United shirt and I thought Bobby Moore was the patron saint of English football, which undoubtedly, he was.
But not when I woke up with a Mancunian hangover on the 30th May 1968. Nope, from that day on I was a born again Manchester United fan, I was 'having it' as they say up beyond the great divide, red was my colour and Georgie Best was my man. Georgie was Irish, he played for Northern Ireland, the Irish wore emerald green. From the 30th May 1968 I was adamant I wanted to be in St Patrick's house of shamrock at school. My mum, however, had already bought me the shitty yellow kit, and, at school, they simply weren't interested in my pleas, resolute as they were. I had to stay in St David, with the girls, the dribblers, and the slow learners.
'What's all this temper for?' my mum cajoled me as sports day grew ever closer, 'your great uncle Gareth was Welsh, straight from the valleys of Cllankickinthegooleys'. So what? If I couldn't wear the green, I'd rather not participate . . . like Georgie Best himself in point of fact.
Sports day arrived all warm and spring-like and I was frog-marched to school with my yellow kit scrunched-up in my duffel bag. Mr Williams, the games arranger, well, he wasn't no Jules Rimet that's for sure. 'Stick in there boyo!' he told me, giving me a hearty cuff around my head, 'this is going to be St David's year, I can feel it in me juices laddy!'
St David lost every event up until lunch time; not just lost them, got hammered in them. We had a house full of girls who couldn't even skip rope. What kind of luck is that? I skulked around on the sidelines of play, watching those little St George-ians rise again to the greater glory. Shit like this wouldn't happen if my old man had sent me to a posh school.
After lunch, came the football tournament. Which was where my heart, and, my silky-skills, lay. There was the usual gathering of vocal parents, local minor dignitaries, assorted interested clergy and the regulatory flotsam and jetsam of third parties with little else to do on such a fine afternoon until the pubs and the bingo halls opened. The school sages programmed the semi-finals and final, just like that. No rub downs or ice-baths in-between. I was so desperate to play for St Patrick that I swapped kits with some greaser from St Patrick who couldn't, and didn't want to, play football, or any ball in fact, only moments before the off. It was odd that I'd found such a kid, but nonetheless, It was a sweet deal, done before the transfer window slammed shut. The kid I swapped kit with was two-years higher than me in school, and, about two-and-a-half foot taller as well. That big green shirt of his billowed about my ankles like an evening gown, but, I didn't care. When I took the field, the St David girls all booed and hissed me, and the referee, Mr Jones, got highly uppity about my kit, not to mention my about-turn in respect of allegiances. Some kid yelled out 'Hey, where's your handbag St Patricia!' which was all very humourous indeed.
'Hell boy, ' Mr Jones-of-the-bog said to me as the teams lined-up, 'you'll have to keep that shirt tucked in.' Mr Jones was a taffy and he was long-sighted, and, having a taffy ref for an inter-saint football match which featured his own beloved St David, didn't exactly squeak of impartiality.
I tucked the shirt in best I could, but, before Mr Jones had even blown ceremoniously on his whistle, like he was starting the World cup final at the Aztec stadium, that shirt of mine was rolling out like a welcome mat for the king of the Leprechauns. The game was a dour struggle; full of big meaty punts and bad passes and by halftime we had struggled to a coma-inducing 0-0 score. Don't tell me I'd end up in the first house to lose a game to St David since leeks were discovered?
Matters became more serious when Mr Jones blatantly awarded a penalty to St David for tripping – some yellow fool had fallen over the tail of my green shirt; like a skittish bridesmaid at a wedding. The rest of the St Patrick boys were pretty irate with me; Mr O'Callaghan, the St Patrick coach even stopped sipping from his hip flask to berate me angrily from the sidelines. Those unruly St David girls were still booing and hissing and striking up an out-of-tune chorus of Bread of Heaven. The St David kid, not having been allowed to wear his NHS bifocals, missed the penalty anyhow, missed the whole field actually, and, straight from the re-start we little green men forced a corner up the other end. That ball came skidding into the goalmouth like my uncle John into a public bar just before last orders were called, and, in the ensuing melee, it somehow got caught up in the spare reams of my emerald-green cloth. St Patrick himself must have been shining on me that fateful day, looking down with an impish grin and admiring my own cheek because as all and sundry slithered around playing spot the ball, it suddenly tumbled out of my shirt right onto the goal line as if we'd been involved in some kind of Irish hocus-pocus. All I had to do was stab it home – which wasn't the easiest of feats when you've got two hands holding the end of your frock up like you were about to hit the floor for a resounding jig. What madness it was, how long did it take to get that ball all the way over the line? Was it over the line before St David's inept goalkeeper fell on it and squashed the thing as flat as a Welsh notion for independence? Mr Jones fussed about here and there attempting to bribe spectators around to his 'no goal' viewpoint, but, the deed was done. So much for St David's shot at redemption. There would be no singing in the valleys that night, or any night actually. Yours truly became somewhat of a hero to the men of the green. St Patrick were then to face the might of St George right after oranges were served. But not to me, I still had to listen to Mr O'Callaghan fulminating about my 'dress' and go on and on about the grand old days at Croke Park.
Hero status is nothing but a fleeting fad however, apart from for St George, who squeezed a lifetime's praise out of one minor act. Not ten minutes into the final itself I got whacked in the nose so hard by some bitter English boy, that my eyes swelled-up and looked like those on that dragon after it had just been flayed in the nuts by that ice-cream maker. For the record, St George won 9-0, and that was about the end of my forrays into faux Irish allegiances. Why was St George playing kiss-chasey with a dragon anyhow? And, was the dragon Welsh, and, if it was, why were Wales still allowed to wave a flag with a dragon on it as if it were invincible?
Those were all good questions that were never answered. Another being – why the hell did England have three limp-dick lions fucking about as its emblem? Insofar as I knew, there were never any fucking lions native to England . . .
In my resentment at having been on a side flogged to the very last, I continued, as is my way, to bombard anyone who would listen with my dragon and lion questions. No one was in the least bit interested however. They were all far to engrossed in watching the head boy, with his tight little buns, again collect the annual sports day trophy from the leery-eyed Lord Mayor. I learned that you cannot keep a good saint down. Which was why, before the goalposts had been dismantled and the nets rolled away, I was already inside pestering the eye-patched St George coach Mr Nelson to take me on board for the greater good of England and all who sail in her, to in fact, give me my own golden age. My allegiance since that day has always been stout for the three lions (stupid as they look). Like all English boys of a certain wavering disposition, I took my medicine believing that one day in the not-to-distant future, I too would rise to the heroic levels of our manly patron saint St George, renowned King of the gelato and school sports days.