With Clough, By Taylor by Peter Taylor (Biteback Publishing 1980)

 

Harry’s message about being the boss, finding the best players and standing no nonsense was so simple  that it went unheeded, but not by me. I was Storer’s pupil. He taught me what to look for in a player and I disagreed only with his emphasis on defence and overemphasis on physical courage and bodily contact. Joe Mercer, when manager of Sheffield United, phoned Harry to protest after a bruising visit by Derby.

‘I don’t know why you bothered to bring a ball,’ said Joe. ‘Two of your players didn’t need one. They kicked us, instead.’

‘Which two?’ snapped Harry, who had missed the match to go scouting. ‘Give me their names.’

Joe, always the nice guy, demurred. ‘Oh, no. I don’t wish to get them into trouble.’

‘Give me their names!’

Joe considered it. ‘Only if you promise not to punish them.’

‘I’ll do nothing to them,’ cried Harry. ‘I’m going to crucify the other nine!’

Harry admired skilful footballers provided they also shaped like prospective VCs. I can still hear him musing, ‘Yes, I agree that lad can play – but can he play when some big, angry bloke is trying to stop him?’ He scouted for Everton as an old man when he was out of management and they still remember receiving from him the shortest possible report on a player. It was one word in capitals  across the reporting form: COWARD.

I was fascinated by Storer and would go out of my way after leaving Coventry to consult the oracle, often in just a few minutes of conversation on railway platforms as our teams waited for Saturday night trains – but I disliked his prejudice against cowards and told him so. I prefer to sign brave footballers but have always seen plenty of scope for those who are less foolhardy; indeed, the word coward is one that I never apply to players. Harry remained adamant, though, that a footballer was useless if he shrank from challenges and the risk of injury. He said, ‘There’s never been a player who enjoyed being kicked but some endure it better than others. They are my kind of player.'

Never Cross a Vampire by Stuart M. Kaminsky (Mysterious Press 1980)

When we were in the car with Seidman driving and Phil next to me in the back seat, Phil put down the report and said, “Now talk. No jokes, no lies, no errors and you’ll have a no-hitter.”

I talked as we shot through the early morning darkness, headed I didn’t know where. I told him the truth from start to finish including the Shatzkin and Lugosi material.

“So,” said Phil, “what do you make of it?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “There’s no link between the two cases. It’s crazy.”

“There’s a link,” said Seidman from the front seat. I could see his sunken-eyed skull of a face in the rearview mirror.

“Yeah,” I said. “Me. I’m the missing link.”

“And …?” said Phil.

“I’ll work on it,” I said.

“How’s your knee?” Phil said, turning his head away from me out the window.

That was the blow I almost couldn’t handle. My mind went blank, and I reviewed more than four decades of life with Phil. There had never been anything like this.

“Ruth told me,” he explained.

“Told you?”

“The money,” he said.

Seidman pretended to hear nothing.

“I thought you’d break my head if you found out,” I said.

Phil’s hands were in his lap. They wanted to do something, but his mind was stopping him.

“I don’t like it,” he said, “but I need it.”

Grange Hill Rules O.K? by Robert Leeson (Fontana Lions 1980)

0700 hours on a cold December morning and the Magnificent Seven of Grange Hill were still wrapped in their blanket rolls.

No! One was awake. Little Benny Green had his clothes on and was creeping downstairs. Mum left for work twenty minutes ago. Dad had been up half the night with his back, but now was asleep at last. Benny had found a way of earning some much needed pocket money. But he was keeping it to himself for the moment.

As he reached the main road, heading for the shops, he passed a parked car. The man at the wheel took careful note of him as he went by.

0800 hours. Penny Templeton Lewis chewed toast and marmalade as she went over her notes for the Year Assembly that morning. The School Council had decided on a big charity sponsored walk-in competition with Brookdale School. For the tenth time, Penny wandered what they’d all say when she put the idea to them. Peter Jenkins would object—naturally. If there was one thing he hated more than walking, it was organized walking. Trisha Yates would object, too. Just lately everything Penny said or did seemed to get right up Trisha’s nose. Penny shrugged and stuffed her notes into her bag.

Twenty minutes later, she was in the car, passing through the shopping centre on the way to school. Suddenly her mother braked and swung the car to the kerb.

‘Look, there’s that sweet little Justin Bennett. Let’s give him a lift.’

Shoestring's Finest Hour by Paul Ableman (BBC Books 1980)

I put my ear to the door and listened. Not a sound. I'd already noted that there was no light showing under the door. Was it safe? I had to take that chance. I reached forwards for the door handle and grasped it without making any noise. Slowly, with infinite caution, I turned it and eased the door open. Mercifully, it didn't creak. I knew just were to find what I was after.But would I be caught? The consequences could be serious. I peered into the dark room. As far as I could tell it was empty. It had better be. I started across the floor. It was carpeted but the boards beneath the carpet creaked slightly. I froze. I listened. Not a sound. I took another two steps. This time there were no creaks. I paused again and listened. Safe to continue. I took four light but quick steps. Only the hint of a creak. One more advance and I should have it. I estimated it would take another three steps. I took a deep breath and then took those three steps.

Yes! I had it. It was in my grasp —

The light came on and Erica said:

'Put the whisky down, Eddie.'

'Hm? Whisky? What whisky?'

'That whisky - the whisky in the bottle that you're holding. My whisky.'

'I gave you this whisky.'

'Which is what it mine, Shoestring.'

Grange Hill Rules O.K? by Robert Leeson (Fontana Lions 1980)

Michael Doyle was at ease with the world, modestly proud of the success of his plans A, B and C. If only he could tell his dad. The old man would be proud of him. He sat in the dining-hall lingering over his rice pudding. His sidekicks had left already. He stayed on to think about his next move. Just how to close the trap he had placed around Jenkins. The thought gave him great pleasure.

Suddenly he realized he was not alone. Seated in a row across the table were the strangest assortment of people - Penny Lewis, Trisha Yates, Cathy Hargreaves - what next? - Tucker Jenkins, Benny Green, Alan Humphries. They watched him carefully as he raised his spoon.

'Enjoying your pudding, Michael?' asked Trisha.

He stared at her.

'Is it sweet enough?'

'Yes, thank you.'

'Are you sure?' She reached over to the table behind her and suddenly put a big bowl in front of him. Taking a spoon she quickly spread two big spoonfuls of brown crystals over his pudding.

'Hey, get off!' said Doyle.

'Eat it up, Michael. It's only brown sugar. I thought you had a sweet tooth.'

'How do I know it's brown sugar?'

'What else could it be?' asked Penny. 'Laxative powder mixed with brown sugar, perhaps?'

'No,' said Tucker. Couldn't be. I mean, who'd play a rotten trick like that?'

'That's right, Michael, dear,' said Trisha. 'Eat up your pud like a good little boy.'

'Tell you what,' said Cathy. 'Let's fetch Matron. She may be worried. This sudden loss of appetite.'

Doyle stood up, but Tucker leaned over and pushed him down.

Grange Hill Gone Wild by Robert Leeson (Fontana Lions 1980)

Early Friday evening at Grange Hill, near the end of term on a typical English summer day. All is quiet. The only sound is the rain drumming on the top of the covered ways and the pattering feet of half-starved mice retreating from the school cafeteria. Everyone has gone home, even Tucker Jenkins and Benny Green who have been in detention. The school seems to be empty.

No. A lone figure is loitering in the corridor near the Head's office. Michael Doyle is hanging about waiting for a lift home. His father, Councillor Doyle, chairman of governors no less, is in with the Head, discussing the School Fund.

Michael, bless his heart, is hoping for more than a lift home. He's hoping for a few snippets of information for that active brain of his to get to work on. Michael Doyle's brain is not widely appreciated in Grange Hill, which is a pity. Because Michael had plans for the school, or rather for some of the people in it - like boiling them in oil, or feeding them gently through the waste disposal unit.

He had a list, not on paper, Michael is far too intelligent for that, but in his mind. It included all the people who had annoyed him, or got in his way, or interfered with his perfectly reasonable plans to be Ruler of the Universe. To be quite honest, it was a revenge list, a hit list.

Top of the list came Jenkins and his sidekicks for crimes too numerous to mention. Then Penny Lewis, crusading journalist of the year who brought Doyle's promising career as a school politician to a grinding halt. Trisha Yates, who had nearly poisoned him during that moronic semolina business. And staff, too - Hopwood, a real do-gooder. And Peterson. No woman had a right to push Michael Doyle around.

As he paced quietly up and down, Michael had one of those brainwaves, those strokes of genius which marked him out from lesser folk.

In a flash he saw where he had gone wrong so far. He had tried to pick them off one by one, when he should have been working out the master plan to sink them all without trace. He had been messing about with tactics when he should have gone in for grand strategy.

Dupe by Liza Cody (Charles Scribner's Sons 1980)

'I don't know that thieving's ever classy,' Anna said. It was wonderful to be able to talk without feeling her lips puff flatulently in thin air.

'All I'm saying is that London had to be a better place to live in when even the villains had style,' the driver said looking disgustedly at the Knightsbridge clutter. 'Look at it now. I ask you. It's all sand in your shoes and out for the easy bunce. No wonder there's no standards no more.'

'You can't blame foreigners for that.'

'Don't get me wrong,' the driver said, 'I'm not saying they ain't colourful. Me, I wouldn't give a monkey's who came here as long as they went home again after. But they don't, see? Makes you feel a tourist in your own home. Some of 'em spend money like there was no tomorrow and buy up property or what-not. And there's others just live on the state. I mean, what does it look like to a young bloke just married and can't get a council house?'

It sounded like a favourite grudge, a well-rehearsed routine that the driver liked to launch into at the slightest opportunity.

'It's what the young people see as worries me,' he went on. 'Other people getting what should be theirs by rights. And without lifting a finger. That's what gets me. It's a wrong example. Makes 'em think they should have a bit of the cream, too, without having to work for it.

'Makes 'em want to take advantage,' he added elliptically. 'That's why there's so much crime about today.'

Anna didn't want to argue, although most of what he said offended her own creed of self-determination. He was obviously well-practised in his own argument, and besides, taxi-drivers, she thought, were all too dogmatic. It was something about the nature of their jobs that led them to half-cocked theories. They saw too much out of the front window and too little of the people they were talking to behind them.

John Diamond by Leon Garfield (Farrar, Straus and Giroux 1980)

I ought to begin with the footsteps; but first of all I must tell you that my name is William Jones and that I was twelve years old when I first began to hear them.

I have two older sisters, Cissy and Rebecca, and a mother who was born a Turner, and I have an Uncle Turner to prove it.

But the story is about my father, chiefly.

He was a tall, handsome man, with his own hair, his own teeth, and, in fact, with nothing false about him.

I think he was rather proud of his appearance, and not a little ashamed to have a son who wore his clothes like a footpad and tied a cravat as if he'd been badly hanged. Those, by the way, were his words; but not in public as I was, after all, his son.

Lamb by Bernard MacLaverty (Penguin Books 1980)

'Ah, Brother Sebastian. I was expecting you.'

Michael began, the words becoming slurred in his haste to get them out before his courage failed him.
'Brother Benedict, I must protest in the strongest possible terms about the . . . the thrashing you have just given Owen Kane.'

'And why is that?'

'He did not sign his name to any slogan.'

'Brother Sebastian, I'll thank you to calm yourself.'

'Did you say that the boy signed his initials to some graffiti?'

'I did.'

'O.K. is a slogan itself. They just add it to things.'

Brother Benedict took off his glasses, folded the legs flat and rubbed into the corners of his eyes with finger and thumb.

Brother Sebastian, do you think I'm a fool? Credit me with a little lore intelligence.'

Michael did not know how to react. He was confused.

'You know and I know,' said Brother Benedict, 'that we could never find the real culprit. By now the boys know that punishment has been meted out. Someone has got it in the neck. It may deter others from doing the like again, for fear their mates get it. The O.K. is just a little irony of mine. "Benny dies O.K." Now the boys know that Benny has risen.' He bunched his big fist and swung it in a slow punch, clicking his tongue at the supposed moment of impact.

'K.O.,' he said with satisfaction.

For the next week Owen had to try and clean the slogan off with a pad of steel wool. To reach it he had to stand on a stool.