12. Emojis

Management at Boghead had two pressing problems. Dumbarton’s ground had no public washrooms yet their following were notorious imbibers of copious amounts of the amber liquid. Problem number two was strangely enough a partial solution to problem one. The PARS epidemic had forced the hand of health officials and they insisted no spectators were to be given entry to the upcoming Boghead fixtures until further notice. These same officials however proposed that a scheme to install composite board cutouts as stand-ins in the enclosures was viable from an epidemiological point of view. Dumbarton was given the green light to sell life like effigies to any of the public who wished to attend a game in this vicarious manner. It was to prove a profitable revenue stream. Digital photos of people whose appearance ran the gamut from dumpy to Twiggy-like poured in to the club’s homepage. The club had to place a super expensive order for more high quality board (which regrettably necessitated the deforestation of an extra half acre of Borneo rainforest) to be sent Air Express from Indonesia. On game day static likenesses of George Best, Lulu, the Two Ronnies, Rod Stewart and (the late) Edith Sharples peered over the shoulders of those in front seats in an attempt to draw a bead on the action. None in this crowd needed to spend a penny. Two birds for the price of one in the problem solving department! Some of the Dumbarton squad coughed up self images to watch themselves play, although most of the first stringers thought the whole idea narcissistic if not creepy.

 

One section of the stand-in cut-outs was given over to emojis. Most were moody, introspective or plain dejected in character which did little to encourage positive on field performances. Nonetheless, several were of the smiley variety; grin, leer and guffaw. Several emojis wore medical masks which muffled their ejaculations. Another row was comprised of a real treasure trove of figures. One had to rack one’s brains to unearth a finer collection of chesty girls stacked one behind the other who would break out into robust cheering of encouragement at crucial moments. Or it looked as if they did if one observed from the distance with binoculars. In fact their chants were all piped in over loudspeakers installed to pump up the volume and create artificial atmosphere. Aces took the field for the away game to a chorus of jeers and catcalls from the home side’s dugout. Nada was to phase Anstruther on this particular outing, however. Arsenal had lifted team spirits with platitudes about there being nothing to fear but fear itself. Roman Macaroni had shown real flair in the training sessions leading to the game and Arsenal noted with satisfaction that he processed sorties against defenses like a bird negotiating with speed the branches of trees in a dense wood. Nobby had failed to make the starting eleven again which was however to his satisfaction on this occasion. The reason was simple. Francesca, Roman’s sister, had arrived from Tuscany specially to watch her sibling. Nobby got to sit in the stands beside her, sporting his newly acquired custom-tailored Sloane Street suit. Though he was stylish to a fault he had not a word of Italian with which to impress her. Needless to say he was in seventh heaven nonetheless.

 

After the game an emissary from Dumbarton’s equipment department came over to the Aces dressing room inquiring if anyone had seen the game ball? It had last been seen under the arm of an emoji cut-out heading outward bound. Arsenal, not easily taken in, pondered this observation with skepticism, knowing full well cut out emojis were inanimate objects with no motor power at their command. Perhaps a masked spectator illegally hiding in that section had awaited his (or her) chance and absconded with the ball when it bounced into the stands? Earlier an errant ball had beheaded a cut-out as if it were a duck in a shooting gallery and somebody had retrieved the sphere and thrown it back to the playing surface. What were they doing up in the stadium’s no-man’s-land in the first place where no people were supposed to have been admitted? “Bollocks,” was Arsenal’s reply as he abdicated any responsibility for recuperation of the ball. A wee keelie pal by the corner locker offered his guttural opinion “the baw’s on the slates noo” meaning he thought it had walked and was not to be clapped eyes on ever again. 

 

Lilliput had made full use of her Saturday afternoon back home on the banks of the Forth by attending an intriguing naturalists’ society lecture on “The Impact of Brackish Water in the Ponds of Central Fife upon the Lives of Three Week Old Tadpoles.” The vice-president of the society had regrettably almost croaked when presenting the honorarium to the distinguished guest speaker. She had collapsed on stage but had then been rushed to hospital in Dundee and reports as to her immediate health prospects leapfrogged previous ominous predictions. Lilliput remarked that it was unprecedented for a member of the society to take ill while at a public lecture, to which political science professor Daphne Broon joked it was unpresidented what was happening in the contested election taking place in the United States. There were hanging chads and fraudulent mailed in ballots galore. Such was the age of tweets, twits and trolls which filled cyberspace with their indubitable wisdom. Meanwhile, the following day, an online webpage took umbrage at the fact a small, conservative, Scottish community would even tolerate a naturalist society promoting what it presumed was “unabashed nudity on our communal sandy shores.” Someone going off half cocked in the press again which was by no means unprecedented.          

 

After the lecture Lilliput returned home to stoke the fire and prepare for a cozy night in with hubby in front of the hearth. She awaited Arsenal’s return from Dumbarton with anticipation. It totally escaped her thoughts that Saturday evening was his usual knight with neighbour Arthur seated at a round table of the Kirkcaldy Chess Club. No manner of intervention of a romantic nature could get between Arsenal and his weekly date with the “knaves” as she pegged them. Arsenal’s level of play was rudimentary, in fact he could not buy a win, nor were any of his opponents willing to pawn one off for a price. Arsenal persisted in a concerted exertion to improve his rating and his standing in the eyes of his contemporaries. Having lost another game, falling victim to a fork between bishop and queen, and concluding he did not have the horses for the battle, he resolved to study the opening Nimzovitch had perfected. The Ruy Lopez opening meanwhile he banished to the dust bin of history. What is more he went as far as to dispense with his book “How to Go Undefeated in the Game of King’s” authored by Sunday Times chess columnist Harry Golombek.  This he dropped off with a parting flourish at Wilma’s Wee Lending Library down by the harbour which he had until recently perceived to be an oversize birdhouse. He never had been able to comprehend the physical dimensions of the occupants of this supposed bird house, suffice to say what a neck, what a chicken! Applying some of the principles implemented at the football earlier in the day, Arsenal brought to the chess board a plan to become indomitable in the centre at the expense of the flanks. Always the tactician our Arsenal. The ping of his phone reminded him he had better text the wife. She would be anxious to know whom he had lost to to-night.