5. PARS

As the team bus swung onto the by-pass in distinguished East End Dunfermline on the way to Glasgow, the driver simultaneously turned on the overhead radio. A PSA was making the airwaves. Apparently PARS, yet again characterized as the golfers’ disease, was hitting Scotland in a big way. The wide trough of the Atlantic had not been profound enough to confine the new virus to North America. Now Scotland was in its grip. Arsenal reflected on his personal circumstances and felt chastened. The last time he had brushed up against PARS was when he played majestic Carnoustie just prior to the Jackdaws tour departure. Multiple bogeys and worse had been indelibly etched on his scorecard on that occasion and a case of the YIPS had been the story of his round. Now it appeared the nation was confronted with another type of four letter scourge. Mythsinformation was painting this pandemic in an exaggeratedly bad light and he felt it incumbent upon himself to rally the spirits of his club. Summoning up his third year biology acumen garnered in the one room school house of his childhood, Arsenal addressed the team over the PA system. He prognosticated on how he saw the pandemic affecting club results in the coming weeks. There were no presumptive cases of the virus amongst the squad. They had all washed their hands in the last week and Trevor’s dry hack, fever and achy joints did not in Arsenal’s opinion seem contagious. Things would be fine. The driver stopped the bus at the southern extremity of the by-pass underneath the motorway flyover on a prearranged pick-up of Roddy Thistle, the goalkeeper. Roddy lived in the annex to the Andrew Carnegie Museum in town. Part-time he was a guide to visitors wishing to visit the steel magnate’s boyhood home. On this occasion he was unlucky enough to have been spotted by some PARS fans on the road above who had spontaneously launched a barrage of eggs in his direction. What a great feeling to be recognized by the general public he thought, meanwhile nipping smartly on board muttering “reprobates” and shaking his oversize goalkeeper mitts at his attackers as he sat down. Dunfermline residents were well inclined to PARS (check it out on Google) but bitter rivals of Anstruther and prepared to confront anyone and everyone associated with the latter. As the trip progressed, Arsenal sat back and contemplated in his mind an image of the winning goal he foresaw for later that afternoon. He pinpointed the sphere hurtling goalwards as if he were making a placement on a Spot the Ball photo in the Evening Standard.

 

Spirits were high as the coach topped the rise at Harthill and slipped anonymously down the M8 into Western Scotland. Easterners usually felt a tinge of trepidation at this juncture as they crossed the watershed, geophysical, meteorological and footballistic. Often sorties into this neck of the woods proved embarrassing. To-day seemed westerly soft and reassuring however, there was no sign of restless natives. Could that state of affairs hold? The answer would come soon enough. Anticipation rippled through the team as the bus dipped into the Clyde Tunnel and at its destination edged its way to the Visitors Emporium at Renfrew’s ground. An unexpectedly large crowd milled about a full hour before kick-off. Unbeknownst to hundreds of them the Scottish Parliament in Holyrood had effective immediately just banned gatherings of two or more at sports stadiums. This had been done on the respected medical advice of the renowned planetary guru Dr WHO from the World Health Organization. Now this astonished throng was faced with the reality that owing to PARS the fixture was to be held behind closed doors. No spectators were to be admitted. The team mood altered. Uncertainty replaced confidence as the players disembarked and made their way into the changing rooms where the motto “Failure Is No Success At All” was writ large on the wall. This laconic message was thought to have been penned by Dylan, but nobody was sure if it was Dylan Thomas or Bob, that great purveyor of the English language. Some degree of self assurance was pumped into the side however as they donned their remarkable fuchsia and forest green strips which projected an as yet untested pride in their capabilities.

The game itself was a tire fire, akin to Armageddon and not at all the pre-season friendly it was advertised to be. The usual provocations from opposing fans were absent but unwarranted embellishments and home team melodrama collectively combined to get the goat of Arsenal’s babes. The Bru Crew, so named for Renfrew’s sponsors (Irn-Bru, Scotland’s unofficial national fizzy drink, whisky of course having top honours) put on quite the show. Stubbornly the referee made multiple decisions that undermined Anstruther and ultimately led to their demise. The sport’s reporter who wrote up the contest recorded no less than 13 face palms by Arsenal in the first half. Roddy meanwhile made good use of his oversize gloves to palm away a myriad of shots labeled for the net but he also let in 3.2 goals. Just an average day down on the farm one might say but things got worse as full time approached. Unlike the trip over which had had the ambience of a Sunday School picnic outing, there were no streamers or scarves fluttering out of the coach windows on the return journey. Arsenal, luckily for him, was not present going back, having excused himself to take off for Glasgow Airport to collect his rust bucket car. To his consternation his GPS went on the fritz on the way home and he had to use dead reckoning to guide him home to Lilliput. The familiar “Honey I’m home” was met with a non response as he entered the opulent kitchen from the carport. Man’s best friend whined and demanded raw meat, knowing full well he would have to settle for dry dog biscuit yet again. On the counter beside the cookie jar was a note from his dearest. Lilliput knew full well Arsenal would discover the note off the top if she placed it strategically. A cryptic “Gone Fishing, Lil” let Arsenal know his better half was off on her favourite ploy. In the guise of going fishing, at short notice Lilliput often snuck up to Loch Leven where at Auchtermuchty she took out the family shell and rowed herself over to Mary Queen of Scots favourite island keep, a reenactment exercise taken to an extreme. Historians! Stand up and explain the play on words here.