Timothy Lea - Timothy Lea's Complete Confessions

“Get off!” screams the poor bloke in outrage and proceeds to wipe his ear with a handkerchief. Sharp has been nibbling it.

This stuff obviously works fast, and indiscriminately, but is it fatal? I have got to do something quickly or the game will have started. Maybe exercise would be the best antidote. Sharp is now kissing the referee and trying to hold his hand. At least he looks all right; he is not turning green or anything.

“Their kick,” says Garth. “Now remember what I said.”

The referee has shaken himself free and Sharp has his arm round one his team-mates. I am standing near the touchline and can hear puzzled murmurs blending with the chorus of support for Shermer.

“What’s Tony playing at? Is he trying to pretend he’s a pouf or something? Olly, olly Shermer!”

The referee blows his whistle and the most incredible rugby match ever played begins. The ball is kicked to one of our little fat men, who is half scragged but manages to scramble it into touch. A line-out forms and Sharp, standing next to one of our men, starts to stroke the inside of his thigh, and nuzzle him. He gets a belt for his pains and promptly lopes over to the referee to tell him all about it.

“Stop playing the giddy goat and get back in the game,” snaps the official, clearly embarrassed. Sharp shrugs and starts towards the line-out when someone in the crowd catches his eye. “Yum, yum,” he yodels and hurls himself at a tall blonde wearing lace-up boots and green hot pants under a maxi-coat. He has his arms round her in a trice and starts trying to undo her braces. “Lovely dolly,” he groans. “Tony wants you.”

It takes two men to pull him off and the struggle seems to have some effect, because he shakes his head a couple of times and wanders back on the field looking a bit more like his old unpleasant self.

“Next time you go off, you stay off,” warns the referee. “I will not tolerate any more fooling about.”

“Give us a kiss,” says Sharp, but the referee pretends not to hear him.

In goes the ball and Sharp leaps like a performing seal to knock it high in the air. Garth sees his opportunity and comes in like a ton of bricks. He jumps, catches the ball, and his impetus takes him through the Shermer forwards before they know what has hit them. The scrum-half is trampled into the ground and the winger gets some free plastic surgery from Garth’s mighty mitt. Two men see the danger and race to cut him off, but, as they close, so Garth lobs the ball over their heads and Lanky folds it to his chest and just has the speed to make it to the line.

The silence that greets this effort could only be bettered by a Liverpool supporter watching Everton score their fifth goal at Anfield Road and I have to look at the referee to be certain that he has awarded a try.

Garth shapes up to take the kick and it is only then that I notice Sharp still lying on his back where the line-out broke up. He is peering down the inside of his shorts and singing “I’ve got a lovely bunch of coconuts.” It may be true, but it is obviously causing a fair amount of embarrassment to those standing near him. It doesn’t help Garth much either because he misses his first kick of the afternoon and we are just three points ahead.

Sharp makes another half-hearted attempt to invade the crowd but is thrown back on to the pitch by the worried Shermer supporters—a big mistake, as it turns out.

From the kick-off the ball goes to big fat man, who promptly knocks it on. Scrum-down. Sharp tries to bind down with his other two forwards but is promptly pulled out by his captain, which is just as well because he is already trying to love-bite his prop’s neck. The problem is: where to put him? On the wing he might run amok amongst the crowd; in the scrum and his obvious desire for close physical contact is being given full rein. Eventually they send him off to the centre of the field and play continues. The ball goes in and whips back on the Shermer side whilst our forwards wilt visibly. Scrum-half, fly-half, and out to Sharp. It looks an easy try and the Shermer supporters are in full song when Sharp stops dead in his tracks and holds out the ball invitingly.

“Give us a kiss and it’s yours,” he says. My short-sighted friend purses his lips, snatches the ball as Sharp closes his eyes and starts scampering down the field with the Shermer backs in total disorder behind him. They pull themselves together and charge off in pursuit, but by this time Garth has taken the ball and scored under the posts.

The Shermer supporters are now in open mutiny and when Garth kicks the goal there are shouts of “Keep it away from Sharp, for God’s sake,” and “Get him orf!”

Sharp is now sulking because our centre cheated by not kissing him and this is to his side’s advantage, because without him taking part in the action they have no difficulty scoring a converted try before half-time to make the score 8–5 to us.

I watch Sharp carefully whilst we suck our lemons and pretend to listen to Garth’s ranting, because I still fear that he may suddenly drop dead. But he looks all right as he invites the rest of his team to peep down the front of his shorts and it occurs to me that Python’s Pesticides would do well to solve the problem of gender discrimination before they put their wonder drug on the market.

“… and really get amongst them,” winds up Garth. “I don’t know what’s the matter with that daft sod Sharp, but he’s worth playing on.”

He is indeed. But only if he can get the ball. The rest of his team have now wised up and keep it away from him at any cost. In the first minute of the second half their scrum-half breaks from a line-out and scores under the posts. The try is converted and we are 10–8 down. If this was not bad enough, straight from our kick-off their wing catches the ball and races the length of the field with Garth just failing to stop him getting over in the corner. The kick fails but we are now 13–8 down.

As we trudge back to the centre line, morale is at truss height and even Garth is silent. The Shermer supporters are on top of the world and I feel mentally and physically knackered. I really believed we had a chance and now my dream is punctured like a french letter with ‘Made in Hong Kong’ stamped on it.

But I reckon without the crafty Celtic cunning of Garth. Seeing the opposition bunched protectively around Sharp, he taps the ball over the ten-yard line, sprints after it, sweeps it up and is striding away for the line with the nearest Shermer man ten yards away. He scores untouched and the score is 13–11. We kick the goal and it is 13-all.

Our mood is now transformed and straight from their kick-off big fat man catches the ball and charges forward as if nothing on God’s earth is going to stop him. In fact, three Shermer players stop him very comprehensively in the first four yards, and he goes down twitching and groaning. The referee blows up and the crowd surges forward to inspect the damage.

Luckily for us, Sharp is equal to the situation.

“Give him the kiss of life,” he shouts and promptly starts to pull down the victim’s shorts.

“Not there, you fool,” cries one of his team-mates, aghast. “On the mouth.”

He must have wished he had not said it because Sharp needs no further encouragement before subjecting Fatso to the kind of kiss that would clear all the blocked-up sinks in a toffee factory. A cry of horror goes up from the crowd and strong men turn away in disgust. Willing arms haul Sharp from his prey and the referee’s finger points rigidly towards the touchline.

“I’m sending you off for ungentlemanly conduct,” he says sternly, his lower lip trembling. You feel that the total horror of the situation is almost unhinging him. Sharp’s hand immediately shoots out and dives down the front of the official’s shorts.