Roddy Doyle - Paddy Clarke, Ha Ha Ha

– Patrick?

I said nothing.

– Have you any tickles?

I tried like mad not to laugh.

Aidan was the commentator. He was brilliant at it. We had to tell him our names before the match. We were playing across the road. Our pitch was gone. The gates on each side were the goals. There were eight of us, just right, four a side. Whoever had the ball when a car was coming got a throw-in when the car had gone. If you decided to risk it but the driver blasted the horn before you took your shot the goal was disallowed, if it was a goal. You couldn’t use the kerb for shielding the ball. Anything higher than the top of the pillar was over the bar.

I had to fight for George Best.

Kevin didn’t follow Manchester United. He followed Leeds. He’d once followed United but then he’d changed because of his brother; his brother followed Leeds.

It was Kevin’s turn to pick.

– Eddie Gray, he said.

No one else wanted to be Eddie Gray. Ian McEvoy followed Leeds as well but he was always Johnny Giles. Kevin was sick once, and Ian McEvoy picked Eddie Gray.

– Why not Johnny Giles?

– Just -

I’d caught him.

Four of us followed Manchester United. All of us wanted to be George Best. We always made Sinbad be Nobby Stiles so he stopped following United and started following Liverpool, although he didn’t really follow anyone. For a while I nearly changed to Leeds as well, but I couldn’t. They’d have said that it was just because of Kevin but, mostly, it was because of George Best.

What we did was, Kevin got four ice-pop sticks and broke one of them and each United supporter picked a stick and whoever got the broken stick got to choose first.

Aidan picked the small stick.

– Bobby Charlton, he said.

He picked Bobby Charlton because he knew what would happen to him if he picked George Best. I’d do him. There was no ref. You could do what you wanted, even tackle one of your own team. I could beat Aidan. He was a good fighter but he didn’t like it. He always let you up before you surrendered properly; then you could get him back.

Kevin threw away one of the big sticks. I picked the small one this time.

– George Best.

Liam was Denis Law. If he’d picked the small stick he’d have been George Best. I wouldn’t have stopped him. He was different. I’d never had a fight with him. There was something; he’d have won. He wasn’t that much bigger. There was something. It hadn’t always been like that. He’d been very small once. He wasn’t that big now. His eyes. There was no shine on them. When the brothers were together, standing beside each other, it was easy to see them the way we saw them; little, jokes, sad, nice. They were our friends because we hated them; it was good to have them around. I was cleaner than them, brainier than them. I was better than them. Separate, it was different. Aidan got smaller, unfinished looking. Liam became dangerous. They looked the same together. They were nothing alike when you met one of them alone. That nearly never happened. They weren’t twins. Liam was older than Aidan. They both followed United.

– It’s cheaper, said Ian McEvoy when they weren’t there.

– The game’s about to commence, said Aidan.

Me, Aidan, Ian McEvoy and Sinbad versus Kevin, Liam, Edward Swanwick and James O’Keefe. We were given a two-goal lead because we had Sinbad. He was much smaller than everyone else. Teams with Sinbad in them usually won. We all thought it was because of the automatic two-goal lead but it wasn’t. (The score in one match was seventy-three, sixty-seven.) It was because Sinbad was a good player. But none of us knew this; he was a twirp; we were stuck with him because he was my little brother. He was a brilliant dribbler. I didn’t know until Mister O’Keefe, James O’Keefe’s da, told me.

– He has the perfect centre of gravity for a soccer player, said Mister O’Keefe.

I looked at Sinbad. He was just my little brother. I hated him. He never wiped his nose. He cried. He wet the bed. He got away with not eating his dinner. He had to wear specs with one black lens. He ran to get the ball. No one else did that. They all waited for it to come to them. He went through them all, no bother. He was brilliant. He wasn’t selfish like most fellas who could dribble. It was weird, looking at him. It was great, and I wanted to kill him. You couldn’t be proud of your little brother.

We were two-nil up before we started.

– The captains shake hands.

I shook hands with Kevin. We squeezed real hard. We were Northern Ireland. Kevin was Scotland. Bobby Charlton was playing for Northern Ireland because he was on his holidays there.

– Scotland to kick off.

These games were fast. It was nothing like being on grass. The road wasn’t wide. We were packed in together. The gates were closed. The smack of the ball against the gate was a goal. Goalkeepers scored about half the goals. We tried to change the rules but the goalkeepers objected; they wouldn’t go in goal if they weren’t allowed score goals. The useless players went in goal but we still needed them. Once, James O’Keefe, the worst player of us all, kicked out from goal. He scored a goal but the ball whacked off the gate and back across the road, into his own goal. He’d scored a goal and an O.G. with the one shot.

– My word, said the commentator. -Extraordinary.

Scotland kicked off.

– Denis Law taps to Eddie Gray -

I got a foot in; the ball hit the gate.

– Yessss!

– My word, said the commentator. -A goal by Best. One-nil to Northern Ireland.

– Hey! I reminded him. -Sinbad’s goals.

– Three-nil to Northern Ireland. What a start. What can Scotland do now?

Scotland scored three.

It made you dizzy. The ball bombed over the road, and over. It was a bit burst. It hurt when it got you in the leg.

– I can’t recall a game quite as exciting as this one, said the commentator. -My word.

He’d just scored a goal.

It always slowed down after a while. If it hadn’t we’d never have played it. It would have been just stupid. Your feet got sore blemming a burst ball.

– Seventeen, sixteen to Northern Ireland.

– It’s seventeen-all!

– It isn’t. I’ve been counting.

– What is it? Kevin asked Edward Swanwick.

– Seventeen-all.

– There, said Kevin.

– He’s on your team, I said. -He’s just saying it cos you said it.

– He’s on your team, he said.

He was pointing at the commentator.

– Really, the referee will have to take control of the situation.

– Shut up, you.

– I’m supposed to talk. It’s my job.

– Shut up; your da’s an alco.

This always happened as well.

– Okay, I said. -Seventeen-all. We’ll win anyway.

– We’ll see about that.

Kevin turned to his team.

– Come on! Wake up! Wake up!

Liam and Aidan never did anything when we said things about their da.

The game had slowed down. Aidan didn’t commentate for a while. It was getting dark. The game ended at teatime. If James O’Keefe was late for his tea his ma gave it to the cat. That was what she’d shouted one day when he’d been hiding behind a hedge when she’d called him in.

– James O’Keefe! I’m going to give your fish-fingers to the cat!

He went in. He said later that he’d been hiding cos he thought they’d be having mince and turnips for their tea, not fish-fingers. But he was always lying. He was the biggest liar in Barrytown.

Twenty-seven, twenty-three; we were winning again.

– My word, said Aidan. -Roger Hunt is posing problems for the Scotland defence.

Roger Hunt was Sinbad. They couldn’t cope with him. It was because he was small and he was able to hide the ball behind himself. Kevin was good at sliding tackles but we were playing on the road so Sinbad was safe. It was much easier to foul someone the same size as you. Another thing about Sinbad, he didn’t score the goals himself. He passed the ball to someone who couldn’t miss – mostly me – and they all marked me instead of Sinbad because I was scoring the goals. I’d scored twenty-one of our goals. Seven hat-tricks.