be home by now,’ he said, which was hard to take when you’re still chugging through Italy. He was right. Plane loads of Reds had been arriving back at Speke from the early hours. A lot were applauded by airport staff as they came through. While all that was going on, we were over 1000 miles away, listening to the arl fella’s son snoring in the luggage rack like a pig with sinusitis. If it got too loud, his arl fella would poke him with the stick end of a chequered flag. Jimmy woke up looking like something out of Tales from the Crypt. His sunburnt kite had bloated up, and his cheeks were full of criss-cross rope marks. He slid down from the rack groaning, saying, ‘Where are we?’ Then he looked out the window and shook his head: ‘Them fuckin Alps again.’ It captured everyone’s mood. On the way over it was like going through paradise. Going home it was no different than going past the heights on Netherfield Road.
By midday the hunger was on top. A trip to the buffet car was a waste of time – it was as bare as Everton’s trophy cabinet. The psychological side of it was the hardest – knowing you were trapped on a train for another day with no scoff or drinks. Most people were suffering. A few lads formed sarnie-raiding parties, mooching up and down the train hoping to swoop on a rare buttie bag while people slept. Others came round offering ciggies for food. The most offered was by some desperate fat fella who was opening compartments and pleading ‘Twenty Embassy for any buttie’.
No one took a chance drinking the water in the bogs. The only time I went near it was to swill the dryness from me mouth, but it was like swigging a mouthful of lead filings. Adding to the torture was the hygiene grief. I don’t care who you are, after roughing it on the piss for four days in searing hot temperatures wearing the same gear right down to your under-kecks, you’re gonna start festering. BO was rampant. The worst part was passing someone in the narrow corridors. I had to hold me breath a few times. One fella I brushed past smelt like a YMCA mattress. The arl fella’s son in our compartment was minging, and I mean badly minging. To be honest, if we’d dug up the body of a dead gladiator in Rome and brought it with us, it would have smelt better. At one point he took his suede boots off – fuck me, it was as if someone had just opened a mummy’s tomb.
It was the same score when I opened the compartment of the Stewart brothers (the lads with the coal). The stench was pure, unadulterated sock-cyanide. Mick Stewart got the rancid socks and threw them out the window. What happened next was nuts. By some fluke the socks blew into the window of the compartment behind. It had the same effect as a stun grenade. There was a big commotion, groans of revulsion, cries of ‘Dirty bastards’, then the sliding door burst open and about five lads bailed out into the corridor, holding their mouths.
The Stewarts and Ged still had their pieces of coal, though by now their white jeans looked like they’d just crawled out of a coal bunker with them. Visual degeneration was everywhere. Clumps of bum-fluff and stubble were on everyone’s kite; some were at the half-beard stage. Hairstyles were a mixture of mousey, greasy strands or dry, frizzy straw. The women on board were struggling. You know how birds are about appearances, being organised, change of clobber and all that carry on. They can’t slum it or doss like fellas can. On a train full of lads it must’ve been murder for them, with their perms fucked, no make-up, minty underwear, couldn’t eat, couldn’t drink, couldn’t fart. Most of them ended up looking like fellas in drag. Even Jackie – the one we were all perving on the way over – wasn’t the same bird going home. She walked past our compartment with a gaunt white face full of spots and her perm in tatters. It looked like a giant tarantula on her head. Jimmy took no prisoners: ‘I’d rather shag Tommy Smith.’
At every station the train would slow and crawl through without stopping, but then, somewhere in Germany at around 6 p.m. on the Thursday, we slowed on approach to a station that overlooked a small, picturesque village … then stopped. What followed was like a scene from The Vikings. Every door on the train burst open, and hundreds piled out and stampeded down a steep hill towards the only shop in the tiny village. It wasn’t planned, it wasn’t organised and it wasn’t malicious – it was sheer desperation. A few villagers froze. One woman ran. God knows what they must’ve thought, seeing hundreds of unshaven fellas steaming towards their secluded little town. The shop had bread hanging on hooks and fruit baskets outside. Every loaf was ripped down and eaten in the street. The fruit lasted about twenty seconds. Inside was like a massive rugby scrum. Anything edible was wolfed on the spot. Tinned stuff and drinks were slotted. Loads threw lire notes on the counter before emptying the shelves, though the Italian notes were no use to the Kraut shopkeeper, who was picking them up shouting, ‘Nein, nein!’ The whole thing was over in five minutes.
I was blowing for tugs eating peanut butter with me fingers on the way back up the hill. I don’t know where that idyllic little place was, but to this day they must still talk about that incident. It’s probably the biggest thing that’s ever happened there. It was ironic that at the very same time as we were pillaging and scavenging in Germany, half of Liverpool was overindulging and partying, watching the team celebrate on the steps of the Picton Library back home.
That Thursday night was definitely the worst: dehydration, hunger, thirst, weariness, desolate expressions, dishevelled clobber, bouts of silence and basic self-survival. It was getting like the film King Rat. I didn’t think anything could make me laugh that night, but some Scouser did. He opened our carriage door and stood there for a few seconds holding out his clenched fist. We all sat there baffled. Then he slowly opened his hand and said, ‘Does anyone wanna buy a fly?’ There was a dead fly in his palm. What’s that old Scouse saying: ‘If yer don’t laugh, you’ll cry.’
The only escape was sleep. It was mine and Wardy’s turn in the luggage racks. Getting into them wasn’t easy, like climbing into a narrow top bunk without a ladder. They were no more than two foot wide. The criss-cross rope was quite thick and sagged down between three metal support rails. The middle rail was the bastard. It was bang on line with your hip, your arse or your plums, depending on which way you turned. The only comfort was that you were lying down for a change, instead of trying to kip sitting upright. I psyched myself into thinking it was me own bed. After a while I couldn’t feel the rail against my side or the rope on me cheek. It was a seriously rough doss, but it was the longest kip I had on the entire trip. Thursday passed into Friday.
As we got nearer the coast, the mood picked up. The buzz was similar to the feeling prisoners must get on the morning of their release. That’s what the train felt like: a moving nick – restricted movement – confined cells – loss of freedom – claustrophobia. Though, as Wardy said, ‘Even prisoners get food and drink.’ We pulled into Ostend about half eight on the Friday morning. The sheer relief of disembarking was orgasmic. The Belgians in the station couldn’t make us out. We looked like a train full of extras from Planet of the Apes. I remember inhaling the fresh sea air at the harbour. It was a boss feeling knowing we were only a gangplank away from an English brekkie.
The ship’s cafe was always gonna struggle. Hundreds were skint and hadn’t eaten for days, so any sense of conscience went right out the portholes … you know the score. Those cafe scenes are now known in Scouse circles as The Invasion of the Brekkie Snatchers. At least three pigs’ worth of bacon went west. Some of the eating noises were primal. People were grunting and making sounds you’d only hear in a blue movie. In fact the breakfast afterglow was actually similar to post sex – sitting back smoking with a pervy, satisfied smirk on your gob. The rest of the crossing was spent on the top deck boozing in the sunshine. Jimmy sat in the shade due to his burnt, peeling kite. He wasn’t the only victim of the Roman weather. A lad called Tony Burke from Walton was walking round like the tin man from The Wizard of Oz.
The ale did enough to prepare us for the final stint. I couldn’t have faced getting on another bastard train without a few beers down me. We docked at Dover around half one, then right onto another rickety footy special. That last part was an absolute grueller. It seemed to take as long as the Europe trek. We read Friday’s papers over and over. They were still paying tribute to the team and to the fans for the way we’d conducted
