MY MATE STILL WANTS ME TO PLAY IN HIS 5-A-SIDE TEAM. I was tempted at one point last week so I popped down to the ‘hallowed pitch’ to get a feel for the atmosphere and impending violence.

The Astroturf pitches are located in a pretty rough part of the city, just a stone’s throw (bad analogy) from Goodison and Anfield. So the footballing tradition is rich although it’s difficult to see much of the beautiful game being played out here.

There was a league game going on whilst I strolled amongst the mayhem, so I studied it fiercely. Due to the competitive nature of this fixture, a referee had been assigned to the match although he was struggling to put his authoritative stamp on proceedings. His feeble whistle seemed to only act as a suggestion to stop play which the players dutifully ignored.

A whistle needs to sound bold and should penetrate the air. His sounded like a Clanger farting.

The goalkeeper had a cigarette in his mouth too, for the WHOLE game. And he was pulling off some incredible saves which had earned him the nickname of ‘The Cat’ from his teammates. (I’m not sure what kind of feline smokes 10 Benson and Hedges every hour).

As I ran back towards my car I told my mate I’d get back to him…

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MY MATE ASKED ME TO JOIN HIS 5-A-SIDE football team this week which I politely declined. It’s not that I don’t like playing, it’s just that I have no desire to play in a violent ‘prison rules’ version of Association Football.

I used to play for a team that were so bad that people used to come along to watch us for a laugh. (Probably my first job in comedythinking about it.) And in the end we had this group of “supporters’ who used to come along and if our asthmatic left back wasn’t playing, you could hear them giggling as our shots rained down on the opponents corner flag.

We did actually win a game once. Although that was because the other team only had eight men. This small detail didn’t matter to us though, as we celebrated like we’d clinched the league title which didn’t go down very well with this other team. So after the match, we were all sharing a changing room, and our team must have smelt the impending violence because I remember panic sweeping through the lot of us and we all just bolted out of the building. They were so incensed that their team chased us down the high street, and through this indoor shopping centre, which must have looked fairly ridiculous, and being as unfit as we were it didn’t take long for them to catch us. A couple of us had hold of a corner flag each as if we were in an outake from The Warriors but in the end, we were knackered. We’d just won our only game of the season and it had taken it out of us, so we stopped running and they caught up with us.

They were as feckless as us, and were so confused by us stopping that they stopped for a second, and then just ran right past.

One year our manager arranged a pre-season friendly against this side who were named after one of the roughest pubs in the area and I’ve never been so scared in all my life. The score finished a morale-boosting 17-0 to them and we were lucky to keep it that respectable. Their centre half was called Rocky and he was just a monster. He was like an end of level baddy on a computer game (Abobo off Double Dragon anyone?), and he was a complete lunatic. Their keeper constantly had a ciggie in his mouth throughout the game and was making all these incredible saves. We did actually score 1 but their manager drove onto the pitch on a motorbike and ‘had a word’ with the referee about the decision which was promptly changed.

At half time we were something like 12-0 down and all fearing for our lives and the manager passed round oranges for us. I remember thinking, we’ve gone beyond oranges at this stage. I don’t think any amount of vitamin C is gonna help us here. Give me a screwdriver and maybe…

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SOME OF THE THINGS I USED TO DO FOR MONEY DISGUST ME. In fact they disgusted me then, but I needed the cash to keep me in the glamourous lifestyle that I’d grown accustomed to. (You know, eating food and having a roof over my head, stuff like that.

I was skint when I finished university and desperate to break into comedy, so I literally said yes to any offer that came my way. This led to me spending 12 months dressing up as Elvis every Tuesday and conducting wedding ceremonies in a tarpaulin Chapel-O-Love at some minty student night. In my impoverished state I told myself this was just another gig that would toughen me up for the future. After all, I was performing to some degree and people were laughing, right? WRONG! I came across more like Shakin Stevens, and people were laughing at me, not with me. Oh dear.

The worst moments were when boozed up first years would ask me how much I was getting for trading in my dignity. I’d wink and mysteriously say, ‘oh I couldn’t possibly tell you,’ which they’d take as tantamount to admission that I was doing all this for free. That was too much to live with so I’d normally give them a figure, but politely ask these pissed up strangers not to divulge the magic number to the girl next to me who sold the laughing gas. They often did which led to massive rows between us. Try winning an argument with a £3.99 Elvis wig on your bonce.

One guy even started giving me abuse in the middle of a wedding ceremony. More out of frustration than respect for the holy service I used what little experience I had of dealing with hecklers to completely humiliate him in front of his new best friends. Don’t mess with me buster, I thought. I may be dressed as a dead singer who married a minor, but my razor sharp wit has not deserted me and you had better remember that next time you plan on getting cheap laughs by sending grief in my general direction, sir.

“Oh f**k off, you’re dressed as Elvis!” he snorted back. His friends all laughed and sloped off into the night. I was defeated.

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I’VE HAD KIDS KNOCKING AT MY DOOR saying Trick or Treat all week. I don’t mind if they are actually kids but one group were so old I mistook them for a stag night. I ran out of cola bottles for the little ragamuffins so I started handing out my old HBOS share certificates. You should have seen the looks on their little faces – there’s nothing quite like the sight of a disappointed Jason Vorhees slumping away from your doorstep to warm the cockles.

Round our way there’s a quaint Victorian tradition the night before Halloween of ‘Mischief Night’ or ‘mizzzeeee f’n nite’ as it’s known colloquially. This age old ritual has evolved over the last decade to miss out the time consuming task of choosing either trick or treat, with the protagonists simply opting for trick on your behalf. This results in one being pelted with eggs, flour and abject misery whenever you leave the house by the local ASBO’s.

Even the police play a part in this carnival atmosphere, by insisting that ‘you can’t mess with tradition’. I would have wholeheartedly agreed with them but I was too busy dodging the eggs (rocks) flying through the glorious festival air.

There were some other young chancers by the local shops who were asking for ‘a pound for the guy’. What happened to a penny? Next it’ll be ‘non-contributory pension scheme with free dental and health screening plus flexible working hours – for the guy’. The guy was just their mate in a wheelbarrow. He was 6 foot 2, had a real beard and a big box of eggs on his lap. I gave him my watch.

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THEY SAY YOU CAN CHOOSE YOU FRIENDS but you can’t choose your family.

It’s true that you can’t choose your family, although try telling that to Angelina Jolie.

But I’m not so sure you can choose your friends. I’ve got mates that I’ve known for over ten years and I can’t think of any reason why we still hang around with each other.

We meet up in the pub and if it’s the football close-season and there’s no international tournament to fill the void we’ve got bugger all to say. We don’t have a laugh and barely enjoy each others company. We have no reason to continue with the charade.

But we’ll never stop being friends. Why?

My best mate is just that only due to a convenient accident 19 years ago when we started secondary school: both our surnames began with an A. We didn’t need Facebook in those days, we just used the alphabet.

My best mate. A prestigious title that was ever so slightly precarious. Some weeks the title changed hands even more than the porn we found in the bushes while bunking off double maths one morning. (A 1989 copy of Razzle, fact fans. Without getting graphic let’s just say that lady-razor technology has been upgraded immeasurably since then.)

There was another lad who now and again proclaimed me to be his best mate, usually if he wanted to borrow money to pay off the comedy bullies (who’d been watching Hale and Pace and were asking for ‘protection money’ in the guise of ‘The Two Rons’. Pricks.)

By the end of 5th form he’d demoted me to being in his top four (fourth, basically) which in these days would at least mean Champions League qualification, but back then meant I missed out on his birthday trip to Southport Fair. Bastard.

So I went back to my initial choice for premier chum, which I realise sounds like a dog food. I even used to forgive him every time he pissed in my wardrobe while sleepwalking at my house. This happened all the time, and I think if a friendship can survive urine soaked moccasins then it’s worth holding onto.

He’s doing really well for himself these days. He’s a manager at Ikea, loves working the nightshift apparently…

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