Upon returning to “active service”, I organised a fundraising prize draw, the 1st prize being a skiing holiday in Slovenia. The 2nd prize was a Tour of The Theatre of Dreams, Old Trafford, Manchester. Not forgetting the 3rd prize, £111 in official SWFC gift vouchers to be redeemed on any Sunday between 5pm-7pm.
Obviously being such a shrewd competitor I purchased 998 tickets, 1-41 and 43-500 in both blue AND red. You may have noticed the one glaring omission from each set. This is due to Bastelica in Corsica lying on THAT line of latitude. Bastelica you see is somewhat unlucky for me. It was our chosen resort for many years as child, until one year father insisted as dressing as BoBo the cannibalistic clown and proceeded to bop the people of Bastelica on the head with an inflated condom.
The tickets gave me a 99.5% chance of completing a clean sweep of the tantalising triumvirate of prizes. Norma, the woman claiming to be the manager’s secretary bought both the numbered tickets 42 in red AND blue. Soon the day of reckoning approached. Unhappily it clashed with an appointment for our team in the FA Cup semi-final. Me and Cecile( my armadillo) scuttled down to the canteen where the draw was to be held after 70 minutes of the match had passed. Cecile seemed to have a skin reaction to her least favourite floor cleaner, a nasty rash forming on her left buttock. Our celebrity draw master, a man claiming to be the traditional pudding magnate, Mr Kipling, announced the first two numbers. They came out 42 and 42 in both red AND blue. I was astonished. Luckily the third number was mine. I might have complained if I hadn’t won anything.
And so £111 worth of gift vouchers were ours. Me and Cecile patiently waited for our time and then ran amok, buying 41 pencils (official), 2 hats each, toilet brush (official) and the last Paolo Di Canio burglar alarm, with the official D-I-CAN-I-O tune sounding whenever an intruder penetrates.
As for my quest, it has somewhat ground to a halt after Joe Ashton bet me £5 he could be on the board longer than me and be less popular and more dynamic than me. I feel I may be on top after I ran on to the pitch dressed as Mussolini, floored our star Maltese striker with a golf club yelling ‘ Wednesday fans are a pile of poo, a pile of poo, a pile of poo, wahooo de do!’ I’m already eyeing bargains to be had in the official club shop!
However, I have hung a large mince pie above my bed to try to lure the Premier League’s rulers round to mine for a game of friendly scrabble, with some “gifts” prepared. One day I SHALL be on that gravy train.