a foot high and you couldn’t walk two steps without hitting a Coke can or sinking into a pile of dog shit.’
Sasha was much larger than his opponent and his next blow hit the retreating councillor in the stomach, making him crumple forward into the mud.
‘Think you’re smart with your council seat and your phone calls behind my back?’ Sasha shouted. ‘Well, let’s see where it gets you.’
As James and the rest of the Mad Dogs looked on, Sasha raised his football boot out of the mud and stamped hard. Further blows rained down on the councillor’s head and torso until he was balled up in the mud, with a gaping wound in the back of his head.
‘Happy now, mate?’ Sasha boomed, as he took a short run up and finished the councillor off with a kick in the guts. ‘There’s no Mad Dogs FC without me and anyone who can’t live with that can piss right off.’
It was the most one-sided beating James had ever seen. Even worse, Sasha’s cronies just gawped as Sasha loomed over the unconscious councillor. Half a minute passed while Sasha caught his breath, but it seemed longer.
‘I reckon he’ll live.’ Sasha smirked as he finally backed away. ‘Take him to the hospital and keep an eye on him. If he comes round and starts mouthing off, remind him that I know where his old mum lives.’
Most of the onlookers were tough guys who’d seen their share of violence. But nobody knew how to act as Savvas and a couple of other flunkies picked the councillor out of the mud and dragged his limp body towards the car park.
‘What are you all standing around for?’ Sasha yelled, as he waved towards the pitch. ‘We’re a football club, so go play some bloody football.’
Nobody was going to argue. The coach to the defunct first team blew a whistle and everyone who was dressed for football headed on to the pitch.
‘Stone-cold psycho,’ Junior said admiringly, as James turned around and realised that his friend had arrived and stood right behind him. ‘I can think of a few people I’d like to do that to … My dickhead of a parole officer for starters.’
James had been trained to deal with all kinds of situations, but what Sasha had just done made him feel he’d been punched in the guts.
‘Is that the worst he’s ever done?’ Bruce asked.
Junior shrugged. ‘Worst I’ve seen, but I’ve heard much nastier stuff. Anyway, listen, I know you boys have been earning for that surveillance job. I’m so broke, could one of you lend us thirty quid?’
‘You already owe me fifty,’ James said.
‘Come on,’ Junior begged. ‘Sasha won’t put any work my way. My mum won’t pay my pocket money because I’m supposed to be grounded and I’ve robbed everything out of April’s purse.’
Bruce tutted. ‘You robbed your own sister? That’s low, man.’
Junior gave Bruce the finger. ‘None of your business who I rob.’
‘Any time today, ladies,’ the coach shouted as he eyeballed the three boys from the centre circle. ‘We’re gonna warm up with some shuttle runs.’
Junior groaned. ‘This is such crap. This is supposed to be the Sunday league side, fun football. But now we’ve got this Nazi drilling us like he’s still running the first team.’
‘Wimp,’ James grinned. ‘The only reason you can’t handle it is because of all that shit you put up your nose.’
Junior looked behind and saw that Sasha was still around. ‘I’d piss off now, except Sasha would bite my head off; but I swear this is the last time I’m coming down here.’
As the players lined up along the half-way line to start doing shuttle runs, James realised that Junior wasn’t the only one who felt like he was in the wrong place. The quality players wanted something meatier than pub-league football, the casual Sunday players certainly didn’t want shuttle runs and the youth-team players wanted to be back in a squad with their mates.
Sasha Thompson could stomp on as many people as he liked, but it wouldn’t change the fact that the Slasher Boys’ attack spelt the end of Mad Dogs FC.
*
After twenty minutes the coach was sick of all the moaning and gave up on serious training. He divided the players up into two nine-man teams, gave half of them red training bibs and retired to a bench next to Sasha while they played a match.
A few minutes into the game, James went into a sliding tackle out on the right. He’d mistimed hopelessly