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    Me: Frankie Sidebottom
    Me: Frankie Sidebottom
    Me: Frankie Sidebottom
    Ebook53 pages1 hour

    Me: Frankie Sidebottom

    By Les Broad

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    About this ebook

    Frankie Sidebottom was a (fictitious) soccer player until injury brought his career to a shuddering close. After spells as a television pundit and newspaper columnist – and appearing in a television advertisement – he became a publican. That was as successful as the rest of his post-soccer activities.
    You might, if you were being kind, call Frankie a man's man. Given his liking for strong drink and weak women you might also call him, as others have done, a 'sexist self-opinionated racist homophobic pisshead dinosaur'; he's not the most likeable of men.
    In this study of Frankie's life – remember, it's fiction – you're not supposed to laugh with him. Oh no, not at all – you're supposed to laugh at him and his ridiculous prejudices. It's worth bearing in mind that the part of England from which Frankie comes, allegedly, has produced a lot of people just like him: there are some still walking the streets, honestly.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLes Broad
    Release dateAug 28, 2011
    ISBN9781466043787
    Me: Frankie Sidebottom
    Author

    Les Broad

    That picture isn't me. It's my much-loved Border Collie bitch, who I lost to a spinal tumour in April 2011. She deserves this memorial.I was born a very, very long time ago, very close to my mother in England. Now I live in Wales, which isn't England but is part of the UK. I've written all sorts of stuff, but mostly science fiction. It's sort of believable sci-fi - maybe it can't happen today, but might tomorrow, you know? The sci-fi novels are all on the theme of 'first contact' and the first one is being given away free. You'll have to pay for the others. Sorry.I've got other novels, short stories and things that are supposed to be funny too but whether they are is your decision, right?Some of the books are based on real incidents - I know they are, because they happened to me. There are five in total, I've released two, two are being tidied up and the last one won't be finished for a while yet. If you read one, remember it all happened to me and that I don't mind being laughed at. I'm used to it.A while back I released a free book, 'Top Of The Shop'. (If you're a writer you might want to read it. I'll say no more.) I've since released another one, 'Tea, Drums And Speed'. So now the first sci-fi novel is free, 'Top Of The Shop' is free, and there's a free volume of short stories. I must be mad, giving this stuff away. Mind you, it hasn't stopped me giving away a book of political thoughts. If you're from Wales, or British, or even interested in Welsh politics, it might be worth reading.There's also a free book about some films that appeal to me. You might find it interesting but I thought it would be a bit cheeky to want money for it. Have it on me.There's one little thing I don't understand. Of everything I've put on this site, I think the stories in 'Swift Shifts' are the funniest, yet it's the title that's looked at least often. Why is that, do you think?After a gap of several months I've now added a new three-story volume of funny stories. To balance this, there's a thoroughly miserrable one on its way!A word or two about my pricing strategy might be worthwhile. A lot of people on this site (and I apologise if I've got this wrong) quote prices that are just a bit cheaper than you'd see in a bookstore. I don't do that. Ebooks don't have production or distribution costs, so why should you, the book buyer, have to pay even a tiny share of something that doesn't exist? Isn't it better to spend, say, $3 on three little books than on just one? I want you to enjoy what I've written, and at a realistic cost to you that I can live with. Simple, isn't it?I'll add to this from time to time - there's no point saying everything at once, is there? You'd have no need to come back, would you?

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      Book preview

      Me - Les Broad

      ME – Frankie Sidebottom

      Les Broad

      Published by Les Broad at Smashwords

      Copyright 2011 Les Broad

      Discover other titles by Les Broad at Smashwords.com

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      (This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      ME – Frankie Sidebottom

      as told to a disbelieving Les Broad

      The author wants to make it perfectly clear that this is purely a work of fiction, even if it might appear from time to time to be otherwise. Therefore, any resemblance to any real person, either living or dead, (well, you never know, there might be somebody) is entirely coincidental.

      Author’s Notes: (i) Football was a different game in the days when this story starts, with much more physical contact. Tackles which these days would see the perpetrator sent off at best and probably in court as well while the victim lay damaged beyond repair were routine and caused no comment beyond the odd exhortation to 'get stuck in'. Retribution was by way of tackling back with similar enthusiasm. To describe a typical tackle is difficult, but it would normally begin with two bodies, moving rapidly, on a collision course. One, the tacklee, would ideally have the ball at his feet but it was entirely optional. The other, the tacklor, had the single-minded intention of stopping the tacklee in his tracks. Winning possession of the football was just a lucky bonus if it happened. The tacklor would approach his target at speed then, at a certain distance (calculated at lightning speed taking into account the direction of travel of both parties, their speeds, their relative sizes, the firmness or otherwise of the playing surface and the extent of any personal animosity between tacklor and tacklee) from the expected point of collision, would launch himself at the tacklee. The position adopted for this short flight through the air sounds bizarre, but is in fact remarkably effective. The right leg is extended (the angle of the foot to the leg is optional and depends entirely on the amount of damage the tacklor wishes to inflict on the tacklee) whilst the left is bent under the body. The torso leans back, firstly to minimise drag as the body flies through the air and secondly to keep the delicate parts of the face as far as possible from the impact point. The flying body lands, of course, either just before or just after flattening the tacklee (whose subsequent fate is irrelevant for the purposes to hand) and the exact part of the tacklor's body forced to absorb the impact of landing varies with the exact outcome of the collision with the tacklee. It might be the left hip, or the buttocks, but the left knee would usually take more than its fair share of the impact and in addition would act as the main instrument of deceleration. It would also absorb any instant retaliatory kick that the tacklee could get in before he crumpled in an untidy heap.

      (ii) Readers preparing to wade through Frankie Sidebottom’s recollections of his playing career and his subsequent life might find much of what he has to say to be, in these days of sensitivity and political correctness, mildly offensive; indeed, here and there ‘mildly’ may be inappropriate. It is important to understand that Frankie did not enjoy the benefit of an extensive education, nor did he live a normal life. Instead he went straight from school, an institution that seem to have limited itself to teaching its boys that their role in life was little more than self-protection and preparing its girls for marriage and motherhood, into an almost exclusively male environment. At first Frankie needed his instincts, honed at his school, for self-preservation; as his career developed he found himself living in an environment where his employers took on the role of protector. In that unique if rather unreal atmosphere all of the needs of Frankie and his colleagues were catered for and this was a service that extended far beyond what most of us might consider either necessary or reasonable. In order that the player thought - if indeed any of them were capable of such a cerebral activity - of nothing but their on-field performance the employer, the football club, insulated its employees from all the stresses that might affect that performance. Everything, from lost cheque books to unexpectedly pregnant ‘girlfriends’, was taken care of. As Frankie lived his formative years and those of early adulthood in such singular environments is it really any surprise that he may have believed himself to be, although perhaps not in the precise words, invincibly omnipotent?

      Let us, therefore, set aside our tender sensibilities, suspend our worshipping at the altar of political correctness and plunge, recklessly and with abandon, headlong into the unusual

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