Dark Passage (1947)

Clerks (1994)

Soul Boys of the Western World (2014)

In Between Talking About the Football by Gordon Legge (Polygon 1991)

There he is again. It's raining, I better stop. He's not even got his hood up. Toot! Toot! Oh, come on, Tony. Stop pretending you don't see me. Coo-ee. Yes - it is me. Yes - I am offering you a lift. Does the gentleman require written confirmation? Twenty-four hours notice? Passed by the House of Lords? Tony, get a move on, will you. Do you think I would leave you dyyyy-ingggg . . . You're not going to get run down. At last, Watch out! Jesus! Finally.

'Come on. Get in.'

'Thanks.'

'You're soaked, Tony.'

'It's okay. I'm spongy, I'll absorb it.'

Eh?

'What's up with the bus the day?'

'Well, I missed the 42 so I just got a 26 to the complex and walked. Didn't think it was going to rain, like.'

'That's a two-mile walk, Tony.'

'Done it often enough. Just half an hour into the wind. Save 30p as well. That's three quid a week if I do it all the time. Now that's something that appeals to my nature, cause I'm dead mean, so I am.'

And you're weird, Tony. Well weird. That skinny face. A cagoule that's too wee for you. A brown cagoule. Those trousers. I don't know. You don't have any shoulders, Tony.

'Is that a new jacket?'

What!?!?

'Eh, yes. Yes, it is. I got it on Saturday.'

'Pretty smart. It looks new.'

What does that mean? Everything I wear is new.

'I'm hopeless with clothes. My mum still buys mine.'

From 'I Don't Have Any Friends But I've Got a Cat Called Napalm Death'

Only A Game? by Eamon Dunphy (Penguin Books 1976)

3 August

My birthday. I am twenty-eight; getting on, getting a tiny bit worried. This is going to be the big season. It has to be: there may not be many more. Twenty-eight — the age when insecurity like a slowly descending fog appears on the horizon. One is conscious of little things — the apprentices begin to seem absurdly young, you call them ‘son’ now, and yet it doesn’t seem so long since older players addressed you the same way. Players you played with or against are getting jobs as managers, or retiring. The manager begins to consult you more often. ‘What do you think of this and that?' It’s flattering, of course — you have grown up, but you are growing old, too, at least in football terms.

You talk more of babies, and not so much of birds. You begin to wonder what is coming from the Provident Fund, about a testimonial, sometimes at night about retirement — the end. How much longer will you spend your summers in this idyllic way, dreaming of glory? Of course, you reassure yourself that this is your prime. It’s a shock to realize how rapid the descent is from pinnacle to valley.

I have from time to time pondered on all of those fears, hut today I watched Harry Cripps, at thirty-two the oldest player on the staff, exuberant as ever and enjoying it all as if he was fifteen again. Harry is a unique yet strangely reassuring figure. A truly great professional, not particularly gifted, except for boundless enthusiasm and love for football and the life we lead. A seemingly simple, yet I find a tantalizing, complex figure. He is at once selfish, good-natured, devious and honest — but always lovable.