Elsey’s Sports

I WENT TO WORK as a general secretary for Elsey’s Sports Shop, which was just down from the Spurs Football Ground at White Hart Lane. I say secretary, but I was also responsible for serving in the shop from time to time. I also used to work in the mail order department, preparing the football kits ready for despatch to customers.

The shop sold sports clothes, and all things connected to football. It had two departments, one that looked after the ancillary materials, bats, balls, and other paraphernalia necessary to play the sports, and a boot department. Upstairs there was a toy department, which sold a full range of children’s toys, quite separate from the sportswear. In addition to the actual physical premises, the company ran a thriving mail order football kit business, and on the opposite side of the road, there was a showroom for Scaletrix cars and tracks, owned by two brothers like Laurel and Hardy: the slim one looked after the shop side of things, and the other looked after the office and accounts.

I got on really well with both managers, although sometimes it was a battle. Laurel used to like me working in the shop because he noticed that sales went up whenever I was in the boot department.  Hardy, on the other hand, always wanted me in the office to do his typing.

I didn’t know why, but Laurel always sent me up the ladder. I think he liked looking up my short skirt, and perhaps the customers, who were mostly fit young men in training full of hormones, probably thought the same.

It was a hot sunny morning as I quietly waited outside the shop. I was busily eating an ice cream as part of my breakfast when the brothers arrived. Hardy put the key in the door and turned to look at Laurel.

“You pregnant?” Hardy said.

“No, I don’t think so! Why?”

“Well, it’s...”

“It’s what? You think I look fat?”

I looked down at my tummy.

Laurel fumbled with the door, toppled in, disappeared into the office, and switched on the piped music.

My day was immersed in the smell of leather, of dubbin, and the subtle blends of polished oak that I remember from the library. I listened to the pop music that was piped throughout the shop.

Rob, one of the guys who worked with me, came in looking a bit glum. The managers were in the back office. I was alone in the front shop, singing along to the hit, ‘Glad All Over’ by the Dave Clark Five.

“Hey Rob,” I said. “Did yer know Mike Smith lived down my street? Me and Joyce looked up his house and knocked on his door one day.”

He didn’t answer.

“So what’s up then?” I soaked up the lively music playing, singing and dancing behind the shop counter. “Boom, boom, glad all over… yer!” I was singing out loud.

“She’s just packed me in!” His head sank like a dead parrot.

“Oh no!” I stopped singing.

He ran off into the stock room and I was left alone at the counter once more. Rob was a bit quiet for the rest of the morning. I took him a mug of tea.

“Have you got any lunch?”

“Forgot it.”

“Come on then, let’s go and get a Wimpy burger together.”

We were good mates, Rob and I. We talked over lunch, and he seemed a little brighter after that.

It was quiet in the shop when, suddenly, a group of lads tumbled in off the street, making a load of noise and generally larking about. This good-looking young chap came up to the counter, stroking his hair with his hand, beaming and full of confidence. I thought he was about to chat me up, chance his arm, and ask me for a date.

“Hello.” He casually lent on the counter top. “Have you got a Jock Strap?”

“Yes sir,” I said. “What size would you like?”

He just stared at me. The room went so quiet I swear I could hear his brain, like some clockwork toy cranking up what to say in front of his mates. A bright crimson rash slowly spread across his face. It was like the sort of shaver’s rash I had seen on one of the guys in the office.

Quick on the pitch and scoring a goal might have been a strong point. But he didn’t know what to do with the question. He stood at the counter alone; he didn’t know what to say in reply.

I heard a bit of a shuffle and muffled laughter coming out from the back office. All his football mates, who up until then were just browsing, stopped spontaneously and a hushed fog like silence crept across the crowded room. 

Only one person failed to turn and look at the lad as he stood at the counter—me.

The room was like a crowd from bonfire night watching a damp squib—simmering, farting and spluttering until, suddenly, it reached a dry patch, and exploded in laughter louder than Spurs winning a goal on home turf. The whole place cracked up.

I died there and then. I felt my embarrassment rise and I slid down behind the counter refusing to come up.

“Where’s she gone?” they all asked, probably thinking this would be a good laugh.

“Don’t know,” one said. “Maybe she’s looking for a bigger one.” The sound of another rousing cheer followed a bout of giggling, winking and nudging.

I was still hiding on the floor when one of the managers came out of the office.

“Watcha doing down there?” He knew full well what had happened.

Roars of laughter erupted and someone reminded him what I had said.

“She wanted,” he paused for a moment to contain his laughter, “to know his size!” He blurted the words out quickly before his face screwed up into another laughing fit, and pointed to the Jock Strap now lying on the counter.

Soon the whole shop deteriorated into pandemonium as they all doubled up in agony, rolling around as if an unexploded grenade of laughing gas had been thrown amongst them.

Hardy came over behind the counter and bent down to talk to me.

“Get up here!”  He beckoned with his hand, splitting his embarrassed gaze between me and the customer, like someone at a tennis match.

“I can’t.” I refused to come out of hiding. “I don’t know what size to give him!” I was frantically waving for him to go away and leave me alone.

“I think he wants a big one, love!” another shouted out. Well, that brought a smile to Hardy’s face, and he was unable to help himself and soon joined in the fun, and at the same time tried to cajole me into getting back up.

“Come on, its okay,” he said reassuringly. “Just get them out and let him pick one.” He handed me the tray for good measure.

Reluctantly I rose from my hiding place amidst all the applause from the little crowd that had now gathered.

I placed the tray on the counter for the customer to choose and promptly disappeared into the back office. I heard his mates still making comments as they all bundled out of the shop and spilled into the High Street, laughing and joking.

I thought it was high time I changed my job!