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sir, what few supporters the Town still have are nothing like Leeds United supporters.”
    Screwer glared at him. If Hawks had been the office door the paint would have blistered. “Respect?” he screamed. “Respect, Sergeant Hawks? You aren't showing me any fucking respect! If you were you wouldn't be arguing with me, you would be making plans to adequately police Frogley Town's opening game of the season!”
    Hawks bit his lip. Retirement and that cottage in the Lakes suddenly seemed very far away. “Yes sir.”
    Screwer drew in his horns a little. “Football supporters are the same the world over, Sergeant. Animals. Nothing more, nothing less. Take my word for it, just because the fans of Frogley Town have yet to reveal their true colours doesn't mean to say that one day they aren't going to.”
    “ No sir.”
    The horns shot back out again as if spring-loaded. “Well just let them! They will not find the Frogley Police Force wanting. Not while my name is Herman Screwer they won't. We'll be ready for them, Sergeant. Ready to whip them into line; ready to break them; ready to smash the brainless bastards into submission!” He suddenly smashed his right fist into his left hand. The splat of the bone of his knuckles colliding with the flesh of his palm made Hawks wince. “Crowd control, that's the name of the game. Do you know who my hero is, Sergeant?”
    Hawks didn't, and didn't want to, he just wanted to leave. “No sir?”
    Screwer offered a clue. “He rode a white horse.”
    Hawks thought for a moment. “Attila the Hun, sir?”
    Screwer smiled in fond recollection. “'The Policeman on the White Horse', Sergeant. 1923 Cup Final at Wembley. One man controlling the uncontrollable; a crazed mob of over two hundred thousand. Now that's what you call crowd control! What are we like for tear gas?”

CHAPTER TWO

    In the entire history of football not one player has ever said ‘Your ball’ when the ball has gone out of play.

    The Bone Pulveriser at Price's Pies, the machine on which Stanley Sutton earned his daily bread, was to be found in one of the factory's yards, protected from the elements by a corrugated iron shelter. Until 1990 the machine had been housed within the factory itself, but the need of floor space for a new line in curried mutton and cowheel pies had seen it consigned to its present position, its product not coming under the stringent health regulations that govern the production of food for human consumption.
    It was an impressive-looking piece of engineering by any standard. Operated by a system of hydraulics, and built to Joe Price's specification, it was still going strong over forty years after it had been commissioned. “And it will still be going when I'm pushing up t’ daisies,” Price had once remarked, and he was probably right.
    Machines that performed the same function had been built since, many of them, but none better. Made of cast iron, with copper pipes carrying the hydraulic fluids and impressive-looking gauges encased in brass, the Bone Pulveriser was cylindrical in shape, twelve feet in diameter and ten feet high. A brass plaque, so highly-polished you could see your face in it, proclaimed it had been built in 1964 by the Barnoldswick engineering firm of Hardcastle and Unwin. In the bowels of this metal monolith were housed a series of three inch wide steel blades that combined together to render animal bones into shotgun pellet-sized granules, which were then bagged and sold on to a firm who made garden fertilizers. If the late Fred Dibnah had ever clapped eyes on it he would have had an orgasm.
    The bones entered the business part of the Bone Pulveriser through an overhead hopper, its opening wide enough to accept the largest animal bone. A man could easily pass through it, and did every week, but only to clean it, after first isolating the electric starter motor and carrying out the full safety procedure. And of course there was no danger of anyone accidentally falling