BEST MAN / TOP BOY

*This story contains themes of drug use and violence.*

BEST MAN / TOP BOY

I tapped the microphone. BFF! BFF!

'Er, hello? Ladies and gentleman. Your attention, please.'

The crowd settled down. They were almost all guests of the bride. There were even a couple of coppers in there, including the bride's brother.

'Thanks. Best man, here. Well, I ain't much of a talker, but here goes. Congratulations Leon and Lisa! I first met Leon fifteen years ago. We were down The Crown... Big surprise, yeah? Er, that's a pub by the Hamlets, by the way. It was April 20th, 1983; I remember the date because that's the day Millwall beat Lincoln City three-one and we won the Football League Cup.'

I was lying. Not about Millwall. I would never lie about Millwall. The first time I met Leon we were down The Crown, but it wasn't the Football League final, it was a couple of years earlier, just before Christmas in 1981. Leon didn't remember it, and I'd never brought it up. I knew Leon by reputation, in fact, as early as '79, when stories about him started to emerge on the estates; one in particular about how he'd got in a ruck behind Woolworths with one of West Ham's Top Boys and bitten his ear off. It didn't matter if it was true or not, o' course. Reputation was everything in the hooligan world.

You could say that's when Leon became a Top Boy, though if you asked him, he'd say he ranked up much earlier. The Millwall hooligans called themselves The Bushwackers. They were troops of working class men and boys that lived for Saturday, the football, the boozing, but most of all the violence. Violence is what gave you a name and pushed you up the ranks. You had to prove you could handle yourself, down the pub and on the battlefield, because till you did, you were mud. You were the butt of the joke. You weren't allowed to put a quid on the pool table. You were the one getting the lagers in when the others said so. You were me, just before Christmas in 1981.

Millwall had lost at home two-one to Carlisle United. There was meant to be a ruck after the match but their firm had bottled it. Or at least that was the line down The Crown; Plod had done well to keep us separated, truth be told, riot shields and police dogs and all that.

We'd all moved on and were off our heads by seven O'clock, chanting and arguing about the season's line up. Everyone except Leon, who sat by himself in a smoky corner, downing pint after pint, stewing about the day's events. Whenever anyone went to talk to him, he would glare at them with stony eyes and they would shrivel away like driblets sucked back into the crowd.

I'd been watching him for a while. I wanted to learn how to be feared too. I'd never seen Leon sitting by himself; Leon was the center of gravity no matter where he sat. I had nothing to say to impress him, but if I could at least get him to remember my name, that would be something. Ranking up was about having bottle. If Leon glared at me and I didn't piss myself like everyone else and simply sat down at his table, that had to earn his respect. Even if it didn't, others would see me do it and they'd know I had bottle. Any way you sliced it, I reckoned I'd rank up. So I took a deep breath and went over.

The day after, my nephew Wes came to visit me in hospital. My face was all pinned up like a game of Kerplunk. After a couple of bananas and chewing the cud about the family a bit, he asked me what it was like to be in a fight. I didn't tell him, o' course - he was fifteen at the time - but if I had, I'd have said something like:

Depends who you're fighting. Trade blows with some toff runt from Chelsea with cardy fluff for fists, it's like nothin'. Nothin' at all. As long as Plod don't pinch you, that is, and you gotta be careful cos they're all about Chelsea these days. It don't have to be a runt, though. If you win a fight, it's usually by a big margin, even up against a big bastard.

If some of them West Ham sods gets you two on one, or five on one, it's a different kettle of fish. When you're getting pasted - I mean proper battered - that's a puzzler, mate... It's like being in space, I reckon. Your arms and legs go weightless. You don't feel the blows, really. You're just a bit happy... You're just kind of... all right, like you're a few jars deep after work. So you wait patiently for some outside force to intervene and press play on the world again, and it always does. You can't die. That can't happen cos you got your pride about you, like parapets. The enemy can see it, and that's that one thing you got in common that stops 'em going too far. In an honest dust up there's nothing to fear.

Then there's this other type of fighting. It's a new one to me. I discovered it only yesterday, and I gotta tell you, Wes, it came a bit out of left field. I fought a Top Boy, one of our own; the nutter flew at me and all I did was try to sit at his table. Imagine that? It was like... You ever see that film where that geezer's in a cave and suddenly a load of bats explode out of nowhere and he's flapping about and swatting the air and not hitting any of them? Your arms and legs are working cos they ain't caught up with the situation yet, but your gut's telling you to scratch your balls, or sup your pint, or light a ciggy, laugh it off, do anything to tell people that this is not really happening. Tell yourself that this is not really happening.

'And you saved my life!' shouted Leon through a mouthful of wedding cake.

I raised my glass. 'That was the day. That was the day my boy almost lost his life.'

'Tell it, Noel!'

It was a lie. Millwall had won the Football League Cup and the Bushwackers had trained it back to London the same day: they were drinking in The Crown by seven O'clock and there had never been a night so certain to be a lock in. I hadn't expected the firm would return the same day. It was my first time in the pub since Leon battered the hell out of me, but when the troops poured through the door all Oy Oys and bobble hats I told myself I wouldn't bottle it. Not in front of Wes.

The Crown was chaos. Drinks were on the house. The men raved and chanted and thrashed about as one like a sea storm. It was beautiful. It wasn't until I caught Wes sniffing speed under his collar that it all went pear shaped.

Drugs weren't part of the scene. It wasn't welcome. It's what punks and skinheads did, and that wasn't football. In England in 1983, drugs were for mugs. But the pushers had been creeping in for a while. The kids on the estates were still playing football, but here and there you'd hear a name, or a couple of names, gaining reputations that weren't connected to the firm. The Top Boys ignored it because, well, why wouldn't they? These kids weren't flying a banner, they weren't rallying no troops. Where was the ruck at?

There had been guns in London for donkey's years. Not like in America; we kept ours for special occasions. If you asked Leon, he'd say he was the first hooligan to take a bullet. It didn't matter if it was true or not. That said, it was bullshit. The night of the final, some drug pushing guttersnipe who Wes owed money to followed him into the toilet. I followed him too, to make sure he wasn't sniffing. As it happens, Leon was in there taking a piss when the kid pulled a gun. The little runt didn't know I was behind him and I sparked him round the back of the head and knocked him out cold. But the gun went off. Wes and Leon hit the deck. Leon was curled up, wailing and clutching his ankle.

Plod never came down The Crown, if they did they were undercover and they'd get sniffed out and dealt with sharpish. But a shooting was a different kettle of fish. When Plod grilled me back at the nick, I didn't tell 'em how it went down. O' course I didn't. I said the shooter had ran out the fire escape and I didn't get a good look at him. Wes got told to say the same, and he did. But if I'd spilled my guts, I'd have said something like:

After the bullet grazed Leon's ankle - and that's all it was, truth be told; a scratch - and the kid was out cold on the tiles, Leon dragged him over to the toilet and drowned him. The splash - or maybe the stink - must've woke him up, cos I could see his legs poking out the cubicle and they started to kick. Not in a panicked way. More like... You know when you're half asleep and it's too hot and you try kick the quilt off? Less dramatic than I imagined a man being drowned would be. And Leon, he didn't make a peep the whole time. But yes, he did it. Leon killed a kid.

The landlord kept the body in a barrel in the cellar till the Plod cleared off and they buried him near the old power plant in Barking after, sharpish. I knew where because I ranked up to Top Boy instantly. As it turns out, the kid was from West Ham. Nothin' to do with football, but the line was their firm had sent an assassin to murder Leon. That was the actual word that was floated about: assassin. The story was that Leon got hit in the gut and shrugged it off, and did the geezer even with a hole in him. Reputation was everything in the hooligan world. Now I had one, too.

The whole thing scared Wes off the scene. He was a junky for a while, then he cleaned up and moved to Hampshire with some bird from the Hamlets. I didn't hear much from him after that. By the nineties hooliganism was on its way out. The Top Boys were slowing down, getting married and having sprogs. The estates were getting taken over by the gangs and the pushers, and kids didn't fight for the buzz no more. It became about knives and guns, and money. League football had seeped up into the lower middle classes and hooliganism became more and more a media fetish than an entity. Even The Crown had cleaned up its act, although you'd still see some old heads in there from time to time, Leon included.

Even as it all dissolved, I never told Leon that that bullet wasn't meant for him. I never told him that I wished it had hit him in the gut or in the head and that he'd died that night.

He was the last of the Bushwacker's Top Boys to settle down. I thought he never would. But then he met Lisa. She proper sobered him up. She took all the violence out of him. And that was the final nail in the coffin for The Bushwackers, at least as we knew it. Leon had left the ranks the happiest I'd ever seen him. I wasn't so lucky. At about the same time, I found out I had a tumour on my liver the size of a beer mat.

'You sure you want me to tell it, Leon! There's Plod in here, you know!'

The guests laughed. They understood the history, in a lower middle class, cartoonish sort of way. We were just a couple of ruffy tuffys from down the estates who'd eventually screwed the nut and joined them in civilised society.

Ultimately, their assessment was correct. After the final, after the murder had been swept up nice and tidy, I discovered a new kind of fighting. As it happens, it's a lot like living with football. A lot can happen over the seasons. Players get traded, managers retire... You might be on a winning streak and the cruel wind changes, the bookies are up a monkey and you're on your arse. You rise up again, and again, there's pain, there's weariness. You stick with it. Over time, years - many years if need be - you wait in faith for that once in a lifetime match, when it's your turn to lift the trophy. Your turn to stand on top of the world and tell your enemies it belongs to you now.

'Tell it, Noel!' shouted Leon.

'Okay, okay,' I said. 'After the bullet grazed Leon's ankle - and that's all it was; a tiny scratch - and I'd knocked out the shooter, Leon dragged the little runt over to the toilet and drowned him. The landlord kept the body in a barrel in the cellar till all the Plod cleared off and they buried him near the old power plant in Barking.'

I got pinched as well, o' course. But what did I care? I was a Top Boy on top of the world, at the end of the world, and that was the finest ruck I ever had.