The Speleologist Squadron was still in its infancy in 1894. It had grown up slowly after a couple of seasons in the Football League, when Billy Braddock and Lazarus Blunt had begun to make a habit of stopping off in the Pennines when playing The Wednesday, convincing others to join them with fantastical tales of underground pubs selling light ale at three farthings a bottle and ghosts of Matlock maidens who were very good sports, figuring that once the more credulous Wolves supporters had negotiated their first limestone tunnel, the thrill of potholing itself would bring them back again and again. Membership increased slowly, to say the least, but by 1894 you could count on half a dozen or so hardy souls taking the subterranean route to northern fixtures. But for the occasional trip to a disused Black Country coal mine, fixtures in the local area provided little in the way of their kind of pre-match entertainment.
I bumped into Billy outside Mr Virgil Oathouse’s Fish and Chip shop on North Street on the Friday night. He was finishing his meal outside the establishment as I emerged with my own. I had planned to head straight home and enjoy it by the fire, but he persuaded me to stop and chat about tomorrow’s game while he munched his last scraps before heading back to the Fox.
‘Think we’ll get a result, Gonby?’ he asked.
‘We beat ‘em at home,’ I replied, trying to find some positives in what had been a difficult season, up to then, ‘and we looked very good against Liverpool last week.’
‘Well done for shoehorning our only two wins into one sentence!’ he laughed, his left cheek filled with potato and batter.
‘I know. Should be a good day out, though. You gooin’?
‘Might give it a miss. Bloody sandstone. Fancy a pint?’
‘I was going to eat at home, Billy. Who are you with?’
‘Laz and Jack Dudley. Jack mentioned he’d got half a dollar he owes you.’
I’d been waiting on that two and six for a while.
‘Ar, goo on then,’ I said, ‘Let me finish this first.’
As I ate my supper, Billy started idly reading the newspaper his food had been wrapped in.
‘Not much news left on that, I shouldn’t think, mate.’
‘No, but it’s the sport page. Always good for a laugh.’
‘When’s it from?’
‘1879!’
‘Blimey,’ I laughed, ‘How did St Luke’s get on?’
‘Do’ say. Birmingham paper, by the look of it. Small Heath Alliance 1 Aston Villa 0…’
Unlike his wrappings, Mr Outhouse’s fish was excellent fresh, and I tucked in with relish while Billy read his fifteen-year-old news. I was halfway down before he exclaimed, ‘well bugger me…’
‘What’s that?’
‘…When asked for his opinion on the game, Aston’s captain, George Ramsay, said that the pitch was “only suitable for potholing.”’
‘That was fifteen years ago, Billy; I’m sure it will have improved…’
‘I should hope not,’ he replied, evidently excited, ‘I should very much hope not…’
‘Billy, you’re not…’
‘Hurry up and finish your snap, Gonby. Lazarus needs to see this!’
Lazarus Blunt had opted to forego supper to make time for more Butler’s, which, according to him, possessed an ‘adequacy without parallel’. His empty stomach did not help when it came to talking sense into Billy.
‘I’ll get the ropes back from Caswell’s in the morning,’ he said (the Speleologist Squadron often pawned their gear on the weeks Wolves weren’t heading north), and we’ll get the first train after that to Brum.
‘9.25 from Low Level’, interjected Dave Hoskins, a porter at the station and captain of the dominoes team.
‘We need to let the others know.’
This was where things were likely to get sticky. Though most of the Squadron lived around the North Street area, they rarely socialized together on a Friday night. Hal Booth favoured the Posada, while Gordy Plinker tended to go straight to the Hen and Chickens after his day’s work at the market and stay there. Ted Blunkett would start at the Blue Bell, but could be anywhere on Bilston Street by now. Ramsey Brown often ended his Friday evenings at the Wheel on Cornhill, but you would not want to interrupt him there. On top of these concerns was the quite obvious fact that the only place Billy and especially Lazarus should be heading after the Fox was their respective beds.
Jack and I decided to keep them company and keep them where they were, until either they came to their senses about potholing on a football pitch (unlikely, it seemed) or we had to carry them home. We managed, for a time, to curb their excitement with talk of work or greyhounds, but it was difficult on a Friday night not to talk of football, and any chat about form, formations or logistics would inevitably bring Laz and Bill back to caving.
We were quite deep into a lock-in (and the half crown that Jack had owed me) when Lazarus came up with another plan.
‘It’s gone closing time,’ he said. ‘Most of the lads will be home by now. Let’s just knock on their doors now and tell them the plan.’
I watched panic flash in the green eyes across the table from me. Gordy Pinker lived next door to Jack (and, more pertinently Margaret) Dudley; any disturbance on Red Cross Street would signal terrible trouble. Indeed, Bessy Pinker herself was no slouch with a rolling pin.
‘I’ll let the lads know,’ I told them, ‘Let’s just get you two home first.’
‘Do you know their addresses, Gonby?’
‘Most of ‘em,’ I said. ‘We’ll go to Gordy’s first and we’ll check the rest with him.’
‘You’re a pal, Gonby,’ said Billy.
‘One of the best, one of the best, said Lazarus, ‘a gem of a friend.’
Other than a few sorry choruses of the Song of the Speleologist Squadron as we headed down Molineux Street, the journey home, though long, was peaceful.
The same could not be said of the match at Coventry Road, a rumbunctious affair on the celery trenches of Small Heath which ended in a 4-3 defeat. And though Wolves’ defensive performance was forgettable, the sight of Billy and Laz standing on the Muntz Street terrace with ropes slung over their shoulders, frowns on their lips and an unmistakeable green hue to their complexions would live long in the memory.