It was a bright Spring day and the ride from the Molineux Hotel to Aston High Street had been pleasant but thirsty. Amos Graves was trying to fight his way to the bar of the Stork when some fifty voices burst into song as one:

Along with the stench of sweaty bodies and unwashed clothing, this Song of the Literal Wanderer announced we were sharing the public bar of the Stork with that most radical ensemble of Wolves supporters, known under various names (‘Literals’, ‘Ins-and-Outs’, ‘Workhouse Wanderers’, ‘Smelly Tramps’ etc.) who marched across the length and breadth of the Football League, staying in workhouses and scrounging the entrance fee to every game. For me, there was always far too much going on in the pubs and Working Men’s Clubs of Wolverhampton to even consider giving up everything and joining this eternal pilgrimage, but I did admire their loyalty and often parted with the odd farthing to keep them in drink when our paths crossed.

Others were less accepting. The Convention of Wolverhampton Landowning Football Supporters (COWLFS) were expressly hostile to what they saw as feckless exploitation of the Poor Laws, and at the other extreme there was a disparate and ever-decreasing group of itinerants who believed true Wandering meant avoiding the workhouse altogether and sleeping rough in the name of the Wolves. Within the Loyal and Distinguished Pedallers, attitudes towards the Literals varied. Some viewed them as kindred spirits sharing the bond of foot-propulsion. Others were resentful of the Ins-and-Outs’ claims to be the ‘freest of the Wolves’, arguing that being institutionalized for ninety-five percent of their lives was considerably less free than owning your own velocipede. Yet another school of thought considered them brethren not of the Pedallers but of the Pedestrians of Wednesfield, with whom the LADP had had a number of disagreements over the years. Thus, when we found ourselves sharing a public bar, nobody could really tell how things would play out.

‘Service please, landlord,’ bayed Amos Graves with a sneer, ‘a tax-paying Pedaller must take priority over the witless wastrels of Bilston Road.’

‘Service please, landlord,’ bayed Amos Graves with a sneer, ‘a tax-paying Pedaller must take priority over the witless wastrels of Bilston Road.’

‘You’ll have to wait your turn, sir.’

‘I should sooner wait for the Resurrection,’ said Graves in his booming baritone, ‘Than wait behind this filthy rabble.’

‘You shall wait your turn with a god-fearing tongue in your head,’ replied the landlord, ‘or go elsewhere for drink.’

‘Sir, you are addressing a member of the Loyal and Distinguished Pedallers, the finest body of mechanized perambulators that South Staffordshire has the pride to call its own. These smelly specimens, on the other hand, will have been wearing the uniform of the Aston Poor Union but two hours ago. What sort of a house are you running here?’

‘A peaceful and respectable one, sir,’ said the landlord, ‘and I will use whatever means necessary to keep it that way.’

While this back-and-forth continued, I slipped a halfpenny to an archetype of the breed, who smelt as though he’d bathed in dog piss and then dried himself in a greenhouse.

‘God bless you, mate,’ said the Drifter, pushing past Amos towards the bar.

Before I knew it, Amos was unleashing a tirade of such vehement and graphic blasphemy that Beelzebub himself would have blushed. The landlord proceeded to eject him from the premises and, while he did so, two Ins-and-Outs leaned over the counter and topped up their pints from the beer engines, while a serving wench looked on helplessly. Things were getting messy.

‘Now then,’ boomed the landlord on his return, ‘Either we get some peace in here, or I shall close the place. What is it to be?’

Jeb Grand spoke first, ‘If it is peace you’re after, why not eject these smelly itinerants?’

‘We were here first.’

‘Yeah,’ added ‘Healthy’ Johns, another unsympathic Pedaller, ‘if you’ve got no money for rent, you’ve got no money for football. Go and watch Stafford Road for free you filthy tramps!’

‘Part-timers!’ countered the In-and-Out who’d taken my halfpenny, ‘You will never know the true meaning of sacrifice!’

‘I’ll sacrifice the lot of yer!’ shouted Jeb Grand.

The landlord, flush-faced, rang his bell for silence. ‘I will give you one more chance,’ he growled, wagging an impatient finger, ‘And that is all.’

At this, a silence descended upon the public bar. A constable had entered the premises, and was making his serpentine way to the counter, eyeing up the assembled with great suspicion. ‘Afternoon Bill,’ he said to the landlord, while still looking at the Bill’s clientele, ‘I hear there’s been a spot of trouble.’

‘No trouble, Pat,’ replied the landlord, ‘There was some immoderate language earlier, but I dealt with that.’

‘Yes,’ said the constable, still eyeing up us all in turn, ‘I heard him questioning the parentage of our Saviour outside the Waggon and Horses just now. Do any of you know the man in question?’

The reply was silence. After a few seconds the constable began once again to move among the fray. Those Drifters who were still in workhouse uniform began shuffling nervously behind the better-dressed as he spoke softly.

‘I have it on good authority that a number of inmates discharged themselves from the Union this morning, but a number of others are missing, too. Too hung over to give reasonable notice ahead of kick-off, I shouldn’t wonder. No sign of anyone in uniform, Bill?’

The landlord scanned the scene. When his eyes met mine I thought I sensed a hint of complicity. ‘Just yourself, Pat,’ he smiled nervously.

‘Yes, very good,’ said the constable without humour, ‘If you do see anyone, let me know. I’ll be out on the Row all afternoon.’

‘Will do, Pat.’

The constable made his weaving way out through the throng. When he reached the door onto Asylum Road he turned and said with a controlled voice that somehow contained more power than the loudest and most obscene of Amos Graves’ tirades, ‘Up the Villa!’

The presence of the policeman had unified us…

‘Bloody coppers,’ said ‘Healthy’ Johns once the rozzer had left, and Pedallers and Itinerants all muttered agreement. The presence of the policeman had unified us, and before long plans were being made to conceal those inmates still in uniform (and therefore liable to charges of theft by the workhouse). Few pedallers offered to lend clothing due to the stench of the Ins-and-Outs, but enough agreed to join the perimeter of a huddle so as to camouflage the absconders. Some Pedallers skulked off at that point, presumably to rejoin their blasphemous leader at the Waggon and Horses, but the camaraderie among those that remained in the Stork was much more attractive to Jack Dudley and me and we happily joined that huddle that conveyed all safely to the impressive new venue at Lower Aston Grounds.

Whilst we enjoyed the victory by two goals to one, plans were formed by some of the more some Pedallers to form a pro-Literals breakaway faction, and by the time Wolves had registered the two points, The Honourable Society of Freewheelers and Freeloaders was born. This grouping would limp along for a couple of years until the Freewheelers got fed up of giving the Freeloaders seaties back from away games. I stayed loyal to the LADP, though, as I felt I would miss Amos’s colourful language and imagery.

As for Amos himself, mystery surrounds his return from Villa Park that day. What is certain is we never saw his Ariel high-seater again; rumour has it that it was stolen from the Waggon and Horses and Graves, penniless, cycleless and rather the worse for drink, was forced to demand admittance to the Aston Union Workhouse that night in order to sleep it off. Whatever the truth of that, the next time we saw him he was sporting a flashy new Whippet and the Loyal and Distinguished Pedallers thus began to move away from penny-farthings into the chain-driven modern age.