‘Please, Gonby: have a word with him,’ said Doris Benton, pouring tea for two, ‘It’s insane.’

‘That’s not the way he sees it, Doris. His “greatest triumph,” he reckons it’s going to be.’

‘That ay sayin’ much. Did you see him in Aladdin?’

‘That’s Panto, Doris. Totally different.’ I gave a shudder at the thought of Les doing Twankey in a Stasi uniform, ‘He says he’s been preparing for months. And he did his National Service in Cologne; his German won’t be bad.’

‘He was a post-war Private, Gonby. What exactly do you think he learnt how to say?’

I took a sip of tea and reached for my Woodbines, while wet and weary shoppers groaned, grumbled and gossiped around us in Beatties’ cafeteria. Doris had always been an overprotective mother, but I couldn’t deny she had a point.

‘Anyway,’ she continued, ‘they only made the draw on Wednesday, so how he could have been preparing I’ve no idea. He doesn’t put anything like enough work into his parts. You know CAWSAMAC are thinking of kicking him out?’

‘No, I didn’t,’ I said. The Chapel Ash Wolves Supporters and Method Actors Collective was Les Benton’s life. At our last meeting, he had said something in a matter-of-fact-and-keep-it-to-yourself type way that he was considering joining the Blakenhall Actors’ Studio, but I hadn’t thought much about it at the time.

‘I think that’s what this is all about. A grand gesture to restore his reputation with the committee. It’s the East German border guards that he should be worrying about, not bloody Brian Cleaver and that lot.’

‘You know, I hope you don’t mind me telling you this, Doris, and please don’t tell Les I said anything, but he doesn’t really feel you support his dreams…’

‘You know a boy died on that wall, don’t you, Gonby? Left to die with a bleeding you-know-what while the guards on both sides looked on. If that’s his dream then he needs to wake up a bit.’

‘He’s not doing this to get shot. Have some faith, Doris. Les says he’s the best British actor of his generation.’

‘His generation of the family – maybe. Although our Nora can be a bit on the dramatic side, as you well know.’ I certainly did. ‘But a one-man show in the back room of The Stile and panto in Bushbury? Hard to imagine Hollywood agents standing up to take note, ay it?’

‘Well, ar,’ I said. ‘But the greats don’t necessarily go to Hollywood. Look at Donald Sinden.’

‘Donald Sinden is crap,’ said Doris. There was no answer to this, and after a short silence she began to put on her headsquare ready to face the impending snow. I finished my tea and headed over to the Bottom Fox, to enjoy a few pints before the match.

□ □ □ □ □

Three days later I was strapped into a BEA Vickers Viscount making a rather shaky landing at Berlin Templehof airport, surrounded by members of the CAWSAMAC (many of whom lived much further along the Tettenhall Road than the group’s name suggested) and the Flying Squadron (who had amassed a sizeable Foreign Excursion Fund since the last competitive European fixture eleven years before). A ticket had come into my possession some time that Saturday evening, between leaving the North Bank in driving snow and watching our five-one demolition of Arsenal all over again on Match of the Day during a lock-in at the Pied Bull, meaning I could have a lie-in rather than getting up at four to meet up with the Honorable and Worthy Peddlars outside the Molineux Hotel.

After a quick tour of the Western Sector, sheltering from the biting cold in numerous hostelries, we stopped at the Cafe Adler, giving Les the opportunity to change into his uniform. ‘You’re absolutely sure about this?’ I said to him, as he emerged from the toilet with the high-fronted cap perfectly adjusted.

‘Darling, I’ve never been more sure of anything…,’ he paused and looked around, gauging the attention of the CAWSAMAC members, ‘in my life!’

‘Shut up, Gonby! You’re breaking the fourth wall!’

Two minutes later, we were at the Eastern checkpoint.

‘Guten Morgen, Herr Oberstleutnant.’

‘Guten Morgen,’ replied Les, with what sounded to me rather a good accent.

‘Bist du schon lange im amerikanischen Sektor, Herr Oberstleutnant?’

Les was a little hesitant. ‘Ja,’ he smiled, nodding his head, ‘Wirklich gut.’

The exchange continued. Les said ja a lot at first, and, realizing this, then became more adventurous. I was nervous, though I noticed with some encouragement that the guard was smiling. He then called some colleagues over. The smiles became laughs. Les tried to work with this, joining in with the laughter himself. At that point the laughing stopped. The first guard eyed him coolly.

‘Zese are strange clothes for a tourist,’ he said eventually, ‘Vere are your papers?’

Les changed tone. ‘Zwei Zigaretten finder ich sehr teuer!’ he barked with what he hoped was an officer‘s authority, ‘Deiner Mutter ist nicht so schön.’

‘Please, this a terrible mistake,’ I said.

‘Oh, it’s terrible all right,’ said a voice behind me. It sounded like Brian Cleaver.

‘I have his passport here,’ I said.

Les was now quite flustered. ‘Shut up, Gonby! You’re breaking the fourth wall!’ then, to the guard, ‘Sollen wir irgendwohin gehen, wo es ruhiger ist?’

‘Ja, klar,’ said the guard, reaching for his pistol, ‘Kommen mit mir.’

‘Please, officer,’ I said, ‘He doesn’t mean any harm. He’s just acting.’

The guard was leading Les to an interrogation room. He stopped just before the door and turned around.

‘Zis you call actink?’ he said with a sneer.

After a few minutes it was clear Les wasn’t coming back. We were shown across to the Eastern side and headed for the station.

On the train to Jena, Les’s expulsion from the Chapel Ash Wolves Supporters and Method Actors Collective was carried by unanimous vote after a brief review of his performance over sandwiches.

‘There was nothing wrong with the uniform,’ said Kenneth Starke, (or ‘Wardrobe’, as he was calling himself) ‘Did you see how the guard addressed him in German first?’

‘I offered to help him prepare,’ said Brian Cleaver, who’d also been stationed in Germany after the war, ‘Oh no: he’d be fine. I gave him the first draft of a script: oh no, he’d be fine. Fine! Did you hear what he was saying?’

‘I don’t speak German.’

‘“Your friend is short, but she’s got nice legs.”, “You’re the prettiest little Fraulein I’ve seen in Cologne.”? Not entirely in character, you might say.’

‘Sandwich, Brian?’

‘No thanks, Ken. I had quite enough ham back in Berlin.’

□ □ □ □ □

Unlike Les’s performance, Wolves’ visit to Jena was a triumph, thanks to resolute defending and a twelfth-minute strike by young John Richards. After a tour of Jena’s hostelries, chatting to locals then watching them run to the secret police to keep them updated, we headed to the station and waited for the first morning train, huddling together for warmth. At Checkpoint Charlie I asked the guard if Les could be returned now that we were leaving for the American Sector. He went to the interrogation room and returned in a few minutes with Les in tow.

‘Here is your friend,’ said the officer. ‘Please have a word with him for me. He has no business in zer German Democratic Republic. Or,’ he fingered his pistol in its hip holster, ‘on zer stage.’

‘Sounds like your mother,’ I quipped, as we left the concrete building.

‘Hmm,’ said Les, vaguely. He usually enjoyed a little fun at his mum’s expense. Perhaps his night with the Stasi had brought him around to Doris’s point of view. There was a cold look in his eyes and they seemed a paler grey.

‘Shall we get coffee?’ he said, pointing to the Cafe Adler.

‘I don’t want to talk about that right now.’

Once seated, I offered him a Woodbine, and we smoked and sipped our coffee in lonely silence. I wanted to console him but, knowing how touchy actors can be, decided to wait until he broached the subject. Still, it felt he was taking it especially hard. Even allowing for the language barrier his performance can’t have been any worse than his Hamlet at the Combermere Arms, where the public were urging him to ‘make [his] bloody mind up!’ even before his father’s ghost had vanished. Les had been relatively upbeat about that debacle — blaming the script, for the most part. Why had a rash improv upset him so much? I tried to take his mind off things.

‘You know we won?’

‘What was the score?’

‘One-none.’

‘Do you have my passport?’.

‘Ar, it’s here,’ I said and passed it to him. Why hadn’t he asked me who scored? He looked through it thoughtfully and then placed it in his inside pocket.

‘Was it rough in there?’ I asked, finally.

‘Yes. Difficult.’

‘You don’t seem yourself.’

‘I’ll be all right.’

After paying the bill we headed to Tempelhof airport. Or rather, Les headed there and I followed. Though absent in other ways he was clear and direct when it came to navigating the city, and we were soon settled in the departure lounge drinking an early lager and watching the commercial flights and military planes come and go in the murky grey morning.

‘Looks like we’ll be in the semi-finals,’ I said, still trying to pierce his mood.

‘I don’t want to talk about that right now,’ replied Les.

This became something of a theme. I spoke about work, Derek Dougan, his mum, only to get the same reply. I gave up long before we boarded.

It was after we reached cruising altitude that things got clearer, and darker. Les got up to go to the toilet as we crossed Holland, and a small business card dropped from his pocket. He didn’t notice, and I said nothing, seized by a feeling of curiosity and dread. I waited until he was locked in the booth and turned it over.

Methodakteure und Dynamo Berlin Anhänger von Grünau und Müggelheim

The first word was easy enough to translate, and everybody knew that Dynamo were sponsored by the security forces. Had Les been scouted by and initiated in an East German method acting football supporters collective? Given his performance on the Mauerstraße this seemed unlikely. In which case the only explanation would be that the guy in the toilet wasn’t Les at all, but a Doppelgänger sent to infiltrate Wolves and other aspects of British society while his double eschewed affective memory for electrodes and sleep deprivation in some Soviet-sponsored hellhole. It was an uncomfortable thought, but not quite as uncomfortable as the thought of explaining all this to Doris Benton. I decided to keep schtum, and live forever in the knowledge that there was an East German spy in our midst, looking over my shoulder, guarding my words, taking care never to be left alone with ‘Les’ or anybody that he got close to.

All in all, a great day out and a fantastic result which meant one foot in the quarter-finals. Come on you Wolves!