In a mysterious occurrence, far too complicated to explain to anyone lacking a degree in quantum physics, Watford’s tenacious midfield lion, Roger Joslyn, has been transported from 1978 to today’s first-team squad. Caught in a maelstrom of conflicting ideologies, Jaws is forced to adapt to modern life. Colin Payne finds out more...
Following another particularly gruelling training session in mid-December, in which Roger refused to come inside the giant inflatable tent at London Colney, despite it being minus two degrees outside, instead choosing to rub fresh snow into his naked torso, our hero has decided to repay the club for taking him on during his troubling experience of leaping four and a half decades into the future.
Fearing that the next day’s game with Hull would be called off due to a frozen pitch, our macho, meat-eating, marauding midfield maestro has press-ganged fifteen slightly willing supporters into joining him in spreading 67 bales of straw over the Vicarage Road playing surface. As he flings the dried foliage across the miraculously still unfrozen grass, pitchfork in hand and clad in the 1978 yellow anorak in which he travelled through space and time, a voice bellows across the field.
“Oi! What the fuck are you doing?”
A man in a club tracksuit and coat is bounding towards him.
“I said what are you playing at?”
Roger: “Protecting the grass of course, and what’s it got to do with you?”
“I’m the deputy assistant grass technician...”
Roger: “So you’re the groundsman, good, grab a fork or rake and do your job!”
Deputy assistant grass technician: “Get off the pitch, it’s heated you bloody fool! Oh my God what have you done?”
Roger: “Heated, wow, who’d have thought? This really is the modern age! Let’s get it raked to the side, the farmer will come and bail it up again tomorrow. So you’re the groundsman, do you keep greyhounds by any chance?”