When Aliens Landed In Macclesfield

Johnny P recalls another dreary mid-week fixture

Pundit: The Truth Is Out There

'Blue is the colour...'

Tushington: Nothing if not decisive

Funny old thing, Football. For instance, the oddest game I ever played in was when aliens landed in Macclesfield.

Old soaks

It was the fag-end of my career, 1960-61 season, and I was on the bench for Huddersfield Town. Me and Timmy Tushington, another footballing old soak, were sitting waiting for the teams to come out when an egg-shaped spacecraft descended out of the Lancashire skies, alighted on the centre circle, disgorged three little green men with TV aerials on their heads and promptly zapped off again.

Alien humour

Each of the little green men wore a blue and white scarf. Assuming they were Town fans, we found them seats just behind us and the game kicked off. After about ten minutes, one of them piped up: 'It is time for the prawn sandwiches and fine wines now, is not it?' We laughed appreciatively. And they say aliens have no sense of humour.

Excited buzzing

Town scored first; behind us we heard an excited buzzing, which we took to be the aliens cheering. They then broke into a weird song, maybe it was from their planet and adapted to our world, for it began: 'My old man said Be An Arsenal Fan, and I said - - ' Thereafter their squeaky alien voices chanted some extremely choice words indeed, involving a pretty straight retort to their alien fathers. Timmy and I shushed them hurriedly; the Huddersfield Ladies' Guild were sitting right behind them, and they hated swearing almost as much as they hated foreigners.

Dan Dare and Quatermass

The match finished 2-2; not a bad spectacle to witness if you'd traipsed all the way from Mutters' Spiral. As we prepared to go, one of the aliens tapped me on the shoulder. 'I must pay sixty of your Earth pounds for my seat, is not it? 'You could buy the team for that, son,' squeaked Timmy. 'But this is Stamford Bridge, is not it?' Another one chimed in: 'This is the twenty-first century, is not it?' 'Yeah', retorted Tushington, 'And I'm Dan Dare, and this is Professor Quatermass.' 'Please to meet you, is not it?'

The future

Timmy tutted, and watched them go. 'The future sounds awful, doesn't it?' I nodded silently in assent. 'Let's stay here instead,' he decided. And so we did.

Toodle-oo,

Johnny Pundit