PART I: JESUS GOES TO MIDDLESBROUGH
written by Steve Goldby

It was never meant to be like this. Parmos were never really anything to do with cows and St George was not even English. St Patrick was a Welshman and Attila The Hun would have preferred to have been manager of Arsenal. So how on earth did a Chinese trawler that was supposed to be carrying dolphin nets arrive in Middlesbrough laden with a cargo of the world's first ever Parmos? And was Fabrizio Ravanelli the illegitimate bastard son of Pontius Pilate? After all that he achieved, what more does Jack Charlton have to do to get the freedom of Middlesbrough?

The madness began just over two thousand years ago when a young Israeli named Jesus Christ had an inclination that there was a lot more to the world than what he had seen in the small town of Nazareth where he lived and what he had heard from his country's capital city, Jerusalem. Besides, the whole region was overrun with Roman legions who were behaving in a pretty bad way, scourging and crucifying anyone who dared to speak out against the imposition. It seemed like a good idea to escape the treacherous conditions of Israel in Biblical times and through his connections in the fishing trade, the young Jesus hitched a lift in a large boat that was bound for a far away island named Britannia. It sounded like an interesting place and at least it was free of Roman soldiers, a bonus by anyone's standards. Except perhaps Julius Caesar's.


Jesus sets sail for Cardiff

The journey was to take a good four months and they set sail in the early part of February from the docks at Nazareth. The ship's destination was Cardiff, a city to the west of England in an adjoining principality called Wales. During the journey, Jesus became good friends with an old sea farer who told him ancient yarns and legends of Britannia and filled him in on the delights of fish and chips and brown ale. Despite the sea sickness and the ship's rapidly depleting supplies of tepid water and maggot infested digestives, Jesus was sure that he had made the right decision and was in great anticipation of his arrival in this new land.

Eventually, the ship and it's emancipated crew arrived in Cardiff Bay and the first thing that the seafarers did was to disembark and make their way to the nearest inn, where ale was served aplenty and the local maids made themselves available to the crew for a small price. Jesus however, was not very impressed with Welsh birds and much preferred a nice glass of red wine over the wanton consumption of flagons of ale. So off he went, further into the town to search for one of those new style Bistro restaurants that he had heard about. As Jesus turned the corner that led to the main shopping precinct, a six foot tall man with the largest and most ridiculous ginger affro hairdo bumped into him and knocked him to the ground.


Billy Ashcroft and his ginger afro

"I'm so sorry', said the man with the ginger ridiculous hair. "They're going to kill me!" The man spoke with an accent that Jesus had never heard before and he had trouble making out some of the words that spewed forth from his Welsh rhetoric, yet after he had calmed the man down, he derived that he was being chased by a group of people who were incredibly angry with him for failing to "layton and score boyo". Or something like that. Before Jesus had time to decipher any more of the man's hurried utterings, a gang of around fifty skinheads wearing red and white scarves and shouting guttural noises that sounded like "Ah way the lads", came running round the corner and started punching and kicking the man until he fell to the ground, bleeding profusely. Jesus felt like he had to intervene and moved between the crowd and the ginger afro man and broke the fight up momentarily. "He who has never sinned should throw the first punch!" shouted Jesus. And a skinhead stuck one right on him and busted his lip.

Billy Ashcroft and Jesus got a right old kicking that night and during the post beating piss up that followed, Ashcroft explained that a few years ago, he had been playing the game of football for a local team here in Wales and had been spotted by a fellow countryman who was in charge of a team in the North East of England. This man had asked Ashcroft to come and play for him and he had set off for the North believing that a better life was in store. However, it had all gone horribly wrong for Billy, as he had turned out to be quite rubbish at the game and his watershed moment had come when his team had been drawn to play Leyton Orient of Londinium in the FA Cup and he had missed a sitter from two yards out at all square with a minute to go. The replay in Londinium had been lost and Ashcroft was blamed fairly and squarely for the cup exit. The skinhead crowd wanted his blood and so he had fled for his homeland and the hooligans had followed him all the way, until they had caught up with him that night in Cardiff.


Jesus tries to break up the fight

Jesus thought long and hard about this situation and eventually offered Ashcroft a suggestion. "Forgiveness is the way", said Jesus. "What we should do is to travel to Middlesbrough and forgive those skinhead bootboys who gave us the good kicking." Billy thought that Jesus was talking shite but remembering that he was still owed two weeks wages by the club, agreed to embark on this journey. The two companions decided that they would set off at first light in the morning. In the meantime, the drinks were flowing and after several wines, Jesus had had enough. Yet Billy insisted upon Jesus trying the local ale, which was called Carling. Not wishing to offend the local hostelry that they were patronising, Jesus accepted the special beer goblet that was offered to him and duly drank his ale from it. Unfortunately, in the tavern that night was a man travelling through Cardiff who had taken notice of the revelry occurring. This man had a very strange indecipherable dialect and was named Paul the Jester of Gascoigne. He was passing through Cardiff on his search for a total network solution, where he had been advised that he may find a chance to revive a career that had been ravaged by drink and tomfoolery. Paul the Jester of Gascoigne challenged this strange looking foreigner to a drinking contest. Jesus was reluctant but felt obliged to indulge the man's wishes and they duly sat down at a table and began. It was custom in those days for anyone taking part in a drinking contest to have their name engraved on the goblet that they were drinking from. Upon his own request, Jesus' goblet was emblazoned with the words, Jesus Christ's Carling Cup, as he had now acquired the taste for Carling from keeping company with Ashcroft.

And the contest duly began. Christ downed a pint of Carling and Paul the Jester of Gascoigne supped freely of a brew called Sheep's Head, which unbeknown to him, had been spiked with vodka and acid tabs by Billy Ashcroft. Jesus was seriously flagging after five pints but as the acid tabs took effect, Gazza's eyes turned into a kaleidoscope of confusion and as he attempted to down another Sheep's Head, he fell unconscious from his chair and had to be carried out from the bar. Jesus had outdrank Paul the Jester of Gascoigne and at the very moment that he was hoisted onto the shoulders of the locals, his Carling Cup help aloft, the Romans invaded Britain.

A young man named John Mahoney had run into the bar and announced the invasion. At first, the locals, consumed in their celebration of the new drinking champion, had barely comprehended the news. When it sank in however, panic ensued and Jesus was tossed from the shoulders of his celebrators and his Carling Cup was sent flying across the bar. The goblet rolled out of the tavern and down the hill outside the bar, finally coming to rest in a stream on the outskirts of the town, where it remained partially obscured for many, many years. Meanwhile, Jesus and Ashcroft decided that they should really split town, as the Roman galleys were now firmly docked in Cardiff Bay and the legions would soon be making their way into the town. So off they went, a little pissed but coherent enough to be able to find the road out of town heading north. On the way out of town, they encountered John Mahoney, the young man who had originally given them the warning of the impending Roman invasion. Mahoney said that the story of Jesus outdrinking Paul the Jester of Gascoigne had spread quickly throughout Cardiff and he was sure that Jesus' name would now go down in folklore and legend. So could he become a follower of his? Jesus had no problem with this and so the party of three headed north to the place called Middlesbrough, where more adventure was surely to follow and perhaps even a little bit of history would be made.

The road to the north of England was long and hazardous. A good day’s march had been stolen on the Romans, who were probably by now taking in the local delights of Cardiff and had probably not even considered the rest of these Britannic Isles. Just yet. Billy Ashcroft delighted Jesus with anecdotes of the place called Middlesbrough and hearing so many good things, Jesus came to view the place as something of a potential spiritual home and looked forward to their arrival on Teesside.

Word spread quickly throughout the land of the defeat by a foreigner of Paul the Jester of Gascoigne, who was a well known figure in Middlesbrough. He had frequented the midfield for a short while and caused considerable damage to the town’s best chariot which was used to transport the football team to away matches. Eventually, the owner of the town and football team, Lord Gibson the Saviour had banished Paul the Jester of Gascoigne from the town, unable to put up with his pranks and japes any longer. Word also spread quickly of the Roman invasion and the townsfolk of Middlesbrough quickly closed ranks and blocked off the south side of the town and built a huge moat around the boundaries to keep out the invaders. That moat is now called the River Tees. As traders still required a passage through the town and the football team still needed to leave for away games every couple of weeks, some sort of entry/exit into the town was required and so it came to pass that Lord Gibson the Saviour did put his hand in his pocket once again and commissioned the building of the Transporter Bridge, the only one of it's kind in the world. As with all things that Lord Gibson commissioned, the deadline for the completion of the bridge was tight and, some even said, impossible. But just like the time scale for the completion of the Riverside Stadium, it was achieved and Middlesbrough was secured and ready to defend itself from the impending Roman invasion.


Ashcroft played for Boro. In a manner of speaking

And still, word spread further amongst the townsfolk of the man who had outdrank Paul the Jester of Gascoigne in Cardiff. And as trepidation about the invasion increased, so the legend of Jesus increased and grew legs, rather like a transfer story in The Daily Mail. In the meantime, Jesus, John Mahoney and Billy Ashcroft had made good their journey and a few nights later, weary and worn, had arrived in a desolate and foreboding place not so far from Middlesbrough called Leeds. Billy Ashcroft assured the party that they were now but seventy miles from Middlesbrough and that it was quite safe to stop in this city for the night, despite the hordes of gangs chasing dark-skinned travellers through the streets and the continual chants of ‘Marching On Together’ that could be heard throughout the night. In a local tavern, the group were sampling the delights of the local Tetley’s Bitter, when in walked two youths. One had a bandage over his nose and spoke with a Londinium twang in his voice and the other had a spiky yellow head. The one with the Londinium accent spoke to Jesus and called him a “Packy bastard”, which incensed Billy Ashcroft, who stood up and punched him right in the boat race. All of a sudden, the bar was overrun with policemen and Jesus and his two companions were arrested and hurled into the cells at Armley Jail, along with the two thugs.

During a long and heavy night in the cells, fighting nearly broke out several times between Billy Ashcroft and the Leeds thug who Jesus had now learned was named Lee Bowyer. Mahoney had stayed anonymous throughout the trouble, as he would often do during a match but Jesus felt compelled to act, as the screaming threats from Bowyer were now getting out of hand and they did not want to find themselves in Armley Jail when the Roman Invasion arrived north. Plus, Billy Ashcroft needed to get back to Teesside, or the club would probably terminate his contract. So Jesus told the others that he was going to cast out evil spirits from Lee Bowyer and then grabbed him in a headlock and poked his fingers into his eyes. Almost at once, Bowyer calmed down and relaxed. Well actually, he was unconscious on the floor and shocked and amazed, the others started to praise Jesus for taking such action. John Mahoney called the prison guards and alerted them to the fact that Bowyer was out cold on the floor and when the guards arrived at the cell, they were so happy that Jesus had shut the Cockney git up that they decided to let them all go free and send the Cockney to Newcastle to pay for his attributions when he had recovered. The Cockney Git’s mate with the yellow spiky head, known as Alan Smith approached Jesus and told him that he thought that the Leeds yobbos had deserved their punishment but that Jesus had not, as he was clearly a just man. “Truly I tell you, today you shall be with me in Middlesbrough”, said Jesus.

In the second part of the story, Christ becomes a Boro goalscoring legend and Vlad The Impaler arrives on Teesside.