Larry Lancashire
Chapter One: The Thundersmasher
Before Barnley FC was famous...
Before the songs, the trophies, and the slightly wonky statue of a pig outside the pub...
There was just a local lad called Larry.
Well — not a lad exactly.
A pig.
A pig with dreams bigger than his belly and a hoof that could flatten a barn.
And this, as they say, is where it all kicked off...
LARRY LANCASHIRE
Chapter One: The Thundersmasher
It all kicked off on a warm, wobbly Wednesday, a few miles outside the old Northern town of Barnley — out at Parker’s Farm, where the mud’s deeper than your wellies and the sheep give you funny looks. Somewhere between the dung heap and Farmer Parker's oddball collection of antique cardigans lived a young pig called Larry Lancashire…
Larry weren’t just any old pig. For one thing, he had a belly so round it looked like someone had pumped him up with a bike pump and forgot to stop. For another, he wore a battered old pair of footy boots he'd found dumped in a wheelbarrow behind the barn. They didn’t fit, obviously. Pigs don’t have toes. But he wore 'em anyway, on principle.
Larry had a dream. Not one of them daft little dreams like finding a fresher trough of slop or learning to whistle through his snout. No, Larry’s dream was massive. He wanted to play football. Proper football. Not just the sort where goats charge an old cabbage round the yard until one of 'em keels over. Real matches. Real fans. Real chants. He’d even knocked together his own chant:
“Wooooah Larry!
Larry Larry Larry Larry Lancashire.”
That were as far as he'd got, mind you, but he reckoned if he could bang in a few spectacular goals, the rest would come easy.
On this particular Wednesday, while the sun snoozed above the Barnley Hills, Larry was snuffling about the edge of the field looking for summat interesting. That’s when he clocked it.
A football.
It were old and bald in patches, but it still had a right good bit of bounce to it. Someone from town must've hoofed it over the fence. Maybe a daft kid. Maybe a clumsy striker. Maybe even a goose with a shocking right peg.
Larry planted his trotters on the ball and gave it a gentle nudge. It rolled forward nice and neat. He stepped back. Took a big breath. Then, with all the drama of a pig doing Shakespeare, he charged forward and swung a mighty hoof.
KA-BOOM!
The ball flew.
It soared through the air like a hedgehog that’d been booted off a trampoline. It whizzed over the chicken coop, skimmed the sheep, and walloped straight into the side of the old barn.
Now, that barn had stood there for over a century. It had braved storms, floods, and even that daft time Farmer Parker tried to host a silent disco for cows. But it didn’t stand a chance against Larry’s shot.
With a groan, a rattle, and a noise like a walrus sneezing into a battered old trombone, the barn gave up the ghost.
CRUMBLE. CRASH. PLOOF.
Silence.
Larry blinked.
A puff of dust coughed up from the rubble, followed by a couple of dazed chickens flapping about in a fog of feathers, and finally a duck, spinning round, still clinging onto a weathervane that wouldn’t stop whirring.
From all over the farm, animals started to gather, drawn by the racket and the distant whiff of free scran. Cows, sheep, goats, geese, chickens, a very dodgy-looking llama, and Farmer Parker himself, wearing his emergency hat.
Farmer Parker squinted at the wreckage, then at Larry.
"Did you just... thundersmash me barn?"
Larry nodded, looking sheepish.
"With a football?"
Another nod.
Farmer Parker scratched his chin. "Well, I'll be a kipper in a kettle. That were a right belter, that."
A low murmur of agreement rumbled through the crowd.
"That pig’s got a hoof like a hurricane," said a cow.
"Did you see the swerve on that thing?" added a sheep.
"I felt it in me beak!" honked Goosey, flapping about like mad.
Larry stood up straighter, puffing out his chest (which took a fair bit of effort, given he already looked like he'd swallowed a set of bagpipes).
"We should have a match," he said, bold as brass. "A proper kickabout!"
There was a beat of silence.
Then the whole farm went absolutely crackers.
Animals scrambled up onto their feet. The chickens squawked like they were being chased. The goats started chewing anything they could get their teeth into. The cows lined up like a back four. Farmer Parker nodded seriously and fished a whistle out from somewhere deep in his beard.
"Right then," he said. "Let’s have a bit o’ footie."
The match that followed was... chaos, pure and simple.
The chickens were useless. They mostly legged it round in circles, screaming their heads off whenever the ball came near.
The goat were far too wild, kept nutting the goalposts like it owed him money.
The cow, on t’other hand, had moves — she pulled off a rainbow flick so fancy it made half the crowd faint clean away.
Goosey the goose was a menace from start to finish. He spent most of the match honking foul-mouthed insults at the ref (who, to be fair, was only a scarecrow named Derek, stuffed with socks and looking deeply confused).
But somewhere in the middle of all that madness, something started to click. Larry knocked a cracking pass through. The sheep dribbled (and not just out of his mouth). The piglet twins put together a right tasty little one-two. It wasn’t pretty, but by heck — it worked.
After a flurry of goals, a pitch invasion by an overexcited mole, and the chickens getting disqualified for cheating (they'd knocked together homemade jet packs out of jam jars — highly illegal), Farmer Parker blew the final whistle.
Larry stood proud as owt in the middle of the field, mud up to his ears, panting like an old tractor, but grinning all over his big round face.
"We need to do this again," he said, beaming.
The animals cheered their heads off.
Farmer Parker looked out across his unlikely squad, scratching his head thoughtfully. "We’ll make it proper. A team. A real team. With training. Formations. Tactics."
Larry’s eyes were sparkling now. "We can be…
Barnley FC!"
There was a pause.
"That name sounds proper posh," said a duck, narrowing his eyes.
"Exactly," said Larry, standing tall. "It'll put fear in their hearts, it will."
"Why?" asked the duck.
Larry grinned. "Because we’re pigs, ducks, and llamas. And that’s enough to terrify anyone with half a brain."
And so, on a muddy, windswept field, under a sky full of clouds that looked suspiciously like footballs, Barnley FC was born.
Their pitch were lumpy as a bad mattress. Their kits were stitched together from old curtains. Their coach was a man who kept sardines in his pocket for emergencies.
But they had summat more important than all that.
They had heart.
And a pig who could knock down a barn with a single wallop.
END OF CHAPTER ONE
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I love this so muchhhhh!!!!
Wow, you have great talent in many areas! Good job