Been there, dunnit!

CON-GREGATION said the headline. Well headline's too big to describe it really. It was only one of those one sentence snippets that pad out papers. And the sentence in question was: 'A conman posing as a worker at Salisbury Cathedral mayhave duped hundreds of visitors into giving him cash donations'

I like that bit about 'cash' donations. What else were they going to give him? Here you are squire have my bible, I'm just leaving & don't need it anymore...
But what made me chuckle about the tale was the trip down memory lane it took me. All the way back to September 1978. For Salisbury read Canterbury!
I can date it so perfectly as my team Dulwich Hamlet were away to Canterbury City in the first qualifying round of the FA Cup, & I'd pursuaded my best mate (& wank buddy for several teenage years actually..I've often wondered what became of him...probably married with a couple of kids!) and his cousin to go to the match with me. We got the train down and strolled around the town. Which inevitably meant diving into the famous cathedral. Being a Saturday morning it was packed with tourists. And one thing about these christian types is that they do love their candles. And candles means money! Now we're not thieves! We didn't smash open a collection box, or anything like that. More your Sarf Lunnon wide boy apprentice entrepreneurs! So we stood in front of the collection box, & honed our finest choirboy voices, 'selling' the candles! And we were doing a roaring trade on behalf of the 3rd Canterbury Scouts, when questioned! Or were until rumbled after about half an hour by some strange bloke in a skirt...cassock I think they call it! If I knew then what I know about lots of priests I think I'd have allowed him to catch me & take any 'private' punishment he chose to dish out!
But back then, when you're thirteen or so, it was like a Benny Hill chase, as we told him to fuck off, called him a cunt and he chased us along & around the pews, with other weird men of the cloth joining in, before we thought they might actually grab us & we dived out of a side door! I'm not sure how much we made back then, but if memory serves me right it more than paid for all of our train fares, & the money to get int the game!
Which was played at the old speedway stadium, where they shared at. You were miles from the pitch & we got bored...
At half time we walked round the track & there was a shed behind the goal with a tractor in it, presumably used for pitch maintenance. Now I ca't drive, and have never had any interest in motors whatsoever. But my mate could.And guess what ?The key was in it! But he wasn't a tractor driver, though he could nick a Ford Escort or two. So we could only get it to shake, and stop-start.
By now the second half had started. And then came a tannoy anouncement I've never heard at a football ground before or since: "Would the boys behind the goal please get off of the tractor before we call the police!"