England 'B': Ninety Minutes of Hell reviewed on The Vault of Evil

Franklin Marsh wrote a tongue-in-the-cheek yet perceptive review of Richard Staines' England 'B': Ninety Minutes of Hell on The Vault of Evil - and has kindly given us permission to reprint it here.

"Thanks to the insane generosity of the good Mr Riley on this young person's social media thingy (Facebook), I've managed to blag a copy - and, hurling a host of anthos, Goth compilation CDs and Shaun Hutson's The Skull to one side, hurtled through Mr Staines' first two soccer cautionary tales at high speed, being projected back in time to when attending a football match could be classed as an extreme sport (for fans and players alike), to when men weren't confused and women were glad of it, to when England still hadn't realised it was somewhere below the Third World in terms of significance, when a trilby was the height of sartorial elegance for one positioning themselves as a football manager and when Crystal Palace turned from The Glaziers into The Eagles (and released Hotel California to widespread acclaim and disgust in equal measure. The Sex Pistols had to happen.)

*SPOILERS*

No Such Thing as A Friendly was even better second time around, the psychotic Nigel-Green-In-Zulu Mad Mickey Clinch's all too soon demise had tears (of mirth) springing to my eyes.

A Game of Two Halves upped the ante with cartoon Russkies eclipsing Michael Moorcock's The Russian Intelligence and any spy film from the 1960s. The actual make up of the Soviet opposition was unprecedented and brilliant. Vince's match unfitness and desperate hip flask swigging was all too real.

Utter genius! You can almost smell the grease and burnt onions pre-match atmosphere, and am looking forward to fear...the fear of becoming lost in unfamiliar side streets...hearing a roar go up... is it us or is it them...? Or failing that, some Satanic Haunted House shenanigans.

The Ref's Decision Is Final - if the portrayal of Russians in the previous story was somewhat stereotypical, this is taken to the nth degree with Caledonians (although as an Englishman I found it very truthful) and perhaps proscribes sales of the book north of the border. But I don't think anyone will worry as The Smuggler's Arms is as good a den of iniquity as you could wish for, Class War is alive and well and once again Vince and his merry band of handy reprobates face a life and death struggle in pursuit of the not-so-beautiful game. However far from grass roots the Premier League, the Champions League and the obscene amounts of money now involved in football take us, Richard Staines can furnish a timely reminder of how it once was. And there's an axe-wielding psychopath and Moira Anderson.

Get Your Fritz Out For The Lads - There's only two ways this is going to go - women and Germany. Our rag, tag and bobtail hard-drinking, chain-smoking, skirt-chasing rogues have no sooner escaped death at the blade of a crazed Scotsman than their excessively air-conditioned coach has broken down in the grounds of a remote stately home in Northern England. If a blood-lusting pack of Doberman Pinschers aren't clue enough, the strangely Teutonic (not to mention vaguely feminine) Lord soon has the lads locked up in a cellar with unlimited Blue Nun and the real aristocrat, before releasing them to face a cloned team of Nazi Amazons. Will their nightmare never end? Not just yet. Arguably the greatest 70s signpost yet is the shoehorning in of the Bermuda Triangle. Some clues to the real identity of the man behind the Staines can be glimpsed via a (censored?) thesis on Catholicism and a disturbing familiarity with Leslie McManus' WWII melodrama Jackboot Girls.

Football's Dark Arts - America's on the receiving end this time. Glorious stuff, with Vince discovering that the wide-open spaces of Texas look just like a long episode of Rawhide (except in colour) and small town America can be a frightening place, but not as frightening as the Astral Plane where a most unique game of football takes place. Weird dreams, sinister monk-like apparitions and Jack Parsons namechecked. Huzzah!

They Think It's All Over - Sadly we come to the end of this odd but howlingly accurate glance at a different world. The transposition of homosexuality with vampirism skewers both targets (even though the dartboard keeps falling off the wall). Vince's puzzled assertion that gays didn't exist before 1967 apart from Oscar Wilde (who had the decency to get married and father a couple of kids) and the parody of the laborious Dracula AD 1972 anagram working out had me laughing out loud.

Nothing like this exists elsewhere. Thank goodness."

Read more: http://vaultofevil.proboards.com/thread/6198/richard-staines-england-minutes#ixzz4aonX6cko

Three great reviews for Parallel Universe books just posted on the British Fantasy Society website

Three PUP books were reviewed on the BFS website yesterday: Adrian Cole's Tough Guys, Richard (Mark Samuels) Staines' England 'B': Ninety Minutes of Hell, and Johnny Mains' A Little Light Screaming.

Cover Art: Jim Pitts

TOUGH GUYS by Adrian Cole. Parallel Universe Publications, Lancashire, UK. £8.99 (UK), 194 page paperback. ISBN: 978-0-9935742-2-1
Reviewed by Pauline Morgan

Often, when an author produces a collection of stories, the majority of them have been published elsewhere either in magazines or anthologies alongside those of other authors. Tough Guys is unusual in two respects. First, the four pieces here – three novellas and one short story – are all previously unpublished; second, they are as different from each other as one might expect in an accumulation of unseen stories. The second is unusual as Cole’s previous collection was Nick Nightmare Investigates (Alchemy Press), where all the stories revolved around the same character and the world he inhabited. As a collection it worked extremely well as Cole won the BFS Award for the book.
Although called Tough Guys, there are some tough women here, too. The first story ‘Wait For The Ricochet’ is another about Nick Nightmare. Here we get an insight into some of his background. He gets a message to visit his old mentor, urgently. Zeff is a lifer in Sing Sing, a place where Nick did three years. Zeff is dying but he needs Nick to carry the information about the hiding place of a powerful artefact to the new keeper of the knowledge. Nick cannot refuse. The task might seem simple but there are others who want the information. One of them, Lucien de Sangreville, is aware that it will be easier the extract what he wants from Nick rather than the person it is intended for. The complication is that the person de Sangreville kidnaps to put pressure on Nick, is the one the information is intended for. Thus, Nick has to rescue him before he can complete his mission. He is aided by Ariadne Caradine, a wealthy woman who readers will recognise form previous Nick Nightmare stories. She elegant, charming and deadly, an ideal partner in this caper. The other important and familiar character is Oil-Gun Eddie. It is him, they need to rescue.
‘If You Don’t Eat Your Meat’ is science fiction blended with horror. At some time in the past the Virus decimated the population. In the countryside, winters are harsh and farmers and their families try to survive anyway they can. The rules the city people live by are often set aside. The narrator, Ryan Blackstone is a teenager in one such family on the edge of the moors. The Blackstones have had a feud with the Tregathick for many years, so when one of the cows goes missing, they are the first to be suspected. Ryan and Wayne, the youngest of his brothers are sent to check. Ryan sees the Tregathicks butchering the cow but is spotted. Chased through the snow drifts and desperate, Ryan kills Jed Tregathick. Since the Tregathicks are eating their cow, the Blackstones eat Jed. The feud escalates from there until Ryan flees to the city. This is not a pleasant story and even though there is some sympathy for Ryan, he does his best to alienate the reader.
Another character you can end up not liking is the narrator of ‘A Smell Of Burning’. The narrator wakes up immobilised in hospital. He cannot remember what happened, or why he is there. He discovers that he can leave his body and his astral projection is able to wander the hospital. Then he realises that he can tune into the thoughts of the other patients. For a while, this is enjoyable. Then he realises that there is a scary dark cloud also inhabiting the plane. He plucks up the courage to find the patient it is emanating from and tunes into the history of a very unpleasant pyromaniac.
The final story goes back to a Nick Nightmare kind of territory. ‘Not If You Want To Live’ also has the narrator waking up in an unexpected place when he thought he was dead. He is, but has been recruited as a Redeemer. As Razorjack his job is to return the soul to the body of a person who has just died so they can continue a productive life. He doesn’t know why these people are chosen – that’s another department. After initial training and a number of field missions, Razorjack is given a more complex task. A member of a group called the Adversaries are upsetting the balance. Razorjack has to trap one of them. He is sent back to live in the real world and await a call. A wealthy man, Silvio Fellini, will ask him to Redeem his wife who died from an overdose. Although Razorjack’s memories of his life up until his original death have been deeply buried, circumstances cause them begin to surface.
Adrian Cole is a skilled writer and all four of these pieces are excellently written.  I would have liked the first to be longer, but the length is well judged for the other three. This is a book I can highly recommend.

ENGLAND “B” NINETY MINUTES OF HELL by Richard Staines, Parallel Universe Publications, p/b
Reviewed by Sandra Scholes
Forget what you remember about football back in the 70s, Richard Staines puts the record straight about how the England B team scored their goals. It certainly wasn’t through the team’s rigorous training and fitness regime – it was through black magic.
Parallel Universe Publications are fond of putting out story anthologies they think readers will enjoy as they are original and, at times funny. This one, like many on their list have a well-rounded sense of humour right down to the cover art of England Coach Vince Grinstead, some footballs that act as chapter breaks and some quotes on the back cover that are hilarious for those who know who Dennis Wheatley, Genesis and Yes are. The stories form part of a collected works that seems to be of instances, moments that deal with what Staines sees as the real history behind the World Cup in 1970 and other major matches several years after.
What I liked about the stories was the fact they initially transported the reader back to the seventies with mentions of Double Diamond, Brut aftershave, fish & chips and, Satan help me, Pan Books of Horror – remember them? I do. Staines has been clever though, he has charted the journey Vince has gone on from glory to failure and back again by the only means necessary to get his B team to victory. In No Such Thing as a Friendly, Vince takes us through what really happened on the 14th June 1970 while the England “A” team were in Mexico during the World Cup. While the “A” team are living it up in civilized country, the “B” team are in Goboya, an island on the coast of South America with barely a cold pint in sight. A Game of Two Halves has Vince tell the true story of what happened on April 1974 in a match between the USSR Representative XI and their team. Just in case there was any problem winning, they decide to make sure the “B” team are up to the challenge. Here, Vince puts the black into magic. The Ref’s Decision is Final sees Vince down on his luck, his job lost and he is drowning his sorrows in The Smuggler’s Arms. Here, Sir James Bassingron-Smythe makes him an offer he can’t refuse – to take the “B” team back to glory against the Scots. Get Your Fritz Out For the Lads carries on from the previous story where the Scots had smashed the windows of their coach and roll up to a spooky old mansion, hoping to phone for help. It’s one of the best clichés in horror, and one which Richard handles very well.
With a series of comedy horror stories laced with black magic dabbling and fun japes, he has also added the pop culture references of the times. It is a must read for those who remember the good old times of football.

A LITTLE LIGHT SCREAMING by Johnny Mains, Parallel Universe Publications, p/b
Reviewed by Sandra Scholes
There is strange fiction, but rarely do we get to find a writer who challenges what we think about horror as a genre. Johnny Mains stories read like a list of people you wouldn’t want to meet in real life. The third collection of short horror stories, Johnny Mains has his supporters right at the back cover of the book who all pretty much think of him as likely to be sectioned at any moment, yet for him to get to this third collection means he has talent. Johnny has written with other authors, ‘Paintings’ with Simon Bestwick and ‘The Curse of the Monster’ with Bryn Fortey, ‘The Girl on Suicide Bridge’ was nominated for the Best Short Story category of the British Fantasy Awards 2015, and in Johnny’s ‘Author’s Mumbles – Part 3’, he shares with us how he gets his ideas and the writing process he went through that led to its being published. Not since reading musings from Neil Gaiman’s works have I noticed the sheer endurance writers need when their writing is either rejected or changed, or according to the writer, over edited until it doesn’t resemble what the writer intended.
Blossom is one of these stories that is short and starts out with a man who thinks he has the perfect life with his wife and children until a mystery illness shatters the illusion. Johnny intended the story to be a Robert Aickman tribute, but it turned out very different in the last draft. I felt it was one of the stronger ones where the antagonist gets his just desserts, and rightly so. ‘The Case of the Revenant’ is Johnny’s way of paying homage to Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, preferring to write about Holmes as Watson can be a little boring sometimes. Set in Austria, Holmes investigates an unsolved case where a family has been murdered. I got the impression Johnny had always wanted to write a Holmes story as so many writers have tried to pen at least one in their lives, though this ends in a much more sinister way than expected.
There are ten short stories here, so I can imagine another anthology coming out at some point soon. Unlike other writers, Johnny makes sure you see the monsters, their evil intent and malice at the very end, rather than a vague image or suggestion of them. Not all the characters have their monsters in their heads and not everyone in the stories are as nice as they appear. Admittedly, there are one or two stories that are deep enough to cause an emotional response (‘Blossom’, ‘A Forest of Lonely Deaths’ and ‘The Girl on Suicide Bridge’).

The Vault of Evil website reviews England 'B': Ninety Minues of Hell by Richard Staines

Demonik on the Vault of Evil website has started an ongoing review of England 'B': Ninety Minutes of Hell by Richard Staines.

"Stainsy's 'Football is Horror!' masterpiece centres on the exploits of Vince Grinstead, the near-legendary Crystal Palace clogger, survivor of the Goboya horror of summer '70 and interim manager of the England 'B' squad from 1974-6.

No Such Thing As A Friendly: 14 June 1970: As Sir Alf Ramsey's England are busy blowing a 2-0 lead over West Germany in Mexico, the 'B' team are shunted off to play a meaningless friendly versus Goboya, a small island off the coast of South America. The England side, coached by glass-eyed xenophobe 'Mad' Mickey Clinch, are captained by Crystal Palace's Vince Grinstead, 34, who gives us a first hand account of the ensuing bloodbath.

Goboya are a disorganised rabble of a team who'd probably be no match for England schoolgirls, but they've a secret weapon in their swift and outrageously skilful number 10, Genio, a budding Pele who is soon tying Grinstead's blood in knots. Vince grudgingly concedes that the youngster has far more talent than anyone on the pitch and can't bring himself to follow Mad Cinch's orders to "break his f**k**g legs". So, with England 2-0 down at the break and staring humiliation in the face, psycho-coach takes matters into his own fists .....

N. B. This version of No Such Thing ... is essentially the same as that which appeared in The Fifth Black Book Of Horror save that Vince has now dropped his pseudonym.

A Game Of Two Halves: The horrific events in Goboya proved too traumatic for Grinstead, who swiftly hung up his boots to concentrate on assisting Big Mal in getting Palace relegated and running up an astronomical slate at his local, The Smuggler's Arms. Come April 1974, with the FA having agreed to play a goodwill fixture versus the Soviets on enemy soil, the search was on for a new patsy to succeed the late unlamented 'Mad' Mickey Clinch. Luckily for our National pride, chief Blazer, Sir James Bassingdon-Smythe, knew just the mug for the job. Which is how Vince came to assemble a squad of chain-smoking, skirt-chasing alcoholics to take on the might of Professor Ivan Hairnitz USSR Representative XI in the Molotov Stadium, Murmansk ....

To be continued ...

England 'B': Ninety Minutes of Hell by Richard Staines now available to order online

England 'B': Ninety Minutes of Hell by the controversial Richard Staines is now available in paperback. An electronic version will be out within the next twenty-four hours. 

trade paperback:
Amazon.co.uk £8.00
Amazon.com   $12.00

What they are saying about Richard Staines: 

“Please get in all the Richard Staines horror books and chuck out all that other rubbish you have on the shelves.” The T.L.S. (Tooting Library Service), message left on their public noticeboard, 1975.

“Richard Staines is one of the most valued contributors to our magazine and we are glad to have him, despite the avalanche of protests. No animals were actually harmed in the photo-spread referred to.” Readers Wives editorial, 1977.

“Unfortunately, the jury have not been able to reach a verdict due to food poisoning, hit and run incidents, and the disappearance of close family members, but the great British public outside this courtroom will doubtless make up its own mind about your filthy, depraved, sickening and contemptible books. Case dismissed. You may leave the dock.” Lord Justice Haigh (deceased), summing up in the case of Regina vs Richard Staines, 1978.

“Many horror authors insult the intelligence of the people. Staines not only does this but is a bloody good read, too. He is the future of horror in the 1980s.” Anonymous letter to Colour Climax, 1979.

“We do not feel under any obligation to have to respond on a point by point basis to your repeated claims that the Nobel Prize committee for Literature have deliberately overlooked your horror fiction and cannot undertake to reply to any further letters on this matter.” Official letter from Lars Svenson (deceased), Nobel Prize Award Committee, Secretary, 1979.

“That snob and has-been Dennis Wheatley has never lived in a council flat on a Peckham estate with only cheap cans of lager, a black and white telly, and Yes and Genesis records to keep his muse lubricated. Dennis Wheatley's simply not as socially relevant in today's world as a “man-of-the-people” like Richard Staines. The truth is that Wheatley recognises all this and was just being a dick when he refused to write the introduction to Staines' book Psycho Flasher.” Anonymous letter to The International British Black Magic and Horror Club Newsletter # 8, 1975.

Parallel Universe's First Book for 2016 - England "B": Ninety Minutes of Hell by Richard Staines

Parallel Universe's first publication for 2016 will be Richard Staines' controversially non-PC collection of football horror stories England "B": Ninety Minutes of Hell.
If you thought recent scandals involving FIFA were bad enough, worse is to come in the sorry saga of Vince Grinstead and the England World Cup "B" team and their nightmare fixtures of the 1970s.

WHAT THEY ARE SAYING ABOUT RICHARD STAINES:

“Please get in all the Richard Staines horror books and chuck out all that other rubbish you have on the shelves.” The T.L.S. (Tooting Library Service), message left on their public noticeboard, 1975.

“Richard Staines is one of the most valued contributors to our magazine and we are glad to have him, despite the avalanche of protests. No animals were actually harmed in the photo-spread referred to.” Readers Wives editorial, 1977.

“Unfortunately, the jury have not been able to reach a verdict due to food poisoning, hit and run incidents, and the disappearance of close family members, but the great British public outside this courtroom will doubtless make up its own mind about your filthy, depraved, sickening and contemptible books. Case dismissed. You may leave the dock.” Lord Justice Haigh (deceased), summing up in the case of Regina vs Richard Staines, 1978.

“Many horror authors insult the intelligence of the people. Staines not only does this but is a bloody good read, too. He is the future of horror in the 1980s.” Anonymous letter to Colour Climax, 1979.

“We do not feel under any obligation to have to respond on a point by point basis to your repeated claims that the Nobel Prize committee for Literature have deliberately overlooked your horror fiction and cannot undertake to reply to any further letters on this matter.” Official letter from Lars Svenson (deceased), Nobel Prize Award Committee, Secretary, 1979.

“That snob and has-been Dennis Wheatley has never lived in a council flat on a Peckham estate with only cheap cans of lager, a black and white telly, and Yes and Genesis records to keep his muse lubricated. Dennis Wheatley's simply not as socially relevant in today's world as a “man-of-the-people” like Richard
 Staines. The truth is that Wheatley recognises all this and was just being a dick when he refused to write the
introduction to Staines' book Psycho Flasher.” Anonymous letter to The International British Black Magic and Horror Club Newsletter # 8, 1975.

England 'B': 90 Minutes of Hell by Richard Staines

Parallel Universe Publications is proud to announce that it has yet another collection scheduled for publication this year: England 'B': 90 Minutes of Hell by the infamous Richard Staines.

The collection includes six interrelated stories:
No Such Thing as a Friendly
A Game of Two Halves
The Ref's Decision is Final
Get Your Fritz Out for the Lads
Football's Dark Arts
They Think it's all Over

 What they are saying about Richard Staines:

 “Please get in all the Richard Staines horror books and chuck out all that other rubbish you have on the shelves.” The T.L.S. (Tooting Library Service), message left on their public noticeboard, 1975.

“Richard Staines is one of the most valued contributors to our magazine and we are glad to have him, despite the avalanche of protests. No animals were actually harmed in the photo-spread referred to.” Readers Wives editorial, 1977.

“Unfortunately, the jury have not been able to reach a verdict due to food poisoning, hit and run incidents, and the disappearance of close family members, but the great British public outside this courtroom will doubtless make up its own mind about your filthy, depraved, sickening and contemptible books. Case dismissed. You may leave the dock.” Lord Justice Haigh (deceased), summing up in the case of Regina vs Richard Staines, 1978.

“Many horror authors insult the intelligence of the people. Staines not only does this but is a bloody good read, too. He is the future of horror in the 1980s.” Anonymous letter to Colour Climax, 1979.

“We do not feel under any obligation to have to respond on a point by point basis to your repeated claims that the Nobel Prize committee for Literature have deliberately overlooked your horror fiction and cannot undertake to reply to any further letters on this matter.” Official letter from Lars Svenson (deceased), Nobel Prize Award Committee, Secretary, 1979.

“That snob and has-been Dennis Wheatley has never lived in a council flat on a Peckham estate with only cheap cans of lager, a black and white telly, and Yes and Genesis records to keep his muse lubricated. Dennis Wheatley's simply not as socially relevant in today's world as a “man-of-the-people” like Richard Staines. The truth is that Wheatley recognises all this and was just being a dick when he refused to write the introduction to Staines' book Psycho Flasher.” Anonymous letter to The International British Black Magic and Horror Club Newsletter # 8, 1975.