Murder At United Stadium

By Peter Bullard

When distinguished private eye Derek West and his trusty sidekick Tony Steel are invited as V.I.P guests to watch the end of season crunch soccer match between the two biggest teams in the league, United and Chelford. They got more than they bargained for. With more action happening off the pitch than on it, this game definitely wasn't about fair play.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jan 21, 2015
• ISBN: 9781483549033

Book preview

Derek West, distinguished private eye and Tony Steele his trusty assistant, sat in the VIP visitors area of United ’s main stand watching the 2nd half of the crunch Premiership end game of the season, between United and Chelford, in first and second places in the table respectively. This was the big one, squeaky bottom time, it had all come down to the last game of the season.

West and Steele were seated in the VIP area of the stand by virtue of the fact that Sam Mandrell, United’s billionaire chairman considered that he owed West a big favour for getting the club off the hook with the FA several seasons previously, when it had been unjustly accused of making under the counter payments in a major transfer deal.

So it was, on that sunny April afternoon, that West and his sidekick were enjoying what had turned out to be, mostly for the wrong reasons, an eventful game. The big talking point of the match had been before it had even started. An announcement over the loudspeakers had hushed the United section of the crowd and brought an ironic cheer from the Chelford fans, due to the fact that United’ s star forward, Buzz Oldchurch would not be starting the game.

This was almost akin to announcing, as far as the United fans were concerned, that a major religious presence would be missing from the starting line up.

At this particular point in the game, an anonymous looking male figure was starting his way down the steps nearest to West’s row and stopped at Steele’s right elbow. Are you Derek West ? the figure queried, Steele replied in the negative and motioned towards his companion in the adjoining seat.

It was currently drawing towards the end of the game, with the United defence having let one in, in what was, for them uncharacteristically sloppy, half way through the first half. With the game edging into its final fifteen minutes, there was a second slip up. Being a goal down, with a very short space of time left, was forcing United to play high up the pitch, leaving them open to a slicker counter attack.