I suppose the surreal joke is that Strømsgodset aren’t exactly the most likely side to have its junior firm* doing a smash and grab at the offie near the ground, especially Tranmere’s ground (the writer of these lyrics Nigel Blackwell lives very close to that stadium if you didn’t know).

I’ve read in a few articles words to the effect that Nigel “has a penchant for mentioning obscure European football teams”, but pretty much all the continental teams he mentions were regulars in the European cup competitions and were pretty darned famous indeed when we were growing up and having our subbuteo competitions, etc.

[*Clubs like West Ham, Stoke, etc. had junior hooligan groups, or firms, supposedly known as "under fives"]

I prefer “offy” too – short for “off-licence”, as I’m sure everyone knows, and so the “y” makes more sense :-^

Your Wirral reference gives me further courage to postulate wildly that NB may intend “Massey” to be a bit of a play on words with Massie, Saughall Massie Road of course leading out of Overchurch into the famlands of Saughall Massie ….

(sorry Neil )

I’m guessing that Jelutong may indeed feature in the song, as it’s sometimes used in guitar manufacture.

On the other hand a bit of googling tells us this easy-to-work-with wood has been used as a million other things from toys, models, rocking horses, etc. through to coffins (in the overgrown grave perhaps?) and that the other main use of the trees was for latex, chewing gum, etc…

In 1891, Edward W Cox had an essay published in the journal “Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire” about a cemetery near Birkenhead. The essay’s title is “Overchurch and its Runic Stone” and it contains the following passage.

“How, then, should we keep such a spot as Overchurch Graveyard, a place where praise and prayer are silent, and men come no more at the beginning and end of life, for baptism or for burial? Surrounded with a neat brick wall, and decked out with bedding plants, garden crocks and lounging seats for smokers and nursemaids, with the lawn-mower clattering over the levelled mounds? Or, as I saw it last, in the summer twilight, with the thrush piping a Requiem in its trees, and the graves waist-deep in meadow grass?”

I promise to get out more in future.

“No more strawberry jam for the Guild”

I can rest easy now.

I’d go with ‘offy’ rather than ‘offie’ though if it mattered.