Massively Violent & Decidedly Average

by Lee Howey

  Returning now to 1993, those memories of him were still very vivid and everyone had seen his more recent antics before the Newcastle game, when he might have appeared unhinged, but was at least passionate. When the half-time whistle blew at Meadow Lane I suspected he was about to rip a few heads off, possibly literally, for an appalling forty-five minutes of football. At that moment it was something that I, as a Sunderland fan, would have enjoyed watching. Instead our leader sat in complete silence, his face like that of a haemorrhoid-stricken pallbearer. His head was in his hands. It was hard to comprehend that this was the same head that had so famously and copiously bled in Sweden. Five minutes passed. Ten minutes passed. Not a word; Butcher continued to sit in silence. It was like a party at the clap clinic.

  Eventually, Gary Owers stood up and screamed: ‘Are you going to fucking say something or what?’

  This instigated a heated argument between virtually everyone in the room; a morass of foul language and acrimony. Fingers were pointed, blame was allocated, but no responsibility was accepted for the fiasco. At least it was a bit of zeal, but it wasn’t good. In this frame of mind they had to trot out for the second half and attempt to score four goals. Guess what happened next.

  Well, what do you think happened? This isn’t Roy of the Rovers.

  There was a slight improvement and Kevin Ball, possibly the only Sunderland player who wasn’t pure shite that day, scored. We lost 3–1. The most important thing is that we survived; John Cairns from BBC Radio Newcastle kept us up to date with the other scores. Cambridge United and Brentford both lost and we finished one point and one place above the relegation zone. The fans were placated by this, but it was more relief than appreciation and could not disguise the fact that a poor season had ended shamefully. That performance is remembered today by any Sunderland supporter present as one of the all-time worst, and we only stayed out of football’s third tier because two comparatively tiny clubs had lost. In all their travails since, Sunderland have never sunk so low.

  Perhaps I should have been happy that the worst was averted, that I was not involved and was therefore untainted by the performance. But as I helped to fetch and carry a few things after the game, I was fuming. I was no stranger to playing badly myself, but there is a wealth of difference between merely playing badly and playing without spirit – and the Notts County display was all but spiritless. The mood deteriorated further when an irate Sunderland fan managed to board the team bus. It was me.

  I could no longer contain my anguish and erupted, informing them in nothing like a casual manner: ‘You’re all a fucking disgrace! Those fans have paid money to come here and that’s what you’ve given them! They’re so upset that they’re fighting each other…’

  I was roaring with frustration but was eventually calmed down, if not appeased. This was part of a realisation that players and fans are not necessarily of one mind. It’s difficult to understand sometimes that even when professional footballers are representing a club, it still isn’t usually ‘their’ team. It’s a job, and if they are offered a better job, they’ll take it.

  Terry Butcher would never play again.

  CHAPTER 5

  MAKING A MARK

  In the summer of 1993 I went on holiday somewhere or other in the sun. I don’t remember where. When I returned it was to the worst pre-season training I would ever endure.

  No one could fathom what Mr Butcher was thinking. We were told to report to the Silksworth Sports Complex and, as had happened when I was an apprentice at Ipswich, we didn’t see a ball for five weeks. But in terms of physical torment it was way in excess of even that. With the first team and reserve squads, as well as some of the youths, there were about thirty-five of us at the start of training. After a week this was down to about a dozen. It was that bad.

  Twenty-odd players had been injured or made ill by this horrendous regime. I had correctly envisaged something beyond the training at Bishop Auckland (bit of exercise and a kick-about) and Plains Farm (nowt), but this was far beyond anything I had expected.

  We would run up and down the side of the artificial ski slope which, being a ski slope, is on the steep side. Then we would have shuttle runs around the bowl in which the adjacent running track was sunk. Run, jump, run, sprint, press-ups, run, squat-thrusts, run back up the ski slope, more shuttle runs, jump, run, sprint, run, run… Numerous cones would be placed at the top and bottom of the bowl which designated where we were to run up to, then down to, up then down, up then down … It was fearsome and imbued with all the fun and gaiety of kidney stones. I could imagine Daley Thompson thinking better of it and popping into the Sportsman’s Arms for a few jars and a game of pool instead.

  As a treat we were allowed the occasional deep breath and a banana; otherwise it was uniformly awful. My legs were crying out with calf strains, thigh strains and other ailments that will inevitably be caused by such a programme. It did the squad no favours in terms of either injuries or esprit de corps. It did even less for the popularity of the manager.

  We were taken to the University of Stirling for a training camp in another well-intentioned but ultimately futile team-building exercise. We did spot the occasional ball on this trip, but it was mainly more running.

  In fairness we were allowed a couple of beers in Scotland and it was during such a respite that Alec Chamberlain, our goalkeeper newly signed from Luton Town, spoke to his mate Phil Gray over the phone. Phil was still at Luton and Sunderland had put in a bid for him. He signed the next day. He was a skilful player, a Northern Ireland international and his £800,000 fee was a significant outlay. His price meant that he was almost guaranteed to play because Butch would have to justify the expense. Phil, or Tippy as he was known, was a striker too. As long as he stayed fit by not being involved in road accidents (more on that soon), he was in the team. Ah, bollocks.

  Phil’s signing was dispiriting for me. He improved the squad, but I wanted to play, dammit. I would just have to do my best. In the meantime the atmosphere among the first team squad seemed to fester more and more by the day. It was coaching staff and playing staff, us and them, them and us – when the whole club and not just the players was supposed to be a team.

  I found this very awkward because I shared some of the misgivings of the lads. But Terry Butcher and Bobby Ferguson (who had left in May) had done a great deal for me. I also liked Ian Atkins, who was someone else I knew from my Ipswich days (he was also a former Sunderland player and a good one too). I had known Butcher as a player and been in his company socially a few times too. As a manager you have to step away from the players in certain respects, but a wall went up, which is not quite the same thing. I completely understood the displeasure of the lads because I was being tortured by the military training as much as anyone.

  The summer of 1993 saw Gary Bennett’s testimonial game and, thanks to Terry’s relationship with his counterpart at Glasgow Rangers, Walter Smith, Benno struck gold. A match against Rangers on the evening of Wednesday 28 July was arranged and 21,862, a near sell-out, turned up at Roker to watch it. The 8,000 Rangers fans arrived in town and duly lived up to the image of Scottish football supporters on a day out. They were mainly drunk and largely, but not entirely, good-natured. There was a particularly nasty incident when a Sunderland supporter was slashed across the face in the city centre.

  We had a training session on the morning of the game and were told what the starting XI would be, with Phil Gray and Don Goodman up front. As expected, I wasn’t in the team but still hoped for a run-out from the bench at some stage. I travelled to Roker Park in the evening by car with my parents. On and around the Wearmouth Bridge there were bodies everywhere for us to negotiate; hordes of pissed-up people in blue football shirts, lolloping around and singing jaunty songs about burning Catholics, incarcerating the Pope, the Potato Famine – that sort of thing.

  When I arrived, I was told that Phil was injured and I would be starting. As a fan of both Sunderland and Celtic I was hugely excited and, better still, I wa
sn’t even beset with nerves. I hadn’t been given enough time to become nervous. It all just happened in an instant. I had a good game too, but best of all was scoring in front of the Fulwell End.

  With the score at 0–0 in the first half, I laid the ball to Gordon Armstrong, who played it forward to Benno on the edge of the Rangers penalty area. Benno nudged it to me to run on to and I dinked it with the outside of my right foot and past Ally Maxwell in goal. Testimonial or not, the roar was something I will never forget and I really felt like I had arrived. I had scored for Sunderland.

  Regrettably, the match ended 3–1 to Rangers, which was hardly surprising, really. Their side included Mark Hateley, who scored twice, Steven Pressley, Oleksiy Mykhaylychenko (I cut and pasted his name there), Ian Ferguson, Stuart McCall and John Brown, who was given a hard time by me. Ha. Ally McCoist, Gary Stevens, Gordon Durie and Richard Gough were left out. Rangers really were the business in those days and the gap between the top side in Scotland and their English equivalent was considerably narrower then. We had acquitted ourselves well. At full-time, Brian Atkinson said: ‘Fucking hell, big man. They’ll want to sign you after that.’ He meant Rangers.

  Shame we lost, but it was one of the good days. Never let them go.

  • • •

  As the next part of our programme of pre-season games, we could have gone to Blackpool and taken in an afternoon of fresh air and fun on the Pleasure Beach. But we decided instead to travel to Belfast during the peak of violent sectarianism. The IRA was in particularly ruthless and murderous form; earlier in the year they had bombed Warrington and London. So the trip provided some levity amid the ongoing fitness sessions.

  The preponderance of Union flags and Red Hands painted onto the gable ends led me to assume that it was Butch who had decided which areas of Belfast we would be playing in. It was a truly intimidating experience and heavily armed soldiers wandering around the two stadiums we played in was not a sight I was used to. We played Ards and Glentoran and won both fixtures, although I remember nothing more about them. Following the games we could have held a triumphal march through the streets; after all, it was our right – but we decided against it.

  Ian Murtagh, a North East football reporter, accompanied us. One highlight of the tour was persuading Gareth Cronin, a trainee from Cork, to call him on his mobile phone, claim to be from the IRA and say that they knew who and where he was, what he’d been writing, etc. Correctly, Mr Murtagh was almost, but not entirely convinced that he was the subject of a tasteless practical joke and tried to play it down. But he still couldn’t completely dispel the facial expression that can only be worn by a man who is concerned for the future of his kneecaps. What terrorism-related larks we were having (we did let him know, eventually).

  ‘The Troubles’ is a euphemism that makes paramilitary murder and thuggery sound like an elderly lady describing her irritable bowel. Fear and intimidation permeated. Let’s not forget that it was literally a war zone. We had armed guards to accompany us to the games and roads were blockaded to facilitate us. Even Eddie Harrison’s stag night wasn’t this bad. Alec Chamberlain and I went to some or other bar in Belfast during a free evening, a respectable-looking establishment and fairly busy. We naively attributed the stares we were attracting to our strange accents and striking good looks.

  We ordered a drink and the barmaid began to make friendly chat, asking where we were from, what had brought us to Belfast and so forth. We didn’t realise that she wasn’t just making small talk, or that we were in a nationalist bar. When we explained that we were Sunderland footballers the relief on her face was apparent – even to us. Then we discovered how perilously close we had been to a thoroughly good hiding. Our short hair and obvious Englishness had erroneously suggested to the locals that we were squaddies. A number of large gentlemen had been called upon to rearrange our body parts in the manner of their choosing and they were on their way round.

  Matters had been clarified by the time they arrived and they were quite happy to chat with us about football. They were pacified further when I told them I had scored against Rangers. Although affable, they were blankly open about what their intentions had been when they thought we were members of the British Army. Alec and I took leave of that bar thinking that a match at each of the remaining branches of Butlin’s would be quite adequate for the next pre-season tour.

  The next day, Phil Gray, a Belfast boy, gave us a guided tour of certain sections of the city. Nothing we had seen on television could quite prepare us.

  • • •

  When we returned to Sunderland, nothing had changed. There were the same old arguments.

  Our final pre-season game was another testimonial on 8 August, this time at Middlesbrough for their midfielder Gary Hamilton, who had been forced into retirement through injury. This was largely forgettable, but we won 2–1 and I came off the bench to score the winner.

  When I arrived at training the following day, Martin Gray bounded over to me and asked: ‘Have you heard about the lads? They’ve had a car crash.’ He was referring to four of the five players we had bought over the summer.

  Alec Chamberlain had arrived free (because of a clerical error at Luton Town). Bob Murray, the Sunderland chairman, then found £2 million for Butcher to invest in the squad. The money was spent on Phil Gray, centre-back Andy Melville from Oxford United, with midfielders Ian Rodgerson and Derek Ferguson (older brother of Barry Ferguson) from Birmingham City and Hearts respectively. These four had all squeezed into Ferguson’s Vauxhall Astra after the Middlesbrough match.

  Derek was at the wheel when he abandoned established custom by entering a roundabout on Dame Dorothy Street in an anticlockwise direction. Unfortunately, a woman in a Ford Granada had come onto the roundabout in a clockwise direction, which was more traditional. Phil, who was in the passenger seat and not wearing his seat belt, ended the incident with his head through the windscreen and glass in his eye. Ian sustained a dislocated shoulder and Andy had whiplash. The woman also incurred whiplash, her son suffered bruising and shock and her mother fractured several ribs.

  Of the seven people involved, only Derek was unscathed, but he was later fined and banned from driving for a year. Being a footballer occasionally bags you free entry into a nightclub, but judges tend to be less easily impressed than bouncers.

  Sunderland had made a calamitous start to the season six days before it had even begun. However, my chances of playing had improved significantly with one wrong turn of a steering wheel. I was sorry for the lads in the crash, not forgetting the people in the Granada. But when opportunity knocks…

  With Phil unavailable I knew I would start the first game of the 1993–94 season against Derby County at the old Baseball Ground. This would be my first start in a Football League game. Again, this was hugely exciting because it was more important than any friendly. I trained hard as usual, working with special attention to set-pieces. Throughout the week I was telling myself all the right things – that everything would be fine and the nerves would dissipate. I just wanted to get onto the pitch. I felt ready.

  On a sunny 14 August we arrived at the stadium where there were a couple of telegrams (yes telegrams) waiting for me. They were from well-wishers including Neil Emmerson, my old mate from Ipswich. Another was from my Auntie Margaret and Uncle Colin in Australia. This was all very lovely and I realised how massive the fixture was for everyone, not just me. More so than on my brief debut as a sub against Portsmouth in May, this was it. I only hoped I wouldn’t let anyone down.

  But I did.

  We all did.

  I used all of the breathing exercises and attempts at mental fortitude, went through the same pre-match routine as always, including all the silly superstitions that footballers tend to have; I felt compelled to put on socks, shin pads and boots right before left for no rational reason whatsoever. Then it was on to the pitch for the warm-up, which in those days was little more than kicking a few balls around (it wouldn’t become any more scientific at Sund
erland until Peter Reid arrived), trying to absorb the opening day atmosphere in that iconic old ground. None of it worked. My legs felt increasingly heavy and by the time we kicked off I was like a dachshund on Bonfire Night, beset with anxiety.

  I continued to tell myself: ‘Once that whistle blows I’ll be fine. I’ll be fine. I’ll be fine…’ It was all wishful thinking. The problem was that I cared too much.

  All my aggression was gone. I could barely lift my feet and was hyperventilating at times. Marking me that day was Craig Short, who dominated me. He took full advantage of my nerves and totally negated my presence. It wasn’t just his assured performance, it was the occasion. Short was a fine, not to say expensive centre-back, but confronted by a striker temporarily unable to run, jump, hold up the ball or even breathe properly, there were lesser defenders who would have coped.

  It was no consolation to me that everyone else connected to Sunderland was suffering too. Chamberlain, Ferguson and Melville were also having dreadful first starts for the club. We were a goal down after ten minutes when Mark Pembridge scored a penalty. Marco Gabbiadini is to this day a Sunderland favourite, but he scored Derby’s second on forty minutes, with Pembridge’s second arriving five minutes later. A half-time deficit of three, then; but could it be turned round with Terry Butcher putting his attuned, managerial mind to the problem?

  Nah.

  I was replaced by Lee Power, then on loan from Norwich City (he later became the owner of Swindon Town), but it was deck-chairs-on-the-Titanic stuff and the final score was 5–0. It was a fucking disaster. The worst thing was that having stayed up the previous season by a point, we already looked like strugglers and this performance was every bit as horrific as the one at Notts County – and this time I had been part of it.