by Lee Howey
Enter Norman, his brother-in-law John McClements and his friend Ronnie Cowie, who were also dining out. The lads who were acting the giddy goat knew my dad, who left them in no doubt as to what would occur if they didn’t improve their table manners. That was the end of the show and Niall still mentions the incident when we meet.
Shortly after I had listened to this tale, the police turned up at Roker. There was a sergeant and an officer who happens to be a friend of mine, Mickey Crowe. They wanted to discuss the contents of a video cassette they had with them. This was CCTV footage of the merriment outside Idols the previous evening (I understand the VHS tape still exists). The cops knew exactly who they were watching – and who was doing what.
But the senior officer had that special type of unsmiling sarcasm that only police sergeants possess, and he used it to full effect as we were forced to watch the video. The first miscreant to be singled out was Kevin Ball, who could be distinctly seen rearranging the features of an antagonist.
‘We would like to speak with this young lady in the yellow pigtails, if anyone knows of her whereabouts,’ said the sergeant. ‘She may be dangerous, so please do not approach her.’
Next to be singled out was Richard Ord.
‘We intend to contact our colleagues in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to see which of their officers is currently visiting this area. He is clearly in contravention of his oath of office.’
Then it was my turn.
‘And who was this caped crusader? The Northumbria constabulary has no need of vigilantism.’
Then it was Martin Scott and his fellow ‘Nazis’.
‘We have reason to believe that these individuals have connections to a known far-right group…’
And so on. The sergeant knew everything and was basically giving us a good-natured warning as to our future conduct – as well as having enormous fun personally. The bollocking we got from Peter Reid was way in excess of anything that the police said, but underneath this I suspect he was quite pleased that we had all stuck together, looking after each other in a way that a real team does.
We won the fight too.
• • •
The three other games that I would have played in, as a minimum, were away to Tottenham, home to Sheffield Wednesday and away to Everton; a defeat, draw and a win respectively. The 3–1 victory at Goodison Park was Sunderland’s first since 1981 and only the second since 1956. There wouldn’t be another on this happy hunting ground until 2013.
Win, lose or draw, it was massively disappointing to have waited so long to enter the top flight then only be able to spectate, particularly games that I would almost certainly have played in had not my ankle been held together by carpentry. In fact, I was angry as well as frustrated. This was exacerbated by the knowledge that I would immediately be back on crutches as soon as the season ended when I would have the screws removed. I can’t have been easy to live with during such a prolonged downer. My wife would drop me off at The Cavalier pub in Doxford Park and leave me there, sick as a juggler’s rabbit.
On Boxing Day we – and Richard Ord especially – exacted some revenge from Derby County by winning 2–0 with goals from his good self and Craig Russell. Kevin Ball broke his jaw in that fixture, but we were now in eleventh place. Exactly halfway through the season and halfway up the league. As well as could be expected.
We played Arsenal three times in eleven days, drawing at Highbury in the FA Cup before winning 1–0 in the league game at home. The Gunners fielded their usual team of instantly recognisable internationals at Roker, whereas we gave a Premier League debut to Darren Williams, signed from York City the previous October for £50,000. There was also a second start of the season for John Mullin, who had arrived from Burnley the previous season for even less. The winner came when Arsenal’s captain turned Ordy’s cross past David Seaman. The goal was announced enthusiastically and at many decibels over the PA system.
‘Sunderland’s first goal of the afternoon was scored by number six: Tony Adams!’
This was naughty and dashed ungentlemanly. In fact it was totally unacceptable – but funny. No more was said about it. Dennis Bergkamp was sent off for a horrible high challenge on Paul Bracewell. This was handy because Dennis was one of the best footballers ever to play in the Premier League. However, in the cup replay he scored an exquisite side-footer into the top corner as Arsenal won 2–0.
Being out of the FA Cup was not a huge consideration. The fact that we wouldn’t win any of our next thirteen matches – was.
• • •
To alleviate the boredom, one of the less discussed symptoms of injury, I would occasionally limp down to Yarm, about thirty-five miles south of Sunderland. Steve Agnew lived there and was a friend and neighbour of Gordon McQueen, the former Manchester United and Scotland defender and by then a coach with Middlesbrough under Bryan Robson. Steve, Gordon and I were having a few beers one day when we were joined by Martin Scott, Gareth Hall, Andy Melville – and Fabrizio Ravanelli, who also lived nearby.
It had been a sensational story when Boro signed Ravanelli. He was an Italian international and his last game for his previous club had been in the 1996 Champions League final, scoring for Juventus as they beat Ajax. He was a striker of international renown and must have had a number of options. So the assumption, rightly or wrongly, was that this superstar had gone to Middlesbrough purely for money. By the end of the day I began to suspect rightly.
Boro had paid £7 million to Juventus for him. This was then the third highest fee ever stumped up by an English club. He was on a reported salary of £42,000 per week. Even if this figure is not quite accurate, he was still one of the highest-paid footballers in the world. I discovered in the course of the afternoon that he managed to consolidate his immense wealth by being as tight as a duck’s arse.
Ravanelli loved playing darts and did so for about three hours. Although this might be because darts was free whereas a game of pool cost 50p. While he was chucking arrows, round after round of drinks was bought by other people, including his red wine. It never occurred to him to part with his own cash. By the time I’d had a few I began to speak with theatrical loudness about how this unfathomably tight-fisted Eyetie wasn’t paying his way. Regardless of income – you stand your round. Surely this is accepted procedure across the world, including Italy. If it isn’t, then the United Nations ought to take decisive action.
Aggers told me that Ravanelli seldom paid for anything. Apparently he would take in his gas and electric bills for his club to pay. His shopping receipts were also reimbursed. I found this hard to respect and not just because I hadn’t come from the most affluent of backgrounds. My parents always paid their way and the same was the least I expected from a multi-millionaire. He felt as though he owed nothing. I felt as though I owed him a whack on the shins if we were ever on the same pitch. I don’t remember the name of the pub we were in, but I presume it wasn’t a Wetherspoon’s house as he didn’t stuff his pockets with sachets of sauce.
You get your round in and that’s that. It’s the law.
CHAPTER 12
FRUSTRATION
We already had a small squad and my injury meant there was little cover at centre-back for Richard Ord and Andy Melville. This forced Peter Reid back into the transfer market, and in January 1997 he bought Jan Eriksson from a Swedish club called Helsingborgs IF for £250,000. I wasn’t happy about this, as it was the old familiar tale of me losing precedence over a new signing. Jan was twenty-nine and an experienced international with thirty-five caps. He had scored for his country in their win against England at Euro ’92 when the Swedes reached the semi-finals. I might not have played again that season; or so it seemed.
Jan was a decent bloke who spoke excellent English. As a player he was physically strong, although he was slightly smaller than he appeared on television. In February, Reidy took us back to The Belfry to prepare for a visit to Aston Villa, by which time Jan still hadn’t played a first-team game. I had returned to train
ing by then and was taken along. Jan had to play because Mel had picked up a knock. In fact, we didn’t have much of a squad left. Three of our five subs that day, David Preece, Darren Holloway and Paul Heckingbottom, had never played in the first team.
I watched from the Trinity Road Stand as Villa won 1–0. A shot from Savo Milošević squeezed in after a slight deflection off Jan. He had an OK game, but I felt confident on this evidence that if I was available I would be selected ahead of him. I was right about this. It was the only game he would ever play for Sunderland.
The fans were puzzled by the signing of Jan Eriksson. They may have thought he was going to force Ordy or Mel from the side. When he didn’t do that they must have supposed, ‘Well, Reidy must think he’s a better replacement centre-back than Howey.’ Nope. This begs the question of why Jan was brought in at all. There is no conspiracy theory to reveal here. It was simply one of the countless transfers in football that didn’t work out. The following January, he moved to Tampa Bay Mutiny. A knee injury forced him to retire in 1999 and Mutiny were dissolved two years later. Cheery stuff. Still, the fact that I was preferred to an established international boosted my confidence significantly.
At Blackburn Rovers on 1 March I was mightily pleased to be back on the bench, even if I didn’t get off it and we lost 1–0. This marked the end of a tough time for me professionally and personally. Three days later at home to Tottenham there was a similar but worse story. This was probably our least competent performance of the season. We lost 4–0 and were three down after twenty-six minutes. Horrible.
Strangely this was followed the next Saturday by possibly our best performance of the season. We beat the champions Manchester United 2–1 at Roker with goals from Micky Gray and John Mullin. But the slide continued at Hillsborough in midweek when we lost 2–1 to Sheffield Wednesday. That was when I finally made it back on to the pitch, if only for the final ten minutes. I was given another short run-out at Stamford Bridge, the last time I would play up front for Sunderland. Unfortunately the game was lost by the time I was introduced and we went down 6–2, which was a harsh scoreline.
• • •
Harsh or not, we were no longer comfortable and our form was alarming. To arrest the slide, Peter Reid brought in Allan Johnston, a 23-year-old Scotsman who had been a hot prospect at Hearts before moving to Rennes in France. Sunderland gave him his big chance. He was a good-natured, quiet bloke as well as a wonderfully gifted winger. I liked him a great deal.
Another arrival was 36-year-old Chris Waddle, a former England teammate of Reidy’s. If you know anything about football in the 1980s and 1990s, you will also know what an incredible player he was. Sunderland signed him from Bradford City for £75,000. Everyone knew how good he was even at that age, to the point where opponents wouldn’t even try to tackle him, they would merely attempt to jockey him into passing the ball to a less gifted colleague. He had never possessed pace, but didn’t need it. He was also a Sunderland fan.
Despite his talent and fame (he remains a virtual god in Marseille, for example) Chris was another big name who was just one of the lads; another storyteller who liked a laugh and a drink the same as everyone else. I would occasionally be in the social company of Waddler, Niall, Paul Stewart, Paul Bracewell and the like and find this difficult to reconcile with the fact that I was in the same team as them; men I had watched admiringly on television as a kid and when I was playing for a tiny club in a one-horse town in the middle of Belgium.
We also finally managed to recruit some experienced goalkeeping cover for Lionel. The former England goalie Chris Woods would be on the bench for the rest of the season, although he would never actually play.
• • •
Andy Melville was injured at Chelsea and would not feature again that season. This meant that I would replace him in defence and not miss a minute of the seven vital remaining games. The first of the seven was at home to Nottingham Forest who, on current form, were the worst team in the league. This was a big opportunity. We didn’t take it.
Dean Saunders and Pierre van Hooijdonk were up front for Forest. Van Hooijdonk was enormous and had been the subject of some hype following his recent move from Celtic. I therefore took great delight in aggressively winning an early header against him and drawing an enthusiastic cheer from the crowd. I was confident and we were in control. Alex Rae went close, Michael Bridges hit the bar, but we didn’t take the lead until an hour had passed, when Kevin Ball volleyed in the debuting Waddle’s corner at the Fulwell End. Having offered little, a plodding Forest equalised when their full-back, Des Lyttle, scored late with a hopeful prod that bobbled through a crowd of players.
The draw was a damn bad result and no one had done anything wrong. It didn’t help Forest either as they would finish bottom of the league. We then had two weeks to forget about it before the short trip to St James’ Park on 5 April.
• • •
This would be the only derby I ever played in for Sunderland and my solitary proper appearance at the Temple of Doom. Never before had I experienced such an adrenalin rush. It was something beyond pride and this time I used my emotions positively. I knew that becoming carried away and getting myself injured or sent off would be disastrous, but I would have died for Sunderland that day. Literally. My life for three points? Fair exchange, no robbery.
A few days before the derby, I went to my parents’ house for dinner and Steven was there too. Inevitably we chatted about the game. He was coming back from injury and had an outside chance of playing.
My contribution to the badinage was: ‘If I get a fifty-fify with you, I’ll break your fucking legs.’ He laughed at this until he noticed that my stare hadn’t dropped. This earned me swift admonishment from our mother (‘We’ll have none of that at the table!’). Plus ça change. As it turned out, Steven didn’t play. Not sure why.
People who compare other derbies in England to Newcastle– Sunderland and imagine that they even come close are talking drivel, quite frankly. Derbies in London, Manchester, Merseyside, the Midlands or anywhere else are tea parties, where antipathy is confused with loathing. There is genuine hatred between Sunderland and Newcastle. This isn’t something that should necessarily be a source of pride; it’s just the way it is.
Things reached such a pitch that visiting supporters were barred from both derbies in 1996–97. It was a daft idea that was never repeated. The futility of it was something that followers of both clubs could actually agree upon.
This game and everything surrounding it was as dynamic as ever, despite the supposed fan ban. I say supposed because there must have been a couple of hundred fearless Sunderland supporters dotted around the ground that day. Naturally they included the legendary Davey Dowell, who had procured a ticket from Kevin Ball. Davey was ensconced in his seat a few rows back, minding his own business and obviously not wearing any colours as we warmed up twenty minutes before kick-off. That was when Bally spotted him and gave him a cheery wave with a hearty ‘Hello there, Davey!’ to accompany it. Possibly Sunderland’s greatest ever fan had to turn round and pretend to be looking for the person that Bally had been yoo-hooing at. That’s what we loved about Bally; he was a complete bastard.
The atmosphere by 2.55 p.m. could have been chopped up and applied with brown sauce. It was heightened even further for the locals on the pitch, which for me included Bally, long since subsumed by Wearside. The others for Sunderland were Richard Ord, Chris Waddle, Michael Gray, Michael Bridges and myself. For Newcastle there was Robbie Elliott, Steve Watson, Lee Clark and Alan Shearer.
You must be on the pitch to truly appreciate the incredible noise that is created in this fixture. It’s even louder down there and the sound is not that of singing – it is tens of thousands of people creating as many decibels as possible by any method. I remember screaming at Ordy in the early stages of the game, and he couldn’t hear a word. We were about ten yards apart. This was not like any other game. It was perhaps cranked up further because the home fans expected vi
ctory, and a convincing one at that.
Why wouldn’t they? It was fourth against fourth bottom. Already that season Tottenham and Manchester United had hammered us, whereas Newcastle had beaten them 7–1 and 5–0 respectively. They had an enormously expensive side while our costliest starter that day (making his debut) was Allan Johnston at £500,000 – one thirtieth of what Shearer had cost. The Sunderland fans, many of whom were watching a beamback of the game on a large screen at Roker Park, were fearful.
I wasn’t. I just wanted to get on with it. My dad had spoken to me of the dangers of being too pumped up and doing something silly. The irony of Norman being the one to issue this advice was not lost on me, but that didn’t make it any less prescient. A few minutes into the game, a high ball was played up to Shearer, who was standing in front of me. My height advantage meant that he was never going to win the header. He was feeling for me to establish exactly where I was without taking his eye off the ball. When he realised how close I was (I was literally not giving him an inch) he threw a backwards headbutt squarely into my face a split second after I had inevitably won the header, making it look like an innocent clash.
This reduced my ambitions, for the time being at least, to booting him up a height. He knew what he was doing and did such things routinely, although he may also have been told by Steven that I was liable to do something stupid if he were to make me angry enough. I tried my utmost, but couldn’t get sufficiently close to him for any sort of retribution. So I decided that someone had to suffer vengeance and took it out on David Batty. This was a poor second prize and I was booked for my trouble.
It would surprise me if Shearer remembers the incident; more so if he admitted to it. A year later he booted Leicester’s Neil Lennon in the face in the full glare of television cameras, but was still completely exonerated when the FA claimed to believe some extraordinary banana oil about him innocently attempting to free his trapped foot.