The Preston North End I was returning to had changed. It was a very different club to the one I had experienced. Why? Money. The lifeblood of any football club. It doesn’t guarantee success but it at least gives you a fighting chance.
Baxi had pledged to invest £10 million pounds into the club, rebuild the famous but dilapidated ground and give the manager the funds needed to achieve success on the pitch. They were in the process of turning this founder member of the Football League into a Public Limited Company – a bold and exciting move for a non-Premier League club.
I reported for duty a couple of days before the players were due to return to pre-season training and went straight into the home dressing room where I had spent so long sat on those bloody towels. I closed my eyes, drank in the memories and inhaled the aromas – the smells of football. Yes, they were all here as before, as at every club, as in every dressing room, those heady, intoxicating, nostalgia-inducing smells. The smells of home, the smells of belonging – leather, polish, heat rub, Deep Heat and Vicks. Bliss. Admittedly, they were not as strong during the summer, but they were still there, in the lino, in the faux-wood panelling and in the polystyrene ceiling tiles, pervading every nook and cranny of the dressing room and my mind.
Gary Peters took me into his office and said he wanted me to go down to the big, local country park and sort out all the running sessions for the players when they returned later in the week. He told me he was thinking of promoting one of the senior players to a player-coach role, and that I should take him with me so we could devise the running sessions together.
So off we went on the short drive to the local park. It was a lovely sunny day and I was really looking forward to this task. I had always loved running. When we got there, we agreed we would do the cross country first, so we ran a lap of the entire park. It took about 20 minutes and was perfect for what we needed. We were both happy, but my companion felt that if we ran in the opposite direction then the hilly bit would be at the beginning instead of the end and that would make the run harder.
“OK, I will make a note of that on my pad.”
“Well, I think we should do it again in the other direction, just to be professional,” he said.
So we did it again as he suggested. Phew, that’s two cross countries then.
Then we found the biggest hill and decided to sprint to the top 12 times, with each run taking 15 seconds, with a one-minute recovery in between. We did them and it was fine, but he felt a one-minute recovery was too long and 50 seconds was enough. Guess what? Yes, we did the lot again. We then went to the flat area between the hills and used the trundle wheel to mark out the 200 yard strides. Again, we did them all, but then he decided he wanted the distance to be 200 metres instead of yards so we did the whole fucking lot again.
Finally, several hours later, we slumped into the car, both knackered. I turned to this guy and said, “Wow, you are keen. Is that what you want to do when you finish playing – go into coaching?”
He looked at me and said, “Baz, by the time I am 45 I firmly believe I will have been manager of the season in the Premier League.”
It took me all my self-control not to laugh in this poor deluded fellow’s face. And, of course he was wrong – by the time he was 45, David Moyes had been named the LMA Premier League Manager of the Season three times.
It felt great to back in the football fold and, crucially, back in the dressing room. Yes, it was a different dressing room, but in many ways it was just the same – no matter which club, which level, which set of players, the dressing room is reassuringly the same. The same cross-section of personalities – the funny one, the good-looking one, the cocky one, the nervous one (guess who?), the tight one, the crazy one, the one who is aggressive after two pints, the one with the good physique and the one who crawls around the manager. Anybody who has played at any level of football will surely recognise this diverse bunch of characters. And all those superstitions – must go out last, must go out fifth, must put left boot on first, must wear same underpants if we won the last game. Ridiculous and pointless, but try telling that to the players. It’s just so bloody important to win the games, to guarantee a good week ahead, that players cling on to anything, no matter how bizarre.
One lad had a particularly strange superstition. When the dressing room bell went, I had to throw him the smelling salts. Not pass them, throw them. I had erroneously passed them on a few occasions and he had become quite irate, almost as if I had, at that moment and by that deed, destroyed his chances of playing well. Crazy I know, but it meant the world to him, so I made sure I threw him the smelling salts (not passed them) just after the bell went (not before).
Unfortunately, he had a poor run of form, lost his place in the team and was consequently given a free transfer at the end of the season. He drifted into non-league football and became depressed. Sadly, his marriage broke up and he was unemployed. He asked Gary Peters if he could play in a few reserve games for us just to keep fit, as his non-league team had also let him go. So, a year after he was first released, he came back for a game in the second team.
You know what’s coming, don’t you? Sure enough, I had long forgotten about his ritual and handed him the smelling salts.
“Fuck me, Baz, fuck me. Throw me the fucking things, don’t pass them to me!”
Only in football.
‘Proud Preston’ – a proud club with a proud history, and a proud physio – had always had a great fan base and everybody was buzzing as they kicked off their first match of the new era.
Our first game of the 1995/96 season was at home to Lincoln City. The first time I ran on to tend to a player I got a fabulous reception – I was choked. Unfortunately, we managed to lose the game 2-1, leaving everyone at the club with that ‘put the suits away’ feeling. I was starting to think I might be football’s equivalent of Jonah. Was it my fault things kept going wrong at the clubs I worked for?
Fortunately, we recovered and won the league by a country mile – clinched at Leyton Orient the following May. Simultaneously, the huge and impressive new main stand, named after Preston legend Sir Tom Finney, with a brilliant mosaic of his head and shoulders made out of different coloured seats, was completed.
The success was great for the club, the town and me. Wild celebrations, champagne, and an open-top bus to the Town Hall. It was the first taste of success I’d had in nearly a decade. I could get used to this.
Personally, it was a great year. I had only been at the club a couple of weeks when Gary Peters called me into his office and told me he was absolutely delighted with both me and my particular brand of physiotherapy, and so were the players. He gave me a £100 per week pay rise and a special one-year ‘rollover’ contract to ensure I couldn’t leave and go anywhere else without giving the club a year’s written notice.
Was I happy? What do you think?
Professionally, it was going really well. I did all the conditioning work as well and even took the reserves for training. Perfection. I even played in a lot of the reserve matches that season, as well as tending to the players during games. I would put my physio bag on the halfway line and, if one of the players got injured, I would run to the touchline, pick up my bag and run back to the stricken player. What about if I got injured? I suppose we would have been in the shit, but it never happened thankfully.
I was playing really well in the reserves in centre midfield, but I felt a bit guilty because my career was over and I didn’t want to stand in the way of the development of the young players at the club who needed those reserve games. I shared my concerns with Gary Peters and, reluctantly, he saw my point of view, but insisted I remained at least a substitute for the games. That seemed like a reasonable compromise.
In the next reserve game at Deepdale, though, Kevin Kilbane, who was only a teenager himself at the time, sprained his ankle quite badly. I carried him down the tunnel to the medical room and carefully removed his boot to assess the injury.
Gary Peters burst into the
dressing room in a highly agitated state – Kevin, who went on to become a regular for the Republic of Ireland and play for several Premier League clubs, was Preston’s greatest asset.
“Don’t worry, boss,” I said. “It looks worse than it is. It’s not broken, only sprained.”
“I don’t give a fuck! Stop fucking about with him and get your shin pads on, you are going on.”
That was typical Gary Peters – no nonsense, hard as nails, but still an exceptionally good manager who achieved good things with Preston.
That whole season was a roaring success. The players responded to my style of physiotherapy – energy, hard work, enthusiasm, fun and positivity. The same treatment room which had been a dungeon for me as a player was now a vibrant, noisy centre of optimism and hope.
I worked 358 days that year (virtually part-time compared to Halifax Town) and I can honestly say I enjoyed every one. Everything had worked out so well and I looked forward to the next season with great anticipation.
When you mention Preston North End, the first thing most people say, even now more than 50 years since he last graced Deepdale, is, “Tom Finney – the Preston Plumber.”
He was, is, and always will be the heart of this great club. He might have come from a different era, a different world, but his skills, grace and humility have transcended time.
Even then, well into his 70s, Sir Tom was incredibly switched on and knowledgable about the modern game. He used to come into Deepdale every Friday afternoon to sit in his office and go through his mail. He was given his own little office as a mark of respect, a reaching out to a distant, bygone era – plus he received 90 per cent of the club’s frigging mail.
Quiet, yet friendly, he was always the perfect gentleman. And modest? I’ll say. Many people whose football knowledge spans the post-war period agree he was probably England’s best-ever footballer. What an accolade. England’s best-ever footballer.
The story goes that, at his peak, if he was injured and therefore unable to play, the club wouldn’t announce the teams until very late on the day of the game after most people had already entered the stadium, otherwise thousands would not have turned up for the match. When I was at Birmingham City, the same strategy was used if I was playing.
When I was a Preston player back in the late ’80s, Sir Tom was the ‘victim’ of the TV show, This is your Life. As current employees of the club, we were invited on to the show to sit on the stage in our kit. As you can imagine, we felt a little bit awkward, to say the least. The show wasn’t live, though, and just as the host, Michael Aspel, was about to start proceedings, the floor manager shouted, “Stop, stop. Make-up, put some powder on that bald bloke’s head, it is reflecting off the cameras and spoiling the picture.”
How embarrassed was I? It gave the audience a great laugh, though.
The marvellous thing about Sir Tom was his humility and complete lack of resentment towards the modern players – most of whom would not have been fit to lace his boots, yet even the most modest of them was earning many times more than he ever did.
One story perfectly sums Sir Tom up. He would often pop into the medical room when I was the physio to see how things were going and ask after my health and my family’s health. One day, he had some guests over from America and brought them down to the medical room to show them around. As they left, I could hear Sir Tom say to them, “That’s Baz, the physio, he’s doing a really good job. He was also a very good player when he played for us. He always got stuck in and gave 100 per cent.”
How’s that for humility then? Sir Tom Finney telling other people what a good player I was.
Those seven years at Preston were idyllic. Again, I accepted the almost impossible workload, safe in the knowledge my acceptance of this, in combination with my highly personalised and successful style of physiotherapy, would take me to the top. Bank Holidays, Easter, New Year’s Day – they were all working days but I wasn’t complaining. It was marvellous. The club was on the move. The momentum and force were with us. More and more fans were returning to see Proud Preston and it was a great honour to be a part of the club at that time.
There were so many highlights at Preston. Here are just a few:
1995/96 season
Third Division champions! Incredible scenes and memories, as bumper crowds flocked to Deepdale again. We had an open-top bus parade to the town hall steps. There was also the opening of the fantastic new Tom Finney Stand and, best of all, an end-of-season trip to Magaluf. It had been ten years since I had last staggered around those mean streets with Garns and the rest of the Rovers lads.
1996/97 season
A season of consolidation in the Second Division. Plans were approved for the new Bill Shankly Stand behind the goals, complete with a brand new, state-of-the art fitness club. The momentum and Baxi’s backing continued to drive the club forward. I got a good pay rise. The club were really treating me very well.
1997/98 season
Gary Peters’s reign ended when he resigned early in 1998 as momentum stalled and Baxi PLC became impatient at the lack of progress. The team were in a sticky position in the New Year, but David Moyes took over and steadied the ship.
1998/99 season
The first full season of the reign of ‘King David’ brought instant results. We reached the play-offs, where we lost to Gillingham, but the Deepdale bandwagon was back on course. The club acquired its own training ground, so there was no longer any need to get changed at Deepdale and drive to the local park to train. I was still working long hours and earned another decent pay rise. Moyes was driving everybody on – especially himself.
1999/2000 season
Second Division champions! We were back on the open-top bus, back at the town hall steps and, most importantly, back in Magaluf. Work started on the third part of the ground – the Alan Kelly Stand (they must be leaving the Mick Rathbone stand until last). The club was a giant snowball getting ever bigger as it rolled downhill. Moyes was relentless. I received yet another pay rise, as well as several offers of jobs at bigger clubs, but I wasn’t interested – I was enjoying it too much at Preston and there was still much to achieve. I was still working every minute, but enjoying every minute.
2000/01 season
The snowball rolled all the way to the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff for the play-off final against Bolton Wanderers and the ultimate prize – a place in the Premier League.
That was my biggest game as a physio (or a player) so far – 60,000 fans, live TV, huge stakes, massive media attention, new tracksuits and new kit, all fresh, all ironed and all laid out in the palatial dressing rooms at the Millennium Stadium. But don’t worry, those smells were still there, the smells I had grown up with.
It was an absolutely fantastic experience, but we didn’t perform on the day and lost 3-0. After the game, I couldn’t help feeling that the Preston star that had burned so brightly and with such vigour had probably reached its zenith and must surely dim and fall back down to earth.
Money talks, especially in football, and Baxi’s money had propelled the club from the depths of the bottom division to within 90 minutes of the ultimate prize. However, that final step – up into the Premier League – and more importantly, the ability to survive and prosper there, took the kind of finances Preston and Baxi just didn’t have.
I got another pay rise, though, and as always, was still working every hour and still loving every minute. Who is that woman? She looks familiar . . . oh, it’s my wife!
2001/02 season
Given what we’d achieved the previous season, this was a slightly disappointing year, but by no means a disgrace.
The snowball was starting to melt. In March 2002, Moyes left for Everton. It was the end of an era. He was temporarily replaced by assistant Kelham O’Hanlon. I did think of putting in my own CV for David’s job but ‘Previous Management Experience: Relegation from the Football League’ doesn’t look too good.
The measure of my success through those years was parked on
my driveway. In my first season, it was a clapped-out, ten-year-old Ford Fiesta van with more than 200,000 miles on the clock. Then, after the initial promotion, it was updated to a white Seat Ibiza with our sponsors’ name on the side. Promotion to the next tier was marked by a Rover 216 (alarm, central locking, metallic paint) before it was replaced with the final reassurance of my importance, the BMW Coupé complete with cruise control. Fucking cruise control – can you believe it? OK, I never actually used it, but at least I had it.
On reflection, that period at Preston was a sharp learning curve in terms of acquiring the knowledge and expertise required to be a successful Premier League physiotherapist. Working all those hours – alone, in terms of medical support – somewhat isolated at times, and having to make all the big decisions regarding the management of the injuries on my own was a real test of my competence and expertise.
Looking back now, having spent a glorious eight years as head of the medical department at Everton, with their comprehensive medical and sports science teams and instant access to scans and the finest orthopaedic specialists in the world, it all seems a very far cry from those distant days at Preston where I had a much longer job description, to say the least.
In a way, though, I preferred the set-up back then when “good old Baz” did all the jobs, because it gave me that air of indispensability which, due to my borderline low self-esteem personality, I really embraced and thrived upon. It’s so different in the Premier League, where there is a fully qualified practitioner for every facet of the job. This complete polar opposite, in terms of staffing levels, reminds me of when Preston signed Colin Hendry on loan from Premier League side Bolton in 2002.
The Smell of Football Page 18