The Smell of Football

by Mick 'Baz' Rathbone

  Undoubtedly, part of the reason for my increasing discontentment was nothing more sinister than me experiencing a degree of ‘burnout’. I could readily accept that, at nearly 51 years of age, because of the long hours I had been working for so many years, the job had to take its toll on me eventually. I was tired all the time, even in the morning. Permanently and chronically knackered. I started pulling into Charnock Richard service station again. I didn’t go there to stand on the hill and admire my Jag (it was a Merc now anyway) as I had done seven years previously; ironically, I was pulling in for a fucking kip. I would drive to the far side of the car park, recline my seat fully, switch off my phone, pull my cap over my eyes and, just like the rest of the clapped-out sods in my row, drift off for an hour or so.

  It was more than that, though. The game was changing, becoming ever more serious. The pressure on clubs to win and secure their places in the Premier League had become all-consuming, to the point that it was a rarity to see anybody smile during a game.

  At the same time, the foreign players’ personal physios, osteopaths and fitness analysts were appearing on the scene and starting to get involved with the management of the injuries. I don’t blame them or the players for that. If I had been playing in Spain or France and got an injury, I would have been keen to be looked after by English medical people I knew and trusted. While I understood it and accepted it, I didn’t really like it and felt undermined and dispensable (as you know, I do not like being dispensable).

  One particular day when I walked into the medical room proved to be a seminal moment. Tim Cahill was having some soft tissue work from his Aussie physio, Mikel Arteta was getting a deep massage from his Spanish physio, and Johnny Heitinga was chatting on the telephone to his Dutch osteopath.

  Now, once again, let me make things clear. These guys were doing good work on the players and giving them the individual attention our medical staff couldn’t. I know the players felt much better prepared for the games with this additional therapy, and all three were playing really well at the time.

  It just didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel like my medical room any more. Add to that the fact Sylvain Distin was in Nice at the time getting treatment and I suppose I just felt redundant, and not valued.

  Don’t get me wrong – those players were all top blokes and I loved working with them, but I realised, at that moment, that the game had moved beyond me. Standing in that doorway, looking into my medical room and realising my ways and methods were becoming anachronistic and obsolete was a chastening experience. I felt like I was the last of the Mohicans, except my hairstyle was more of a reverse Mohican.

  A lot of the fun seemed to be going out of the game. I know it is important to win, just as it had been back in the ’70s and ’80s. But now the financial ramifications for losing were so colossal. They were putting so much pressure on everybody to win that it felt stifling at times. This pressure permeated its way from the manager through to the players and right down to the rest of the staff.

  The all-consuming seriousness was evident on the field. At times, the pressure naturally filtered through to the supporters and gave the whole proceedings an even more threatening atmos phere. Sometimes I looked at the spectators, shouting and screaming and swearing, their eyes filled with hatred, and wondered just what would become of me if I stepped in among them. At times, such was the force of invective directed towards me I believe I would have been torn limb from limb and the bits chucked back on to the side of the pitch. And I wasn’t even the manager.

  When I first started out as a physio, I could have a bit of banter with the punters. They might shout, “Hey mate, give us a drink,” and I would throw them a drink and share a joke with them, but not any more – those days have gone. The football arena is the modern-day Colosseum. Unfortunately, you will have worked out by now that I’m not fucking Maximus.

  In that 2009/10 season with Everton, at one of the London games, I was walking around the far side of the pitch after attending to one of our players when somebody shouted, “Hey mate.” I turned to the direction of the voice only to see a fan with tattoos and earrings glaring at me. (I have got nothing against people with tattoos and earrings – my daughter has both.) He then yelled, “You fucking scouse paedophile,” much to the amusement of the surrounding fans who all laughed and started with the usual routine of vulgar hand gestures that would have made Helen Keller turn in her grave. A couple of kids, in a fantastic display of manual dexterity reminiscent of the late, great Ted Rogers of TV show 3-2-1 fame back in the ’80s, were giving me the V-sign, the wanker sign and the single finger. I must admit I was deeply, deeply upset and offended. What an absolutely terrible thing to call somebody – a scouser (only joking).

  Meanwhile, off the field there was an ever-increasing influx of support staff, such as fitness coaches, sports scientists, statisticians, match analysts and performance directors. It just seemed to me that the game was moving away from the training pitch on to the laptop computer, and we seemed to be spending nearly as much time in meetings as we were actually kicking a ball about.

  Perhaps that is more a criticism of me, rather than them, for not adapting to the times. The guys who came to Everton were only trying to do the same as me and earn a living for their families. They were all really good at their jobs and good people too. But I didn’t enjoy this new modern environment half as much. I am old-fashioned, I have old-fashioned ways and old-fashioned beliefs. I didn’t really like to work in a big team where I wasn’t in complete control. I missed the days when Baz was the fitness coach, the masseur and the chiropodist. That golden age when Baz did all the jobs, that magic moment back in 2002 when David Moyes, Colin Hendry and I laughed at how an ex-player could be a ‘jack of all trades’, had finally gone. It had given me that air of indispensability that my personality and low self-esteem, required. I needed to be needed.

  By the end of the 2010 season, my built-in clock was telling me that my football journey was over and it was time to do something different (maybe write a book). I parted company with Everton in May 2010, amicably and with a handshake (and a few hugs), and that was it. Thirty-five years of working in professional football had come to an end.

  On the way out of Everton’s training ground on my final day – May 14, 2010 – I stepped into the dressing room for the last time, for one last whiff of nostalgia. Ironically, because the lads were off until the end of June, the rooms had been thoroughly cleaned with disinfectant and so, for the first time in so many years, when I closed my eyes and inhaled, the smells that had accompanied me on my journey and played such a big part in my life were no longer there.

  Now that is fate.

  POSTSCRIPT

  Final Thoughts

  JIM SMITH

  Manager at Birmingham City

  “Baz was a very honest young man and a very good player with great potential. He had the ability, but he was also a very sensitive lad and he struggled with the mental side of the game. I think the fact that he was a local lad playing for the local team made things much tougher for him, the pressure of playing in front of your family and all your old schoolmates on top of everything else.

  “I know he was in awe of Trevor Francis, but to be honest we all were – when you’ve got a player of that calibre then everyone is living in his shadow to a certain extent. He was a superstar, and as a Brummie lad Mick knew exactly how much of a hero he was to the whole city.

  “I remember Baz’s debut for Birmingham City – we lost 4-0 to Norwich and the next week we were playing Liverpool. He knocked on the door of my office in the week and said, ‘I can’t play against Liverpool.’ His nerves were shredded. I told him, ‘You’ve got to play!’.

  “He just didn’t believe in himself, which was a great shame because he had the talent. I remember very well that day when he put his hand up after I’d said if anyone doesn’t want to play for the club let me know. I knew he’d been through a tough time so all I could do was put my arm round him and, for the best i
nterests of the player and the club, find him somewhere where he would be happy. He went to a good club and did very well.

  “And, thinking about it, I am not surprised that he went on to have such success as a physio. Baz was always a very bright and caring lad – in fact that was probably his problem.

  “People say he is a very funny man. Well, yes, he was very funny indeed in his time at Birmingham . . . mainly when he was on the football pitch!”

  HOWARD KENDALL

  Team-mate at Birmingham City and player-manager at Blackburn Rovers

  “Baz was a little bit different from other footballers. At Birmingham, I remember he would come in on Sunday mornings for treatment even though he wasn’t injured. And he used to call himself all sorts of different names. I’ve no idea why . . .

  “In my first game as Blackburn Rovers’ player-manager, Baz got sent off – for swearing at a linesman, I think. I wasn’t impressed. I had to make an impact so I tore into him in the dressing room in front of the other players, told him he was suspended for a month. A few days later, I realised I needed my full back back, so I asked the players if they thought he’d served long enough. Luckily for me, they said yes!

  “I’d never have imagined Baz would get into the medical side of the game – full credit to him. I thought he was more likely to get locked up!”

  DEREK FAZACKERLEY

  Team-mate at Blackburn Rovers

  “When he arrived from Birmingham City as a young lad who’d played a few games in the First Division he settled in very well and was a real asset both on and off the pitch. He was a very good player and a remarkable athlete.

  “One thing I’ll always remember about Baz is that he always used to bring his dog, Max, a big German shepherd, to training. The gaffer did, too – he had a little highland terrier or something called Skippy. We just trained in a public park in those days so they’d literally just drive up, let the dogs out and they’d run around when we trained. Sometimes they’d join in the training matches if we were short of players. One time, in the middle of training, there was a great big yelping and we saw that Skippy had been attacked by a greyhound. Baz went flying over there as fast as he could and booted the greyhound in the bollocks. The greyhound dropped Skippy and ran off, but that was the end of training because the Gaffer had to take him to the vet. Can you imagine this sort of thing going on in the modern world of football?

  “Everything Baz did he did with his whole heart and soul. But I remember that as well as being very funny, with the joke more often than not on himself, he could also be very down at times – especially if we lost. It was like everything was to the extreme with him, the highs were really high and the lows really low. One minute he would be down, the next he’d be laughing and joking away. He definitely had an issue with confidence and sometimes questioned his playing ability – perhaps we all did, which is why we were playing at that level and not the First Division – which is why I admire him so much for what he has achieved, particularly after he stopped playing. I think the measure of the man is that he has always been prepared to tackle his demons head-on, throwing himself into the deep end when the easier option would have been not to. He is very highly respected in football for what he achieved as a physio at Preston and Everton, and in writing this book and standing up in front of people giving talks and lectures he continues to challenge himself and push himself to the limit.”

  BOB SAXTON

  Manager at Blackburn Rovers

  “Ah yes, I remember that day when Baz rescued Skippy . . . and it was two greyhounds not one. I don’t blame the greyhounds, that’s how they’re brought up, but as soon as he saw was what was happening Baz took off. He must have covered those 150 yards in record time and he absolutely leathered those greyhounds. What a great man.

  “I can honestly say that in 50 years of football he is in the top three fittest players I ever came across. He was an incredible athlete, a fitness fanatic and had great ability on the ball for a full back. He was a great pro and he and Noel [Brotherston] on the left were as good a partnership as you’d ever get at that level. They were great years and we probably over-achieved as a team because of the spirit in the team. Baz was always at the heart of it, of course, laughing and joking, acting the goat.

  “I can’t say that I could have predicted that he’d go on to great things, but he must have put everything into his career as a physio that he put into his career as a player, because you don’t get to work at a club like Everton for as long as he did without being the very, very best. I once heard that the lads at Everton were terrified of getting injured because it meant they’d have to go running with Baz, which was not only hard work but the chances were he’d show them up by being fitter than them.”

  LES CHAPMAN

  Team-mate/assistant manager at Preston North End

  “When Baz arrived at Preston he was always honest, super-fit and a real team player – you could always rely on him to give everything for his team-mates and the team – but most of all I just remember how funny he was. He was always laughing and joking and he had a great way with the English language.

  “Of course, we played together under Big John McGrath, and one of the funniest moments I can remember from Baz’s career at Preston was during an away game somewhere down south, I can’t remember the game exactly. Baz was sub, and I was on the bench with him with Big John. Baz was such a fitness fanatic and so keen and dedicated that he spent virtually the entire match warming up, jogging up and down the touchline so he was ready if and when he was called upon. After about 50 minutes, during which he’d been literally warming up the whole time, I looked down the touchline and saw a kid ask him for an autograph, so he stopped to sign the lad’s programme. At exactly this moment Big John decided to make a change, looked away from the action, and there’s Baz signing this kid’s autograph.

  “‘Look at him!’ exclaimed Big John, ‘He’s just fucking stood there!’

  PETER WRAGG

  Joint-manager at Halifax Town

  “Until Baz wrote it in this book, I had absolutely no idea that I was appointed as joint-manager at Halifax above his head. What happened was that I knew Paul Kendall who worked at Halifax from my days as boss at Macclesfield. After they got relegated to the Vauxhall Conference, I was getting nightly phone calls from Paul and others at the club asking for advice on how to prepare for non-league football. They desperately wanted to bounce straight back into the league. The calls were sometimes lasting two, three hours and in the end, they said, ‘This is ridiculous – why don’t you come in for a chat.’

  “I’d been managing clubs part-time for 25 years, and they said, ‘You’ve never been full-time. Why don’t you have a go?’ If I’d known that Baz wasn’t happy about sharing managerial duties that would have been a real problem for me. It’s to his great credit that once I was given the job, Baz never made any issue of that and was nothing but supportive.

  “Taking the job was the worst decision of my life. The whole thing was a nightmare. We didn’t have a secretary, couldn’t use the facilities at The Shay because they were rented out and, when I arrived, they only had about three players left, and they were all youngsters. Despite that we beat Bradford and Grimsby to win a summer tournament, but then a week before the start of the season, they sold our goalkeeper and number nine to Bury. A lot of the promises made to myself and Baz were broken.

  “I badly needed Baz. I was always worrying, but he was so exuberant and enthusiastic, he kept me going. He played a few games for me, even though he didn’t really want to. He was such a great athlete – like Geronimo, much fitter than the other lads. And such was his fitness and enthusiasm, the first 20 minutes of every game he was so busy following the ball he seemed to forget what I’d asked him to do!

  “We did manage to beat West Brom 2-1 in the FA Cup that year, live on Sky, but a month later the chairman called me in and that was that. We’d drawn too many games in the league – I always tell Baz it was the games he played in! It
was a nightmare at the time, but we’ve had a lot of laughs since.”

  BRIAN HICKSON

  Kit man at Preston North End

  “I was kit man at Preston when Baz came back as physio. That was it, we were the backroom staff – just me and him and 16 players piling onto a minibus for reserve matches or a coach if we were with the first team.

  “We had such a laugh, with Baz testing out his after-dinner speeches of the future on me, telling me all his stories. He was a top, top bloke and I just remember laughing and laughing with him, on the coach, at games. One time we played Birmingham in a play-off semi-final at Deepdale and we saw Jasper Carrot going into their changing room with a load of Cristal champagne. We told him we thought that was jumping the gun a bit but he said, ‘It’s in the bag, it’s in the bag’. Anyway we won, and after the game we saw Jasper and we were saying, ‘We’ll take that Cristal off your hands, mate, tenner a case?’ and just laughing and laughing.

  “But at the same time he was the ultimate pro. You could tell he would go on to bigger and better things. He was so good with the players, not just as a physio but putting an arm round them if they were a bit low, keeping morale up . . . everybody loved him.

  “He was the fittest man in the world, too, and the players always used to say, ‘Don’t get injured, Baz will run you into the ground.’ We used to call him Forrest Gump because he just never stopped running.

  “I always knew he’d go on to bigger and better things. He was such a committed man, he put everything he had into everything he did, and I remember him telling me that he went to Everton because he wanted to challenge himself at the very top. He did that, but he never changed as a person, he never lost touch with his old mates and when you see him he’s always asking how you’re doing. He’s just a great bloke.”

  CHRIS LUCKETTI

  Captain at Halifax

  “When Baz came to Halifax I just recall that he was a very likeable guy who won all the players over straightaway – although we all felt that he liked it when players were injured because it meant he could take them running and keep himself fit. But seriously, that side of things was incredible, and players appreciated that here was a physio who wouldn’t just say, ‘Go and do a 30-minute run’, he’d do it with you and more than likely beat you.