by Paul Lake
‘Bit peckish are we, Lakey?’ said Mel staring at the pair of steaming fish suppers. ‘Both for you, eh?’
I nodded, not wanting to land Giddy in the shit.
‘I couldn’t eat the evening meal,’ I lied, gritting my teeth like a ventriloquist to contain my whisky-breath, ‘and I didn’t think it was a good idea to go to bed on an empty stomach.’
With a face like thunder, the director – a fearsome scrap metal dealer by the name of Freddie Pye – demanded that I tell him who I was rooming with, nodding knowingly when I reluctantly admitted that it was Giddy. There then followed a long, awkward silence, after which an unsmiling gaffer told me that it was very late, and that we’d continue this conversation the next morning.
‘But I will say this, Lakey, I’m not happy,’ he said sternly, ‘not happy at all.’
I had a terrible sleepless night. Wracked with guilt and worry, I was absolutely petrified that this slipping of standards was going to get me fired from the side and fined to high heaven. Also keeping me awake was the fact that Giddy – who’d knocked himself out with two sleeping pills – was lying on top of the TV controls which meant that every time he shifted in his sleep, the TV would either turn off or on. I didn’t dare get up to retrieve the remote – let sleeping Scousers lie, I always say – and there was no way I was going to go fumbling under his backside. I was in enough trouble as it was.
At 10.25 the next morning, a bright-eyed Giddy was on the phone to his wife, exchanging small talk about the family and the weather and whatnot. Hurry up mate, I thought, we’ve got to be downstairs for our pre-match walk in five minutes. Don’t make us late, for Christ’s sake, or else the boss will have our guts for garters.
The clock read 10.31 when we finally reached the foyer, just in time to see the back end of the team bus as it drove off in the direction of a local park. I groaned and held my head in my hands, wondering whether my own journey further and further down Shit Street was ever going to come to an end. Giddy remained as calm as you like, though, turning to me and saying ‘don’t worry, Lakey, I’ll f***in’ sort this, the bastards.’
We were still mooching around the reception area when the coach party returned an hour later.
‘All the best, la’,’ chortled Steve Redmond as he and the rest of the team filed past us, trailed by a furious-looking Mel Machin. The manager marched over and, just as he was about to dole out a spectacular bollocking, in leapt Giddy.
‘I want a f***in’ word with you,’ he growled, taking the wind right out of Mel’s sails. ‘In private, away from the lads, right now.’
Startled, he followed us into the hotel lounge and, as the door shut behind us, Giddy started.
‘How f***in’ dare you drive off without us?’ was his opening salvo, which he followed up with a heart-rending story about how his missus had been seriously ill for the past week, how he’d had a sleepless night worrying about her and how he’d spent ages comforting her on the phone after breakfast, hence our late arrival for the bus.
‘And as for him,’ said Giddy, gesturing in my direction, ‘this poor lad has done f*** all wrong, other than wanting some fish and chips last night and waiting around for me this morning. And I’ll tell you this for nothing, Gaffer; if you think that me and Lakey are going to play for you today, you can f***in’ think again.’
At which point I nearly wet my pants.
Thanks to Giddy’s tissue of whoppers, though, not only did Mel immediately and profusely apologise to the pair of us, but he also agreed not to take things further. Our names remained on the team sheet and, with the air cleared and our arses saved, both Giddy and I played our part in beating Swindon 4–3 later that day.
I never got another chance to room with the long-haired livewire from Liverpool as Giddy moved to Stoke City at the end of the season. Though I’ve never seen or heard from him since, I’ll never forget the mischievous wink that he gave me as we boarded the coach back home.
By the beginning of November 1987, City were firmly wedged mid-table in the Second Division. Our progress was being hampered by patchy, unpredictable form which led to victories over Leicester City and Bradford City being cancelled out by defeats by Hull City and Ipswich Town. A lack of goals wasn’t the problem; even I managed to score one away at Valley Parade. It was our shaky, leaky defending that was clearly letting the side down.
In the circumstances, the 20,000 or so supporters who headed for Maine Road on Saturday 7 November for City versus Huddersfield Town probably wouldn’t have been bursting with excitement. We certainly hadn’t been setting the world alight and Malcolm Macdonald’s men were down in the Second Division doldrums, so a mass feeling of apathy amongst our fans would have been more than understandable.
The match started off as a tight, tense and evenly matched affair until Neil McNab broke the deadlock in the 12th minute with a scorching left-foot strike. The players embraced our number 10 while the home fans celebrated in the stands, none of us possibly knowing that we were on the verge of one of City’s most celebrated scorelines. Neily’s net-buster had effectively opened the floodgates, and by the interval we were 4–0, courtesy of further goals from Paul Stewart, Tony Adcock and David White. The fans enjoying their half-time Bovril must have been delighted with proceedings. However, I wouldn’t have blamed any of them having a flutter on a score draw at one of the nearby betting stands, such was our inconsistency at that time.
As it happened, anyone waging a tenner on a 10–1 thrashing would have collected a tidy little windfall. The second half was the most one-sided 45 minutes that I’ve ever played in, a masterclass of neat passing, sublime touches, blistering pace and superb finishing. Huddersfield simply crumbled under the pressure, unable to withstand the onslaught from a City team on fire. Eric Nixon in goal was rarely troubled but remained steadfast. Ahead of him, Reddo and Giddy kept us rock-solid in defence. Further upfield, Paul Simpson was our chief linchpin, controlling the midfield brilliantly and acting as provider extraordinaire. And spearheading the attack was our top-notch trio of White (great pace), Stewart (great power) and Adcock (great touch), whose well-deserved hat-tricks helped us coast our way to double figures. As the match neared its conclusion, a chant of ‘we want 11’ rang out from the Kippax Stand.
I felt awful for our opponents as the final whistle blew. It was great to participate in such an exhilarating goal rush, but I didn’t enjoy witnessing the humiliation of fellow professionals. The Huddersfield players seemed utterly shell-shocked as they traipsed off the pitch – goalkeeper Brian Cox looked inconsolable – and their post-match changing room must have had all the atmosphere of your average funeral parlour. I remember City’s commercial manager, Geoff Durbin (a man rarely lost for words) admitting he didn’t know what the hell to say to his ashen-faced Huddersfield counterpart when they met up after the game.
In contrast, the travelling Terriers fans seemed to have an absolute blast, celebrating wildly when Andy May – City’s former midfielder – converted their consolation penalty, and doing the conga around the Platt Lane Stand when we notched up our tenth.
Our goalfest dominated the back pages the next day. PERFECT 10 and BLUES BLAZE TO 10–1 WIN boomed the headlines, with most newspapers featuring a photo of our hat-trick heroes gripping the lucky match ball. The club took full advantage of our feat by rushing out in the space of a week a commemorative 10–1 video to flog in the souvenir shop. And, with our confidence buoyed, three days later we thrashed Plymouth 6–2 in the first round of the Simod Cup, and went on to clinch consecutive wins against Reading, Watford and Birmingham City.
The Watford game, a fourth-round Littlewoods Cup tie, was a turning point in my career. We’d convincingly beat the Hornets 3–1, and it had proved to be one of those Midas touch matches in which everything had seemed to go right for me. Neily and I had dictated the midfield throughout, and I’d capped off an accomplished performance by skinning two Watford defenders, sidestepping the keeper and laying on Whitey’s second goal.
> In the days that followed, many nice things were written about me in the media. I’d been used to receiving a moderate amount of attention from the Denton Reporter and the Manchester Evening News, but attracting rave reviews in the national press was a different kettle of fish altogether. Seeing my name headlined in Dad’s Sunday Mirror and reading the legendary Malcolm Allison describe me as ‘the big talent at Maine Road’ in the Daily Express was a bit bizarre, to be honest, but nice all the same.
Before long, stories began to circulate that City’s youngsters were attracting the attention of the country’s top clubs. One article, headed THE BARNES BABES, featured photographs of me, Bob Brightwell, David White, Steve Redmond and Paul Simpson with price tags slapped onto our foreheads – I was valued highest at £600,000 – and rumour had it that Liverpool boss Kenny Dalglish and his Spurs counterpart, Terry Venables, were making undercover scouting missions to check us out. Although very flattering, this paper talk never distracted me. I was blissfully happy with my lot at Maine Road, and fleeing the nest was the last thing on my mind.
Mr Dalglish got another chance to watch us at Maine Road (this time without his Groucho Marx disguise) when, later that season, we were paired up against Liverpool in the quarter-final of the FA Cup. It had been quite an eventful journey to the last eight, not least the fourth-round tie against Blackpool at Bloomfield Road in which I scored the flukiest goal of my career, an injury-time equaliser that earned us a home replay. I remember bustling in the ball through a muddy scrum of players, and somehow managing to squeeze it between a defender and the post from five yards out.
There were scenes of confusion after the final whistle as a couple of my team-mates tried to claim that theirs had been the final touch, not mine. I was having none of it, though. Goals for me were rarer than golden nuggets, and I wasn’t having this one nicked right from under my nose. I stated my case in the simplest terms possible (‘Oi! I f***in’ scored that!’) until the cheeky sods agreed that my name should go down as the goalscorer.
Back in the 1980s, sometimes the only way a scrambled goal could be accredited (especially if the referee’s view had been obscured) was by relying on good old-fashioned player honesty. Before BSkyB entered the sporting fray, there weren’t any zoom-lens cameras tracking us from every angle. Without the benefit of close-ups and instant replays (and before the days of names on shirts to aid identification) it would often boil down to a team-mate saying ‘yep, it was me,’ or admitting ‘nah, it was him,’ to determine the goalscorer.
Sadly but inevitably, Liverpool snuffed out our FA Cup dreams by trouncing us 4–0 at Maine Road. My misery was compounded by a controversial penalty decision early in the second half. Craig Johnston – a brilliant player who possessed whippet-like pace and a poodle-perm hairdo – had launched yet another Liverpool counter-attack. As he penetrated the penalty area I’d managed to get my foot in front of him and hook the ball away, but in doing so my flailing arm had inadvertently knocked into the small of his back. Johnston fell to the ground as if he’d been shot, the referee pointed to the penalty spot, and Peter Beardsley calmly slotted it past our on-loan goalie, Mike Stowell, to make it 2–0. It was pretty much game over from then on. Despite our young, fit and competitive side being well up for the challenge, we were never realistically going to claw back a two-goal deficit against the Team of the Decade.
But I learned a lot that day. I learned how it felt to play against a side who knew instinctively how to keep the ball, who were incredibly economical with their passing, who knew how to frustrate their opponents, and who were capable of changing the tempo of the game in an instant. I learned the importance of having experience in your team, with old heads like Alan Hansen and Mark Lawrenson displaying the know-how to absorb early pressure and slowly take control of a game. I learned that, to stand a chance against freakishly talented maestros such as John Barnes and Peter Beardsley, I’d have to be 100 per cent on top of my game, since any slip-up would be punished. I learned that there was a huge gap between the First and Second Divisions, and that we needed to get our act together, big time, in order to secure promotion.
Aside from the penalty fiasco, I felt that I’d done okay against Liverpool, and a variety of pundits and pressmen appeared to agree. It seemed that my reputation was growing and my stock was rising – borne out by a Barclays Young Eagle award in January 1988 – but thankfully I could always rely on the City fans to keep my feet on the ground and my head out of the clouds.
Recovering from a bout of ’flu, I was sidelined for the game against Reading on Easter Monday. I wrapped myself up and went to watch my team-mates in action, opting (for purely nostalgic reasons) to sit in the Main Stand instead of schmoozing with the suited-and-booted in a hospitality lounge. As the teams kicked off, I climbed the steps to the rear of H Block and was met with a few friendly greetings of ‘All right, Lakey,’ as I squeezed past the line of City fans’ laps to reach a spare seat.
It wasn’t the greatest of games, and the natives were starting to get a little restless as half-time approached. Sitting right in front of me was a white-haired old fella who, whenever a City attack broke down, muttered angrily to himself and whacked his knee with a rolled-up programme. After one particularly wayward pass he threw his paper baton to the floor in frustration, pointed at the home dugout and yelled, ‘Get Lake off, Machin! Get bloody Lake off! The lad’s crap!’ As the fans either side of me stifled their giggles, I tapped Old Man Steptoe on the shoulder.
‘I am off, mate,’ I said.
He turned around, squinted at me, glanced back at the pitch, and turned around again.
‘Blimey, that’s the fastest you’ve moved all bloody season,’ he said, before muttering something about getting confused with all the young players that were on City’s books these days. Showing more front than Blackpool, he then asked me to sign his battered programme. It was the least I could do, considering that he’d given me one of the biggest laughs in ages.
It was an anti-climactic end to the 1987–88 campaign. Our inconsistent form and concentration lapses had scuppered any chance of promotion, and we finished a disappointing but deserved ninth in the table. I was also forced to miss the last three games of the season due to a nasty injury sustained against Bradford City, when some lumbering muppet had stamped on my right knee and damaged my medial ligament. It could have been worse – at least I hadn’t broken my leg – but it still meant having to undergo surgery in Manchester to repair the damage, followed by a three-month block of physiotherapy at the National Sports Rehabilitation Centre based in Lilleshall, Shropshire.
To add insult to injury, I’d had no option but to withdraw from two England under-21 matches – I’d been selected to play against Italy and Sweden – and had to sit out City’s summer tours to Australia and Scandinavia. This pissed me off no end. In between my treatments I could be found either moping around the gardens listening to The Smiths on my Discman, nursing a lukewarm coffee at the bar or watching Lilleshall-based Desmond Douglas practise his table tennis skills.
The most exciting moment of my stay in Shropshire was witnessing TV babe Anneka Rice jump from a helicopter onto our practice pitch during a speed session. Wearing a much appreciated skin-tight catsuit, she ran off in hot pursuit of a magic clue for Channel 4’s Treasure Hunt game show.
Lilleshall, for all its downsides, was the best place for me to focus on my fitness and rehab. As well as being a distraction-free zone (apart from Anneka’s peachy buttocks) it also boasted the best physiotherapy team in the country. I was lucky enough to be under the supervision of Grant Downey and Phil Newton, two fantastic physios. While treating my troublesome knee, Grant offered me his considered opinion.
‘Lakey, I don’t think it’s just your medial ligament,’ he said, furrowing his brow. ‘I think you may have slightly tweaked your cruciate ligament as well, mate.’
It was a prophetic statement. Grant and Phil had identified instabilities in my knee that should have, in hindsight, been picked u
p, addressed and remedied at the time of surgery. Unbeknownst to me that day, this would be the first of many trips to Lilleshall.
Fortunately my summer toils paid off, and I was fit enough to report for duty at the start of the 1988–89 league campaign. As well as hooking up with my old pals at Maine Road, it was nice to meet some new faces, notably Andy Dibble, Brian Gayle, Wayne Biggins and Nigel Gleghorn.
As with all new set-ups, it took a good few weeks for us to gel as a team. Our first home game of the season ended in a humiliating 4–1 defeat by Oldham Athletic, a match which I can safely say was one of my worst ever performances in a blue shirt. I had an absolute stinker. Despite scoring our only goal, I was at fault for two of our opponents’ and had to apologise to everyone in the post-match dressing room for the foolish risks and the blind back passes of which I’d been guilty. I like to think that one of the strengths of my game was my ability to learn from my mistakes; I know I definitely did that day.
September, thankfully, was a more consistent month, and we found ourselves edging towards the top half of the table after a five-game winning streak that included a 3–1 defeat of promotion favourites Chelsea. Our good form continued into 1989, the first two months of the year seeing us undefeated in the League.
The game against Hull City on 21 January was a particularly memorable experience for me, thanks to the presence of one of football’s most notorious hard-men. Billy Whitehurst, the Tigers’ centre-forward, was a 6-foot man-mountain who looked like he could burst a ball with his fist, let alone his boot. He was a guy you really didn’t want to mess with.
The match was about five minutes old when I won a clean header. As I did so, however, I drew my elbows back for leverage and felt them connect, as hard as is humanly possible, with the bridge of another player’s nose. When I looked over, to my horror I realised that the victim was none other than William Whitehurst Esq. Oh Christ, I thought, anybody but that f***in’ monster. I nervously glanced over to my centre-half partner, Brian Gayle, who just smiled, made the sign of the cross and jogged off.