I’m Not Really Here

by Paul Lake

Wrighty, with his incredible eye for goal, was the best attacker in the division, bar none. If the prospect of shadowing him wasn’t daunting enough, his partner up front just happened to be the sublime Mark Bright. Not since the great Liverpool double-act of Kevin Keegan and John Toshack had two strikers displayed such telepathy. Steve Redmond and I had to psych ourselves up more than ever that day; it was our job to contain the league’s deadliest duo and the outcome of the game was probably going to rest upon our shoulders.

  For the most part we succeeded in putting the brakes on the Wright ’n’ Bright roadshow, and by half-time we were 1–0 up. But, as is the case when you’re up against top-class marksmen, you can’t give them an inch, whether it’s in the first minute, the 41st minute or the last minute. With only a quarter of an hour of the game remaining I made the fatal mistake of allowing Wrighty to peel off me. He was able to swivel and whack the ball into the top corner, past the outspread arms of makeshift goalie Nigel Gleghorn who, ten minutes before half-time, had been forced to replace an injured Andy Dibble between the sticks. Final score: 1–1.

  I was furious after the game, punching the wall and berating myself for being at fault for an equaliser that had caused us to drop two valuable points. It was Neil McNab who calmly sat me down and tried to put everything into perspective, telling me not to beat myself up about a daft yet uncharacteristic error.

  ‘You had the better of a quality striker for most of the game, Lakey, and you’ve just got to learn from it.’

  ‘But if I’d have kept a tighter check on Wrighty we’d be as good as up by now …’

  ‘Listen, mate. You and Reddo kept their chances to pretty much one shot, and that was with Gleggy in nets, don’t forget. Don’t be too hard on yourself. I know you’re feeling like shit. But use your anger as a positive, if you can. Do whatever it takes so you don’t have to feel like this again.’

  I managed to exorcise my demons in time for the following game against Bournemouth at Maine Road. An assured first-half performance was capped with a brace of goals from Paul Moulden and a poacher’s strike from Trevor Morley. Our promotion was almost within touching distance, and so buoyant was our mood that we almost danced a Highland fling up the tunnel at half-time. Adding to our glee was the fact that the club had promised us an immediate, no-expense-spared holiday abroad if we were to secure the three points, and as such were prepared to field a second-string side for what would be a meaningless final game of the season.

  As we back-slapped each other in the dressing room and mentally packed our suitcases, a typically low-key Mel Machin expressed caution and warned us against complacency. But then a mischievous grin played across his face as he informed us that he’d arranged for one of his pals to give us a quick motivational pep-talk. What do we need this for? We’re three up, for chrissakes, I remember thinking, wondering which former colleague of the gaffer’s was going to get wheeled out.

  From the direction of Roy Bailey’s physio room toddled Eddie Large, the Mancunian funnyman and City fanatic who, in those days, was a huge primetime TV star along with his weedy sidekick, ‘Supersonic’ Syd Little. What followed was the most surreal half-time team talk I’ve ever experienced. Eddie, wearing a shiny grey showbiz suit with rolled-up sleeves, proceeded to dole out individual advice to each of the players using his well-known repertoire of celebrity impersonations. So Deputy Dawg ordered me to keep tight in defence; Frank Carson told Neily to use the width and pace of Whitey; Cliff Richard advised Trevor Morley to shoot on sight; Harold Wilson told Bob Brightwell to keep it simple and Benny from Crossroads told Andy Dibble to stay awake.

  If only the Cat had heeded Benny’s advice. He conceded three goals in the second half (no thanks to a defensive horror show in the final ten minutes, and a Bournemouth midfielder by the name of Ian Bishop running rings round us) and the sure-fire win that we’d assumed at the interval finished up as a sorry score draw. Mel’s mystifying decision to take off inform Paul Moulden at the interval probably hadn’t helped matters, but we were all to blame for a pathetic second-half display. After the match we sat in the changing rooms, dumbstruck, half expecting Eddie Large to come back in and do his Oliver Hardy impression.

  ‘Well boys, that’s another fine mess you’ve got yourselves into …’

  I suppose we were just carrying on the time-honoured City tradition of doing things the hard way. Our hot ’n’ cold, harum-scarum form meant that the significant lead we’d had weeks earlier had been whittled away and we were now in need of a single point from our last game to earn promotion. Our Day of Destiny – the away match against Bradford City on 13 May 1989 – loomed large. In true football lingo, it was going to the wire.

  On the morning of the big match, I got out of bed at eight o’clock and made myself my regulation breakfast of scrambled eggs on toast, swilled down with a mug of PG Tips. On any other Saturday my mum would have been there to prepare the brekkie and pour the tea, but she and Dad had left for London in the early hours. My brother Mike was playing for Macclesfield Town in the final of the FA Challenge Trophy – against Telford United – and my parents had been faced with the awful dilemma of having to decide between watching me at Bradford or Mike at Wembley. The latter prevailed, of course. It wasn’t every day that you got to see your son play in a Wembley cup final and I completely understood their decision.

  ‘But we’ll be keeping tabs on your game on the radio, son,’ assured Dad. ‘We’re banking on a double celebration, aren’t we, Sheila …’

  Once I’d washed, dried and put away the dishes I went upstairs to read the Daily Mirror on the loo for 20 minutes. After a quick shower and a shave, I pressed my new Reiss suit (the threadbare Slaters suit had since walked itself down to my local Oxfam), polished my shoes, knotted my tie and carefully gelled my hair. Once I was all primped and preened I went outside to check the car’s oil, water and petrol levels, my mind playing tricks as I envisioned the scenario of a breakdown causing me to miss the most important match of my life. DOZY LAKE’S NO SHOW screamed an imaginary newspaper headline as I checked the tyres for nails and the engine for a car bomb. I then returned indoors and repolished my shoes, undid and re-knotted my tie and re-gelled my hair.

  Nervous? Me?

  All this OCD behaviour was an attempt to reduce any kind of thinking space which, for me, usually bred anxiety. Like most of my team-mates, I had far too much ‘me time’ for my own good. In a normal week, roughly 20 per cent of my daytime schedule would be devoted to playing or training, but the remainder would invariably be spent at home watching Blackadder videos, mooching around Manchester city centre or whiling away long, boring coach journeys.

  It was during these periods of respite that I was more likely to mull things over and plague myself with worry and paranoia. Do the fans like me? Will we win on Saturday? Do the other lads respect me? Am I justifying my place? Does the manager rate me? Will I get back in the side if I get injured? Will I have a nightmare game and have 30,000 supporters on my back? All these doom-laden thoughts often whirled around my head when I had just my Hitachi VHS toploader for company.

  That morning I didn’t want to give myself a chance to feel any such insecurity, hence all this unnecessary fannying around. Luckily, however, my nerves started to settle once I put the key in the ignition and reversed off the drive. As the engine revved up, so did I, it seemed.

  ‘One last big effort, Lakey,’ I declared out loud as I began the short journey to the Finglands coach depot in Rusholme. ‘C’mon. C’mon. C’mon!’ I yelled, slamming my palms against the steering wheel.

  I climbed onto the Bradford-bound coach and took my seat near to Bob, Mouldy, Hinchy, Whitey and Gerry Taggart. Senior players including Neily, Trevor Morley and Gary Megson had taken their usual places at the back and were already guarding their poker hands. Mel, Dixie and the rest of the coaching staff occupied the front rows, along with a select band of journalists who were permitted to travel with us to matches.

  The conversation may have been trivial
(I remember Gerry and I chuckling at the infamous farm that stubbornly bisects the M62) but, beneath the surface it was very much a case of squeaky bums and churning stomachs. We were hours away from one of the most important games of our lives, a game that we had to win or draw since Crystal Palace were still very much in with a shout. The facts were simple. If we were to lose at Valley Parade, and Palace were able to beat a relegated, demoralised Birmingham City by a margin of four goals, we’d be doomed to the play-offs.

  Of great comfort to the younger lads was the fact that Tony Book and Glyn Pardoe were travelling with us that day. Just their mere presence had a soothing effect. Usually involved with the reserves or youth team on a Saturday, my former mentors had been given special dispensation to accompany us on this journey and it was strangely relaxing to hear their friendly, familiar voices chatting about this, that and everything. The gaffer, like a Trappist monk, remained silent and contemplative the whole time. He’d spent the lead-up to the game talking tactics and lifting spirits and, as far as he was concerned, he’d said all that needed to be said.

  ‘Stay focused, lads,’ he’d stressed earlier that week, drumming into us the importance of remaining mentally strong and steadfast. ‘I can’t tell you how vital it is that you keep your mind on the game.’

  That, as it transpired, was easier said than done as we made our way to Bradford. Maintaining a state of calm proved to be virtually impossible when all we could see out of the coach window was a convoy of Blues in full-blown party mode, with carfuls of fans honking their horns, hanging out of their windows, singing City songs and waving their blow-up toys. I remember seeing a Vauxhall Nova covered in inflatable fried eggs go racing by. Then a Chrysler Sunbeam with a quartet of rubber dolls pressed against each window. Followed by a Volvo estate with a tyrannosaurus rex strapped to the roof-rack. I’d never taken LSD but this was probably the closest thing to an acid trip I was ever likely to experience.

  We did our damndest to remain poker-faced, many of us having to stifle snorts and giggles as this mad motorcade crawled by. The last thing we wanted to do was incur the manager’s wrath on this most important of days. But only someone with a heart of stone and a sense of humour by-pass would have not chuckled at the sight of a grinning City fan sitting in a paddling pool on a pick-up truck. Whoever you are, mate, you made me spit my brew out all over Gerry Taggart.

  Massive congestion problems near the Yorkshire border didn’t help our concentration, either. At one point it didn’t look as though we were going to make it in time for kick-off, and a police escort had to be dispatched to help Derek the driver worm his way through the traffic. Luckily this did the trick and, by 1.30 p.m., we were walking out into the warm spring sunshine to assess the Valley Parade pitch. It wasn’t in the best condition, to put it mildly. We surveyed the dry, dusty and cratered surface with heavy hearts, knowing that it would severely hamper our usual brand of flowing attacking football.

  Hovering around the tunnel area with a camera crew in tow was ex-City boss John Bond, who had been dispatched by Granada TV’s Kick Off to report on the match. Mr Bond had spent the majority of the season slating us in the media and failing to recognise that his former club, on a shoestring budget and featuring a crop of youngsters, had done fantastically well to get to the verge of promotion. His scornful style of punditry hadn’t made him many friends at Maine Road – only the night before he’d been on television saying that City’s young players were nowhere near top-flight standard – and as a result his presence in Bradford that afternoon wasn’t welcomed by us (or the City faithful, for that matter).

  ‘I’m not doing an interview with that ****,’ was the general consensus among the players, and we all proceeded to snub him as he waved his microphone in our direction.

  ‘Er, lads, can I have a quick word?

  ‘You can have two, John. F*** and Off.’

  The City fans, as vociferous as ever, were packed behind the goal as we defended in the first half. Like many sides with nothing much to play for, a relaxed Bradford City started the brighter. There was no demob-happy, end-of-term party with this lot, though, especially with manager Terry Yorath and coach Norman Hunter – two famous winners – egging them on from the dugout. In contrast, we spent the opening minutes beset with nerves. In those early stages we were definitely guilty of thinking far too much about the result, instead of concentrating on the job in hand and heeding the gaffer’s advice to approach it as just another game.

  As we’d suspected, the pock-marked pitch didn’t do us any favours, and the simplest passes ricocheted off the surface at random angles. It was one such dodgy divot that gave Bradford a lucky break in the 24th minute. Mark Ellis pinged a shot across the box, and one fluky bounce and six bobbles later the ball trickled over Paul Cooper’s goal-line to make it 1–0. Strange though it may seem, this goal didn’t send us into a flap; quite the reverse, in fact. It actually woke us up and galvanised us all into action. As half-time approached, we’d already seen several goalscoring chances go begging, with Nigel and Mouldy coming tantalisingly close. In the dressing room, an extraordinarily calm Mel Machin sat us down and, speaking in quiet, measured tones, told us to hold our nerve and not trouble ourselves with negative thoughts.

  ‘It will come, lads,’ he insisted. ‘It will come.’

  The ensuing second half was like the Alamo, save a couple of breakaway attacks from Bradford. Time and time again we’d create a good opportunity in front of goal, only for a bad bounce to skew the end result. The home side, to their credit, scrapped like tigers and soon realised that the only way to knock us off our stride would be to increase the physical nature of their game.

  ‘Let’s piss on their chips and shut that lot up,’ I heard one of their players shout as he gestured to the legions of rowdy, banana-waving City fans. As a consequence, hard cases like Peter Jackson, Brian Tinnion and Mark Leonard started to make their (stud) mark on the game. Nigel Gleghorn was the first to get scythed down but, luckily for us, remained in one piece. Gleghorn and McNab had been our star performers on the day, the former jinking, checking and bombarding the box with quality balls, and the latter changing defence into attack with his hallmark killer passes.

  It was only a matter of time before our equaliser arrived. Hand on heart, that’s how confident we felt. And this was in spite of the news filtering through to us from the stands and the dugout that the nightmare scenario of Crystal Palace thrashing Birmingham was coming to fruition. I was getting back into position when, from the corner of my eye, I saw a City fan running onto the pitch. Sporting a shaggy brown mullet and dressed top to toe in stonewashed denim, he looked like an escapee from a Status Quo tour bus. God knows how he’d managed to hurdle over the hoardings because the lad seemed completely bladdered. He suddenly started remon-strating with Reddo, so I sprinted over to try to calm the situation down. The fan then turned his attentions to me, grabbing my waist and squaring up to me, eyeball to eyeball.

  ‘Lakey, Lakey, Palace are stuffing Birmingham 5–0,’ he slurred (he’d actually been given some duff information; it was 4–1 at the time).

  ‘If it stays like this we won’t go up, mate. You’ve gotta tell everyone to pull their fingers out …’

  ‘We are doing, pal, we are,’ I said, guiding him towards the touchline. He then mumbled something about once playing against me when he was a kid, before a steward frogmarched him off the pitch.

  Contrary to popular myth, it wasn’t this fan’s intervention alone that changed the course of the game. While the break in play certainly gave us a couple of minutes to regroup and refocus, it was our unrelenting pressure and self-belief that finally did the trick. The hallowed equaliser came in the 86th minute, a superbly worked piece of skill by Paul Moulden who hooked a perfectly flighted pass into the channel. David White, on the left side of the pitch and on his wrong peg, managed to steal a yard and whip a precision cross onto the incoming foot of Trevor Morley, who slid the ball past keeper Paul Tomlinson.

  Back
of the net. Back where we belonged. And back home to Manchester for the mother of all parties.

  True Faith

  IT WAS 1977 – Silver Jubilee year. In common with the rest of Great Britain (well, apart from the Sex Pistols and Arthur Scargill) we staged our own street party to honour Her Majesty. The dads of Bowker Avenue tied Union flag bunting to lampposts and rigged up trestle tables, which the mums draped with red, white and blue tablecloths. Then out came the party food, a mouth-watering feast of sausages on sticks, potted meat sarnies, fairy cakes, iced gems and the pièce de résistance, an Arctic Roll served up on a commemorative plate. As the men cracked open the Watneys Party Seven and the women sipped their Cinzanos, us kids toasted Queen Elizabeth II with tumblers of American cream soda topped with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream and a sprinkling of hundreds-and-thousands.

  Yet amidst all this patriotism, it was to be another Royle – Joe Royle – who would capture my attention that year (sorry, Ma’am). Manchester City were having a cracking season and Genial Joe, our star striker, had played a pivotal part in our surge up the First Division. Maine Road was treated to some really stylish football around that time, possibly the best I’ve ever seen from a City team. Classy players like Dave Watson, Asa Hartford and Brian Kidd were a joy to behold, the latter sending me and Albert the milkman wild when he banged in four during a memorable game against Leicester City. Come May, I was distraught to see us finish an agonising point behind table-toppers Liverpool, with Mum’s consoling words of ‘It’s only a game, love,’ cutting no ice whatsoever.

  This was also the first year in which I entered the furnace of a Manchester derby. City thumped United 3–1 in September, and I remember bouncing up and down on my blue plastic seat as Mick Channon – the scorer of our third – galloped past the Main Stand doing his trademark windmill celebration. I couldn’t wait to get to school the following Monday, marching proudly into the classroom with my ‘Man City Are Magic’ badge pinned to my blazer.