by Neil Baldwin
NEIL
Before the 1993–4 season I went with the team to Tanzania, which seemed a very funny place to go for a pre-season tour. I had never been to Africa before. We went out to the pictures in Dar es Salaam and it wasn’t like going to the pictures at home. The cinema was a very poor building and so were all the houses. The cinema was not much more than a mud hut, and Lou and I were the only people in it. Everybody who lived there was very poor and it upset me. I didn’t like it at all. It is important to support things like the charity Comic Relief, which helps people in the poor parts of the world. But at least we did win all the four games, scoring twelve goals.
MALCOLM
Lou Macari remembers that trip to the cinema. ‘We went in an antiquated vehicle which passed for a taxi in that country and we had no idea where we were. On the journey back, I said to Neil “What would you do if this taxi broke down now in the middle of nowhere?” He just said: “Ring for another one.”’
Tony Kelly, who had denied Neil his goal in the testimonial, was the inspiration for another Neil incident at that time. Martin Smith and Dave Frith, the editors of the Oatcake, the Stoke City fanzine, told me:
For the first issue of the 1993–4 season we ran a spoof tabloid story in the back page of the Oatcake. It was a Nello ‘play me or sell me’ ultimatum to the manager, Lou Macari. It was a spoof of an actual demand made by Tony Kelly the season before, who quite clearly had become frustrated by only occasional substitute appearances.
The Oatcake headline was ‘City kit man holds out for better deal’. The story ran:
Stoke City kit man Neil ‘Nello’ Baldwin delivered a crushing blow to the club just hours before the start of the new season by refusing to sign a new contract.
It was the last thing the Potters needed as they prepared to commence their first season back in the First Division since 1990. Nello has become an intricate part of the set-up at the Victoria ground and there are growing suggestions that he is the brains behind Lou Macari’s dynamic managerial style, a rumour that Macari was quickly to denounce as ‘garbage’.
Following his appearance for the Stoke City’s team friendly at Weston-super-Mare and Villa Park, Nello has had his appetite for first team football whetted and as he was quick to point out, ‘I think I have something to offer the team, besides which I don’t think I played any worse than any of the other players in our 1–4 defeat at Villa so I’m giving Lou a “play me or sell me” ultimatum.’
Nello is also known to be dissatisfied with his salary, which he believes does not reflect the multitude of tasks he is expected to carry out at the club. Tasks which include not only looking after the kit, but also bearing the brunt of all the players’ jokes, cutting Johnny Butler’s hair, and dressing up in a variety of fancy dress costumes. Said Nello, ‘Vince Overson wouldn’t dress up as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle for the kind of money I’m getting so I don’t see why I have to.’
Lou is desperate to hang on to a man he sees as being vital to the future success of Stoke City and reportedly offered Nello a contract that would make him the highest paid kit manager in the history of the club. Lou added, ‘If we are serious about challenging for the Premier League then Nello is an important part of our plans, we’ve already hired a Madonna outfit, with the pointy tits, for when we play at Old Trafford, besides he makes a damned good cup of coffee.’
If City are unable to reach an amicable agreement with their star kit man then there are already a number of clubs lurking in the shadows ready to pounce. Leading the way are Potteries no hopers Port Vale whose manager Johnny Rudge is quoted as saying, ‘Who’d have thought that ten years ago we would be in a position to swoop for Stoke City’s kit manager? It’s a magnificent achievement and sign of the progress we have made over the last ten years.’
Smith and Frith recall:
Lou saw that article and jumped completely on board with the spoof. He organised a leaving do for Nello, complete with farewell banners and a finger buffet of sandwiches and sausage rolls et cetera, claiming he couldn’t offer him first-team football and he had to let him go to Port Vale.
Neil eventually managed to convince Lou that our story wasn’t true, prompting the City boss to ring us up, on behalf of the legal firm of ‘Sue, Grab It and Run’, demanding a written apology and ‘£10,000 in damages’. I can tell you that it’s quite something when the Stoke manager rings you up out of the blue like that! We went along with it, typed up an apology and delivered it to the ground with an Italian ten-thousand-lira note (worth about £5 at the time). Lou had the letter and the money pinned to the notice board at the club, although we heard that Nello had been very keen to get his hands on the money.
Things were wrapped up beautifully a few days later when I saw Neil down near the ground and he pulled me over. He very gently said that although he knew the play-me-or-sell-me story had been a joke, could I please be careful about running any more like that in the future because Lou thought we were being serious? It was a wonderful little episode, which captured perfectly the atmosphere at the club back then and showed the sheer spirit at the Victoria Ground. We’ve moved on to bigger and better things these days, but there is part of us that yearns for the way things were back then as well, and the Stoke City manager could do something like employing Nello and taking the time to enjoy little capers like this one.
At the end of October 1993, Lou Macari suddenly left the club. He had always said that there were only two clubs he would ever leave Stoke City for: Manchester United and Glasgow Celtic. Unfortunately for Stoke City, it was Celtic who came calling.
NEIL
I was sad when Lou went. He offered me the chance to go with him to Celtic, but how could I leave Stoke, my mum and Keele? Joe Jordan took over, having moved from Heart of Midlothian (or Hearts). Joe was also very good to me, but he was a bit more miserable than Lou. He had strict rules. He kept weighing me to watch my weight. I didn’t like that, but my mum did.
MALCOLM
However, there were some bright spots around that time. Ivan Gaskell recalls a trip to Italy for Joe Jordan’s second game in charge:
I remember playing away at Padova [Padua] in the Anglo-Italian Cup in November 1993. A group of us, including myself, Nello and George Andrews, were in a gondolier on a day trip to Venice. We were singing very loudly. We had a huge amount of fun and couldn’t take anything too seriously.
NEIL
Ivan is right. I’m a very good singer. That was a marvellous day in Venice. We sang the ‘Just One Cornetto’ song – the one from the Cornetto adverts – along all those canals. I enjoyed some Cornettos as well. But we lost the game 3–0, so I think some of the players might have been having a few Cornettos. I told them that you can’t expect to win cups if you let in goals like that and don’t score any.
MALCOLM
Stoke City were playing away to Grimsby Town at their Blundell Park ground on 15 January 1994. It was a dreadful goal-less draw. Neil spotted my daughter Zara and me in the crowd and came over for a word.
‘Are you at home next Friday evening?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Why?’
‘Because I’m coming up to Manchester to see Ken Dodd, who’s on at the Palace Theatre. Can I stay with you?’
‘Of course. How are you getting up to Manchester?’
‘I’ll get Asa to give me a lift to the theatre.’ Asa Hartford was the assistant manager and lived in the Northwest. ‘And will you come to pick me up from the theatre after the show?’ As ever, that was more of an instruction than a question.
NEIL
Ken Dodd has been a very good friend of mine for years. I always go to see his shows when he plays in Hanley. I take presents for him and his partner Anne.
MALCOLM
The veteran Liverpudlian comedian Ken Dodd, who became eighty-seven in November 2014 and is still performing regularly at the time of writing, told me:
Over the years I’ve had lots and lots of supporters. I don’t like the word ‘fans’ because it sou
nds too much like fanatic. These are supporters who have become friends, stage-door Johnnies and stage-door Jennies. Neil’s been one of the very best of them for many years. It’s a great privilege to be an entertainer and a great privilege to receive the praise that supporters like Neil give you.
Neil’s always been there when we played in the Potteries, always smiling, always having something nice to say. He always brings presents like chocolates for us. At first I thought he was an ordinary stage-door Johnny, but I realised that he has a remarkable personality. He’s a very kind man. Friendship is obviously very important to him. You think he’s not altogether with it, but there’s a driving force behind what he does. He’s brave, courageous, a one-off. He’s a remarkable young man.
You don’t make people laugh. Laughter’s inside them. You have to wrinkle it out, but I didn’t ever need to do that with Neil. His beaming face makes you feel good.
So I shouldn’t have been surprised at where I found Neil that night in Manchester. It was late in the evening when I turned up at the theatre to fulfil my mission, but could not see any sign of Neil, even though the show had ended some time before. Eventually, one of the staff clearing up suggested that the only place he could possibly be was with Ken Dodd in his dressing room. And so it proved. It was after midnight before we finally set off on the journey back to Sale, where I live.
NEIL
The day before the Ken Dodd show, the former Manchester United manager Sir Matt Busby died, so I said to Malcolm on the way home, ‘Do we go anywhere near Old Trafford?’ Malcolm said we drove right past it, so I asked him to stop there so I could pay my respects.
There was a sea of memorial flowers for Sir Matt outside Old Trafford, which is Manchester United’s stadium. But I wanted to be there because Sir Matt was very good to me. Malcolm didn’t realise I knew Sir Matt, but he ought to have known, really.
So we paid our respects, then Malcolm started driving to his home in Sale, and I knew that Nigel Gleghorn, who had gone in goal in the ‘chicken’ game at Bournemouth, lived in Sale. So I asked if we went anywhere near his house, and Malcolm said no, which showed he knew where Nigel’s house was. So I said, ‘Can we? I want to make sure he’s in bed on the night before a match.’ Stoke were playing at home to Oxford United the following day. So, a detour took us past Nigel’s house, which was in darkness, and that was all right.
You have to make sure these players do as they should do, and go to bed early before a game.
MALCOLM
The following morning there was a ring on the doorbell. I answered it to find a man I did not recognise on the doorstep.
‘Is Nello ready?’
‘Ready for what? Who are you?’
The guy announced himself as one of Stoke City’s scouts in Greater Manchester. He explained that he had agreed to pick Neil up from our house before taking him to watch a schoolboy game he was attending, following which he would give Neil a lift down to the Victoria Ground. Neil had not mentioned anything about this to me, so no alarms had been set.
‘I’m afraid he’s not up yet and he hasn’t had his breakfast, which he definitely won’t want to miss.’
My visitor was clearly rather irritated to hear this news, and explained he had driven a long way out of his way round the motorway from near Oldham to pick Neil up. He said that he hadn’t got time to wait for Neil to get ready, because he would miss some of the schoolboy game he was due to watch. He went on his way with a resigned shake of the head.
When Neil eventually emerged from his room and I related this to him, he was very apologetic that he had forgotten to mention it the night before.
‘But how am I going to get down to the Victoria Ground in time to meet Joe’s deadline? I’ll be in trouble if I’m not there on time.’ Joe Jordan, who was a bit of a stickler for his rules, had set him a clear and early arrival time for the tasks he had to do. There was, of course, only one solution to this problem: we had to leave for the game at least a couple of hours earlier than we would otherwise have done to avoid Neil getting into trouble with Joe.
Stoke finished mid-table that season. After only five games of the following season, and, after less than a year in charge, Joe Jordan left in September 1994 following a thrashing at Bolton, and Lou Macari made a dramatic return to the club from Celtic.
Just before Christmas an away game at Tranmere Rovers’ Prenton Park featured another memorable event in Neil’s Stoke City career, which Lou Macari recounted in his autobiography, Football, My Life. Evidently before the game, when the players were stripping off, Martin Carruthers was showing off a new pair of boxer shorts and boasting how he had spent £60 on them.
NEIL
When the players went off, Lou told me to put on Martin’s £60 silk underpants. This wasn’t easy as I was a lot bigger than Martin. Lou then told me to put all the players’ underpants on. So for an hour-and-a-half I had about thirteen pairs on. It was a real squeeze.
It was a marvellous night for Martin because he scored the only goal in a 1–0 win. When the team came back into the dressing room, they were all cheering because we had won the game. Martin got out of the bath and when he couldn’t find his pants he shouted out, ‘Some Scouse bastard’s nicked my silk underpants.’ I tried to keep a straight face but the other staff knew what I’d done and were all falling about with laughter.
MALCOLM
Lou said, ‘They didn’t last long, Martin, those sixty-quid pants of yours.’ One by one the rest of the team climbed out of the bath only to discover that their underpants had disappeared, too. As Lou described it, ‘The players genuinely thought that some weirdo had been through their things stealing footballers’ pants.’
Neil revealed the truth by taking off his tracksuit. One by one they reclaimed their underpants to reveal that the pair on the bottom, next to Neil’s skin, were Martin’s expensive silk boxers.
Martin Carruthers wasn’t very pleased:
I had these new silk boxers, and the day before I’d been giving Nello some banter, and I came in and saw him wearing them, and when he saw me he scratched his balls with them and pulled them about and they were tearing, and Lou Macari was egging him on, so we dumped him in a cold bath.
NEIL
Martin Carruthers was very proud of his expensive boxer shorts, and Lou wanted to teach him a lesson. It was very funny to see their faces when they came back into the dressing room and couldn’t find their underpants. They didn’t all like it, but it was worth it. The main thing was that we had won the game that night. Martin Carruthers scored the goal, so me wearing his underpants was a lucky omen.
MALCOLM
Neil’s relationship with Lou was more than just a work-related thing. Neil could be a bit of a confidant for Lou. I think that worked because Neil had no agenda other than just doing his best for the guy who had given him a chance to work at his beloved club. They used to walk Lou’s dog together, but Neil also walked the dog for him, sometimes around the training ground.
NEIL
Once I lost the dog. I was really worried what Lou would say, but, fortunately for me, the dog found its own way home. I was very happy that I hadn’t lost it for good.
MALCOLM
Mike Sheron arrived from Norwich City in November 1995:
Nello was a character. There was always banter and it lifted the spirits when he came into the dressing room. Everything was focused on Nello rather than thinking about the game. He was a happy-go-lucky guy. He was good to have around. I’d heard stories about things going too far in the past, but it certainly didn’t happen when I was there. There were one or two comments but Nello would always tell them if they were out of order. Winnie was lovely. She couldn’t go in the dressing room, so Nello did. She was in the laundry.
I’m a big Liverpool fan, so I called Nello ‘Robbie’ after Robbie Fowler and he called me ‘Macca’ after Steve McManaman. We still do that to this day.
NEIL
Macca is still a very good friend of mine and he plays for t
he Neil Baldwin Football Club. Of course, the real Robbie and the real Macca are very good friends of mine, and I had my picture taken with them and a group of other players when I went to see them when they played for Manchester City. I recently had a sportsman’s evening with Robbie in Stoke, at which George Andrews was the compère, and he interviewed me on stage. Robbie was very pleased to meet up with me again.
MALCOLM
One of the incidents recalled by reporter George Andrews, who then worked at Radio Stoke, at that evening was his own kidnapping at a game against rivals Port Vale. George was there to represent the Vale viewpoint on air, whilst Nigel Johnson, an iconic figure among Stoke fans who still does the commentaries, was there to give the Stoke City perspective. They were due to share the commentary.
Nigel recalls: ‘George was due to do the first shift, but kick-off arrived and he was nowhere to be seen, so I had to fill in. He eventually arrived looking very flustered to tell me he’d been kidnapped by Nello and others.’
George takes up the story:
Lou always allowed the local media in areas in which you would not be allowed at other clubs. It was part of his style. A group of them led by Nello and Winnie had a pre-laid plan. They got me into the laundry, just down from Lou’s office, tied me to a chair, put tape round my mouth, put a notice round my neck saying ‘George is a Stoke fan’ and locked the door. I couldn’t get out, but was due to be upstairs to go on air. Eventually, I was able to make a noise which was heard by the physio who let me out. Nello thought it was hilarious and still talks about it to this day. I wouldn’t be surprised if Lou was behind it. He used to wind Nello up about me, saying ‘That George Andrews…’ and get Nello to berate me.