Even our experienced goalkeeper, Steve Sherwood (aka Albert Tatlock, named by me in my first week after seeing what a ‘grumpy old man’ he was), had his moments, namely coming in every morning and saying the same bad pun, ‘Gutten more minge.’
The only other thing I ever heard him talk much about was Andy Gray heading the ball out of his hands in the FA Cup final, when he was playing for Watford. Let it go Steve, you dropped it!
Many of us were good friends off the pitch and this really did help the team spirit and morale.
During that first month back in training, the injuries were stacking up for the team, and with an important pre-season cup game against Barnsley coming up, I felt that I might even make the bench. It was the Yorkshire Electricity Cup, a fiercely contested competition between the local league clubs, and I was hoping to have my first taste of first team action. The day before the game we trained, as usual, on a local Astroturf five-a-side pitch. We all used to pile into the minibus, including the manager, Alan Buckley, and his assistant, Arthur Mann, who would drive. We also carried huge full size portable goals in the van, as well as the balls, cones, and bibs. It was an extremely tight fit, but a great laugh all the same. All the windows would steam up, and the lads would scrawl silly things on the windows, such as, ‘Bucko you are gay’, and then quickly rub them out if Alan happened to turn around.
At traffic lights someone would inevitably reach through to the front and slip the gear stick out of first, and as Arthur tried to set off the engine would scream like hell when he pressed down on the pedal. He would proceed to lose his temper and turn around shouting, ‘Arr you flickin bandits!’ in his broad Scottish accent, while car horns were going off around us, and the lights changed back to red. We would be crying with laughter as Arthur fought with that temperamental gear stick, but he always refused to swear, choosing words like ‘flickin’ and ‘feckin’ instead, which obviously made it even funnier. I only heard Arthur actually swear once, and that was when I had said something about a training session. I will mention that incident later.
When we finally arrived at the Astroturf, having being half gassed to death by Mark Lever’s arse – he used to force the windows shut for maximum agony – it was time for war.
The Astroturf pitch we used was tiny, probably no more than forty yards by twenty, and almost every player was involved in the old versus young game. I cannot imagine that any club in the country would do something like this now, but we really looked forward to our weekly battle. You are talking about thirty or more lads, including the manager and his assistant, absolutely kicking the hell out of each other trying to win and not be voted worst player of the morning.
The routine was that once a session was over, we would then return to the ground, put on a huge pot of tea, and pile into the changing room to cast our votes for the worst player. Being on the losing team you ran the risk, if you had had a stinker of a session, of being handed the dreaded yellow jersey, emblazoned with the date, a few obscenities about your performance, your wife, girlfriend, or mum, and your name. This would be worn for the whole of the next week, and it had never been washed.
At the training sessions themselves, Buckley would pretend he was John Robertson, the old Forest legend, and would inevitably score a fair few goals, as, after his career as a prolific goal scorer, he was still sharp and a very good finisher. The older pros, including the fiery Tony Rees and Shaun Cunnington, would be throwing elbows everywhere, while the younger lads would be trying desperately to show their elders how good they were. I even took out the gaffer once with an overzealous tackle – he absolutely bollocked me for it.
Still, that wasn’t as bad as the time I accidentally volleyed a ball straight into the side of his face as we were messing about before one of our Friday morning games. I caught the ball a peach, but to my horror it was heading straight for ‘Bucko’. I tried to shout, but it was too late. Bang. It nearly knocked him out and, hell, was he mad. He turned around to see who was responsible, and immediately looked in my direction. Stood beside me was Kev Jobling, who was doing the old sly finger pointing routine. Kev knew this would make it even funnier, and Buckley even madder, and it worked. He stormed towards me and let me have both barrels for about five minutes. Let’s just say I did plenty of running that day – I also make sure that I tell the lads I coach nowadays never to risk hitting me in the face with a stray football.
After the game, which could last for over an hour, especially if the manager hadn’t yet scored, we used to set up the goals on grass near the Astroturf to do some shooting practice. It was after one such session, before the Barnsley game, that the manager pulled me to one side and said, ‘You’re playing tomorrow, young Christian, so we will see you in the changing room at 1.45.’
I was absolutely buzzing. Arthur came up to me and simply said, ‘Just show them all, son.’
He was a real gent, was Arthur, and he was a great friend to his manager. He was also very, very loyal to Alan Buckley, almost too loyal in a way, as I wish he had stuck up for me a bit more against Buckley, rather than automatically siding with him.
I told all the other youth team lads that I was going to be making my debut, and, understandably, they were all a little bit disappointed that it wasn’t them. In the late eighties, you had to be ready to play at seventeen or eighteen, or you would be discarded, so this was understandable. Despite this, they were very supportive. There was a real closeness between this group of lads, a mixture of local boys and players who had been spotted at other clubs around the country, all trying to make it as professional footballers, but all friends as well. This unity created a really strong team spirit. We even lived close together – some of the apprentices actually had digs in my street.
Mark Clarke, Scott Liversidge, and ‘Twebby’ Trevor Edwards were really nice lads, and good players. I think it was hard for them, understandably so, seeing me get a contract and go to play in the first team. I had been on their side looking in, now I was on the other side, on the verge of a professional career. Everybody was striving for the same goal, to play in the first team, and with that came a rivalry, but a friendly one. The stark reality was that, apart from me, not one lad made it through from that set of players, which shows how ruthless professional football can be.
More often than not, the first team at Grimsby Town would all gather together in the morning into the tiny but warm kitchen. The oven already had our sausages sizzling away in it for our lunch, and the Baby Burco tea urn was always on at full pelt, for the endless supply of tea required by the older players and management. Don’t forget that back then, the ritual of tea at training and before, during, and after a game was a must. This was also still the time when you could have a nip of whisky before a game, and warm-ups involved no more than a few kick-ups.
If we weren’t in the kitchen we would be in the boot room, which was next to the home team dressing room. Here we would sort the boots out or, more likely, chat – the weekend, who pulled, or who had a fight were usually the top topics of conversation. Looking back, it’s refreshing to know how innocent the lads were then. Modern technology and communication hadn’t kicked off, so there was no Facebook, MSN, text, email, or, in fact, mobile phones. All communication was with your mouth, in person, whether it be chatting up girls, or talking to each other. The same goes for leisure time, we would sit around and chat about football, girls, or cars. We didn’t have the money for golf, and the PSP, Game Boy, Wii, PlayStation, Xbox, and laptop generation was not upon us, and for that I’m really thankful. This thought still makes me smile now, on the journeys to and from matches. I sit next to some of the young boys who seem to be conducting relationships through their laptops, spending hours on Facebook or ‘Rent-a-mate’ as I like to call it. I fear the days of ‘Get your coat – you’ve pulled’ are officially gone – not that I would want to, or have ever, used that immortal line.
Don’t get me wrong, I know that you have to move with the times. My wife could be having five affairs on Fac
ebook for the amount of time she spends on it, and my children have got the entire contents of PC World in their rooms, but I really would not miss any of it, as I didn’t grow up with it. I wasn’t even one of those lads who would spend hours in an arcade, bending down into ridiculous positions and shouting, ‘Nudge mate, two down, yeah, it’s two down.’
I simply wasn’t interested, I would rather kick a ball about, or do stunts on an old BMX, which, incidentally, for all you old school BMX fans out there, was a Raleigh Ultra Burner with black ‘skyways’ and ‘mushroom’ grips. I later went on to have a lovely Diamond Back, but enough of that.
My family had moved home a few years previously, going from the flat above the shop to a house further into Cleethorpes. The bonuses of this for me were a great park nearby for football, a garden for kick-ups, a beach on the doorstep, and a new leisure centre being built nearby – it was here that I would stroll to the roller disco on the hunt for girls. I thought I was Don Johnson on the set of Miami Vice, all dressed in white, hair slicked back, with a brooding scowl – what a prat I must have looked.
The day I was told by Buckley that I would be playing, I ran all the way home (about two miles) after training. I stopped to say hello to my dad at his workshop, and to break the news, and then sped off home to prepare. I popped round to see Fiona, my girlfriend, and, incredibly, considering my subsequent reputation and unreliability, my future wife. In fact, I think I ran everywhere that day; I was so excited that I would be pulling on the black and white striped ‘Town’ shirt and playing in the first team. I even went to the park and leathered about fifty shots in the goal.
On the morning of the game I carried out a bit of a ritual that really showed my age.
As I write this, I am late for our game against Cambridge tonight, so must go. I fought the traffic for six hours yesterday to go to the gym in Oxford for rehab and to then return home, and am now setting off again to support the lads. My wife is ‘up north’ with the children, so I am borrowing my mate’s Renault Clio to bomb about in. I am like a cross between Jeremy Clarkson, Mr Bean, and Victor Meldrew as I drive. I swear, sweat, and swerve my way up and down the motorway, ranting at the speed limits, the traffic jams, and the other drivers. The one highlight of yesterday’s trip was seeing a van with some writing scrawled into the dirt on the back doors. Instead of the usual statement about his, or someone else’s wife, it simply said ‘GET OUT OF THE FUCKING MIDDLE LANE’. You can’t beat that British sense of humour. My licence points are racking up like a Tesco till receipt with all that driving, my knee is still sore, my back is like glass, and my groin is shredded, otherwise I feel pretty damn good.
So, some days have passed since I was last able to continue with this book. In that time I have been given a few days off to ‘heal’, so I shot up to Cleethorpes with my family for my mum’s birthday (an important one. but one that is not allowed to be revealed!). It was great to get back home and coincidentally, while we were back there, Torquay United played Grimsby Town, both clubs that have played an important part in my life. Torquay United won and survived the drop, but it looks like Grimsby Town will go down. A sad day for Grimsby Town fans, but that is football for you. They had been a decent Championship side for a few years and now find themselves in the Conference. How long it will take them to get out of that league, only time will tell.
While in Grimsby and Cleethorpes I took in a few interesting sights, most notably a trip around the heritage museum including a tour of an old fishing trawler (hell, was it hard work for those guys), and a visit to Martin Hargreaves Motorcycles (hard work for that man too!). It is like a big, bike jigsaw in there, how he gets sixty bikes back into a workshop that only holds fifty is beyond me and most of his customers. Whenever I go to see my dad at work, and whatever I am up to at the time, he always manages to rope me into a bike pick up or drop off. It’s similar to being given a job by the Sicilian mafia, you just can’t say no. I truly believe that if David Beckham rolled up at Martin Hargreaves Motorcycles, ‘Mart’ would have him popping over to ‘Dave’s Spares’ for a new battery and spark plug for a Yamaha 125. This time, I had to pick up a big Honda CBR in Grimsby. I had a nice clean shirt on as it was my mum’s birthday and we were due for coffee and cake. An hour later, after some hazy directions and a wobbly bike on board, I returned, covered in oil, to the reply, ‘Where have you been son, I need a couple more parts.’
Suffice to say that when I eventually returned home I was black with grease, the cakes had been eaten, and all that was left was a slice of humble pie!
Still it could have been worse, a few years ago now, again during a routine visit, I was asked to pick up a bike. This time I was using my dad’s car and trailer combo, with me wheeling the bike up onto the trailer and then gently pulling it back to base. The location of the pick up was very close to that of the village where my wife’s parents lived, so Fiona and I thought that we would kill the bird and throw the stones, or whatever the saying is, and visit her parents.
I picked the bike up, which was, predictably, huge, and we detoured off towards the village. The journey was fine but as we entered the village I checked the rear-view mirror and, to my horror, saw that the trailer was heading off in a different direction. It was like a sketch from Some Mothers Do ’Ave ’Em. Somehow the trailer had sheared off and was now independent of its master. It gathered momentum with the weight of the bike on board and veered off and started cartwheeling towards a garden. To my even greater horror in said garden there was a man tending to his prized perennials, and a woman directing him from the front door. I jumped out of the car and was screaming, ‘Move, there’s a trailer coming.’
Looking back, it was a bizarre warning, but having never witnessed a runaway trailer before, I had no idea what to say. Anyway at the last minute this poor bloke looked up and literally dived full-length to avert certain mutilation. The trailer and its contents totally obliterated the fence (new), most of the garden (just planted), and came to rest just in front of the bay window. It would probably constitute decent art nowadays, but for this couple it was a narrowly avoided death, and a garden replanted with metal.
I was, at this point, beating the World and Olympic village green sprinting record to get to the man, trailer, bike and garden, while Fiona was busy having a coronary in the car. The scene on arrival was one of devastation. Man down, bike and trailer wedged in a bush, wife shaking uncontrollably. I then uttered the immortal words …
‘Alright?’
They say that you sometimes find superhuman strength in emergency situations, I certainly did. It was like a scene from World’s Strongest Man. Somehow I managed to drag the wreckage out of the garden while constantly saying how sorry I was to the man who had just dived like an international goalkeeper. After a quick dash to the shops to get some apologetic flowers and wine for the couple in question, and then some major grovelling (phone details for compensation etc.), I left the scene of the disaster. On later inspection of the trailer I discovered that the connector had been welded more times than a car on Scrap Heap Challenge. I phoned my dad to explain why I had been so long, about the wrecked garden, the cartwheeling trailer, the man who had survived with his life, and the superhuman trailer pull. I was about to get to the fact that the trailer was a death trap and that I could have really hurt someone, when my dad butted in. The matter of crucial importance?
‘How’s the bike?!’
So, I returned to Oxford to watch the lads win against Cambridge yesterday – I have been having a blinder up in the stands, my passing has been superb, I haven’t given a ball away, and I feel great. The saying ‘it’s easy up there’, mostly referring to people who having never played the game, watch the game from above and hammer those on the pitch, is used very often, but it is true, it does look easy from high up in a stand. Believe me, it is very different at pitch level, particularly as space seems to be at a premium. It’s probably why the top players make it look easy, because they do what you can see up in that stand.
Injury wise, my knee is much better, but with the hammering that I have been putting my body through to get fit for the imminent playoff games, I now have a groin that feels as if it is about to tear right open. It is actually difficult to even kick the ball, which is a major problem in my line of work, and crushingly frustrating. I am thoroughly pissed off that I may miss next week’s play-off games, and am, at present, sat in a golf club (I don’t play golf but it is quiet and has free Wi-Fi) drinking coffee and randomly swearing out loud. As well as the mild to major OCD, I’m beginning to think I also have Tourette’s; on top of the swearing, I must punch the car steering wheel about thirty times a day, and that is not even when in bad traffic. It’s all due to football related annoyance, of course.
Back to my pre-game ritual. It was 15th July 1989, the morning of my first senior game of football, in a match against Barnsley. My boots were polished and ready at the end of my bed; I had drawn a picture on my dartboard scoreboard of me scoring a goal (me as a matchstick beating a matchstick goalkeeper complete with matchstick fans!). I then went for a pre-match walk (something I still do now) and then did one of the most bizarre pre-match routines ever seen. I went to the bakery I often visited and bought a gingerbread man. It was initially to eat (odd choice, I accept), but as I passed St Peter’s Church, the scene of many a family wedding, funeral, and christening, I walked into the grounds and carried out a strange act. I made a sacrifice to the ‘big man’ by biting off the gingerbread man’s head and ‘leaving’ it to the ‘gods’. Madly bizarre, I accept, but it also came with a massive chunk of humour attached – it was my ‘offering’ to hopefully give me a bit of luck.
Where's Your Caravan? Page 4