Kev was pulling up every slight mistake, and I had had enough. I told him that it was ridiculous – we had to lighten up a bit and just do the basics first, before we turned into Barcelona. My intervention was taken badly; Broads shouted over, ‘Why don’t you just leave the training ground?’ to which I flippantly replied, ‘Why don’t you?’
It was stupid of me to say it, and the poor sod was already under masses of pressure as the manager, and now here I was challenging his authority in front of the lads. After a standoff that John Wayne would have been proud of, I walked off to let the situation cool down. I drove back to the ground and waited for him to return after training. Martin Wilkinson, the chief scout, and Kevan walked into the office, and all I did was poke a branch through the door. Kevan opened it, laughed and said, ‘What the hell is that, Greavsie?’
I replied, ‘It’s an olive branch; I was out of order back there.’
He saw the funny side of it, and it was soon forgotten, but before long he was out. I felt it was a harsh decision; Kevan Broadhurst was a great tactician and a good coach, but the club clearly weren’t happy, someone had to take the blame, and he was gone.
Our next manager was Terry Fenwick, an ex-QPR and England international, who arrived with a fanfare and who certainly got straight to work. He got me into the office on his first day and said, ‘What do we need?’
I obviously didn’t give him the right advice, because he was out only seven games later. I have to say he was damn unlucky!
Before Terry had pulled me aside for a chat that first day, he had already demonstrated his mentality with the initial training session that he put on. We were assembled into groups of five or six, and told to form a circle, leaving one player from each group standing on the outside of it. He then said, ‘Right lads, don’t you fucking dare let that lad back into that circle.’
To the lad on the outside he said, ‘Right, you better get back in that fucking circle, if it’s the last thing you do.’
It was a right old scrap, blood was shed, legs and arms were battered, but I quite liked that, and we definitely got the message. He then put us in pairs and made us stand on each other’s shoulders, yes I said stand, and try to push each other over until the winning pair remained. I didn’t like that. After then making us put boots on and have a full-on eleven-a-side practice match on a frozen pitch, we certainly knew there had been a big change at the club. I got injured in training that week, and missed five of the seven games that Terry was in charge, and in some of those the team were really unlucky, but after those seven games, no wins – five losses and two draws – he was out.
I think of three things when I think about Terry Fenwick. The first is incredibly strong eighties aftershave, the second is the lads on that first training day trying to get into a human ball, and the third is Maradona drifting past him in the ‘Hand of God’ game. He wasn’t a bad manager, and must have had one of the shortest and unluckiest tenures in charge of Northampton Town. Martin Wilkinson, our chief scout, was put in place as the new ‘caretaker’ manager, but when a manager states publicly that he doesn’t really want the job it does set alarm bells ringing. Those bells rang, and rang loud.
In the end Northampton Town suffered because of a massive lack of stability off the pitch and not enough quality on it. I have always been highly critical of myself in my career, especially after games, and I was very average in the 02/03 season. Later, I was angry with myself for taking my eye off the ball, perhaps literally. Having taken on the renovation project, I had decided to do most of the work myself, but putting in a new bathroom suite and varnishing floors before and after games is not conducive to playing well on a Saturday. I know now that it was the wrong thing to do, but at the time I felt as if I could do it all, the training, the playing, and the plastering, plumbing, sanding and painting. I even tried to sort out the wiring one morning, but after electrocuting myself and being knocked flying off a table and into the fireplace, I thought better of it. In the end I achieved what I had set out do with the house, but I had lost a season’s football in the process. I don’t want to be too critical of a manager, nor do I think it was totally his fault, but Martin didn’t have the tools for the job. He was a nice enough bloke, but he was our chief scout, put in place to steady the ship; it’s just a shame we were on the bloody Titanic. It would have taken a lot more to snap me, and the rest of the lads, back to it.
Today has been great, the young lads I coach at Exeter City are on their half-term break, so we are having them in training all week. I still find it strange looking over to see the first team training, knowing that only last season I was one of those fortunate lads doing that job for a living, but coaching the under-16s is a really rewarding job. I spoke to Marcus Stewart before training today; he has played for numerous clubs including Ipswich and Sunderland and is still registered as a player at Exeter City. We pretty much agreed that we both loved the game and would miss it, but that coaching was the next best thing. For me, coaching young lads, as I am at the moment, is really rewarding. Not only can you help them with their football knowledge and development, you can also help them as young men. After all, there is a lot going on in their lives outside of their football environ ment – hammering them about their haircuts and their girlfriends is just an added bonus.
After a full day’s training coaching those boys, I took my daughter, Isabella, to athletics. I couldn’t resist a blast around the track myself, although I am now in desperate need of an Ibuprofen sandwich and a dog basket, such is the stiffness in my body. After a quick drink and a few hundred words typed, I am going to fly out again and pick up my son Cameron from his football training. Harriet is finally in bed, thank the lord, after getting through a record twenty-one episodes of her favourite cartoon (still Peppa Pig), and my wife is still knee-deep in paper work, and melancholy, after another week of her full time job as a (reluctant) NVQ Training Coordinator …
Cam has now been picked up, but after sitting down in readiness to type away again, I am now having a total body failure. Perhaps that run earlier was a bad idea. Instead of typing, I will recharge the old body with red wine and chocolate, refill the memory bank with more of my Northampton Town days, and I’ll try again tomorrow.
It is now tomorrow – that’s an odd sentence, if ever I’ve heard one. I had to laugh when I visited my local Tesco this morning. I didn’t laugh at the woman at the check-out talking to the woman opposite about her husband’s chronic pile problem, or at the bloke in front of me who needed seven minutes to decide whether to go back to his car to get his ‘bags for life’, so that the check-out assistant could type in his 0.000001 pence of redeemable Clubcard points. No, I had to laugh at the lad who always tries to talk to me about football. I usually have a bit of banter with a couple of the staff in the shop about Torquay United’s or Exeter City’s fortunes, and in particular I always stop to talk to a lad who has a knack of saying the most annoying things.
‘Why do you give him two minutes of your time?’ I hear you say, and in truth I don’t really know, maybe it’s because I’m a nice person – or more likely, maybe it’s because my wife is normally with me, so if I abused him, which I often want to, my wife would be totally embarrassed. Anyway, this morning, as I strolled in to get some supplies, I bumped into Mr Bean himself. As I was picking up some bread, he leaned in and whispered, ‘Bet you’re missing playing eh? Can’t you get a club? I bet that TV work keeps you going though. You must be bloody loaded. Shame you haven’t played in the Premiership, or you could do Match of the Day.’
Of course, he said all this while smiling as if he was an old mate, and leaning in towards me like Fagin.
My reply could have gone one of three ways. I could easily have swung my loaf of Kingsmill across his head, and then again in a downward motion, to inflict as much discomfort as possible, while bending and whispering in his ear, ‘If you ever try to talk to me again I will hurt you. Please ask if you can start working on the beauty aisle, as your face and breath are
both in need of some serious attention.’
I didn’t choose this option because of time constraints, and it ‘might’ have been rising to the bait. Nor did I blank him, because that is no way to behave either. Instead, I laughed and left him with a taste in his mouth that would hopefully remain all day. I replied, while hurrying out of his breath range, ‘Yes, I can’t spend it quickly enough mate. It’s not fair really, but I have come in to an inheritance that is way more than I have ever earned in football. It’s crazy! I am one lucky bastard.’
I then walked off smiling in a sort of ‘why me’ way, to reiterate the great luck I had had. I was obviously lying, and any normal person would know that, but ‘Bean’ was so bitter that I knew he just couldn’t be sure either way, and it showed in his reaction. He nervously replied, ‘Oh, get the drinks in then, eh? It’s all right for some.’
Once in the distance, I called back, ‘Keep up the good work.’
I have since been into the store and he still believes it, but he remains as annoying as ever.
You’d think you’d get used to it. A lot of people really do say the most ridiculous things, and then expect you to chat away to them as if they are your best mate. After a recent play-off game – in which we were leading with ten minutes to go, but were then pegged back and beaten at the death – a couple came up to me and my wife and children in a department store. The guy approached me and shook my hand saying, ‘Hi Chris, oh what about that game, eh? It was fantastic, wasn’t it? I cannot believe you lost it; I was going crazy!’
(I should add at this stage that he supported the other team.)
‘I was jumping up and down until the final whistle; it’s easily the best game I have ever been to. I can’t wait to go to Wembley. Anyway, how are tricks?’
Now, I could have replied, ‘How’s tricks? Oh, absolutely fucking tremendous. I have just had my heart ripped out and will have to think about it every day for the next three months.’
(That was an estimate, it was actually much longer!)
‘And, to make it worse, I’m out with my family and some knob head has just come up to me saying they have just seen the greatest game of football in their lives. Why don’t you get out a little DVD player and replay the game now, so that we can all have a good laugh watching it. And at the same time can you talk about my defeat in front of my kids again, because I’m not sure that they heard it the first time. Cheers then, bye.’
Or I could simply have replied, ‘Oh, I’m pleased you enjoyed it, now fuck off and die.’
I did neither, of course. I kept my composure and replied, ‘Wow, thanks for reminding me, it had honestly slipped my mind, and yes it was one heck of a game. I have promised the children I am taking them to Wembley next year, because we are a bit busy this summer, but you enjoy the day. Hope to see you again soon, when something else bad has happened to me.’
Yes, I did use a little sarcasm in my reply, but I said it with humour and we all laughed. And I really did mean the middle part: everything in my body would go in to making sure that my children would be going to Wembley that next season.
Before I continue with my Northampton days, and my story of the B roads to football success, I feel I have to talk about something, or actually someone, who has dominated the front and back pages of the papers for the past couple of weeks, Wayne Rooney. His dummy was well and truly spat out when he recently announced that his club’s ambitions didn’t match his own, and that he would be looking to get away. Strange then that the next day, after agreeing to the club’s two hundred and fifty thousand pound contract offer, his worries about the club’s lack of ambition had totally disappeared. His agent had pulled Man United’s pants down big time, and that does not happen very often. To rub salt into the common man’s wounds, old ‘Wayno’ was snapped the following day, poolside, quaffing champers with his missus in Dubai. I know one thing, if I had had a three-in-a-bed romp with a couple of hookers, and it hadn’t been for the first time, my wife would not have settled for a holiday in Dubai and a bottle of champers – she may have settled for the life of total luxury and relaxation, but hey, I’m trying to make a point here. The point is that this latest incident must be the lowest we have come to in the professional game for a long time. The Terry/Bridge affair/abortion scandal, Ashley Cole’s photo-texting habits, the World Cup disaster, and now this – it just makes footballers look like a total bunch of chavs. While these chavs might be rich, they’re hardly setting a good example. Surely the kids out there are bemused by what goes on in the world of football. There have always been loads of parties, but it now seems that anything goes. By the time I have finished writing this book I am sure a shed-load more controversies will have happened in football, and it will be interesting to see what happens with Rooney and Ferguson. Whatever happens, the game has to be conveyed in a better light, because at the moment we have a crap, rich, national football team, and we have more footballers making the front pages than the back.
When we eventually knew our fate at the end of the 02/03 season, it was as much of a relief as anything. I know that sounds defeatist but it’s not; I hated losing any game, and I detested being relegated, but sometimes you know when the writing is on the wall, and this was one of those occasions. With relegation looking a possibility Kevan Broadhurst had been sacked, but relegation had happened regardless. Northampton Town would see three more managers come and go, and it was a summer of discontent. Well almost; we had booked a trip to Euro Disney with the children, and, although my mood was far from joyful on the way there, as we saw the children’s faces light up at the hotel when Mickey and Minnie appeared, I forgot about the disaster that had just happened. I would sum Euro Disney up in two words, expensive and French. (I know that is technically three words.) The fact that the children were in a constant state of amazement for the entire break made it worth every penny, but why can’t we do something similar here in Britain. At least then we could take a pack-up!
2003/04
Although we were relegated at the end of the 02/03 season, Northampton Town wanted Martin to stay on as manager, and for him to try to get us promoted. Pre-season had gone pretty well. The team had been on a trip to America that, in Martin Wilkinson’s eyes, had gone so well, he had assembled his staff to celebrate with a bottle of bubbly on the assumption that promotion was already in the bag with this new exciting team. It wasn’t, and I say the ‘team’ went on the trip, but I didn’t go. A combination of a bit of tension between me and Martin (honestly, this is not a constant theme), and a real desire not to go on a ten-hour flight, meant that I would be training on my own for that week. For some reason, that summer just didn’t feel right – I still don’t know why.
After returning to pre-season after our summer break, it was clear I wasn’t really figuring in the plans for the team. I don’t think Martin particularly liked me, which was fine, and I suppose I did drop my shoulder a bit really, as far as the trip was concerned. I don’t really like flying, and this had been made worse by a mammoth lightning strike and turbulence on my previous flight, but I really didn’t want to go. The trip, the bonhomie and the assurance that the club would now do well all felt very false; I didn’t for one minute think that he had the club on the right path. So, that summer I decided to stay with my family and get fit on my own instead.
As expected, I didn’t start the season, but after a few dodgy results I was back in the team, and before long we also had a new (unofficial) manager. Martin Wilkinson was the next victim of our lack of success, and so Richard Hill, a former ‘Cobblers’ favourite as a player and current assistant manager, took the reins. It was only in a caretaker role, but Richard clearly thought that it might develop into something more official.
Apart from the fact that he didn’t even want the job, a few things had bothered me about Martin Wilkinson, and they were all off-the-pitch incidents. I know he thought I was a bit flash, which was fine – I was – but some of his comments and actions were just bizarre. He once turned to me in the chang
ing room, looked at my shoes and said, ‘My dad always told me to be cautious of lads who wear brown shoes.’
I honestly felt like replying, while looking at his feet, ‘And my dad told me to be cautious of shit managers and people who wear socks with sandals.’
Another occasion of erratic behaviour arose one day while Martin was talking to one of our centre-forwards at the time, Darren Stamp. ‘Stampy’ (again a ‘y’ in the nickname) had been asked to go to the office one afternoon to sort out a move to Mansfield Town. Stampy had been told he was surplus to requirements and that he could leave if the price was right. When he arrived at the club after training, Martin Wilkinson was just outside the club shop. Stampy said Martin approached him like a lost friend, putting his hand on his shoulder and saying, ‘Oh Stampy, how has it come to this, my old mate, eh?’
A surprised and annoyed Stampy replied, ‘Well fuck me, maybe it’s because you said I am not needed, and are selling me to Mansfield for ten grand?’
Wilkinson snapped back, ‘Well, we are going have to sort this out; I’m not happy with your comments. Wait inside, and I’ll have another chat with you in a minute.’
Stampy waited in the club shop, and then watched open-mouthed as Martin walked through the back of the club shop, out through the office, all the way around to the front of the club shop, got into his car and drove off. Stampy never saw Martin again, and signed for Mansfield Town for ten grand. Who said football is a funny old game? Well, maybe it’s more the people involved!
Our new manager, Richard Hill, had more of a Dickensian attitude to the game. His no-nonsense ‘If you make a mistake I will kill you’ approach did work for some, but certainly didn’t for others. I remember him hammering our right-winger, Josh Low, after a game. When Hilly had finished his long rant and had walked off, a normally placid Josh turned to me and said, ‘I hate that twat! I don’t want to play football any more.’
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