Where's Your Caravan?

by Chris Hargreaves

  Some players appreciate that hardcore management style, others don’t. Ultimately Richard Hill lost the changing room with his approach, but it could just as easily have gone the other way.

  As it turned out, not enough of the players could understand his methods. Some players react well to bollockings and rants, some don’t, and too many players that season needed the ‘arm-around-the shoulder’ approach, not a boot up the arse. I have worked with plenty of managers in my career, all with different man-management skills – and some with none at all. While I have no major preference in how I’m managed, my experience with players makes me think that the ‘arm-around-the shoulder’ approach is generally more successful, and is less likely to produce a strong negative reaction. I’m not talking about bringing your teddy into training and everyone having a group hug, but as a manager, to get the best out of your players, having a decent rapport with them is surely helpful.

  I recently completed my coaching badges in Belfast, along with Keith Gillespie, an ex-international and former Man United and Newcastle United player. Keith told me that Kevin Keegan, when manager of Newcastle United, used to say to him before games that he was the best right-winger in the country, and that he would have a blinder that same afternoon. He said Keegan gave him such belief and confidence when saying it that, more often than not, he would go on to have an absolute blinder. That said, Keith also told me that I would feel great after drinking ten pints of Guinness a night and smoking like a trooper for a week. He lied about that one, so perhaps he’s not entirely reliable!

  Still, Richard Hill’s management technique failed; the club needed another new manager, and so the merry-go-round just kept going.

  In 03/04, with our new owners, a new chairman and a new board of directors, life was never dull at the Cobblers. One of our new directors was someone I knew very well, and I have mentioned him before. We were playing away in a Carling Cup game at Portsmouth, and as we were walking out from our pre-match meal, a huge spanking new BMW rolled into the hotel car park. To my amazement Lee ‘The Face’ Power appeared from the driver’s seat. Lee had played for Norwich City in Europe, but had retired after his spell at Plymouth Argyle. When I had known him in Devon, he had also been absolutely skint. Seeing him in this new car, I had to laugh as I walked up to him.

  ‘What have you done, robbed a bank? The last time I saw you, you needed a couple of hundred quid!’

  He laughed and said, ‘Na, I’ve just done a bit of this and that, Hagi.’ (Hagi was my nickname at Plymouth Argyle.) I asked him what he was doing in Portsmouth, to which he replied, ‘I’m one of your new directors, mate, so you better play well.’

  I was in stitches, talk about a survivor – Lee Power could be taken hostage, and within an hour he would not only have talked his way out of it, but he would be running the show.

  I did my best to ‘play well’ for Lee that night, but we lost the game 3–1. Still, the goal scorer for the Cobblers on the night? – yes, it was moi! – although the goal came about when the referee surprised me and the other twelve thousand people in the stadium by making me retake the penalty, especially after their keeper had saved the first one! The keeper was so surprised he didn’t even move.

  With so much having happened already at Northampton Town over the first three seasons, it seemed inevitable that the fourth would also be eventful. One of the things you get used to in football is seeing fellow players come and go, and I have certainly seen a few. I have met some great people in my football career, and am really happy when I bump into players that I used to play with, but on the whole I have only kept in close touch with a handful of those players. It is the same for most players: you would happily have a chat or a drink with your ex-teammates, but as far as regularly keeping in touch is concerned, you would need to spend half your time on the phone to do it, and as I rarely answer my phone to anyone anyway, that becomes a major problem.

  A few of my best mates had now left the club. Daryl Burgess left in the summer of 2003, after having had a long and niggling injury. He was sad to leave, and even sadder to be thundering down the motorway to his new club Rochdale every day, but we had become great friends, as had our families. We had spent some fantastic holidays together, and had had some momentous nights out as couples. The two years we were all together at Northampton Town saw us really live life to the full; Katrina and Fiona got on like a house on fire, as did all our children. We holidayed together in Spain and France, and, between us, we had also kept a few of Birmingham’s finest eating and drinking establishments in business, but nothing lasts for ever. Daryl had known nothing else but football, and when he finally retired I was still playing and earning decent money. Only now do I realise what he was going through, and I recognise that it must have been tough. Daryl is one of football’s good guys, and Katrina can certainly put most men under the table with her quick wit alone, never mind her ability to drink a bottle of vodka without flinching.

  At about the same time as Daryl finished playing, his wife Katrina was going through the immense stress of her brother-in-law’s murder. Robert McCartney had been drinking in a pub in Belfast when things got out of hand, and he was viciously attacked and killed. The notorious case saw McCartney’s sisters stand up to the IRA, meet the President of the USA, and bring about public outcry after the cover-up in the pub that day. Katrina’s sister was left without a husband, and had two young boys to bring up. It was a hell of a stressful time for Daryl and Katrina.

  Other friends had left the club too. James Hunt had moved on, as had Jamie Forrester, and Marco had retired after an illustrious career. He went on to buy a B&B back up in York – I have yet to go, but I am expecting a mammoth discount and free wine when I do!

  Chris Marsh had also retired after a battle with injury, and another with the demon drink. ‘Digger’ (nicknamed after John ‘Digger’ Barnes, because of his uncanny knack for being able to imitate the running style of the great Liverpool player) was special; he had no malice in his body at all, he was a good player and a top person. He also loved a drink. He had a real struggle with it for a while, but in the end his personality and charisma won through and the real Chris Marsh was back. Another good player and good friend, Paul McGregor, also retired at the tender age of twenty-seven. Knowing Macca as I do, I would imagine that he gets great pleasure at the thought of having retired at the same age as George Best, but I’m not convinced, as with George Best, that it was the right thing to do. True to form though, Paul McGregor was rebellious to the end, writing an article for the one of the broadsheets that he ‘wasn’t prepared to take bullshit from people who knew less about the game than [he did], especially on a cold night away at Lincoln’. I suppose he did have a point, and he could afford to leave – he didn’t have the responsibility of providing for any children. He also believed, and still does, that he would make it in the music industry. (Ten years and counting, Macca. I am still waiting for my VIP pass at Glastonbury.)

  The last to leave and to retire (hell, it sounds like I was driving them off!) was Dunc. I’ve mentioned him before – how Duncan Spedding was one funny guy, had come to hate football, constantly spoke like Alan Partridge, and was supremely delighted when the decision was made for him to retire. Our families were also very close, and we had enjoyed some great breaks with them, but Andrea (his then girlfriend, now wife) was a saint for putting up with Dunc, who was officially the most acidic person in football – I’d go so far to describe him as a man bitch! He was a real good laugh though, and together with Daryl and his gang, we all got on brilliantly – that is until a drunken argument after a night out (between Dunc and Katrina) resulted in Dunc and Daryl’s group never speaking again, but hey, let’s not split hairs here.

  After the exit first of Martin Wilkinson and then of Richard Hill, the club announced our new manager in the October of that season. Colin Calderwood would be our seventh manager in four years, and his arrival finally brought with it some much-needed stability for the club. The club’s new owners, th
e Cardoza family, were very ambitious, and their appointment of Calderwood and his assistant John Deehan, as well as their desire to develop the area around the ground, meant that the club was soon well and truly back on track. The previous chairman, Barry Stonhill, had done a brilliant job with the club, but after having seen many hundreds of thousands of pounds of his own money disappear, I think he felt the time was right to step down.

  We quickly improved on the pitch, and, although I hadn’t started in the first few games, partly due to John Deehan not really liking me (OK, I might have to admit this IS a recurring theme!), and partly due to me having had an argument with him after the first game, I was soon back in the team. We quickly crept back up the league and we also had a great FA Cup run, even ending up playing against Man United in the fifth round, but it’s fairly obvious why I don’t want to dwell on that. After playing nearly five hundred league games before then without a hitch, in the game against the reds, I managed to score an own goal. I certainly helped them out, because at the time Diego Forlan, who was nearest to me on the goal line, would have probably missed anyway. Although I managed to give Nicky Butt and Paul Scholes a bit of a game that day, I had to face the press and then a family party afterwards, having bagged the one and only own-goal of my career. At least it was against Man United, and I did have a laugh with the lads at TalkSPORT the next day, but it still annoys the hell out of me even today.

  I played against my old mate Daryl Burgess towards the end of the season; he was now at Rochdale and was staying over at my house after the game so that we could all go out for a meal afterwards. It was a good laugh having a drink with our wives after the game, especially as I was able to give him some serious stick. During the game I had had a bit of a scuffle with Rochdale’s number nine, resulting in me staying on the pitch, but him being sent off. To make matters worse for Rochdale, I then managed to put a volley into the top corner in the last five minutes of the game to win it. As I scored, I ran past Daryl, gave him a nudge and said, ‘Your round, pal.’

  I was delighted he was staying over that night, because we had decided that the loser had to get the beers in, all night! As usual though, Daryl was gracious and humble in defeat – that is, if you can say someone calling you ‘a jammy bastard’ all night is ‘humble’.

  As well as playing against a former teammate that season, I also played against a former team of mine, Plymouth Argyle. They had been promoted to the division above us the season before, so it was a great surprise to be drawn against them in the first round of the cup. I had left that club only fairly recently, and I did get a bit of stick that afternoon, but as often happens in football, the old boy scores against his former club. Much to the fury of the Plymouth Argyle fans, I scored that day and Northampton Town won.

  I got a few more goals that season and, after a final day win against Mansfield Town, we scraped into the play-offs, to play … Mansfield again in the semi-final.

  It had been a great achievement to get into the play-offs, but with Mansfield Town taking forty thousand fans to their previous play-off final, we too wanted to make sure that we went one step further. The first leg against Mansfield Town had been at home, and before you could say, ‘Mine’s a Bovril, a pie, and a Mars Bar’, or be told that the price was five pounds for the said items, we had lost 2–0 and now had a mountain to climb. The second leg looked a daunting prospect, but I remember walking on to the team coach, and giving a comedy war cry of, ‘Come on you beauties, it’s our time!’

  The lads laughed, and it helped lift the mood a little. We took three thousand fans to the match against Mansfield Town that night, some of whom couldn’t even get in, and the atmosphere was fantastic. We scored in the first twenty minutes. Just before half time I rose from a cross and nodded in the equaliser in front of the Cobblers fans. This put us level with their 2–0 win against us in the first leg. It was a great moment and I have to say at that point I was visualising the coach cruising down towards Wembley. We were now right in the game.

  I will stop at this point to apologise to my readers. I am suddenly worried about this book, and whether you will find this section, or, in fact, this book, any good. If you don’t, all I can do is apologise again and suggest that you a) try for a refund in the shop, b) stop reading it immediately and use the pages for kindling, or c) keep soldiering on with it and hate me afterwards. Option a is my least favourite. Have I mentioned my increasing paranoia?

  The second half was dominated by us, and with ten minutes to go, Martin Smith got the third goal, and the final was now in our grasp. The next part was like the record that suddenly scratches halfway through the song. It was, without doubt, the most ridiculous decision by an official I have ever seen. In the final few minutes of the game, our striker Eric Sabin went in for a challenge with one of the Mansfield Town players; they both got up afterward, and the Mansfield Town player, who had gone in much harder, reacted, and kicked out at Eric. There was then a big melee, which saw the normal referee’s consultation with his linesman, who was fifty yards away – how a bloke who is further away from the incident than the referee can help is always beyond me. Both players were then booked, but, incredibly, the ref gave a free kick to Mansfield Town. As much as we complained, he had made his decision. The cliché ‘well, if they score now it will be a disgrace’ was never more deserved as the ball was pumped into our box, and yes, in that final minute they scored.

  I could honestly have killed both the linesman and referee at this point. As well as those two muppets, while I am at it, I could have also killed the old farts sat around the table at the FA who, in their infinite wisdom, and during their seven-course lunches designed to thrash out new initiatives to improve our beautiful game, do such things as giving a manager who can’t speak English six million pounds a year to balls-up our national team. It was they who decided, for the first year ever, and no one really knows why, to do away with the away goal rule. With their 2–0 win before, and our 3–1 score now, Northampton Town were equal with Mansfield Town.

  Because of Tweedledum and Tweedledee at the ground, and the prawn sandwich brigade at the FA, we were now going into extra time. You may think I am going over the top, but I’m really not. Winning that game, as we deserved to, would have probably meant most of us staying at the club the next season. We would have had a chance to win the final, and it would have given the whole of Northampton a day to remember. We lost on penalties that night, and, of all people, Eric Sabin missed the vital spot kick. That was my last goal and my last game for Northampton Town, and I really wish it had ended on a high. I loved the club and its fans, and had enjoyed a brilliant time there; it will always be a very special place for me. I couldn’t help but feel a gargantuan lump in my throat as I looked on at my family and the fans in the stand that night.

  The morning after the game we were all summoned in to see the management about our futures. Colin Calderwood stayed silent, which, after speaking to him a few months later, I know he felt was wrong. He had said to me only a month or so earlier that I had done really well for him, and that he wanted to give me a new two-year deal in the summer. However, the man doing the talking was John Deehan who said, ‘Well Chris, the best we can do is offer you half of what you are on, for six months, and if you speak to the PFA, I think they would advise you to sign.’

  I looked at Colin, who looked at Deehan, as if unsure whether to get involved before responding, ‘It’s a fair offer.’

  Fucking fair my arse – I had agreed to stay at the club and have my wages cut by twenty-five per cent for the previous contract, but I knew that this was taking the piss, and so did John Deehan. He knew that I couldn’t, and wouldn’t, accept it, probably why he gave me such a derisory offer. I stood up and said, ‘No problem – I’m not going to spit my dummy out. I have always been a man of principle, and I’ll do the same as my dad would do and not let people take the piss. All the best then.’

  I shook Colin’s hand and John’s (harder – I couldn’t help but show my anger a lit
tle), said my goodbyes to everyone, and left the club. That same week, Martin Allen offered me a contract for three times as much, and for four times as long. I was on my way to Brentford.

  We have just had bonfire night, which, as usual, consisted of me burning myself, fireworks flying randomly everywhere, children playing with sparklers, and a few bottles of beer. In short, it was a health and safety master class. As far as work is concerned, I still have my eye on opening up a business, I would desperately love to manage a team, and I still do the pots each day, as we have had to ban any dishwasher use. Despite these stresses, I know that I have a fantastic life. For now though I still have the great pleasure of being able to pick up my beautiful girls from school and I will leave you with my motto which is simply ‘Don’t ask the Lord, just thank Him when you receive.’

  P.S. Just to let you know, I have just googled whether or not a dishwasher cycle is, in fact, more expensive than washing up, and it’s not, so hooray!

  I come back to continue writing in a different mood. Today I am very low. I am missing the game dreadfully. I miss the atmosphere of a match day and the buzz of playing, and being able to say I’m a professional footballer. If I was single or selfish I could easily go on a three-week bender to drown my sorrows to get through this rocky patch, but as it is, it’s bath time, Cam needs help with his homework, and anyway, my wallet doesn’t contain beer tokens.

  2004/05

  I was sad to be leaving Northampton Town, but I couldn’t help but feel excited at the prospect of meeting up with Martin Allen at Brentford. I travelled up to London to meet him with my agent, Justin Paige, who always got on well with prospective managers. Justin had been my agent since I required a replacement after the failed Reading deal. As soon as I sat down at the table with Martin Allen and his assistant Adrian Whitbread, I knew he was very different from any other manager I had played for. He looked at me for around a minute and then said, ‘Well, you’re not bad looking, and your hair is pretty, but can you play? Will you run through a brick wall for me?’