Where's Your Caravan?

by Chris Hargreaves

  We went on to beat them with the help of a great goal by Matt Green. Although we were disappointed with the fourth round draw, playing Coventry City at home represented another great chance to progress. The atmosphere in a changing room on a match day is always electric, and Paul Buckle had done his best with the funds at his disposal to give the team as much help as he could. We had a video room where goals scored by the lads would constantly be shown, and, as bad as it was under the old stand where the changing rooms were, we did have a few rooms to stretch in and have a much-needed rub. It was a really relaxed atmosphere in our changing room, so much so that we had the sons of both the manager and the captain (me) in there kicking a ball about – although when the post-match rants started, they soon made themselves scarce.

  I think Cam has seen more than most as a young lad. He has been in a changing room before big games and after devastating losses, and I’m not sure whether that is a good or bad thing. One thing for sure is, he has certainly heard plenty of swear words!

  We played Coventry City off the park in the fourth round … but lost. Chris Coleman, their manager at the time, said he was very relieved, and shocked, that they had eventually won, and that we had deserved the win on the day. Regardless of whether we deserved the win, we didn’t get it. Coventry City scored from a corner in the last minute of the game, and our cup run was over. I also broke my nose pretty badly in that game and decided to reset it myself. It wasn’t some sort of Bear Grylls moment, more the fact that when I showed my fellow midfielder, Nicky Wroe, the old hooter, he turned away and said, ‘Jesus, I think you need to go off.’

  The other contributing factors were that the game was televised, and I didn’t want to look like the Beast of Bodmin Moor, and that coming off for treatment may have meant staying off for it. So, I gripped it hard and snapped it back to some sort of normal positioning. It was crazy really, and as I sit here and type away, I cannot believe the lengths I went to to play. I was having an injection before every game for around two months, for a rib injury; I had lacerated my head, and broke my nose a further time before the season was over. Was it all worth it? Well, put it this way, I desperately wish I was still playing.

  The FA Trophy was pushed to one side that season; after our exploits the previous season in all the competitions and having only a small squad, trying to do well in everything was unrealistic – we only wanted promotion. The injections before almost every game were just an inconvenience in what had to be a successful season.

  The pivotal moment came in a game against the unlikeliest of opponents, Barrow Town away, on a typical cold Tuesday night.

  We had travelled up the previous day, on another epic journey onboard the fun bus, one which saw the lads have a quiz, strip to their boxers due to the heat, play cards to the death, eat sweets until sick, tell Elliot Benyon to stop farting for the fiftieth time, and abuse the driver around a thousand times. As well as the dreaded man-flu and my rib problem, my back was also all over the place, but it was the groin pain that had returned at that time that was a real killer. The seats like breezeblocks we had been sitting on for eight hours didn’t help, and, when we arrived at Farnborough Town to do a bit of training on the Monday afternoon, I could hardly walk, let alone train.

  We had actually used some great training grounds over the course of the season, including Aston Villa, Leeds United and Wigan Athletic (perhaps not so good in comparison to the first two!) but Farnborough’s groundsman was either on gardening leave, or there was a hosepipe ban in place. The club’s car park had more give in it than the pitch, and as we practised a bit of team shape on this moonscape, I had to say to Bucks that I couldn’t move, and would have to stop. When we got back to the hotel I was in a right mess; I asked Damien for some tablets and he told me to come up to his room.

  I went up to Damien’s room and he just laughed at me and said, ‘Christ, Greavsie, you’re done in. I think you will be struggling.’

  I was not only in tatters with a bit of flu, but I hadn’t managed to get to see Richard for my weekly clunk and click, so my back and groin felt as if I had been riding a horse for a week. Damien’s statement didn’t really sink in though – the day before, the Sunday, I had received some devastating news that had shocked me to the core, so much so that I had to be alone for most of that trip, and little else got through to me.

  That Sunday, I was in the kitchen of my friends Jason and Sarah. While there, I took a phone call from my mum. Not long before, my cousin Rebecca, who along with her sister Isobel had spent a lot of time with Mark and me as children, had phoned my mum. Rebecca’s seventeen-year-old son James had died; he had been hit by a train. James was a brilliant boy with the world at his feet, and it is incomprehensible what Rebecca, her husband Paul and James’s sister, Hannah, must have gone through. James hadn’t come home the Saturday night at the usual time, and the family immediately knew there was a problem. A search party was sent out and early the next morning his body was found by the side of a train track. A tragic accident for a young man, and a moment I simply cannot imagine for the family.

  James’s death had a major impact on the whole family. My thoughts and feelings after his death definitely changed; I was so angry that a life with so much promise could be taken, and my resolve to succeed was now even stronger.

  That Tuesday was a surreal day of pain and sadness. I didn’t even eat the pre-match meal with the lads; I was so preoccupied with thoughts about James, and about how Rebecca, Paul and Hannah must have been feeling. I played that night with so many thoughts running through my head. The game itself was as expected, Barrow Town were fighting for every ball, needing a point to survive, and with us requiring a point to get into the play-offs and keep the chasing pack off our backs, the writing was on the wall when they took an early lead. A few of our players really didn’t rise to the challenge that cold Tuesday night, and on any other night I could have had a minute bit of sympathy for them, such was the team we were playing and the surroundings we were playing in – for anyone who has never been to see Barrow Town (most people), their football ground is in the middle of nowhere and is overlooked by the biggest graveyard you can imagine. However, that night I was so highly charged with anger and emotion that I exploded in the changing room afterwards.

  We had actually drawn the game – I had managed to score with ten minutes remaining, but it could so easily have been a loss, and I was on the warpath.

  ‘You were fucking shit. Do you want to fuck it all up again, the chance to go up? Why don’t some of you just fuck off if you haven’t got the heart for it?’

  Clearly they did want to go up, and, of course, the lads did have the heart for it, but I think I was so emotionally drained, and relieved to have played and scored, that I just blew. I felt a responsibility, as captain of the team, to get us promoted. I know it sounds silly, but it was the same with Oxford United, I felt responsible for us being relegated, so I knew how shitty it would be for us not to go up. It simply had to happen.

  To be fair to Paul Buckle, he was on at the lads as much as I was that night. He said, ‘Your fucking captain has got you out of the shit tonight, and I am just wondering how many of you actually want this.’

  The coach was pretty silent on the way home for so many reasons, but, football being as it is, the camaraderie was as strong as ever when the coach eventually rolled back into Devon, after another epic return journey.

  Our last game of the season was against Burton Albion. As it stood, they needed a win to guarantee promotion, and we needed one to guarantee a place in the play-offs. Again the Setanta cameras were present, and again it was a great game; Burton Albion took the lead early in the first half, much to the jubilation of their fifteen hundred away fans, and it looked as if it could have been one of those days, particularly after what had happened in the previous season. Much to our relief though, their lead was short-lived. Pretty much straight after the restart our diminutive little winger, Danny Stevens, wriggled past a few Burton Albion players and
crossed the ball in for me, and I curled a shot past their keeper to draw us level. I was delighted to score in what was another tense day, and as I ran to the fans clutching the old armband (and yes I did get plenty of stick for that) it was great to see my family and friends in the crowd. Elliot Benyon then duly scored what was to be the winner, but right up until the final whistle both teams had no idea how the other results in the league were going, and so we were both desperate to win. Soon after the final whistle had been blown, the Burton Albion players and fans celebrated, as news had filtered in that Cambridge United, who were the only team able to pip them to automatic promotion, had lost. We were obviously pleased, as we had reached the play-offs, my sixth in total and fifth in the last six seasons. While Burton Albion started their promotion party, we still had work to do.

  We were drawn against Histon in the play-offs, a team notorious for their long ball game, but also one that had done brilliantly to be where they were in the league. They were aided by a certain John Beck, who had been the Cambridge United manager back in the early nineties, and I certainly remember playing against Cambridge United for Grimsby Town back then. Cambridge United had had a decent team, with Dion Dublin and John Taylor spearheading a formidable attack, but hell could they shell it. The pitch was always full of sand, which was used to kill the ball dead as it landed in the corners, usually from a great height. And it didn’t get much better off the pitch – the showers were always freezing cold in the winter, and the radiators were turned up full pelt in the summer – all the oldest tricks in the book. Still, credit has to go to Beck, at one point that Cambridge United side actually threatened to get into the top flight.

  We beat Histon 2–0 at home in the first leg, and now only had to avoid a 2–0 loss in the second leg to reach Wembley. The away trip was pretty special, mostly because my roommate had returned. Chris Todd, together with his knock-off clothes and horrendous banter, had beaten leukaemia, and was well and truly back. He had returned to the team in a game against Northwich Victoria a few weeks earlier, and in true Toddy fashion had scored a really important goal. Together with me and Tim Sills, he had also joined in with, what could loosely have been called, a ‘scrap’ in that game. Tensions were high as Northwich Victoria were on the verge of relegation, but with what we had been through in the last couple of seasons, both on and off the pitch, the fight was only going one way. Toddy loved a good old-fashioned scrap, and after one of his many fancy dress outings with his brothers and mates in his hometown of Swansea, one which had obviously gone a bit wrong, he once had me in stitches telling me how the bouncers were last seen brawling away with a Smurf, an ape, Mr Blobby and four of the seven dwarfs.

  The away game against Histon was as expected – I have never headed so many balls in one game. It was real tin-helmet stuff, especially in the last ten minutes, after they had pulled a goal back. We were camped in our own penalty box for the remaining few minutes receiving Scud missiles at an alarming rate. We managed to hold on though, and it was an incredible feeling when the final whistle was eventually blown. Massive credit has to go to the Histon players who, although gutted, were gracious in defeat.

  I was overjoyed. We had finally done it, and I had finally reached a play-off final at the sixth time of asking. Helen came over to give me a hug, which was great, and I told her I would see her at Wembley with the cup. To be fair to Helen Chamberlain, she has been brilliant for the club, and she has no airs or graces about her at all. I did find it quite painful though when she pointed out the Aston Martin in the car park, but hey, we can’t all be good at poker, have our own show, and knock about with a bunch of actors and Premiership footballers. (Helen, please do not find the constant texts asking to go to film premieres, and to plug the book, offensive – it is all meant in good spirit!)

  We were pretty low key in the changing room after the win; the cameras were waiting for us to shower everything and everyone in champagne, but we didn’t bother with all that. Bucks was relieved, but also didn’t want to get too carried away with it, and I just sat there dead pan while doing the old pec dance for the camera. The cameraman was chuckling away, and the lads found it funny, but Fiona said I looked like a complete tit, once I got home. Honesty is always the best policy.

  Along with the annual naked dip, the pec dance had become a bit of a regular occurrence; it was just a bit of fun, and after all, I did have to live up to the Tarzan nickname. It was a bit of a party piece when our games were televised, and I did get some stick for it. Televised games had other perks – I also happened to look down the camera after a night game against York and, knowing my children would be watching, I stared down the lens and said, ‘Get to bed, kids.’

  You can’t believe how many people were coming up to me in Devon saying, ‘Our children thought you were speaking to them, and went straight to bed, can you do that more often?’

  My playing up to entertain children wasn’t a one-off. It was hilarious on holiday one year; somehow I had been seated two rows behind my own family on the outward journey (that wasn’t the funny bit), but the family I was temporarily sat with had a young boy who actually did think I was Tarzan. I spent most of the journey banging my chest and saying, ‘Me Tarzan, King of the Jungle.’

  Even more incredible – and as a result my wife swears I could talk to an alien and not feel out of place – was that after getting on famously with this family, I invited them over, and we went on to spend most of the holiday with them. I had to do a type of swan dive everyday and fight with a pretend snake (we found an old piece of house pipe at the villa) so that little Johnny could shout ‘Tarzan’.

  The Tarzan madness continued in the build up to Wembley. The club had printed all the lads’ faces onto famous characters to sell on T-shirts, and, yes, mine was on a picture of Tarzan swinging on a rope, with the message ‘Chris Hargreaves as Tarzan, swinging into Wembley.’ Cringe factor ten! A good laugh all the same and they sold out, all ten of them!

  I will have to clock off until tomorrow which is a bit frustrating, but, what with Arsenal playing Barcelona tonight, and my wife Fiona trying to get back on the laptop to fill out a dreaded tax return online, I will have to concede defeat. It is a cross between a youth club and an office in the living room at the moment. Cameron has started yet another project for school, this time it is to make an authentic Roman coin in twenty-four hours. All the dining table chairs are set up for a show, as Hattie has just finished her twenty-minute play involving a tutu and her toy dog – she has now got hold of the glue and is sticking down everything in her path. Isabella has decided to clean Flopsy Peppa Marley Pip’s hutch. She has brought in a bale of hay. The rabbit is now stuck behind the fridge, the hamsters are kicking off, the TV is on full belt, and my wife is demanding that I get some alcohol on my return home from getting the boy from football. Bloody hell! – I am trying to write a decent book here, and I might as well be on the set of Crackerjack. I will find a slot tomorrow and crack on.

  Although it wasn’t the FA Cup, or the Champions League final, the excitement was pretty high for the play-off final. Again, we would be playing in front of around fifty thousand fans and this time I would be leading the team out. OK, my career hadn’t exactly gone to plan, but to have played at Wembley twice in two years in the latter part of my career was great. It had also been a mission to help Torquay United get their league status back. My Torquay United career also seemed to have created a lucky number for me. I was given the number fourteen as a squad number, the last house we rented was number fourteen and the guy who sorted out my lease car also put a plate on it with fourteen on. From then on I seemed to notice the number all the time, and now I still look at signs or work out equations that inevitably lead to the number fourteen.

  The family went up to Wembley in convoy. The previous year we had all stayed at the Wembley Plaza, but losing at Wembley is not a nice experience, so I told everyone that I would be heading back after the game on the coach with the boys, whatever the result. The family all stayed in
a different hotel to me the night before the game, superstition and all that, and, as usual, Fiona entertained everyone with her drinking and dancing escapades. It must be down to her nervous disposition, because no matter what the event (and it is usually a presentation night, a player function or, in this case, a final) she always gets absolutely and completely blind drunk. It’s always the quiet ones!

  We travelled up the day before in our tracksuits, as we normally would for an away game – this is what we should have done the first year, instead of dressing up like a load of tits in our club ‘gift’ of a forty pound M&S suit. Again, rooming with Toddy was great; we had been through a lot together in the last few years, and for him to be there was very special. On the morning of the game I spoke to a few of the lads. I remember Chris Robertson saying to me, ‘Jesus, do you think we will win Greavsie? I’m fucking nervous here.’

  He was just being honest, and I’m sure most lads would feel the same before any cup final, whether it was the World Cup or the eggcup. I replied, ‘Robbo, just imagine your hands lifting that cup, because that is what’s going to happen today, big boy.’

  We both laughed, and I think he kind of believed it.

  I had been so relaxed in the build up to the final, I think I just had the mentality of ‘You know what, what will be will be.’ I couldn’t help but think of James, and how this game wasn’t life or death. I also knew that losing was not an option – I had promised my kids that I would lift the cup, and by Christ I was going to fucking lift it. No one had been given new contracts, no one knew their destiny, including me, and when you are backed into a corner like that, as most of the lads were that season, it does funny things to your mind. The old ‘fight or flight syndrome’ is a phrase many people use, and I can see why – we were buzzing with adrenaline.