Budgie - The Autobiography

by John Burridge

  Terry had proved he could build a good team and get them playing well so everything looked set up for us to have a brilliant season. But then they put down that synthetic surface – becoming the first club in England to put down an artificial pitch. I wasn’t keen on the idea, but I tried to keep an open mind. It wasn’t long before my mind was made up 100 per cent though, because the first time I went out onto the pitch I found it was like concrete. I was thinking to myself: ‘They’ve turned the pitch into an airport runway and they expect us to play on that?’

  The rumour was that the board were also planning to put a roof over the pitch. Loftus Road was a beautiful stadium. It wasn’t the biggest, but it was a nice compact ground. Jim Gregory was a businessman and had the idea of creating an arena that could host big concerts featuring all the big acts at that time – Tina Turner, the Rolling Stones or big boxing bouts. Instead of the stadium being used just once a fortnight to host QPR games, they were talking about the ground being in continuous use, with amateur players renting it for five-a-sides. But they didn’t get planning permission to go the whole hog.

  There was a whole lot of talk about how good the artificial pitch was, but for me it just seemed like propaganda. All the big plans being spouted for Loftus Road were turning the club into a bit of a circus and for a while it felt like football was playing second fiddle. Jim Gregory may have been a brilliant businessman, and he had many grand plans, but I didn’t like that side of it whatsoever. I just wanted to concentrate on the football club, get them into the First Division, and kick on from there.

  I gave it a go on the artificial pitch for about six months, but it was hellish. We’d be playing one week on the plastic pitch and then the next away from home on grass, and it was becoming difficult to adjust from one week to the next. It got to the stage where I used to hate playing at home. Football is meant to be played on grass. The plastic pitch of 1981 was light years away from the artificial surfaces we have today. Those types of pitches have now come on in leaps and bounds, and a lot of them now are almost as good as grass. But in 1981 it was an altogether different story – a plastic pitch was just a thin carpet plonked down on concrete.

  The ball used to bounce ridiculously high. When you dived on it your body used to ache. I would be scarred and gashed to pieces. I had carpet burns all over the place from the synthetic surface and it would take me days at a time to recover fully. It wasn’t much fun for outfield players, but for goalkeepers it was brutal. Your elbows had to be padded, your thighs had to be padded; you ran out looking like Robocop because you had so much protective gear stuffed under your shirt and tracksuit bottoms. When you got knocked over, you came down hard. Because it was the 1980s, and there seemed to be a new invention every week, I think a lot of fans embraced it at first. But after they had watched a few matches and seen the ball bouncing all over the place, with the players running about in trainers and struggling to control the ball, they started to have some reservations. I think it was mainly brought in as a way of copying the Americans. But in the US Soccer League, they would be playing in enclosed arenas in the Florida heat. A wet and windy day in west London wasn’t quite the same. It was so dangerous to play on, and I wasn’t happy on it at all. A lot of the lads suffered in silence, but keeping my mouth shut was never my style and I started to voice my concerns to Terry. I told him that a pitch like that would take years of the life expectancy of a player, and especially a keeper. I reckoned if you played on that week-in week-out it would take five or six years off your career. You had players complaining of bad backs, bad knees and bad ankles because of the pounding their bodies took on it – and I can’t remember a single voice speaking up in support of it. It got to the stage where I’d had enough, and I told Terry I couldn’t keep playing on it. I launched into a tirade against plastic pitches. Terry told me: ‘Budgie, I hear what you are saying, but you can’t go saying that in the papers.’ But I had the bit between the teeth and I said: ‘I can and I will.’ And I did.

  I started being heavily critical publically, airing my views in no uncertain terms to the press whenever the opportunity presented itself. I made the point that in every training session a keeper would be coming down a thousand times on it. My body was taking a battering, but the board were happy enough to keep the dreaded plastic because other teams hated it too and we rarely lost at home. After I’d had my say in the papers, I then asked to be put on the transfer list. It was tough in a football sense to walk away from a club managed by Terry Venables, but I knew I was fighting a losing battle. I could slate the surface as much as I liked to the press, it wasn’t going to be enough to persuade the Queens Park Rangers board to change their minds and go back to a grass pitch. The directors saw me as a troublemaker and the atmosphere towards me was frosty. They thought that because they paid my wages I should shut up and get on with it. They clearly didn’t know me very well.

  I needed to get away from the artificial turf as quick as I possibly could, so I could enjoy my football again, and so to bring matters to a head I refused to play on it any more. My relationship with Terry suffered over that, because I had gone against his wishes and voiced my opinion to the press after he had advised me it wouldn’t be a good idea. But for me I was only telling the truth and trying to stand up for the players. What I said was what every other player was thinking.

  I eventually got my wish; I got a move away from QPR but on loan first of all, to Wolves. Ironically, in my absence, QPR would go all the way to the FA Cup final that year, meeting and beating my former club Crystal Palace on the way, with my replacement Peter Hucker doing a good job in goal.

  CHAPTER 13

  IS IT A BUDGIE? IS IT A PLANE…?

  ‘I told the manager I was going to play in a Superman costume.’

  When I started making noises that I wanted out of QPR and away from their horrendous plastic pitch, it wasn’t just Wolves who wanted to sign me. I had a couple of options. Gerry Francis had just left the club to go to Coventry City in the First Division, and he kept ringing me, telling me to come and join him. But the agreement to go on loan to Wolves was already in place, and it turned out to be a brilliant move for me.

  I had a fantastic start at Molineux and we never lost a game during my first month there. I settled in really well and while I was keen to secure a permanent move away from QPR, Coventry were still sniffing about and waving the carrot of First Division football under my nose. I needed to get my future sorted fast, so I spoke to Jim Gregory and he agreed to sell me. He quickly agreed a deal with Wolves, who were willing to pay £225,000 for me – £75,000 more than Coventry’s highest offer. I was dithering about Wolves, waiting to see what sort of offer Coventry would come back with, but Gregory made my mind up for me. I wasn’t going to be allowed to just slip away from Loftus Road without a parting shot from the chairman, who I had really rattled with my criticism of his artificial pitch.

  I was on the phone talking over my move with Terry, who was in his office at the ground, when Jim Gregory’s voice burst onto the line. ‘You fucking mongrel!’ he snapped. ‘You took that signing-on cash from me then you’ve got the nerve to complain about the pitch! If you don’t go to Wolves like I tell you, I will make an example of you. I’ll have you here for years playing for the reserves on the plastic every week!’

  He slammed the phone down on me. I talked it over with Terry again. I was panicking; I was out my depth dealing with someone like Gregory. They made me suffer for two days before Terry got back to me and said he’d calmed Gregory down. ‘But Budgie,’ Terry added, ‘I think you’d better go to Wolves like he says.’

  So I signed for Wolves and although my salary came down a bit, I wasn’t bothered because I was just there to play football, and to play it on grass like it should be played! I had to start looking for a house in Wolverhampton so Janet went house-hunting and found us a lovely Georgian mansion. I also found that, all of a sudden, I had a lot of free time on my hands. When I was in London it would take me ages just to drive to
training in the traffic. In Wolverhampton, I could drive to the ground in five minutes. It took a bit of adjusting from the hustle-bustle and banter of London to the peace and quiet of my new home city. Wolverhampton isn’t exactly a backwater, and its football team is one of the biggest clubs in the Midlands, but after London it was still very different.

  The football was going very well and we had a fantastic team at Wolves – in front of me in defence were Geoff Palmer, John Pender, Alan Dodd and John Humphrey. In midfield we had guys like Kenny Hibbitt, Peter Daniel and Micky Matthews, while my long-time pal from Villa Andy Gray, Wayne Clarke and Mel Eves were up front scoring goals for fun. Wolves had just come down from the First Division and I had been bought to help get them back up there. I already had something of a reputation for helping teams win promotion, so I fitted the bill.

  For Wolves, it was seen – rather naïvely as it turned out – as the dawning of a new era, because not only had they been relegated the season before, but they had been in receivership and three minutes from going out of business before the Bhatti brothers stepped in to save them. Football fans need hope to keep them going and people were full of optimism that the nightmare was behind them and that it would be a turning point. It would have been tragic if a club like Wolves went to the wall, and fans still talk about how close it came to happening. It wasn’t long before the doom and gloom that had carried over from relegation and the brush with extinction lifted, and we soon had a great atmosphere in the club, with big crowds coming to Molineux in the firm belief that we would quickly get back to the First Division. We were able to fuel their optimism as we made a solid start to the 1982/83 season.

  The lads at Wolves loved my dressing room antics and, looking back, I did some of the craziest things of my life at that club. They had a big old-fashioned dressing room with a rail running round it about 6ft from ground level. Above the rail, there was a spaghetti-like cluster of wires leading up to the strip lights. We had no gym at the ground, which bugged me a bit because I was really into my weights at the time. I was forced to improvise to stay in shape, so I stuck an iron bar across the rail, over the angle at the corner, so I could do my chin-ups. I got into a routine where I would do my press-ups on the floor, then my chin-ups on the bar before I went to training. I was always working on my body to keep it strong. Even before games, I would jump up on that bar and do my chins to get warmed up for the match before we went out.

  One week, we were playing Oldham, and as usual I jumped up onto my bar. But after me doing hundreds of chins day after day the bar had completely worn down the wire above it and all of a sudden a shitload of volts came surging through it. I felt it zap through my body, electrifying me as I was swinging there, and I couldn’t let go. I was hanging there like a crazed monkey, screaming at the top of my voice. All the lads were in fits of laughter, thinking I was having a funny turn, but the truth was I was actually frying before their eyes! I eventually managed to loosen my grip and slumped down to the ground, and when I looked at my hands they had turned blue. But there was no question of me missing the game, we didn’t have anyone else, so I went out and played, probably still packed full of enough electricity to light up the city, and managed to keep a clean sheet in a 0-0 draw.

  We were especially strong in defence, and looked promotion material from the word go. We were top of the league most of the season, but we had far too many draws, and my old team QPR knocked us off top spot. It would have been nice to have won the championship again, having already done it with Palace, but QPR – helped by their plastic pitch home advantage – were not for catching, and we had to settle for second spot.

  We clinched promotion with two games to spare after a hell of a game against Charlton, which finished 3-3 after us being 3-0 up at half-time. We could afford to go out and enjoy our last game of the season, a home encounter against Newcastle United. I had been voted the player of the year and was due to get my award before the game, so I thought I would collect it in style. On the way to Molineux, I stopped at a fancy dress shop and I hired a Superman outfit.

  Before the game, I was mucking around in the dressing room with my Superman uniform – prancing about in my blue tights and red pants. I decided to up the ante, and told the lads I was going to go out and do the warm-up with the costume on, so I out I went with the cape and mask, emerging from the tunnel with my fist out, Superman-style. It was a full house of 22,500 and the crowd were pissing themselves laughing. We took a break from the warm-up to gather in the centre circle and I was presented with my player of the year award with my fancy dress suit on.

  As I warmed up, all the Newcastle players were nudging each other and pointing at me. Chris Waddle and Kevin Keegan came down towards the Wolves end, laughing and calling me an idiot. Kevin shouted over: ‘It looks great, Budgie – shame you can’t play in it!’ That was all the encouragement I needed, and I shouted back: ‘Just watch me. I bet you a hundred quid that I AM going to play in it!’

  When we got into the dressing room I told the manager, Graham Hawkins, that I was going to play in it and he got a bit upset about it. The linesman would always come in about 2.45 to check the studs. There was no sponsorship in those days, so I didn’t have any logo I had to display and I wasn’t breaking any rules. So I asked the linesman, and he said he had no objections as long as I didn’t clash with the other team. So I took off the cape, kept the tights and the blue top and taped a number one onto my back. I put a pair of proper shorts on top of my blue tights and I ran out, half-Superman, half-Wolverhampton Wanderers goalie. After the game, a 2-2 draw, Keegan was true to his word and he gave me £100 for the bet and told me that was the best entertainment he had ever seen on a football pitch.

  Another costume prank I played at Wolves was at the players’ Christmas party. Before the night out, there was a lot of squabbling, with the dressing room split on what we should wear – half of them wanted dicky bows and dinner suits, while the rest of them wanted to go smart, but casual. The smart but casual camp won, so I turned up in a dinner suit cut in half and sewn onto a tramp’s outfit!

  The Wolves supporters had been brilliant and I almost had a tear in my eye as I applauded them at the end of what had been a great season. I got on really well with the local journalist Dave Harrison and his match report afterwards in the Wolverhampton Express and Star quoted me as saying: ‘It was a very emotional moment for me. The fans have been a 13th man for us this season and I would have liked to have gone and shaken every one of them by the hand.’

  That was true – the Wolves fans were amazing. Their passion stood them in good stead, because even though they’d just bounced back to the First Division there were some incredibly dark days ahead as the Bhatti brothers turned out to be Wolves in sheep’s clothing.

  We went away to Majorca for an end-of-season trip to celebrate our promotion. I was not a drinker but that didn’t mean I couldn’t still enjoy myself on these trips. The rest of the lads had worked their arses off during the season and were entitled to get a few lagers down their necks and enjoy the sun, sea and sand, but I remained dedicated to my fitness regime – and I think that drove a few of them barmy. They would be lying on the beach chilling out, and I’d be fidgeting about, trying to get one of them to come for a run with me or do some sit-ups. I had very high fitness levels, and it didn’t matter where we were, I wanted to maintain them. I wasn’t the type of footballer who decided to spend the summer drinking and relaxing then turn up for pre-season ready to sweat it all off. But we had great team spirit at Wolves and it was a brilliant trip. I may not have been joining in the big rounds of drinks but I could still have some fun, and I brought the house down when all the lads were standing at the bar in a club and I walked past them on my hands in just my underpants.

  Because it had been such a fantastic season and because I had played so well myself, it was time to be ‘John Burridge The Greedy’ again when we came back for the new season in the First Division. I felt that Wolves were going to make an awful lot of mon
ey by going up to the top flight again, so I wanted a piece of the action.

  I went to see Graham Hawkins and explained to him that I had taken a serious drop in wages to come to the club in the first place, which was okay for the Second Division, but not now we’d gone up. I told him that for First Division football I wanted First Division wages. But he said there was nothing he could do – I had signed a contract and I would be expected to honour it.

  The new season started, but because I hadn’t been given what I wanted, I don’t think my heart was really in it. My mind wasn’t as focused as it should have been. Yes, I had a beautiful house and the kids were happy, but that made no difference to me, I wanted First Division wages and I became disillusioned. We were struggling in the league, too, and matters got worse in November 1983 when the club transferred my closest friend, Andy Gray, to Everton for a ridiculously cheap £250,000. Hawkins was struggling to get results and was trying anything to stop the rot, including dropping me for a while for Paul Bradshaw. I wasn’t having that, and got the newspaper round to my house where I got my photo taken with all my player of the year trophies from the year before, to show who should be the Wolves No.1. I wasn’t out of the team for long after that stunt. Graham Hawkins didn’t last the season though – they sacked him in April, with Wolves bottom of the league and heading back to the Second Division – and called for ‘The Doc’, Tommy Docherty.

  The salary dispute was still bugging me and after my second year at Wolves I told them I didn’t want to play for them anymore. I had come to the end of my contract and it was time to move on. I had been fantastic in my first full season at Wolves, but if I’m being honest, I was no better than mediocre in my second season.