Читать книгу Where’s Your Caravan?: My Life on Football’s B-Roads - Chris Hargreaves - Страница 7

Looking back to 1989 is not so easy – the old memory is not what it used to be and my pyramid filing system of programmes and no DVD footage (it was all video back then!) doesn’t help matters. However, I have just found an old newspaper cutting with the headline ‘Chris on the mark’, referring to my debut for Grimsby Town juniors after my return from Everton. ‘Hargreaves scored with a good left foot shot.’ Not the best bit of journalism ever, you may think, but it gets better. At the bottom of the piece it says, ‘Town dominated until the last ten minutes when Doncaster came with a flurry. The referee and one of his linesmen failed to turn up, so Town’s youth coach Arthur Mann ran the line for the last fifteen minutes.’

Brilliant. I can just see Arthur, God rest him, judging any offside decisions or fouls that were made, and can’t help but wonder – if the referee and one linesman didn’t turn up, and Arthur ran the line for the last fifteen minutes, who did it for the first seventy-five?

Another cutting, this time with a picture next to it, shows me heading the ball out of the keeper’s hands and into the net, a sort of ‘before and after’ picture. Hooray for the Grimsby press. I even found the picture of the youth team’s first day’s training for season 89/90. Alan Buckley, the first team manager, is running next to us. I have the biggest Rick Astley bouffant, and all of the lads’ shorts are ridiculously Simon Cowell-like – we look as if we are going to a PE lesson. The shot was taken at Weelsby Woods, a large park in Grimsby, and we really did do some serious running sessions around that place. At all the clubs I have played for, the local park or nearby forest, usually somewhere to be enjoyed and a place to relax, was a place of torture for a player. Pre-season is a time for parks and pain, and Weelsby Woods was no exception.

I was, as you should be at seventeen, super fit, and I was probably a little bit more aggressive and confident than most boys at my age. This definitely helped me when I was around the first team. You need a large slice of luck to break through and get a professional contract; I had that luck, but I also had a burning desire to get a contract. Many good footballers have failed at the first hurdle and have either drifted out of the game or simply given up. I had eyes on only one thing, and that was to play at Blundell Park as a professional footballer.

This wish came true very quickly.

After joining in with a few of the first team’s training sessions I soon got a taste of the action. The difference between training with the first team and the youth team was huge. With the first team, a lot more moaning went on if you gave the ball away, and you would be on the receiving end of quite a few tackles and elbows from seasoned pros. There was certainly no allowance for age. If I was good enough to play, I was good enough to be tackled. The then team captain, Shaun Cunnington, was a prime example. If he had ‘gone through’ you with a bad tackle, he would just shout at you, ‘Get up you fairy!’ – which I did many times, and often I set about trying to kick him back.

You had to be careful though; impressing the manager and hurting one of the first team’s star players were not compatible. I have been in hundreds of sessions where an eager young lad has been invited over from the youth side to train with the first team, only to be sent back almost immediately after a clumsy challenge. A player missing a first team game because of something like that is unacceptable.

The characters in the Grimsby Town side back then were unique. Young lads like Kevin ‘Jobbers’ Jobling, a cheeky, chain smoking left-back, Mark ‘Plug’ Lever, a hilarious centre-half whose legs were totally out of control, but who could defend like a lion, and Paul Reece, a goalkeeper who was simply crazy.

There were plenty of experienced players too, great wingers in Dave Gilbert and Gary Childs, and two tough tackling midfielders in Shaun Cunnington and fellow local lad, John Cockerill. Then we had the strikers, the quiet but explosive Tony Rees, the late, great Keith Alexander, who seemed to defy gravity to keep his balance half the time, and the silent but deadly Neil Woods. Add to that the cool, calm and collected Andy Tillson, a defender with a heart of gold, and Garry Birtles, a striker of legendary status, whose ability on the pitch knew no bounds, and you had one very special group.

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 Facebook 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.

It seemed to work, for the events of the following match changed my young life for ever.

‘Watson gets the ball, beats his man and crosses, up jumps Chris Hargreaves and scores. 1–0.’

‘Gary Childs runs down the wing and loops up a cross, up jumps Chris Hargreaves to score again, 2–0.’

The final whistle goes, the game is won and I am in the team bath having, on my debut, scored both goals. Ninety minutes earlier, I had been doing kick-ups on my own in the centre circle before the game. No warm-ups back then!

I had been excited in the changing room before the game, mixing with these experienced footballers. In the post-match bath, I was now one of them, and was now excited about the prospect of going out that night. That is where the problems lay, the going out!

In many changing rooms around the country the atmosphere after a win is incredible. It can also be pretty interesting after a loss, but there is always an enormous sense of relief for everyone when the game is over, the music is blasting away, the banter is flying, and, inevitably, the talk is of the Saturday night’s activities. It was the same on my debut and it is the same now, although for the old boys like me, now it’s a case of a few glasses of wine and a night in with the family!

That night, I ended up in a packed Pier 39 (Cleethorpes’ Premier Nightclub, no less. You know – sticky carpets and sticky drinks) with most of the young lads in the team and with the group of mates I knocked around with. We had done the dreaded ‘footballer’s’ walk past the queue, and gone straight in. At the time, I thought the attention I got in there was really great. I was already a well-known local lad, but this game had made it ridiculous. Drinks all round, and plenty of them, was the order of the day. I was being handed drink after drink, and was lapping it up.

On reflection, I really wish I had kept a low profile that night, had maybe stayed in and had the odd celebratory beer with my girlfriend and family, then settled down to watch Match of the Day. It may seem a bit dramatic to say that, but that night out set a precedent for me. Everything became so full on and done to such a massive extent. Going out would mean getting totally wrecked, drinking everything under the sun, and being Jack the lad at all times. Even on that first night, I ended up drinking far too much whisky and other popular (but bizarre) drinks such as Pernod and black. I woke up the next morning with a new found local stardom for my footballing exploits, but also with something off the pitch that I felt I needed to live up to for way too long, a reputation. And a headache.

It was an incredible time for me at that point. I had just turned seventeen, I was in and around the first team, and was quickly signed on a professional contract. After making a few substitute appearances in the first month of the season my first full league debut was next. It was a night game at home against Gillingham, and I performed part of my previous ritual – the polished boots, the same picture drawn on the dartboard, and hopefully the same result. And it was. I leathered a low strike into the bottom corner, the game was won, and I was on cloud nine. I was still playing every reserve game and training in the afternoon, but it didn’t matter. Back then I could play all day and still want more. I still want more now, but the difference is that if I stay out and train all afternoon, or play three games a week, I am also in desperate need of some ice, a dog basket, and an Ibuprofen sandwich.

I wanted to play every game and although I felt ready, Alan Buckley wanted me to learn my trade first, most notably by playing in the Pontins Reserve League. I was burning to get involved in those early years, and I soon became very frustrated that I wasn’t starting every Saturday afternoon. I was a bubbly character, maybe too bubbly and cocky for the manager. It would be a big statement to say that Buckley totally destroyed my confidence; he didn’t, but he definitely took the spark away from me that could and should have propelled me onto a much bigger stage. I don’t think it helped my cause that I was full of it, or that soon after signing my contract I had bought an Audi GT sports car (the same as Ash drives on Ashes to Ashes, which always makes me laugh now).

Late for training one day, I parked my GT in the chairman’s spot. It was a genuine mistake, I was going to be late and I hadn’t realised, but as we left for training, and when the lads spotted it and had pointed it out to the manager, I knew I was in trouble. Buckley lost it, he really lost it. I have seen many players close to tears after one of his infamous bollockings – including me. He would go from his natural shade of pink to an absolute vivid beetroot red within a few acidic sentences. I think I ran to the training ground that day, as I wasn’t allowed to get in the team van!

Maybe I should have just kept my mouth shut and done my job; while I was never offensive, I loved to have a laugh and a joke. I think old Bucko stifled the hell out of me, and it certainly damaged my confidence later on in my time at the club. Incredible that it should have happened, but I get so angry now thinking about it now. On one occasion I happened to be speaking to one of the directors whom I really got on with, in the changing room. He mentioned that one day, if I kept playing well, I could have a go in his Porsche. I said, ‘Thanks Gord, I’ll hold you to that.’

He smiled, and that was that. One of the lads had laughed when he had heard this, and Buckley strode over shouting to the lads, ‘What did he say?’

Dave ‘Didi’ Gilbert told him, as he was closest, and with that, once again, Buckley totally lost the plot, shouting at the top of his voice, ‘Why don’t you show some respect? How dare you say that?! He is a director, and you are a young player who should be seen and not heard!’

He went on for about three minutes, ranting away at the top of his voice.

It was embarrassing for Gordon, who had made a genuine offer, but who now felt that it was an issue, and embarrassing for me, because it looked as if I had disrespected the man in front of everyone, but I hadn’t, and wouldn’t. It was simply that we had always got on really well. The incident was a typical one for Buckley, summing up his attitude rather clearly. He seemed to have short man’s syndrome of the highest order, and was very close to being a megalomaniac. Other than that he was quite a decent fella!

For now, though, I was riding the crest of a wave of success, and with injuries mounting for the first team regulars, and with our first round game in the FA Cup against York fast approaching, I was to be given another start. It was a big game for both clubs, with it being a sort of derby, and of great importance financially. It was the first time I had felt nervous before a game, the ground was packed, and the atmosphere was fantastic. It was my FA Cup debut, and I was going to be playing up front with Garry Birtles, a Nottingham Forest legend who earlier in his career had been transferred to Man United for a million pounds – a vast amount of money in the mid-eighties!

It was a fierce start to the game with tackles flying, biting and pinching at corners, etc. I was being pummelled by York’s rabid centre-halves (this being back in the day, when centre-halves could go through the back of your legs ten minutes after the ball had gone, and the referee would wave ‘play on’ saying ‘Fair challenge.’ In the twenty-seventh minute, the ball popped out to the edge of the box and I caught it sweetly, drilling the ball into the bottom left corner. The Grimsby Town fans behind the goal were hysterical with happiness, and it was game on.

Ten minutes later, and one of the now snarling central defenders blindly turned a ball back to his goalkeeper – this being back in the day when you could kick a ball back to your goalkeeper, he could hold it in his arms until he felt like letting it go, and the referee would be saying, ‘Another minute and let it go, old chap.’

As strikers we were taught by Bucko to wait for any back passes, looking as if you were uninterested, gambling on a mistake. This lad had not given the ball quite enough, and as it bounced back toward the stranded keeper I ran in and joyfully volleyed it over his head, into the vacant net.

We ended up winning the game 2–1 and, after celebrating with the lads in the changing room, I gave my first ever radio interview. I still have a recording of it today. It was horrendous; I think my voice must have just broken. I also say ‘I’m ecstatic’ seven times, I mention my mum and dad five times, and I also say the second goal was a ‘peach’ twice.

The rest of the year was spent on a huge high, we were at the top of the league for most of it, and ended up being promoted in my first full season. Although I spent most of the season on the bench, I scored another important goal away at Stockport, a game that meant that we were almost guaranteed promotion, and I finished the campaign celebrating on an open top bus tour, and then on the balcony of the town hall, with the rest of the team.

We all then jumped on a plane for ‘trip’ to Cala d’Or in Spain, celebrating our promotion. It was my first ‘lads’ holiday away, and also my eighteenth birthday. As we drank in a bar one afternoon, Archie Gemmill, a great left-back in his day, and the assistant manager of Nottingham Forest, was telling me not to sign a new deal because ‘Cloughie’ (Brian Clough) was a big fan. Not a bad start to my career, you would think. However, the fact that I had a champagne bottle in my hand, and was three sheets to the wind as he said this, sums up my lifestyle in 1990. That I also signed a contract when I returned, and behaved like an eighties pop star off the pitch, tells you all you need to know about the mistakes that I made. I had it all, and probably blew it all, within a few very short seasons.

I will have to stop writing for now. It is St George’s Day today, the weather outside is scorching hot, and at the local golf club bar I find myself in, the natives, who are dressed in flags, as dragons, and as knights, are enjoying the weather and the beer. My name has cropped up, they are talking ‘footy’, and I am therefore making an extremely quick getaway. I am playing tomorrow in the last game of the season against Eastbourne. They will be fighting for their lives, being in relegation spot, and I will no doubt need a third lung, having not played for a month, and with a predicted pitch side temperature approaching ninety degrees. Back to the hotel, and back to an M&S dinner it is for me. It is not inconceivable that I will make the play-off games, but I feel shocking at the moment. You tend to feel invincible as a player when you are fit and raring to go but at the moment, for the first time in a long, long, while, I feel the exact opposite. The ice bath is being prepared, and the Ibuprofen smoothie is ready.

Back in the room now and I will have to add a little to explain the degree of my present-day stresses. As I left training I received a text from my wife, ‘Don’t spend any money. We are over the overdraft, I have fifty pounds left for the week, so you better have a look at the finances.’ So, as well as being under pressure to get fit and play a game tomorrow in preparation for the play-offs, I have had to do a bit of phoning around. Out went the iPhone insurance, the Sky package was downgraded to a bare minimum, the silly bank accounts with fancy cards were cancelled, and my emergency tin on top of the cupboard at home was declared open. At the moment I suppose I am wallowing in a massive amount of self pity but I am just a bit tired and pissed off that I am away from home, trying to do a job, when I knew my body is failing me and my career is coming to an end. I suppose I am worried about the future for the first time.

I’m not playing a violin here, because we still have a lovely house in Northamptonshire which was rented out when we moved to Torquay, and I still have a half decent pension (that I hope goes up in value at some point), but the money blown over the years on niceties, such as clothes, parties, meals out, holidays and nice cars, and the ill-advised ‘keeping up with the Jones’s mentality’ we have had at times, mean that our financial situation is tight. My fault, I know.

The myth that all footballers are loaded is definitely just that, a myth, for lower league footballers anyway. I am driving a leased car and living in rented accommodation, and I am hoping something crops up in the summer work wise. My wife is stressed out because money is tight, and I am always away. So, when people say to me, ‘You must be loaded’, it does make me smile, although sometimes a little bitterly. Despite this, I know I am very lucky to have done a job that I have loved, and I have three great children and a lovely wife. While it would have been nice to have made enough money not to have to worry about future work, I am sure that being ‘retired’ in your late thirties is not healthy. So, as it stands, I have thirteen pounds to get me back home tomorrow night, and will have to sell a few things on eBay this weekend. Life is never dull.