stayed sober and just sat at the bar enjoying watching everyone else get more and more drunk. At one point Jimmy Case caught my eye and started waving to someone over my shoulder. I thought that he’d seen someone he knew but, as he walked past me, he said, ‘That feller keeps waving at me. I’m going to have a word with him.’ It was only when he walked into a huge mirror that he realized it was his reflection and that he’d been waving at himself.
Jimmy loved a drink and was fantastic value on a night out. I remember one trip to Puerta Banus near Marbella. Jimmy started before we even left Heathrow so by the time we landed he’d already had quite a bit. On the way to the hotel he made the coach driver stop at a supermarket and bought even more beer so, by the time we checked in, a lot of the lads were pissed. They just dumped their stuff in the rooms and hit the town. By midnight Jimmy wasn’t making too much sense, in fact he could barely stand.
Dennis Rofe, the first-team coach, was meant to supervise us and make sure we didn’t go too far. Now Dennis liked a drink and a good night out as much as anyone. When he was a player at Leicester he once threw a punch at someone who was threatening him only to find it was his reflection in a shop window. So he had a lot in common with Jimmy, but even he could see that Casey was hammered. After some considerable effort he finally managed to pour Jim into a taxi and took him back to the hotel. Somehow he managed to prop Jim over his shoulder and dragged him into his room and threw him on the bed to sleep it off. As a responsible member of the coaching staff, Dennis thought he had better go right back and check on the rest of us, so he got the taxi back and walked straight into Sinatra’s Bar. And there was Jimmy, sitting at the end of the bar, raising a toast. The look on Dennis’s face was priceless, and to this day I have no idea how Jimmy got back before him.
Jimmy was a formidable character when he had been drinking, as I found out when I ended up playing cards with him until 5am on another trip. We were staying at the Atalaya Park Hotel on the Costa del Sol and he owed me £80, which was a fortune to me back then. We had no cash on us so we were just writing the stakes on bits of paper. Jimmy was getting more and more drunk and wouldn’t let me go to bed while he was losing. Eventually he staggered away to the toilet so I legged it out the door and back to my room. I was sharing with Francis Benali who, incidentally, never got up to anything on these foreign trips. So he was well chuffed to be woken by me shouting that Jimmy had kept me prisoner for five hours and now owed me £80. Suddenly there was a loud bang on the door and I hissed ‘Don’t answer it.’
Next thing there was a loud bang on every door as Jimmy went down the corridor, trying to find someone who wasn’t asleep. I conked out but was woken by a rap on the patio doors. Jimmy had climbed over his balcony and was standing outside trying to get in. We just hid and eventually he calmed down and went off. Next morning, when we left the room, we were greeted by the sight of Ray and Rod Wallace’s door hanging off its hinges. It wasn’t the normal flimsy door but a big, thick wooden one and Jim had just demolished it. Apparently he wanted someone to lend him some batteries for his personal stereo. It proved mighty expensive because the cost of the door got added to his bill. And no, I never did get that £80—and I’m still not brave enough to ask for it.
The only time Jim had a drink ahead of a match was the night before the final game of the 1986-87 season. I was injured so I was back home in Guernsey but I heard all about it from Glenn Cockerill who was rooming with him, and who also liked the occasional drink. We were away to Coventry and both teams were safe and, with no prize money in those days, there was nothing riding on the match. So the lads had a few quiet drinks the night before, but Jim kept going all night. His breath was still reeking of alcohol when the game kicked off and he’d hardly had any sleep.
After five minutes we won a corner and Jim went up to take it. Coventry cleared it, broke and won a corner of their own. It was Peter Shilton’s job to set up the defence and tell everyone who to mark, and he noticed that Jim was missing. Everyone looked round and eventually spotted him still at the other end of the pitch, where we’d had our corner, sat on a wall talking to a spectator. He was quickly subbed after that.
After games, the lads would usually end up at Jeeves nightclub, but as I’ve said, at 17 and 18 I didn’t really drink. However I do remember being talked into going out one night for a few rounds. I was living in digs and didn’t want to wake everyone at 2am so Jim said I could stay at his place. We got back there at 2.30am and Jim started cooking bacon sandwiches while I sat in the lounge. I honestly just wanted to see his medal collection because he had won just about everything in the game, except an England cap, which is unforgivable when you think of his talent. On international weeks at Liverpool he’d be training all on his own. Everyone else would be with England and Scotland, etc. He was different class and I just wanted to see his championship medal because I had never seen one. I was stood looking at his trophy cabinet when his wife Lana came downstairs to see who’d woken her up.
JIM KEPT GOINGALL NIGHT. HISBREATH WASSTILL REEKING OFALCOHOL WHENTHE GAMEKICKED OFF ANDHE’D HARDLYHAD ANY SLEEP.
She had a bit of a go at Jim and I thought I was going to be in the middle of a domestic when she started having a go at me. She said, ‘What do you think you are doing?’ I stammered, ‘Jim said I could stay here…’ She hit back, ‘No, I mean what d’you think you are doing trying to keep up with Jim? You’ve got no chance.’ She packed me off to bed and warned me never to try that again. I was woken by the sound and smell of Jim cooking a full fry-up including eggs from the geese he kept in his garden.
For such a hard-tackling, harddrinking player Jimmy was very domesticated. On away trips he’d look after the whole team on the coach, making cups of tea and plates of toast. He was really happy doing it. Here was this senior pro, a real big name in the game who was happy to be the waiter. He also looked after his training kit. Most of the lads just chucked it on the floor to be cleared up by the apprentices but Jim always folded his up neatly. He was brilliant like that but very different when he’d had a few.
It was quite an eye-opener for a naïve young lad who had grown up on Guernsey with something of a sheltered upbringing. I don’t think the wives were particularly pleased about these trips but it did us good to relax in a different country, and that togetherness played a huge part in keeping Saints in the top flight. We weren’t the most talented team but we had a real bond and spirit which got us through a lot of matches. You certainly couldn’t have a conversation without one of the lads taking the mickey. If you said something stupid, you instantly panicked wondering if anyone else would pick up on it, and invariably they did. Equally, there was a time and a place for it—which took me time to learn. I was always ready with a cheeky quip but it wasn’t always appreciated. These trips were brilliant for banter and team spirit. And of course we went right OTT.
I remember when we almost got chucked out of the prestigious five-star Dona Filipa hotel on the Algarve. Why we went to a luxurious hotel during the season I’ll never know. It was full of really posh people dressed smartly for dinner while we were in shorts and T-shirts, larking around and getting drunk. There were several complaints about us so the hotel manager summoned Dennis Rofe who called a team meeting for 8.30am, which we thought was a bit unreasonable as we’d only just got in. We had no idea what was going on.
Dennis read the riot act and said the hotel manager was on the verge of throwing us out but he’d managed to talk him into giving us one last chance, and we had to be on our best behaviour or we were out. There was suddenly quite a sombre mood but I didn’t pick up on it because I hadn’t sobered up and piped up, ‘I thought if you were calling a meeting at 8.30 in the morning, it must be for something serious.’ Dennis had a face like thunder.
Generally Rofey was good value on tour, mucking in with the lads. As first-team coach he was a kind of bridge between the players and manager, someone for us to moan to or laugh with. He was popular with the fans too because he had Saints running through him, despite the fact that the club sacked him three times. The first time was when Chris Nicholl got sacked in 1991. The board assumed
