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,
