devoted family man, I cannot believe it happened, but I even squeezed Fiona’s rings onto my fingers, ready for battle. (Fiona and her friends returned home in a taxi, exasperated that I was getting involved in yet another fight.)
The next bit is a bit of a blur, lots of windmills, punching and ducking. All I remember is getting away in the end, and stumbling back home. I had escaped with just a bloody nose and a bad black eye. I saw Nick later on, and he was pretty much the same. We also saw the lads in question a few weeks later and, by the looks of them, I think our efforts at self-defence had been more effective than we realised at the time. It was a lucky escape, though, and one that I didn’t want to happen again. The next nine months, and the rest of the 92/93 season, were spent pretty much at home in my room. I was sick of the nights out, sick of the bullshit, and just wanted to get my career back on track. One final night out made my mind up for good.
I was always thought of as a bit of a lad, but I didn’t realise to what degree until this night. They say looks can be deceptive and maybe they can, but the perception that I was just like the lads I hung around with was horrendous to me. Yes, I had done stupid things, as most lads my age had, together with a few world leaders, Members of Parliament, royalty, corporate bankers and Premiership footballers, but I wasn’t particularly involved with drugs – it was usually just the demon drink. However, as I was dancing away (very badly, I might add) one particular night, someone I knew, and a Grimsby Town fan, came up to me and said, ‘Chris, are you all right? People think you have lost it mate.’
I turned to him and said, ‘No, I’m OK.’
I looked around and saw my mates all off it on drugs, I saw an awful nightclub littered with people I had nothing in common with, yet I was in the middle of it. I finally saw myself as someone who had gone so far off the rails it was laughable. I knew it was time to stop this lifestyle. Over the last couple of years I had partied way too hard, drunk way too much, and I had veered severely off the career path. Where had that young lad gone, the one with the ball and the world at his feet? The same young lad who only a few years ago had polished his boots and left them at the end of the bed, and carried out a gingerbread man ritual for luck. The lad who did hundreds of kick-ups in the garden and spent hours at the park pretending to be Marco van Basten, and the same lad who had scored on his debut in the league and cup for his hometown club.
If I didn’t sort myself out, my career could end, and pretty quickly.
Buckley’s harsh rule had, without doubt, destroyed my confidence and stifled my personality, but I have to hold my hands up and say that I certainly did not help myself, and my mates were certainly not going to help, as they knew no better.
As luck would have it, Fiona was about to start her degree at Hull University. Was this the change we both needed?
I was extremely happy at home with Mum and Dad and I loved them both very much; we had a great laugh and hardly ever had cross words. These were tough times for them though. My mum’s mum had died when I was very young (only one day old), but now her dad, Sidney, passed away, shortly followed by her beloved sister, Lily, who died of cancer at fifty, after a long battle. Her being a non-smoker, made the cruelty of cancer, if anything, even harder. A few years later my mum was to lose a second sister, Bobby, to a brain haemorrhage, which rocked her and the family to the core; it is something my mum has never really got over.
It must have been a very testing time for my parents. The business suffered badly because of the recession, and they also had a pretty traumatic house move, after taking out an extortionate bridging loan. Despite all this, they rarely let the stress show. Dad would return home from work, initially a bit stressed, but before long we would all be sat down for tea chatting and laughing, usually after Dad had overdone the pepper and was coughing away. Who wouldn’t be a bit stressed though after a day at work, especially a day in Neptune Street? As anyone from Cleethorpes knows, that street has a business survival rate of around six months. Over the years and in different premises Dad has kept his business running, and it is now the longest surviving business in Cleethorpes, over thirty years and still going strong. No mean achievement. Or as my dad would say when asked how things are, ‘It’s steady, son.’
As happy as I was at home, there was only so long I could spend cooped up in my bedroom, trying to avoid getting into any more trouble. With Fiona’s degree course starting, and her finding a shared house with some of her university mates, I now started to spend more and more time there.
I would drive over to Hull, and Fiona and I would walk down to the local, The Victoria, or a bit further to The Mainbrace. With ten or fifteen pounds between us, we could buy a few drinks, a packet of Embassy No. 1 cigarettes, and then later on walk home and cosy up back at the house, away from everybody, and away from trouble. It was a quieter, but much less complicated life. In fact, come to think of it, it was normal student behaviour!
The end of the 92/93 season approached at Grimsby Town. Survival in the First Division represented a decent achievement for a club so small, but I hadn’t played anywhere nearly enough first team football, and even a short spell at Scarborough on loan did nothing to help matters. After breaking my ankle pretty badly against Preston North End reserves and spending a fair few months on the sidelines, I needed games and Ray McHale, the Scarborough manager, hoped I could help him out. The ankle injury really halted my progress in the 92/93 season, and harmed my Grimsby career.
The ankle break was the result of an awful challenge by Sam Allardyce’s son, who at the time played for Preston North End. It was before the ‘tackle from behind’ rule had been brought in, and since I had scored four goals against Preston for the reserves, a couple of weeks earlier, on their plastic pitch, Allardyce junior was in no mood for any more humiliation from me. This time, as before, I ran rings round the Preston defence, in particular Allardyce junior, but soon after I had scored an early goal he launched into the back of me with a hefty lunge. I got the classic numb feeling in my ankle but I still played on until half time – remarkably resulting in me scoring another goal broken ankle and all.
This could sound like a great old war tale of bravery and courage, but in reality I should have seen some sense and come off straightaway – I told the physio at half time that I was in real pain. Buckley came down to have a look, at which point I said that I wanted to play on, as I really wanted to impress him. I was really keen to play on, as I was flying at that point, really looking to returning to the first team and staying there. The physio had other ideas though; he took my boot off, and my ankle immediately swelled up. I was told it was broken, and a couple of days later it was put in a pot. To make matters worse, I really struggled with the cast; they had made it too tight, so I returned to the hospital hoping that they could do something about it. At the hospital, the cast was taken off, and I was told to return in twenty-four hours to have it reset. Unfortunately, in those twenty-four hours I managed to slip on the stairs at home, and do even more damage to the ankle. The pain was incredible, and as I reflect now, I wince at the thought.
After a long rehab, and with no first team action forthcoming, I decided to go on loan. I lasted nineteen minutes of a ‘memorable’ loan to Scarborough; playing a match against Bury, I was sent off in what the manager said was one of the worst decisions he had witnessed in football. I went up for a header against the centre-half Peter Valentine and, on landing, he held his face while kicking me in the bollocks. It looked as though I had elbowed him, I hadn’t, but I was off and subsequently banned for the next three games. Loan over! Funnily enough I have never enjoyed Valentine’s night since.
Towards the end of the 92/93 season I had a phone call from Terry Dolan, the then Hull City manager, saying that he wanted me at the club. I was excited, but apprehensive. I told Alan Buckley, and at first he said I should stay, but I could not see any way of getting in the first team and, much as I loved that club, I had to get away. I remember saying to him, ‘It is just nice to be wanted by someone’ – it was a bit of a dig, but it got no real reaction.
With
