I spot emerging from behind a bush? Yes, my father, with a stopwatch.
‘That’s 29 minutes, 38 seconds. If you’d pushed yourself a bit harder on that hill, you would have made 28 minutes easy.’
Not only had he been spying on me running, I later found out he had tried to enrol me in the local boys’ running team, the Overstone Phoenixes, without me knowing.
‘What’s the point of running if you’re not up against someone?’ he would say. ‘There’s no point, Alan, if there’s no challenge!’
I was a twelve-year-old spectacle wearer with a weight problem. The only challenge I had was finding sports shorts with an elasticated waist. As my father would tell me, football wasn’t about scoring goals, it was about discipline and fitness.
‘Alan, see those kids over there?’
‘What, the ones laughing and having fun?’
‘They’ll never be any good because they’re just kicking the ball about. We’re getting your thighs built up, so they will protect your knees and you won’t get arthritis in later life.’
Dad sure knew how to inject a bit of fun into the proceedings. Arthritis prevention, anyone? Apparently, if I followed Dad’s exercise routine and did the relevant amount of sit-ups every day, not only would I become a top professional footballer, I would be an athlete, an Adonis, from the top of my waxed Mohican down to the gold studs on the soles of my (limited edition) Adidas football boots. Well, that was the plan anyway.
I know what you’re thinking: ‘If you were forced to do so much exercise, how come you’re so fat?’ Well, for a start it’s my glands and, to be frank, Dad put me off playing football. Obviously, I realise you have to do the groundwork, and put the effort in to succeed at your chosen field, but what he didn’t understand was that a child has to be tempted into it in the first place. It is the exhilaration of scoring a goal that enchants a seven year old, an exhilaration that would then hopefully blossom into a career. No one becomes a pilot because they’d enjoyed an in-flight meal; no, they want to fly the bloody thing. My father had inadvertently managed to extract all the fun out of the game for me; on that playing field it was all work, work, work with him.
* * *
It’s been stated in every interview I’ve ever done that my father was a football manager. They write about it as if it’s a punchline to a gag, but it’s true, he has been involved in football all his life and in some respects it is his life, but what people don’t realise is how deep football runs in our family. Almost everyone (well, everyone with a penis) has been a professional footballer at one time or another. Granddad Wilf played for Newcastle United and West Bromwich Albion (if you don’t believe me, his photo is up on the wall as you enter the Hawthorns ground), an uncle played for PSV Eindhoven, cousins and nephews had tryouts at various football clubs up and down the country and of course there was my father, Graham Carr.
If you mention the words ‘Graham Carr’ to a Northamptonian of a certain age, their eyes mist up and a lump appears in their throat – Dad is a local hero. After taking Northampton Town, affectionately nicknamed the Cobblers, from the bottom of the Fourth Division up to the top of the Third Division in the late Eighties (with 103 goals and 99 points in their promotion season, no less), he became literally the talk of the town – just think Alex Ferguson, but on a budget.
Football chants honouring him would echo around the County Ground (Northampton Town Football Club’s home): ‘He’s fat, he’s round, his feet don’t touch the ground, Graham Carr, Graham Carr!’ or my personal favourite, ‘He’s got no hair, but we don’t care, Graham, Graham, Carr, ooh ah!’ I’m sad to say these chants were an apt description of my father. He was fat and round, well, maybe round’s going a bit too far, but he definitely has a bit of a pot belly. He definitely has got no hair. He went bald in his early twenties, something that I am beginning to experience myself. I feel it is only a matter of time before I look in the mirror and see my father looking back.
I don’t care, as long as he’s not shouting out ‘Touch the tree – Fatty!’
Those football chants came from a good place; the fans had a genuine affection for Dad. He had actually played for the Cobblers in the Sixties, their heyday, when they went all the way up from the Fourth Division to the First – and then back down again. He had been popular back then, too. His return as manager was the return of the prodigal son. Complete strangers would approach us as we sauntered around the town centre and take an interest in our lives.
At first the novelty of having people come up to us and say positive things about the Cobblers was nice, but then inevitably they would turn their line of questioning to me.
‘Does he play, Graham?’ they would ask with a nod in my direction or, worse, ruffle my hair and say, ‘What position do you want to play?’
I’d just smile sweetly and watch their face fall when my camp voice trilled, ‘I’m not really into football,’ then carry on listening to the Supremes on my Walkman.
To be honest, I don’t think I’ve got the edge to be a footballer. When I look through Dad’s scrapbooks at some of the newspaper clippings, I see a rock-hard defender – in the thick of the action, fearlessly performing sliding tackles and diving feet first onto some poor opponent’s legs. In fact, old Cobblers fans talk of him in hushed tones, looking over their shoulders cautiously as if he might suddenly burst from the undergrowth and tackle them.
‘He was terrifying alright’, ‘You’d know if your dad had tackled you’, ‘He could take a man down with ease’ – please don’t make your own jokes up. I suppose what I’m calling competitiveness, he’d probably call passion. In terms of sports, he doesn’t understand why anyone would want to do something for fun.
Of course I’d love to be earning £75,000 a week, working two days a week and then spending the rest showing OK! magazine my beautiful mock-Tudor mansion. But you’ve got to remember that when I grew up in the Eighties, football was grim, men in cloth caps with no teeth shouting on terraces and throwing bananas at the black players. It wasn’t the ghetto-fabulous existence that we all know and love today, with the fast cars and Louis Vuitton hand luggage. If I’d known I could have lived that kind of lifestyle, I would have endured my father’s stomach crunches and star jumps. I’d have even touched a few more trees.
One thing that I have been pleased to see, though, is that when it’s cold the Premiership players now wear gloves and leggings. This to me is a personal victory, as I’d proposed these changes at the age of twelve. But did Dad take these pioneering thoughts on board? No, he just said, ‘Only poofs wear leggings.’
To be fair, though, if that competitiveness is the worst aspect of my father, then I’ve been very lucky indeed. I know Dad would get frustrated at my lack of sporting ability, but then again I was shit! Even the kindliest PE teacher would break out in an attack of Tourette’s and start shouting profanities at me. I’ve had a PE teacher snap a hockey stick in frustration at one of my pitiful lobs.
You have to remember, I was the only boy at my Upper School to score an own goal at basketball – look, I got disorientated, and once you’ve seen one basket you’ve seen them all. But at times, I’ll admit, I didn’t really help myself. I remember shouting out at a Northampton Town Football match, ‘He’s behind you!’ instead of ‘Man on!’ It wasn’t deliberate, it’s just that I got carried away. I guess you could say I was being passionate – like my father.
Having a dad in the footballing trade is a bit like having a parent in the army
