him. He shot round a wall and did a ‘triple salko’ to lose me, but in the pursuit I bumped my knee on the corner of a wall. I never thought anything of it at the time, but it would later turn out to have caused the classic water on the knee, and would end up sidelining me for several weeks. I cannot believe how stupid and careless I was at the time; I seemed to be on a mission to live up to the reputation I had of being a bit of a lad.
Once back at the apartment and in my room we must have opened the window for a bit of air. Unfortunately, I slipped on the sofa bed, well, more like bounced on the springs like an Olympic trampolinist, and found myself hanging out of the window, with a drop of around a hundred feet staring at me (Croft Baker apartments were the highest point in Cleethorpes!) The fact that my belt buckle miraculously caught on the window catch, and that Fiona quickly wrapped her hands around my ankles, quite possibly saved my life. That night could have ended in disaster so easily. I can just see the lads now, wearing black arm bands around the centre circle before the game and whispering, ‘He wasn’t a bad lad was he?’, with Jobbers saying, ‘Do you think he would have minded if I had his boots?’ and Paul Reece saying, ‘No, he would have wanted it, and I think Fiona will need some serious “comforting” over the next few months.’
As it was, I scored one of the best goals of my Grimsby career that day, wriggling past three defenders in the box and planting a right foot shot into the top corner, a great victory and a great goal. But how different an outcome it might have been was not lost on me. The near disaster affected me so profoundly that I made the decision to go underground for the next few months. The nights out, the fast cars and the fighting had to stop. And for a while, it did.
The season ended with us being promoted again, unfashionable Grimsby Town mixing with the big boys in the First Division. They say it’s a funny old game and ‘they’ are spot on. I mentioned goals scored against Wigan, Fulham and Preston North End that season. Look at them now, two in the Premiership and one not far off, and look at Grimsby, down in the Blue Square Bet Premier.
The team sang on the balcony of the town hall that year, had another open top bus tour of the town, and we were soon to jet off again on another jolly, but my omission from the squad on the last game of that season had hurt me. All my family and friends were there, I had played an important part in the season, and here I was sat looking up at the boys celebrating. Buckley knew it would hurt me and he was right. He was probably trying to take my ego down a notch. Again, looking back, it shouldn’t have bothered me that much, but at the time it did, and that meant trouble – a year later and I would be off for good.
The team had been promoted twice in two seasons, making it an incredible time for both the football club and the area. This unfashionable club with a dodgy name (people often discussed the brainstorming meeting that ended having selected the easily mocked name GRIMsby) was now in a big league, playing big clubs. With this success came a fierce competition for places. Since Alan Buckley had been a striker himself, at Forest and Walsall, it meant a large influx of front men over the next eighteen months. Clive Mendonca, a great lad from the north-east famed for his goal scoring exploits and his zip wire attempt in Marbella (telegraph pole and near electrocution), had arrived. As well as Clive, over the previous couple of seasons the club had signed Tony Daws, Mark Smith and Murray Jones, and along with Neil Woods, Richard O’Kelly, Tony Rees, Keith Alexander, Roger Willis and myself, there was certainly an abundance of striking options for the manager.
Having been left out of the last game of the 90/91 season and seeing the influx of strikers, essentially in competition with me for a place on the pitch, there was a bitter taste in my mouth, which did not leave. Despite my growing sense of dissatisfaction, the second promotion holiday to Marbella went pretty smoothly, well, as smoothly as a holiday can go with seventeen footballers on the prowl!
A week of no sleep, lots of Pro-Plus, an initiation in Lineker’s bar and the obligatory run in with the local constabulary gave the holiday an interesting theme. As we were stumbling back to the hotel one night, Roger ‘Harry’ Willis, one of our centre-forwards, was singled out by a local policeman (I suspect because he was the only black man in the group) who decided a truncheon to the head would do him no harm at all, then chucked Harry into a waiting van. No crime had been committed, maybe it was just Harry’s clothes that were offensive, but it was a shock to us lads who just panicked. I can’t remember who shouted ‘run’ but run we did. Some of us made it back to the hotel but others were less fortunate. Mark Lever, a real joker and a gangly centre-half, decided the beach would be a good escape route. Unfortunately as he was already walking like Parker from Thunderbirds, you can imagine what happened when his drunken body met with sand. He eventually rose from behind a rock with his hands held high, shouting, ‘Arrestica … Arrestica!’
He got his ‘wish’, and, following an uncomfortable night behind bars, the lads were free again – after an ‘unclaimed’ bag full of pesetas had been ‘handed in’, of course.
As with all these summer breaks, we were soon back to pre-season training and ready to run. The summer seems to go very quickly as a player, especially since the introduction of play-offs. Throughout my time at Grimsby Town, and with all the partying and drinking that came with it, my fitness rarely suffered. I was always at the front in the running – the late nights just didn’t seem to affect my capabilities as an athlete at all. I wish now that they had, as it might have brought me to my senses sooner. My love for football was huge; nothing gave me more pleasure than scoring in training or for the first team, but my vulnerability off the field was now evident. The lads I was hanging about with were great if you were not a professional footballer, but I was, and somewhere along the line, I had forgotten this. My decisions off the pitch were often misguided because I didn’t have the one thing I wanted on it, stability. Before the age of nineteen I had already played in a fair few games, so my progress was good, but the next few seasons saw my first team action limited – a couple of long injuries took their toll on me, as did my relationship with the manager.
1991/92
Throughout the 91/92 season my appearances were very limited, which brought with it disappointment and frustration. The normal routine would be to play in the reserves (usually score) and then turn up on the Saturday hoping to be in the squad. If my name was not mentioned I would be gutted, and would turn to my friends for back up. This would usually take the form of ‘Let’s get smashed.’ – not, with the benefit of hindsight, the sort of help I needed. Back then, a manager could only name two outfield players as subs, so it was a difficult decision for him to make. Nowadays, with five players being allowed, and with many managers choosing not to have a keeper on the bench, fewer players are left out on a match day. As any player will tell you, it is bad enough sitting on the subs’ bench, but not being involved at all worsens the situation no end. If you love playing football, and are not selected, match days can be very lonely. How many players have we seen recently sitting on the bench, or in the reserves, and just picking up their money? Perhaps if I’d been happy to do that, and not been so desperate to play, I wouldn’t have played at as many clubs as I did.
Off the field, I had forgotten the lesson of my near-death window mishap. The nights out were becoming longer and wilder. Regular Saturday night trips to The Welly club in Hull and Venus in Nottingham were the norm. I usually drove with five mates in the car all ready (some already were!) to go partying, dance the evening away and then drive back for a few hours sleep, or not even that, sometimes. The Welly club, for those who were crazy enough to frequent it, was a melting pot of drugs, sweat and music. As you entered through the double doors, the floor would be bouncing from the volume of the bass. You would see bikini-clad girls and bare-chested lads rubbing Vicks VapoRub on each other (no, it wasn’t a gay club), boasting about how much ‘gear’ they had done and then giving each other a big hug. Around this time was the start of the Acid house era and dance culture. Huge raves, mostly illegal, and lots of pretty hedonistic clubs emerged, including the Hacienda and Conspiracy in Manchester, Back to Basics in Leeds, and Venus in Nottingham, giving rise to some crazy times.
It
