the two seasons that followed the club’s two promotions, there were plenty of other incidents that indicated that a change of both scene and friends would be advisable for me. You may laugh, but some of the stunts we pulled were absolutely headless.
Late one night, a few of us were on the hunt for food, all the pubs and restaurants had closed (including the infamous Topkapi Kebab House, and the more salubrious Capri Pizzeria). Why it happened I have no idea, but as we stood there looking through a mammoth glass window displaying a huge Easter egg range, the urge to eat chocolate seemed to override any common sense. And so it was, four size nines later, that we were running through the streets laden with about twenty Easter eggs of various sizes. Alarm bells were ringing; soon there would be police everywhere. Riot vans were a regular presence in the market place in Cleethorpes. The thought of us, sat there stuffing our faces with Easter eggs, and then burning the remaining cardboard evidence, does not fill me with pride. You cannot excuse this sort of behaviour, and my feeble offerings to the charity box each time I subsequently visited that shop did not make it any better.
I do have some great stories and memories of those days though, and they usually involve spending time with my then long-suffering girlfriend and now long-suffering wife, Fiona. One early summer morning, after returning from another rave with some friends, we stopped at a forest with streams and a stretch of water called Croxby Pond. We walked through some beautiful and totally deserted woodland, spending a couple of hours paddling through the streams and lying in the early morning sun. If only it hadn’t been private land, and if only we hadn’t decided to commandeer a milk float that morning, it would have been the perfect start to the day!
Holidays with Fiona were definitely a welcome break from football and my group of friends, although without knowing how and why I always seemed to bump into someone who knew me. Even to this day, I could be in a desert and happen upon someone who is connected to a mate, knows me from a club, or, more likely, remembers me playing against their club – playing for so many clubs could be an influencing factor, it’s certainly not the TV exposure I have had. Nevertheless, it makes, and made, it hard to get away from it all. God knows what it’s like for someone famous.
Contract talks over the years have always been stressful and at the end of the 91/92 season talks at Grimsby Town were certainly no exception. When Buckley offered me the measly increase of twenty-five pounds a week, when all the other lads were signing new, much bigger, deals, I said no. I said I would prove to him that I deserved more. I have always been bad with money though, and I should have accepted because, shock, horror, he didn’t cave in there and then.
I knew times had to change. With younger mates playing in the Grimsby Town team now, and doing well, I had to do something, as I was embarrassed not to be playing regularly, and confused as to why I wasn’t.
1992/93
A trip to Tenerife followed at the end of the 91/92 season. Again not much sleep. In fact, I think the most time I spent sleeping was on the plane journey back, only waking when the wheels touched down. While fun, these trips to Tenerife were wearing a bit thin. As I’m sure anyone who has been to the Las Americas ‘strip’ will tell you there are only so many times that you can do the nightly pub crawl with pissed up Brits falling on you constantly, being sick while walking or shouting the much maligned holiday chorus of ‘Ennngaalaand.’
Sitting around the pool with the lads in the day was a great laugh though. The team spirit we had at Grimsby Town in those days was incredible. We were all great friends, and I’m sure that is why we had such success. Characters like Mark Lever, Kevin Jobling and Paul Reece always had us in stitches, and all the older pros were top lads too. Dave Gilbert, Gary Childs, Tony Rees, Andy Tillson and Garry Birtles not only did the business on the pitch, but also had fun off it. We had a fair old mixture of accents as well; Arthur Mann was Scottish, we had John McDermott a Geordie with Tourette’s (or perhaps, just a Geordie!), Paul Agnew, who was Irish, Tommy Watson – a Scouser, Gary Childs, who was a Brummie, and Murray Jones, a Cockney. As a young pro it was a great environment to be in, and I found it hilarious how you just couldn’t understand anyone. The banter between the players was great, and the friendships strong, although the affection was generally shown in abusive ways.
When I first returned to Grimsby Town from Everton, I initially took up an apprenticeship. The first team lads would often come in to see us in the tiny boot room and have a bit of banter. If it was one of the apprentices’ birthdays the normal bumps or chant of ‘Happy Birthday’ was definitely not the order of the day. No, these celebrations were replaced by any number of surprises! Sometimes it would be the boot polish treatment – this would involve a tin of polish, a few brushes and a few uncomfortable minutes as the ‘meat and two veg’ would get the ‘cherry blossom’ finish. Or it could be either the panda or pylon treatment.
I first witnessed the panda treatment on our young keeper, Paul Reece. He was held down by some of the lads while Kev Jobling and Paul Agnew, two lads in the first team, took turns to suck his eye sockets. This resulted in a couple of great shiners, hence the ‘panda’. Pylon treatment was a little less abusive, but hurt more. A young apprentice would be asked into the changing room and the questions would start.
‘What are those things in fields called?’
The nervous young lad would struggle to give an answer.
‘You know, the big metal things.’
Again, a blank from the victim in question.
‘Come on, the big metal things with wires on the top, that birds sit on.’
Finally, the words that everybody had been waiting for were uttered: ‘Oh, a pylon!’ and with that the entire twenty-two man squad would ‘pile on’ the poor lad for about five minutes, leaving him a bit battered but safe in the knowledge that he now understood how to answer a trick question.
Occasionally, a walk of shame would be the order of the day. On returning from his shower a birthday boy would find his clothes missing. What followed would be an embarrassing hunt for his kit. You can imagine how funny a sight it was seeing a naked birthday boy, in his birthday suit, running across the pitch to fetch his clothes. They would usually be situated on the halfway line, and all you would hear was the groundsman shouting, ‘Get off my fucking pitch, you weirdo!’
I have even seen a naked apprentice clamber up a floodlight to reclaim his clothes’. Imagine doing that sort of stuff now, the health and safety regulations back then were great: don’t get caught, don’t fall off and don’t moan. Things have certainly changed.
Even the big team baths at clubs around the country have been abolished; still that is probably a good move, as I would not fancy getting into a bath with all my teammates now. I swear to this day I must have caught something from the boys at Grimsby Town, so God knows what it would be like now, with the amount of ‘interaction’ going on. The number of women some footballers pick up – I would want an immediate vaccination as soon as I stepped out of the bath.
At Grimsby Town, in both home and away changing rooms, the big baths would be run, so that after a game all the lads would pile into their respective baths. These were huge and about four feet deep, and similar could be seen at football clubs all around the country. You would relax, chat and mess about in the bath, and many a time the odd bottle of Fairy Liquid came out, filling the changing room with foam, and causing the management and ground staff to fume. It was always a relief after a game to sit in these big old baths and relax.
I remember the first time I sat in the first team bath after my debut. Running the bath would have been started at half time, ready for full time for the lads to jump in. I was elated to have scored, and I was now with the first team having a laugh, where I wanted to be (not like that!).
One
