Football Fables

INTRODUCTION

Before I do anything else, might I first thank you for taking this book down from the shelf? The chances are that you found it tucked up in the middle of the sports section flanked on one side by a heavily blinged 23-year-old midfielder’s autobiography and on the other by an unauthorised look at a 21-year-old who has scored fewer goals for England than Mick Channon. Maybe Channon himself was there as well, but I doubt it somehow.

The market is crammed with glossy, sanitised chronicles that have been so closely monitored by a football agent that you can still smell the aftershave in the binding. It always seems strange when people in their twenties release autobiographies. I thought you were supposed to write your memoirs as you toddled up the garden path towards death’s door. Certainly the best I’ve ever read were the books by the late Brian Clough and the slightly later Sir Stanley Matthews. If I want to read a life story, I would generally go to someone who has lived their life and who might be in a position to bestow snippets of wisdom. If I want to learn how to play tinny, repetitive R&B from a cheap mobile phone, that’s when I’ll go to a 21-year-old. Besides, what can a current player really say about anyone anyway? Would you write a book hammering your boss or the boss of a rival company if you’d only made two payments to your pension fund? Of course not, you’d be bland and inoffensive just in case anyone else wanted to hire you in the future.

The trouble is that even men at the end of a long and glittering career can write memoirs that are brain-meltingly boring. What I’ve tried to do here is to avoid both pitfalls and create an anthology of football stories. An antidote to the anodyne. Instead of just one retired footballer telling you about everything he’s ever done, I’ve gone to speak to 15 of them and asked them to simply tell me one story. I hope that a combination of tales, from a selection of characters across a spread of eras, will be more interesting than someone telling you what kind of Ferrari he bought with his signing-on fee. The fact that you’ve plucked this book from the mêlée indicates that you might feel the same way.

I’ve attempted to choose as eclectic a mix of interviewees as I could, covering both club and international football from 1970 onwards. I’m afraid this book does not contain shiny, polished recollections of flash-in-the-pan twenty-somethings. It does not contain anything from anyone who has ever invited Atomic Kitten to their 18th birthday party and there are no mentions of Baby Bentleys anywhere. This book contains stories from proper footballers who have achieved great things, both on and off the pitch. Like the traditional fables of old, some of the details in the stories may be sketchily recalled or may have evolved over time through telling and retelling. This book is not an encyclopaedia. This book is all about the stories.

Welcome to Football Fables.

1 BARRY FRY

Southend’s Great Escape (1993)

Barry Fry arrived for our lunch in Peterborough and strode through the half-empty restaurant to meet me. A dozen heads instantly craned round in interest, for Fry is not a stealthy man. Taller than I first expected and well built, his gravelly laugh echoed around the room and, I’m delighted to report, continued to attract attention throughout the afternoon, particularly when it followed a string of inventive swearwords.

A cult hero for many football fans, Fry is everything you would expect him to be, but slightly louder. There is no off switch, no respite and no hope of a quiet lunch for any of our fellow diners. Unlike some interviewees, he doesn’t require any warming up at all. From the first question to the last, he rattles off a string of anecdotes, some of them far too libellous to be included here and all of them crammed with enough expletives to wear out my asterisk button.

Fry has become so synonymous with the dug-out in the last 20 years that many people are surprised to hear that he was a very promising footballer. Unfortunately, he never fulfilled his potential. Plucked from his native Bedford by Sir Matt Busby at a young age, he arrived at Manchester United with high hopes. Despite appearances for the England Schoolboy side, he failed to make the grade at Old Trafford and was released. His career never really got going and he retired at 28.

He blamed himself for this failure, acknowledging that he had been distracted by other interests in spite of Busby’s warnings to moderate his behaviour. As a manager, however, he left a far greater mark. From convincing George Best to turn out for non-league Dunstable, to guiding tiny Barnet into the football league, he was a difficult man to ignore. Not only was he successful on a shoestring but his patented goal celebration of haring down the touchline like a firework in a flat cap was a big hit with the press.

Unfortunately, his chairman at Barnet, the notorious ticket tout Stan Flashman, was not always willing to let Fry have his own way. The two men clashed repeatedly, notably on one occasion when the chairman threatened to have his manager buried underneath the M25. Fry once told me that he’d been sacked 38 times by Flashman. Indeed, in Ian Ridley’s book A Season in the Cold, he is quoted as saying, He’s sacked me at least 20 times and he’s meant it. But I’ve just got up the next morning, gone to the ground and got on with my work, and he’s phoned up two or three days later as if nothing has happened. There is going to be a time when he sacks me and really means it.

In the spring of 1993, after 14 years with the club, the uncertainty finally took its toll and Barry Fry ran out of patience with his boss.

I was finished at Barnet as soon as Stan Flashman put lawyers in charge of the club. Now, you have to remember at this stage that the club was so deep in the shit that I’d had to lend them £164,000 of my own money just so it could survive and neither me nor the players had been paid for months. Anyway, I had a meeting with this lawyer. He’s come in and said he was taking over the running of the club. Obviously with me being one of the biggest creditors, I said, Where does this leave me?

He said, Well, you’re just another creditor.

That didn’t make me feel too valued. I told him that I’d just been approached by Vic Jobson, the chairman at Southend, regarding the vacant manager’s job and I didn’t know whether to take it or not.

He said immediately, How much will they pay us for your services?

I says, Well, as I’m owed £164,000 from this football club, I don’t think they’ll pay fuck all.

But that was it. It made my mind up. He wasn’t bothered about whether I wanted to go or not or anything like that. He was just bothered about how much the club in question wanted to pay for me. After that meeting I rang Vic Jobson, went down to Roots Hall and he offered me the job. Believe it or not, I was appointed as the new Southend Manager on April Fool’s Day.

At the time they was bottom of the league with nine games to go. Obviously the transfer deadline had been and gone. Nine games left and I think we was seven points adrift. Vic actually said we was down and I said he was a defeatist and that we’d definitely stay up. He thought I was mad. So mad, he offered me a bonus if we survived! Ha, ha, ha! So that worked out well!

The next day the team was travelling up to Sunderland for a league game. I live in Bedford so my wife drove me to the roundabout where the coach would come past and pick me up. I’ll never forget getting on that coach. Danny Greaves, my only member of staff and a massive unsung hero throughout that run-in, introduced me to everyone.

You know, Barry, this is Brett Angell. Barry, this is Stan Collymore, and all that. You know what? Not one of ’em looked me in the eye. They all shook my hand, but they was all staring at the floor. The mood was one of total depression and misery.

So we got to the hotel in Sunderland and I called the lads together. Right, I said. We’re having a meal together at 7pm, so come down then. You can go back to your rooms afterwards, get yourself suited and booted and then, about 10.30pm, I want you to come down, head off to the nearest nightclub and go chill out. If any of you come back to this hotel before 2am, I’ll fine you two weeks’ wages.

They looked at me like I was from a different planet!

Anyway, the lads have their food and go upstairs and Vic walks in with a few of the directors.

Vic says, I’m very impressed, Barry. The lads have gone. Usually they’re just hanging around in the corner playing cards.

Nah, I says, I’ve sent them up to their rooms.

So, he’s introducing me to a few of the directors and we’re sitting around having a chat at about 10.30 and suddenly his face just drops and he starts gaping at something behind me. I turn around and there’s all the players trooping out the front door.

What’s going on? says Vic.

Oh, that? Yeah, I told the players to go for a walk.

A walk, says Jobson. How professional! We’ve never had that here before. A walk? At 10.30pm! How marvellous. Where are they going?

I said, They’re going to a nightclub round the corner, Vic. I’ve told them if they come home early I’ll fine them, and I get up and go over to the lads. No alcohol, lads, I remind them. Just go out, chill out and relax.

When I came back, Vic and the directors are all up at the bar. Vic walks over to me with a look on his face.

You alright, Mr Chairman?

No, I’m not alright, he says. Do you know we’ve got a game tomorrow?

Of course I do, I said. We’re playing fucking Sunderland, otherwise we wouldn’t be here!

He says, You’ve just sent all of our players to a nightclub! I’ve never heard of anything so stupid in all my life!

I says, Hold on, Vic. What do you normally do on a Friday night when you stay over?

He says, Well, we have a meal, then the team play cards and go to bed at 11pm.

Well, let’s be fair, Vic, I said, it ain’t done you much good here, has it? We’re bottom of the fucking league!

I said, I’ve come up on the team coach and they’re all miserable. They’re all demoralised. I’ve got to get ’em to relax and chill out. I’m sorry, Vic, but this is my way.

He just turned around and walked away. I went up to my room that night wondering if this was going to be the shortest fucking managerial reign of all time.

Fortunately, the next day, we was absolutely fucking brilliant! We won 4–2 at Roker Park and we was sensational. After the game Terry Butcher, the Sunderland manager, comes over and says, How did you get them to play like that, you’re bottom of the league!

I told him I didn’t have a fucking clue! All I’d done was to tell the players before the game that everyone already thought they were relegated, that they had nothing to lose and that they should just go out and enjoy the game. Even the chairman thinks you’re down, I told them, but I don’t.

Four two! Unbelievable! Of course, the players tried to take the piss with me after that. Every away game it was all, Are we going out to a nightclub, gaffer?

I never let it happen again though!

On the following Wednesday we had West Ham and they was top of the league at the time. It’s at Roots Hall, full house and the atmosphere is unbelievable. Having come from Barnet, I had no idea about the rivalry between the two clubs. The reception I got from the fans at the beginning of the game was amazing. You’d have thought I was some kind of God from the noise they made when I took my hat off and waved at them. I tell you what, from start to finish, they got behind the lads; it was like a Cup Final that night. To be fair, West Ham absolutely battered us, but we defended well. Then Stan Collymore got it on the outside right, beat three people with his strength and his pace, whipped in a cross and Brett Angell flew in to stab it home. We won 1–0!

All of a sudden from being down and relegated on Thursday night, we’ve won two and we’ve got a chance. From Friday night at the hotel in Sunderland when I was ‘Shitbag of the Year’ to Vic Jobson, suddenly I was a football genius! Really, I was just bloody lucky! Nothing to do with tactics, just about putting a smile on the lads’ faces. Trying to get them to believe in themselves.

I suppose in a way it helped that I couldn’t buy any new players. Not that we really needed them. I mean, we had some quality players there: Keith Jones, Andy Ansah, Chris Powell, all good footballers. God knows what they were doing at the bottom of the league in the first place. If you’ve got Brett Angell and Stan Collymore in your frontline, you’ve always got a chance.

Of course, Stan was playing with a smile on his face back then. I knew all about him when I arrived, I’d try to sign him when I was at Barnet and he was at Stafford Rangers. I’d spoken to him on that first night in Sunderland, because there was a lot of talk of him heading off to Nottingham Forest before the transfer deadline. Nothing had happened in the end and I asked him how he was, whether he was disappointed or not. He was honest to me and he said he was.

I said, Well listen, Stan. If you do well for me in the remaining nine games, I’ll sort it out for you to go wherever you like in the summer. I just want you to concentrate on the football, I said. I don’t want you sulking, I want you to go out and express yourself, enjoy yourself. I’m a man of my word, I’ll let you go wherever you want in the summer.

He was brilliant for Southend United. He wasn’t just a great goal-scorer; he used to be fantastic on the flanks as well, running into space, crossing it for other people to score. He was a proper football man as well. He thinks very deeply about the game and he used to go watch a lot of matches in his spare time, which isn’t usual for a player. When I was manager at Birmingham and he was playing at Aston Villa I used to go and check out opponents and I’d often see him in the stands. The only time I had to give him a bollocking was at Cambridge, the one game we lost in that run-in.

I said to Stan, You’re playing well, you’ve impressed me. I had a word with Alex Ferguson and I’ve told him you’re the real deal. He’s sent a scout down to watch you today, so be sure to impress him. Course, what happens that afternoon? We was fucking hopeless. We got beat 3–1, and it should have been fucking 10–1. Stan’s fucking useless and I’ve slated him at half-time.

I’ve said, Stan! I’ve just told Fergie how good you are! He’s sent a fucking scout and the fucker’s gone home after 20 minutes because you’re fucking rubbish!

To be fair to Collymore, he held his hand up and took it, but I tell you something about him. His sister was dying of cancer back home in Cannock and when I found out I’d told Stan to have every Monday off so he could get back and see her. After that bollocking though, he was back in training with the rest of the lads. He was annoyed with himself about his performance. I knew then that he’d play at the highest level, because it hurt him so much to play so bad.

Whenever journalists ring me up about Stan, they ask me for a story.

I always say, When he was at Southend he used to visit local schools and give anti-drugs speeches to the kids.

They’d say, Nah, not that one.

I’d say, Alright, when he was at Southend he used to spend his spare time visiting kids in hospitals.

But they don’t want those stories, do they? I can only speak as I find, but when Stan Collymore was at Southend United he was fucking brilliant.

So there we are on May 8, going