Budgie - The Autobiography Read online

  CHAPTER 15

  DELL BOY

  ‘Alan Shearer would have chased paper on a windy day, he was so keen.’

  After Sheffield United, I had a straight choice between moving to the south coast of England or the north-east of Scotland because Ian Porterfield – who had taken me to Bramall Lane in the first place – was now in charge of Aberdeen. They had won the European Cup-Winners’ Cup only four years earlier and were still a massive club after Sir Alex Ferguson’s work at Pittodrie, so it was a tempting proposition to give Scotland a try. The south coast option was Southampton, and I took it, although looking at my decision from a purely financial rather than a footballing perspective, it was one of the biggest mistakes of my life. The North Sea oil industry was enjoying a massive upturn and was about to send house prices in Aberdeen into orbit. When the deal had been on the table I could have had a castle with its own grounds and fishing rights for £200,000, and within a couple of years it was worth nearer five million. In those days, footballers who used their heads and wanted to make a good living from the game would move where the house prices were about to go up. I would have got rich quick, but I just didn’t see it coming, and instead we downsized from the mansion we’d had in Sheffield and headed to Southampton.

  Financially, it was a stupid mistake to go there, but the football was a big plus. I had gone from the Second Division to the First Division and it was a good opportunity for me. Chris Nicholl, my old centre-half at Aston Villa, was the manager at The Dell and he helped me get settled quickly. I had a lot to live up to though. This was one of the biggest challenges I had to face in football, because the man I was replacing was a certain Peter Shilton, who had left to join Derby County for £1 million – another big signing made with Maxwell’s seemingly never-ending supply of money. Shilts had the reputation of being the best keeper in the world at that time and I arrived on the doorstep with the task of trying to assume his mantle. I knew it was a hell of a feat to take over from Peter Shilton, but Chris was a good motivator, and he took me aside and told me: ‘If anyone can do it, it’s you. I know your capabilities.’

  Compared to some other clubs, Southampton were quite small. The fans were passionate enough, but in a coastal city like Southampton, football doesn’t really take first priority. The number one interests down there were yachting and sailing, closely followed by horseriding and the country life. It was all a bit alien to a lad who had been brought up in a coal-mining village. The outlook among the fans in Southampton seemed to be that as long as the team stayed in the First Division everyone was happy. Around the same time I was arriving they brought in another young goalkeeper – the lad I had taken under my wing at Wolverhampton, Tim Flowers. They essentially bought him as one for the future, and to replace me in time. But although I was the top dog on paper, and Tim had been signed as a future prospect, I felt that my first-team place was never too secure because Tim had really matured at Wolves and was an excellent up-and-coming goalkeeper, more than ready to step in to the first team at any time. They may have made me No.1, but the arrival of Tim was enough to put pressure on me and keep me on my toes, which it did.

  I played well enough in my first season there. The priority may have been simply to stay in the division, but I felt the team that we had was capable of winning that league – because in my first year we had some top class players. We had guys of the calibre of Gerry Forrest, Russell Osman, Neil ‘Razor’ Ruddock, Derek Statham, Jimmy Case and Glenn Cockerill, then up front we had Matthew Le Tissier, Colin Clarke and Danny Wallace, so I reckoned we were capable of winning that league by a long stretch if we could show the right level of self-belief. But some people didn’t have that mindset. We’d lose at home to someone like Oxford United one week and then win away at Manchester United the next – that was the kind of team we were, but we could beat anyone on our day.

  Jimmy Case in midfield was our captain and he had a notorious name at the time for being a bit of a drinker and a hardman. I used to call him ‘The Quiet Assassin’. He was deaf and a bit blind too. He was a big, big name in football after all he’d done with Liverpool, winning European Cups and titles, and was recognised as the master of the long pass. He could put a 35-yard pass on a sixpence. But he also had a ruthless streak, which he disguised cleverly. If ever you needed someone to sort a problem or a troublesome player in a match then Jimmy Case was your man. He could steam in and leave someone writhing on the ground in agony, and be 10 yards away from the incident in the blink of an eye. He would kick somebody and get out of there pronto, instead of standing there arguing about it and turning it into a drama. When I went to Southampton I wrongly had him marked as someone with a foul temper and a bit of a bad reputation for kicking people, but to my surprise I found him a complete gentleman. Jimmy rarely said a word and I never saw him drunk. I remember seeing his caring side on the bus coming back from Old Trafford after beating Manchester United 2-0. We all piled on to the coach in high spirits, and Jimmy took the time to go round his team-mates thanking each and every one of them for their efforts. We were on the motorway and Jimmy came up and said: ‘Great game, John.’ Before I knew it, he had put pasta in the microwave for me, served it to up to me on a tray, got me a knife and fork and put a can of beer in my hand. This was the captain, and after all he’d done in the game, he could be forgiven for having an ego, but he was always the gentleman off the park, although not on the pitch when some loudmouth was asking for it.

  Every away trip was a long trip for Southampton, and the bus would get in a real mess after those lengthy journeys on the motorway. There would be beer cans, packs of crisps and Mars bar wrappers all over the place, but not when Jim was on board – he had a touch of OCD I think, and was always making sure everything was neat and tidy. I’m a bit like that myself. Everything had to be immaculate around him and he couldn’t stand seeing an empty beer can out of place. He was the best captain I ever had. On the field he used to kick people that needed kicking, fire in great shots and split defences with his passes and incredible vision. Off the field he was a class act too, always looking out for his team-mates. His eyesight was a bit iffy, but he would kick balls over the full-back for Le Tissier and Wallace to run on to with pinpoint accuracy. I asked him what his secret was, how he could hit balls inch-perfect from distance, and he would just shrug and say: ‘There should be somebody there.’ I said: ‘What, you play by instinct?’ And he replied: ‘Exactly, John’ (he wouldn’t call me ‘Budgie’) with a glint in his eye. He just instinctively knew where players would be on the pitch around him. It was a special gift that very few players have.

  The first year at The Dell went well – nothing spectacular, but everyone was happy enough. In my second year, being a dedicated professional I used to stay back after training most days for 30-45 minutes and take the kids for a bit of shooting practice and some crossing. I would always pick a centre-forward so he could challenge me and I could work on my cross-balls under pressure. I used to say to whoever I had picked: ‘For goodness sake, give it to me, because I’m going to give it to you, so don’t hold back.’

  As I was put through my paces – coming out for crosses – there was one young lad I used to knee in the kidneys, in the ribs, in the lungs, and I could hear him gasping for breath. I did it to help toughen him up and to work on my own protection methods. I expected him to cry ‘enough’, but he kept coming back for more. I had played with Andy Gray – the master of getting his elbows up and giving goalkeepers as good as he got – so this kid used to always come and ask me questions about how Andy Gray used to jump, how he would beat goalkeepers and central defenders to the ball in the air. Andy was obviously a big hero and inspiration to him, and I was still in constant touch with my old Villa and Wolves team-mate, so he didn’t hesitate to tap in to my first-hand knowledge. This kid had great big thighs, but no real upper body muscle, so some afternoons when I was in the gym at The Dell I would give him tips to help make him tougher and bigger. He needed toughening up, no doubt about it,
but he was eager to learn. There was an incident in training during the five-a-side drills we used to have. There was a through ball, 50-50 with me and the kid, and as I dived to get the ball he pulled out of the challenge and jumped over the top of me. I got to my feet and threw the ball at him smack-bang on the back of the head.

  I screamed at him: ‘Are you going to play like a woman all your life?’

  He just stared at me, frozen to the spot, before I explained to him: ‘That’s exactly what the keeper wants you to do – pull out of the challenge. You are allowed to block-tackle in his chest.’ I went on: ‘Don’t be dirty, but don’t jump over me again or I’ll hit you.’

  He was a bit frightened because he was only a 16-year-old lad. Seven or eight years later, that incident came back to bite me on the arse. I was playing for Falkirk and we were playing a friendly against Blackburn Rovers, but as I dived at the feet of their forward…BANG, my lights went out. I lost a couple of teeth and got a couple of stitches in a face wound, and as I looked up after the incident the young fella from all those years before on the Southampton training ground was standing there, protesting: ‘YOU told me to do it! You told me not to hold back!’ You know who the boy was…Alan Shearer! I nurtured him and coaxed a bit more out of him back then when he was 16, and as everyone knows he went on to have a magnificent career.

  To be honest, Alan Shearer had limited skill. He may not have been technically the greatest player in the world, but my God that kid wanted it so bad to be a successful footballer. At one stage, Southampton nearly released him, but he would work and work, always eager to learn and improve his game. He was only 17 when Chris Nicholl called him up to play in the first team. Alan used to babysit Thomas and Katie – my children – for a fiver a night when me and Janet would go out for our dinner. He became a friend and I had so much admiration for his attitude on the pitch and training ground. It was no surprise that he got called up by Chris at such a young age, because his dedication was unbelievable. He was like me in that respect – not the best, but he tried and tried and put as much as he humanly could into the game. Young Shearer made his full debut against Arsenal on 9 April, 1988 – a daunting prospect for any kid because in those days Tony Adams and Martin Keown formed the rock of the Arsenal defence.

  I went over to him in the dressing room before the game and said to him: ‘It’s only Arsenal, we can beat these!’ And he was in front of me as we went down the tunnel so again I put my hands on his shoulders and said to him: ‘C’mon son, you can do it, you’ve done all that training, you’ve go nothing to worry about.’ I don’t know if my words had any bearing, but he was certainly not overawed. He went out onto the field and scored with practically his first kick. He then scored again with a great typical Shearer diving header. His forte in his early these days was running on to a ball pinged between the centre-half and full-back. He would chase paper on a windy day, he was so keen! Ten minutes before the end he completed his hat-trick – against Arsenal; what a debut! We won that game 4-2, but Chris rested him for the next game, just to protect him a bit. Chris looked after him very well in the early days because he could have been burnt out if he wasn’t handled carefully, or the success could have gone to his head. But Chris Nicholl did an absolutely brilliant job in keeping young Shearer’s feet on the ground. I’ve always considered him a good friend and we kept in touch.

  Another unbelievable incident that occurred at Southampton, which would come back to haunt me later in my career at Newcastle, was the time we played Tottenham Hotspur at The Dell in the league. They had all the big stars at that time, including Ossie Ardiles and Ricky Villa, who had been World Cup winners with Argentina. It was a night game, but the floodlights at The Dell weren’t the best because they sat on top of the stand. I think it affected their keeper, Bobby Mimms, because he was having a bit of a nightmare. We went 1-0 in front when Glenn Cockerill scored with a deflection that went up in the air and over Mimmsy, who probably should have had it.

  It was a real knife-edge game, and with us hanging on at 1-0 they got a corner in the last minute. Before they could take it, I got to the ball first and tried to waste a few precious seconds. Little Ossie came sprinting over to me, screaming: ‘Give me ball, give me ball!’ and trying to prise it out of my grasp. I just said to him: ‘In one minute you can have the ball and let your kids play with it for all I care, just not yet.’ I handed it over, slow as I could, and as he turned round I gave him a little push. It was the slightest of nudges but he went down theatrically to the ground, holding his face and whining. ‘Referee, referee, he elbow me, ELBOW!’ I was furious that he was trying to get me sent off. I leaned over him and shouted at him to get up and get on with taking the corner.

  When the corner was eventually taken, Ossie was to find out that I had a beautiful little trick up my sleeve, purely in the interests of self-preservation. Because people used to try to stand on me at corners all the time, I used to retaliate by breaking the metatarsal bone in the top of their foot. I used to work on my back studs – filing them down so they were like arrowheads. When the officials came into the dressing room before a game, nine times out of 10 they only had time to quickly run their fingers over the front studs and do the quickest of safety checks on boots. But the back studs on mine were like bullets because I’d filed them down. The reason was simple – when people came up to me at a corner and tried to bully and intimidate me, or to stop me getting to the ball first, I’d take matters into my own hands. I wasn’t stupid about it. I’d have a look at the referee first, then the linesman, and if they were both looking the other way then I’d seize the moment. I’d bring my left or right boot down on the striker’s metatarsal – BANG! It sounds cruel and dirty, but it was kick or be kicked, because the centre-forward would do it to you first if you showed even the slightest weakness. It was a necessary evil. When Spurs eventually took their last-minute corner that night, Ossie tried to get in a sneaky stamp, trying to tread on my feet. There was only one thing for it – I gave him the old two-studs combination on the metatarsal, and he went down in absolute agony. Our defence cleared the ball upfield and we had won the game.

  When the final whistle went I did my usual ritual and ran to the Southampton fans to applaud the crowd at the top end of the ground. But as I was clapping them I heard this shrill voice in my ear behind me, hissing: ‘You ANIMAL!’ It was an irate Ossie, and he was behind me all the way as I went down the tunnel. At Southampton there was a flight of 10 stairs on the way to the dressing rooms, and as I started to near them I could still hear Ossie going crackers behind me. I saw that Terry Venables, who was in charge of Tottenham and a man I had the greatest of respect for, was nearby and I warned him: ‘Terry, get him away from me, you know what I’m like and what I’ll do to him.’ But as I got to the top of the stairs Ossie sneaked up behind me on my blind side and pushed me. I started to stumble down the stairs, but managed to stop myself after I’d slid down three or four of the steps. I tried to control my temper, but he was still gobbing off at me, so I smacked him. I told Terry to take him out of my sight and away to the dressing room or I’d break his neck. Britain had just been at war with Argentina over the Falklands, and I lost it at that stage, shouting: ‘We’ve just beat you in the Falklands, now I’ve just beaten you here, now fuck off!’ My head had completely gone. I shouldn’t have said it, but he’d pushed me way too far.

  After the game, a complaint was filed by Tottenham Hotspur about my behaviour after the game. It was kept between the clubs, and the FA were not involved, but it annoyed me that it was all being put on me and that it was being suggested that Ossie Ardiles was blameless in the whole incident. I was later summoned to the manager’s office and when I told Chris that he had pushed me down the stairs, and that I was only trying to mind my own business, he accepted that. That was the end of the matter…or so I thought. My clash with Ossie would resurface later in my career – in spectacular fashion.

  CHAPTER 16

  HOWAY THE LAD

  ‘Lo
sing in the play-offs to Sunderland was one of my most heartbreaking moments in football.’

  I had three fantastic years at Southampton, but it wasn’t the biggest of clubs, and to me it seemed football would never come first in the city. That irked me a bit, because I like cities that are as passionate about their football as they can possibly be. After three years with Southampton, I started to hear rumours that Newcastle United were interested in signing me. Coming from that part of the world I knew what size of club it was and what football meant to the people there. Newcastle were in the Second Division at the time, which would mean taking a step down a division again, but that didn’t bother me because I knew with my track record of helping to get teams up, we had a great chance of getting promoted. At first it was just newspaper talk and I didn’t hear anything further. I kept waiting and waiting for a phone call, and all the while Chris – justifiably – was warning me that unless I signed a new contract at Southampton he couldn’t play me and he’d play Timmy instead.

  I was on tenterhooks and had a strong gut feeling the call would come from Newcastle. It eventually came through an agent called Steve Wicks, who had been my centre-half at QPR, and he knew the Newcastle manager Jim Smith very well. He confirmed that Newcastle wanted me, so I jumped into my Porsche and drove up there on the Sunday. By that time Thomas had taken up ice hockey, and because the kids had such a happy life down in Southampton, I had to make sure that they wouldn’t miss out on the things they enjoyed if we moved north. I chose Durham as the ideal place to live, because they had the big ice hockey team of the day and I wanted to encourage Thomas. I didn’t want to live in Newcastle because it’s a big, sprawling, industrial city, and I wanted to live somewhere neutral. I met Jim Smith to talk over the potential move, but to be honest he didn’t need to sell the club to me – I could see for myself what a huge club Newcastle United were and I didn’t hesitate for a second to sign. Everything I asked for I got, and I saw the move to Newcastle as a great opportunity for me, because I was 38 years old. I regarded them almost as my hometown club, because although I was brought up in Workington in the north-west, Newcastle was only about 60 miles away, and the club had a huge following in the surrounding area.