Budgie - The Autobiography Read online

  I was obviously getting more money for coaching at Newcastle and Leeds but it felt like I was doing 20 times the work at Blyth. It was a part-time job in name, but being a manager is a full-time job, it’s 24 hours. I’ve seen strong characters like Kevin Keegan ground down by football management. I saw him come into Newcastle a relatively young man, joining in training every day and with a smile on his face, and then I saw him walk out of there years later with grey hair, looking like he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.

  It was gruelling work, but I had a fantastic time at Blyth. I took them through all the qualifying rounds for the FA Cup, and as we were listening to the draw on the team bus coming back from our final qualifying game, fate played its hand and drew my old club Blackpool out of the hat. I was a household name in Blackpool and in their Hall of Fame, so it was as big as it could get for me – my old club at Bloomfield Road.

  Because of my connection with Blackpool, the newspapers were really talking up the game. Tickets were selling like hot cakes and in the build-up to the match we even had a royal visit to the ground – The Duke of York, Prince Andrew. The Journal newspaper reported: ‘Self-confessed royalist “Budgie” Burridge said: “The Duke’s knowledge of the game is fantastic, and he was very interested in the finances of the club. He wished us all the best for Saturday and his visit has certainly helped our confidence.”’

  On the day of the match, the media hype cranked up another notch. The tie was generating unbelievable interest. Part of the broadcasting deal we had signed to generate some extra cash for the club gave the TV cameras access to our dressing room and let them film all of our behind-the-scenes preparations. That created a lot of extra exposure for us and took us way out of our regular routine. I was a firm believer in the Magic of the Cup, but as a manager I found it all a bit irritating. I didn’t like that a lot of the focus was on me. I wanted it to be all about Blyth Spartans’ day out, not me. I know it was unavoidable because I was a former Blackpool player, but this was one day that I could have done without being in the spotlight so much.

  I had to get up much earlier than usual to do all the press and TV interviews, and by the time I went out to play I was totally and utterly drained, mentally and physically. I could really have done without all the added hassle, but I had to do right by the club because every penny counted. It was helluva cup tie, and we didn’t let anyone down with the performance we gave. You can still see the game on YouTube now – it’s a humdinger. We were 1-0 down within four minutes, and I can be seen having a little difference of opinion with my defenders, but the lads were magnificent and we went in 2-1 ahead at half-time and with a huge upset on the cards. I kept the boys calm during the interval, cracked a few jokes and told them just to continue with the gameplan and not let Blackpool frighten them, no matter how much pressure they applied. As expected, Blackpool threw everything at us in the second half and clawed their way into a 3-2 lead, before we got a late equaliser. It looked like we’d snatched a replay, and with it a good few thousand pounds more for the club. But there was a sting in the tail for us, and they scored again in the last minute. It was a classic FA Cup tie and even though we lost I was so proud of the lads and told every one of them that in the dressing room.

  That was the undoubted pinnacle of my time as a manager, but the day-to-day stuff was hard going and you soon find that you can’t be everyone’s pal when you’re the boss. Part-time players are notorious for going out for a couple of bevvies on a Friday night and I had to stop all that and threaten to sack people if they broke the code of discipline.

  We had a lad called Keith Fletcher, a brilliant player who had international caps with Grenada in the Caribbean, but he was a laid-back character and a bugger for going out clubbing on a Friday night. I was paying him £150 a week and was hearing all these stories about him being out on the razz before games. I got sick of it and decided I couldn’t just turn a blind eye to it. I asked the board if I could start putting them in a hotel the night before a game where I could keep an eye on them, but the club didn’t have that kind of money to splash around, so I had to think of other ways to put a stop to the drinking culture. I used to have these little breathalyser bags on the coach and on Saturday mornings, if I thought somebody was looking a bit groggy, I’d pull them into the corner and tell them to blow into the bag. If they’d had anything to drink on the Friday night it would show up straight away. I would fine them £50 on the spot and if I thought it was bad enough I wouldn’t play them.

  It’s a notorious problem among part-time players because they’ve been working hard in their day jobs all week. I suppose that’s why a lot of them are part-time players and not professionals. Certainly, a lot of them had the ability to go further in the game, but not the hunger to push themselves on. I used to get complaints all the time from the chairman about me being too harsh on the players. But the way I saw it, they were getting paid three times more than any other team in the league and I wasn’t asking them too much, just to stay in one night of the week and rest up for the game; then post-match on a Saturday they could do whatever they wanted.

  Football was already heading into a new era of professionalism in the 1990s and in the top leagues the habit of playing together and drinking together was coming to an end. When I was playing you always used to get a few bevvies on the coach, especially if we’d won away from home. But I was used to travelling on professional coaches, and getting stuck into the drink was no longer the done thing. When I first arrived at Blyth we would stop at the first off-licence we saw, everybody would stick a tenner in and they’d have half-a-dozen beers on the way home, but times had changed. I viewed things exactly the same way as the professionals and I cut out the drinking. The chairman would be trying to fork out £100 to buy five or six cases of beer, but being the professional I was, I stopped it. I would have blazing arguments with the chairman, who would always side with the players. He’d say: ‘C’mon, Budgie – they’ve worked all week, they’ve stayed in on a Friday like you’ve asked them. Let them have a drink will you?’ But I would stick to my guns, and say that once they were out of my sight they could do whatever they liked.

  It was a sure-fire way to create bad feeling, I can see that now. The lads were pissed off with me and I got myself a bit disliked. Looking back on it, I realise that I should have cut them a bit of slack and I was too harsh. They weren’t professionals earning thousands of pounds a week, they were guys earning £150 a week on top of their weekly wage for their day job, and I took the discipline a bit too far by not allowing them to have a drink on the way home. I should have realised that, but at the time I wanted them to think like me. My strictness was more suited to a professional club than Blyth Spartans. My discipline and training regime was tough on them, no doubt about it. If I’d been at a professional club I’d have been even harsher though – I’d have had players training twice a day, especially with the money they were on. I was prepared to put that level of dedication in myself so I suppose I expected it back from others who I worked with. With my outlook I probably shouldn’t have operated at part-time level, because I asked too much of them, which wasn’t fair. But you have to start somewhere.

  I enjoyed being a manager, though, and I was a good organiser and good tactically. But the days of a player-manager are well and truly gone now. It was too tough for me then, and you don’t see many managers nowadays trying to juggle the two roles. When I was in the middle of a game I’d be trying to concentrate on my own game, but if there was an injury or we needed a tactical reshuffle, my mind had to switch to becoming a manager again and I had to think quickly. It was difficult. But I loved the experience of managing and there were some good people at Blyth. The fans we took to Blackpool were tremendous. The passion you find in non-league clubs is just the same as you would find at a Premier League club – especially in the boardroom. If there are backers who have put hundreds of pounds into clubs then they want a say – just the same as bigger fish in the professional leagues
. Like I say, it’s only the noughts at the end of the cheques that separates them. But in my case, I was constantly arguing with the board about money or arguing with them about the way I was treating the boys, so I thought ‘I’ve had enough of this’. It eventually got under my skin when I heard people complaining about hard training, especially when I was working so hard myself, so I just had to get out of it.

  CHAPTER 23

  STRESSED AND DEPRESSED

  ‘I had another major helping of grief to deal with when right out of the blue I was arrested.’

  As the strain of managing Blyth started to get on top of me I was becoming narky and I wasn’t myself at all. My job at Newcastle was bugging me too. I would see people getting paid twice as much money as me and doing five times less. I won’t name names…no, sod it, this is my book, so I will name names! In my opinion, Kevin Keegan’s assistant Terry McDermott did bugger all. I didn’t really see what Arthur Cox and the reserve coach Jeff Clarke did a lot of the time either. I respected Arthur a lot for his dedication to football, even though our fall-out saw me crossed off his Christmas card list, but I sometimes thought they were just there because they were Kevin’s friends. You would see them sitting have a cup of tea in the coaches’ room or picking up cones on the training ground while I was busy working my bollocks off. The first team coach, Derek Fazackerley, used to take all the serious training, while Kevin did all the organising, so I never knew what Terry actually did. I’d go out on to the training ground in the pissing rain, and I would see Terry and a couple of the others just sitting round drinking tea. They would then go out, have a laugh and pick up a few cones and balls, then go back inside and have their dinner after training. They were getting big salaries and I felt they were hangers-on.

  Football clubs always have people like Terry McDermott and Jeff Clarke and I came across plenty of them during my career. Sometimes it would make me mad, because I felt that certain coaches maybe didn’t have the same knowledge and dedication as me, but had sneaked into top jobs largely because of their friends and connections. I think in my case people could be a bit frightened of my personality and that’s why I was no stranger to friction and arguments. I would always fight my corner, and sometimes it would cost me my job. But I would rather stand up for my principles than become an arse-kisser. There were Yes Men at Newcastle who would just say: ‘Yes Kevin, that’s right Kevin, anything you say Kevin.’ To me, that was neglecting an important job within the football club, because on the odd occasion Kevin’s judgment was maybe a bit out he could have benefited from a strong second opinion.

  There was at least one occasion when I got a serious telling-off from Kevin and nearly got the sack over it. Our first-choice keeper, Pavel Srnicek, was not the bravest goalie in the world – he was a fantastic shot-stopper and you couldn’t get the ball past him in training, but when he had to come for crosses he had a tendency to shut his eyes and hope for the best. I’m not for a second here knocking Pav’s ability, he was a cracking keeper for Newcastle, but in my eyes there was no excuse for him not being fully committed when he was involved in 50-50 challenges. I told him he shouldn’t hold back – if he got his teeth knocked out, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. At least he would have stopped a goal and earned the respect of his team-mates. I was telling him to take one for the team and I would keep on at him in training. Kevin would say: ‘Budgie, calm down’ and I’d protest – ‘But Kev, he’s behaving like a coward.’ It definitely led to a bit of unease between us.

  It came to a head when were away in Eastern Europe for a Uefa Cup tie. It was a horrible wet and windy night. Someone sent a cross in and I could see that Pavel was in two minds about whether to come for it. The ball held up in the wind and, as Pav stayed rooted to his line, I saw the centre-forward was hell-bent on getting on the end of it. Pav hesitated and the forward got to it first and headed it in. Newcastle got a 1-1 draw, which wasn’t a bad result, but when we were in the dressing room afterwards I just couldn’t bite my lip and turn a blind eye to the goal we had lost. Kevin was going round telling the lads ‘well done’ and then he asked if anyone had anything to say. I couldn’t help myself and chirped up: ‘Fucking hell, Pav, you should have punched the forward’s head off there.’ Kevin wasn’t happy with me and Pav got upset and went to see him about it later. Kevin hauled me into his office and said: ‘Budgie, you shouldn’t have said that in public.’ But I wasn’t in the mood for backing down and I pleaded: ‘But Kev, I was only telling the truth – he should have gone right through him.’ Kevin basically gave me a yellow card, and told me the next time I opened my mouth in the dressing room and said something against Pavel I’d be sacked. I just had to take my medicine – he was the boss – but I thought to myself that the days of being able to say it is as it is, as long as it’s constructive, were over. I prefer a bit of honesty. That’s when I knew political correctness was starting to creep into football, which I hate.

  My life was starting to unravel a bit, and it took a turn for the worse when I had my post at Leeds taken away from me too.

  The job at Leeds had come about after they bought Nigel Martyn from Crystal Palace – the first keeper in English football to be sold for £1 million. I’d known Nigel since he was a kid, so Howard Wilkinson called me up and asked if I could come down to Leeds and do a couple of days each week training with him and their young keeper Paul Robinson. I had to ask Kevin first, but he was great about it and said it would be no problem. We always had Monday off at Newcastle anyway and Wednesday was usually my day with the reserves, so I could just hook up with them later after spending a morning or afternoon down at Leeds’ training ground. The arrangement worked very well at first, and I was able to juggle my Leeds commitments with my main job at Newcastle. But when Howard Wilkinson was sacked towards the end of 1996, I was left high and dry when they brought in George Graham.

  He had done absolutely brilliant at Arsenal, but he’d been out of football since he was sacked and banned for accepting a back-hander from an agent. He was back in the big time at Leeds, but there was bad blood between us from our time together at Crystal Palace, when I had booted him at half-time because I felt he wasn’t trying hard enough. That incident was just one of those dressing room arguments that boiled over – they’re usually forgotten about within a day or two, but I never really did make my peace with George after it happened. George was coming to the end of his career when he played for Palace, and I had gone for him in this particular game because I felt he was just strutting around and spraying passes when it took his fancy, rather than getting stuck in. We’d been losing at half-time, and I had laid the blame on him for posing around. He took exception to it, and the next thing we’re rolling around on the dressing room floor trying to knock hell out of each other. He’d been used to being the big cheese at Arsenal and Manchester United and when he came to Palace, which was largely full of kids, I think he probably thought he could pretty much do as he pleased without anyone questioning him. He hadn’t banked on me though, and if I thought someone wasn’t pulling their weight – as I did that day – then I wasn’t going to just sit there and say nothing, especially if I’d been sweating blood myself.

  So I knew what was coming as soon as he walked through the door at Elland Road, because I was well aware that he didn’t like me. He has a very strong personality, like me, and when we were in the same company we collided. You can’t have two personalities like that at the same club. But he was the manager and I was only the part-time goalkeeping coach, so there was only going to be one winner at Leeds United and it wasn’t going to be me. If it had been a fight I would have battered him, but this was different, this was politics within a football club, and he used his power and didn’t waste much time in sacking me.

  What really annoyed me was that he got Nigel Martyn to do his dirty work. He told poor Nigel: ‘Either you tell Budgie that he’s finished here or I will.’ Nigel thought it would be a hundred times more tactful coming from him, as I regarded him as a friend, an
d was probably well aware that I would have smacked George on the chin, so he came up to me and said: ‘Sorry, Budgie, this is the end. George says he doesn’t want you here. I want you here, but it’s not my call.’ Nigel was a nice lad, so I slapped him on the back and told him not to worry about it. I wished him well in his career and promised to stay in touch, which I have done to this day. He had a good career too, and would have won more than his 23 caps for England if he’d stayed injury free. It was a pleasure to work with him.

  My Leeds job was gone, then the Newcastle job went, and then I had another major helping of grief to deal with when right out of the blue I was arrested.

  It all came about through my involvement with a couple of sports shops I ran with Janet in the North East. I had opened them as a business sideline, and as well as running the shops, Janet and I would set up market stalls and sell the stuff. We would sell all the usual branded sportswear and football shirts, plus a bit of designer gear too. Most of it was bankrupt stock or rejects that had slight imperfections, and we would flog them on at knock-down prices. We used to buy in lots from a warehouse in Manchester, and I would take carloads down to Leeds and sell a few things down there. We did okay out of it, and it gave us a nice boost to our income, but then one day it all came to an abrupt end. I got the dreaded knock at the door and the police came to the house and arrested me, accusing me of selling fake goods. It was a horrible experience, and it knocked me for six.

  It turned out they had been acting on some kind of anonymous tip-off, and the trading standards officers had been tailing me and putting me under surveillance for weeks. They even had video footage of all the lads at Blyth kitted out in my gear when we went to play Blackpool in the FA Cup, so the tabloids were lapping it all up!