Budgie - The Autobiography Page 19

  It was an honest mistake, though. We’d bought £20,000 worth of what we thought was legitimate reject stock, but the goods actually turned out to be fakes. The trading standards folk wanted to throw the book at me and they took me to the Magistrates Court. I was really bitter about it at the time because I knew for a fact that a big supermarket chain had bought 10 times the amount I had from the same supplier, but all they got was a slap on the wrist. It was only 20 grand’s worth of stuff, which may sound a lot of money but it wasn’t in terms of the business. The supermarket had bought a whole warehouse-worth and pretty much got off scot-free, while I was being treated like a criminal.

  Being John Burridge, the court case was a big story at the time for the press. They were making out I was a bit of a Flash Harry, and even reported that I’d driven off after the hearing in my jeep with personalised plates. Yes, I had a personalised registration number – my number plate was A 5AVE – but, so what? It didn’t make me criminal kingpin, did it?

  I was fined nearly £16,000 and I left the court feeling sick and depressed.

  CHAPTER 24

  THE PRIORY TO THE LIFE OF REILLY

  ‘Not to put too fine a point on it, I became mentally ill. I knew I had to get away from England.’

  It was a feeling I thought I would never experience, but for the first time in my life I felt like I needed to get out of football, and get out of England, or I would end up losing my mind.

  I felt suffocated after my energy-sapping spell in management at Blyth. I did enjoy the job immensely, up to a point, but it got to the intolerable stage where I ended up feeling like I was working myself towards an early grave. It was my own fault for trying to do too much and I’m not blaming anyone else. I tried to juggle the demands of being a manager with my coaching jobs at Leeds and Newcastle and helping out with the sportswear shops too. My state of mind was already fragile enough, but the court case over selling counterfeit goods was probably the straw that broke the camel’s back. Even though I felt that I was being made a scapegoat, I was ashamed to see my name plastered over all the headlines. I became paranoid that people were staring at me and talking about me in the street. People who should have known better seemed happy to judge me without having all the facts, and I knew they all just thought I was on the fiddle. I would probably have felt the same in their shoes, but it’s really hard to take when you’re on the receiving end.

  Not to put too fine a point on it, I became mentally ill. I was overworked and way too stressed and eventually that made me suicidal. My age had finally caught up with me and my football career, and I knew there would be no turning the clock back and walking into a top team as their keeper again, even if I had wanted to. I had worked myself into the ground and gone a bit doolally. Weeks after I finished with Blyth, I just wanted to die. As I outlined at the start of the book, I sat in my room for three or four days at a time and wouldn’t come out. I really didn’t care if I died.

  After I’d been overpowered in my bedroom, injected in the bum with a sedative and dumped in the Priory, my first thought when I came to was to hatch an escape plan. The staff you find in these places are well trained in how to deal with difficult patients, and I’m sure I would have come firmly into that category in those first few weeks. I must have been a pain in the arse. The fact that I’d been sectioned meant that I couldn’t just stroll through the front door and go home. I was there for a reason – to make me better – and it took me a bit of time to adjust and get my head around that. It wasn’t exactly One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest though, and if you showed the right attitude, then the staff did everything they could to help you get yourself together and get well again.

  They started giving me some medication and I calmed down and became an easier patient to deal with. I had the odd setback, but after my initial freak-out at finding myself in there, I started to get a bit better each day. After a while, trust grew on both sides, and I would be allowed to put on my training kit and do a bit of training to help with my therapy. There was one day when I accidentally went out of the gates at the Priory and set off a full-scale alarm. I had only been planning to go for a 20-minute run – 10 minutes there and 10 minutes back – but as I was jogging down the road, I looked round and could see doctors coming after me and a nurse screaming at the top of her voice: ‘Johhhhhhn, come back!’ They thought I was trying to make a break for it. The nurse had been about 400 yards behind me when I first spotted her, but after I’d jogged on a bit, the next thing I knew she was grabbing hold of my arm – she must have been some sort of Olympic athlete to catch me because I was quite a fast runner! They took me back and even though I tried to explain to them that I only wanted to go for a run and I was planning to come back, they put a black mark against me and had me down as a potential escapee. I think I got double medication after that for a few days to stop me in my tracks.

  After my group therapy, where I heard the poor woman’s tragic tale about losing her husband and her children in a car crash, I dug deep and got my head properly together. I had positive ideas swimming about my mind, and I just needed to harness them. The healthiest outlook I felt I could take was to try and somehow get a fresh start. I became determined to look forward and not back. I knew I definitely had to get away from England, or I’d run the risk of lapsing right back into depression.

  When I came out of the Priory after three months, I thought that there had to be a better life than working your bollocks off, and not for a fortune either. I was lying on the settee one day and thought to myself: ‘There’s more to life than this. I’m sick of it pissing down and blowing a gale.’ And that’s when I started thinking about opportunities abroad.

  Because I had my coaching licence, I took the bull by the horns and rang up the Scottish Football Association – where I had sat all my badges – and told them I was keen on a move abroad. They were really helpful and printed off a form and sent it to me in Durham, which I filled out and returned. After giving it a bit of thought, my first choice was America, my second choice was Australia and my third choice was Dubai. The SFA uploaded my CV and preferred destinations on to the FIFA coaching page, along with all my details, background and qualifications, and I didn’t have to wait long before I got a call. I was delighted to hear the voice of my old boss at Sheffield United, Ian Porterfield.

  Ian said he’d noticed from the website that I might want to come to Dubai. ‘I can’t help you there, Budgie,’ he told me, ‘but I can do the next best thing – I’m just a few hours away in Oman.’ I was upfront with him and explained to him that I’d been in hospital, but he said that wasn’t a problem and he asked me to come out and see him. I had nothing to lose, so I thought ‘what the hell’, and a few days later Janet and I got on a plane to Muscat. We stayed in a lovely hotel, and were immediately taken by how friendly the people were. The setting was stunning – sunshine, mountains and beaches, and I was well impressed with all the heritage the place had to offer. I thought it was paradise. I had a good chat with Ian, who was in charge of the national team, and he told me he wanted me to come and join his backroom staff as goalkeeping coach. There wasn’t much to think about – it was an offer I couldn’t possibly refuse. We kept the house on in Durham in case we ever returned, but our bags were packed for a new life.

  To begin with, the team wasn’t that good and the federation wasn’t the most organised, but the lifestyle was absolutely wonderful and it was just what I needed at that time. I had gone from the Priory to living the life of Reilly. Unfortunately, the national team’s results were poor and Ian Porterfield was sacked. Coaches weren’t given long to get results, and unless they somehow put together an immediate winning run, then they would be dispensed with. I was panicking – I thought I would be out too because it had been Ian who had brought me in, but the Oman FA were honourable people and not only were they happy to keep me on, but they let me take the national team for a few games while they looked for Ian’s successor. I was happy enough just doing the job on a caretaker basis, be
cause I thought if I took the job permanently it would be like signing my death warrant. It was the kind of job that had a very short lifespan. After Ian’s departure, they first appointed a Brazilian coach, Valdeir Vieira, who was only in the post for a year between 1998 and 1999. He had been a career coach rather than a famous player, but when he left they got one of the biggest names in world football – the brilliant full-back from Brazil’s 1970 World Cup-winning team, Carlos Alberto Torres. We got on like a house on fire, and I really enjoyed working under him. He didn’t speak an awful lot of English, but we were able to communicate and he had a brilliant sense of humour.

  I found the work really rewarding and I did my best to embrace the culture of Oman, even learning Arabic and a bit of Swahili! Some of the favourite sayings that I would use to coach my goalkeepers were ‘Ruah alla Toule’ (go straight), ‘Fawk alla Toule’ (get up), ‘Ascut’ (be quiet), ‘Box Filwadga’ (punch him in the face) and ‘Murafani a Hafa Alrwajoul ila mustashfa’ (rough translation: ‘next time, put this man in hospital!’).

  Even learning a few simple words of the local lingo shows that you are willing to make an effort, and my coaching style was always to talk to the players and encourage them the best I could. It earned me their respect. I couldn’t have stood the thought of having to go through a translator all the time; it would have frustrated the hell out of me and it’s not my style anyway. I prefer to communicate with people directly.

  I had been coaching in Oman for a couple of years, and was even still playing for the Army team to keep my fitness up, when my life was once again turned upside down. I had a near-death experience, and I consider myself very lucky to have survived.

  I was on the road cycling back from a weight training session in the gym one day, when a van pulled in front of me in the cycle lane. Its door swung open without any warning and as I swerved to avoid it I was hit by a car travelling at 70mph in the opposite direction. I don’t remember much, but I was knocked off my bike and dragged for 50 yards underneath the car.

  My body was battered beyond recognition. The damage I suffered was pretty gruesome and all the medical work I needed does not make for pleasant reading: I had a partially severed left ear, 147 stitches in my face, umpteen operations and skin grafts, 14 damaged teeth, a severely damaged shoulder, a damaged nervous system and one arm was left shorter than the other. People started calling me Steve Austin after the Six Million Dollar Man. But I was the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Budgie all mashed into one!

  After that, I was registered 35 per cent disabled and became hooked on Prozac to keep my nerves together. I also needed a hell of a lot of counselling. I had spent my whole life priding myself on my fitness, so it was a bitter pill to swallow. I felt like an invalid, and having found such a good life in Oman I felt I was back to square one. It was a terrible time, and I owe a lot to all those who got me through it. Thankfully, there was no question of me having to go home to England. My job was safe and everyone rallied round to make sure I got back on my feet.

  I’ll never be allowed to say who was responsible for the accident, as I took them to court – backed by the PFA – and won compensation, but it was somebody high-profile. I’m just glad that justice was done and that my body was strong enough to heal to some extent. Lifting all those hay bales when I was 12, and a lifetime of weight training, had prepared me for the worst, and thankfully I lived to tell the tale.

  CHAPTER 25

  A STAR IS BORN

  ‘The thing that struck me most about Ali Al-Habsi was that his dedication matched mine.’

  I got a lot of satisfaction from coaching goalkeepers in Oman – they were eager to learn, and to watch them take on board what you’ve taught them and see them make progress before your eyes makes you very proud. It wasn’t long before I discovered my star pupil. I saw this 14-year-old lad playing in goal for a Third Division side and straight away I thought he was fantastic. He couldn’t speak a word of English and was huge for his age. His name was Ali Al-Habsi, and he would go on to become the first player from the Gulf to make it in the English Premier League, first with Bolton and then on loan at Wigan.

  I took him under my wing and when I brought him to train with the first team, everyone thought I was crazy. The thing that struck me most about Ali Al-Habsi was that his dedication matched mine. When he was still at school, he lived 15 miles outside Muscat, but he would catch a ramshackle minibus to come and train with me. At 5am he would run one kilometre to the training ground, where I would have the cones set up, ready to put him through his paces before the sun got too hot. He did that every day for a year and a half and I knew he was going to be a professional.

  I obviously still had a lot of contacts in England, so I rang Sir Alex Ferguson up at Manchester United, told him I thought the kid could make the grade, and arranged to bring him over for a trial. I went to the federation and asked for them to subsidise two plane tickets, and when they said no, I paid for them myself. We went over to the UK and I took him to United’s training centre at Carrington for a fortnight’s trial, where he was mixing in the company of stars like Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Ruud van Nistelrooy. I was standing behind the goal, talking to him in Arabic, and when he stood up to a hefty challenge from Van Nistelrooy I shouted to him: ‘Good, young man!’

  Sir Alex thought he was brilliant, but because he was so young there was no way United could arrange a work permit for him, and reluctantly they had to drop their interest. The same problem arose when Manchester City were keen, but I kept trying and took him to Bolton where Sam Allardyce was the manager at the time. Sam is a very intelligent fella, and he worked out that if Ali played in another country for a couple of years, he would be able to build up his number of appearances with the national team and satisfy the demands of obtaining a work permit in the UK. So Ali Al-Habsi went to Lynn Oslo for a couple of years, and proved a sensation there, while also playing the 75 per cent of national games that you needed at the time to come to Britain on a work permit.

  However, during my time trying to find Ali a club, I was sacked by the Oman FA – basically for sticking up for him in a row with the national coach. Carlos Alberto had left by this time and they had a Czech coach called Milan Macala, with whom I never really saw eye-to-eye. By this time, Ali Al-Habsi had left school and got a job as a fireman, while we tried to get him a professional football club. But when I brought him back to Oman, Macala called him to one side and, in full earshot of me, said: ‘Ali, don’t pay heed to what John is saying to you. You will never be a professional player, you will be back here crying because you don’t have a job. In my country, the Czech Republic, we have 20 goalkeepers better than you.’

  When I overheard what Macala was telling him, I went berserk and punched him in the face. He was not only undermining me, he was doing Ali a massive disservice. I was hauled before the federation the next day, after Macala complained that I had physically assaulted him. I fought my corner and said he shouldn’t be saying things like that to a 16-year-old kid, even if he did feel he wasn’t any good. They said they didn’t want me to take Ali out of the federation and away to another country, but I said they couldn’t stop me. I didn’t like what I was hearing and told them: ‘Sack me then, I don’t care.’

  I was without a job again, but not for long – I was soon approached by the biggest club in the region, Al Ain, and they gave me a great job in Abu Dhabi. The only problem was that it was too far away to commute on a daily basis, and I more or less had to live away from my wife for three years.

  While I settled into my job, Ali Al-Habsi went from strength to strength. He was voted the best goalkeeper in Norway two years running and my phone never stopped – I had Souness from Newcastle, Houllier from Liverpool, Stuart Pearce from City and Sir Alex from United all wanting to sign him, but I had shaken hands on a deal with Sam Allardyce. They were all offering crazy money because Ali was hot property, but I had to honour my handshake to Sam. Ali’s done brilliantly since he went to England and he hasn’t ev
en reached his peak as a goalkeeper.

  Abu Dhabi is still enormously rich and the Al Ain Football Club is the focus of a lot of the wealth in the region. Because Al Ain is the same distance inland from Dubai and Oman, it was a popular place. The chairman of the football club is the older brother of the Manchester City owner Sheikh Mansour – Sheikh Hazza bin Zayed Al Nahyan, so you could imagine the kind of money we are talking about. Al Ain, in reality, are probably as rich as Manchester United. They only get 8,000 people at their games, but they have Sheik Hazza’s money bankrolling them and he probably has enough to buy United, and have plenty of change left over.

  The job at Al Ain was fantastic and I was on mega money, but I found it a hard place to live because I prefer to be next to the sea. After being so settled in Oman, I found in comparison there was not a lot going on in Al Ain – it really was the middle of the desert. When you’re inland in the desert, there is not much to do outdoors to keep your mind occupied because it can become unbearably hot. I was put up in fantastic accommodation, but I missed Janet, who couldn’t join me because she was busy pursuing her own career as an estate agent back in Muscat. Al Ain was only about a three-hour drive from Oman, but that’s way too far to be commuting back and forward each day, and I just had to stay there when I was working and pop back to Muscat whenever I could.

  The culture in Abu Dhabi was an eye-opener, and I learned something new every day. The Sheikhs would do all their business between Saturday and Wednesday, then return to Al Ain on a Thursday and Friday, which is the weekend in the Middle East. Saturday is like a Monday morning in Britain, and that’s how it works. The Sheikhs might drive to Al Ain to spend time with one of their four wives, but having so many wives would be an expensive life. If you buy one wife a Rolex or a Rolls-Royce then you have to buy the other three exactly the same. That’s the rules, and you have to be a very wealthy man to have four wives. People will read this and think that’s horrible, but that’s just their culture – it’s different and who are we to say it’s wrong? It’s very much a man’s world here though. There are no laws like England, where the wife gets half of the wealth in a divorce. Here, you only have to tell her in public three times, on three separate occasions, in front of friends and witnesses, that you want a divorce. I wasn’t shocked by any of this; I just find other cultures fascinating. I’ve lived here so long now, I know all the rules and regulations inside out and I’m used to it.