Budgie - The Autobiography Read online

  My father was no fan of football, and when I first made the breakthrough I got no obvious signs of encouragement from him. I didn’t want to start crowing about it in case he took that for me being a cheeky bugger and shut me up in the easiest possible way – by telling me that I could go and work down the pit like him.

  I used to get two complimentary tickets for each game and I’d sometimes ask my dad if he wanted to come down and watch me, but his response was always a fairly blunt: ‘I’m not coming to watch bloody football – it’s a poofs’ game.’ He had his set routine each weekend – he’d have a skinful on a Friday night and keep drinking in the pub till the Sunday. The rugby team would be at home one week, and the football team the next, and while he would usually head down to see the rugby boys in action, he didn’t pay much attention to how I was getting on with Workington Reds…or so I thought.

  There was a home game against Southport and during the match one of their forwards caught me flush in the face. I could feel his studs raking right into my forehead as I dived at his feet. I was out cold briefly, and as I came back to my senses, I became vaguely aware of a figure lurching towards the forward that had just booted me. Then it hit me – it was me dad on the pitch, making towards the penalty box…with a pint pot in his hand. He’d been on the piss since Friday night – by this time it was about 4.15 on the Saturday and he was well and truly the worse for wear.

  He headed right for the bewildered forward, shouting at him: ‘You! You big bugger! Pick on someone your own bloody size. C’mon and fight me!’ He then swung an arm and threw his beer all over the guy. All hell broke loose and the two of them got into a fight. I was a bit groggy from the boot in the face, and I thought I had concussion or something because, unless my eyes were playing tricks on me, my old dad was on the pitch fighting with Southport’s centre-forward.

  The next thing I knew the police came on to the pitch, got a hold of my dad, and arrested him. I’d snapped out of my daze, realising it wasn’t a dream, and I started screaming at the coppers: ‘Leave ’im. It’s me dad!’ In the end they just threw him out of the ground instead of arresting him and chucking him in the cells and that was the end of the matter. There were no TV cameras, so there was no need for any inquest or fuss after the game. Football was a working-class game and nobody got on their high horse.

  I wouldn’t have let him know it, because there wasn’t much in the way of outward displays of emotion in the Burridge household, at least not where my dad was concerned, but I was just secretly chuffed that he’d been at the game in the first place. It said a lot for his principles too, that he would rather pay to get in than take a complimentary ticket from me. I spoke to a few of his mates, and it turned out he’d been there before shouting encouragement, so even though he didn’t show it, he must have been proud to watch his boy in goal for the Reds.

  I wasn’t ashamed at all that my dad had waded in that day, sticking up for his boy, but there was no hiding my shame and embarrassment when I did perhaps THE most stupid thing of my career in another game.

  We were playing against Southend and coasting along towards full-time, five or six-nil up. I had had very little to do in the game, and my concentration wasn’t fully switched on. I was getting a bit bored and just wanted to hear the final whistle and get in for a bath to warm myself up, so I turned round and asked the photographer sitting behind the goals how long there was left to play. He checked his watch and told me we were already well into time added on. A minute later, our full-back passed the ball back to me, and I picked it up then started bouncing it and rolling it around the box, just trying to run down the final couple of seconds. He obviously thought there was time for us to get another goal and was screaming at me: ‘Budgie, Budgie, give me the ball back!’ But I wasn’t paying him much attention. I then heard the whistle, and as I turned round to get my cap and gloves from the back of the net I threw the ball up and volleyed it as hard as I could into the net. It was only when I turned round that I realised I had made a terrible mistake. The referee was signalling for a goal and trotting up towards the halfway line. It hadn’t been him who had blown the whistle; it had been some joker in the crowd with another whistle. Our full-back was on the floor laughing his head off. We might have won the game 5-1, but after the game the manager went crazy at me. He didn’t really see the funny side. I was mortified at my mistake and just kept shaking my head, trying to say sorry and pointing out that it didn’t really matter – we had won the game easily anyway.

  I wasn’t the only one in the team who was as daft as a brush, though. I remember after one game we’d lost, the manager was going crackers at us all, shouting and swearing his head off. He picked on John Ogilvie, and pointed to his club badge and said: ‘You’ve no idea what that badge stands for’. John was having a fag, as a lot of players did in those days, and he looked him up and down, staring at the big badge that said ‘WAFC’. He casually took a drag of his ciggy and said: ‘Of course I know what it stands for – “What A Fucking Football Club”!’

  I had a few managers at Workington, even though I was only there a relatively short time. First there was Bobby Brown and then Frank Upton, and I didn’t always see eye-to-eye with the man who eventually sold me, Brian Doyle, who took over from Frank in 1968. Brian had been known as a bit of a hardman as a player, but my first impressions of him were not good. He came into the dressing room all surly and told us: ‘I’m the boss, if anyone wants to argue, come behind the stand with me now and we can sort it out.’ There were a lot of experienced professionals in that dressing room, and it didn’t matter that they were Fourth Division players, they deserved far better treatment than that. It’s not the way to get a team pulling together, and his management style was only going to get him nowhere fast. He was the boss, and I respected that. I had no problem with those in authority, but I couldn’t take anyone trying to pick on me. It wasn’t in my nature.

  We used to play training games on an ash pitch and on Fridays he used to join in with the five-a-sides. I was already wary of him, but when he came charging into me in goal, I blocked him the best I could then smacked him with the ball right in the face. I didn’t say anything. I just did it. He got up and you could see he was starting to lose his head, but he didn’t want to make a big issue of it and lose face in front of the rest of the lads, who were loving every minute of this young upstart putting the bully boy in his place. They were shouting: ‘Go on Budgie son, give him some more!’ I would have fought him no problem if it had come down to it. I always had that aggression from my upbringing, and my boxing. So if somebody banged me in the nose I was going to react. It didn’t come to that, but you could see him seething with rage, and I was always watching my back when he was around.

  My Workington days were very harsh but it was a great grounding to start a career in professional football. It gave me a chance to play at a very early age that I would not have got anywhere else. I picked up so much invaluable experience from the older professionals. If I had signed for one of the big clubs, then I would have trained every day with kids my own age, and been kept separate from the first team. At Workington, everyone trained together, and I quickly grew up and started to get a lot of confidence. I may have been wet behind the ears for that first game against Newport County, but I soon found my belief and discovered how to protect myself against the seasoned professionals you found in the Fourth Division. You only get experience by playing and learning from any mistakes you make. I could have gone to someone like Manchester United but I would never have been picking up that type of experience. I’d come a long way since that first game in a short space of time.

  CHAPTER 4

  BLACKPOOL ROCKS

  ‘No more Southport and Southend United, now it would be Manchester United and Arsenal. I was about to leap up three divisions in the blink of an eye.’

  When my dad died, I was almost fined for it by Workington. Even though I was by now playing for the first team, I was still expected to turn out for youth and re
serve games, and on the day my dad died we were due to play a fixture against Bradford Park Avenue. I went to the house to get my stuff for the game, but when I got there I was told not to come in; my mum was in a right old state and her friends broke the news to me that my dad had dropped dead.

  Because I hadn’t turned up in time for the Bradford game, the manager was blazing mad with me, saying he was going to fine me. But when I explained to him what had happened, both he and the club couldn’t have been more helpful. He didn’t fine me, of course, and he really helped my mum cope with the grief. The club told my mum that if there was anything they could do for the family, they would do it. The club helped with the funeral, the ceremony and all the arrangements for the crematorium. I was just a young kid and wouldn’t have known where to start with the arrangements, even though I was now the man of the house. The boss and all the players came to the funeral to lend me support, which meant a lot to me. I suppose I could have taken time off, but in my mind I had to keep playing; it was the best way to cope with the situation. I knew that if I wasn’t playing then Mike Rogan would be straight back in the team, and if he played well then the gloves would be his again and it would be my turn to kick my heels and wait for my chance to get back in. It was a harsh outlook perhaps, but I needed to be harsh on myself if I wanted to be a success.

  We had to move out of the pit house simply because my dad wasn’t working down the mine anymore, so we moved out of Concrete Terrace and into a council house in Workington – which was absolutely great, because for the first time in our lives we had hot running water. It’s a horrible thing to say, but my dad dying worked out well for us as a family. We were all relieved to move away from the slag heaps, the pollution and the disgusting smell of sulphur. That council house in Workington felt like a mansion after where we’d been. We actually felt quite posh, because although we might not have admitted it to outsiders, we had been ashamed of the previous house.

  Not long after that, I was told after a youth game that the manager wanted to see me. I was thinking to myself: ‘What the hell have I done now? I’m going to get a bollocking here…’ But he didn’t beat about the bush. ‘I’ve sold you for £20,000 and you’re going to Blackpool tomorrow,’ he informed me.

  ‘What if I don’t want to go?’ I asked, briefly trying to protest. But it was pointless. He said the club needed the money, and that it was already a done deal. They had Mike Rogan, so it made financial sense for a skint club like Workington Reds to offload me and get some money while they could. If I’d stopped and thought about it, it was a no-brainer. Blackpool were in the First Division – I would be mixing it with the big boys. No more Southport and Southend United; now it would be Manchester United and Arsenal. I was about to leap up three divisions in the blink of an eye.

  I may have been a 17-year-old kid, but the Blackpool manager, Bob Stokoe, didn’t see signing me as a gamble. He’d seen me play while he was manager of Carlisle United and knew what I could do. Blackpool had gone through a lot of managers in the years before Stokoe was appointed and were proving to be a bit of a yo-yo club, bouncing between the First and Second Divisions. When I signed, Bob Stokoe was only just in the door at Bloomfield Road himself, and again Blackpool were heading for relegation to the Second Division. He had decided that the best way to give the club a chance of bouncing back at the first attempt would be to go for a rebuilding strategy of out with the old and in with the new.

  They were living on past glories a bit, having famously won the FA Cup in 1953 back in the days of Stanley Matthews, but there was no doubting they were still a big club with some top players. I had the butterflies when I got to the ground for the first time to sign my contract and was shown into reception. I sat there waiting for what seemed like eternity, then all of a sudden a door opened and Stokoe said: ‘Come in, John.’ He was very businesslike about it, and the figures he started chucking at me were mind-blowing to a kid who had been living on a fiver a week at Workington. He said: ‘Right son, we’ve agreed a £20,000 transfer. Your salary will be £55 a week with £45 appearance money if you play in the first team. We’ll also give you a £1,000 signing-on fee and your mother will receive £30 every month sent to her in a cash envelope.’ I couldn’t believe it – £100 a week, it sounds laughable now, but that was beyond my wildest dreams. All I could bring myself to blurt out was: ‘Can I phone my mam?’

  We didn’t have a phone in our house so I had to phone the pub round the corner in Workington and ask them to go and get Mrs Burridge from down the road. The barman went round and fetched her and she was on the other end of the phone five minutes later – it was the first time she’d ever set foot in a pub. When I told her I’d be getting £100 a week the phone went dead – I thought she’d died on the spot of a heart attack! She was so shocked. I was doing all the sums in my head and thought I had won the lottery. There was no more time to mess around. I went back to see Bob Stokoe and told him I’d sign a four-year contract.

  Blackpool found me accommodation in a boarding house not far from the ground. There were other kids my age staying there, but they were apprentices on £5 a week, while I was on a £100 a week as a first-team player. It was all over the local paper that I’d signed, but there was no Billy Big Time about me. I got on well with the other lads, as we were all about the same age. It was strange being away from home and I didn’t really have any clothes to my name. I had a skinhead in those days and my entire wardrobe consisted of a pair of bovver boots, two pairs of pants, a checked shirt and a skinhead suit. It was a giant boarding house and the landlady used to do all the cooking. I spent most of the time in my room or in the television room. I was happy with my move there, not at all homesick, and it was an exciting time in my life to be out of home and out at last in the big, wide world.

  My first day at training was a bit of an eye-opener as the squad was packed with big names in football. I had already heard all about Jimmy Armfield, who used to be the England captain and was something of a club legend, but there were other strong characters like Glyn James, the Welsh international centre-half, and the Scottish internationals Tony Green and Tommy Hutchison.

  I didn’t have to wait long for my debut, and it was a daunting one – away to Everton, who were known as the ‘Bank of England’ club because of the amount of cash they’d splashed on signings during that era. They were a top side, and had won the league in 1970, so for an introduction to the First Division it was about as big as it could get. I got a good night’s sleep before the game, and was told to report to Bloomfield Road the next morning to catch the team bus to the game. I didn’t even know where Everton was – I thought it was down south somewhere, so it was a bit of a surprise when we set off towards Liverpool.

  Like I said, I didn’t have much of a wardrobe, so my outfit for the day was a checked shirt, bovver boots and a turquoise suit. I even had to borrow a tie off one of the apprentices because I didn’t have one. As soon as I got on to the coach, Tommy Hutchison and Tony Green – who were the real jokers of the team – started taking the piss out of me something terrible. All the rest of the team were dressed like professionals in their blazers and flannels, and I stood out like a turquoise sore thumb. I was almost crying with embarrassment. I was squirming on my seat all the way there as Tony and Tommy absolutely slaughtered me about my gear. I just wanted to go home and I had the right hump with them. They may have been experienced professionals, but if they’d kept pushing my buttons I would have gladly fought them all and broken their noses!

  When we got to Goodison it was a relief to get the suit off and into my kit. I was a little bit nervous, but as soon as I went down the tunnel and over that white line all the anxiety disappeared and the adrenaline took over. There were 46,000 people inside Goodison, it was my first game in the First Division and I knew everything I did would be scrutinised, but I played an absolute blinder. It couldn’t have gone better. One ball from the left wing came over and Everton’s star striker Joe Royle hit it on the volley, sweet as a nut, and
I held it. I’d been used to playing against the journeymen of the Fourth Division and here I was facing a team full of internationals, but I wasn’t frightened of them whatsoever. I’d never seen any of them before, so for me there was nothing to fear. They were just guys in blue shirts. In my mind, it wasn’t about what they did, it was down to how I played and handled the occasion.

  Brian Labone, another England international who had just played at the World Cup in Mexico, also went close for Everton late on, but again I saved it, and we battled to a 0-0 draw. When I got back into the dressing room everybody was patting me on the back and saying well done. Some of the lads said they would be buying me a drink in the players’ lounge, but as soon as I’d had my bath I got my dreaded suit on and headed straight for the bus where I lay down on the back seat, hiding. I couldn’t stand the thought of attracting any more flak for what I was wearing, especially not in a packed players’ lounge full of internationals.

  After about an hour, the team started coming back on to the bus from the players’ lounge. Bob Stokoe came over to me and congratulated me again on a great game, and asked for me for more of the same in the next game against Manchester United. But his face dropped when I told him: ‘I’m not playing. I’m going home.’ He could see I was upset about something and when I pointed to Tommy Hutchison and Tony Green and told him they’d been taking the piss out of my suit, Stokoe went down the bus to have a quiet word with them. Tommy came up a couple of minutes later, arms out apologetically, and said: ‘C’mon Budgie, we were only pulling your leg. We just wanted you to feel like one of the lads,’ but I still had the hump and told him to sod off.