by Lee Howey
Oh my God – and it very nearly was.
Bobby Moore stood before us. ‘Star struck’ might be a hackneyed expression, but there is no better way to describe the moment. The man we had seen in all those famous, famous images from 1966 was addressing us. Our powers of speech were momentarily in retreat, but between us we managed to explain. He smiled.
‘Come with me. I’ll ring you a taxi.’
Mr Moore was in charge of Southend at the time. We followed him to his office where he rang the cab. While we were waiting for it he asked us about ourselves, what positions we played, where we were from, what we wanted out of life and football generally. He seemed to take a genuine interest. We answered him politely and eagerly, but our solitary collective thought was: ‘It’s Bobby Moore! It’s Bobby Moore! It’s Bobby Moore!…’ All too soon the taxi arrived and we said our thank yous and goodbyes. When it pulled away we sat in complete silence, still unable to comprehend what had just happened.
That was my sole and brief experience of the great man and it only reinforced the general opinion of him: that he was a true gentleman. All these years later I remain thrilled at the thought of that chance meeting.
• • •
Matches were usually played on a Saturday morning except for ties in the glamorously named Floodlit Cup which, as the name would suggest, were played during evenings. These fixtures were often against some of southern England’s best youth teams such as Arsenal, Tottenham and Chelsea. A good many opponents would become very well known in football: Paul Merson and Kevin Campbell were playing for Arsenal, the Holdsworth twins David and Dean plus David James were at Watford. Gareth Hall was at Chelsea.
Another opponent who would achieve fame was an incorrigible gobshite called Neil Ruddock, who, for whatever reason, became known by the nom de guerre Razor Ruddock after the Canadian heavyweight boxer … er … Razor Ruddock.
Neil was one of those people who, to his credit, managed to locate a charisma in himself that no one else could ever find. A year older than me, he began his career at Millwall for whom he was marking me one evening when, oddly enough, we had something of a physical tussle; although his jaw was being exercised far more than any other part of his anatomy, boasting about how he would soon be off to Tottenham to earn a million pounds an hour, etcetera, etcetera. I was rather more laconic (everyone was) and replied by exchanging with him a succession of thumps. We were successfully irritating each other in the second half when a corner was awarded to Ipswich. During an aerial challenge when the corner was delivered, I took the opportunity to elbow him in the back of the head, which felt good. To me, anyway. But I fell down on my side when I landed. Retaliation came in the form of a full-blooded, far-from-surreptitious boot up the arse. I’d had the foresight to commit my crime away from the eyes of the officials. Evidently, such indemnity had not occurred to Neil.
He was instantly sent off, but as he marched furiously from the pitch he snarled at me: ‘You might have ruined my fucking career.’ Always at the ready with a pithy rejoinder, I told him to fuck off.
I really shouldn’t have elbowed him. It wasn’t pleasant but it was only a clout on the back of the head. It wasn’t one of those retina-threatening jobs. The ensuing kick up the arse I can accept, but it was something of an overreaction to say that I had put his career in jeopardy; it can’t have hurt that much.
He went on to have a very good career at Southampton, Spurs, Liverpool and other clubs, as well as winning an England cap. But latterly his calling has been for television. Apparently he has spread his wings into acting and, according to the International Movie Database, appears in a crime drama called The Middle Man – in which he has extended his range by playing a character called Razor who takes no shit from anybody. No way.
And just think, if I really had finished him as a footballer, the wider world would never have known the edification he provided when eating a wallaby’s knackers or whatever he did on I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! In recent years he has also been seen on Celebrity Big Brother, Who’s Doing the Dishes? and Can’t Pay? We’ll Take It Away, where he entertained the public by arguing in the street with High Court enforcement agents over a £3,000 debt to a company that had kennelled his dogs.
Who knows? He may even do Flockstars one day, or become the face of Liebfraumilch. It’s what we all dreamed of when we played football in the streets as children, so I’m glad he was all right.
• • •
A year ahead of me when I arrived at Ipswich, and therefore a second year apprentice, was Dalian Atkinson; a fine striker for the club who also made a mark at Sheffield Wednesday, Real Sociedad, Fenerbahçe and Aston Villa. He is fondly remembered at Villa for his goal and performance in the 3–1 win against Manchester United in the 1994 League Cup final, as well as scoring one of the Premier League’s best ever goals, against Wimbledon in 1992.
Dalian and I had a contretemps which I am hideously embarrassed about to this day, although at the time I was completely unaware that I had said anything that was even particularly offensive. In its own way it’s an interesting little piece of social history, but it still curls my toes.
A few months into my apprenticeship, Dalian and I had a fight – a humdinger, proper fisticuffs. It had fomented in the dressing room but, as per an unwritten rule, was carried out in the drying room. It started because my job was to make sure the away dressing room at Portman Road where we apprentices changed for training was in an acceptable condition. Memories of what started the fight are now vague, but Dalian was probably preventing me from completing my chores by taking his time, titivating his hair and generally trying my patience. I lost my loaf and whacked him, whereupon the festivities commenced. We eventually wore ourselves out, our exertion heightened by the heat in there – it was like spending an afternoon at gas mark five – and we stopped.
When we had calmed down slightly he asked me pointedly: ‘Why did you call me a black bastard?’
That was not what had instigated the fight, but was indeed what I had called him. Yet I was genuinely befuddled by his question and replied that he was black and was being a bastard – so why was he so offended? This was how unworldly I was. I had no concept of having been racist. It had to be explained to me that it was utterly unacceptable to call someone a black bastard, or indeed a black anything. It seemed peculiar to me then that had I called him a stupid bastard, a selfish bastard, or merely a bastard, then there would not have been an issue.
Usually there would be six or seven black lads (who were all furious at me that day) in the same changing room as me, including Dalian, Jason Dozzell and Michael Cole. Still my ignorance and naivety remained intact until that point.
There are reasons for this. One was that, unlike in Ipswich, a black face in Sunderland during the mid-1980s was a rarity. There had been one black lad in my year at school, but as he was not in my class and didn’t play football, we had nothing to do with each other. When we played for Moorside, Clive Mendonca was known as Choc because of his skin colour. No one ever called him Clive and it never seemed to matter to him or anyone else. Perhaps it would if he was a teenager now. Gary Coatsworth was known as Cocoa. Because of my high cheekbones and matinee idol looks, I was known as Plug. None of these epithets, although hardly complimentary, was a source of controversy.
When I had hitherto exchanged insults with my peers it would be skinny bastard, fat bastard, lanky bastard, ginger bastard, bignosed bastard, spotty bastard. Everyone was a bastard but prefixed with some or other accompanying physicality. I therefore failed to see why ‘black bastard’ was an insult that belonged in another universe.
Some people, bless ’em, still don’t. My excuse was that I was an empty-headed sixteen-year-old and, as excuses go, I think it’s a pretty damned good one. I also immediately learned the lesson. A racial slur is not ‘only a joke’ and does not compare with a fatty slur, a spotty slur or any of the other slurs in the previous paragraph (although they are all insults) and it is depressing anyone
should still think otherwise. Race riots have occurred, but not, to the best of my knowledge, ginger riots. Nor was there ever a Double Chin Relations Act. No one was ever enslaved because of their big ears, prohibited from voting because they had a beer gut, or denied accommodation because they were a bit on the thin side.
It is unlikely that teenagers of today would repeat my mistake; or if they did it wouldn’t be a mistake. The whole incident with Dalian was a real that-was-then-this-is-now moment (although racism from the terraces in the 1980s was appalling to us even then, and white players simply never had to endure what the black ones did) and I still cringe at the memory. I could have omitted the story, which has never been in the public domain until now, but this book is an honest account and I think the tale is worth relating. I have done so entirely at my own volition. Please don’t think of me unkindly because of it; think unkindly of me for the shitty stuff I did deliberately. No more can I say or do in my own defence, although I could have simply not written the story. It happened. It can’t unhappen.
Dalian and I became good friends. We lived in the same digs for a year and a half and would regularly knock around together, usually in the ‘black’ pubs of Ipswich. I am aware that the less forgiving readers might now be saying sarcastically to themselves: ‘Oh yes. Some of my best friends…’
But I had been believed and, more importantly, forgiven. I had become significantly smarter and wiser after one solitary teenage punch-up.
I learned a great deal about life from Dalian. I looked up to him. Not because he was such a gifted footballer or because he was a year older than me; it was his enormous confidence and zest for life. He was considerably more street-wise than I. It was largely through him that I realised what a comparatively sheltered upbringing I’d had. Before I could even drive, he owned a flash car; a ‘Ferrari red’ Alfa Romeo Alfasud. He later replaced it with a Talbot Sunbeam, a more modest-looking vehicle at first glance, but with a Lotus engine. It spewed oil but went like a missile.
He would be haring around in his car by around 4.30 p.m. and I would usually accompany him, often until the early hours. He didn’t drink; blackcurrant and soda would be his usual tipple. Women loved him and so did everyone else. He really was a top lad, exuberant, charismatic and tremendous fun to be around. He was very much the main man on the social scene, while I was very much the sidekick. Eventually some of his colossal reserves of self-confidence trickled down to me. Not as much as I would have liked, but enough to improve my social standing. Suffice to say that when I left Ipswich, he was one of the people I missed most.
Football fans are probably aware that this story doesn’t end well.
The last time I saw him was in 2004, or thereabouts, at a charity function in Sheffield where he is also fondly remembered as a strike partner of David Hirst at Wednesday. He was still outgoing, but by now the confidence seemed to be more of a front. Perhaps this was because we were both much older. I had heard some stories about him that saddened me, although that doesn’t make them true.
On 15 August 2016 at 1.30 a.m., the police were called to his father Ernest’s house in Telford, Shropshire, where there was an incident involving Dalian, who had recently undergone kidney dialysis treatment. He was subsequently tasered by police and went into cardiac arrest. Dalian Atkinson was pronounced dead in hospital at 3 a.m. He was forty-eight years old.
It’s still difficult to believe.
• • •
The first year of my apprenticeship was really a matter of settling in. If I was really going to make a move and become a professional at Ipswich Town it would be in my second year, which I began with quite some gusto. I was turning into a man, had gained half a stone in weight (in a good way), become quicker, stronger and more confident. Best of all, I was banging in the goals; for more than one team as I had graduated to being a reserve team member as well as still playing for the youths. Finishing pre-season training for the second time, I was feeling more than content with life. I specifically remember being in the shower and singing a song at the top of my voice. (‘The Way It Is’ by Bruce Hornsby and the Range, as music historians will be demanding to know. Such was my overall confidence in life at that point, even the tricky middle eight was not a problem. Some of the other players would struggle with G major, but not me, and my pleasant light baritone was renowned throughout football.)
I remember that exalted feeling as though it was yesterday. I was loving my football, and weekends without a game were halcyon too; out with my mates for a drink or two of anything but Liebfraumilch, meeting girls (yes, girls) and generally having the fun I had seldom known in Sunderland. Most importantly, three months into my second year I was offered professional forms. My salary leapt up from £27.50 to £100 per week. I contemplated the purchase of a platinum Lamborghini, but was thwarted in this because I now had to pay the £40 digs money from my own salary. Besides, I couldn’t drive. The rise also made me eligible to pay income tax and national insurance, so I ended up being about twelve quid a week better off (remember, I had an O Level in economics and was able to work these things out). Still, there was largesse to be had with an extra dozen big ones landing in your pocket every seven days in Ipswich in 1986. Spend, spend, spend, was the motif.
Life was about to get even better. I was receiving a massage in the treatment room before a 2 p.m. reserve game against Watford at Portman Road one Tuesday in October, when Bobby Ferguson wandered in and said: ‘Good luck today, son. Keep yourself right. You’re playing for the first team at Bradford on Saturday.’
He meant in the starting XI too, not on the bench. It was a concise and thrilling piece of news to give to a seventeen-year-old, and it was difficult to imagine how my life could have been any better at that exact moment – unless Catherine Zeta-Jones had been performing the massage.
You may now be expecting a ‘but’ and you are correct to do so. The delight I felt was profound, but it only had hours to live. In goal for Watford reserves was Steve Sherwood, a fine keeper. Regrettably for him he is probably best remembered for having the ball headed out of his hands and into the net during the 1984 FA Cup final by the misogynistic Everton striker, Andy Gray. I remember him with far more clarity for that 1986 reserve match.
About twenty minutes into the game, we were leading 1–0 after I had scored from a Gary Cole cross. The ball was played high to the edge of the Watford penalty area, where it bounced. I attempted to put myself between Steve and the ball, but he came out to collect it, nudged me downwards and broke my right ankle when he landed on it. It was a complete accident and it meant that I would never play in Ipswich’s first team.
I felt the pain but ignored it at first and played on, because I did not want to think the worst; that my recently promised Football League debut might not happen after all. I had never broken a bone before. I plodded on for about another fifteen minutes before finally coming off. The swelling beneath my sock was extreme and I was examined at half-time before ice was applied to the wound.
Just as I thought my mood could not descend further, Bobby Ferguson came in to see me, took one look at my ankle and said: ‘You fucking useless bastard!’ Then he stormed out again. His bedside manner left a little to be desired.
I don’t think badly of him for this. He was a tough, but genuinely nice bloke, as I discovered during my subsequent dealings with him, and truly, he had much to contend with at Ipswich Town.
Having been one of the best teams in Europe just five years earlier, the club was struggling. The previous season they had been relegated to the old Second Division. This season of 1986–87 would end with defeat to Charlton in the play-offs and Bobby’s resignation. They had also lost several more important players since my arrival, including George Burley, Russell Osman, Eric Gates and Terry Butcher, who was sold to Rangers to recoup some of the outlay the club owed for a new stand. Having been forced to sell twenty-two players, eleven of whom were internationals, the squeeze was undoubtedly on Bobby, and my injury hadn’t helped. He must have b
een hoping that some unknown youngster who had been scoring prolifically in the reserves was about to come to his aid. One ankle-breaking collision with a goalkeeper meant that this was not about to happen.
The out-of-form Mich d’Avray played at Bradford instead of me, and Ipswich won 4–3 in a game of many chances. Surely I would have scored one (Nigel Gleghorn hit a hat-trick). The main thing was that Ipswich took the three points, but the fact that the game I missed out on was such a free-scoring affair only added to the crushing disappointment.
My time in plaster followed by rehab totalled about ten weeks, but it wasn’t until the back end of the season that I felt as fit as I had done before Steve Sherwood landed on me. Ferguson called me into his office and reassured me that I was still in his plans. I signed another year’s contract, this time for £120 per week. All the other apprentices who had joined at the same time as me were released. The only one of them who would have a playing career was Steve McGavin, a diminutive striker whose clubs included Colchester United, Wycombe Wanderers and Birmingham City. Afterwards, he worked for Ipswich’s academy.
Being retained towards the end of 1986–87 seemed like a big moment when it happened. But it wasn’t. Following Bobby’s resignation, John Duncan became manager; he was brought in from Chesterfield. Without ever having bothered to watch me play, he bought two forwards. They were David Lowe from Wigan Athletic, who was a success, and Neil Woods from Rangers, who wasn’t. Their combined fee was £200,000, which was a significant amount and one that the manager had to justify by using the new players rather than taking a punt on a teenager. This put me even further adrift of the first team. Sound familiar? Matters were about to deteriorate further and I was to look back upon those days of nursing a broken ankle with something like nostalgia.
I was playing at centre-half for the reserves when I received a whack on the leg and felt my right knee go. It was a cartilage injury; a lateral meniscus tear, for those of you with an interest in either medicine or just blood and gore. I was back on the pitch within four weeks. Another three weeks passed before it happened again to the same knee. This time it was a tiny tear and it only took me ten days to return. About six weeks after that, it happened a third time and it was beginning to seem less coincidental. This was in February 1988 and drastic action was required.
