by Lee Howey
We kicked off, with me gamely attempting to give an impression of fitness and vitality when in reality I could barely move. When the offside flag was raised against me for the seventeenth time in the first half alone because I was incapable of getting back onside, even the least perspicacious onlookers realised that I was not perhaps in peak bodily condition. Playing with only ten-and-a-bit men, we commendably kept it to 0–0 at half-time and, as you will readily believe, I hadn’t really played well. I was glad to retreat to the changing room and drink a bucket or two of water.
Fernand Brabant was going ballistic. I didn’t understand the words he was using in their most literal sense, but the tone of his shouting did not sound particularly complimentary. I could barely hear him anyway with the continued clangour between my ears. I cadged a couple of headache tablets from the physio and traipsed dizzily back on to the pitch for the second half. Remarkably, I had not been substituted. Ten minutes later we were awarded a penalty.
I was the designated penalty taker and was not about to relinquish the opportunity of a goal merely because most of Belgium appeared to be spinning around me, so I picked up the ball to indicate this. I still retained the burning desire to score, which overpowered the issue of how patently stupid it was for anyone to take a penalty in that condition. There were at least a couple of thousand supporters there (our results had bolstered attendances) and there seemed to be a collective mutter among the crowd indicating that they thought it was a stupid idea too. Undeterred by the enormous potential for a red face, as opposed to the green one I was still wearing, I bent over to place the ball on the spot. The Ciney goalkeeper was gyrating in an attempt to put me off, although there was really no need.
When I stood up I immediately felt sick again and for the third time that day evacuated my stomach, leaving a stringy puddle of vomit about eighteen inches from the ball. What a crowd-pleaser I was. The eighteen-yard box began to resemble Picasso’s palette.
In the fullness of time, the fans have probably forgotten this game, save for the bit when the barely sentient Hemptinne centre-forward emptied his guts in the opposition penalty area. Perhaps I should have aimed my puke at the ball; it would have discouraged the keeper from putting his hands on it. Incapable of attempting anything even remotely scientific, I decided to just smash it as hard as a man with a Duvel-related illness possibly could. I duly did this – and completely miskicked.
The ball flew into the top corner, reminiscent of the penalties that Matthew Le Tissier used to hammer home at the Dell, the crucial difference being that Le Tissier would do so on purpose. My penalty would be the only goal of the game.
The fact that I had scored and the delight of the crowd did not prevent my substitution. My number was finally held up and I was off. Unless injured, it is customary for a substituted player to sit in the dugout and watch the remainder of the game. I amended this convention slightly by having a lie-down on a row of half-a-dozen or so empty seats behind the dugout and gulping fresh air. It was my final act in an all-round classy display.
There were celebrations at the final whistle and the air was jubilant in the bar afterwards. Most of the team were enjoying a beer or two. I decided not to have a drink myself; that sort of thing doesn’t help a man’s game, you know. Stéphane came over to me and I could see his scowling father behind him. Louis Gemine’s mood had not been emolliated by our victory and his face resembled a litre of cold piss. There was no question of fibbing about having a touch of indigestion. Quite apart from stinking of booze, everyone at the club knew I had been to the wedding. Louis was not amused and thought I had been a disgrace (as indeed I had been). Stéphane told me that if I had missed the penalty I would have been sacked on the literal spot.
This was not my finest hour. It was a stupid and extremely unprofessional thing to have done. I got away with it, but I was not proud. Ensuring you aren’t rat-arsed within twelve hours of a game isn’t asking for much of your highest-paid player.
• • •
Such unhealthy diversions notwithstanding, I did undertake additional fitness training of my own accord. Off-field shenanigans did not mean that I wasn’t serious about my career, and the Ciney incident was an uncharacteristic one-off. My right knee was settling down too, although I never had it examined. There was no pain and no restriction. It was mended but bent because the tendons at the back had healed tight. I could get my fist under it when it was supposed to be stretched flat on the ground, whereas my left knee was normal. I should have done better rehab after leaving Ipswich. This was my fault and I would pay for it years later. It felt OK then, however, so I left it alone.
Extra training helped. The second season was more successful than the first. Most importantly we were promoted and again, on a personal level, I rattled in a good number of goals. These included a hat-trick on 29 April 1990 against Marchienne. I found out at a reunion in 2015 that their side featured Thierry Hazard, father of Eden Hazard (regrettably that’s how old I am). Eden must have been conceived at about the time of the game (though not at exactly that time, I hasten to add). I was still the star of our little show. There was another 4–2 win against Marchienne during which Paul and I both scored, although he was sent off.
A sign of Hemptinne’s burgeoning ambition under Louis Gemine was that they even found money to invest in the creation of a pitch that was actually flat. Consultants with a laser level machine, not to mention a few packets of grass seed, were brought in. What had been a piece of land that looked like it might yield a lorry load of King Edward potatoes became a first-class pitch. Whichever team’s captain won the toss before the match now had to elect to kick towards a specified geographical direction, rather than just ‘downhill, please’. State-of-the-art or what? The rest of the ground remained a shambles, but one step at a time. Louis meant business. His long-term plan, however unlikely, was to be in the top flight and play against the leading Belgian clubs.
Our promotion began to attract media interest and a national television company came to interview Paul and me. It was unprecedented for a village club like AS Hemptinne to have professionals from Scotland and England among their playing staff. To unnecessarily emphasise the point that Paul really was Scottish, they made him wear a kilt and stroll around the winding lanes of the town. I don’t know if Paul actually owned the kilt or whether the crew had come prepared, but there was certainly one handy. Bagpipes, haggis and bottles of Irn-Bru were rather more difficult to procure; otherwise I suspect they would have been added to the cliché.
Later that day, we sat before the television in Paul’s flat to watch our new slice of fame. I am obliged to admit that, most unfortunately, I spoke English in an attempted French accent. I have no idea why I did this.
I suppose it was subconscious mimicking, a quite preposterous attempt to make myself more easily understood. But I sounded like a character from one of the less plausible scenes in ’Allo ’Allo! – pointing out that eet ees gerrrayt to score a gerl and other such gibberish. I had done a Steve McClaren about twenty years before Steve McClaren. At least my pre-internet interview has been zapped for all eternity (at least I hope it has; Paul Watson might still have a video), the same can’t be said for poor old Schteev’s burbling in Holland. I cringed more than most at the McClaren interview. Believe it or not, it’s easily done and I knew exactly how.
Despite making a holy arse of myself on television, life abroad was going as swimmingly as ever. This was not to last.
• • •
I spent the summer of 1990 at home watching Gascoigne, Lineker and Butcher in the World Cup. There was also fantastic news for Sunderland when they managed probably the most fortuitous promotion to the top flight that anyone can remember. They finished sixth in the old Second Division then beat Newcastle in the play-off semi-final. This was despite the best efforts of the Newcastle fans who invaded the St James’ Park pitch in an unsuccessful and highly embarrassing attempt to have the second leg abandoned with the tie at 2–0 to the Mackems.
I travelled to the final on a minibus with a load of mates. Our designated driver, Mark Wilson (known for no reason whatsoever as Jim), got lost, having taken a left turn on the A1 (also for no reason whatsoever). In London, we slept for a while in deckchairs in St James’s Park which we ‘forgot’ to pay for, then headed to the stadium. Ah, memories. Like so many trips away to watch Sunderland, it was a great weekend spoiled only by the football.
While all of this was going on, Louis Gemine continued to invest in AS Hemptinne, which included the replacement of Fernand Brabant as coach. Poor old Fernand had done nothing wrong but was sacked anyway; dispensed with to make way for one Roland Docquier from the Belgian second division. Docquier rolled in (almost literally; he was no stranger to pastry) before the start of my third season. He was supposed to be a respected figure, but the fact that he was routinely referred to by the players with the less than reverential soubriquet of ‘Fat Bastard’ (which we thought used up about as much wit as he deserved) would seem to belie this. He was a perfectly loathsome individual and would have rubbed along quite nicely with John Duncan.
Docquier brought new players with him too, which had to be done if Hemptinne were to make further strides. The atmosphere around the club palled. The locals did not warm to the newbies, seeing them as mercenaries. Comparatively speaking, I was a big earner. But my salary had been raised incrementally as the club achieved more and I had put away all those goals. Also, I had only come to the country in the first place because I loved playing football and was taking up the one chance I had been offered to do so professionally. The new players were only semi-professional while I was full-time, but they were being lassoed from many miles around and paid decent money, whereas I lived locally and had become something of an honorary Namurian while still bringing a dash of Thorney Close glamour to the area.
Post-match, there was little socialising or interaction between the more recent intake and the rest of us. A drink and a slice or two of flan with the supporters was the norm (although I could never eat after a game), but the new lads tended to leave almost immediately for home. I had no problem with them personally. They were polite enough and weren’t there to socialise. Besides, why shouldn’t they play for money? However, there was a disconnection because the fans felt that they detracted from the all-in-it-together family atmosphere as local players were being shoved to one side. Docquier was a first-class wanker, but for all his unpleasantness he was under pressure and did what he could to improve the team. It was why he was there.
President Gemine’s ambitions were about to be yanked backwards, and so were mine.
• • •
We made an indifferent-at-best start to the 1990–91 season. We knew the opposition would be better, but failed to create as many chances as we had hoped, and I wasn’t scoring with my usual regularity. Before many games had passed, I was dropped in favour of a huge bloke called Mathieu Crowels, who was actually a centre-half. He was years older than me, in his late twenties, 6ft 4in. with blond hair and matching moustache. At first I thought he could not have been more German if he had trained in lederhosen and drank his Lucozade from a musical beer stein. However, he was actually from the easternmost part of Belgium, on the border with the Rhineland.
A common and lazy perception of Teutonic people is that they lack a sense of humour. But with Mathieu it was actually true. I suppose he was a decent enough fellow and my opinion was perhaps clouded by him keeping me out of the team, but he genuinely was a blank-faced dullard. Like my cod French accent, he too could have featured in an episode of ’Allo ’Allo! I don’t resort to such crude national stereotypes lightly – it’s just that it happens to be true in this instance. Anyway, it isn’t just us Brits who reduce other nationalities to cardboard cut-outs. Hadn’t the Belgians been blasé about making Paul wander round the streets in a kilt because he happened to be Scottish?
I wasn’t completely out of the scene, but did not feature in the side anything like as much as I had hoped, playing well in some matches and not so well in others. I needed a run in the starting XI and, even though the team as a whole was generally performing quite badly, Docquier wouldn’t let me have one. Things had deteriorated for me and the whole of the club in a short period of time. Then they got worse.
I was brought on as a substitute during a home game and was desperate to show what I could do. The score was 1–1 when the ball was crossed into the opposition penalty area. One of the new players was shaping up to attempt a volley; something I was not about to allow him to do. I was adamant that I would get my bonce on the ball before it reached his foot. I virtually ran through him on my way to battering the ball against the post with my head. Not only had neither of us scored, I had injured his leg and cracked my own collarbone. My popularity at this point was at its nadir; beneath even the aftermath of Puke-gate the previous season. It hadn’t helped my cause or the atmosphere at the club – and I was in limbo.
As I would not therefore be playing for a few weeks, I asked if I could go home for a while, and they agreed. I returned to training afterwards and was no nearer to making the team. It was October. Following another substitute appearance that lasted all of three minutes, Docquier more or less told me, in that effortlessly charmless way of his, that he didn’t rate me. I was by now only slightly less miserable than during my time in Sunderland Royal Infirmary and went to speak with Stéphane to ask for some more time off. To steal from a far superior writer, I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled. But I wasn’t playing anyway so he reluctantly agreed and off I went, with the proviso that I paid for my own travel.
I was allowed three official visits home each year with the air fare paid for by the club. This was before the birth of EasyJet, and flights then between the UK and Belgium cost hundreds of pounds. This meant buses and ferries for me; Namur to Brussels, Brussels to Paris, Paris to Calais, Calais to Dover, Dover to London, London to the centre of Sunderland then aboard the 123 bus to Thorney Close. Michael Palin wouldn’t have made that journey, but I had to. It took about eighteen hours.
The bus back to London was cancelled due to snow, so I was delayed by a day. I was supposed to report for training in Hemptinne at 7 p.m. on the Thursday, but could not arrive there any earlier than late that evening. When I arrived back at my apartment there was already a letter waiting for me on the doormat. It was short and typed in French with a translation. I had been sacked in two languages with immediate effect. It mentioned me missing training, but also the leave I had taken – as agreed.
It seemed to me then as it seems to me now: extremely harsh. I was top earner at the club but was not playing and my abiding suspicion is that they were keen to eject me for that reason. At the 2015 reunion, Stéphane confirmed to me that it was his father’s decision to give me the heave-ho. Louis was a successful businessman and there aren’t many of them who earned their money without making a decision or two like this.
I was twenty-one years old and as green as Kermit’s arse. I should have made some attempt to apologise, however difficult, and inveigle myself back on to the subs’ bench at least. But I told my parents over the phone what had happened and they suggested that I return home on another journey at my own expense. The voyage from Namur to Brussels, Brussels to Paris, Paris to Calais, Calais to Dover, Dover to London, London to the centre of Sunderland then aboard the 123 bus to Thorney Close was arduous enough without the additional impediment of carrying everything I owned.
Never mind. A glorious career at BT was about to commence.
CHAPTER 4
BIG BREAK
Once again, I was back with the folks in Thorney Close where, I regret to say, I treated the place like a hotel. Y
vonne may have alluded to this at some stage.
My original plan back in England was to sort myself out with a team and earn a few quid, only to find that this was simply not allowed. AS Hemptinne held my registration, which meant that, as a footballer at least, they effectively owned me and the fact that they did not pay me a penny as soon as I was dismissed had no bearing on this. Again naively, I had assumed that I was able to play for another club as soon as I had been given my cards. Wrong. Then I thought that once my contract had elapsed at the end of the 1990–91 season, I would be eligible then. Wrong again.
I just wanted to play football. Bayern Munich might have been nice, but I would have settled in the interim for anyone who could top that fiver-a-month I had been on at Gateshead. Further investigation and discussions with the FA and PFA revealed that I was, to use the legal parlance – fucked. As I recall, Louis Gemine wanted something like £10,000 to release me, which no one was waving around; certainly not me. This meant he had me tied up more or less indefinitely. Just to reiterate, I had been sacked by Hemptinne who immediately ceased to pay me anything, my contract had run down, but it was within their power to stop me from playing for anyone else. I was not a unique case. I would not be playing for anyone because this was four years before the world would hear of Jean-Marc Bosman.
Younger readers may appreciate a short history lesson. The old farts can skip this bit.
Jean-Marc Bosman was an obscure midfielder who would transform the lives of footballers across Europe. He was Belgian and joined RFC Liège from their much bigger neighbours Standard Liège in 1988 – the same year that I joined Hemptinne. Despite being a small club, RFC Liège were in the Belgian first division and Bosman would only play three league games for them. When his contract ran out he wanted to move to Dunkerque in France, but Liège held his registration and – perfectly within the rules – demanded a transfer fee for a player they didn’t want and who was not contracted to them. As he was stuck at a Belgian club, the symmetry with my own situation was noticeable; at least by me.
