Massively Violent & Decidedly Average

by Lee Howey

  The atmosphere at the club became even worse after that. Three days after Derby County, we came through a League Cup first round, first leg at home to Chester City, two leagues below us, by three goals to one. But we were trailing at half-time and the atmosphere at Roker during the break was toxic. Training was niggly too, with Derek Ferguson in particular wanting to fight everyone. Fight me, by all means – just don’t offer me a lift.

  • • •

  A home game with Wolves on 18 September stands out. In keeping with the period it was for all the wrong reasons. We actually played quite well, but somehow contrived to lose. Wolves took an early lead when Alec Chamberlain attempted a clearance, only to boot the ball against the midriff of Mike Small. The ball then trundled into the net for the only goal that Small would ever score for Wolves. It was that sort of day.

  We dominated the game, but nothing went right. Don Goodman had a goal harshly disallowed. At that point you could have bottled the frustration in Roker Park and sold it to science. The general mood was reddened further by the behaviour of the Wolves midfielder Geoff Thomas.

  Thomas had made his name at Crystal Palace, where he captained the side in their 1990 FA Cup final defeat. He was hardworking and extremely aggressive rather than tough, and that’s about it. Graham Taylor gave him nine inexplicable England caps, thereby fuelling the belief held by some that if London-based players can part their hair and learn the national anthem, then they can play for England too. No one liked to play against Thomas, but not because of any guile he possessed. Most people’s abiding memory of Geoff’s international career is his thoroughly entertaining miss against France in 1992 when, spaciously unmarked and with only the keeper to beat, his ‘lob’ failed to rise more than eighteen inches from the turf before rolling slowly wide of the post by a matter of about forty-five feet. The French goalie is probably still giggling.

  Unlike most players, he seemed to be completely unaware of his own limitations. When he signed for Wolves after Palace’s relegation in 1993, he seemed to imagine that his past glories made him the star of Division One, as it was then called. I base this opinion on personal observation. However, he was presumably one of the league’s bigger earners and certainly one of its better-known names.

  I watched most of the Sunderland–Wolves game that day from the dugout, seething at Thomas’s display of persistent nastiness and provocation. He deliberately left his foot in for virtually every challenge, constantly harangued the referee David Allison to book people, mouthed off at opponents and incited the home supporters. I decided that if I got my chance then I would let him know that I was on the pitch.

  Despite all of Geoff’s twattery, Sunderland continued to dominate and always looked likely at least to draw until – well obviously – he scored a second for Wolves completely against the run of play in the eighty-eighth minute. At this point, he and Mark Rankine thought it would be terribly funny to antagonise the crowd further. A couple of minutes earlier I had replaced Gary Owers.

  My two main aims were first to score and second, if the opportunity arose, to do unto Geoff Thomas as he had been doing to others all afternoon; not necessarily to damage him but to leave him in no doubt that I was representing current public opinion. Hurt rather than injure. The ball bounced around in our left-back area with him somewhere around the middle of our half while I was in the centre circle just inside the same half. I anticipated that the ball would break to somewhere near the two of us. It did. I’m not sure whether it was a bad touch by him or if the pass wasn’t great. Either way, the ball was equidistant between us and we both went for it at full pelt.

  All I was thinking was that I would omit nothing in my effort to win that ball. I used my whole body weight to go for it and was a couple of inches from the floor with both feet aimed at the ball. I had matched him for nastiness. I won the ball; one foot went into the middle of it, my other foot skimmed over the top of it and hit him just below the knee, leaving him spinning and ululating, like a Janis Joplin LP. In these days of legions of cameras at games there would have been more of an outcry and probably a six-match ban. In 1993, I was merely booked.

  There was certainly no sympathy from any of his victims in red and white. The Roker crowd, who would normally give a sporting round of applause when an injured player from either side was stretchered off, did no such thing. I felt as much remorse as he would have done had the positions been reversed. In fact I was glad. However, he was out for a long time, which was not my intention.

  In 2007 Geoff Thomas wrote a book, Riding Through the Storm, which was part football memoir, but mainly the story of his Herculean effort two years earlier to ride all twenty-one stages and 2,200 miles of the Tour de France route to raise £150,000 for Leukaemia Research (now Bloodwise). Today he aims to eventually raise £1 million and is to be applauded for this. He was diagnosed with the disease himself in 2003, but happily he overcame it. I’m a cycling fan myself and read the book with interest. I can recommend it too. It’s well-written, inspiring and certainly a superior read to most books by ex-footballers (although that isn’t difficult).

  There is a very odd passage about our little dalliance though. His version of the incident itself pretty much corresponds with mine. However, his recollection of attempted vengeance is at considerable variance. He says:

  The following season, as part of my rehabilitation, I came on as a substitute at Sunderland but I had a different agenda to the rest of the team. I wanted revenge on Howey for the tackle that could have ended my career. My chance came at a corner…

  I tried to throw an elbow in Lee’s face when the corner was swung in but I missed him by a mile and ended up getting in a ruck with their striker on the ground. The referee thought I stamped on him, even though I didn’t, and he sent me off.

  So by Geoff’s own account there was to be no revenge, but at least he got a good anecdote out of it. Sadly I am not in a position to verify it.

  The records show that we were both unused substitutes in the corresponding fixture at Roker the following season; a 1–1 draw. He didn’t play at Molineux either (although I had another eventful game there that I shall return to). Neither did he play in the reserve game, a 5–0 win for us in which I scored a hat-trick.

  The game he refers to was actually two years later, when he did indeed come on as a substitute and was dismissed by David Allison (again) towards the end of what was a Sunderland victory. I played the whole ninety minutes and have no memory of him trying his luck with me. Nor was the incident from a corner; it was in the middle of their half, close to our right touchline by the Main Stand. Television showed that his red card was for a blatant stamp on Phil Gray and at no point in the incident was Geoff ‘on the ground’, although Phil was, thus enabling Geoff to stamp on him.

  Geoff’s written denial of the stamp on Phil is frankly laughable. Furthermore, I don’t even appear in the footage of the incident, not even in the ensuing fracas. I was never interested in the posturing bravado of ‘handbags’: only proper violence (and beneath the cover of the tunnel is the place for that). But let’s be generous. The memory plays tricks after all these years and he may not have had as much time to carry out the same assiduous research for his book as I have done for mine (I had to; you don’t think I have instant recall of every fact and figure you’ve read, do you?).

  I have never met him socially and bear him no ill-will. Quite the reverse, having read his book, and I hope he feels the same about me. But there were repercussions. The Wolves fans never forgave me and later made threats on my life. Bloody drama queens.

  To be continued.

  • • •

  Three weeks later came one of the most wonderful highs that a footballer can experience: my first goal in the Football League.

  By early October I had been confined to the bench at best in the aftermath of the knock-kneed debacle at the Baseball Ground. However, as I watched a youth game at Roker Park, Butch wandered over and gave me some much-needed good news. Phil Gray was suspe
nded and I was to make my second league start, this time at home against Birmingham City. We were seventeenth in the league and had won just two of our first eight matches; pretty poor fare for Sunderland in that division. My personal confidence had been restored by some good performances in the reserves, and here was another opportunity. It would be a very good idea to make the most of it.

  It was essential I should walk onto the Roker Park pitch in a better frame of mind than at the Baseball Ground. Indeed, I was unlikely to be in a worse one. My first priority was not to dwell upon how disastrous the Derby County game had been, which was difficult.

  The Birmingham game was on Saturday 9 October 1993 and as the 3 p.m. kick-off approached, my legs began to feel heavy again. The anxiety had returned, but it wasn’t as bad. Maybe a little anxiety is no bad thing. Even Pelé must have felt anxious on occasions (come to think of it, he made some commercials for erectile dysfunction treatment). The home crowd made a difference because they were as desperate as we were and wanted everyone in red and white stripes to play well. The roars of encouragement were a huge help. More importantly, for my personal confidence, we played well. With half an hour gone, the great moment came.

  Derek Ferguson played the ball out to our right-back John Kay, who broke down the wing and played the ball to my feet a little way from the right-hand corner of Birmingham’s penalty area. Initially I had my back to goal, so I let the ball run through my legs which allowed me to turn and face the defender, Richard Dryden. I jinked inside to make some space for a shot, then curled the ball about fifteen yards with my left foot into the far corner of the net. ‘Past a despairing Kevin Miller in the Birmingham goal’, as all the best tabloids would have it.

  In the words of Aristotle: Get the fuck in.

  The tension had palpably and immediately left me. I went to the corner of the Roker End where the daft lads would congregate to celebrate with them (you can never celebrate with daft lads enough). So this was what it was like; my first real goal for the club I loved.

  Scoring against Rangers was a terrific feeling, but this was better. It was an important goal in a vital fixture; we really needed the points. I would have been barely less elated had my first Sunderland goal ricocheted into the net off my arse while I fastened my boot-laces. As it happened, my first Sunderland goal was a pretty good one. I had done what every fan would love to do: score for the team he supports. The remainder of the game breezed by. I linked up well with Don Goodman and also played my first full ninety minutes. The final score was 1–0. Three points. The fans were happy, the other players were happy, Terry Butcher was happy. I was euphoric.

  I might not have dislodged Eric Cantona from the back pages, but from that moment on I felt as though I was a professional footballer at this great club on merit. I had established my presence and dispelled a few personal issues, not least from Derby, with a single kick. The only minor quibble with our performance was that we ought to have won more comfortably. But looking at it from a wholly selfish perspective, the chances we missed meant that I had scored the winner. It was an enormous buzz. There were little diagrams in the newspaper, which I still have, of how the goal had been worked and all the other ephemera that I revelled in.

  I looked at the Football Echo and the Sunday papers where they all said: ‘Sunderland 1 (Howey 31) – Birmingham City 0.’

  The results service on the BBC’s Ceefax also said: ‘Sunderland 1 (Howey 31) – Birmingham City 0.’

  Still, you couldn’t be too sure, so a glance at ITV’s The Oracle was necessary to confirm: ‘Sunderland 1 (Howey 31) – Birmingham City 0’ (some of you may need to ask your dads about Ceefax and The Oracle).

  Further confirmation could be garnered by walking into any pub in Sunderland – or a few in Birmingham. Then there was the local television news for anyone who hadn’t been at the game to witness the event in the flesh.

  What is better still, even now, is that when a goal is entered into the record books it is done so unalterably and indelibly. There will never be circumstances under which the annotated result of that game, 9 October 1993, will read anything other than ‘Sunderland 1 (Howey 31) – Birmingham City 0’.

  Today, I can burn down an orphanage, steal marmalade from Harrods then throw up over the Queen and the record books will still state: ‘Sunderland 1 (Howey 31) – Birmingham City 0’, even if I have to read the record books in a prison library.

  I think I have made my point. Decades after the event, it’s still a wonderful thing and I would recommend it to anyone.

  • • •

  On more than one occasion, I have been asked: ‘What does it feel like to score a goal?’ Well let’s get something out of the way before we go any further: No, it isn’t better than sex.

  Beyond that, it depends upon the context of the goal. I have already said that my goal against Birmingham felt bigger and better than the one against Rangers. But it didn’t just feel bigger and better, it was bigger and better, because it was more important. Later that season I pulled one back at Kenilworth Road; a scruffy goal after an awful mistake by Trevor Peake. But what makes that goal less fondly recalled is not its scruffiness; it’s the fact that it was late in the game and Luton Town were already 2–0 up. A consolation. To be honest, I don’t remember it; I am relying on the word of someone else (although the record shows that I did score in a 2–1 defeat). I was fortunate enough to rattle in a few winners in my time, of varying quality. But ultimately a winning fluke feels better than scoring the goal of your life in a defeat, especially at the final whistle.

  In essence, the emotions of the player scoring the goal are not hugely different for him than for his teammates or the fans. Think of a goal your team once scored that made you go even more doolally than normal; temporarily deranged. The late derby winner, the one that won a semi-final or averted relegation. Well the player scoring the goal felt pretty much the same as you did. When your team bangs one in you say: ‘We’ve scored’, not ‘They’ve scored’ or ‘He’s scored’. When your lads net, it’s a communal pleasure rather than a vicarious one. A vicarious pleasure is when you see someone win a large amount of money on a game show and you feel pleased for them rather than with them, and because of this your feeling of wellbeing is fleeting. The glowing feeling occasioned by a goal can last for a lifetime.

  There is an extra frisson when you personally have put the ball into the net, but not much. In April 2015, I was in the Stadium of Light to witness Jermain Defoe score the greatest goal I have ever seen in a North East derby. It had everything. It was a stunning, dipping volley from twenty-two yards, the only goal of the game, a psychological hammer-blow because it was literally the last kick of the first half, the match was crucial to both clubs and, above all, it was in a fixture between Sunderland and Newcastle. I was just a fan that day, but I can truthfully say that Defoe’s goal sent me into greater delirium than any I had scored myself. Such was the magnitude and importance of this strike that his reaction (he was in tears) was one of a man who, despite having scored on hundreds of occasions, including in a World Cup, was not used to such an event. As I said: context.

  The short answer therefore to the question of how it feels to score a goal is as follows:

  You already know.

  • • •

  Regrettably, the Birmingham game is not best remembered on Wearside for its only goal. I wish it were otherwise. Talked about forevermore was the horrendous injury to John Kay. Every Sunderland supporter above a certain age knows the story. Here it is for the rest of you.

  With a minute of the first half remaining, thirteen minutes after the goal, John went into a tackle deep within Birmingham territory with a cheerful and characteristic disregard for his own safety – which broke his right leg in two places. There are leg breaks and then there are leg breaks; and this one was a pearler. When he looked down at his injuries in hospital later that day, his right leg appeared to have one more knee than normal.

  In the more immediate aftermath, he stood up a
nd attempted to play on, but soon abandoned the idea (well, you would) and was carried from the pitch to tumultuous applause. Whether or not he was our best player, he was almost certainly the most popular among the fans. Accepted medical procedure in football these days is to place an oxygen mask over the patient’s face then quickly and efficiently transport him to the nearest hospital. John was simply lobbed on to a stretcher which he ‘rowed’ back to the tunnel, similar to the closing credits of Hawaii Five-O, sitting up and waving to the admiring crowd as he went.

  He wasn’t the luckiest player. In 1992 he played in every single game of Sunderland’s FA Cup run, until missing the final through injury.

  John Kay is worthy of a further mention because any story you may have heard about him is probably true, particularly the stories that don’t sound at all plausible. He was like a character waiting for an author. To use the correct terminology, he was off his bonce. As daft as six dogs. This applied even more when he had sipped a medium sherry or two. We would occasionally find him asleep on a roundabout, but this was subject to the availability of the roof of a bus shelter, which he preferred. This was not a good thing, but at least he seemed to have no trouble sleeping.

  When we went away on pre-season jollies, he would arrive for the journey in shorts, trainers, a T-shirt, a neck wallet for his money and with his passport in his back pocket. That was about it, except that he would also wear a cap beneath which he kept a bar of soap. This was actually a clever bit of lunacy, because he knew there was a fair to middling chance of him nodding off on a beach and being unable to return to the hotel, so he would just wander into the sea to conduct his morning ablutions. Cleanliness is next to godliness.

  In football terms he was one of the greatest bargains that Sunderland ever had. Although a County Durham lad, he began his career at Arsenal. He was recruited to Roker Park in the summer of 1987 by Denis Smith, bought from Wimbledon for six marbles and a catapult – or £22,500 if you insist on properly audited figures. Sunderland had just been relegated to the old Third Division and were all but skint. Another £80,000 spent on Marco Gabbiadini was considered to be quite a gamble. But John played all the way back to the top flight under Smith and would make over 200 appearances for the club. What more could anyone want for £22,500?