by Lee Howey
There was no outcry from Sunderland fans when the news of my departure broke and my name is unlikely to crop up in their conversations about the club’s all-time greats. However, I hope they think fondly of me. I will always consider it a privilege to have played for that fabulous football club, and in return I really did give my all during my four years there. How good my best was is something you can discuss among yourselves, but I assure you I could not have tried any harder. Burnley paid £200,000 for my services, which meant that, even if my wages between 1993 and 1997 are put in the liabilities column, Sunderland made a profit on me. For an initial outlay of £6,000 and a very modest salary, Sunderland AFC squeezed eighty first-team appearances out of me in defence as well as attack. I was lucky enough to score a few goals too, some of which were very important. I contributed to the 1996 promotion, which was a big step forward for Sunderland as ever since they have, until 2018 at least, either been a Premier League side or a top three Championship side. This seemed impossible before 1995–96.
I wasn’t Lionel Messi, or even Niall Quinn. But be fair; what more could any reasonable person want from me?
• • •
In the correct order, a desire to play first team football, eloquent persuasion and Guinness had played a part in my decision to move to Burnley, but the money wasn’t bad either. Despite dropping two divisions, I was to be paid a basic of £1,400 per week; £300 more than at Sunderland. I signed a three-year contract with a signing-on fee of £20,000 at the start of each year, so £60,000 if I lasted until a third year. An added attraction was that Burnley is a fine club with a rich history. They were founder members of the Football League in 1888 and have been champions of England twice; the same as Tottenham Hotspur.
At around the same time, Chris Waddle signed Mark Ford from Leeds (the same bloke who scored against Sunderland when I broke my ankle), Mike Williams from Sheffield Wednesday, Neil Moore from Norwich and Steve Blatherwick from Nottingham Forest. I have already mentioned Gordon Cowans and Chris Woods. Some decent players were already there, including prolific goal scorers Paul Barnes and Andy Cooke, David Eyres, Glen Little, Chris Brass and goalkeeper Marlon Beresford. Waddle wanted us to play football attractively and on the ground.
Having informed my wife that I was now a Burnley player, the club put me up in a very comfortable hotel and told me to report for training. So far so good, but certain realities struck me at the first session.
When I was a kid, I would be picked up and taken to football by my dad’s mate, Ronnie Cowie. Ronnie drove a BMW and simply looking at this machine was enough to make me coo (bear with me if you’re not interested in cars). I decided that as soon as I could afford it, I would have one. It wasn’t until I was at Sunderland that I bought myself a red BMW 316, later a black 318 and six months before signing for Burnley a 325i convertible that was kitted out like an M3. It cost about £24,000, which wasn’t much less than the price of my first house. I appreciated my money. It was still only four years on from my days at BT and I could also remember eating the same cheap meal every day for two years as an apprentice at Ipswich.
When I arrived at Burnley’s training ground in this vehicle I immediately felt conspicuous because my new teammates were turning up in Peugeot 106s, Ford Escorts and the like. I rather wished I had gone by bus. Mike Williams had done the same as me, having also been a Premier League player the previous season. It was like popping down to the local in a tuxedo and the last thing I wanted was to set myself apart in any way.
The training ground itself was on the outskirts of the town in Padiham and was, quite frankly, a hovel. I understand it is considerably more swish these days, but in 1997 it could not have been spoiled by arson. The rooms within appeared to have only been deemed suitable for professional footballers when cattle refused to use the buildings. It was a long, long walk from the changing rooms to the pitches, over fields and a bridge. Surprisingly, the playing surface was decent, although susceptible to waterlogging, what with Lancashire being familiar with prolonged periods of rain. Despite my time at Hemptinne and Bishop Auckland, I had since become accustomed to better. Having suddenly descended two leagues, I would just have to get used to worse and the realisation of this was instant.
Of more concern was the atmosphere in the squad. Glen Little and another midfielder called Gerry Harrison patently didn’t like Glenn Roeder. For the first time ever in a dressing room, I felt like an outsider. Not part of a team, but someone who had been brought in to do a job. A ‘them and us’ situation developed rapidly between the new intake of players and staff, and those who had been there for a while.
My debut went quite well. I was up front against Lincoln City at Sincil Bank and I scored the equaliser. It was the League Cup first round, first leg. We drew 1–1 and went on to win the tie.
Then someone stole four pairs of boots from me. At Sunderland I had been sponsored by Nike; not for money, but I never went short of boots and other kit. Brian Marwood, a Seaham lad and former England player, was a marketing manager at Nike. He called me to say that the arrangement was now over as I had dropped out of the Premier League. However, he told me to call into the shop in Doxford Park and take a bag of gear as a sort of severance. This included four pairs of Nike Tiempo, top end footy boots, two pairs for soft ground and the others for firm ground. The day before my home debut against Gillingham, all four pairs were hoisted from the training ground. How very hospitable. There was a shrewd idea around the club as to the identity of the culprit, but nothing provable.
A more immediate problem than this whodunit was that I had no boots. Our games teacher at St Aidan’s would have made me play in my brogues, but that wasn’t an option here. David Eyres had a deal with Adidas in Stockport and managed to procure me a pair of Predators, which weren’t exactly to my liking, but it was either them or socks. I was grateful.
I was back to centre-forward and we were dreadful against Gillingham. Glenn Roeder was berating David Eyres, who snarled increasingly in consequence. An opponent bore David’s wrath and he was sent off. This meant that I played centre-back for the second half, where I was more at ease, and was also given the captain’s armband. I did quite well and we drew 0–0, but it was a poor show overall and the rancour in the dressing room at full-time was something I was glad to retreat from. I returned home to Sunderland afterwards, where I had time alone to cogitate over just what the hell I had got myself into.
Back on the training ground, Chris was attempting to instil his philosophy: don’t just thump the ball, full-backs should push up, centre-backs should be available wide, keep the ball down and beat the opposition with passes. Perhaps it was too sudden a change for some of the squad, who were simply unused to receiving the ball in tight situations in their own third of the field. In those days it was more common to launch the ball down the wings and the play-from-the-back idea was a novelty. This meant that we would too often lose the ball while the crowd was baying for us to ‘just get it up the pitch’.
Perhaps the manager, himself one of the most naturally able footballers of his generation, was expecting too much of players in the third tier. His methods worked at times and we played some attractive stuff. But as the season progressed the fragility of our defence, as it learned a more technical approach, became apparent. I was trying to establish an understanding with the other centre-back, Steve Blatherwick, which was proving difficult because of his inexperience. He had barely played first team football at this stage. He was a big, solid defender and could head a ball further than most players could kick it. But he found it hard to adapt to the Waddle model. The problems at the other end were even easier to identify. We didn’t score in any of our first six league games and only managed five goals in the first ten. No great expertise was required to identify the problem. Solving it was a different matter.
After three goalless draws and three 1–0 defeats, we took our derring-do to Bootham Crescent, where for the first half we played well against York City. We were one up at the interval t
hanks to Paul Barnes. But the second half was a disaster. A goal kick to your team is generally considered to be one of the game’s less precarious situations. However, at Burnley in September 1997, we could craft danger for ourselves from anything and this one was especially creative.
Two minutes after City had equalised, Marlon Beresford, a fine, fine goalkeeper, ran up to take the kick, whereupon he stubbed his toe on a protruding section of Yorkshire. The ball trickled a metre or so outside the penalty area where City’s striker Rodney Rowe capitalised on this thoughtful gift, effortlessly stroking the ball into the net. He didn’t even say thank you. This was only part of the inevitable capitulation and York won 3–1. All the clichés about what happens when you’re bottom of the league were proving to be annoyingly correct.
My father was at the game with my Uncle John (McClements) and was characteristically honest. Norman said that I had not performed badly. Trust me, if he had thought I was crap he would have said so. He also thought we had the makings of a decent side if we could stop the silly mistakes.
Back at training on Monday there was a ‘clear the air’ meeting in the weights room. Chris, who had verbally assailed us after the game at York, made the point that he didn’t think everyone was giving their utmost, but set apart Chris Brass and myself for exoneration. This was a nice compliment, although it didn’t exactly swell our popularity with the rest of the squad. A well-attended but uncontrolled slanging match ensued, so I wouldn’t like to quantify just how much air was actually cleared. Paul Barnes stormed out, ranting ‘This is fucking shite!’
It certainly didn’t raise morale. The next game was a 4–0 defeat at home to Stoke City in the League Cup. Peter Thorne and Graham Kavanagh scored twice each and generally did whatever they fancied. Steve Blatherwick and I had an execrable evening, although we weren’t alone in this, and that included Waddle. He dropped himself for the next game.
If I had to pick one game that epitomised my time at Burnley then I would plump for the fixture at Brentford on 27 September 1997. Brentford, who were bottom of the league, took a very early lead but we settled down after that. I played well myself and Mark Ford equalised shortly before an hour had passed. It was a very watchable, even game. My main concern was that Mark was a little too motivated and had been spoken to several times by the referee, Rob Styles, who had already booked him. As captain I firmly told Mark to calm himself down because we could win if we kept eleven men on the pitch. Can you see what’s coming next?
Neil Moore was playing centre-back alongside me and in the seventy-fifth minute he lost the ball, leading to a chase between myself and Marcus Bent, who was by some margin the faster runner. I did my utmost to stop him legally, but the upshot was that we were both left on the ground and I was dismissed for a professional foul. Fifteen minutes later, sitting alone in the visitors’ dressing room at Griffin Park, I heard the unmistakable roar of a home crowd celebrating a winning goal. This was the only red card I ever received in either the Premier or Football League.
For the record, four other red cards were waved at me in my time. The first was for Ipswich reserves against Crystal Palace (fighting) and two were in Belgium (fighting). The last one was in the death throes of my career for Bedford Town against Hitchin Town for a second bookable offence. That second yellow was the only time in my career I was ever booked for dissent. A Hitchin striker made his way into our penalty area and performed the most blatant dive this side of Tom Daley. It was still enough to fool the linesman, who waved his flag vigorously. He waved it even more vigorously a few seconds later after I had given him every insult possible within such a limited timescale. I was down the tunnel before the referee had produced the red card.
Three weeks after my dismissal at Griffin Park I had my nose smashed at Wrexham. What a jolly season I was having. Twenty minutes or so into the game at the Racecourse Ground, I took a few steps backwards to head a long Wrexham goal kick. As my head connected with the ball, approaching from the right was their forward Karl Connolly, who managed to jump and flick his head back into my face with unintended precision.
We both descended to the turf, him clutching the back of his head and me supine and holding the bridge of my nose together. My teammates gathered round as our physio, Nick Worth, attended. He told me to move my hand so he could see, which resulted in an Itchy & Scratchy type blood squirt. The claret fountained six inches upwards and Mark Ford nearly passed out at the sight of it. Poor him. Karl left the pitch shortly before I did and, as I stood up, Waddler asked if I would be coming back on. I would.
Before that I was taken to the medical room. Karl Connolly was already there and being examined by the doctor. I (pardon the pun) butted in and asked Karl if he was going back out.
He replied: ‘Fuck that. I need stitches.’
Taking that as a ‘no’, I told him to get off the bench as I would be. The doctor explained that he would be unable to give me an anaesthetic before he sewed my nose back on.
‘Just do it, please. Use a stapler if you like; it won’t be any more painful.’
Ten minutes and eight stitches later I returned to the pitch and made it to half-time. As I sat in the dressing room my head began to pound and I could literally feel my face swelling. The inflammation became so bad that my vision was seriously impaired when I returned to the field. It was like being a kid and putting empty toilet rolls over your eyes, trying to look through them like binoculars. I lasted about ten minutes, subbed after trying to clear the ball and missing it by an estimated twenty-six feet. Still, my agony helped us to yet another scintillating goalless draw that the fans would be talking about for literally minutes to come. Great days.
No they weren’t. We then had a midweek game at Plymouth in which I participated with a plaster over my stitches. None of that Phantom of the Opera facemask nonsense you see today when a player has endured so much as a burst pimple. We were proper men. Rrrrrr. I now have a scar on the bridge of my nose that actually looks like a letter C; so no one can say that Karl Connolly never made an impression on me. His second initial will adorn my sneck for ever.
Anyway, the game at Brentford was when the atmosphere at Burnley really palled. By the end of November we had won just three of our nineteen league games and were eliminated from the FA Cup. We drew 3–3 at Rotherham (a division below us) in the first round. One of Rotherham’s goals came from a clearance by Chris Brass on the edge of our penalty area. It struck an opponent on the knee and hurtled into our net. Some ignorant cynics had the audacity to compare it to my world-class strike for Sunderland against Bristol City in 1994. We lost the home replay 3–0 to the ever-burgeoning discontentment of the Turf Moor faithful. It was shown live on Sky too, just so everyone could share the joy. In fairness, Trevor Berry scored a wonderful chip for the second goal, although that somehow failed to ameliorate our supporters’ mood.
I personally was given a disproportionate amount of stick. Being a well-paid and relatively high-profile signing meant that more was expected of me, and my mere best was not enough. Many years later, Chris Waddle said: ‘Whoever I bought was going to be well-scrutinised; £30,000 was like £3 million and every penny was well-accounted for.’
Andy Cooke, by contrast, was something of a crowd favourite. Chris put him on the bench for the next game and replaced him with me as centre-forward. This was despite me being ostensibly a defender by now and barely having played up front for some time. The news was not received politely. Our opponents that day, Northampton Town, had only just been promoted but were sixth. They would end the season at Wembley, where they lost the play-off final to Grimsby. They were managed by Ian Atkins and my erstwhile roomy, Ian Sampson, was centre-back. They also had Kevin Wilson, who I knew from Ipswich. I had warm conversations with all of them before the kick-off.
None of this mutual backslapping meant that I was about to ease off on the field. Short on confidence, although not desire, I decided to regress to the days of Plains Farm and become as horrible as possible to play against. In
anyone’s estimation, the game was not ‘one for the purists’. By half-time my aggression meant that I had inadvertently broken the nose of Ray Warburton, who played on. I had also caused a cut to Ian’s head. They both responded in kind. Still, even the purists would have to concede that violence was all that stood in the way of the game becoming entirely drab.
In the second half I dived to head the ball in Northampton’s six-yard box and was kicked in the ribs. Accidental, but painful. As I lay there, wondering if I was still intact, I was spat at by some Burnley fans whose mood had been further inflamed by Ali Gibb giving Northampton the lead. Festooned in gob, I rose groggily to my feet, shook my head and jogged away. A few people disapproved of my ingratitude for the saliva shower, as though such incidents were somehow perfectly acceptable because we-pay-our-money. I was then booed every time I received the ball. The peak of my career had passed. It had left me at Selhurst Park six months earlier.
Burnley’s support was and remains superb. It is a small town, but virtually everyone who lives there supports their local club, despite the proximity of Manchester and Merseyside. They are undeniably passionate. However, at every club there is a dimwit contingent (remember the Sunderland fan at Prenton Park?) who imagine that verbal and, in this case, physical abuse of players is okey-dokey and even in the interests of their club, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Most supporters are aware of the reality and, with the exception of this tiny percentage, I still say Burnley fans are among the best.
It was horrendous. Chris Waddle went on the radio after the game to defend me – my attitude was first-class, I was a model professional, etc. This was gratifying, even if it didn’t help much. This was the beginning of the end for me at Turf Moor.
