Massively Violent & Decidedly Average

by Lee Howey

  I arrived at the appointed hour and was made to wait the now customary forty minutes while Ternent counted his felt tips. Eventually I entered his office, where he was sitting with his feet on the desk (his little legs had done well to get them there). You could have warmed your hands on his arrogance. What was one of God’s more serious errors about to say this time? He began with his catchphrase.

  ‘Fined a week’s wages. Yer went ’ome again, didn’t yer.’

  ‘Yes. I wanted to see my wife and son.’

  No ice was cut by this. Nor was the fact that my wife was now pregnant again. There is no point in arguing with someone who eschews reason to such a spectacular degree. So I asked him about Stoke.

  ‘Ah’ve told them ter fuck off.’

  He probably had too. He was never one to defer an opportunity of telling someone to fuck off, just because a simple ‘no thank you’ would suffice. He liked to call a spade a cunt.

  I was then back outside for more solitary training. I contacted the PFA again, but still they couldn’t do anything. I was acutely aware that he was trying to make life intolerable, but miserable though I was, I was also stubborn and simply plodded on with the relentless training, irritating him with my mere presence. I desperately wanted to leave but wasn’t going anywhere unless it suited me.

  A week later I was called by Ian Atkins, who was managing Northampton Town. Would I go on loan to Sixfields? I told him ‘yes’ and that I would walk the 170 miles there in my socks over broken glass and dog shit if necessary (I didn’t want to let him know how keen I was). This time Ternent agreed.

  • • •

  My debut for Northampton Town was at Colchester United on Tuesday 10 November 1998. We lost 1–0. I have no recollection of the game whatsoever and had to look it up. But my home debut eleven days later I remember vividly. We played Reading and lost 1–0 again. I played as striker in both matches. As you can imagine, I was distinctly off the pace, having trained neither properly nor entirely soberly for some weeks. I hadn’t played first team football for three months.

  I was substituted at half-time. This was dejecting and it was difficult not to dwell on my Premier League experiences, which had only been in the previous calendar year. Mental strength was required. I was buoyed by Ian Atkins, our player-coach Kevin Wilson, who I knew from Ipswich, and Kevan Broadhurst (yet another of the renowned team of hard-nuts at Birmingham City in the 1980s); three good men. It was wonderful to be dealing with human beings again. They treated the players like adults and not eight-year-old miscreants. I explained to Ian that I was far more comfortable at centre-back. He agreed and it worked out very well. We picked up a useful point at York in the next fixture and I had a great game. This was followed by a 1–0 victory over Chesterfield at home with the goal scored by my good self. Life had instantly changed for the better. The crowd was singing my name – without adding anything about my brother.

  We had an excellent dressing room spirit and my social life was revived too. Duncan Spedding asked me to come on a night out, although he was a three-pints-of-lager-and-then-home man whereas I – let’s say – wasn’t. He never asked me again. I soon found out whose social habits were similar to mine and it became like Sunderland days. I didn’t go out at all during my time at Burnley, partly because I was never the most popular man in that town.

  The loan went swimmingly and once it had ended, Burnley accepted Northampton’s £50,000 bid to make the loan permanent. Because I had not asked for a transfer, I was entitled to another £20,000 from Burnley as per the contract I had signed. Naturally, Ternent didn’t want to pay and phoned me to say so. Deluded that I would do anything to facilitate the move, he told me: ‘Yerl have ter waive the twenty grand.’

  ‘Er … no.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Wodderyermean “No”?’

  ‘I want what I’m owed.’

  Incapable of any other approach, he began bellowing again. ‘Well yer not fuckin’ signin’ fer them then!’

  ‘OK. See you at training on Monday.’

  I contemplated a submission and forgetting about the money. But pride and, let’s be honest, the prospect of hoovering £20,000 conspired to make me refuse. I would not let him win.

  An hour later Ternent’s secretary, a lovely woman who deserved better (I wish I could remember her name), called me. She was sobbing because her chivalrous boss had taken his anger out on her. She said that he had gone as maniacal as expected and was now discussing the matter with the chairman. An hour later, this gift to mankind called me again himself. I was to be given, I think, about £13,000 severance pay, which worked out roughly the same for me as it was tax-free. I agreed.

  It felt like a small victory. It didn’t compensate for the months of nastiness, but I was free to enjoy football again. I joined Northampton and was contracted to the summer of 2001 for £1,200 per week plus another £20,000 signing-on fee at the start of each year. I’ve had worse weeks.

  • • •

  In 2003, Stan Ternent’s book, Stan the Man: A Hard Life in Football, was published. In it he tries perhaps a little too hard to be seen as ‘one of the game’s characters’. Its tone is predictably strident and the book is full of incident.

  Some people liked it; although less kindly critics alluded to its flammability as its chief recommendation. He does give a mention to little me and my exit from Turf Moor after the York game. The years had not eroded his dudgeon. Here is an extract – giving his version of the effective sackings of Blatherwick, Winstanley, Williams and myself – which, no doubt due to his single-minded pursuit of literary excellence, contains one or two minor factual inaccuracies. So anything in brackets has been helpfully inserted by me.

  It was nothing personal (hmm). The club needed major surgery. Not just an incision, an amputation. My main responsibility was to the Board and fans. I didn’t give a toss how the players reacted…

  Howey had an unbelievable clause in his contract (not true) which allowed him to commute to Burnley on a 70-mile round trip from Harrogate every day, even though he was constantly moaning about his bad back (I had never mentioned my bad back until three days before the York game, although I eventually had a good moan in 2014 when three vertebrae in the same back were finally fused together by a surgeon). There was no way I could ever override this clause (???), even when he sold his house in Yorkshire (I never owned a house in Yorkshire) and started to drive to work each morning from Sunderland (my bank statements suggested that he had little difficulty in overriding the imaginary ‘clause’ with fines).

  I wasn’t unnecessarily harsh (space precludes).

  The consequences varied for the four of us who were sacked. I would be OK. Mark Winstanley went to a few clubs including Shrewsbury and Carlisle. Steve Blatherwick played about 250 games for Chesterfield. Mike Williams just disappeared.

  Ternent said publicly at the time that it was just ‘business’. It wasn’t good business. It didn’t occur to him that he had immediately lowered the amount he could have received for us by informing the world that we would never play for the club again. I was sold for a quarter of the fee that Burnley had paid for me. Add to this the salary I received for doing nothing, plus the £13,000 they had to pay me (but minus the fines), and it becomes clear it was not the greatest move by them.

  Ternent thought I was ‘not good enough’. He was entitled to his opinion and it’s true that, for a number of reasons – him being one of them – I did not do well at Burnley.

  But I am entitled to differ from his opinion. I had performed better at a higher level for four years at Sunderland and the hope was that if I could play to the same standard in the third tier of English football, then all would be well. He was not to blame for everything that went wrong for me in Lancashire, but playing for a better manager might have helped.

  My lowest point under Ternent came during my wife’s second pregnancy. In my lone training period I contacted Gary Rowell, who lived in the Burnley area. He ended
his career at the club and I am not embarrassed to say that he remains a hero of mine for what he did at Sunderland when I was a kid. Although we only knew each other slightly, we arranged to meet for a drink in the knowledge that we would still have plenty to talk about. I was quite excited.

  I had to stand him up. My wife called me in obvious distress. She was heavily bleeding and terrified for the baby. I won’t milk the tension; Claudia would be a wonderful, healthy, loud baby. But I wasn’t to know that and immediately drove home where, mercifully, matters turned out to be nowhere near as serious as feared.

  The least important element of the incident was that it made me late for training the following day. I was fined for that, and for going home. I don’t suppose the manager would have been interested in wishy-washy excuses like potential miscarriages.

  Stan Ternent. What a … character.

  CHAPTER 14

  NORTHAMPTON, DOWNWARDS AND THE END

  Northampton Town had some very useful players. There was Paul Wilkinson, Dave Savage, Kevin Wilson, goalkeeper Andy Woodman, Ian Sampson, Richard Hope, Chris Freestone, Carlo Corazzin, John Frain, Colin Hill, Duncan Spedding and Dougie Hodgson.

  Dougie was an Australian who might have gone on to greater things had he not broken his neck in training.

  Ian Hendon and Steve Howard would arrive later in the season. Steve was a big striker from Durham and a nightmare to mark. He would score over 200 goals in his career, but would also receive nine red cards, which is a lot for a centre-forward. He wasn’t nasty, but he was aggressive and sometimes in his earlier days would tackle like a centre-forward. But the years improved him. He learned how to challenge without annoying referees and was an indisputably good player.

  But let’s not shy away from the fact that we didn’t have enough good players. We were relegated that season. Defensively we were pretty solid, conceding fewer goals than any other side in the bottom ten (sixteen fewer than Burnley and with a better goal difference). The problem was at the other end. We only hit the net forty-three times in our forty-six games and I, a defender, finished as second top scorer with six. Carlo Corazzin scored sixteen, but the other strikers seemed to be either too young or too old (Kevin Wilson was thirty-eight when the season ended). This was in the days when goals scored took precedence over goal difference. Going down is always horrible, but I found the season overall to be most enjoyable. I liked and respected Ian Atkins. I always had. I held Kevin Wilson and Kevan Broadhurst in equal regard. The players in turn were treated like adults.

  On Boxing Day 1998 we were away to Notts County, featuring Gary Owers. We were allowed home for Christmas Day and told to make our own way to a place near Nottingham where we would board the team bus. I had consumed too much festive fare. Not booze: pudding. Still, there were others who had looked after themselves far less well. I scored a tremendous header, similar to the one against Portsmouth in 1996. Much good it did us; we were already three down.

  Ian Atkins wasn’t pleased and told us that everyone who would be involved with the home fixture against Fulham two days ahead, was going straight back to Northampton on the bus. My car was to be driven by Richard Hope, as he would miss the Fulham game through injury. This made me extremely jittery as it was a very powerful BMW, the rain was torrential and Hopey was still only twenty – as well as being daft. I was mightily relieved to see Hopey and, more importantly, my car back at Sixfields before us and intact. This owed more to good luck than good driving.

  ‘Cor! That was brilliant, Lee,’ trilled Hopey. ‘You can do 120 and your foot’s hardly touching the pedal.’

  • • •

  Fulham were then being bankrolled by Mohamed Al-Fayed and would win the league at a trot with a squad that included Chris Coleman, Steve Finnan, Kit Symons, Paul Bracewell, Paul Peschisolido, Peter Beardsley, Geoff Horsfield, John Salako and Barry Hayles (when we played them the following season in the League Cup it also had Andy Melville, Stan Collymore, Stephen Hughes and Lee Clark). They were never going to be stopped, so it was creditable for us to secure a 1–1 draw.

  Their manager was Kevin Keegan and he still wasn’t speaking to me after I had been escorted from St James’ Park six years earlier when he was in charge of Newcastle. He did manage a perfunctory, half-hearted handshake such as Arsène Wenger specialises in.

  This huff of his had been born on 16 October 1993. Sunderland were not playing until the next day, so Steven secured tickets for our dad and me to see Newcastle’s game with Queen’s Park Rangers. Usually under such circumstances I would want Steven to play well, but the Mags to get hammered. This time though it was different. Steven was injured.

  The visitors won 2–1 and my attempts at controlling my emotions were not a success. After ten minutes, Les Ferdinand received a through-ball from Ray Wilkins to give QPR the lead. My anonymity was betrayed by the little celebratory dance I performed, as well as my lungful scream of ‘Gettin, ya bastard!’

  I had to be restrained by Norman, who was more used to the situation. It was not the wisest thing I could have done because the natives already knew who I was. I had scored the winner for Sunderland against Birmingham a week earlier. Shortly afterwards, I was politely but firmly told by a steward that I would have to leave and that I would be escorted down to the players’ lounge. A few blokes behind us were showing a keen interest in dismembering me. Honestly; some people have no sense of humour.

  Keegan found out and told Steven I was not to be allowed in there again. Back at Northampton in late 1998, he showed that he was more than adept at bearing a grudge.

  • • •

  There was to be one personal highlight for me that season on its final day, which Fate decreed would be at home to Burnley, who had howitzered up to fifteenth under Ternent. We drew 2–2 and I scored our second goal.

  Upon arrival at Sixfields, I shared heartfelt handshakes with some good people and said hello to Sam Ellis. Sam had given me a tip for York Races which came in at 16/1, so I was prepared to overlook much. I also presented Stan Ternent with the acknowledgement I felt he deserved. None.

  The game kicked off on a pitch that was surprisingly wet and muddy for 8 May. I was more than usually keyed up and put in a few good early tackles. We had a mathematical chance of avoiding relegation, but not a particularly realistic one (it turned out that we would have gone down anyway, even with a win).

  In the course of challenging for an aerial ball from a Northampton corner, I flattened their goalkeeper, Paul Crichton. I was on the ground myself in the aftermath and Gordon Armstrong, by then a Burnley player, smacked me on the crown in a not-playful manner. It was an unusual show of hostility from Gordon and he made a dismissive comment as he did so. My eyes widened as I rose to my feet, growling and fulminating at him.

  ‘Gordon!’ He spun round.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You fucking know!’

  What he knew was what I would do to him given anything resembling an opportunity. He apologised and the matter was forgotten about until many years later when I typed the previous few paragraphs.

  My moment came in the eightieth minute. A free kick was lofted into Burnley’s penalty area, which I headed goalwards. It was a decent rather than unstoppable header, but the conditions were against Crichton and the ball slid through his hands and over the line. He was a good goalie, but they all do it eventually. Our fans celebrated this scrappy strike, but we could still hear the grinding teeth of the visiting supporters. The Burnley fans were having a moment that every football follower has experienced. It-would-be-that-bastard-who-scored-wouldn’t-it.

  I had a distinct feeling of vindication, but was not in any way tempted to antagonise the Burnley supporters. They had paid my wages, when I wasn’t being fined. Even though I was receiving a very audible booing every time I received the ball (something that is far easier to take from opposition supporters), the thought never occurred. However, I was tempted to get closer to Ternent. Not to gloat, but just to see if it was actually possible to fry eggs on
his face at that moment. I had a drink after the game with some of my old teammates, who told me that Ternent had brutally excoriated the less than admirable Crichton in front of everyone, as though the keeper was unaware of his mistake, or could somehow then rectify it.

  Anyway, an eventful, interesting, but ultimately unsuccessful 1998–99 had ended.

  • • •

  Initially I resided at the Westone Hotel in Northampton, then the Marriott, until I found a place to rent at the start of 1999–2000. My wife and now two kids remained in Sunderland, which meant that I was in the pub a great deal. There wasn’t much else to do and we were still very much in football’s drinking era. The truth is that my marriage had begun to crumble and by the end of the following season it would be over.

  We strode into the next season with a collective determination to win immediate promotion – and lost the first two games. But the next five matches saw four wins and a draw. Steve Howard and Ian Hendon stood out. Corazzin began to score again after a slow start. As for myself, I was now thirty and understood the requirements of a centre-back better than ever. I felt as though I could play a bit too, but what I really thrived on was the physicality of it all; and the further down the football ladder you go, the more physical it is. Few people are in a better position to attest to this than me.

  I was a senior pro and, in an unforeseen move, became the eyes and ears of the staff, making sure that the younger players were doing what they ought to. I was quite vociferous about it too. That didn’t mean that I abandoned the social side, which was pretty much as it had been during my most enjoyable times at Sunderland. I could still drink gargantuan amounts and train properly the next day, which drew some admiration of the wrong sort from the youngsters. I’m not sure how I feel about that now. I suppose I was the Tony Adams of Northampton Town, if you’ll allow the self-flattery, with much to teach from what I had done wrong as well as right. Something else we did that would cause outrage today was make regular trips to Pizza Hut for an all-you-can-eat-without-needing-an-emetic. It was all fun. We trained at Moulton College, and whoever between Hopey, big Steve and myself drove, would also pick the music for the journey, but had to buy chocolate bars for the other two. Nice life.