Massively Violent & Decidedly Average

by Lee Howey

  To lose on penalties at any level is an awful experience, but I can confirm that there is a certain relief when your own effort goes in. It’s not about scoring, it’s about not missing. The scorers are never as well remembered as the missers.

  • • •

  Forest Green’s chairman, Trevor Horsley, had promised to take the players to Spain for a few days if we could beat Macclesfield. After our defeat, he recognised that we couldn’t have done much more in the tie and said he would take us anyway, which is just the ticket in January.

  I did not make the trip. On 17 January 2002, I was swapped for a Nuneaton Borough winger called Alex Sykes. Alex travelled to Spain with the rest of the Forest Green squad. That’s life; it can be a bit of a swizz. What mattered more was that Nuneaton was only forty miles from Northampton. Steve Burr, yet another likeable bloke, was manager. I had just started work on my UEFA ‘B’ coaching badge and was to be player-coach, although my salary would be the same (with far less spent on petrol). Again, I enjoyed my time there. Two days after signing, I was put straight into the first team for a trip to Yeovil and my partner at centre-back was the experienced Terry Angus. Results varied, but included a 2–1 win at Forest Green, and we finished in the top half of the league.

  As part of my coaching badge I spent a fortnight in Potters Bar in Hertfordshire during the summer of 2001. About twenty of us did the course, including Chelsea players such as Gus Poyet, Ed de Goey, Gianfranco Zola and Dennis Wise. Steve Bould and Tony Cottee also attended. Hardly anyone there was on the right side of thirty and we were all knackered at the end of the two weeks. To carry out these coaching exercises we had to draft in players from the local leagues.

  Every person was told to coach the others on a given aspect of the game, while everyone else would be ‘the players’, as it were. The subject that I was to ‘teach’ a stack of top international players was ‘arriving in the box late’. I had to tell Gus Poyet to run early into the penalty area so I could then stop him and ‘correct’ him to illustrate my profound wisdom. He must have felt very grateful.

  I was back at Northampton in the summer of 2002 to coach the under-18s, without pay, as part of the hundred hours’ coaching required for my qualification. Kevan Broadhurst had now replaced Kevin Wilson as manager and he told me that I could be the club’s youth development officer (YDO), subject to attaining my coaching badges. I was delighted. Geoff Pike, the former West Ham player then working at the FA, was impressed with the work I had done and recommended that I go for my ‘A’ licence. All was well. There was a community coach at Northampton, Paul Curtis, who was already qualified and had to be present while I was coaching, as per the rules. He didn’t do anything; he just had to be there. Kevan said we just needed to run my appointment past the new chairman, Andrew Ellis.

  But the chairman decided that Paul should be YDO as well as community coach as it would save the club a salary. Money issues had forced me out of Northampton Town for the second time in just over a year. It was later realised that the two roles did indeed require two people and Ian Sampson was appointed as YDO, which in time led to him becoming manager. I was pleased for Sammo, but still ponder what might have been.

  I still played for Nuneaton and found the Saturday–midweek schedule increasingly arduous. I was thirty-plus, knackered and was being left on the bench more and more. The club was not getting much for their £400 per week and Steve Burr took me aside to explain that I should move on. I understood. My last game for them was in a 3–2 win over Forest Green, who had Gary Owers in the team. This was September 2002.

  A couple of weeks later, Kevin Wilson made good on a promise and offered me a position as player-assistant manager at Bedford Town for £150 per week. I took up this role with my usual eagerness, but soon suffered a bad injury during a pre-season warm-up against a Luton Town XI. While chasing the ball in the second half I heard a loud cracking sound and I went down screaming invective at the lad I thought had kicked me. In fact he hadn’t. There was no one near me. I had completely torn my Achilles, which was diagnosed easily as my ankle had visibly dropped. A consultant operated on me, but I have never fully recovered from that injury.

  In October 2003, Kevin Wilson and I resigned our respective positions at Bedford to do the same jobs at Aylesbury. This was for slightly more money, about £200 per week I think. To justify this mega-salary I attempted to train myself back to full fitness, but I was still some way short, and this created friction.

  Aylesbury was not a success and in January 2005 Kevin and I left for Kettering Town at the invitation of their chairman, Peter Mallinger. Peter was a former vice-chairman of Newcastle. Despite this, I liked him a great deal. He was a gentleman and I was sorry when he passed away in 2011. Our coach was Alan Biley, the former Everton and Derby striker and a Rod Stewart lookalike of some prominence. I returned to playing for Kettering as a substitute in a game at Bishop’s Stortford. But this was, to say the least, an ill-thought-out decision. I could barely jump or run, and the reality of not being a player any more was mentally registering.

  I was only at Kettering for about three months, after which came a bizarre little period for that club. In October 2005, a new chairman shunted Kevin Wilson aside as manager (he declined the offer to become director of football) to make way for a very big name: Paul Gascoigne. The former Arsenal midfielder Paul Davis was his assistant. This made headlines, but the predictable implosion was swift, and Gazza was sacked after thirty-nine days, upon which Kevin was reappointed. While Gascoigne was there, two players, Brett Solkham (who would go on to play many times for Kettering) and a teammate of his whose name eludes me, were told by Gazza a week into his tenure to leave their jobs because they would be offered full-time playing contracts. They were more than happy to comply and resigned from real work immediately. They reported back to their manager two days later to say that they had carried out his instructions.

  He didn’t have the faintest idea what they were talking about. I think we can guess why. I found this out later when I worked with Brett.

  As for me, after a very brief stint for the mighty Long Buckby, it was off to Buckingham Town to be assistant manager to Morell Maison. Morell soon left to become manager of Kettering (who had by then jettisoned Kevin Wilson for a second time after he had returned to replace Paul Gascoigne: don’t worry if you’re not keeping up, because I’m struggling too) and I was put in charge of Buckingham. I was forced to borrow a couple of academy youngsters from Kettering. My record as manager reads: played seven, lost four, drew three, won bugger all. Beat that.

  And still I played on. Aside from my ongoing inability to run, jump, turn or do anything that involved sudden movement – I was dynamite. I played a dozen games in total, headers from a standing position being my speciality.

  But the curtain finally descended. My last game as a player came on Tuesday 26 March 2006 in an Eagle Bitter United Counties League Premier Division game for Buckingham Town, on a miserable, wet evening at Ford Sports Daventry at their Royal Oak ground. We lost 5–2. That was it. Finished. No encore. Done. Fin. All over. Hang up the boots.

  The end.

  CHAPTER 15

  AND NOW…

  My immediate concern after missing out on the YDO job at Northampton in 2002 was finding work. I had attained my UEFA ‘B’ badge and upon completion sent my CV to all ninety-two Football and Premier League clubs. I did not receive a single reply. The further down the football pyramid I went, the more imperative it became to supplement my salary by any means, because most of the clubs I went to after dropping out of the Football League could not pay me what I needed.

  What was I good at apart from football? (Make your own jokes.) Talking. A brief sales career was about to begin with a firm called First For Golf. Subscribers to this organisation would receive a 20 per cent discount on green fees at certain clubs around the country and various other golfing offers. It wasn’t a bad job, really, and I visited some very pleasant clubs around England. The problem was the £800 p
er month wages. As I did this freelance, I also had to pay for my petrol, which took £200 from even that meagre stipend.

  Through my work in golf, I became more interested in the hospitality business. I spoke with Marriott and Hilton among other hotels and decided that I could put together travel packages for football clubs. It could be a nightmare job for the manager’s secretary to book everything, particularly at smaller clubs, so I left First For Golf to set up a company called Hotels 192 that took over the responsibility. If I arranged for a squad to stay overnight with breakfast and an evening meal, I would make £1,000. If they wanted bed and breakfast I would make £400 and if they just wanted a snack before an evening match I made £250. I did bookings for clubs including QPR, Reading and West Brom. The difficulty was that I could make a fair amount of money, but then go for several weeks without a single booking. On one occasion I was set to make a useful grand out of QPR when they changed their minds about an overnight stay because their manager Ian Holloway was superstitious.

  Funds were depleting, and by now Maz was pregnant with Joseph. She sat me down and told me a truth that deep down I already knew. I needed to get a proper job. That was the end of Hotels 192. I was still earning £150 per week at Bedford Town and Maz was working as a nursing assistant at St Andrew’s Hospital. I had parted with my BMW and bought a Grand Cherokee… then a VW Passat… then a Ford Orion. By now I was driving a clapped out 1.1 Ford Fiesta Popular with a hole in the footwell through which I could see the road (‘Flintstones, meet the Flintstones…’).

  I thought: ‘Right. Who’s the biggest employer in Northampton?’

  That was Barclaycard in Brackmills Industrial Estate, 1234 Pavilion Drive. Such was my distrust of the Fiesta that I cycled there.

  It would have brought a tear to Norman Tebbit’s eye; I literally got on my bike and looked for work. I asked at reception if there were any jobs available and a pleasant, helpful woman, who looked slightly surprised at the sudden appearance of a sweaty cyclist, made a call. Someone from HR came down and took my details. Within a fortnight I had been interviewed and offered a position in the call centre, selling PDQs for an annual salary of £13,200. I have been in the payments industry ever since.

  It soon became apparent that Barclaycard’s account managers had better jobs and salaries. Within nine months I was interviewed for such a post and was successful. The Fiesta was sold for about £2.50 (I cycled to work anyway) and I bought an Audi A3. After a few jobs at different organisations within the industry, I was offered a job back in the North East in 2008, and we moved into our home in County Durham.

  I shall spare you the details, but I left Mastercard in 2017 and am now Director of Business Development at Judopay, which enables payments for mobile apps. If you made a card transaction in a UK pub while I was at Mastercard, there was a fair chance that I’d be involved somewhere along the line facilitating the payment. Between 2011 and 2017, I worked from Canary Wharf. I had always wondered what went on in there. It was my own enthusiasm that brought me to this point. I am as motivated now as I ever was as a footballer. It’s my nature to make the most of what I have.

  Much as I enjoy my work, I still scratch my head when I think of how I came to do it. Football did not open any doors for me in the financial sector. On many occasions, colleagues have discovered what I used to do and been shocked. This was especially true in the call centre when I was in my thirties and most of the others there were at least ten years younger than me. Northampton is more of a rugby town and I wasn’t David Beckham, so there was no instant recognition. But my name nudged a few memories and I would be Googled. This would be followed by the looks of disbelief I still receive to this day. The often-asked question of ‘What are you doing here?’ arises from the misconception that anyone who played in the Premier League, even in 1996–97, must be a multi-millionaire. Regularly, people I have worked with for some time have been visibly jarred to discover my ‘secret’ past.

  Leaving football is very difficult and many an ex-pro, very wealthy ones included, has had difficulty adapting. The games, training, travelling, companionship, bonding, shared emotions and experiences, the recognition and the adrenalin provided by playing before thousands of people is abruptly taken away. A huge, huge, huge void descends on your life and it’s something that has to be experienced to be understood.

  I miss football, but mine is a happy life. I have a career while Maz does the hard work. This was a conscious decision that we will stick to until our sons are of a certain age. I have four kids that I love, but the situation with my older children, Elliot and Claudia, continues to be difficult.

  My brother and I have not communicated for some years. We had been in-and-out as friends ever since the Newcastle–Sunderland game of 1997. At the time of writing there has, by mutual agreement, been no verbal contact since 2011. Apologies for not elaborating, and the intention is not to create a false mystique. But it really is better that I say no more about him. He has his own past, his own private life and his own problems, some of which he has gone public with. I have my own thoughts.

  Let us leave the subject on a positive note: Steven Howey was a good footballer. His England caps were given on merit.

  It is often said that football today is a completely different game compared to years ago. They were saying this when I was a kid.

  That doesn’t mean it isn’t true. My career wasn’t that long ago, but the differences are stark; better in some ways and worse in others. One major reason is money. I shall give you an example that is not massively significant in isolation, but still very telling and indicative.

  In November 2000, Northampton took Mark Maley on loan from Sunderland. Mark was then a promising nineteen-year-old full-back. His opportunities at Sunderland were limited by the talent at the club (they finished seventh for the second successive time in the Premier League that season) and he would only ever play twice in their first team. Both appearances were in the League Cup. He picked up a thigh injury in the first half of only his second game for Northampton and returned to Wearside. A similar thing had happened to him a few weeks earlier during another loan to Blackpool. His last action in the Football League was a third loan at York City where he made seventeen appearances. That loan – and his playing career – was ended in bizarre circumstances in April 2002 when he was accidentally shot in the eye with an airgun by his Sunderland teammate John Oster. They were mucking about with the gun, which they both thought was unloaded. Regrettably, Mark Maley’s time in football was brief and not a notable success.

  He still earned a fortune.

  I knew him vaguely and decided to make him welcome when he arrived at Northampton, especially as he was so young and nervous. He was staying at the Westone Hotel where we had a drink and a chat, in the course of which he mentioned that he was buying a place on the Newcastle quayside; an expensive place to live. I don’t know what his basic salary was but, although he barely featured for Sunderland, he was in Peter Reid’s squad and that was enough to put him on a win bonus of around six grand per victory – ten times bigger than any bonus I had ever known. This information made my jaw descend and I realised that in financial terms, my season in the Premier League, only three-and-a-half years earlier, was not propitiously timed however much I had enjoyed it. It was now that the real money was being made. Though not exactly the lynchpin of the team during Sunderland’s 1996–97 campaign, I had been on either the bench or the pitch in twenty of the thirty-eight games. Mark was never even named as a substitute in a league game, yet here he was, aged nineteen and able to buy and sell me.

  The wages in the top tier were becoming mad. As you know, they would become even madder. Forget for now the salaries of the very highest earners. What would a player, at any Premier League club, on either the bench or the pitch in twenty of the thirty-eight games in a season, earn today? A figure somewhere between ‘eye-watering’ and ‘HOW MUCH!!?’ would seem to be the answer.

  The cash, as well as the profile, the foreign imports a
nd the influence of social media has led to the aloofness of footballers. At separate times in the past decade I have lived next door to two Sunderland players; not superstars but reasonably well known and both British. One of them would draw the curtains rather than run the risk of making eye contact. The other one was a little more amenable, but still reclusive. They seemed scared to be normal. I didn’t want to go on holiday with them, or tap them for a loan: a simple ‘good morning’ would have done.

  This is sad for all concerned and contrasts sharply with the heroes of my childhood – Gary Rowell, Stan Cummins and the rest – who would stop and chat with fans. It was the same at every club. Footballers were part of the community. Later, when I was at Sunderland, we would often be in pubs with supporters who might be happy, frustrated, depressed or downright angry because of us. Whatever their mood, we always mixed with them and didn’t think anything of it.

  By the time I played in my only ever game for Sunderland against Newcastle in 1997, there was bewailing at how many foreign footballers were in England. But of the twenty-seven players used that day, twenty-two were from the UK and nine of them were from the North East. A few years before that, when I was watching as a schoolboy, a foreign footballer was still a novelty. The novelty today is when someone local is on the pitch. Fans will sing ‘He’s one of our own’ when a native is representing his boyhood team, as it’s now such a deviation from the norm.

  Over time, the money has built metaphorical and actual walls between players and fans. The connection has gone and the Premier League is a global brand like EMI, Facebook or Nissan. Still, it should be said that the severed connection between players and fans becomes less of an issue the further from the top flight you are. The Premier League is a business run for the whole world; it just so happens that its actual football matches are played in England. Hence the thirty-ninth game idea: it would generate even more income – and detach more of football’s soul.