The Smell of Football

by Mick 'Baz' Rathbone

  Even writing this now, so many years later, those words – coward, immature, over-sensitive – carry weight and hurt. A form of self-punishment and self-flagellation – a sort of Alcoholics Anonymous, but for people with no confidence where you just want to stand up and shout out loud, “I am Mick Rathbone and I am a fucking coward!”

  I would prefer that not to be the correct evaluation of those painful teenage years, but if it’s the truth, then it’s the truth, and I will have to live with it.

  Then, on other days – better days maybe, when everything is going well – I can see things very differently. I draw very different conclusions. These are the conclusions I prefer. These are the conclusions I want to be the truth, I want to believe. My only crime back then was to be oversensitive to sustained and vitriolic public criticism. I don’t think at 18 years of age that is so unusual or unacceptable – especially when that criticism is coming from 30,000 supporters plus your own coaches and team-mates.

  I accept I slowly but surely came apart at the seams during that period, yet seemingly not a single person noticed or, more worryingly, if they did notice, they didn’t care or try to help. In my defence, if my father had been alive, he would have put his arm around me, told me to stand up straight and be a fucking man. And you know what? That is probably all it would have needed.

  Why didn’t the coaches help? They could have done a fairly simple thing – stop shouting at me every five minutes and look at what was happening to me. Spot the fact that this kid, who you all thought was so good the previous season, had now become a shell, incapable of putting one foot in front of the other. Use some common sense. Surely they could see I was struggling to perform to anywhere near my potential? Surely the fact my name alone was booed when it was read out before the kick-off should have given them a clue? Where were the sports psychologists?

  Sometimes, I do feel a bit resentful of the whole Birmingham experience – that was my team, for fuck’s sake. Now I can’t even look at that famous badge without feeling faint. Just a little bit of sympathy, a bit of encouragement. For pity’s sake, it can’t be such an unusual thing for a young lad to be lacking in confidence. I am sick of hearing the same old bullshit from so-called experts – “some players need an arm round them and some people need a bollocking”. That is so wide of the mark it’s frightening. From all my experiences in professional football for so many years, I can honestly say that for every player who needs a bollocking there are a thousand who require encouragement.

  I feel bitter when I am in this frame of mind because I know I should have played at the highest level for my whole career and, with slightly more sympathetic management in those formative years, would have had a much more successful playing history. On days when these thoughts prevail, it’s sometimes difficult not to resent that period or, more pointedly, some of the main protagonists who so influenced it.

  When I am in full flow and blaming everybody else but myself, it’s so easy to rationalise it differently and paint myself as the person wronged: it couldn’t have been cowardice because, if it was just that simple, then why did it change so dramatically at Blackburn Rovers? Surely a coward is a coward? But at Rovers I wanted to play, I wanted that shirt, craved the adrenalin rush. I felt wanted at Blackburn – and there it is in a nutshell. I felt wanted. Maybe, because they had paid for me, I had some intrinsic value that could provide a framework to support my innate, fragile self-confidence. Birmingham had got me for nothing, I lived just down the road, perhaps that’s why I did not feel valued. The money Blackburn spent on acquiring my services would prove to be a tangible and permanent boost to my self-esteem.

  The money they spent gave me self-worth, which boosted my confidence, which made me play well, which made the fans like me, which boosted my self-confidence, which ensured I continued to play well. It was an ever-upward spiral.

  Or is all that a load of bollocks, invented by my subconscious to spare me darker, more self-critical analysis? Did I do better at Rovers just because there was less pressure, the crowds were smaller and there was virtually no national scrutiny? Maybe, maybe not, but then again when we had big cup ties and they were the focus of national interest and on the television, I still relished them – but was that because we were underdogs so the pressure was off any way?

  So, as you can see, I don’t know whose fault it really was, who is to blame. Almost certainly it was a combination of several factors. The important thing is, by and large, it all worked out OK in the end. I was really lucky I never ended up out of football altogether and, indeed, if I hadn’t failed so miserably at Birmingham (for whatever reason), then I wouldn’t have met my wife and had my family.

  Over the years I have met nearly all those players from the Birmingham era who were my collective nemeses. And you know what? They are all really decent people. I am positive none of them deliberately set out to destroy my confidence. In their eyes, it was just harmless banter and I completely accept that now. It was cutting, near-the-knuckle banter, but without real malice. It was my interpretation of those remarks that, distorted by my fragile mindset, caused the problems.

  Either way, you can’t turn back the clock, you can only try and learn from your experiences. What is the saying? That which doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger. If that is indeed the case, then I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the fans who booed me and the coaches who persistently bollocked me for ensuring that when I arrived at Blackburn I was a very, very strong person.

  If you haven’t had bad times then you can never really enjoy the good times, can you? Those years at Birmingham were bad, bad times, but they paved the way for such great times at Blackburn. Being a player at Blackburn was just how I always dreamed being a professional footballer would be when I was a young boy – camaraderie, fan appreciation, a winning team, a joy to be at training every day. As bad as that period at Birmingham was, the subsequent years at Blackburn made up for it – cleansed the spirit, reignited my faith in the game and restored my shattered self-esteem.

  The only blip was the heavy drinking spell and I readily put that down to immaturity, the novelty of being away from home for the first time and the almost obligatory mistake-making and poor choices of adolescence. Luckily, I wasn’t too badly damaged by that stupidity; on the contrary, it taught me some valuable lessons about striking a balance between relaxing and letting one’s hair down at the right time and being professional and preparing for matches in the correct manner.

  Finally, the Preston years, and the increasing realisation that it was nearly all over, nearly time to hang up the boots for the last time and turn my thoughts to other things, other opportunities.

  And when those opportunities didn’t fall into place as expected? The overwhelming panic that the last pay packet had been delivered and I was on my own, alone and treading water in the big scary world outside football.

  Enough reflections, self-analysis and amateur psychology – let’s cut through all the crap and sum up the whole playing experience in 50 words. Here goes:

  Immensely talented player, sadly lacking in innate self-confidence and moral courage and hence unable to play at the level his talent dictated. Not helped by the harsh regime at the club he initially played for. Finally finding his true level in the lower divisions.

  There. I can live with that.

  PART TWO

  MANAGER

  (1992-95)

  Chapter Seven

  HISTORY BECKONS

  If I am being totally honest, I felt a bit of a prat (and a failure) sat in a classroom in my thirties with all those young students. Fortunately, there were a total of ten ex-professional footballers on the course and we would be invaluable as friends and motivators to each other to get us through those difficult first few months. Every one of us, at some point, had a personal crisis of commitment and threatened to quit, but the rest of the gang held firm and eventually, albeit four years later, we all graduated.

  The course has helped many ex-professi
onals over the years, including Southampton boss Nigel Adkins, Mark Taylor, head of medicine at Fulham, ex-Oldham winger Rick Holden and Aston Villa physio Stuart Walker. Nowadays, though, the wages are so mind-blowingly good for the current pros I doubt the likes of Torres or Beckham will be enrolling.

  I found the actual studying quite easy – if time-consuming – as I had been highly academic at school in Birmingham, but it seemed almost pointless at the time, when you needed a bloody job, to be sat in a classroom earning nothing, four years from being in the position of even applying for a job.

  Having said all that, I did understand where the PFA were coming from. No doubt the idea of training ex-professional footballers to be chartered physios was a sound one and, while I could fully understand it might lead to great opportunities, the four-year wait seemed like a life sentence. The thought of living a life of selling clothes a couple of days a week and going to study the rest of the time did not impress.

  Cue another piece of luck.

  I went to sell my gear at Halifax Town, where the legendary Big John McGrath was now manager. It so happened that the club was looking for a physiotherapist and he asked me if I was interested. Obviously, he said, they would give me the time off to study. I was grateful but explained that, even though I was desperate to get back into full-time football, I really had very little experience in the field of physiotherapy after just a few months of study.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “We will pay you a shit wage and then you won’t feel so bad.”

  To their credit, they kept their word, and I started work at Halifax Town in the summer of 1992 on a paltry £200 per week plus win bonus (win bonus? This was Halifax – they don’t win). Those awful wages notwithstanding, the bottom line was that I would be heading back for another pre-season.

  I was so happy and excited, probably more so than at any other time in my life. Yes, the wages were crap, it was a long way to travel, the club was struggling financially and I had to somehow combine it with completing my degree at Salford University, but it didn’t matter. I was back. Back in the bosom of the Football League.

  I was quite optimistic and confident. I really felt I might be perfectly suited to being a club physio. I was still extremely fit, always got on well with the other staff and players, enjoyed the prestige of being ‘the one with the brains’ and knew that I had the enthusiasm and work ethic to be successful. This work ethic was driven by the financial difficulties my family and I had endured over the past 12 months. Although we had managed to hang on to our nice family home, we had very little cash and I had had to downgrade to an old Nissan Micra to run around in.

  During that period, we had to tighten our belts significantly. Like every other breadwinner, I judged my worth, up to a point, by the amount of money I could provide to make their lives comfortable. Yes, I know money doesn’t make you happy per se, but I’ve been relatively well-off and relatively badly off, and I know which one I prefer. I think it was a famous golfer who once said, “Some people say money isn’t that important, but for me it’s right up there alongside oxygen.”

  From the first day of pre-season training with Halifax Town in 1992 to the day I left Everton in May 2010, I am confident that nobody, probably in the whole of Britain, worked as hard and for as many days. I think over those 18 years I worked, on average, 350 days per annum. Honestly.

  My first day at Halifax Town would be the first step on the ladder that would take me to a top Premier League team, and all the prestige and rewards that came with it. But please don’t begrudge me what I went on to achieve because I gave total commitment, day in day out, and most of my motivation was spawned during my ‘gap year’ when I was out of football, skint and my self-esteem hit rock bottom.

  So I was back in the environment I knew and loved. OK, fair enough, I was getting paid peanuts and had to leave at noon three days a week to go to the university. It was slightly different this time, though, because for the very first time I was employed in professional football as a member of staff and not a player. They say nothing in football is as good as actually playing, and I would wholeheartedly agree. Being the physio is not as good as playing; it is better. If I thought I had enjoyed a rich and varied career as a player, then it would be nothing compared to what was to come as a physio.

  The sport I returned to was beginning to change. It was the early ’90s. Football was emerging from the inertia of the ’80s. We were on the verge of the Premier League and Sky TV and we were all about to start sticking our quids in every Saturday for the National Lottery. Bit by bit, the old-fashioned, archaic stadiums were being ripped down and rebuilt or replaced. Some smart new rule changes were about to be implemented that would help re-energise our lacklustre product and drag the fans back in.

  Baz was reborn, all kitted up and ready to go. Ready to give his all for the Halifax Town cause. I can’t tell you how good it felt to be back in training kit, back in the inner sanctum that is the dressing room, and back among those familiar smells.

  Close your eyes, open your nostrils and instantly step into the time machine that is selective memory. It had been a year – a whole year, a long year, and a tough year. Reacquaint yourself with those heady aromas and promise never to let them go again. Leather, Vicks, Deep Heat, shampoo – I am back.

  Never again would I take being involved in professional football for granted. The only slight blot on the landscape was that I was a physiotherapist who didn’t have a clue how to do the job.

  And what of Halifax Town? They were going through a losing period that had started in 1911 – the year they were formed. The smallest club in the Football League, based in a predominately rugby league-supporting town, they had only ever known struggle. If it’s true that money talks, then Halifax Town were mute. The smallest average crowd in the Football League generated the smallest income which, in turn, gave them the smallest budget, which afforded them the cheapest players and, hence, the worst team. It was ever thus.

  But it was a terrific little club. I loved it from the first minute I walked through the door. Talk about homely and friendly. In many ways, Halifax’s raison d’être was to struggle. That’s what they did. That’s what defined them. I don’t think any club had applied for re-election to the Football League as many times. The fans, however, were unbelievable. OK, there were only between 1,500 and 1,800 of them, but anybody can support Manchester United; it takes a very special fan to follow Halifax Town.

  That season would be one of the first in history where the team that finished bottom of the division would be automatically relegated into the obscurity of the Vauxhall Conference and non-league football. Halifax were odds-on at the bookies to achieve that dubious feat.

  It was great being the physio. It all just clicked into place. I knew a bit more than I thought, based mainly on my experiences as a player. I got on really well with the lads and I think they looked up to me because I had also been a player – in fact, a player who had played at a much higher level than them. All the treatments were based purely on rehabilitation. No fancy machines; just hard work to invigorate, motivate and stimulate. Get them to the training ground early, work them hard and then let them go home – it is still my mantra today. It works. I know – I was a player.

  In practical terms, it was great. The players had one of the few physiotherapists who could kick the ball, dribble the ball, and control the ball as well as them, if not better.

  I even played in all the reserve games. And then, for the crowning glory, I was asked if I could possibly run in the pre-season cross country and try to keep up at the back just in case somebody sprained their ankle or something. Keep up at the back? I won it by 200 metres to the astonishment of everybody. That was definitely it; I had found my true calling in life. I knew, sadly, I’d had the character defects which stopped me from being a top-class player, but not now, not in this situation. I was born to be a physiotherapist.

  Oh, and another thing, as I’d had every injury known to mankind over the past 16 y
ears, I could empathise with the players, get inside their injury, understand it and instinctively know how best to rehabilitate it. Although I considered myself to have been generally lucky with injuries, over such a long career you do tend to get a wide range of them.

  I suffered loads of relatively minor injuries – broken nose (numerous times), stitches, minor strains to nearly every muscle over the years and repeated sprains to my right ankle that has left me with a very odd-looking joint. I have suffered with years of back pain and sciatica due to long-term disc problems, and so many concussions that I can’t even remember them (probably due to all those concussions).

  Being a footballer can be a dangerous job at times, but I was uniquely qualified to be a physio after all those experiences as a player. Clearly, God had put me on this earth to be a physiotherapist. All right, that might sound a bit over the top but I was at peace and had found my calling.

  After a couple of weeks, I heard it for the very first time – the sentence that would define me. “Fucking hell! Don’t get fucking injured here whatever you do because Baz will work the fucking bollocks off you.” It was, however, always said with affection and respect and I would hear it many times over the years, and each time I would fill with pride.

  The medical room at The Shay was an old portakabin. The medical equipment consisted of an ancient ultrasound machine that looked like it had been invented by Thomas Edison and hadn’t been serviced since the last war – and I don’t mean the Gulf War.

  No gym, no pool, no cardiovascular (CV) equipment, no ice machine, no strappings, no weights, no energy drinks, no energy bars, no supplements, no heart-rate monitors. No nothing.

  And do you know what? I was glad. You don’t need all that fancy stuff to be a good physio. No electrotherapy machines? Good – they have never been proven to work and are time-consuming. No weights? Good – we can do press-ups. No CV equipment? Good – we can use the terraces. No ice machine? Good – we can get in cold baths. You don’t need fancy equipment to be effective. Extrinsic stuff like those things may look impressive and modern, but it is the intrinsic things that are more important – enthusiasm, energy, personality, lifting the morale of the players when they are injured, shaking the cobwebs off the long-term injured, getting them off the treatment tables, out of the treatment room, into the fresh air and on the way back to full fitness. Physio for the mind as well as the body. Lift their spirits, motivate them, work them hard, and they will love it, respond to it and start to get better. The mind holds the key to the body’s healing.