Journeyman (9 page)

I sit in meetings listening to teachers talking about grades and the data required by the Ofsted inspectors. I do not have a clue what they are talking about. I pass on my concerns to my fellow teachers but they don’t seem
bothered – not about me, anyway. It’s very much an ‘I’m all right, Jack’ culture. I think, in their defence, it’s because everyone is so busy.

My main worry is the ICT lessons I am teaching. I say teaching – it’s more a case of me standing up in front of a class and waffling. I know nothing about ICT. Never have. More importantly, I have no interest in it. I was assured by the headmaster when I agreed my new contract that I would no longer teach ICT.

In reality, I got an extra lesson of it.

Over the course of the term, my lessons have deteriorated to the point of shambolic so, out of courtesy, I went and told the head of ICT how I’m feeling. She didn’t seem too fussed and was more worried about re-iterating how much support she’d given me.

I then went and saw the vice principal and told her in no uncertain terms that my ICT lessons are a shambles, I don’t know what I’m doing, I have no interest in the subject and I’d been promised by the headmaster I would no longer be teaching it.

I emphasised my fears regarding Ofsted because, as an absolute bare minimum, I wanted to flag up the situation in case shit hit the fan. The vice principal seemed really concerned and, within an hour, managed to offload two of my lessons to ICT teachers. It seems strange to me that I’ve been teaching ICT when two fully qualified ICT teachers were available all along.

On the Friday before half-term I sent the vice principal a cheeky email asking if she’d managed to ‘dispose’ of any of my other ICT lessons. Her helpful demeanour had disappeared and she sent me a curt reply:

Shit! I’ve gone from trying to get rid of lessons to getting my whole timetable changed and having to teach a lot more lessons – that backfired.

I think the vice principal was just passing on what the headmaster had said, which made it even more disappointing as we clearly discussed this in our meeting. At least I now know where I stand and it’s clarified my thoughts on the future.

Turns out it is not just the world of football where people are economical with the truth.

T
HIS CHAPTER SHOULD
not take long to read because my move to Southend was an unmitigated disaster pretty much from day one.

Yeovil eventually appointed Gary Johnson as manager and went from strength to strength. From what Skivo subsequently told me, I think Gary would have offered me a contract and given me the opportunity to be part of their success. Players from the team I played in went on to have great careers, as did players Johnson brought in.

I was now residing on the Essex Riviera.

Everything started off fine. I came back to pre-season training fit and ready to prove myself at this higher level. However, in one of the early pre-season games against local Essex team Heybridge Swifts, I managed to injure myself, despite scoring the only goal of the game. It was pretty innocuous but it set the tone for my time at Southend United.

If injured, as is the case in most clubs, you have to turn up early to be
assessed. This allows the physio to report to the manager regarding the severity of your injury and decide whether or not you can train. At Southend, you had to be in by 9.30 a.m., but I didn’t care much for these rules and rolled up at about 10, pleading ignorance. Unfortunately John Gowans, the rather aggressive and uptight Geordie physio, did not take kindly to this and tore an absolute strip off me.

I was slightly bemused by his anger and thought it was a bit of an overreaction, although I can now understand how unprofessional and disrespectful my attitude was.

It turned out I had only severely bruised my foot, putting me out for a couple of weeks. That does not seem much of a blow but, as any player will tell you, when you join a new club it is so important to make a positive impression straight away. It also meant my fitness levels dipped below everyone else’s.

I regained my fitness just after the start of the season and had to bide my time while waiting for an opportunity in the first team. Unfortunately, that opportunity never really came. After a couple of decent reserve outings I managed to sneak onto the bench for a home game against Halifax Town on 25 August. We won 4–1 but when I say my two-minute substitute appearance was the highlight of my time at Southend, it should tell you all you need to know about this part of my career.

Before I could challenge for a starting place in the team I managed to pick up a really bad injury that disrupted my whole season.

We were playing a small-sided training game of ‘one touch’. I was poised to shoot as a pass was played across my body but my studs got caught in the ground. I felt a sharp pain and went down in agony. I looked down expecting to see the bone popping out of my right leg. Thankfully it wasn’t, but I instantly knew I had a bad injury.

In their wisdom, the club decided they were not going to send me for a scan straight away, preferring to wait and see how the injury settled down.
I was not too pleased about this but, as a new player, I kept my opinion to myself. I was sure if I’d been an established first-team regular a scan would have been done at once.

My injury had not improved after two months of rest and recuperation so I was finally sent for a scan. It showed, as I suspected, a meniscus (cartilage) tear to my right knee and a chipped bone in my right ankle. A foreign body within the ankle had also created a cyst that had to be removed. The recuperation time was three months, which didn’t seem too bad until you factored in the two wasted months the club had gambled on sorting it out.

It always makes me chuckle when football clubs try to ‘save’ money on MRI scans. I think the price back then was around £300 to £400 per scan; the wait actually cost Southend around £4,000, which was what they paid me while ‘assessing’ the situation. If they had paid for the scan immediately, I would have been available to play by Christmas.

To make matters worse, David Webb left the club as I recuperated. During October he had been away from the club and it transpired he was suffering from a heart complaint. He could not take a risk with his health, fair enough, but it didn’t help me. I was now stranded; injured at a new club where none of the management staff knew my qualities.

After our rather inauspicious start, John Gowans and I started to build a good relationship. To be honest, we didn’t have much choice as I spent the vast majority of my time in his physio room. John worked me hard and it was the first time I took any real interest in training in the gym.

At Southend’s training ground (Boots and Laces), the club had a decent gym area and I used it every day. If you were injured you trained seven days a week, bar the odd day off, so I had plenty of time to utilise the facilities. This was the start of my love affair with the gym, which continues to this day.

However, my injury was not helping me control my off-the-field activities. Being back home with my friends meant I had plenty of opportunities to go out partying, which, more often than not, I took up.

I managed to endure John’s wrath again when I called in sick one Sunday morning. I had been out drinking heavily the night before and, when I got up the next day, I got in the car to drive to training and realised I was still so pissed it would have been dangerous for everyone. Before starting the car I rang John, left a message telling him how ill I was and turned my phone off, knowing full well there would be an irate northerner on my voicemail when I turned it back on the next day. He was fuming, but angrier that I’d lied to him. Thankfully he didn’t tell the manager, but this was proof that my social life was still more important than what could still have been a promising career.

The change of management happened while I endured my injury-forced sabbatical. Rob Newman, the former Norwich player, was initially given the job temporarily before being appointed on a full-time basis.

When I first joined the club, Rob was the assistant manager and I thought he was perfect in that role. He was very approachable, friendly and had a good sense of humour – an ideal foil for someone like the manager, who could be very detached and quite intimidating.

Unfortunately this all changed when he became first-team manager. I’m well aware that when anyone becomes a manager they need to change and keep a certain amount of distance from the players, but Rob changed too much, in my opinion. He went from being a really affable character to the exact opposite. He would regularly have little digs at me for being injured, as if I was happy being on the treatment table every day.

By February 2002 I was starting to get fit and I spent two of the hardest weeks of my life with John doing aerobic work once I was clinically given the all-clear. The next step was to join in with the team. I got right back in the swing of things and raised a few eyebrows with some of the senior boys who didn’t know much about me as a player.

I was confident I was good enough to play at this level but not quite as confident I would get an opportunity to showcase my ability in the first
team, since Rob and I were not getting along. In hindsight, he was obviously struggling with the pressure that went with the job – something I can now relate to.

He would try to dig me out in front of others and I would snap straight back with a sarcastic comment. I remember after one reserve game, my comeback against a youthful Norwich side, I was doing a bit of shameless self-publicity regarding my performance when Rob quipped that I had only been playing against Norwich’s youth team. I retorted with I could only do it against the players he put me up against and ‘if you want me to do it against better players then put me in the first team!’

I do not think he made much of comments like that but I was not really bothered.

Other than the underlying tension with the manager, however, my comeback was going well. I played in a few second-string games and was doing everything expected of me. After a long spell on the sidelines it was just a buzz to be back on the pitch. The first team was pretty average and I sensed I was close to getting an opportunity, whether from the start or off the bench.

But the adrenalin was subsiding as my comeback progressed and I started to feel new aches and pains. My right knee and ankle felt fine but, as often happens after a long-term injury, my body was subconsciously protecting the affected areas, which had led to a soft tissue injury.

In early March we were doing a shooting session and I could feel my left quad tightening up. Now, in a normal situation I would have stopped training immediately but, after being out for so long and desperate to impress, I kept going. Eventually the inevitable happened and I pulled my left thigh properly. To add insult to the injury, I subsequently found out that they’d been strongly considering me for the local derby against Leyton Orient on 12 March.

I was devastated as this new injury meant I was guaranteed to be out for at least three or four weeks. It pretty much meant the end of my season.
I was out of contract and, in my mind, I had little or no chance of earning a new one.

I did manage to get back for the last couple of reserve games but I was nowhere near fit enough to compete for a place in the first team. The season had been terrible. What had looked like a great opportunity had been nothing of the sort. My sole contribution, if you can call it that, was my two-minute substitute appearance in early August. Southend finished right in the middle of the table on fifty-eight points.

Obviously this highly successful personal season meant I was due an end-of-season piss-up, so off I went with the Southend boys on a three-day bender to Dublin. I made the schoolboy error of going out in Chelmsford the night before the trip and, after an excellent first night in Ireland, I was a wreck for the last two days.

I was now out of contract and it seemed pretty obvious that I would be on the move again if I could get a new club. However, after a poor end to my last season at Yeovil and a non-existent year at Southend, I was far from confident that someone else would take me.

To further complicate matters, the Football League had agreed a £315 million deal with ITV Digital to broadcast League and Cup matches on its then-new paid TV channel. Unfortunately the new broadcaster went bust without fully honouring the contract and ended up owing a total of £180 million to Football League clubs. With football being the industry it is, where clubs spend money before it’s earned to guarantee future success, this was a big problem. Clubs knowing they were entitled to a certain chunk of the TV contract had used the money to offer players more lucrative contracts. Anyone out of contract, like me, was in a very vulnerable position. Best case scenario: you got a sizeable pay cut. Worst case: you got released. This debacle ended a lot of senior players’ careers prematurely and a lot of younger players’ before they began.

I was convinced I was going to be one of the victims of the situation. As
usual in these circumstances, I had a one-to-one meeting with the manager to discuss the previous season and my future. Our chat did not last long but, to my surprise, he didn’t immediately release me. He gave me the normal spiel about how the club had no money and I had contributed very little to the season, but he then went on to say he thought I had ability and he was willing to give me an opportunity to prove my fitness. He offered me a three-month contract on £300 per week. My wages for the previous season had been £450 per week so this represented a big cut. He was basically proposing a paid trial on the understanding that, if I proved my fitness, my contract would be extended for the season.

I was surprised to get any sort of offer, but it was not the sort I in any rush to sign. I was also put off by the fact Rob wanted us to train through four of our eight weeks off. I told him I would have to think about it.

When a Football League club makes you a contract offer, and it is in writing, you have twenty-eight days to either accept or reject it. During that time the club cannot retract the offer and they have to honour it if the player accepts. Again, as at Yeovil, this new contract offer was lower both in terms of salary and length of time, which meant, if I did move on, there would be no fee involved for my services.

All the signs were pointing for me to start packing my bags again.

Former Prime Minister Harold Wilson said a week is a long time in politics and I’m sure someone slightly less important has said the same thing about football. Well, it turns out this is also the case in the world of education. Half-term is coming to an end and I do not want to go back. I have thought
long and hard about it and teaching ICT, science and maths is not for me. I have written my resignation letter ready to hand in on Monday:

I’ve even printed it off and put it in an envelope ready to go. My mind is made up.

Well, I thought it was … until I got a phone call that made me think twice. Alan Bailey – the man who got me into teaching, has been my mentor and was, incidentally, my PE teacher when I attended as a pupil – was taken very ill.

He told me he was going to be away from school for a prolonged period of time and asked if I could come and see him at his house. He said that he
won’t be returning until Easter at the earliest (though probably not until the end of the school year) and that I am the only person with the expertise to do his job: he wanted me to take over from him, at least on a temporary basis.