The Smell of Football Page 5

  The previous season, although I had been lacking in confidence, I had still been just about holding my own. This time, however, my bottle had completely gone and the power of negative thinking had completely overwhelmed my psyche. I am not proud to admit this, but it is the naked truth and I wonder, if they are honest, how many players and ex-players could identify with my plight.

  Two things stick in my mind from that torturous period. Number one – we used to wait for the teams for Saturday to be pinned up on the notice board after training on Friday. In those days, the reserves played on Saturdays in what was usually the opposite fixture to the first team so, for example, if the first team were playing Arsenal at home, then the reserves would travel down to London to play at Highbury.

  I used to wait in a state of terror for the teams to be announced. You were either in the first-team squad and en route to a sleepless night, or in the reserves with a nice trip to London with your pals, playing cards on the bus, fillet steaks and an enjoyable game with no pressure.

  I remember in my first season at the club a player called John Roberts, a fine centre half and a Welsh international, found he had been demoted to the reserves. In his fury and disgust, he spat on the team sheet and walked out. The spittle made the names run and all the other players were looking at the sheet trying to work out if their names were actually on it.

  That walk up to the team sheet was probably the biggest ordeal of the whole week. I would close my eyes, count to ten and then just open one of them. Did I really think that would make any difference? Three . . . two . . . one . . . open one eye. I was out. What a relief, what a fucking relief. It would be another year or so before this ordeal would be over for me when, at last, I too would become a proper player. And then, thankfully, I would completely understand where big John was coming from.

  Number two – when I was picked for the first team and we were playing at home, we would get changed in the dressing rooms that were in the corner of the stadium, and as kick-off approached you could start to hear the noise of the crowd as the ground filled up. Thirty thousand or so, many with a couple of pints in them, all there to cheer a win or, more worryingly, jeer a defeat. To get onto the pitch, we had to walk in procession, side by side with the opposition, from the corner of the ground all along the tunnel under the main stand to emerge from the halfway line.

  God, that walk. It was torturous, agonisingly slow, especially when your legs had turned to jelly. I remember studying Charles I in history at school, how he lost the throne and finally ended up getting beheaded. Apparently he refused a blindfold and insisted on walking to the scaffold unaided. I wondered how in such dire circumstances you could still walk and, as I edged my way down that dark tunnel, I realised how he must have felt. It was all right for Charles, though, he only had to go through the ordeal once; I had to do it every bloody Saturday.

  Once the tunnel of death had been negotiated, that wait, that long, long wait as the teams were announced. We knew when it was time to sprint out into the light and receive the indifference of the crowd because they would always play the same tune and then it was no turning back. That tune, that fucking tune which took the last vestiges of energy from my legs, was called Mr Blue Sky by local superstar pop group ELO. It had distinctive opening bars and, as soon as we heard those, it was time to go. Even now, nearly 35 years later, when I hear those distinctive opening lines of that damned song, my legs still turn to jelly. What would Pavlov and his dogs have made of that?

  It’s good I can laugh about it now but, back then, I can hardly find words to describe how scared I was (I nearly wrote nervous, but it wasn’t nervousness; it was bloody fear). I didn’t know it at the time but one day it would be very different and, in a couple of years, it would be a completely different Mick Rathbone who would walk the tunnel and stand on the halfway line waiting for that music before sprinting out onto the pitch – confident, determined and with nerves of steel.

  Sir Alf was OK. I really liked and respected him, but he kept putting me in the bloody squad. I had to get away – I felt perhaps if I went to another club far away (preferably somewhere in the Outer Hebrides), I would be all right. Finally, and to my undying gratitude, the penny dropped with Sir Alf. He realised I wasn’t going to be the next Bobby Moore and dropped me from the squad. Phew, what a relief. Finally some respite, a chance to get some sleep but no, worse was to come.

  In what I now realise was the greatest wind-up in the history of the game, some of the senior players accosted me and started to say it was a joke that I had been dropped. I shouldn’t put up with it or otherwise I would get walked over all my career and the only solution in these circumstances was to go straight down to St Andrew’s to confront Sir Alf and ask for – no, demand – a transfer. I tried to argue that I didn’t really think that was necessary and I thought I had been treated fairly, but they were adamant. “Trust us,” they said.

  What happens when a naive, inexperienced 18-year-old locks horns with one of the greatest figures in British footballing history and a man known not to suffer fools?

  I drove from the training ground to his office at St Andrew’s in my Daf Variomatic and knocked on his door. He said, “Come.” Not “Come in”, just “Come” – in that classic tone. He was reading a newspaper much larger than my daily Sun.

  He looked up. “Yes?”

  “Look,” I stammered. “I want a transfer. I’ve had enough of being messed around and not given a fair chance, my mind’s made up, don’t try and talk me out of it, I want to go.”

  He folded his newspaper and looked at me. His judgement, when delivered, went through me like a matador’s sword through a bull. In a totally matter-of-fact, sangfroid way and with those classic clipped tones, he destroyed me in a couple of sentences. “OK,” he said. “You can go by all means, but who’s going to sign you? You are fucking crap!”

  I can laugh now and I have entertained my friends for 35 years with that one. But it was no joke at the time, just another footstep on my personal road to hell. Talk about in like a lion, out like a lamb. The only good thing was I was definitely not going to have to worry about getting a game in the team in the foreseeable future.

  Sadly, Sir Alf didn’t last much longer and left the club mid-season. Then the ‘Bald Eagle’ landed.

  Jim Smith was to save my career and my life – but not for another year or so.

  Known as the Bald Eagle for obvious reasons, he used to shout and scream so much that his whole head went red or even purple on a particularly bad day. He was a good manager, though, and, when the purple had subsided, a nice bloke. I have seen him many times over the years, and we always talk fondly of those times (talk about a selective memory). Jim gave me another chance – thanks for nothing, mate. I was still only 19 and had a good pedigree. The club knew what I could do (unfortunately only in the reserves, though) and, notwithstanding my seriously fucked-up mental state, they could see I was immensely gifted – even if I say so myself – so they tried to persevere with me.

  We used to have practice matches all the time and this next incident beautifully demonstrates the effect that confidence – or lack of it – can have and, more to the point, that I was not the only one suffering from a complete absence of it.

  In this particular match, I am playing left back for the first team and my best mate, Steve Fox, is playing right wing for the reserves. The game starts and I am directly up against my pal. For the first 45 minutes, Steve destroys me. He, full of tricks, vigour and confidence; me, leaden-legged, unable to turn, breathe or pass the ball to Trevor. Half time comes and Jim calls the teams in to the centre of the pitch – bollockings for some (me) and pats on the back for others (Steve).

  “Right, I am going to make a few changes. Mick Rathbone, not good enough, son, you go over there and join the reserves for the second half. Stevie, well done, son, good half, you come and play in the first team now.”

  Into the second half and I am still playing against Steve, but now he’s not getting a
kick, he can’t control the ball, his passes are going astray and he’s lost that change of pace. And me? Now I am tackling and overlapping and crossing and smiling and enjoying the game and my legs are working properly – full of power.

  If ever there was an anecdote to demonstrate the importance of confidence, then surely that is it.

  I was still getting the odd appearance in the first team. I used to be terrified the games would be on Match of the Day and hence expose my shortcomings to the whole nation. Back in the ’70s, there was no live football, except the FA Cup final, and the only televised soccer was the one game featured on Match of the Day on a Saturday night. I had already suffered one humiliation the season before when my frailties were so cruelly exposed to the watching nation by Steve Heighway at Anfield and I was fearful of the same thing happening again.

  If the game was going to be televised, then the cameras would turn up at St Andrew’s at about 3pm on the Friday afternoon. I would drive down there alone and with a knot in the pit of my stomach, just to see if the camera crews were setting up their equipment. What on earth was the point of that? OK, if the cameras weren’t there, I could relax up to a point – just the 30,000 fans to appease. However, if to my shock and horror they were being set up, then my body would go into total meltdown.

  In hindsight, I shouldn’t have worried, as I was going to get a sleepless night anyway. By now, the fans had taken a definite dislike to me; my name was now greeted by a deep groan when the teams announced over the tannoy. That didn’t exactly fill me with confidence. I can’t really complain, though, because I was crap, absolutely crap. I had lost my way completely and, to be honest, I was just going through the motions. I had stopped wearing my shin pads in the faint hope of getting injured but even that stroke of luck evaded me. Would I really have preferred a fucking broken leg at that stage? Was it really that bad?

  Yes.

  I was still trying my best and still really loved the club but, to put it as succinctly as possible, I was fucked.

  People can be so cruel. The neighbours and mom’s ‘friends’ ensured she was informed every time I was awarded a meagre five out of ten in the newspaper for my performance. I went to the local pub, The Wheatsheaf, on a Sunday evening and some of my brother’s friends would come in one by one and inform me (with relish) how much stick I had got on the local radio phone-in. Thanks.

  Probably the worst aspect of the suffering I went through during that period was the effect it was having on my mother. She never said anything to me; she didn’t have to. I knew she was hurting just as badly as I was. To see her little boy reduced to this shell must have been so hard for her. I had always been so happy. Full of confidence, optimistic, enthusiastic and always the best – at football, academically, athletics, everything. Just a young guy with the world at his feet.

  We never spoke about it and haven’t to this day, but when you are as close as my mom and I are, you just know. I could see it in her eyes every Sunday after reading the match reports or callously being reminded of my poor performances by ‘well-wishers’, but good days would come, days when she would again sit in the stand and glow with pride at her son’s performances and all the good things people were saying about him.

  It was during this awful period that I developed my deeply unhealthy obsession with my player rating mark, the merit mark given to every player by the Sunday People, based on the reporter’s valuation of each player’s performance. There was a table at the foot of the page that described what each mark meant. Ten was ‘Out of this World’, nine ‘Excellent’, eight ‘Very Good’, seven ‘Good’, six ‘Average’ and five (the lowest mark) meant ‘Poor Performance’. During that period, I think I must have held the record for consecutive fives. What I wouldn’t have given for the luxury of a six. There was no escaping that stigma of a five. It meant even people who never went to the game knew you were playing shit.

  I used to lie awake at night following a match, waiting for the newspaper to arrive – the footsteps on the gravel, the bark of the dog and the thump of the letterbox. I would climb out of bed on unsteady legs and make my way down the stairs, clutching the banister for support with my heart racing. Please be a six. Just this once, I did two good passes. I would pick up the newspaper and nervously flick through the sports pages until I found our report and, sure enough, week in week out there it was, as expected – Rathbone: five. It became as big a Sunday morning tradition as the fried breakfast. At least once I had got my five, I could go back to bed and try and get a few hours’ sleep.

  Once I got up at about 3am and drove into the centre of Birmingham to New Street Station to meet the early morning express train up from London which, back in those days, delivered the papers from Fleet Street. I purchased my Sunday People from the railway platform and flicked through the pages in the murky pre-dawn light. Yes, there it was – sure as eggs and bacon – Rathbone: five. At least I got some extra sleep that night.

  For a short period, I even stopped buying the wretched paper. Simple enough? Afraid not, some bastard would still go out of his way to let me know I got a five. Even later in my career when I was performing so well I still couldn’t really unwind and enjoy Sundays until I had checked my mark in the Sunday People.

  Of course, the whole thing was nonsense, and what does one man passing judgement from the stands really know? How can one person accurately mark the whole 22 players? The saving grace to the whole episode would come some years later when all the newspapers started using this marking system. As you could get five in one and eight in another for the same performance, it started to show the marks up for the nonsense they were. I’m glad to say that later in my career I got eights and nines sometimes, my name in bold type as owner of the best mark and thus man of the match – just not at Birmingham City.

  My very worst experience with the marks, though, happened during this period. Again, the same ordeal – the paperboy’s footsteps, the dog barking, the thud of the letterbox, the shuffle down the stairs on jelly-legs, the nervous seeking out of the match report for the final and inevitable acceptance of the ‘five’ before the dejected trek back up the stairs. But not on this occasion.

  “Oh my fucking God no, please, please no. How can that be?” I sank to my knees, barely able to take in the absolute horror of what I had just seen. There it was in bold type, the absolute and undeniable low point of my life – Rathbone: four!

  That just can’t be, there is no such thing. But as I scanned the grid at the bottom I realised with total shock there had been a change – eight was ‘Very Good’, seven was ‘Good’, six ‘Average’, five ‘Poor Performance’, four ‘Stinker’.

  STINKER. Fucking stinker.

  Jesus Christ, I had plunged to a new low. I quickly checked all the other reports – no fours, no fours. Oh my God, they had invented a special category just for me. Stood there that Sunday morning in the hallway, I think I truly hit rock bottom.

  However, there was to be another gut-wrenching twist. It transpired that one of the other Sunday papers was considering marking the players from one to 22 depending on their performance. The player who was considered to be the best on the pitch would be awarded the mark of 22, while the player considered to have been the worst on the pitch (me) would be awarded a solitary one. That news really freaked me out. No way would my fragile mindset cope with the inevitability of that mark of one and the associated honour of being considered the very worst player on the pitch.

  I think that rumour cost me about five nights’ sleep until Ricky Sbragia, who became a great mate and went on to manage Sunderland, admitted he had made it up just to wind me up. Please excuse me if I didn’t see the funny side of that one, Ricky.

  And then there were the boos from the terraces. The fans would probably say, “Too bad, mate, that’s life, you chose to be a footballer. It’s not like you are in a war zone or living in abject poverty in the Third World. Don’t be such a bloody wimp and pull yourself together. We pay our money and we have the right to boo who
we want.”

  My answer to that would be that they are right and I am certainly not proud of myself, but I would also say this: “You try it. You try being on the end of all that stuff when you are only 19 and see how you cope. The next time you hurl abuse, ask yourself if you would like it. If any amount of money is worth it.”

  During the week, I tried to live as normal a life as possible, going out for a pint or playing snooker with Kevin Dillon, Mark Dennis and Pat Van Den Hauwe. These lads who were all a year younger than me had got in the team and done well. I really envied them.

  Meanwhile, the nightmare was growing all the time. It had now reached the point where I would try to do anything to spare myself from the ongoing ordeal. At training we could either wear a light blue hooded top or a red tracksuit top depending on our own personal preference. The players wore a mixture of both. The teams for the five-a-side were chosen quickly at the end of the session based on the top you had on – light blues at one end, red tops at the other. I used to wait in the kit room until the very last minute to see what colour Trevor had put on, so I could quickly change into the other one and thus avoid being on his side in the little game.

  Yes, I know – pathetic, weak and unprofessional. Guilty as charged and, actually, totally unfair on Trevor who was OK really, a good bloke. His only crime was he was too bloody good. Looking back now, I can hardly identify with the poor pathetic creature I had become.

  Once, we were due to play West Bromwich Albion at their ground. It was a midweek match and, therefore, an evening kick-off. I was selected to play at right back. That in itself was bad enough but even more worryingly I would probably be up against their star player – the legendary Scottish left winger Willie Johnston. Fast, aggressive, cocky, skilful (him, not me). I was dreading it. I had been having nightmares about him all week. The team coach left St Andrew’s for the short ride to the Hawthorns. I was close to being comatose with fear. It had been raining heavily all day. As the coach was about to pull into the ground, there was a steward in a fluorescent coat standing in the middle of the road with his arms outstretched. He was shaking his head and mouthing words; he was trying to tell us something. What was it? What was he trying to tell us?