Mud and Thunder

ED ROBERTS

Description

Ed Roberts is a young, talented and ambitious midfielder playing for Northtown United, a club buried in the depths of the Football League. A new owner and manager transform its fortunes and steers it into the First Division. Roberts plays a pivotal role in that progress and goes on to represent England before becoming one of the first English footballers to play abroad. This is his warts-and-all story of what it was like to play at all levels - before the advent of the Premier League, the influx of foreign stars, the appearance of the super agent and vastly inflated salaries. He writes, candidly, about some of the men he played with and for, how he didn't always toe the club line, his failed international career and his off-field relationships. He broaches subjects such as racism, alcoholism, homosexuality and early player power. It all amounts to one of the most honest and compelling accounts yet written by a former footballer.

Sujets

• LGBT

Informations

• Publié par: Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
• Date de parution: 06 janvier 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781398469587
• Langue: English

Extrait

Mud and Thunder
Ed Roberts
A ustin M acauley P ublishers
2023-01-06
Mud and Thunder About the Author Dedication Copyright Information © Acknowledgement Part I Basement Blues and Promotion Pomp Chapter One Not at All Posh at Peterborough --> Chapter Two From Corfu to Skegness Chapter Three A Misfiring Start Chapter Four The Longest Trek Chapter Five A Pointless Christmas and New Year Chapter Six Back in the Boss’ Office Chapter Seven Promotion Push, Relationship Relegation Part II Into the Promised Land Chapter One An Easter Rising Chapter Two Stuck in Second and the Road to Goodison Park Chapter Three Own Goals Chapter Four Captain’s Log Chapter Five Blotts on the Landscape Chapter Six Out of Second Part III Dining at the Top Table Chapter One Failing to Reign in Spain Chapter Two A Highbury High Chapter Three Cup Fever Chapter Four China Crisis --> Chapter Five Taking Stock Part IV Going InterContinental Chapter One Split End Our European Dream Chapter Two Saunders’ Bombshell Chapter Three Player Power Chapter Four Going Dutch Chapter Five Duty Calls and Chopped by Souey Chapter Six A Brit Abroad Chapter Seven Back Home Epilogue -->
About the Author
Ed Roberts is one of the few footballers to have won promotion from the Fourth Division to the top tier of the Football League with the same club. He represented England and was one of the first British players to sign for a European club, before injury cut short his career. Having played for Northtown United for nine seasons, he later returned as manager.
Dedication
For Richard, Helen and members and wives of the GL club.
Copyright Information ©
Ed Roberts 2023
The right of Ed Roberts to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781398469570 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781398469587 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published 2023
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd ®
1 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5AA
Acknowledgement
Thanks to John Hole for his “sense-checking” and tough tackling.
Part I Basement Blues and Promotion Pomp
Chapter One Not at All Posh at Peterborough

London Road, Peterborough. Saturday, 23 April 1978. Peterborough United v Northtown United. League Division Four
The last match of the season.
Thank God.
The sun is shining, the pitch is baked hard and rutted. Apparently, there was once grass on it. Hard to believe.
The dressing rooms are cramped and smelly—there is no way the spotty-faced apprentices have been doing their stuff in here.
The showers work but only dispense tepid water.
Our levels of enthusiasm are close to zero; many showing complete disinterest and giving the impression they are here only because they are contractually obliged to be.
It’s been a disastrous season and a terrible one for an apparently talented and ambitious nineteen-year-old midfielder who has broken into the side. That apparently talented and ambitious midfielder was me.
In the stadium, a couple of thousand spectators are spread thinly around the terraces. One coach full of our die-hard supporters has made the ninety-minute journey to London Road.
The chairman is also here. None of his fellow directors have accompanied him. Nothing unusual there.
I am in awe of the fans’ loyalty, especially given our struggles of the last few seasons. “Sad bastards,” is how Tom Border our captain and chief barrack room lawyer describes them. Tom may be playing for a knackered club in the basement of the Football League, but he is a First Division cynic.
“OK, listen up lads.” The voice of manager/gaffer Frank Matthews cuts through the stink of Deep Heat and liniment.
“Last game of a fucking dreadful season. Let’s set down a marker for the start of the next campaign. Show these Posh bastards we mean business and get your retaliation in first.”
No tactics. There have been none during the week so why should I expect any today? Training in the build-up to the game consisted of relentless running, re-rehearsing some (ancient) set piece skills and a few exercises. Footballs had been only occasional visitors to the training ground.
Frank is as washed up as the team; the team is as washed up as Frank.
“And let’s put in a good performance for our fans.”
“Sad bastards,” says Border. “Must have something better to do. Could be starting their Christmas shopping.”
My heckles rise. It’s not that long since I stood on the terraces and cheered this idiot. I want to say something, but it will count for nothing. The sniggering which accompanies Border’s comments confirms this.
The bell rings. There are a few half-hearted “shouts” of encouragement. We file out of the dressing room, down the short and narrow corridor and emerge into the sunlit stadium.
A Peterborough fan, decked out in blue and white bobble hat and scarves, and ordained with a ridiculous number of metal badges, stands at the entrance to the tunnel. He blows a hunting horn but is so fat he can hardly muster enough puff to register a noise.
The smell of fried onions and burgers, which should come with a government health warning, wafts through the air. It’s unpleasant but makes a welcome change to the stale dressing room, where the varying and combined odours of Deep Heat, liniment and, inevitably, the odd fart lie heavy in the atmosphere. It’s no different to Sunday League football. There have been times this season when the standard hasn’t been much higher.
We start brightly enough. We even have the first shot of the match, although the ball ends up closer to the corner flag than the goal. In fact, it doesn’t even go out for a goal kick, rolling slowly before coming, apologetically, to a halt still in play. The home fans love it.
That’s just about as good as it gets in the first half. We concede twice in the space of a few minutes and Posh can smell blood.
They are solid mid-table and have “nothing to play for,” but they are committed and dedicated and motivated. Adjectives not associated with us I’m ashamed to say. They are also fitter despite our relentless running during the week. Maybe we had been subjected to too much of that and have nothing left to give.
I run around to no great effect. Huff here. Puff there. Put in a tackle or two. Concede a free-kick for a trip. The ref takes pity on me as it’s the last game of the season and tells me to watch it. But he won’t book me this time. A midfielder never booked does little for my reputation as a “goody two shoes” with the die-hard professionals at the club.
We manage to steady the ship until the stroke of half-time when our ’keeper, Mike Williams, drops a cross at the feet of a Posh forward who gleefully crashes the ball home.
Williams will tell anyone who will listen—and although that’s not many he does have the ear of Border—that he is an ex-Welsh international. Apparently, he once played for Wales schoolboys in the (very) dim and distant past.
Welsh he undoubtedly is but he’s no international.
We slope off to the supposed sanctuary of the dressing room. The fat bloke with the hunting horn is at the entrance to the tunnel again. Sweating profusely. “Great stuff, lads.” “Magic, Lenny.” “Great goal, Stevie.” It’s as if he knows them personally. Every club has one. Border may have a point here; this guy is a sad so-and-so.
In the dressing room, both the tea and the milk have been on the table for too long meaning the tea is lukewarm (at least the plastic cups don’t collapse as they usually do when hot liquid is poured into them) and the milk is curdled.
“Fucking shithole, I’ve always hated playing here,” explodes Andy Adams (aka AA), our centre forward. With six goals in thirty-plus appearances, this season, he’s hardly been in explosive form on the pitch.
The dust bowl of a pitch and, inevitably, the referee are the reasons we are 3-0 down and haven’t had a shot on target. Given the pitch is “the same for both sides” and that we have been so passive the ref hasn’t had a decision to make, other than to show me some leniency, this is just another case of inept footballers hiding behind their usual pathetic excuses.
The manager/gaffer has little to offer. He was part of the side when we won two promotions in three seasons a few years ago. As manager he has overseen a relegation, a mid-table finish and now the club’s worst ever season.
He doesn’t know what to say, which way to turn. His half-time performance is as abject as his team’s first half showing.
The dressing room door opens and in steps Mr Bushnell, chairman and co-owner. He is accompanied by another suited and booted bloke, who is not introduced to us. The second man is at least thirty years younger than Bushnell and unlike his older companion has had the good grace to wear a suit—expensive—which fits properly and a shirt and tie combination which actually matches. He looks like a freshly-dressed tailor’s dummy. Bushnell, in his crumpled suit which could do with a trip to the dry cleaners or maybe even a jumble sale, mirrors his club. Tired and like his manager, washed-up. Decent bloke, apparently. But you wouldn’t think he was the club’s most senior figure.
“Carry on, Mr Matthews,” says Bushnell. “Don’t let us get in you