My dad, Ted, played himself for a local team called Kingfisher in the Forest and District League, and I would go along with my mum Sandra, my older sister Lynne and baby Joanne to watch him play. He was a centre-forward; Mark Hughes, but rougher. He had trials for Leyton Orient and played semi-professional for a couple of years at Finchley Wingate. Dad was a good player, although he always used to get caught offside. It took me a long time to understand how that rule worked and I’m not sure Dad ever really got it sorted out. I loved watching him. I loved everything that went with the game, and I could tell how much playing meant to him as well. When he told me he was going to pack in playing regularly himself so he could concentrate on coaching me – I must have been eight or nine at the time – I knew exactly what that sacrifice meant even though he never talked about it in that way.
From the time I was seven, Dad was taking me to training with Kingfisher on midweek evenings down at a place called Wadham Lodge, just round the North Circular Road from us. I’ve got great memories of those nights, not just being with Dad and his mates, but of the ground itself. It was about ten minutes from the house in the car. We’d drive down this long street of terraced houses and pull in through a set of big, blue wooden gates, past the first car park and onto the second car park, which was right next to the training ground. The pitch was orange-coloured gravel and cinder, with proper goalposts and nets, and there was a little bar, the social club, that overlooked it. Beyond that pitch, there were three or four others, including the best one which was reserved for cup games and special occasions. It had a little wall all around it and two dugouts. It seemed like a massive stadium to me at the time. I dreamt about playing on that pitch one day.
Wadham Lodge wasn’t very well looked after back then. I remember the changing rooms were pure Sunday League: mud on the floor, really dingy lighting and the water dribbling out of cold showers. Then there was the smell of the liniment that players used to rub on their legs. It would hit you as soon as you walked in. There were floodlights – just six lamps on top of poles – but at least once every session they’d go out and somebody would have to run in and put coins in a meter that was in a cupboard just inside the changing room door.
As well as training with Kingfisher during the football season, we’d be back at Wadham Lodge in the summer holidays. Dad used to run, and also play for, a team in the summer league, so I’d come to games with him. We’d practise together before and after and then, while his match was taking place on the big pitch, I’d find some other boys to play with on the cinder next door. I’ve had most of my professional career at clubs with the best facilities and where everything’s taken care of, but I’m glad I had the experience of a place like Wadham Lodge when I was a boy. I mean, if I’d not been there with my dad, I might have grown up never knowing about Soap on a Rope. More to the point, it was where I started taking free-kicks. After everybody else had finished and was in the social club, I’d stand on the edge of the penalty area and chip a dead ball towards goal. Every time I hit the bar was worth 50p extra pocket money from my dad that week. And, just as important, a pat on the back.
The other dads might bring their boys along sometimes but, once I started, I was there week in and week out. I’d sit in the bar and watch the men training and then, towards the end of the session, they’d let me join in with the five-a-sides. I was so excited to be out there playing with the rest of them – these grown men – that I took whatever I had coming. I do remember an occasion when one of them came flying into me with a tackle and Dad wasn’t happy about it at all but, usually, if I took a knock he’d just tell me to get up and get on with it. He warned me that I had to be prepared to get a bit roughed up now and again. If he’d been running around telling people not to tackle me all evening, it would have been pointless me being there in the first place. The fact that I always seemed to be playing football with players who were bigger and stronger than me when I was young, I’m sure, helped me later on in my career.
On the nights when I wasn’t at Wadham Lodge, I’d be in Chase Lane Park. We had this secret cut-through to get there: across the road and then four or five houses down from my mum and dad’s where there was a private alley. We’d wait around at the top of it until there was nobody about and then sprint fifty yards to the hedge, then through it and the hole in the fence. I still have one or two friends who I first met in Chase Lane. I went on to school with Simon Treglowen and his brother Matt, and I’m still in touch with Simon now. We decided we got on all right after one particular row about whether or not I’d scored past him in goal. That turned into a big fight, even though Simon’s four years older than me. Fighting: it’s a funny way boys have of making friends. Usually we’d just kick a ball around until it got dark, but there also used to be a youth club, in a little hut, run by a lady called Joan. My mum knew her and would phone up to say we were on our way over. You could play table tennis or pool and get a fizzy drink or some chocolate. There was an outdoor paddling pool at the back that got filled up in the summer. Some days, Joan would organise a minibus and we’d all head off down to Walthamstow baths. There was also a skate ramp by the side of the hut. I suppose my mum knows now that some of my cuts and bruises were from skateboarding, even though I wasn’t allowed on a skateboard back then. The one bad knock I got happened one evening when I fell getting our ball back from the paddling pool after it had been closed up for the night. Joan was still there and she phoned home to tell my parents how I’d got the cut on my head. For about six or seven years, into my early teens, it was a whole world in that park. All those facilities have gone now. It’s a shame. Times change and some kids started messing the place up until it had to be closed down.
My very first close friend was a boy called John Brown who lived just up the road. John and I went through both primary and secondary school together. He wasn’t really a footballer so, when I couldn’t talk him into a kickabout over at the park, we’d play Lego or Gameboy round at one of our houses, or ride our bikes or rollerskate up and down our road. Later on, when I started playing for Ridgeway Rovers, John used to come along to some of our games even though he didn’t play. A few of us, especially me and another Ridgeway boy named Nicky Lockwood, were always up for the pictures and John used to come too; I remember Mum would drop us off at the cinema over in Walthamstow. When we were little, John Brown and I were best mates but I suppose my football took me in a very different direction. John went off and became a baker after we both left school.
Lucky for me, they loved their football at my first school, Chase Lane Primary. I can still remember Mr McGhee, the teacher who used to coach us: a Scotsman and passionate with it, a bit like Alex Ferguson in fact. Kids used to tell tales about Mr McGhee throwing teacups, cricket balls, anything really, at the wall when he was annoyed. I never witnessed that myself but we were all a bit scared of his reputation, anyway. We had a really good team and used to turn out in this all-green kit. I was playing football with the Cubs as well, which you could only do if you went to church on Sunday. So all the family – me, Mum and Dad and my sisters – made sure we were there every time, without fail.
My parents knew how much I loved football. If there was a way for me to get a game, they did everything they could to make it happen. Whether it was playing or getting coaching, I’d have my chance. I was at every soccer school going. The first one was the Roger Morgan Soccer School, run by the former Spurs winger. I went there over and over again, doing all the badges until I got the gold. Dad was a lifelong United supporter and we started going to watch them when they played in London. My mum’s dad was diehard Tottenham and he used to take me to White Hart Lane. Every Christmas, I’d end up with a United kit and a Tottenham kit, and maybe an England kit from my mum. If it was football – or anything to do with football – I was there.
Mum wasn’t all that keen on football. Her dad was, though, which was one of the reasons I loved being with him as much as I did. Joe was employed in the print trade. For a long time he was over the road from home, at the Stationery Office in Islington. Then he moved down to Fleet Street. He and my grandmother, Peggy, lived on an estate just off City Road, down near Old Street. My dad went out to work early most Saturdays. The rest of us would get on the train at Walthamstow and go down to see my grandparents for the day. We had to get there before noon: Grandad would be off about 11.30 if he was going to watch Spurs. Before leaving, he’d come downstairs and watch me play football in the little park on the estate. I’m sure Grandad remembers those