At 17 I bought my first car, a 2-litre Cortina, and used to drive it all over town without a licence. One night I got nicked for speeding so I had a court appearance coming up and was that worried I confided in Frank Worthington, who kindly agreed to drive me to court to face the music.
Before I went in front of the magistrates, he said, ‘If you want to act like a man, be a man and take your punishment’ I was in awe of Frank and would go along with just about anything he said, so in I went and was given a hefty fine which I paid, although I did not bother getting a licence and kept on driving afterwards.
By the time I was 18, a gang of us started to frequent a very well hidden pub called the ‘Odd Spot’ where a barmaid named Jill worked. She was 34 and quite pretty and soon we started talking and getting on well. Over a few weeks, it was just me going to the pub to talk with Jill and soon we were shagging each other’s brains out. For the five months we were together, all we did was shag, including a record seven times from a Saturday night to the Sunday afternoon.
Jill used to drop me off at training and soon Jim Smith clocked that she was way older than me and began telling me I should keep away from her because I was too fucked to train on the Monday due to all the shagging we were doing. He had a point!
Frank Worthington had taken a shine to me and we began going out and usually I was driving. One night I was getting ready to go out with him to a club called Liberties when he opened a compartment in his wardrobe and took out a small pipe. He then proceeded to fill it with weed and began smoking it before telling me once again it was my turn to drive. En route, Frank asked me if I would like to take a puff from this pipe, which I did, and we eventually got to the club even though I could hardly see. Once inside Liberties, Frank went about his business regarding the birds, while I sat slumped in a seat not knowing what day it was.
I got involved with another firm called the Bagshaws and they seemed nice enough but one night I was in bed with Susan when we were awoken by the sound of someone trying to get into the house. I got hold of a replica gun that the Bagshaws had given me and caught the intruder in the garden and pointed the gun at him and said that if he moved I was going to shoot the fucker, but he just walked off laughing. A few weeks later when we went to London during the pre-season break, I asked Kimo to keep an eye on my house but when I got back it had been burgled – by the Bagshaws. I often wondered if it had been one of their firm a few weeks previously who had tried to screw the house, and knew the gun they had given me was a replica!
Before long, Susan moved in with me full time but one night she got the hump and buggered off for a week. Given my single man status back, I set about enjoying myself and Kimo brought two sisters back to my place for a private party. We were having a great time drinking and watching pornos when, out of the blue, Susan came back. I heard the front door go so I ran into the hall and slammed it on her and she bit my finger as I was trying to stop her getting into the house. During this time, my dog – a huge Doberman – escaped. When the girls eventually got out and Susan had calmed down, I went looking for the dog and, before long, found it sitting outside the pub I frequented most nights.
Soon we had our own little firm at the club who were nicknamed locally ‘The Brummie Bashers’. We were also called ‘The Magnificent Seven’ and, regardless of what other people called us, we were most certainly the original Crazy Gang – myself, Noel Blake, Mark Dennis, Robert Hopkins, Tony Coton, Mick Harford, Howard Gayle and the legendary Frank Worthington were all good mates and, although Frank was not really a member of the gang when it began to hit the local papers, he was a founder member who was always good company to be out with and the fun and trouble we all got are indeed as legendary as Frank.
During a pre-season tour in Scandinavia, we were staying in one of those shitty complexes tucked away in the middle of nowhere. With no nightlife to speak of, the lads set me up with a bird who worked as a waitress. I got her back to my room, which contained little kiddie-style bunk beds – with Birmingham, it was never a case of no expense spared – so I climbed on to the top bunk with the waitress and just as I was about to do the deed all the lads were outside looking directly at us through the window. All the usual suspects we there laughing their heads off, so the bird got dressed, jumped off the bunk and fucked off, never to be seen again.
On the same tour we were in a pub when what I believe was a transvestite latched on to me. He or she came up to me and we had a drink and a chat and, for the life of me, I could not make my mind up if it was a bloke, a woman or a 50/50! He/she said they needed somewhere to sleep and was all over me so, before I invited him/her back to the hotel, I asked them to go to the toilets for a check out. This thing went straight into the gents, which got my alarm bells ringing. So I followed to see what was down below. Off came the knickers and, although there was no visible problem as there was not a cock in sight, I was still unsure, so binned him/her off. I was lucky that I had bumped into them early doors as, if I had been pissed, I may have not been as alert and made a big mistake.
On another tour to South America we had to wait for our connecting flight and, by the time we were due to board the plane, we were well and truly pissed. I became friendly with some girl and we got chatting but, being half pissed, I got my dick out. Unknown to me, there were casually dressed security guards patrolling the departure lounge who quickly arrested me and put me in a lock-up in the airport, saying they were going to deport me back to the UK. Jim Smith was notified and he came and spoke to the officials telling them to keep me there. Without telling me, Smith had asked an official to keep me in there to teach me a lesson, and then release me five minutes before my flight – which they did. I had to leg it to my connecting plane and boarded with my head bowed in shame as the lads chanted all sorts of obscenities about me.
When we eventually settled on the tour, we were messing about around the pool when a club official asked me to come out with him to look for some women. On the way, he said I was not going to play the next day so we went to a brothel for a few drinks and had a good laugh as we knocked back a few whiskies, the drink favoured by the official. We ended up taking the bait and went upstairs with a couple of birds and got into a room with two and began getting our money’s worth. He was on one bed while I was on other when, all of a sudden, his hooker started yelling, ‘No … no … too big!’ He jumped off the bed and shouted, ‘What kind of a fucking knocking shop is this?’
Before he pissed off he told me to come with him but we had paid up front so I told him I’d see him back at the hotel. Once I got back, he had a right strop on and was calling me all sorts. The following day, he had sorted it so I had to play as pay-back for me getting my money’s worth and him losing his.
A few of us quite often frequented a local brothel after training where we could buy some booze, talk to the birds, have a sauna and, if needs must, have a dabble with the girls. One of them came downstairs after being with one of the lads saying that she had never had such a treat in her life, although I believe she still charged my well-endowed team-mate full price!
We also used to visit a mixed sauna, but you had to wear swimming gear. One day, I got talking to a girl for about half-an-hour and I hinted I was off for a shower and she took the wink and followed me. We were soon bang at it but got a bit noisy and some of the older guests weren’t very happy about it. A few minutes later, we were politely asked to leave and told never to come back.
Back on the road, I was driving as usual without a licence having had a few drinks with my team-mate Les Philips. One night, we had a couple of birds in the back of the car and were going from pub to pub when we approached a huge roundabout in the centre of Birmingham. I asked the girl in the back for directions but she had no idea where we were going, so I got the hump and carried on going round and round this huge roundabout. Eventually, she yelled that if I did not stop she was going to jump out, so I carried on doing it. Then on the third or fourth lap the silly cow opened the door and dived out while we were still circling. I calmly carried on driving and slowed down to check if she was all right, saw that she was, so stopped and let her mate get out before we carried on to the next pub.
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