Similar to spending time with Mick, there was never a dull moment when out with Mark Dennis and his wife Jane. On one occasion, we went to a club in Solihull and had a good night but, as we were leaving, an argument began and it was Jane instead of Mark fighting as she ploughed into three girls. Jane could fight like a man and floored the biggest one when she kicked her in the groin. I heard the bone crack and the girl fell to the floor, so we left rather quickly.
On another occasion we were at Mark’s house for a party with a few players and he had an English bull terrier called Charlie. The music was playing yet we still heard a loud, screeching, high-pitched sound. Jane opened the back door to see what was going on only to find out that the noise was coming from next door’s cat that Charlie had just ripped to shreds. The next-door neighbour then naturally went mental, so we left the party just as Mark and Jane started fighting, which, like I said, was the same as two men going at it with each other.
Alan Curbishley was a quiet bloke but he had a brother-in-law who managed The Who. Curbs sorted us all out with tickets and, prior to the gig, we were taken backstage for drinks and to meet the band. The dressing room was full of the usual birds and drink but I noticed a table covered in funny-looking ‘Smarties’ which was an eye-opener for us all. Curbs’ brother-in-law asked whether I’d like to go out on stage for a look and it was amazing. In a football ground, even when it’s a full house, the fans are on four sides of you; here there were literally thousands of people just staring at you and it scared me shitless. I went back to the dressing room and they were dishing the pills out; I wasn’t surprised, for if they had asked me to go on and play the triangle for 30 seconds, I’d have had to take the fuckers as well.
Despite being regarded as a crazy and fearsome group of lads, we decided to give one potential trouble spot a wide berth while on a tour in Peru. We had been given a day off training and a group of us went for a walk to a very busy, open-air market. As we were nosing about looking at various stalls full of junk, I felt a sharp pain around my neck and shouted out to Keith Birchen who was nearby to help me. My solid gold chain with the letter ‘P’ hanging from it had gone and there was blood all over my hand where I had felt my neck.
My first reaction was that some fucker had cut me, so we all went back to the hotel where I looked in the mirror to find I had three deep cuts around my neck. I got the club physio to clean it up and it was not as bad as it had looked. It was a very shady place with no end of dark passageways and, by now, it was pitch dark, so despite being somewhat crazy, we decided we were not crazy enough to go looking for the thief who had yanked my chain. Literally!
OUT OF THE BLUE … AND OVER THE MOON
So Birmingham were back in the Second Division but our season had got off to a flyer as we won five on the trot before losing at home to Pompey in a feisty mid-week encounter. We always had a day off after a game so, on the Thursday, we assembled in training and were gathered in the usual circle chatting and flicking the ball about waiting for the gaffer to show and begin the inquest into our recent defeat. After about half-an-hour, we were getting restless; the boss was never usually late but, eventually, Ron turned up and told us all to listen carefully as he had just come from a meeting with the club chairman and unfortunately two players had to leave the club immediately.
We all looked at each other in shock. There had been a clear-out pre-season and we all thought that was the end of it as some of the snippets that had appeared in the press about the reputation some of us had in and around town were directed at a couple of the lads shipped out in the summer. Although we had dropped a division, it did not have the same impact as it does today. The wages players were on in the 1980s weren’t massive and were manageable even when most clubs suffered relegation.
There was no major TV money keeping clubs afloat; ITV or BBC showed the odd game and probably paid a couple of grand for the privilege. Home gates maybe dropped by a couple of thousand, but sponsorship deals with some local brewery or car dealer were not dependant on top-flight football, so if players were getting transferred without asking for a move there was usually an internal issue behind it.
We stood in the circle and most of us had our heads bowed. I don’t think any of us were unhappy at the club; of course, we wanted to be playing in Division One, as it was then, but we had got off to a great start and were favourites in many quarters to go straight back up.
Ron got straight to the point and blamed the fact that he had to sell players on the dire financial situation the club was in. To this day, I have no idea if he was telling the truth or covering up the fact that the men in suits were unhappy with our so-called ‘behaviour’ in town.
He looked at Kevin Dillon and said, ‘Watford have come in for you and we have accepted their offer of £250,000 – get your stuff, you’re out of here!’ It was ruthless and Kev just turned and walked back to the changing rooms in total shock. Saunders then looked directly at me and I thought, ‘Oh fuck!’
I loved it at Birmingham; I was playing every week, had settled into a nice house and, although the Magnificent Seven were down to the last couple, I saw that as a chance to put down some roots with my fiancée Susan. Something else I wondered was: who the fuck wants to sign me? It seemed that whoever they were, refusing to join them was not an option. I just took a deep breath and preyed that whoever had put an offer in for me were not in a lower league than Birmingham, or even a poxy club that I knew I would not want to join.
Saunders just pointed at me and said, ‘You … we have accepted an offer of £90,000 … from Everton Football Club …’
He probably said a bit more along the lines of ‘we are sorry to lose you …’ etc., but I never heard a word of it. My head was buzzing – Everton Football Club, the FA Cup Winners, playing in Europe, a massive club who were in with a chance of winning the Championship. I was off to the dressing room to pack my stuff before Saunders called me back and told me I was to go straight home as Howard Kendall was going to phone me within the hour.
I had watched Everton win the FA Cup on TV just a few months earlier when they beat Watford 2–0. I believed that was a final we could have been in but for John Barnes and Nigel Callahan tearing us apart in the quarter-final. Both those wingers had been marked out of the game by the two Everton full-backs at Wembley so I began to wonder what the fuck they wanted me for.
I rushed home and told Susan the good news. I’m not sure she saw it that way, as she had not long joined me in the Midlands having recently moved up from London where she had lived all her life. Now she would have to pack her bags and move again to Merseyside and, although it may seem selfish, I never discussed it with her. I basically told her we were going. Had she said she didn’t want to, I’m afraid it would have been goodbye, as this was a chance of a lifetime and there was no way on earth I was passing on it.
The phone call came and I was told to get a train to Lime Street Station where I would be met by a club official and driven to meet the manager. I was expecting to be driven to Goodison or the training ground,