After five minutes we won a corner and Jim went up to take it. Coventry cleared it, broke and won a corner of their own. It was Peter Shilton’s job to set up the defence and tell everyone who to mark, and he noticed that Jim was missing. Everyone looked round and eventually spotted him still at the other end of the pitch, where we’d had our corner, sat on a wall talking to a spectator. He was quickly subbed after that.
After games, the lads would usually end up at Jeeves nightclub, but as I’ve said, at 17 and 18 I didn’t really drink. However I do remember being talked into going out one night for a few rounds. I was living in digs and didn’t want to wake everyone at 2am so Jim said I could stay at his place. We got back there at 2.30am and Jim started cooking bacon sandwiches while I sat in the lounge. I honestly just wanted to see his medal collection because he had won just about everything in the game, except an England cap, which is unforgivable when you think of his talent. On international weeks at Liverpool he’d be training all on his own. Everyone else would be with England and Scotland, etc. He was different class and I just wanted to see his championship medal because I had never seen one. I was stood looking at his trophy cabinet when his wife Lana came downstairs to see who’d woken her up.
JIM KEPT GOINGALL NIGHT. HISBREATH WASSTILL REEKING OFALCOHOL WHENTHE GAMEKICKED OFF ANDHE’D HARDLYHAD ANY SLEEP.
She had a bit of a go at Jim and I thought I was going to be in the middle of a domestic when she started having a go at me. She said, ‘What do you think you are doing?’ I stammered, ‘Jim said I could stay here…’ She hit back, ‘No, I mean what d’you think you are doing trying to keep up with Jim? You’ve got no chance.’ She packed me off to bed and warned me never to try that again. I was woken by the sound and smell of Jim cooking a full fry-up including eggs from the geese he kept in his garden.
For such a hard-tackling, harddrinking player Jimmy was very domesticated. On away trips he’d look after the whole team on the coach, making cups of tea and plates of toast. He was really happy doing it. Here was this senior pro, a real big name in the game who was happy to be the waiter. He also looked after his training kit. Most of the lads just chucked it on the floor to be cleared up by the apprentices but Jim always folded his up neatly. He was brilliant like that but very different when he’d had a few.
It was quite an eye-opener for a naïve young lad who had grown up on Guernsey with something of a sheltered upbringing. I don’t think the wives were particularly pleased about these trips but it did us good to relax in a different country, and that togetherness played a huge part in keeping Saints in the top flight. We weren’t the most talented team but we had a real bond and spirit which got us through a lot of matches. You certainly couldn’t have a conversation without one of the lads taking the mickey. If you said something stupid, you instantly panicked wondering if anyone else would pick up on it, and invariably they did. Equally, there was a time and a place for it—which took me time to learn. I was always ready with a cheeky quip but it wasn’t always appreciated. These trips were brilliant for banter and team spirit. And of course we went right OTT.
I remember when we almost got chucked out of the prestigious five-star Dona Filipa hotel on the Algarve. Why we went to a luxurious hotel during the season I’ll never know. It was full of really posh people dressed smartly for dinner while we were in shorts and T-shirts, larking around and getting drunk. There were several complaints about us so the hotel manager summoned Dennis Rofe who called a team meeting for 8.30am, which we thought was a bit unreasonable as we’d only just got in. We had no idea what was going on.
Dennis read the riot act and said the hotel manager was on the verge of throwing us out but he’d managed to talk him into giving us one last chance, and we had to be on our best behaviour or we were out. There was suddenly quite a sombre mood but I didn’t pick up on it because I hadn’t sobered up and piped up, ‘I thought if you were calling a meeting at 8.30 in the morning, it must be for something serious.’ Dennis had a face like thunder.
Generally Rofey was good value on tour, mucking in with the lads. As first-team coach he was a kind of bridge between the players and manager, someone for us to moan to or laugh with. He was popular with the fans too because he had Saints running through him, despite the fact that the club sacked him three times. The first time was when Chris Nicholl got sacked in 1991. The board assumed that the new manager would arrive with a ready-made coaching team, but that wasn’t the case. Ian Branfoot came solo so there was absolutely no reason for Rofey to go. Dave Merrington brought him back as youth team coach in July 1995, but he was sacked again a year later when Graeme Souness came in as manager and brought in his own team of coaches, most of whom weren’t a patch on Dennis, who returned for a third spell in April 1998. He was appointed as Academy coach but worked his way up through the Reserves to regain his position as first-team coach in March 2001. But he was sacked again in December 2005 following the appointment of George Burley who discarded most of the coaching staff. It was Rofe justice (OK, OK) because all the players and fans liked him, especially because he wore his trademark T-shirt on the touchline even when it was freezing in midwinter. He’d even had a stint at the club as a half-time pitch announcer, winding up the crowd to get behind the team, cracking jokes and even singing.
He fancied himself as a bit of a crooner and never hesitated to lead a sing song when he’d had a few. I remember a pre-season tour of Sweden and, after the final game, the host club laid on a dinner and drinks in a Wild West barn. There was a bucking bronco which all the lads tried, the beer flowed and Dennis got up on stage to sing a few Roy Orbison numbers before delivering a thank-you speech. Dennis thought it would be a nice touch to finish by thanking them in their native tongue but made the mistake of asking our midfielder, Anders Svensson, to tell him the Swedish for ‘Thank you and good luck.’ Dennis could never quite understand the lack of applause as he actually told them to kiss an intimate part of the female anatomy. Stunned silence all round.
Then there was the time we almost ended the career of one of England’s greatest ever strikers before it had begun. It was 1989 on a close-season trip to Portugal and Micky Adams, Neil ‘Razor’ Ruddock and Barry Horne had been partying quite hard, ending up with Micky and ‘Razor’ having a punch-up even though they were best mates. They were thick as thieves but the punches were flying and I remember thinking it wasn’t a fair fight looking at the size of them. But Micky, who’s maybe 5ft 6in, could take care of himself; not for nothing was he known as Fusey because of his short temper. Anyway, everything quickly calmed down and I went back to my room while they resumed drinking until they had emptied their own mini-bars, and that’s when they went looking for someone else’s. Alan Shearer’s.
WHICH BRINGSME TO ANDYCOOK AND HISBIZARRE SEX-SPECTATORINJURY ON AMID-SEASONBREAK…
Alan wasn’t a big drinker so they decided there would be plenty of booze left in his fridge. He was relaxing in the bath as they burst into his room. ‘Razor’ emptied a bottle of vodka over Alan while Barry picked up his mini-bar and ran off with it down the corridor—as you do! Of course Alan jumped out of the bath and gave chase, unfortunately there were a load of glasses on top of the mini-bar and, as Barry raced off, they all smashed on the floor. Alan had nothing on his feet and as he ran through the shards of broken glass he practically severed three of his toes. They were cut to the bone and almost hanging off. Everyone sobered up pretty quick when they saw that. It is no exaggeration to say his career was hanging as precariously as his toes.
The only one sober enough to drive was a young lad called Steve Davis who went on to have a decent career as a player and coach with Burnley. He drove Alan to this primitive hospital where he was left in an A&E in a bed with no curtains beside an assortment of car crash and broken leg victims. Thankfully a doctor managed to sew the toes back on and no lasting damage was done, but I often wonder if he realized who he was treating and what a favour he did England.
Which brings me to Andy Cook and his bizarre sex-spectator injury on a mid-season break. We were staying at a hotel and one of the single lads brought a girl back to his room but