Bend It Like Bullard Read online

  My talent was not just confined to south-east London – when I was four we went to Leysdown-on-Sea on holiday and I used a beer crate to stand on so I could reach the pool table, which drew the attention of plenty of interested punters. I would say I beat allcomers, but I let one or two win as I didn’t want any trouble.

  My little six-by-three-feet snooker table at home was far easier to reach as that was laid on the floor. That kept me busy for hours and the practice must have paid off as I managed a century break when I was in my teens (it was 102, trivia fans).

  Darts also came naturally to me. I may not have been Phil Taylor but I was good enough to rule the oche at West Lodge every Friday night. Everyone paid a few quid to enter the weekly contest and the winner took home £40. I was fourteen and I was taking that money home with me every week. It got to the point where people would ask if I was playing before they entered the competition – and if they were told I was, they wouldn’t bother.

  Fishing was another passion of mine and it still is. From the age of seven or eight, I’d spend hours on the river banks watching other people fish, trying to pick up tips. I knew that I’d learn more from watching others than fishing myself at that stage.

  I must’ve cost my old man a fortune though as not only was he paying £12 for me to attend the fishing club every week, but in my eagerness to see how other people did it, I was always tripping over their rods and breaking them because I was a clumsy sod; and my dad would always replace the gear I broke.

  I didn’t realise it at the time, but fishing gave me an amazing sanctuary away from all the temptations on offer to bored kids. All my mates – and most normal kids – had their dossing places where they’d just hang out and do what kids do. Some of them would be outside the chippy or McDonald’s, while the bigger lads would even be in the pub trying to convince the barman they were eighteen, when some of their voices hadn’t even broken.

  Me? I was always down the River Cray on my own. Generally speaking, I hated being on my own and still do, but being by the water always made me feel good. Even now, whenever I see a stretch of water, I feel calmed by it and try to work out how I’d fish it.

  But for everything I learned about rods, reels and bait by the river, the most important thing I picked up was confirmation that my hair looked great.

  My angling idol was Jan Porter, a fishing competition champion and huge character of the sport. I didn’t know Jan but I’d seen pictures of him in the fishing magazines I used to spend hours reading. He probably stood out a mile as he always wore bright red and had long, flowing blond hair crawling down his back. I too sported a wonderful white-blond mullet, although calling it a mullet probably doesn’t do it justice. My hair was seriously long. So long that people had to look twice at me to work out what I was. Yes, what I was.

  Often when I played football, I’d hear the other team making comments like ‘They’ve got a girl on their team and she ain’t half good’.

  Once, my uncle and I were larking around in the grounds of the convent school that backed on to my parents’ house. It was a hot day so I took my shirt off to cool down, only for one of the nuns to come over and say to my uncle, ‘Would you mind telling your daughter to put her top on?’

  Before my hair had taken on a life of its own, I had looked like a small boy. And at the age of seven, my mum decided that my blond hair and saintly smile would give me a good shot at landing the dream role of the Milkybar Kid. She wasn’t wrong. Hundreds of kids auditioned but I made it down to the final six.

  Although I loved playing to a crowd when I was older, I wasn’t the most confident in those situations at that age and I was shitting myself as I waited to go on stage and do my bit in front of the Milkybar Kid selection panel. I was more or less dragged out there as one of the casting crew took my hand. Then it was time for me to deliver.

  ‘My name’s Jimmy from Bexleyheath,’ I said as loudly and clearly as I could. Followed by the killer line: ‘The Milkybars are on me!’

  A completely different future beckoned at that moment; a future where people would shout ‘The Milkybars are on me’ at me in the street every day, instead of something about Duncan Ferguson or Soccer AM.

  But it wasn’t to be – the kid who went after me got the gig and I was left to pick up the shards of my shattered dreams and become a professional footballer instead. Tough break.

  I cried Milkybar tears when I narrowly missed out on the role as I took any defeat personally; the only times I never cried loser’s tears were on the golf course or in the boxing ring.

  For three years between the ages of eight and eleven – I told you I played a lot of sport – I was schooled in the noble art of boxing; keep your guard up, wait to make your move, respect your opponent.

  But when it came to my first fight I couldn’t wait to get out of my corner. I practically sprinted to the boy I was up against and took the biggest swing at him possible. I wanted to knock his head off, but instead I missed, went arse over tit and knocked myself over.

  It wasn’t the most glorious start to my fighting career, but things improved a few years later on my street. My younger brother John and I were being hassled by a couple of older and far bigger boys who lived nearby. John was no shrinking violet and we ended up scrapping with these lads – I say we, but my brother did most of the scrapping and sorted the pair of them out. The lads’ mother was far from happy with the state of her kids and called the police to complain.

  John and I had run back home and told our mum breathlessly, ‘Mum, the lady’s going to get the police because we bashed her kids up.’

  Showing all of her true Eastender spirit, she told us not to worry about it. This was her fight now so we retreated to the living room, knowing we had strength and justice on our side.

  Sure enough, the Old Bill knocked on the door shortly afterwards. My mum answered and told the police she knew why they were there. She invited the coppers into the living room and they asked to speak to the lads who’d been in the fight.

  ‘It’s them!’ explained my mother, causing the coppers to do a double take as they eyed us up and down properly for the first time.

  ‘You’re telling me they beat those bigger kids up?’ asked one of them.

  ‘They didn’t beat them up,’ my mum informed the policeman. ‘They stood up for themselves.’

  There was no way a couple of skinny runts like us could get in trouble for beating up two bigger kids. And luckily, that’s how the police also saw it.

  ‘I don’t know what to say,’ said the copper as he and his colleague began to leave the premises. Job done.

  When I wasn’t boxing (in or out of the club), being mistaken for a girl, playing pool, darts or fishing, I could always be found on the green in front of our house playing football.

  I knew every bump of that patch of grass where I’d play with mates or on my own. It didn’t bother me either way.

  The only time I wouldn’t be there would be when I was called in for tea by my mum through the open window that looked out on to the green so she could keep an eye on me. I would then race into the house, wolf down my supper as fast as humanly possible, then sprint back out on to the green to carry on playing. And because of that, throughout my career I was always happier playing on a full stomach. It just felt right to me and I’d always make sure I ate something substantial quite close to a game.

  Luckily, although my parents were strict with me, I was always allowed to have something to eat if I was hungry. Not that you’d have known it by my size – I was a skinny little thing who was always about three years behind other players my age in terms of physical development. Which meant I was always trying to prove myself right up until I made it into the Premier League.

  It all started when I was six and my dad took over as coach of the local YMCA team. My old man was a football man through and through, although he’d never played professionally. He’d played for district and county teams as a right winger, he’d gone to school with Frank Lampard Sr an
d was coached by Harry Redknapp and John Bond.

  He was old school in his approach and as we got older he’d employ some questionable coaching methods. We trained on Thursdays and, because we were kids, we just wanted to play. But he had other ideas, most of them starting and finishing with running. He would even make us run through stinging nettles. As we all pissed and moaned, he yelled, ‘Run through ’em!’

  If he coached kids like that today, he’d end up in prison.

  But for all that, he drove me and inspired me to become a footballer. He was always convinced I was going to make it as a pro and his confidence in me gave me huge amounts of self-belief on the pitch. In one game against Crayford Arrows, I gave away a penalty. I was absolutely livid and my eyes filled with tears.

  Through a mixture of aggravation, determination and belief, I soon made up for my mistake.

  The ball was rolled back to me from the resulting kick-off and, with tears still in my eyes, I struck it as hard as I could from inside my own half. Suddenly the other team were screaming at their goalkeeper to get back on his line but he would have been wasting his time as the ball sailed straight over his head and into the net. Apparently, David Beckham tried the same thing a few years later down the road at Selhurst Park but that’s probably just one of those urban myths you hear about.

  Despite my skinny legs, I had a hell of a kick on me, the hardest in my team apart from my mate Richard Dimmock. But then he was one of those kids who had a beard when he was ten so that was hardly a fair comparison.

  I also played centre-back even though I was smaller than most of the other kids. I loved mixing it with bigger lads although it soon became a boring job as our team was thrashing everyone else and I barely got a kick all game.

  I nagged my dad for ages to move me into midfield and he finally agreed – it was the best decision he or I ever made.

  Playing in the middle of the park was also much more in keeping with my footballing idols. As a kid, Paul Gascoigne was the English player I looked up to the most and styled my game on. The 1990 World Cup made a big impression on me and Gazza was the star of that show. That was the point where I started to understand football far better and he remained England’s best player for a few years after that, so was always someone I’d try to learn from – on the pitch.

  I also loved George Best as a kid even though his playing days had long since finished by the time I was growing up. My old man always told me what a fantastic player he was – Bestie, not my dad – and whenever old footage of him was shown on the telly, I always used to watch him and marvel at his ridiculous skill.

  One Saturday morning when I was a little bit older, my old man was watching the telly when he called out to me: ‘Jim, you’ve got to see this player.’

  I looked up from whatever I was doing – most probably reading a fishing magazine – and he said again: ‘Come and watch this boy play. His name’s Zeezee Zouzou, or something like that.’

  I sat down next to him and watched this extraordinary player with a hell of an engine and the most amazing balance on the ball (as pointed out by my dad).

  Zinedine Zidane became a big idol of mine as I got older. I tried to copy him on the pitch – although thankfully I never nutted anyone – by controlling the ball in exactly the same way as he did. I even got a pair of his boots to be like him even though we were completely different physiques and I never stood a chance of being anything like him. I believed I was like him and that was enough to help me progress.

  The other player I tried to copy was Juan Román Riquelme, also one of the major foreign stars of the time. We were a similar age, but he’d been playing for Boca Juniors since he was eighteen, eventually moving to Barcelona, then playing for Villarreal.

  Riquelme is one of those players who just has pure talent. A naturally gifted bloke who scores some outrageous goals thanks to his pure football ability. I always remember one game where he ran the show for Boca against Real Madrid in the 2000 Intercontinental Cup. He was only twenty-two and his skill was frightening.

  My progress was slightly slower although by the time I was ten, despite all the other sporting distractions, football had become the most important thing in my life, even overtaking fishing – but I kept the Jan Porter haircut.

  I played for Millwall boys between the ages of ten and thirteen and I also represented Kent schools, district and county teams. My size and shape meant I was never actually on the books of a professional club when I was in my teens. But I was still playing against some of the best young players in the district – I once came up against Bobby Zamora, who played against my YMCA team for Senrab, where many future stars started out.

  I took a step up when I started playing youth football for Corinthian FC in a Kent youth league, who were coached by former Charlton goalkeeper Nicky Johns. By the time I was sixteen, I’d managed to break through into the club’s first team, which meant playing on Saturday afternoons. When I finished playing, I used to work at Tony’s Fish and Chips in Crayford High Street.

  I’d peel potatoes for five hours every Saturday evening, while my mates were on the streets doing goodness knows what. I was at the age when blokes start getting into stuff that perhaps they shouldn’t. All I was into was chips – but they were unbelievable chips.

  Take away the cab fare to and from the chippy from the £15 I was earning and it almost cost my parents money for me to work there. But they wanted me to understand the importance of working so I would always appreciate becoming a footballer if and when that might happen.

  After my football and fish ’n’ chip shift on a Saturday, I’d be up early on a Sunday morning to play again for the Corinthian youth team – you can get away with that in your teens, especially when you’re chasing a dream.

  My dad was doing everything he could to make that dream a reality and a phone call to his cousin Tommy Taylor, who by then was the Leyton Orient manager, set up a two-week trial which would be my first taste of the professional game.

  I was sixteen years old when I turned up at Orient’s training ground. My football ability was sound but physically I was no more developed than a thirteen-year-old. And you don’t tend to get many thirteen-year-olds playing professional football.

  A game was quickly set up and I lined up alongside other youth and reserve players against the first team. I went in for a challenge with one of the Orient regulars who went straight through me and left his boot in as I lay in a heap on the ground.

  ‘Welcome to the professional game,’ I thought.

  There was no need for him to have gone in on me like that. It was a one hundred per cent liberty challenge that could have caused me damage, but it really opened my eyes and was a moment I’d never forget. What that pro was saying to me with that nasty tackle was that it doesn’t matter if you’re a trialist, a youth teamer or the manager’s cousin’s son – this is football and nobody’s going to give you anything; it’s dog eat dog. That’s the game and that’s what some players are like.

  The two weeks came and went and there was no deal for me. It was more a case of Tommy doing my dad a favour – but I’d also been done a favour as the experience toughened me up mentally and I was never as scared going into a tackle after that.

  By the time I was seventeen, I’d left school and had started working. Unsurprisingly, I wasn’t the most academic kid, but I certainly wasn’t thick either, which couldn’t be said about a fair few footballers I played with. At school, most teachers paid no attention to me when I told them that my future lay in football, rather than chemistry or geography.

  ‘Jim, do you know how many kids want to be a professional football player?’ they would say.

  ‘Yeah, I know but I really think I can do it,’ I’d reply.

  ‘Jim, give it a rest.’

  There was only one teacher who believed in me and I still have a card from Mr Marquois which says: ‘Jim, one day I know you’re going to be a professional footballer.’

  Part of me thought that most of my teache
rs were right, though. And when I got my first job laying TV cables, complete with my own van, I remember thinking I’d really cracked it in life anyway as me and my mate zipped about town.

  At that point, I signed for Dartford, a decent non-league team who offered me £30 per game. I was getting paid to play football. Well, I would’ve done if my manager Gary Julians had ever picked me to play in my favourite position.

  Gary could be a right old grumpy bastard at times but that didn’t stop one of my team-mates, Mitchell Crawley, and myself larking around whenever we could. One evening after training we were chucking things at each other in the empty car park outside the club – as you do. I lobbed something at Mitchell and then jumped straight into my motor, a huge Sierra Ghia estate car complete with towbar at the back, to escape. I switched on the engine, stuck it in reverse and slammed on the gas. As I sped round the corner, I could suddenly see the gaffer’s car behind me but it was too late and I smacked straight into his motor.

  If that wasn’t bad enough, I then tried to drive forwards but the towbar had gone straight through Gary’s passenger door and I started dragging his car along with mine!

  ‘What are you doing, you soppy git?!’ he yelled.

  We both got out of our cars and as soon as he saw Mitchell, he started blaming him, saying he might have known he’d be involved in this. Result.

  That little incident wasn’t why Julians didn’t pick me. It was the old size and shape problem rearing its head again as he felt I was getting pushed off the ball too easily in central midfield so, when I did get a game, he stuck me out on the wing.

  My dad tried to compensate for my size by making sure I was the fittest player in the team. He pushed me hard and I hated it at the time but I soon came to appreciate it as I was always the fittest player in every squad I was a part of. I used to take it for granted, but it didn’t happen by accident. It was down to bloody hard work.