Bend It Like Bullard Read online

  Brownie had a massive amount of self-belief, which some people confused with arrogance. He wanted to manage the best teams in the Premier League and maybe even manage his country one day. I admired that, because you have to have a dream and you need belief. If I hadn’t believed, I’d have probably still been playing non-league.

  The club wanted to give it a massive effort in the Premier League and it almost worked. Don’t forget, when I joined they were halfway through their first-ever season in the English top flight and they managed to survive, which itself was a decent achievement.

  Unfortunately, getting injured in my first game for Hull was definitely not part of all those big plans for the club or myself. By the time I was playing again, the highs of staying up the previous season were a distant memory as it became clear that another relegation scrap was on the cards.

  One thing I’ll never forget though was the gaffer’s celebrations when Hull stayed up.

  Although I was out of action doing my rehab, I was still at the KC Stadium on the last day of the season in 2009 when all we had to do was beat Man United to stay up. If only football was that simple.

  United had actually done us a favour by naming an understrength starting line-up for the game because they were due to play Barcelona in the Champions League final a few days later. I was sitting a few rows behind the bench with Ian Ashbee and our job was to keep the gaffer updated with the scores from the other games which could affect us. Newcastle were our main threat and were playing at Aston Villa, while Middlesbrough stood an outside chance of catching us if they could beat West Ham.

  We were on a poor run of ten games without a win and it showed as we didn’t play very well at all. Darron Gibson put United ahead and for fourteen minutes, we were going down. I could hardly watch as the thought of returning to the Championship after injury was not exactly appealing.

  But then Newcastle went a goal down at Villa and a huge roar went around the stadium. There was no need for me to tell Brownie anything. He knew.

  The last ten or fifteen minutes were agonising as we were relying on Newcastle not scoring at Villa to stay up. They didn’t let us down and, even though we also lost, we were going to be back in the Premier League the following season. And that was a major relief to everyone – especially the manager and chairman.

  The gaffer congratulated all the players and sent them off to the changing room, where Ian and I also went to join in the celebrations – and share the relief.

  There was a great atmosphere in there, but someone was missing. We looked around and nobody knew where Brownie was, but we could hear a noise coming from the PA system in the stadium. Incredibly, none of the fans had left and the gaffer was on the pitch, microphone in hand, leading a sing-along.

  First up, he started chanting ‘We are staying up!’ and everyone joined in. Then he went for the Hull fans’ version of the Beach Boys’ song ‘Sloop John B’, which saw him yelling, ‘Don’t wanna go hoooooome, this is the best trip I’ve ever been on!’ causing the local stray dogs to all start howling in unison.

  Maybe that was a bit harsh, because I thought he deserved his moment. A lot of people might look at it and think, ‘What on earth is this lunatic up to?’ but Brownie had worked miracles to get the club into the Premier League and keep them there.

  Afterwards, I couldn’t resist asking him what his thinking was behind the stunt and he told me that the fans had been singing at him all season so he thought it was only fair to sing back to them.

  He got absolutely slaughtered by the media for it, which I thought was out of order. So what if he did that? Who gives a shit? It’s not like he’s grabbed a fan by the neck or something. Yes, he’s a bit nuts and a bit out there, but so what?

  I got on well with the gaffer as he realised I was a bit, er, ‘special’. Once I was up and about again after my injury, he could see what I was like and let me go fishing or for a round of golf, as he knew I needed to do something if I wasn’t playing football. He understood my frustration at being part of the England set-up one moment, and then lying on a treatment table the next. He could also see that I was a bit of a freak. He was watching us play darts in the dressing room one day, and I banged in a 180 – he looked at me as if to say, ‘That can’t be right.’

  But then he didn’t know about my childhood at West Lodge – which was why soon after that 180, I was knocking up sixty or seventy breaks when we all played snooker, too. You never lose those abilities you learn as a kid.

  ‘You’re not wired right, are you?’ he’d often say to me.

  ‘No, not really,’ I’d shrug back.

  Within a couple of days of Brown’s departure, Iain Dowie was appointed gaffer until the end of the season and it didn’t start well for him or us, as we let slip a lead with two minutes left at Portsmouth, and ended up losing by the odd goal in five. It all boiled down to a crucial home game against Sunderland where we had to win to have any chance of staying up – even if we had done so, there were still two games left after that one to negotiate.

  The afternoon started badly when Darren Bent put Sunderland ahead after just seven minutes and it never got any better. In fact, for me, it would become a whole lot worse.

  Later in the first half, we were handed a lifeline when our former player Michael Turner fouled Geovanni in the box and the ref gave us a penalty. As usual, I took the ball, but something wasn’t quite right.

  I’d never taken a penalty and thought I was going to miss at any point in my career. Of course, I’d missed the odd spot-kick before but I always backed myself to score.

  Until that moment.

  I stepped up having scored all four of my previous penalties for Hull. The problem was, Sunderland had Craig Gordon in goal, an absolute beast of a man, who must’ve been about seven feet tall – or so I thought.

  As I placed the ball on the spot, he stood a couple of yards off the goal line and spread out his arms as wide as possible.

  Oh God.

  I looked up and there might as well have been a flipping T-Rex in goal. I couldn’t see the net or the posts he was so big. I told myself the only chance I had of scoring was to stick it right in the corner and even then there were no guarantees.

  Gordon moved back on to his line as I ran up to take the pen, but it made no difference to my mental state. I’d been defeated before I’d even started my run-up so it was no surprise when I saw the ball cannon off the outside of the post and away to safety. I had doubted myself and that was my undoing.

  Even worse, the fans were slightly disappointed. Which is the understatement of the century. They absolutely slaughtered and hounded me for the rest of the half until Dowie took pity on me and subbed me at half time.

  Injuries aside, I can’t think of a worse experience I’ve had on a football pitch – and I include the countless times I was mistaken for a girl while playing parks football as a kid. I then had to come back out to watch us struggle through the second half to no avail as we lost 1-0 to confirm our fate.

  We were down. For the first time in my career, I experienced relegation and it didn’t taste particularly good.

  The weird thing about relegation is that it is such a gradual experience. It’s not like someone burst into the dressing room one day and informed us out of the blue that we were being relegated, so it didn’t knock us sideways with shock. We had all been aware that it was on the cards. When it finally happened, it was quite tough to handle, especially for the boys like Ian Ashbee and Andy Dawson, who had worked so hard to climb up the leagues with Hull and get them to their Promised Land. Andy, one of the hardest blokes I’ve ever played with, was in tears while Ian and Paul McShane were both devastated. I just wanted to get out of there as soon as possible.

  I didn’t know it then, but I’d played my last Premier League game. After all the hard work to get there, it was over after five years and three serious knee injuries. And what a way to go out – missing a penalty and getting jeered by your own fans. Fortunately, I had some other decen
t memories tucked away.

  None of that was on my mind at the time, though. What I was actually thinking was that it wasn’t the end of the world. We were all still footballers, we would still be playing at a decent level in the Championship in front of thousands of supporters every week. Someone had to go down and it was us – now we had to work hard to get back into the Premier League, which was where we all wanted to be.

  Unfortunately, the club didn’t quite see it the same way. They didn’t want a £45,000 per week player on their payroll in the Championship. That was made quite clear to me by the new chairman Adam Pearson, who told me he would prefer it if I went out on loan to help ease the financial burden of relegation.

  I understood where he was coming from so I told him I’d be happy to do that as long as the move suited me and my family. Diane was pregnant again so it was important to me that we’d be settled somewhere that didn’t necessarily involve travelling here, there and everywhere. He seemed to understand my needs and I went off on holiday to the Algarve before pre-season was due to start.

  While I was there, Pearson phoned me to tip me off that I should expect a call from Celtic manager Neil Lennon. That was certainly a bolt from the blue, but I went with it. Neil duly got in touch to invite me over to his villa as he also happened to be holidaying nearby. Think you can ever get away from football? No chance.

  So I went over to Neil’s place – lovely gaff, by the way – and he asked me if I’d like to play for Celtic on loan.

  Neil filled me in on the details. It turned out that Hull had made an agreement with Celtic behind my back where both clubs would pay part of my wages, although that total amount was short of the sum my contract clearly stated I should be paid. That set the alarm bells ringing straight away. I couldn’t understand how they could have come to this arrangement without me.

  I told Neil that I’d love to come and play for him, but that I would need to have a proper look at the contract first. I wanted to buy myself a bit of time to make sure I wasn’t getting stitched up. I also told Neil that it wouldn’t be solely my decision as I had a family and another child on the way.

  When I returned to Hull for pre-season, the new manager Nigel Pearson (no relation to Adam) told me I should go up to Glasgow, have a look around at the set-up and then make a decision on whether I wanted to move. So off I went to Scotland for a few days. Everything about the club was amazing and if I had been a single man, I wouldn’t have had to think very hard; I would’ve signed the day I got there.

  But I had other responsibilities so I wanted to take my time. Celtic had kindly got me tickets to the Scottish Open golf tournament which was being played nearby at Loch Lomond, so I spent two days there watching the golf, feeling right at home.

  And while I was there, I came to a decision and that was to return to Hull, for a variety of reasons.

  The most appealing reason to join Celtic would’ve been the possibility of playing Champions League football. That would have been amazing. But I had no interest in playing in the Scottish Premier League every week.

  On top of that, I didn’t want to leave England because of my family situation at the time. I’d already become a dad to Archie and my daughter, Beau, was about to join us – being a parent made me think differently about big career decisions. Plus, there was also the fact that I was going to be worse off financially. I don’t know anyone who would’ve taken that lying down.

  I got back to Hull and that decision went down like a shit sandwich, with extra shit on the side. The chairman went mental and told me that I’d led Hull and Celtic on by spending four days up there and then not signing for them. Which was nonsense because the gaffer had told me to take my time.

  Adam Pearson was quite rude to me, but I gave as good as I got – I had to leave the whole football thing to one side for a minute, because I wouldn’t have anybody talking to me the way he had. I thought they were taking advantage of me and warned him not to mistake my kindness for a weakness.

  It wasn’t really about the money in any case. If the move had been right, I would’ve taken the hit on a few grand a week. I just didn’t want to move to Celtic at that stage of my career and life.

  Hull really didn’t like it, but my attitude was simple; they signed me to play for them, but now they didn’t want me. There was little point having a go at me about that and pressurising me. That was only making the situation worse.

  Looking back on it, I massively regret not joining Celtic as it was such a fantastic opportunity, but I had so many other things going on at the time that I couldn’t see the wood for the trees.

  Unfortunately, the whole episode triggered the unhappiest few months of my career as the club decided to take a harsh stand against me because I wouldn’t bow to their pressure.

  Instead of rubbishing my name and making me look really bad in the press, what I didn’t get is why nobody from the club tried to renegotiate my contract with me if it was such a major burden for them? That would have been the sensible thing to do if you were running a football club.

  But I didn’t think Adam Pearson ran that club particularly well, especially when it came to paying me.

  For three months after we got relegated, all the players were on a thirty per cent deferral of wages each month to help the club out after relegation. After those three months, everyone got paid in full. Well everyone, that is, except me. I stayed on a deferral for a couple of months extra, purely due to the size of my contract, which was completely unjust.

  I had a meeting with the chairman and the financial consultant who had been brought in to advise Pearson on dealing with relegation, and both of them admitted they’d been wrong to do that, yet nothing was subsequently done about it.

  At that point, I was completely fed up with football. The only person from the club who offered to help me was Ian Ashbee, who gave me a couple of people to phone for advice. Apart from him, not a soul did a thing and I lost all respect for the chairman and Nigel Pearson, who was being really weird with me.

  When I came back from Scotland, I’d asked Nigel if I’d be able to play, but he said it would be quite difficult and my best option would be to try to get out on loan. So I asked him what would happen if the season started and I couldn’t get out on loan. He said that we’d see.

  What he meant by that was that I wouldn’t be anywhere near the team, because every time I stepped on to the pitch Hull were contractually obliged to pay me £5,000 – at least that was my interpretation of it anyway.

  Not only was I not playing, I was also made to train with the reserves and youth team to make me feel even less wanted. There was a clear message coming from the club. I’d heard about these kind of things happening to other players and now it was happening to me.

  The season back in the second tier started badly for Hull as they took four points from their first five games. Believe it or not, the fans who had booed me on that awful day back in April, were now calling for me to play. And I thought I was playing in one match when I saw my name at the bottom of the squad sheet which was posted on the notice board one Friday.

  I was pleasantly surprised and really looking forward to it as I’d been itching to get on the pitch. For all the shenanigans that had been going on off the pitch, all I wanted to do was go and do my thing on the pitch. I’d missed enough games through injury, and now I was missing them when I was one hundred per cent fit, which made the whole situation twice as frustrating.

  So I turned up at the KC in my club tracksuit the following day at 1.45pm, which is when we always arrived for a 3pm kick-off. I walked into the stadium and was about to go into the changing room but Nigel Pearson was standing by the door.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he asked me.

  ‘I saw my name was on the squad list …’ I replied.

  ‘No, you’re not in it today.’

  Perfect. Just what I needed. There was absolutely no need for me to suffer that indignity on top of everything else. I stayed to watch the game and lend my suppor
t to the boys, but I didn’t hang around afterwards.

  Then, a couple of weeks later, I saw my name on the list for a midweek home game against Derby. ‘Here we go again,’ I thought when I arrived at the ground for the match.

  But this time, I walked straight into the changing room and was told I was starting the game. I couldn’t wait to get out there and didn’t let the opportunity slip as I played pretty well in a solid home win. Out of nowhere, without so much as a single word about it from the gaffer, I was back in the team for the next few games and then, just as mysteriously, I was out of it. Not on the bench, just completely frozen out.

  Once again, I had to sit tight and bite my lip. I’d almost worn straight through it by the time I was next called into action two months later for a Boxing Day game at Sheffield United.

  This time, I was on the bench and came on to score an injury-time winner. The lads were all buzzing when we got back into the changing room and so was I as it had been a while since I scored – I’d almost forgotten how to celebrate.

  Nigel Pearson came into the room and the buzz quietened down as he spoke to us about the game. He picked out a couple of boys for praise and then he turned to me and said: ‘I think you could work a bit harder on the pitch, you need to run a bit more.’

  Blimey. I was only on the pitch for about half-an-hour and I scored the winning goal. There was no need for the gaffer to criticise me like that in front of all the boys. It just felt so spiteful.

  Despite that run-in, I was given a few more appearances as we moved into the new year, which was Hull’s way of showing other clubs I was fit and available to be taken on loan. It always boiled down to money. If Hull could get me off their wage bill, someone upstairs would get a pat on the back for doing a good job for the business. Make no mistake, that’s why I was back in the squad again.