Bend It Like Bullard Read online

  One of my old man’s favourite training drills – when he couldn’t find stinging nettles – was interval training. His brutal version of it, that is. He’d drive down Bourne Road and I’d be jogging along next to the car. Then, he’d hoot and accelerate and I’d have to sprint hard to catch up. Only then would he slow down. This would be repeated until I couldn’t take it anymore.

  Sometimes, he’d make me run in ankle weights to really make me suffer. But the more I suffered the fitter I became.

  Working long days laying all that cable, training twice a week with Dartford and then playing at the weekend was taking its toll so I started working with my dad, mainly in the City doing painting and decorating. I used to help rub down skirting boards, prepare walls for painting and I progressed from there, although I never hung any wallpaper – even off the pitch, I played to my strengths.

  I was earning £30 a day but I was working very hard and grafting away. I didn’t enjoy it at all, but I knew I had no choice.

  Fortunately, my old man made things easier for me on the football front. His attitude had always been fantastic. Since I was a young kid, I don’t think I can ever remember him being grumpy or in a bad mood.

  ‘Dad, surely you can’t be in a good mood every day?’ I used to ask him.

  ‘Yeaaaaah, why not?’ he’d reply.

  He just loves life and was always happy with his lot – he might work from 6am to 6pm but he would still come home happy. And I was just as delighted with his idea to give me days off whenever I had games for Dartford.

  He thought that by keeping me fresh, my performances would improve and therefore any watching scouts would see me at my best. As long as I trained in my spare time, he was happy to let me work less. Those extra hours gave me an advantage over the other semi-pro players and it is little things like that which can make a difference between those who advance to the pro game and those who don’t.

  It wasn’t just the physical side of my game that my dad was taking care of. Psychologically, he knew exactly how to handle me. Even if I’d had a poor game, he’d tell me I’d played okay. And if I was bang average, he’d say I’d played a blinder because he knew what I needed to hear.

  The fact is, as he has always told me, whenever I came off a pitch in the early days, I never really knew if I’d played well or not. Sometimes I’d come off the pitch after a big game and be awarded the man of the match and I had no idea why. Honestly, I could barely remember the game.

  I played minute to minute only focusing on what was happening at that very moment. If there was a ball to be won, I’d win it. Likewise, a corner or free kick to be taken, or a run into space to be made. My focus was intense partly because I was never the quickest player so I made up for that by trying to be the sharpest mentally and anticipating things before others. I saw the game as individual incidents of action rather than as a whole and somehow that worked for me.

  While I was playing for Dartford, there were plenty of people doubting me, not that I knew it because my dad always protected me. But he had to deal with plenty of friends and football acquaintances telling him that I wasn’t going to make it, that we’d left it too late. His standard reaction was to tell them they didn’t know what they were talking about. Of course I was going to make it. His confidence was my confidence.

  But I had doubts myself. So much so that I decided to become a fireman.

  My dad backed the plan as he thought I’d still be able to develop my football as the fire brigade had a good, amateur set-up. But I was getting fed up with not playing enough for Dartford and saw the fire brigade as a career in which I could really progress.

  I passed the fitness test with ease – it involved plenty of running which suited me fine. I even did the rat run which was probably the most terrifying experience of my life to that point. I wasn’t that strong and I was weighed down by all the fireman’s gear I was wearing and carrying while I had to scurry around a steel structure with a smokescreen glass mask on my face. The mask meant I could hardly see a thing as I looked for a dummy which I had to pull out of this maze-like structure.

  There was also a lot of noise with the firemen yelling at you to do this or that, and I couldn’t help panicking. I did it, though, which was a great feeling. The trouble was I also had to do a sit-down written test which was where I came unstuck.

  It’s hard to know what might have been had I passed that exam. It’s possible that the Premier League and all that might have never happened. Thankfully, my academic shortcomings stood me in good stead. The head of Bexley Fire Brigade invited me to try again the following year but I wasn’t able to take him up on his offer as, by then, my football career had gone mental.

  After one of my better games for Dartford in which I’d also scored, Gravesend & Northfleet manager, Andy Ford, the opposition gaffer that day, approached me straight after the game.

  He asked me if I fancied playing for his team and offered to double my wages – £60 per game seemed like a lot of money.

  And that all led to the showdown in my parents’ front room where I had to pluck up the courage to call Gary Julians and let him know I wanted to leave.

  Back then, making any phone call was a hard thing for me to do. You can’t get me off the bloody thing nowadays, but I was still young and slightly retiring then. Calling my manager to say I wanted out filled me with fear. I had to do it, though. Gravesend were playing a higher level of non-league football than Dartford, where I wasn’t playing enough in any case.

  Shaking and sweating, with my parents stood right next to me, I dialled Gary’s number.

  ‘Gary, I hope you don’t mind but I feel like I want to move on with my football and Gravesend have approached me …’ I said.

  But he did mind.

  ‘I don’t agree with that Jimmy,’ he said, sounding like he had the right hump.

  ‘Hang on a minute, Gal, you don’t even play me!’ I said.

  When my dad heard me say that, he took a step towards me, chomping at the bit, saying ‘Give me the phone, I’ll tell him!’

  ‘No,’ I said. I had to do this one myself.

  I continued to explain my position and Gary got the message. I was going to Gravesend.

  There I was reunited with my old schoolboy football pal Richard Dimmock. He was still ridiculously overdeveloped for his age while at nineteen going on twenty I was struggling to do a passing impression of an adult. Together we ran riot at that club. We were a good combination off the pitch and the manager loved the havoc – all good-natured, of course – we used to cause.

  On the pitch, my performances were good, so I was told. I was scoring goals regularly and it was that form which saved me from getting the sack.

  Richard and I had been playing for my dad’s West Lodge pub team on a Sunday, which we weren’t supposed to do now that we were being paid to play by Gravesend. We got rumbled and the club were not happy. Richard got sacked, but because I’d been playing well, they gave me a bollocking and that was the end of it.

  But I was soon bidding farewell to the club anyway.

  I’d heard that lots of scouts had been watching me but I didn’t really believe it. I just presumed that they were watching someone else as there were twenty-one other players out there. Then, one afternoon, we played Purfleet and I had an absolute blinder. I scored a free kick which went in off the post after a team-mate had told me not to take it and then made another goal.

  After that game, Andy Ford had a chat with my old man. It turns out that I was being watched – in a good way. Both QPR and West Ham had scouts there and were both interested in offering me a trial with a view to a permanent move.

  Run that by me again?

  A permanent move.

  A professional contract.

  No more painting and decorating.

  No more stinging nettles.

  No more chasing after a honking car.

  And definitely no more playing football on the green in front of my parents’ house. Because at the age o
f twenty, I was still doing that. I shit you not.

  It was an incredible feeling to be within touching distance of that thing I’d craved and worked towards my whole life. For my dad, it meant as much as he had kept faith and never stopped believing in me.

  And to top it all off, the club my dad and I had grown up supporting, West Ham, wanted to sign me. The only problem was that Andy Ford wanted me to go to QPR as he knew the scout, Roger Cross, a former Hammer too. There was no way my old man was going to allow that. He wanted me to go to West Ham so I could learn my trade at a much bigger club with a good footballing tradition. Andy warned him that I wouldn’t get a game there but my dad wasn’t fussed about that due to the experience I would have.

  There was a bit of a stalemate as Gravesend still had a year pending on my contract so my dad called Hammers’ boss Harry Redknapp, who was very encouraging and told him not to worry, they would wait a year to sign me.

  It was a shrewd move because that meant Gravesend wouldn’t get any money for me if my contract was up so Andy Ford gave me permission to leave then in return for a £35,000 transfer fee from West Ham – subject to my two-week trial going well, of course.

  Remember Bobby Moore’s blessing? Remember sharing Pelé’s birthday? Remember my dad’s cast-iron will for me to succeed?

  Of course that trial would go well.

  * * *

  NEVER PANIC WHEN YOU’RE NOT SELECTED; ALTHOUGH MAYBE DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT AFTER TWO YEARS

  * * *

  ‘All things appear and disappear because of the concurrence of causes and conditions. Nothing ever exists entirely alone; everything is in relation to everything else.’ Buddha

  So there I was sitting on the bench at Anfield. Yeah, Anfield – home of the five-time European and eighteen-time English champions. I wasn’t part of an official club tour nor had I managed to hoax my way in – I was there on merit as a West Ham United substitute, having been selected by the club’s manager Harry Redknapp. The team that I supported as a boy – in fact, at twenty years old I was pretty much still a boy – had signed me on a three-year contract and all I could think was ‘How the hell has this all happened?’

  Two weeks earlier, I was still a painter and decorator.

  As I sat there in my comfy West Ham tracksuit and the Liverpool crowd finished singing ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’, there were probably still paint stains on my hands and, if you got really close, I may have even still smelled of turps, yet there I was, a Redknapp decision away from playing in the Premier League.

  I’d been in a daze ever since I’d arrived at Chadwell Heath, West Ham’s training ground, one Monday morning in February 1999. Part of me was still expecting the whole thing to be a ridiculous wind-up and that I’d be laughed out of there, but within fifteen minutes I was going one-on-one with Frank Lampard and there was nothing funny about that – unless your idea of fun is potential humiliation. In which case it was bloody hilarious.

  I walked into the dressing room and I seemed to recognise everyone – Michael Carrick, Joe Cole, Rio Ferdinand, Trevor Sinclair, Neil Ruddock, Ian Wright, Paul Kitson, John Moncur and Lampard – except not one bloody sod recognised me. And why should they?

  I was an unknown kid going into a Premier League club for the first time and I was petrified. Imagine your first day at a new job, going into a new office, full of people who already know each other and you’re the stranger. It can be a horrible feeling. Now multiply that by a hundred and you’re not even close to what it’s like stepping into a professional football dressing room for the first time.

  All I could think that morning was ‘Wow!’ and ‘Shit!’, the two words echoing around my head like a broken record. That ‘new club’ feeling never got any easier throughout my career. Even when I joined MK Dons at the age of thirty-three, I still hated that first day.

  What made matters worse was that I’d turned up in my own knackered Umbro training gear and didn’t have the balls to ask the kit man for some official club clobber. So as we all strolled out on to the training ground, I looked and felt right out of place.

  ‘Wow! Shit!’

  Mind you, I’d already felt like a fish out of water earlier that morning when I’d chugged into the players’ car park in my dad’s gold Granada Ghia, grinding to a halt alongside Rio Ferdinand’s Aston Martin. That was a hell of a way to announce myself. The Granada Ghia was probably the longest car ever built that wasn’t actually a limo and there it was, getting up close and personal with Rio’s Aston.

  Over time, that glorious Granada became a regular sight in the West Ham car park. The boys would look at me and say, ‘How do you get away with that?’ and I’d just laugh it off and reply, ‘Don’t worry, it’s quality’.

  When I joined Peterborough, I replaced Dad’s Granada with my very own brand-new Ford Fiesta. I was never one for flash cars. Where I might go and spend £3,000 on a fishing pole, other players would spend £4,000 on new wheels for their supercar. For years, team-mates would say to me, ‘Er, your motor, Jim?’ and I’d say, ‘Don’t worry about it, I’ve got to drive it, you ain’t.’ But I wasn’t that confident on my first day at West Ham.

  We were out on the training ground. Everyone looked the part except me in my battered old gear. I couldn’t stop looking at all those players and trying to pretend I was taking it all in my stride when, in fact, my heart was pumping so fast I was pretty sure Harry Redknapp could hear it – and he was still in his office.

  ‘Wow! Shit!’

  Eventually, the gaffer joined us. The first team had lost on Saturday and, despite what you might see on the telly and read in the papers, Harry is a hard man and his reaction to that defeat was to set up one-on-ones for all of us. It’s a gruelling exercise where two players, each with a goalkeeper in nets behind them, go head-to-head on a small pitch. There’s a lot of running, a lot of huffing and puffing, and a lot of sweating.

  Before I knew it, Harry had put me up against Lampard. How’s your luck? It’s just me and him in front of everyone.

  ‘Wow! Shit!’

  I could feel the tension but my racing heart meant the adrenaline was pumping at the same time. This was what I’d always dreamed about.

  Fortunately, I managed to hold my own and, despite my awful kit, not embarrass myself at all. After that, the training session raced by and, before I knew it, I was back in the Granada Ghia heading home to my mum and dad’s place in Bexleyheath, where I still lived. In the weeks and months that followed I’d make life a lot easier for myself by staying at my nan and grandad’s in Canning Town after training, with the added bonus that the place was like the story of my football career as my nan kept every medal and trophy I’d ever won.

  But that first day I collapsed into my own bed at about 4pm and slept right through until the following morning when it was time to go through the whole process again.

  ‘Wow! Shit!’

  It was only at that point that I realised just how fit footballers are – I thought the graft of painting and decorating was tough, but I remember thinking that first training session was physically ten times harder. It made me even more determined to improve my fitness.

  The two-week trial period rocketed by in a flash and I must’ve done something right because suddenly I was sitting at a packed press conference alongside fellow new signings Paolo Di Canio (fresh from his eleven-game ban for shoving over referee Paul Alcock), Marc-Vivien Foé, Gavin Holligan (a non-league player from Kingstonian) and Harry.

  ‘Wow! Shit!’

  There must’ve been at least a dozen cameras flashing and clicking away as I sat there like a rabbit in the headlights, a little kid in front of all the grown-ups.

  After what felt like forever, Harry introduced us to the press. ‘Afternoon everyone, thanks for coming. I’m pleased to be able to present our new signings. We have Paolo Di Canio, Marc-Vivien Foé, Gavin Holligan and er … what’s your name?’

  Silence. You could have heard a pin drop.

  He’d forgotten my name. I w
as utterly devastated. But, before I could announce myself to the world, Harry’s brain clicked into gear and it came to him.

  ‘Er, Jim. Jimmy Bullard.’

  The world now knew my name. There was no turning back from this point. Fame and glory awaited – all I had to do was get on the pitch. Unfortunately, that proved to be a lot harder than I thought.

  As it turned out, Anfield was the highlight of my two years at West Ham, although on that February afternoon on Merseyside I had no idea that would be the case. The thrill and buzz of that day was extraordinary. I can still remember pulling up outside the ground, seeing all the fans milling around, touching the ‘This is Anfield’ sign as I walked out of the tunnel and feeling the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and do a little dance as the supporters sang. I even got goosebumps in the dressing room as Anfield is one of those old grounds where you can hear the crowd singing while you’re getting changed. Fortunately, that was all quite similar to most Gravesend & Northfleet home games so I took it all in my stride. Yeah, right.

  Seeing my name on the squad sheet had given me my first huge buzz. My dad had been watching us train that morning and I sprinted across the pitch to tell him the news: ‘Dad! Dad! I’m squadding tomorrow!’

  He beamed from ear to ear. What a moment for my old man and my mum, after everything they’d done for me. But there was no time to get all soppy as I had to peg it back to Bexleyheath to pick up the gear I needed for the overnight trip, then bomb it back to the training ground to join the team on the bus to the North West.

  Here’s what all the fuss was about. That Saturday at Anfield, West Ham lined up as follows: Hislop, Sinclair, Potts, Ferdinand, Pearce, Minto, Lampard, Foé, Lomas, Berkovic, Cole; Subs: Lazaridis, Keller, Holligan, BULLARD, Forrest.