Confessions of a Football Reporter. . .
Another Biggs at Large
Alan Biggs
Vertical Editions
http://www.verticaleditions.com
Copyright © Alan Biggs 2011
The right of Alan Biggs to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988
All rights reserved. The reproduction and utilisation of this book in any form or by any electrical, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying, digital copying and recording, and in any information storage and retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher
First published in the United Kingdom in 2011 by Vertical Editions, Unit 4a, Snaygill Industrial Estate, Skipton, North Yorkshire BD23 2QR
Smashwords Edition published 2011
http://www.verticaleditions.com
ISBN 978-1-904091-60-8
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Cover design by HBA, York
To Lynne, Ashley, Rosanna and Isabelle. For all their love, encouragement . . . and patience.
CONTENTS
Chapter 1. Stone the Crows—I’m at Wembley!
Chapter 2. Up, up and Away . . .
Chapter 3. No Flies on This Reporter29
Chapter 5. Face to Face With Your Heroes
Chapter 6. Rows and Reunions . . . Billy, Emlyn and Sergeant Wilko
Chapter 9. Big Ron, Tricky Trevor and Dave ‘Harry’ Bassett
Chapter 10. The Odd Couple: Francis and Bassett
Chapter 11. Bet you Can’t Guess who I met Today . . .
Chapter 12. Thrills and Spills
Chapter 13. Biggsy’s Balls-ups
Chapter 15. The Other Side of the Fence
Chapter 16. Where are They now?
Chapter 17. Some People are on the Pitch . . . But it’s not all Over yet!
Chapter 18. Refs to the Rescue
Chapter 19. Regrets too few to Mention . . .
FOREWORD
It’s a popular perception that there are running battles between managers and journalists. That is true in some cases but there are many others where good relationships are formed.
So it was with Alan Biggs during my time with Sheffield Wednesday, first as a player and then for four years as manager. Alan was one of several journalists over that period who I came to trust. I think my involvement working with the media from such a young age helped me to have a greater appreciation and understanding. Hillsborough was a happy period for all of us in that the local reporters, unaccustomed to success, enjoyed the good times almost as much as the players and fans.
Stepping up to take over from Ron Atkinson in 1991 gave me a very hard act to follow. Wednesday had been promoted back to the top flight and won the League Cup the previous season. I was able to maintain the momentum with much the same side to start with before building on it over time with the signing of top players like Chris Waddle and Des Walker. Qualification for Europe was achieved through finishing third in my first season and reaching the final of both domestic cups in 1993.
Despite not having the financial resources of some of the bigger clubs we continued to progress and competed at a high level in the top flight. I felt Alan showed a very intelligent grasp of the job I was trying to do. He would analyse my difficulties, especially in the Sheffield Telegraph where his articles put across certain points to supporters that I much appreciated.
During my time at Wednesday there were one or two minor disagreements with Alan which is inevitably the case, but I felt he was always fair and balanced, particularly towards the latter part of my time in Sheffield. Those were difficult days because I virtually knew my fate weeks in advance, but I felt Alan and his colleagues respected the dignified way I tried to behave.
Overall, my spell in Sheffield was the most enjoyable period of my career. I especially remember the rivalry with Sheffield United’s manager of the time, Dave Bassett. I didn’t know him before I took the job and we were seen as total opposites. But there was a chemistry between us when we met and our close friendship has lasted to this day.
Journalists have a difficult job which, I suppose, is sometimes not recognised by many of those in the game and outside it. I’m sure this memoir will provide a revealing insight from the other side of the fence. As usual, I know that Alan will have set out to present a fair and honest account, and as a good friend I would like to wish him every success with the book.
Trevor Francis
England’s first £1m player, former England striker, European Cup winner and currently a much respected television pundit.
PROLOGUE
Everyone’s heard of Ronnie Biggs. Not so Alan Biggs. We’re no relation, by the way, and were never acquainted, either, I should add. Otherwise, ‘Uncle Ronnie’, as my family has often referred to the Great Train Robber, would definitely be in this book. You see, some journalists become better known than many of the stars they interview. Then there are the also-rans who resort to namedropping. And I make no apologies for being shamelessly among them . . . because it might be the only way to encourage you to read what follows!
That’s a journalist for you, always needing an angle to get people hooked. So let me take you through the maze of my media career, primarily as a football writer and broadcaster, with the help of the host of household names I have encountered along the way. The cast includes Trevor Francis, Dave Bassett, Neil Warnock and Chris Waddle. And starring roles, too, for greats from other sports like Fred Trueman, Geoffrey Boycott, Dickie Bird and Seb Coe.
From making a radio debut at Wembley to interviewing ex-Beatle George Harrison . . . from broadcasting weather reports from a hot air balloon to being barred by football hardman Ken Bates . . . and from scrapes with Jack Charlton and Ron Atkinson to casting light on the one of the faceless men who run English football . . . it’s hard to take much of it too seriously. But what a life of fun, literally never a dull moment. Time I tried to share it with someone, with the promise that it doesn’t really matter if you’ve never heard of the author.
A pocket of the population may have come across me reporting on football over the last 30-odd years—for national radio and television, and in newspapers. Lots of stories come from that field and other sports. But it’s not just football. This is meant as a light-hearted insight into our mad media existence; the tightrope we walk, the rows and reconciliations, the many things that can and do go wrong.
Don’t worry. This is nothing so grand as an autobiography. Look at it as a collection of true-life tales from somewhere outside of the real world . . . by someone who has never had a proper job.
CHAPTER 1. STONE THE CROWS—I’M AT WEMBLEY!
A local newspaper office in 1974. We’re talking before The Sweeney, Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes. Cops behaved differently then and so did hacks. But we didn’t attack anything unless it was pints of bitter. A liquid lunch was as essential as a notebook and pen. Afternoons were distinctly blurred round the edges.
It was during one such hazy afternoon, while working as a trainee reporter on the Derbyshire Times in Chesterfield, that I found myself with two contrasting articles on the go. One was an obituary on the death of a local dignitary. The other was a slightly amusing tale about the theft of a weighty stone scarecrow from somebody’s garden. All seemed to be going to plan. I’d interviewed the son of the dignitary in my most respectful tones and had also talked, with rather more levity, to the erstwhile owner of the stone scarecrow. Stones bitter—the office’s favoured lunchtime tipple—becomes more relevant at this point.
Having dealt with the obit, I came to writing up the scarecrow story and realised, not for the first time or the last, that I was missing a vital detail. So I reached for my notebook, dialled one of the two telephone numbers listed and breezily intoned: ‘Sorry to bother you again, it’s the Derbyshire Times . . . how much did your scarecrow weigh?’
You’ll have guessed where I inadvertently placed that call—and what happened next. A long pause was followed by an explosion of indignation down the phone. A blurting out from the bereaved son that ‘Your editor will be hearing about this’ and a slamming down of the receiver. Barely five minutes later, recoiling in horror, I was being summoned to the office of Mr Humphrey Oliver. Fortunately for me, Humphrey was a kindly old soul. I was much relieved that he fielded the complaint rather than his feared deputy. Humphrey did his best to give me a good ticking off but I swear I saw his military moustache quiver in suppressed mirth as he showed me the door—but stopped short of bundling me through it on this occasion.
That was to come a few months later. The Derbyshire Times (or DT as we called it) operated a Dickensian regime in everything bar their attitude to long lunches and it was only the shared misery with colleagues like Graham Bannister, a lifelong pal, that kept me sane. In turn, the paper was only too happy to release me from my indentures. This, by the way, was an apprenticeship and nothing to do with oral hygiene—except that my bosses undoubtedly felt that training me was a bit like pulling teeth. They cheerfully waved me off to join a two-bit television outfit called Sheffield Cablevision . . . where I had actually been moonlighting for some weeks. I would race off to Sheffield early on a Friday evening to present a weekend sports preview for the 30,000 households subscribing to an experimental piped TV channel.
My cover was blown on a Friday when Sheffield United were playing and I had arranged to meet a good pal, Bernard Jones, for a pre-match drink near Bramall Lane. Bernard, a DT photographer, just happened to walk past the only television shop in Sheffield city centre that showed Cablevision. It also happened to be during the five minutes that I was on screen. Bernard told me he sort of turned into a cartoon character. He walked past, stopped, did a double-take and looked back into the window in astonishment. ‘I knew it was you because your tie was all over the place like it was in the pub at lunchtime,’ said Bernard, who couldn’t wait to relate his discovery when we met. He kept it quiet like I asked but somehow the word got round. It’s a bit hard to keep a secret that you are sharing with a few thousand people and I was truly naïve to think otherwise.
Luckily, Cablevision’s boss John Brand—to whom I owe a big debt of thanks for introducing me to broadcasting—offered me a job in the nick of time. Instead of facing the sack, I was able to save the DT the trouble by resigning. Cablevision was much more fun, even though it lasted only another five months after I joined as sports editor (no coincidence perhaps!) But it was long enough for me to begin my career as a serial namedropper.
My most prized interview during that time was with the then England cricket captain, Tony Greig. How I managed to get this interview might impress you more. It was during a Test match against Australia at nearby Headingley in Leeds. Note not after but during. The protocol then was that captains and players generally said next to nothing while the game was in progress. So how did we extract this gem? It was ridiculously simple. We just drove up to Leeds in the station’s clapped-out outside broadcast van, blagged our way into the ground and fetched Greig out onto the field. Yes, really!
These days all manner of advanced notice, signed in triplicate, would be required. Instead, I simply strolled into the pavilion, asked to speak to Tony Greig, waited for him to appear and persuaded him to join me in front of our cameras. No money changed hands, no pre-arrangement was needed, only a polite request obligingly answered. How simple life was in 1975.
The problem was that our coup—to be broadcast the next day to coincide with a major pitch for advertisers—was rudely upstaged and rendered meaningless by the ‘Free George Davis’ brigade. Some may remember how, in campaigning for the release of a convicted robber, the gang broke into Headingley overnight (if I could, they could!) and poured oil on the pitch to scupper the game and draw attention to their cause. Davis was subsequently released when the case was reviewed but was then jailed for 15 years in 1978. Anyway, we weren’t going to let his supporters stop us even though the match itself was abandoned. We ran the tape regardless, despite it having little relevance to the big news of the day.
We did have one or two genuine triumphs, for instance getting the first interview with the next incoming manager of Sheffield United, Jimmy Sirrel. That involved a late afternoon dash to Meadow Lane, where Jimmy was still working for Notts County, and a rush-hour race from Nottingham to Sheffield city centre in 50 minutes flat. You try it! With news editor Nick Smart at the wheel of his Volkswagen Beetle, we got the tape on the six-o’clock news magazine with minutes to spare. I also recall interviewing cricketing great Frank Woolley—much to the pride and delight of my father, John, who grew up idolising the legendary former Kent and England all-rounder as a fan of the county.
Equally memorable were various encounters with a celebrity clairvoyant called Simon Alexander. I dreamt up a stunt for him whereby I smuggled him into Hillsborough to film an attempt to lift a supposed curse from Sheffield Wednesday—who were in an even sorrier state then than they have been in more recent times. Unfortunately, our outdated mobile camera—like a very primitive camcorder—caught the curse and failed to record. Nevertheless, other media outlets jumped on the story and Simon was invited up to Leeds for a live interview with BBC Look North. Sadly—because of the recording glitch—I had to persuade him to stay put to make a live appearance with me before a fraction of the audience in Sheffield (it was my idea, after all).
Simon was not best pleased. He got his chance for revenge soon afterwards when I playfully challenged his mystical claims over a beer at our local. His response was to tell me he would stop the circulation in my right leg. And he did. Or at least that’s how it felt. Terrifyingly, my leg went deathly cold and I found myself pleading with him to stop. All in the mind, of course, but it worked on me.
Pity Simon wasn’t around to help one day when a taped programme failed during transmission, as was often the case. In that event, the nearest available presenter would be bundled into the tiny continuity studio to talk his head off to camera until the machine was fixed. This day it was my turn only to discover that somebody had nicked the chair. So I had to crouch down with my back against the wall with my head and shoulders in line with the fixed camera . . . and waffle on seemingly comfortably about things I could remember to trail about upcoming programmes . . . while at the same time performing a very difficult and painful endurance exercise. I don’t know at what point my fixed grin turned into a grimace, but I do know I was mightily relieved to finally get the thumbs-up from next door that the tape was ready to roll.
The head of Cablevision, John Brand, was a colourful character, a one-time actor and voiceover specialist who was the man who proudly proclaimed Wilkinson Sword as ‘the name on the world’s finest blade’. He could also lacerate with his tongue, aided and abetted by his deep, rich, rumbling delivery. John’s language was fruity at the best of times—but woe betide anyone who swore within range of a microphone. That was a golden rule I have never forgotten, even in the most trying circumstances. For some reason, John saw broadcasting promise in me and I’ll always be grateful for that.
Looking back, to call Cablevision toytown TV is a slightly cruel assessment, especially as I should be so grateful to the pioneers who ran it. They believed in what was a community project and, on reflection, it wasn’t a world away from today’s so-called reality stuff in that volunteers could come in off the street to help us make programmes.
I doubt today’s ef’n’safety police would have been too impressed, though. Part of my dubious job description involved trailing camera cables precariously through catwalks under the then decrepit roof of Sheffield’s Owlerton Stadium from where we covered speedway. At one point I nearly fell through the floor—or ceiling—into the lounge bar below. Not that my more technically minded colleagues were sympathetic. They fell about one day when I completed my hazardous crawl only to poke the wrong end of the cable through the loop hole in the far corner of the stand roof—and had to do the job all over again. Years later, at a reunion dinner, they presented me with a dubious trophy—the mounted end of a camera cable!
Even the Cablevision studio wasn’t safe, as one guest in particular was to discover. I was halfway through interviewing Radio Hallam’s sports editor Stuart Linnell when both of us were stunned into silence by what sounded like a gunshot. In fact, a studio light—and they were fiercely hot in those days—had exploded. Later, I discovered a singed bullet-sized hole in my rollneck sweater—evidence of a lucky escape from red hot flying glass. Thankfully, Stuart was also unscathed—because he became my mentor.
Our first contact had been equally accidental. It was during my last couple of months at the DT soon after Radio Hallam’s launch as the exciting new commercial sound of South Yorkshire and North Derbyshire. Stuart needed outside help for football coverage and enlisted two of my far more senior colleagues on the paper, Barrie Farnsworth and John Smith. I was envious to say the least, trying hard not to let it show. No-one could have foreseen the events that saw me cover my very first game on radio—at Wembley stadium. And a game that would bring me into contact with Peter Swan, one of the three footballers jailed following a notorious bribes scandal in 1964. Swan was player-manager of non-league Matlock Town who made a surprise run to the final of the FA Trophy in 1975. John Smith had been Hallam’s reporter in the later rounds and naturally was Stuart’s choice for the final. But John, as a Matlock supporter, simply wanted to enjoy the day. His 19-year-old stand-in will forever be grateful to him for that.
The only thing wrong with that springtime afternoon at the home of football was that my career has been going downhill ever since! It was some debut, though. Matlock beat Scarborough 4–0, I managed to identify all their players even though three of them were lookalike brothers (Tom, Nick and Mick Fenoughty) and I couldn’t have cared less that I ended up out of pocket for the trip. Let me explain how.
Obviously Stuart wanted an after-match interview, a standard request then as now. What has changed so much is that my only broadcast tool that day was a landline telephone in the press box right up in the gods. So getting Peter Swan up there was really more of a job for Captain Kirk on Star Trek. Added to which there was not even a lift for most of the way up. The only way was via a confusing, labyrinthine route which involved multiple staircases and required a degree in orienteering. And remember that Swanny was by this time a veteran player. Yes, he was euphoric but he was also exhausted. I had to kid him he didn’t have far to go to the press box but halfway up one flight of stairs, he wearily turned to me and said: ‘Is there a payment for this interview?’
Realising that the success or failure of my mission depended on the answer, I fished a fiver out of my pocket and asked if that would do. Peter simply plodded on. I laugh when people hearing this story point out the irony of me having to ‘bribe’ him. Seriously, I can’t blame Swanny who I found in many subsequent—entirely free—interviews to be a really likeable, honest bloke who openly regretted his one major mistake in life. Besides, he wasn’t to know that he had taken nearly half my match fee. It was just £11 a game in those days, if I recall correctly. And I should do because just a few years later, as Radio Hallam’s sports editor myself, I was working to such a strict budget that I had to perpetuate those frugal rates.
Incidentally, the drama didn’t end with Peter’s live down-the-phone chat with Stuart. The pair of us got totally lost on our way down from the press box and several newspaper reporters were moaning about a frustratingly long wait for their quarry by the time I found us the exit. One of them, the late Benny Hill (no, not that one—but this guy was an even funnier character, believe me) used the delay spectacularly to his advantage with an intro to his story that has stuck with me ever since. Recalling that Swan’s last appearance for England at the stadium had been in 1962 (ahead of his long ban), Benny wrote: ‘It has taken Peter Swan 13 years to get back into Wembley . . . and when he finally made it on Saturday his biggest problem was trying to get out of the place.’
Radio Hallam was where it was at in Sheffield’s media scene around the mid-1970s. The station boasted household names in BBC radio broadcasting like Roger Moffat, Keith Skues, Johnny Moran and Bill Crozier. Little did I imagine that I would be working in such elite company. But Stuart Linnell gave me the chance to do a bit of freelancing for the station while I was still employed by Cablevision . . . things like reading racing results, covering a tennis tournament and, ridiculously as it now seems, reporting on a Subbuteo competition! All a bit of a comedown from Wembley as I did my apprenticeship in reverse. I would also contribute a weekend non-league preview on a Friday show presented by former Sheffield Wednesday and Hull player Ken Knighton. Michael Morgan, then of the Daily Express and subsequently a close colleague for many years, would give his opinions on the big stuff.
After promptings from Stuart, a one-man band who needed inside help on sport, Hallam’s news editor Ian Rufus was persuaded (to his understandable and later regret, I thought at times) to offer me a job as a news reporter on the station. Frankly, my heart wasn’t in it at first. I have to admit my attitude was slovenly—by contrast with my enthusiastic contributions from Bramall Lane and Hillsborough. Ian sorted me out with a timely and well deserved rollocking.
Although I still fell short on drive at times, I had learned a valuable lesson about professionalism and what it means. I discovered that doing a job thoroughly is a cause for satisfaction in itself regardless of whether you find it stimulating. Ian recognised the improvement and promoted me to morning editor with responsibility for presenting the station’s peaktime bulletins—in place of Martin Kelner, who switched to presentation duties and is now a well-known broadcaster and satirist. One downside was that I had to get up at quarter to five every morning . . . and if there was a game to cover that night I would end up working right through. Needless to say, this would seem to have required some curtailing of my social habits—a sacrifice that, at 22, I simply refused to make! Disguising the fact that I was bleary-eyed and hung over somehow became an enjoyable challenge, even a source of fun.
Not that this could explain one of the most mysterious incidents of my life and something that still sends a chill up my spine to this day. It had nothing to do, either, with a hair-raising hot air balloon adventure. I’ll come to that shortly. Among Hallam’s big-name presenters was Bruce Wyndham, a former BBC stalwart recruited to join old cronies like best pal Moffat. Unbeknown to me, after I had clocked off for the day one lunchtime, Bruce sadly collapsed and died at the station while preparing for a programme. There was no immediate announcement and I was none the wiser.
The following morning, I awoke to my jangling alarm with a vivid dream running through my head. I was reading the news and relaying the death of someone with the initials BW. For some reason, I felt under particular pressure to make sure I read this right. The only BW I could think of was the then England cricketer Bob Willis. No, surely not. So I put the dream out of my mind as I drove to work . . . until arriving at my desk to pick up Sheffield’s Morning Telegraph newspaper. That was always the first thing I did.
There on the front page was a picture of Bruce Wyndham. It wasn’t uncommon to see my celebrity colleagues in the paper. ‘What’s Bruce been up to,’ I thought. . . and then I read the headline. ‘DJ dies.’ I was stunned, of course, besides being upset by the news. But even then I didn’t register the significance of my dream. It only dawned on me when I was in the studio reading the item that devastated everyone who knew Bruce, a lovely cheerful character who would always crack a joke at his own expense. Explain that one. I can’t. I have always had an open mind about the paranormal and, although nothing like this has happened to me since, I can’t help wondering if I received something other than radio waves that day.
CHAPTER 2. UP, UP AND AWAY . . .
‘Everybody off . . . get off the field now, please.’ This was the command from ace hot air balloon pilot Robin Batchelor, as recorded by yours truly, at the end of a memorable Saturday afternoon flight over Sheffield. Figures in white scattered in all directions as we landed on a cricket ground in the middle of a game. And the field was then engulfed by a couple of hundred kids who had evidently tracked our progress while I did a series of live reports from high over the city. Belated apologies to the cricketers we rudely interrupted. But at least they could make a unique entry to the scorebook: balloon stopped play. Had this been a first-class game, it would have ranked even higher than the ‘snow stopped play’ announcement from a Derbyshire game at Buxton in 1975 after an inch of the stuff fell in early June.
I couldn’t have envisaged such a whacky summer’s afternoon when I finished my morning news shift. In fact, I was halfway out the door when I fielded a phone call from the State Express cigarette company. They said they had their hot air balloon parked in the centre circle at Bramall Lane football ground. Would anyone from the station like to join them for a pleasure flight? Stuart Linnell, about to take the airways for a rather flat summer sports show, pricked up his ears. And that’s how I came to present weather forecasts from 1,000 feet above Sheffield city centre.
‘It’s pretty calm up here but there’s plenty of turbulence in my stomach . . .’ was how I summed up. In fact, the scariest bit was suddenly finding myself level with the top of the floodlight pylons at Bramall Lane. I felt like crouching down in the basket at that point and it was a while before I dare look over the side.
Any pride I feel about that adventure is all to do with the identity of the pilot. Robin Batchelor was unknown at that point but has since become quite famous for taking part in several daredevil japes with Sir Richard Branson, including an attempt to cross the Atlantic. In fact, it was Robin who taught Branson to fly. More recently, he has featured in television series with actor Stephen Tompkinson, flying over South Africa and Australia. And I know from my own experience that he can be a bit of a risk-taker who’s never happier than when literally flying by the seat of his pants.
On that memorable day, we were over built-up Sheffield (at a lower altitude than officially permitted, as he freely confessed to me at the time!) when he casually announced that we were running out of fuel and needed to land. As the ground started to rise up to meet us Robin’s eyes alighted on the sports field . . . and the rest is history in the annals of Sheffield league cricket.
My weather reports were only possible through walkie-talkie devices that were bulky to carry and squawky to hear. I hated them up to that point, not least because mine had come to life with a series of loud squelches in a message from my boss right in the middle of a Sheffield council meeting. And I didn’t know how to turn the damn thing off. I was ordered to make that discovery in the corridor outside!
Another voice that came through loud and clear during this time was that of Hallam’s deputy news editor Jim Greensmith. Again it was a Saturday, only this was at 5.30 in the morning at the start of my shift. Normally I saw and heard no-one but the duty presenter. This time Jim’s disembodied voice came floating into the newsroom, calling me by name. But where was he and how could I reply? Eventually I found the right button on the console to discover that Jim was out in the radio car . . . at the scene of a mass murder. If you remember the grisly events at Pottery Cottage at Eastmoor near Chesterfield, where four people were killed in January 1977, then you’ll know that this was a major national story. Billy Hughes, the murderer, was eventually shot dead by police after a car chase in Cheshire.
Thanks to Jim, who was to become a police media spokesman before sadly dying of a brain tumour, our contacts with the force were excellent. One particularly helpful officer was David Duckenfield who was later one of the police chiefs under fire during inquiries into the Hillsborough disaster. Whatever the rights and wrongs surrounding that tragic event, I felt terribly sorry for David who I found to be a thoroughly likeable and helpful guy. With all due sympathy and respect to the many bereaved families, I can’t help feeling there is too much of a blame culture in society. All of us are subject to human error but most of us are fortunate to do jobs where one mistake, honestly made, does not have life-or-death consequences.
Another particularly kindly cop was Kenneth Unwin who was in charge of the Chesterfield division and had a great sense of humour. Once I had to ad-lib a live interview with him during a news bulletin and drew a complete blank on his Christian name. It came to me at the last second—or so I thought. ‘We go now to Chesterfield police superintendent . . . er . . . Stanley Unwin.’ Stanley Unwin was, of course, a famous comedian who invented his own language, a mangled form of English. Ken was such a good sport he carried on regardless and settled for pulling my leg about it later.
Besides assisting with enquiries, Ken would invite you to police social events and if you happened to see him out, he’d insist on buying you a pint. I’d often refuse on the diplomatic grounds that I was driving and had drunk my limit. But there was one senior officer of that time who would twist your arm and tell you where the drink-drive patrols were operating that night so you could avoid them on the way home! Before any self-righteous reader takes issue, this was the 1970s. It was a different time and police attitudes simply reflected the misguided behaviour of people like me and certainly many of my colleagues.
I’m not proud to recall that I would regularly drive when over the limit and would sometimes rely on connections to get me out of trouble. On one occasion, when driving in the early hours from Sheffield to my parents’ home in Chesterfield, I was pulled in by a patrol car that had evidently been trailing me for some time but appeared out of nowhere in my rear view mirror. ‘It’s a fair cop’ were the exact words that came to mind as I climbed out of the car knowing I was well over the limit.
They asked if I’d had a drink, which I admitted. And then, instead of producing the dreaded breathalyser bag (which I’m ashamed to say I had used previously amid several close shaves), they merely asked me where I lived and how far I had to go. I told them a couple of miles and feared the worst. ‘OK then, just take care on your way home,’ came the reply. I still thought I was dreaming when I bumped into a mate from the force the following day.
Without me saying a word, he said: ‘You were pulled in last night, weren’t you?’
I said: ‘How do you know?’ A smile spread across his face. ‘I was in the radio room when they called in with your registration number before stopping you. I saw it was you and asked them to let you off!’ Let me tell you a few free pints changed hands after that—and it was worth every penny.
You may feel at this point that I was something of a juvenile delinquent. In fact, I was quite shy and reserved. Really. And I still am. It’s taken journalism to pull me out of my shell from quite a sheltered upbringing which began in rural Kent. And the pub culture I embraced at work in the 1970s was just another part of that process. People lived and worked differently, not necessarily for the better. Attitudes were different, too. One example is that I know (from hazy recollection) that I made a Sheffield Cablevision appearance when completely incapacitated at Christmas 1974—having failed to appreciate the extent of my inebriation until my slot began and I realised I was almost incapable of reading the script. Nothing was said! Not by manager John Brand who, by way of explanation, was pretty merry himself. And not by a single viewer apparently (although maybe that proves there weren’t any!)
The
point, though, is that this sort of excess was considered somehow
excusable. Nevertheless, a good job I changed my
ways
. . . but not until after another example of the kind of working
practice that would get you the sack nowadays. Radio Hallam’s
managing director, Bill MacDonald, was an exception to the general
rule in that he frowned on drinking and banned alcohol from the
building, which was extremely uncommon at that time. But he had some
world-class boozers on his staff (Moffat, Moran and a rough diamond
local DJ called Ray Stuart to name but three) and he had no control
over out-of-hours activities. They were interlinked, of course. There
were times when I had to start off programmes for Johnny and Ray
while they slept off the previous night’s excesses. Not that I
should talk. One morning I was throwing up when I should have been
reading the six o’clock news.
But my worst transgression—somehow unpunished—came in impromptu fashion when I turned up for a Saturday evening news shift, relieving a chap called Paul Reizin. Paul said he was dropping into the Dove and Rainbow pub just round the corner. Did I fancy joining him for a quick one after I’d read the six o’clock news? Things were quiet on the news front, as Saturday nights usually were, and I duly joined Paul after the news at six . . . and seven . . . eight . . . nine, 10 and 11. In fact, I spent virtually the entire shift in the pub, only departing just before each hour to sprint upstairs to scramble together and deliver bulletins that became increasingly incoherent as the evening progressed. Yet no-one seemed to notice, or at least nothing was said.
At other times you were so much under the cosh you needed a couple of extra heads and a dozen pairs of hands and feet. I can’t remember a period of more sustained intensity than during the terrible winter of 1977–78 when I was Hallam’s morning editor. Just getting to work from my home in Chesterfield 12 miles away was difficult enough considering the gritters were on strike and people were advised not to undertake any journey unless absolutely necessary. The one good thing is that at five o’clock in the morning I had the roads virtually to myself. Even then it was seat-of-the-pants stuff and I had to lean on the daredevil spirit of my erstwhile journalism lecturer at Sheffield’s Richmond College, Ron Eyley, who, against my better judgment, had somehow persuaded me to do a parachute jump. Incidentally, the Cessna I jumped from was piloted by one James ‘Ginger’ Lacey, a Second World War fighter ace. So I also had to keep my weather ordeal in clear perspective!
Anyway, I thought of Ron as one morning I ploughed through up to a foot of fresh-fallen snow to reach the A61 Unstone-Dronfield bypass, a dual carriageway which was my usual route into Sheffield. It had a barrier partway across the entrance saying it was closed. It seemed to me that the alternative of the old road through Dronfield would be even more precarious—so I ignored the sign and went for it, just managing to crest the summit at the midway point while knowing that I had little hope of rescue (no mobiles in those days) or sympathy if I failed to make it. On reaching work, I announced on the first news bulletin that ‘the Unstone-Dronfield bypass is closed’. I felt like adding the rider that people should ignore the single line of tyre tracks, but thought better of it!
CHAPTER 3. NO FLIES ON THIS REPORTER
The 1970s were cavalier times in the media, a galaxy away from my latter day working practices (I hasten to assure the BBC and the several national newspapers who have enlisted my services). But the characters I have met, and still do, in the world of sport are much richer by comparison.
Take Len Ashurst. In the mid-1970s I wished somebody had! Hardman Ashurst was hired by Sheffield Wednesday to lick their players into shape and he was a fearsome figure for journalists as well, particularly for one wet-behind-the-ears 20-year-old learning the ropes on local radio. But Len also had a vicious sense of humour—as I learned to my cost.
After a game, reporters would pile into his small office and the session would be led by one-to-one radio interviews, which was pretty daunting in that Len would sometimes play to the gallery of newspaper scribes at the back. Following one game, a 1–1 draw if I recall, I started with what I thought was the safe question of whether it was a fair result. ‘The only thing I’ve got to say to you Alan,’ said Len sternly, ‘is that your flies are open . . .’ Cue an explosion of mirth as I made the classic mistake of actually looking.
On another occasion, I turned up on a Friday for a pre-match interview to be told Ashurst was waiting in the gym. He ushered me in and pointed me to an olden wooden chair placed opposite the desk. As I pulled it out, the chair just disintegrated. Len and his equally mischievous fitness trainer, Tony Toms, also fell apart.
What I failed to realise at the time is that, besides taking the proverbial, this was probably Len’s way of being friendly. In the same way, he had a nickname for me based on Wednesday’s slim midfielder of the time, Phil Henson, who was known as ‘the flying chip’. Your even skinnier reporter was christened ‘the flying crisp’. Ashurst was sacked a year or so later without too many tears from me. But I had a chance meeting with him quite recently and found him to be a very kindly pensioner! We happened to be sitting next to each other at a League Managers Association annual awards dinner. Len chortled at the fear he struck in me. Funny how age changes your perspective.
Len comes from Liverpool, which explains a lot about his sharp, caustic sense of humour. I had an even more embarrassing experience at the hand (literally) of Scouse comics before the 1979 FA Cup semi-final at Hillsborough between Liverpool and Arsenal. Stuart Linnell, who was presenting our show from a box at the ground, detailed me to do roving interviews with a radio microphone on the pitch. Besides being on the radio, these were tannoyed live to fans at the stadium because Hallam’s programme used to be relayed on the public address system before a game. This was a heady experience for me as I chatted with, among others, Liverpool’s legendary manager Bill Shankly.
Feeling more confident by the minute, I decided to try something different when I pulled up alongside Liverpool’s goalkeeper, Ray Clemence, in the centre of the pitch. I did the interview with him on the stroll as we moved towards the end where his club’s fans were massed. As we entered the penalty area, I went for the big introduction to spark the hoped-for explosion of noise . . . ‘Liverpool fans, your goalkeeper . . . Mr Ray Clemence . . . ‘ Silence, total silence, greeted my announcement. Instead, they responded, in unison, with a wave of two-finger salutes. And these weren’t aimed at Clemence, by the way! I was momentarily speechless because, of course, I could hardly describe the spectacle in front of me. Clemence just grinned; he’d probably seen it coming. Looking back, I doubt whether any other set of fans in the country would have reacted in that manner. In a strange sort of way, I admired them for it. It was clever and, more impressive still, it seemed to be a telepathic put-down from people whose sharp wit is on the same wavelength. But I can’t say I appreciated it too much at the time.
Around this period, I had a first hilarious exchange with the famous cricket umpire, Dickie Bird. This was at the Queen’s Park Ground in Chesterfield where I would regularly cover Derbyshire matches for Hallam. I should explain that our broadcast position was right among the players themselves on the pavilion balcony. One day, I arrived earlier than usual to set up my gear to find a flustered Dickie brandishing a broom handle. He was trying to push round the hands of the big clock which was on the pavilion wall above where I sat. Rounding on me, he remonstrated wildly about the clock being wrong and what was I going to do about it. Maybe I looked like some sort of handyman, I don’t know, but it took me a little time to persuade this eccentric Yorkshireman that I had nothing to do with the club and was there simply to report the game.
In the years that followed, I enjoyed many much more convivial chats with Dickie. What a wonderful character. No novelist could make him up. I found him to be a man who is unfailingly helpful and has great generosity of spirit. But, of course, his frugal nature is equally well known. Following one interview for the short-lived Today newspaper, Dickie phoned me in a flap. ‘Ring me back, lad, will you,’ he said, putting down his receiver as if it was on fire. I promptly returned the call to find that he was anxious about a very minor detail that took all of 10 seconds to explain. I think his phone bill would have stood it.
My wife, Lynne, long-suffering because she is not a great sports lover, was distinctly unamused one day about a call she took while I was out. ‘It’s Dickie Bird, Test match umpire,’ said the abrupt voice, asking for me to call back.
On giving me the message, Lynne remarked: ‘I felt like saying ‘I know who you are, you silly man!’ Glad she didn’t. People like Dickie (not that I can think of any others) can be much misunderstood by those outside their circle. All of us sporting enthusiasts have a lunatic tendency to a greater or lesser degree because we are so obsessive. Dickie is just a cricket nut. Oh, and by the way, a very fine umpire.
This was an era of iconic figures in Yorkshire cricket and I’m privileged to say I met most of them. This was mainly due to a grand bloke called Leon Cox, a businessman who had strong links with the club. Leon would come up for a chat during a game and then casually say something like, ‘Do you fancy an interview with GB?’ This, of course, was a reference to his friend (rather than mine) Geoffrey Boycott. Or Sir Geoffrey, as he was known to his army of followers. Now let me tell you that to approach the Yorkshire dressing room in those days was the cricket reporter’s equivalent of entering a war zone. You dare not knock, let alone enter.
The side had a lot of great players, some entering their twilight years, and all strong characters including younger ones like Arnie Sidebottom, Graham Stevenson and the late David Bairstow. Besides which, the club and, to some extent the dressing room, was torn apart by internal strife. But Leon would somehow emerge from this no-go area walking side by side with the great GB who would present himself for a coveted interview with yours truly. Spectators and colleagues would look on open-mouthed. My grateful thanks to Leon and also to a former Yorkshire committee member, Sid Fielden, who had a similar talent for making the impossible happen.
I have to say I had mixed experiences with the interviews themselves. A word out of place and you were for it. But I couldn’t help but like Boycott. Boorish, difficult, stubborn and opinionated, yes. But also an honest, passionate man of great intelligence who offered powerful insights into the game. It’s no surprise that he has become by far the best, most entertaining and illuminating pundit on the Test match circuit.
Of course, Geoff could be a pain in the backside at times. You expected no less. On one occasion, amid the promotion of one of his books, he called in to the Hallam studios for an in-depth interview. All was going swimmingly until I suggested that, having only once skippered his country, some of his comments came across as if he was frustrated not to be the captain. ‘That’s poppycock is that, Alan—absolute poppycock,’ he fumed. But he didn’t storm out, of course . . . not with a book to sell. With me suitably reproached, he articulated his argument very well, even if my suspicions remained. Actually, it was good radio.
Then there was the time, with another GB book out, when I went to interview him at a meeting of Wombwell Cricket Lovers Society where he was guest speaker. This happened to be at the height of the infighting, with Boycott at loggerheads with the Yorkshire team manager, Ray Illingworth, the ex-England captain who was for many years a member of Brian Close’s great Tykes team. So it was that Boycs played silly buggers. He was very good at that.
If I wanted to interview him I had to ‘get permission from Raymond Illingworth’. This was before mobile phones, remember. I crossed the road to find a telephone box and, after calling a colleague to extract Illingworth’s home number from my contacts book at work, I dialled the Yorkshire team manager. I found Ray to be a likeable bloke, but he was not best pleased to be bothered in this way and I couldn’t blame him. I could sense Boycott was the real source of his irritation and that he knew Geoff had scored a petty point by getting me to disturb him. ‘Of course you can interview him about his book,’ Ray snapped. In turn, Boycott was clearly taken aback that I had managed to get the necessary permission so quickly and he duly obliged.
Another interesting exchange came during a rather grand dinner at Sheffield’s Cutlers Hall. Boycott was there as guest of honour and some journalist colleagues asked me whether he’d mind us quoting from his speech. I approached the great man with a polite request during the drinks reception. ‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘It’s a private function.’ I relayed that to my fellow hacks with a passing reference to the fact that Boycott could be ‘an awkward so-and-so at the best of times’. Later I was to feel terribly two-faced about this remark. To my astonishment, Boycott opened his speech by referring to the privacy of the function ‘as I explained just now to my good friend Alan Biggs’. I didn’t know whether to feel flattered or embarrassed.
Friends are people you call up to go for a pint and I’m not sure many people could do that with Geoffrey. Certainly not me. But there were times when he would phone me at work, to the amazement of newsroom colleagues, and also at home. One conversation was perhaps typical of him. He wanted to know whether I would attend a sort of surgery at which he was putting forward his ideas for reforming Yorkshire cricket. It just so happened that I was otherwise engaged. My niece Emma had just been born and we were going to the hospital for a first viewing of the bundle of joy. I thought this would melt even Geoffrey’s heart. ‘This meeting is much more important than that,’ he chided. I like to think it was with a touch of irony, but I’m really not sure.
For all that, Boycott was and remains a hero of mine. For me, no century, however slow, was boring. It was fascinating watching a perfectionist at work and I was always disappointed when he was out. Though not as disappointed as him. Once I remember him being caught on 99. He trudged stone faced up the pavilion steps at Queen’s Park, Chesterfield and the next sound was one of a bat being flung in fury across the dressing room.
Another hero was the great Freddie Trueman, even though I was too young to remember his peak years as England’s finest fast bowler. Not only did I get to meet and interview him on more than one occasion—I actually went out socialising with him. This was courtesy, yet again, of Leon Cox. When Trueman popped in to Hallam to record a radio commercial Leon was in his entourage. So not only did I get to interview the great man but I ended up joining the two of them for lunch. Fred, I discovered, was partial to gin and tonic—in preference to a pint of beer, despite his iconic advert for the bitter that ‘drives out the northern thirst’. He also came across as a much more genial and refined character than his stereotype image, hair flopping and snarling four letter insults at any batsman who dared to stand up to him. I’m sure Fred worked hard on the image. Not that he wasn’t a ferociously hostile fast bowler; just that he really seemed to be a very different character off the field. A gentleman, in fact, and a real pleasure to meet.
Ray Illingworth, too, came across as essentially a calm character, very much in keeping with his unflappable reputation as a captain and high-class spin bowler. I got to know him a bit during his ill-fated time as Yorkshire manager. Whenever Yorkshire came to Queen’s Park he would sit close to my broadcast position on the pavilion balcony. Illy was within earshot of my reports so I had to choose my words carefully, even if I was determined to be honest in my opinions because I knew that people like him would have had no respect for toadying.
But I’ll never forget the pressure I felt one day when not only Illy, but also almost the entire Yorkshire team, were crowded around me as I delivered a summary of the day’s play. They had come together to watch the rescue act of a lengthy last wicket stand after nine of them had been out, mostly to poor shots (which, of course, I felt it my duty to mention). There was a deathly silence as I spoke and I have never been more nervous doing a report. The silence continued after I’d finished, finally broken by Illingworth saying: ‘Fair enough was that.’
That’ll do for me . . . I’ve never been prouder than at that moment.
Whenever I went to report on cricket, I always drove to the ground with the proverbial song in my heart. What a way to earn a living, especially at Queen’s Park which was not only close to my home in my early days but also one of the most picturesque arenas in the country. I’d often meet my dad, John, and brother, Graham, at lunchtime. Besides being a keen cricket fan, dad was interested in my work and a constant source of encouragement. So was my mum, Iris, even if she didn’t quite share the enthusiasm of the rest of the family. Mum would make us laugh when cricket outstayed its welcome on television at home. ‘I’ve had enough of Benno Richo for one day,’ she’d say in mock reference to the great Australian player and commentator Richie Benaud.
But covering the game wasn’t all sweetness and light. After a particularly wayward performance by the Derbyshire attack, I passed David Harrison, the club’s rather brusque chief executive, on the stairs at tea. Stupidly I made some throwaway remark about how bad the bowling had been. David was clearly already fuming about just the same thing. He didn’t need a comment like that from anyone. If looks could kill I wouldn’t be here to write this. ‘Just piss off,’ he snapped, fixing me with a glare. The fact that he probably agreed with my remark was neither here nor there. I should have shown more sensitivity and I decided to take his anger on the chin. No more was said and David acted like nothing had happened. Wrong though I was, I still felt some sort of apology was in order.
Although David could be surly at times, his downbeat manner was more than outweighed by a couple of the Derbyshire committee men who were always close by on the balcony to make announcements between overs. Brian Holling and Les Hart were both real cricket-loving characters who always found some humour in the game—even if it was at my expense after some faux pas or other. And there were certainly some rich personalities in the press boxes of that area.
Counties would have a travelling troupe of writers. Hence Derbyshire games were presided over by the formidable quartet of Michael Carey (who became the cricket correspondent of the Daily Telegraph), Neil Hallam and Nigel Gardner (both local and national freelances) and Gerald Mortimer of the Derby Evening Telegraph. You had to be careful not to exhibit any pretensions to a deep cricketing knowledge with these sharp sages in attendance. I showed them respect, they returned it with tolerance! And after a suitable period of apprenticeship, we became friends.
You had to tread even more warily in the Yorkshire press box. Best to sit tight, listen and learn. There was an assortment of characters who would travel together, work together and drink together—not necessarily in that order! They were Martin Searby (a firebrand freelance who, for all his excesses, was an accomplished writer and broadcaster), John Callaghan (the phlegmatic correspondent of the Yorkshire Evening Post), David ‘Plum’ Warner (the relatively quiet and mild-mannered representative of the Bradford Telegraph and Argus) and David Hopps (known initially as the ‘hapless Hopps’ because of his junior status but later to become an esteemed writer who worked his way up from the Yorkshire Post to The Guardian).
Together, they were as thick as thieves. Many a practical joke was played on the unwary outsider. Yorkshire had a bowler called Chris Pickles. They managed to convince a visiting writer that he was the nephew of the famous one-time actor and radio presenter Wilfred Pickles. Not true, of course, but the bait was taken. Then there was their secret code for recording statistics. You’d hear references to an innings containing 12 ‘Js’ and two ‘Ts’. Roughly translated, this was 12 fours (with the J standing for the cliché of ‘juicy’) and two sixes (often referred to as ‘towering’). Occasionally, during a game at Headingley, one of the Yorkshire corps would casually ask: ‘Any TGs today?’ A colleague would check his notes and reply: ‘Yes, we’ve had three.’ You’d sit there wondering what vital piece of information you had missed—but you wouldn’t want to betray your ignorance by querying something they clearly regarded as an obvious fact. It turned out that it was merely a reference to the number of jets passing overhead to and from the nearby Leeds-Bradford airport. Why TGs? It stands for ‘thousands gasped!’