IT’S ironic that I always consider Mossley to be one of the friendliest clubs around because, over the years, I’ve been on the receiving end of some titanic blastings from the direction of Seel Park.
What’s more, the Lilywhites are the only club to have threatened me with court action. Frightened the life out of my editor, Duncan Williamson, who lived in such fear of libel suits that he did everything he could to be politically neutral and never cause offence
But of course life on a newspaper isn’t like that. As a sports reporter, as I was, if you never upset anyone you’re not doing your job properly. That’s not to say you set out to stir up trouble but things don’t always go well.
Players have bad games and there are incidents and fall-outs in boardrooms, even if clubs would like to pretend there’s never the slightest ripple on the water. This attitude is at its most apparent in the bland bog-standard statements they issue when managers go. They’re no longer sacked, they part company for business and family reasons with thanks for all they’ve done and best wishes for the future.
It happens more and more in these days when there are few match reporters and news is generally written by clubs and taken from their websites. Some of them call it controlling the message as though they were the Government.
But I digress.
My brush with the legal system came in 1992 when Les Sutton was fired as manager. At the time, Mossley were on a slide that would end in relegation to the North West Counties League three years later.
This was a very traumatic period for the club and they changed manager at a frantic rate. At one point they were owned by two businessmen — Les Lawlor and Steve Fisher — who applied for planning permission to build on the ground. They said they had no intention of actually doing so, they only wanted to increase the value of the land, but the fans weren’t having it.
For a short while afterwards, Mossley were technically trespassing by playing at Seel Park as they didn’t own it. Even crazier, a man was allowed to open a café inside the ground as a private business. Eating there was nothing to do with football or watching a game. It operated as though it was on a high street.
Anyway, Sutty was not happy. The story of his sacking was written by my friend Tony Glennon and Les’s quote contained the line “dealing with the Mossley directors is like dealing with the IRA. You don’t know who’s with you and who’s against you”.
Before you throw your hands up in horror, I did check with the deputy editor who gave permission. Two days later the paper hit the streets and the Mossley chairman, Roger Finn, who I think was of Irish extraction and had once considered entering the Catholic priesthood, was on the phone threatening to sue.
The deputy editor tried to swerve the problem by claiming not to have heard my question. Fortunately a fellow sub-editor backed me up. I tried to smooth things over by asking another Mossley director, Cllr Geoff Brierley, to intercede. That ploy didn’t work.
Fast forward and I had to call the company barrister in London. I have no idea what the lady looked like but her voice melted me on the phone and the fact that her opinion was costing J Andrew and Co about £10 a minute didn’t matter. I spent about half-an-hour just finding reasons for her to continue talking. Her advice was that Mr Sutton clearly wasn’t suggesting the Mossley board went around wearing balaclavas and carrying Armalite rifles. If Les would sign a statement to that effect all would be fine.
Sounds easy, and it should have been, but Sutty was very loth to do it. On a couple of occasions I spent an hour waiting for him and he never turned up. He didn’t want to get me in trouble but he wasn’t going to retract what he’s said. Eventually, I managed to get it through to him that he wasn’t being asked to retract, only to clarify. He finally agreed and calm was restored.
My Mossley blastings generally came from one man, fire-breathing secretary Brian Cowburn, an archetypal Yorkshireman.
I was first on the receiving end from Brian when he was briefly Hyde United secretary. To say he was short-tempered was an understatement.
In my early days as sports editor, when I was struggling with the job, he’d come on the phone and bellow at me: “We get nothing from you. If you want us to put posters around the ground saying ‘read about us in the Oldham Chron’ we will do.” Such comments were seasoned with plenty of four-letter words.
Around 1989 I was asked if the paper would bring back the old floodlight cup. I went to a meeting attended by Brian and representatives of Curzon, Ashton United and Droylsden, and explained there was a trophy they could play for and free ads and coverage, but no prize money.
Everyone was fine with that. I wrote up some rules and sent them out as a document. Still no complaints. We agreed the players’ medals would be paid for out of the gate money for the final. All quiet again — at least until the final was about to take place.
When I rang Brian the day before the game to tell him the cost, he erupted. “How much? What?” and finished with the elegant rejoinder “stick the cup up your arse”. Again four-letter words were prominent. He also sounded off about the rules. There should have been a booklet printed, not just a pile of paper.
Fortunately, the paper I worked paid for the medals I’d already bought. The final took place, and Mossley even won. I got to present the trophy on the pitch. There’ll be a picture somewhere.
In 1988-89 Mossley began to enjoy some rare good fortune under the management of Bryan Griffiths and won the league cup beating Fleetwood in the final at Maine Road.
On the way they defeated Marine, then a very strong side, but it happened while I was in Australia. The editor, who was filling in, couldn’t have cared less about football and stuck a small report in a corner giving the page lead to, I think, New Mills who weren’t even in the NWCL at the time.
Angry as Brian was, he knew when to make his move. On Wednesday afternoon, as deadline was nearing and I was at my busiest, the phone rang. Cue a West Riding hair-dryer full of angry threats and swear-words. He took absolutely no notice of my repeated attempts to accept an error had been made, apologise and even explain that I was 12,000 miles away when the tie was played.
Eventually, after about 15 minutes, he ran out of energy, the steam stopped coming out of his ears, and he decided he wouldn’t put posters up telling people to read the Oldham Chronicle.
To be fair to Brian, he was a hard worker doing his best to keep a troubled club going. In his own way I think he as devoted to the place. It was just that he was the epitome of Yorkshire bluntness. He had no diplomatic skills at all.
He also didn’t bother about changing his mind if he thought he was right to do so. In 1988 he appointed Taffy Jones manager, slept on it, then decided he’d made a mistake. “My heart was soaring as I looked at the hills on my drive home that night,” Taff told me. “Then the morning after Brian rang to say the job was no longer mine”.
None of what I’ve mentioned did anything to put me off me covering Mossley or visiting Seel Park. It must have toughened me up a bit I suppose. Certainly it became part of the job description.
Martyn Torr, my predecessor, used to call me pachydermic Pav as in having a thick skin. Not true actually but those blastings came from a lot of people over a lot of years: mother, foremen, editors, radio producers . . .
However, not one of them could compare with Mr Cowburn.