I hope you’ve found my lockdown stories, interesting, informative and they’ve even given you the odd laugh. Fingers crossed that football returns (fairly) soon. Stay healthy everyone.
I SUPPOSE it was inevitable I’d have a rocky relationship with Stalybridge Celtic once I became the local sports editor.
While everyone outside Bower Fold considered my predecessor, Martyn Torr, as biased towards the Bridge, a lot of people, and possibly everyone inside Bower Fold, was convinced I’d be biased towards Hyde United.
That was never the intention. As a professional journalist my plan was give all clubs a fair crack of the whip while concentrating on the major stories. I did my level best to do that, but there were at least a couple of occasions when the Celtic faithful were screaming for my blood. Neither, I might add, was my fault although I had to take the stick.
The first occurred in the spring of 1992 when Stalybridge won the NPL championship. In the days leading up to the game in which they clinched the title, I learned that there would be some colour page in the relevant edition.
It was a rare treat indeed in those monochrome days and I spent quite a lot of time imagining a back page with a huge team picture or shot of the captain holding up the trophy. Fans loved photos like that and whenever there was a big game we’d do a picture special. Colour would surely give sales a huge boost.
Sadly, I had reckoned without our bumbling advertising department. They had made some sort of cock-up, so to apologise they wanted to put two enormous ads on the back page of all places. All I would get to cover the first Tameside NPL championship since Mossley in 1980 was a tiny area in the top left-hand corner.
What irked me more was that the paper had such a low opinion of sport, its biggest selling point. It was pointless approaching the editor because he was no lover of sport and his motto was “don’t rock the boat”.
Every Tuesday a hapless advertising executive called Brian Hart would be sent up with the paper’s size for that week — there had to be a certain ads-to-news ratio and we didn’t sell many ads — and invariably it meant fewer news pages than had been originally.
The editor would then explode and pepper the air with four-letter words for a minute or two. Calm would eventually descend, and after some seconds of silence, Brian would quietly ask “all right?” Boom! Off would go the editor again. But for all his anger and effing and jeffing he always gave in. Work would be ripped up and he’d start again.
My only option was to speak to the managing director. I explained that there was a huge story and if I failed to cover it properly on the back page I would be accused of anti-Stalybridge Celtic bias. He allowed me to remove the masthead which at least gave me space to publish a picture with a headline. Then I went big on the inside-back.
It wasn’t right and it wasn’t fair. In fact it was downright bad business. But I had to live with it. Of course, there were more than a few people who insisted I’d done it on purpose.
I wish I could say it was the only time something like that happened. But in 1997, when Glossop won the Manchester Premier Cup at Old Trafford, the printers bungled and the East Manchester back page was mistakenly put on the Glossop edition. Instead of reading about their victory at the Theatre of Dreams, North End fans were told the ins and outs of the Gorton League. Apart from me, no one in the building cared.
For the next incident, let’s fast-forward a year to Celtic signing Ian Arnold from Kettering Town for £15,000, an amount that remains a club record transfer fee.
Martyn Torr, who was then secretary at Bower Fold, had told me all about it so I was expecting an easier week. Big story, written for me, all I had to do was put it into place as the lead on the back page. But of course it wasn’t the expected, but the unexpected, that happened.
It was a different editor by this point and he had an even lower opinion of sport. He took absolutely no interest in my work but this particular week announced that the back pages had to be completed by Monday afternoon. There was no reason for this, and it never happened again, but this time the back pages had to be out before I’d had time to ring everyone.
Of course the one person I did ring was Martyn — time and time again. I desperately tried to get that story but with no success. All I could do was flag the signing and put a big article inside.
Well to say the Celtic faithful were unhappy would be an understatement, and of course I’d relegated their record transfer deal to a less prominent page out of sheer vinctiveness.
Peter Barnes, then the Bridge chairman, rang to say he was withdrawing all his club’s advertising from the paper which, I think, was zero in any case. There were angry letters and articles in Bower Bulletin. Even my old friend Keith Trudgeon accused me of unacceptable behaviour.
Then the editor ordered me to call Jack Thornley, a Celtic-supporting solicitor, to apologise for what I’d done. Despite several attempts I could never get him which was probably as well because he had a thorough dislike of me. Years later, when I came across him Walker Wilkinson’s butcher’s shop on Melbourne Street, Stalybridge, he refused to speak to me and turned his back.
In a way I was in the middle, powerless, while the fuss swirled around me and then, suddenly, my bosses changed their minds. After an angry letter from Pete Barnes, the managing director came to me and said: “Will you please tell the Stalybridge chairman that this is my effing paper and I decide what goes in it.” Even the editor, a horrible man, became vaguely supportive.
But none of it had ever needed to happen. What got into the bigwigs that week I have absolutely no idea. Then again, when I first became sports editor I can remember being approached on a Friday and angrily asked why I hadn’t got any pages away. “Because there’s been no sport yet,” I replied. Seemed obvious to me. I got a contemptuous snort in response.
Stalybridge also caused me to do one of my more memorable post-match interviews. I never got to broadcast it, but it ranks up there with Simon Haworth’s description of the atmosphere at Bower Fold as toxic and Eamonn O’Keefe telling me the real reason he fled the Al-Hilal club in Saudi Arabia. In all three cases I was left with my eyes wide open with amazement thinking “wow”.
I don’t remember the exact date, but it was after a game at the Butchers Arms in the days when Bloods manager Dave Pace loved to inject a bit of gunpowder into the air by making some barmy statement such as Celtic would be relegated by Christmas. He’s quietened down a lot in recent times but he used to relish playing the pantomime villain.
The match proved an ill-tempered affair. Celtic went two-up, then the Bloods came back to draw. In the meantime, the referee gave Dave a red card.
At the final whistle, more than a few people asked me if I was mad as I prepared to approach Dave with my Zoom recorder. I must admit, I prefer to speak to a manager when they’ve calmed down, not right after a game, but you have a job to do.
After a few opening comments, and congratulations on a great fightback, I meekly ventured the question: “Do you think it might be wiser not to wind up the opposition before big games like this?”
I didn’t realise I’d lit the blue touchpaper, and that meant I had no chance to retire. I was right then when Dave exploded. Guy Fawkes would have been proud.
“Big game? Big game? This wasn’t a big game. A big game to me is when we play a Football League club like Chesterfield, Darlington or Leyton Orient. Playing Stalybridge Celtic isn’t a big game.”
On and on he went. Reminiscent of Inspector Blake in “On the Buses” he hated Stalybridge Celtic. He hated Stalybridge. I’m not entirely certain he didn’t want the entire town wiped off the map.
When he’d finished, I stood there blinking for a few moments, then turned unsteadily and started to look for the Bridge boss. But I’d only gone a footstep or two when I felt a hand on my arm. It was Dave. Rant over, he’d calmed down and looked apologetic. “Do you mind if we do that again?” he asked. I was happy to comply. Behind the mask he’s a really decent bloke.
Generally, I’ve got on well with the Stalybridge managers. Jim Harvey never wanted to talk but I think that applied to anyone from the media. All the others were fine.
And when you think of Celtic bosses, with all due respect to the many I’ve known including Pete O’Brien, Phil Wilson, Kev Keelan and indeed the present incumbent, Simon Haworth, my mind always goes to Peter Wragg.
One sunny summer’s day he summoned me to Bower Fold — managers used to do that sort of thing — and I walked up there through Cheetham’s Park. Wraggy wanted me to write something to cool the supporters’ expectations. After an unbelievable comeback the previous season, when they won game after game after looking certain to be relegated from the Conference, he was worried the fans were becoming unrealistic in their expectations. He wanted them to be made to realise the new season would be another fight for survival not promotion.
When I got to Bower Fold I was met by Martyn Torr and given a tour of the new facilities. We then walked out to look at the pitch where Wraggy was either mowing or rolling.
“What do you think?” he shouted to me. “Very impressive,” I called back. “Yeh, great out there,” he replied. “Just crap on here.”
Wraggy at his best.