Kindle Notes & Highlights
The season is nearing an end but for some in our ranks, it is already over. Magaluf and Benidorm beckon. The wives insist on it.
Dennis Marshall, the club secretary, handed me a form the other week to fill in a few personal details. I didn’t want to be the Steak Diana Ross cliché – favourite food: Steak Diane; favourite singer: Diana Ross; favourite movie star: Paul Newman; favourite film: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. No I wanted to be different. So I put the Applejacks as favourite singers, Sugar Sugar as favourite record and Magic Roundabout as favourite television programme.
Reflection on a first season in professional football: Bad habits of professional footballers: 1) Urinating in the bath 2) Urinating over hair when washing it 3) Urinating over body when washing it 4) Dumping in the bath when you are under water rinsing hair, emerging to turd floating close to nostrils 5) Throwing hot tea over naked body 6) Pressing hot spoon against penis
Bad habits of apprentices: 1) Stealing clothes which are returned within three months 2) Tying knots in clothing 3) Telling lies i.e. you are wanted on the phone when relaxing in bath 4) Many of the above
Bad Habits of manager: 1) Extracting urine as in: How does it feel to be a star, eh, David after I received good press for performance at Roker Park on New Year’s Day 2) Swearing and cussing at everyone except the little man, the jewel, eh 3) Blaming me for the death of Christ, Churchill, etc
Bad Habits of Directors: 1) Picking noses and acting superior 2) Extracting further urine regarding my a) sandals b) ties, lack of them mostly c) trousers d) shirts e) jackets f) hair etc
Friday, August 9 Nixon resigns. A 1-1 draw with Swindon Town on our way home concludes the tour of the West Country.
The Star of India suffices with a Spanish omelette and chips. Smithy decides on something more exotic and walking home is caught short. Dirty little sod that he is, he nips over an unsuspecting resident’s wall and dumps his load in the backyard. His underpants serve as toilet paper which he then throws into the adjacent yard of the neighbour. And he wonders why he is exiled to his own little bath after training.
“Bloody hell Jack, my arse is on fire,” he shouted across the mercifully empty terracing of Ayresome Park last week. “I’ve forgot the fucking cream.” Jack: “You bloody dirty little sod, Smithy.” And off Jack went, back to the dressing room and fetched the tube, the contents of which Smithy smoothed into his inflamed bowels before the main stand with his shorts and jock strap rolled down to his knees. One of the truly great sporting pictures of 1975.
