GFTU BGCM 2019 Minutes

north east with little experience and few qualifications at a time of rising

unemployment in the region.

I signed for Gateshead, a non-league team in the north east, and continued to

look for work. At that time I was deliriously happy and this is, as I say, the

impact of key people in your life, and Geoff Thompson mentioned it yesterday

in his address to conference. I was playing semi-professional football, I was

training two nights a week, I was in probably the worst social housing, the worst

council estate in Stockton, arguably in Teesside, the Tilery Estate which has

often featured in Benefits Britain and I was falling into a particular way of life

that was the norm on the estate that I lived in. I was getting up at 10, 11, 12,

getting up later every day. I would go to training twice in an evening. I would

get paid at the time £13 which seemed like a fortune to me. My aspirations

were very, very low. My dad was pretty forceful in making sure that I cast the

net further afield to look for work and as I was waiting to undertake a medical to

work for a scaffolding company Southampton came in and asked me to sign for

them, which I duly did. From then on over the next 13 years football was

always the first job offer, literally that. I was not this passionate, devoted, the

game is more important than life itself kind of footballer. It was the first job offer

that I was offered for the next 13 years.

I became a journeyman footballer playing in almost every level of English

football, but predominantly in the lower divisions and this was at a time before

what we would call the golden era of big money entered the profession. It was

at this time that I encountered my first intervention with my union and this was

when a manager who shall, again, remain nameless (it will all be in my book in

a few years’ time when I retire, not soon enough, says Ronnie!) said that he

was going to sack me for what I thought was a fairly minor transgression. He

came to me the next day looking a little bit dismayed and upset and informed

me that he had been told by the union that he could not sack me, that he could

only either fine me or suspend me and that he would have to notify me that I

had the right to appeal. I had not contacted the union. There were no mobile

phones then. What I did find out later was that a senior player, having heard of

my plight, contacted the PFA and informed them of the situation, whereupon

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