Talk Dants - Episode 1

It would have been Trevor Francis’ 70th birthday last week and whilst acknowledging that in a post on my socials, I found a photo of him with me that took me back to a very prestigious occasion at St Andrew’s nearly 20 years ago now.

Testimonial matches are a phenomenon that have gradually been dying out in top level football over recent years, simply because players tend not to stay at clubs long enough to warrant such a thing! (There’s an argument that The Juke deserves a night at St Andrew’s for all of his recent efforts in a Royal Blue shirt, but that’s a discussion for another day).

Martin Grainger was the last player I can think of that we’ve honoured in such a way and his testimonial in November 2005 is the only time that I’ve ever been asked to play on the hallowed turf!

I couldn’t believe I had even been asked to help celebrate his special night as his Blues All-Star 11 took on an Academy side. I’d been at talkSPORT for a year by this point and was also on working on Sundays at Heart FM at the time.

I got an email at Heart FM from Mick Flaherty – who was part of Martin’s testimonial committee – asking me to be part of things. It was staggering enough to have been asked, but when I discovered that Tricky Trev would be playing & making his first appearance back at St Andrew’s since he left the club as manager in 2001 in the SAME squad as me, the nerves really kicked in.

You see, whilst I had met and interviewed Trevor “on many occasions” (as he himself would have put it) as part of my job as a football reporter, it never once really settled in my mind that I was chatting to my first footballing hero one on one. The novelty never ever wore off, I can tell you, but here I was being asked to potentially play on the same pitch and in the same team as him! This was Christmas come early for me.

Martin himself was fully deserving of the testimonial that he had been granted. We all loved him obviously, and his no nonsense approach to the game was mirrored by his equally strong approach to being interviewed by the likes of me in the press!

I can remember for example when I was doing the PA announcements at Blues in the late 1990s and TF, as manager, had come up with an idea about goal celebration music. He had not long successfully brought “The Tamperer” to the club as the introduction music when players emerged from the tunnel, and he obviously felt that he was on a roll. 

His latest idea was to go one step further than Bolton Wanderers, who used to play “I Feel Good” by James Brown every time a Bolton player scored at the Reebok. TF had the grand notion that not only should something similar be done at Blues, but also that there should be different goal music for every player – music that I should have ready cued up in the commentary box for whoever scored for us. And so to that end, he asked me to come into Wast Hills training facility one day to talk to each member of the first team squad and ask each of them for their preferred piece of music that they would want to accompany them finding the net at our place.

I was nervous entering the players area as they sat at lunch that day, and Martin as captain was the first player that I approached. I introduced myself and explained what Trevor‘s idea was and could he let me know what music he would like played for a goal that he scored? 

Martin looked me up and down and after a pregnant pause that was probably only five seconds but felt like a minute, finally said calmly and softly “Please Release Me, Engelbert Humperdinck…”. The rest of his table fell about laughing and I instantly thought “ this idea isn’t going to fly”. I soon gave up in my quest & TF agreed.

Martin’s testimonial that chilly November night in 2005 was utterly surreal for me. All the squad met in the home changing room and I was there getting changed next to Trevor, Jon Mccarthy, Paul Furlong, Paul Tait and a host of other great players from down our history. Plus of course Dean Gaffney from EastEnders, who must have a deal through his agent to play in every testimonial match in England it seems. 

We went out and did a warmup session, which knackered me out before we’d even kicked a ball in earnest, but luckily I wasn’t starting the game– instead I would be amongst the plethora of substitutes named by Barry Fry our boss for the evening and we all would, we were assured, get some game time in the 90 minutes to come.

I ended up getting about 15 minutes at the end of the second half to strut my stuff and I was placed at right back (the “least challenging” position on the pitch to be placed, Barry Fry thought) alongside my friend Ian Clarkson, who guided me through it all brilliantly. But the moment did eventually come, where, fuelled by reckless spirit, I decided to go past the halfway line in hope of receiving possession. As I did so, Trevor, who had also come on as a second half substitute, had the ball at his feet on the Kop stand side of the pitch, about 40 yards away from me.

Up went my right arm. “TREV! TREV!” I shouted sensing that I was in space. Trev flashed a glance in my general direction and then WALLOP! He’d sent the ball my way…at incredible speed. It was coming at me like a tracer bullet and I barely had time to say “Don’t f*** this up, don’t f*** this up…” repeatedly to myself before the ball arrived at my right instep.

One of the academy players on the other side was coming towards me as I was about to receive the pass, and maybe it was because I knew he was close that my concentration on the pass from Trev wasn’t what it should have been. Rather than cushioning the ball with my instep, it instead hit the sole of my right boot, bounced into the turf and over the head of the advancing player, who I then ran around to collect the ball and feed it up to Paul Furlong. 

It looked like the work of genius but was, in reality, total fluke. Not that I let on as we left the field at full time for the dressing rooms. I’m pretty sure I spoke to Trev and said something soppy like “Thank you for passing the ball to me Trev!” which he took in good nature-seeing my family later (who’d been in the stands to witness my Blues debut) they all knew the ‘skill’ was unintentional on my part and I was ribbed about it by my old man in particular!

Of all the memories of TF that I have as a player, manager, pundit, whatever…that moment of him passing me the football that he loved scoring and assisting with is at the very top. Fortunate enough to have watched him in his 70’s penguin strip pomp: even more fortunate to have been on the end of a Francis pass. What a player and man he was. Still missed and always will be.

KRO

Dants