Living off the Dosh...Dickie Dosh that is

[Welwyn]

October 25th 2011

I sat there waiting. I wasn't exactly the condemned man, more the self condemned one. However, I didn't think the feeling would be much different if I wasn't in charge of my own fate.

I could always change it I suppose? I hadn't told Jeff, Roy, Nigel or any of the other directors yet, the players wouldn't have had time to read the individual notes to them all, explaining the why's and wherefores of the situation. I could go into the dressing room now and get rid of them, no-one need know...

...Walking towards the dressing room I realised the insanity of the situation, we'd done a great job of keeping it under wraps from the press until now (for goodness sake between myself and Katie we'd even kept it a secret from the board), but, no matter how good a PR girl she is, it's bound to come out some time soon and to try and avoid that is unmistakeably stupid.

104 Games, nigh on 2 years, it's a long time to be somewhere and I've fallen in love with the club, the fans (to an extent) and even the place despite the fact it's a dump. I suppose I'm used to that, having come via Luton, Newport and Stoke, I've chosen some pretty awful places to be through my life and I'd fallen in love with them so why should here be any different. To get back on point, I need to do the right thing for the club and for the fans if I want to see them do well, and I don't think I can do that myself.

The real thing I want to do is rewind the clock to the summer and that fortnight that, looking back now, turned my life around, dramatically and worse still, probably ruined this club for a good year or two at least. Seeing as I don't know anyone with a time machine, I'm guessing this is the only correct course of action...

...Daniel Mole, the clubs Press Officer, asked what the hold up was and that they were making jokes about my lateness in there. I told him that I wouldn't be a moment, I just had to ring Grezza. I looked at Dan and half stifled a chuckle. Invariably Football Club Press Officers were either older than sin and had been there so long you thought that they must have taken the minutes at the clubs formation or, like Daniel, they were fresh faced kids out of Uni and looked about 14, hence the chuckle, it hadn't been that long since that had been me.

Telling Dan that I was ringing Grez was the right thing to do, I surmised, for several reasons. Firstly, because he knew never to get in the way of a conversation between me and Grez. Secondly, because it'd give me a couple of minutes to prepare myself to get the wording of what I was about to say correct and Thirdly, because I was actually ringing Grezza!

And the reason ringing Grezza was a good idea was because he was my closest mate on the footballing side of the club and he deserved to know before I told the Press...

...Great, the answer machine, obviously not home yet (gawd damn slow coach). This way I can say everything without him interrupting and besides, I didn't like doing the big, emotional speech anyway (although apparently I'm pretty good at it!)...

...That done, it was time to get on with it and hopefully get gone pretty soon after it, I didn't much fancy being caught by the backlash, although I darn well deserve to be.

[Offspring8]

Solid start, Welwyn and let me be the first to welcome you to FMS. I'm looking forward to the next post and to enjoying your story keep it going

[Welwyn]

Solid start, Welwyn and let me be the first to welcome you to FMS. I'm looking forward to the next post and to enjoying your story keep it going

I did do a story a VERY long time ago: http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php?t=25774. However, my computer went down & it was 4 months before I got it back so by this time the thread had closed. Hadn't got around to doing another until now.

[Welwyn]

***

To be honest, I shouldn't even be here! I'm not a manager, never should have been.

I had never played the game except on the playground. I was a frigging journalist, that's what I spent three years at University doing. Not only that, it was the best three years of my life mind, not that it mattered looking back now.

It was after that it started really, I left there a little bit like Daniel, more worldly wise because of Uni but not really ready to fight my way to a story like a 'proper' journalist. I hit the jackpot mind, not only did a land a Press Officers job, it was with the Geordie's. OK, it was up even further north than I was used too but I'd loved it having moved from Luton to Stoke for uni so I was excited to move further up. Mind you, despite the fact I loved Stoke, surely Newcastle would be a much nicer place to live.

It was too, I loved life up there and it was a relatively cushy number as I was one of the 'minions' on the staff (they had a HUGE press department). The best thing they did though was put me on a lot of youth team assignments, I got to know the youth team boss, Richard Money, really well. It helped that he'd been a Luton player when my dad used to be a regular feature as a hatters fan at Kenny Road, so the ice breaking was easy.

We got on really well for the few years I was there, but I'll remember the day all that changed like nothing else.

I'd got a letter from Walsall FC saying they were inviting me for an interview for the vacant managers job at the Bescot. Now, I knew I wasn't very good at spotting practical jokes but I thought I'd nailed this one right on the head. So I brought it up with the guys in the office but they were adamant it wasn't any of them. so I dropped it.

I wasn't until a week later when I went to interview 'Dickie Dosh' (although I'm not entirely sure he likes that nickname) again that it became clear. I was enjoying the usual half hour or so of preamble we always had, discussing everything from Luton to Man U and co. Then he suddenly asked me how the interview had gone at his 'old stomping ground'!

"That was YOU then! Nice attempt, didn't get me with that one."

"Errr, Steve. That wasn't a joke, you know more about the game than most this lot and my name, as you can imagine, holds quite an impact down there, so I rang them up and suggested you."

It was true that his name probably meant a lot to Walsall, he won promotion to League 1 and then almost took them to the League 1 Play-offs, the year we won the title ahead of Hull. However, he'd then upped and left to join the Geordie's so I didn't know how much it had clouded it at all and there was some things you didn't ask Rich about and I was guessing that was one of them.

It couldn't have ruined his reputation much mind, as having decided to go to the interview for a laugh, I was having to pack up and go to the 'Black Country' a week later.

The date was 2nd December 2009, I was no longer a Sports Journalist, I was a football manager in the BEEP-hole of the Midlands.

Destination Walsall!

***

[Welwyn]

It was then that I snapped back into the current moment.

I looked at Dan again and my journalistic hat snapped back on. I couldn't run on him like this, I know the questions the 'pack' would throw at him & there is no damn chance the poor kid would have a chance with this coming out on the spot like this and despite all I've done and the mess, I not only have already put them in, but the even deeper one I'm about to, I am not naturally a vindictive or unkind person (at least I don't think I am). Therefore, I couldn't just shove Daniel in the BIG doggy doo-doo yet.

So I did the Press Conference as per usual, the bog-standard type of post-match interview that you get as the manager of the bottom side after a run-of the mill 2-1 home defeat to a side in the play-off spots. About halfway through, the thought crossed my mind that these lot don't even have the faintest idea of what I'm about to do, or the complete balls up I made of the club this summer. I could conceivably just carry on and get away with everything with nobody knowing, for now at least. I looked up, actually, looking at this lot, there is a chance they'd never find out, ever!

However, for the good of Walsall, I had to do this, I had to go...

...oh, looks like they've finished...

"Any More Questions?"

"Right, I have a major announcement for you all about myself that I will make here at 8:30pm tonight. I will allow Broadcast Media in but not to record or show live any part of my statement."

I left the room, I had done it now, I would only be the football manager of Walsall for another, errrr, 105 minutes. The length of a football game, if you include Half-Time.

[Welwyn]

I sat back in the dressing room with the lights off & a glass of Single Malt in my hand. Just because of what happened, it's not going to stop me having some scotch from time to time. Besides, I'm still certain that Alcohol didn't have anything to do with it.

The only thing I've got on is the DVD of what will now be my only full season as Walsall manager and, considering the revelations I was about to make, I'm damn sure it'll probably be my only full season as a football manager FULL STOP.

I realise, that apart from the fact I was in the dressing room instead of my front room, the scene probably looked a lot like the one of Colin Firth in Fever Pitch. Although, for me to have been responsible for anybody's pregnancy in the last few months was going to take an almighty leap of faith. However, I was losing myself in a whirl of reminiscence and disbelief.

"So this was Steve Moore's first full season in charge, having failed to salvage our League 1 status, the only acceptable finish would be to end up back there at the first attempt and be back in League 1 for 2011/2012. Something that looked distinctly possible when, after a dull 0-0 with Aldershot on the opening day, new signing Kayode Odejayi hit 2 as the Saddler's destroyed League 1 side Norwich 4-1 in the 1st round of the League Cup."

Ohhh, I remember that game, suddenly I had belief in myself and I think for the first time, the players had belief in me as opposed to seeing me as a joke and a laughing stock which had been the case the previous year. To be honest I had treated the whole thing as a joke up until that point, so I'm not going to blame them.

Then, will watching the next few months. When we went unbeaten until November, were top by a bucketload. Troy Deeney scoring cartfuls, Grezza pulling the strings in midfield. It was bringing a tear to my eye. I can't believe I was leaving this.

"Then the Saddlers went down to Rochdale 3-2. Nobody thought at that stage it'd be anything more than a blip. How we were all unbelievably wrong"

'Your not wrong there!' I called out, to nobody in particular.

The next half-hour or so, all I could make out on the screen was the blur of me getting more and more irate on the sideline as 2011 opened up & we dropped further and further down the table until, after a 5-3 defeat at Edgeley Park to a very average Stockport side that included the worst defending I've ever seen (So bad that, even watching it now, I threw my glass against the dressing room wall in disgust), we were out of the top 3.

I grabbed a new glass and filled it. By the time I'd got back it had reached play-off time on the DVD. Watching that second half against Northampton where we blew ourselves out of sight and sent Sixfields into mourning after the first leg was just as gorgeous as it was at the time. Troy Deeney and Rocky Lekaj put on a wonderful show.

Then, after the dull second leg, it cut to a shot of me in the managers office. I chuckled to myself. Not because of how ugly I looked, although I doubt you find anyone arguing that I was anything other than one of nature's least attractive human creations, but it was me at my media playing best. It was 'impassioned' plea to fans that went on Saddlers World before the Final.

"I've been to the new Wembley several times already. As some of you more obsessive fans may know, I'm at heart, a childhood Luton fan. I went to their JPT final against Scunthorpe and it was the greatest day of my life. However, that may be trumped by leading my team out next Wednesday.

My aim is to make this the greatest day of every Saddlers life. I know that we won't sell 40 thousand tickets like Luton did because Wembley will never give out that many tickets to one team again. However, I know we can take at least 20, 25 thousand and drown out the Morecambe fans and show exactly why we deserve to go up.

Now, no matter how much I want to, I can't promise that we will win. HOWEVER, what I CAN promise you, is that everyone that pulls on that Red shirt will be flogging his guts out for this club and if we produce the football we can, we will go up. We can't just turn it on though. We need you to be there and pull us on, get that 10 percent that just won't come unless you as fans can give us the energy and the adreneline to do, not just 100 percent, but the true 100 percent of our potential."

[Welwyn]

I turned the television off, I knew what was coming next and I could picture it without the need for video evidence. It couldn't be clearer than in my mind if it was in HD.

Yes, the new Wembley already held much greater memories than the old one too me and not just because of the shocking performance of Kerry Dixon against Chelsea in '94. Maybe it's the JPT Final, maybe it's the NFL. However, this Wembley stadium and the arch that can be seen from Barnet to Westminster means more to me than the old one with it's twin towers that couldn't be seen from any further away than Wembley Park tube.

Nothing compares to being on that turf in the middle of it though. OK, there wasn't 40,000 Saddlers there, but 23-odd thousand will do nicely and to see them looking at you and your team in hope, expectation and every other emotion under the sun is an indescribable feeling.

If I told you I was nervous, it wouldn't be close. If I told you I was scared, it wouldn't be close. Heck, even if I told you I was scared, it wouldn't be close. You could put any adjective in front of any of those feelings, not matter how blue, it still wouldn't come anywhere near. It's all of those in there most extreme form put together plus more.

What I will say, is it was not only a couple of my players wanting to test out the strength of the new stadiums plumbing and after we scored an own goal to go 1-0 down after half-hour, I felt like going again.

You know those people that sometimes get a feeling about whether it'll be a good or bad day beforehand (or at least they say they do). Well, I ain't one of them. So, when Dwayne Mattis scored on the hour mark, all it meant was a way into the game. I couldn't stand the prospect of extra-time. When the final whistle blew to signal that we were going to play that extra 30, I felt like I wanted to be sick right there and then. When we got to the half-way mark in that, I felt our best chance was to vomit on the penalty spot before the shootout!

Then Mattis and Deeney played a 1-2 and Troy turned to his right, 30-odd yards out from goal, and firecrackered the best goal he will EVER score. That was the moment I knew I would never replicate in my life.

***

My mind came back into the dressing room for a moment and I saw the clock, it was 8:25...Time To Go.

[Welwyn]

I approached the local journalists gathered in my office (or rather what WAS my office). I couldn't necessarily hear them trying to work out what it was about but I could sense that it was the case.

"Right...

...My fellow journalists. I will now read to you, my letter to the Directors of this football club that was put into the boardroom at 8:27pm this evening.

Dear Mr Bonser, Mr Bond, Mr Whalley and all other directors of Walsall Football Club.

I have fully enjoyed the 22 months I have spent at this Football Club, earning promotion back to League 1 in the process. However, I feel the time is right to tender my resignation from the managers post.

This is due to my failure to fulfil my duties in a period during the Summer of 2011. In this period I had personal problems that directly lead to me going heavily into both Alcohol and other judgement affecting chemicals. This not only affected my judgement in this period, but the mistakes I made during this period still affect the club until this day and I believe it is the primary reason we currently sit in 24th position.

I shall have removed my belongings and left the club by Sunday October 26th. All that remains to do is to thank you for this opportunity and wish this club all the very best for the future.

Yours Sincerely,

Steve Moore

I will finish by saying that I am not interested in discussing the state of my personal problems. I wish to also thank you lot for not asking me too many hard questions during my tenure here and that it's been a pleasure working with you all. As you can imagine this is a very emotional time for me and I would respect it if you could leave without attempting further questions.

Thank You"

There, my great adventure...over just like that.

[Welwyn]

"Why did I do it? What did I do?" I here you saying. That's what the press are saying as well! Or rather, what they'd be saying if they weren't settling for over-the-top extravagant b.s! As for the mention of Heroin, that even made me laugh!

Well, I think that might be the first time the manager of a 3rd tier team got onto the backpages in a league weekend!

To think that stuff that happened in Newcastle would come back to haunt me in the Black Country, a year and a half after I'd left, would be ludicrous. But it's true.

You ever had a relationship, no matter how short, that was ended because exterior circumstances led to it being unsustainable from both sides. That's what happened a few months before I left for Walsall. Actually, 2 months and 21 days, but whose counting.

I will never forget the moment, at 11:21pm in Sea in Newcastle on 14th April 2009, that I first heard the gorgeous Irish accent of Louise Dollard. I was sucked in from the moment I heard it and when I looked and saw that the creature carrying it was even more gorgeous than the voice itself, I was gone. Melting into her eyes as if I was chocolate in a summer heatwave. Her long brown hair, that wonderfully unforgettable purple dress and those eyes, I still can't say anything about those eyes, because nothing would do them justice.

That, in itself, was an unusual thing for me, seeing as looks have never been number one priority. The fact that over the course of the night, she was such a great personality as well, someone interesting, amazing and so much more intelligent and worldly wise than me would've made me cry about what a truly wonderful person she was. It would've done, apart from that, at that precise moment, crying probably would NOT have given me much chance of landing a phone number at the end of the night.

The most unusual thing though, was her interest in me. She LIKED me, she actually wasn't going to run to the hills to avoid having to talk to me. Which, I'll be honest, I'm more than used to. I was the self-confessed ugliest one in the Geordie Press Office and there was a reason the Walsall lads nickname for me was 'the young ugly monster', even if they didn't know I knew!

The next month or two was a blur, but was the greatest blur of my life. To call us inseparable would be an insult to glue. We talked about the big things, the little things, the nothings. About Tipp and Hurling, Cricket and the Duckworth Lewis Method (The band, not the math formula!). It didn't matter, we got on.

It's strange but typical then, that the one thing I can remember clearly, was sitting in a cafe in the middle of the City Centre at the moment when it was all about to come tumbling down. Just like the rain pouring down outside, Louise, my beautiful Louise was about to rain on our parade.

***

"Listen, you know I'm doing German and Law at Northumberland?" she mentioned to me. It wasn't anything new, she talked about it a couple of times and made my fading knowledge of German look even more pathetic than it actually was.

"Yes darling, what is it?" I casually asked, wondering if this was her way of inviting me to her graduation.

"Well, I have to do an Erasmus year in September and then a masters year back home in Ireland immediately after graduation, it means I'll be out of England for the next two years solid basically." she told me, about as softly as she could seeing as she had just put a stake right through the heart of the relationship.

***

I spent the next month basically trying to find an excuse not too. But I think we both realised that there was only one realistic course of action. We'd only known each other for 2 months. 2 years apart was out of the question. I didn't want to hold her back in anyway. I wished her well and 'cast her free', as it were. Or that's rather me playing it over the top.

How did that ruin my life, 18 months hence. Here's how...

[Welwyn]

Well, I was going to tell you about it, but I sort of got distracted.

It's not often most people get a phone call from Thomas Helveg, well, I suppose his friends quite often do but I've never met the guy before. Therefore, as you can imagine it was kind of a shock. However, compared with what he was about to explain, it was positively a daily occurrence.

The idea that he was about to head a consortium that wanted to take charge of Hartlepool United (I was shocked he'd even heard of Hartlepool United), was weird and the fact that he wanted to install me as manager having never met me convinced me that I was having one completely mucked up dream.

It appeared I wasn't, he really wanted me in charge. Why on earth, Chris Turner is a legend up there and they're mid-table. I'd understand them bringing in a Dane but not me. I asked him why and to be fair, his reply was one of the best quotes ever:

"Errr, you're on the back pages. You're the boozed up, drugged up emotionally unstable mental football manager. Come on, It's Hartlepool! They have H'Angus the Monkey as a mayor. They used to have Peter Mandelson as an MP! Think of the gates we'll get, they'll be HUGE!"

Now, apart from the fact I don't know how on earth he knew about any of that stuff, it did make perfect sense, albeit it would involve me being used as a marketing tool and basically a figure of fun. Besides, I'm enough of an laughing stock anyway and he wasn't really going to succeed in taking over the club...

...Was he?

[Welwyn]

November 26th 2011

They say, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. However, my mate has a saying in his newsroom than when the Editor gives him lemons, they've already been sucked dry!

My life's been a bit like that for the last few months. So possibly I should add a line to that saying that if life gives you dry lemons, drink Tequila! O.K., so I don't like Tequila, but at least it gets you drunk.

As I already knew, I was being set up as the laughing stock of the North East by a man I'd never met. To be honest, I really didn't care, if it gave me another chance of football management (hence the Tequila quote). Now, a month after leaving Walsall in a crowd of mystery, as far as the real truth wasn't public knowledge yet, I was about to become manager of the club that kickstarted Clough & Taylor, were one of the standard bearers for 3rd tier mediocrity and launched Adam Boyd into a piefest around the Championship before landing himself back here via East London.

Did I want to be here? Well, I was in football management again, I was back up North and had Dickie to lean on if needed. Although, considering he was on £5k a week as the Youth Academy Director, I rather doubt he'll be joining me (to be honest, it'll be hard enough to get Grezza Alexander to join me from Walsall!)

However, I was about to announce my appointment by doing the photoshoot wearing the H'Angus the Monkey costume with a pint of Ale in my hand! Even I knew that it was incredible bad PR, no matter how much attention it'll bring. I'm basically the guinea pig for the phrase "All publicity is good publicity".

It's all been such a rush, I don't even know who we even play first!

Now, where's that Monkey suit?

[ScottleeSV]

I felt compelled to read this one today. It's good so far. Walsall would never out-sing Morecambe at Wembley though. Morecambe are as loud an away crowd as I've ever seen.

I wondered who 'Grezza' was until the final paragraph. I thought it might turn out to be Gazza but not every hunch pays off

Keep going.