Cod Almighty | Article

by Richard Lord

22 December 2009

Frankly I'm disappointed that Mariners World has become Mariners Player - partly because the change of name still hasn't prompted anyone to include a possessive apostrophe which the word 'Mariners' has been crying out for since its inception, and partly because, for those of you who care (or can be bothered) to remember, I once presented Mariners' World. In that one season I managed to fall out with Des Hamilton, squeeze incoherent sentences out of ol' big arse Tony Crane, and tried to have a laugh with Aidan Davison. I also forced Dale Ladson into learning his editing program inside out, as I wasn't a natural presenter to say the least.

Now that Mariners' World has changed its identity, it feels like a part of my history with the club is being consigned to the rubbish bin. I should be glad, really, because my hair back then rivalled what ticket office supremo Steve Wraith is currently trying to achieve with his embarrassing mop - and no one should be allowed to look in the archive and have to see a tramp with a £3.99 microphone from Ramsdens stood uncomfortably in front of a camera yabbering on about Jamie Lawrence and Jonathan Rowan.

Mention the names Mikael Antoine-Curier, Paul Warhurst and Des Hamilton (as Pete Green has done in an old article) and I get that paralytic feeling in the base of my legs, somewhere around my ankles but not quite in my feet - similar to the feeling you get when you're on course for a head-on collision with a pedestrian who's not really looking where he's going, and you try to change your course of direction at the same time he does, and it all ends in an embarrassing mess with you both apologising for getting in each other's way.

It was a sorry season for the Mariners, and a time when I was feeling a bit sorry for myself too. With university in the pipeline I was made redundant in October 2003 - the worst possible time for a prospective undergraduate, meaning I had to wait a whole 11 months until I could flee the nest.

I didn't do very much that year other than learn to drive, learn to play the guitar... and learn that presenting Mariners World wasn't quite as easy as I thought it would be, as there were one or two people on the playing and coaching staff who would test my patience and credentials for making a career out of sports reporting.

Being a regular fan and wanting to get more involved with the club, I offered up my time and enthusiasm to Tim Harvey, who took a chance on a completely inexperienced 20-year-old to present Mariners World. I also ended up writing a regular 1,000-word column for each of the matchday programmes too, so it kept me busy for the year and I got to speak to each and every one of our players at some point. We had 40 of them for that campaign.

"When the dictaphone was switched off Groves suggested - politely, but with swear words - to avoid asking negative questions"

Frustrated by asking the easy questions, I soon learned that asking objective questions wasn't the best way to extract information from a tired and torn Paul Groves, who, at that time, cut the image of an under-pressure manager with a sweat-stained shirt collar and loosened tie. I can't remember the exact context but I wanted to know how he planned to turn around our poor home form. He gave me his answer, but when the dictaphone was switched off he suggested - politely, but with swear words - to avoid asking negative questions. I don't think Paul knew my situation: that I was just a fan giving up my spare time to help the club out. So despite being a little shaken by the outburst, I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. He was, after all, a hero of mine - not to mention ridiculously honest and professional (when he wasn't seething the day after an 8-1 defeat at Hartlepool, anyway).

When it came to Des Hamilton, however, I couldn't give him the benefit of anything. Now I understand that footballers are a superstitious lot, but I find it difficult to justify any one of them using me as an excuse for their career being hampered by injury and tailing off into nothingness. There's being superstitious, and then there's being a completely intolerable bell-end of seismic proportions.

As we know, Disco Des didn't get off to the best of starts when he was sent off in the League Cup defeat at Doncaster. Once he worked his way back into the side I interviewed him on the Blundell Park pitch and asked how he felt his time at Grimsby was going.

I then asked him about an injury he sustained in pre-season. I maintain to this day that he was absent for at least one friendly due to some sort of injury, but he disagreed. He took exception to my line of questioning and just walked off. Great! I'm only doing this for fun and now I know how Clive Anderson must have felt. Luckily - perhaps fatally - Des returned, having touched one of the Main Stand's advertisement hoardings. "No injuries for me, touch wood," he said, "although if I do get injured, I'll know who to come after."

The next day Des Hamilton got injured.

As Dale and I walked round the edge of the pitch we could see Des rolling around on the grass, performing a kind of pointing-and-swearing act that you would more commonly see from the fans when Darren Mansaram would fall over instead of shoot. At first I did the old over-the-shoulder look until Dale assured me that the verbal abuse was definitely meant for me.

"I could hear Disco Des chirping away behind me, advising that no one else should speak to me because I was 'cursed'"

Still believing, perhaps naively so, that all this remained within the boundaries of a joke, I carried on as normal. I interviewed Tony Crane and Graham Rodger that day, and all the while I could hear Disco Des chirping away behind me, advising that no one else should speak to me because I was 'cursed'. The only person that was doing any cursing that day was Derrick himself. Honestly, he came out with words that I only ever heard from my grandad.

Des Hamilton refused to give any interviews to Mariners World for the rest of the season. He really believed that I was the reason for his problems. For weeks I felt that it was just pretence and that he'd eventually snap out of it and talk to us once again. He didn't. He never once made any effort to speak to me, refused to acknowledge my presence, and skulked off to Barnet by the end of the season.

If there were any remaining shreds of doubt that I was the one being insensitive, they were completely wiped when my friend from uni revealed that he used to live 'round the corner' from Des Hamilton in Durham and thought "the guy was a complete fucknuggit", to quote the term used.

I recall interviewing Mikael Antoine-Curier the day he signed for us on a short-term deal. Off camera, he entertained me with a story about the incident that ultimately curtailed his career with Notts County, but on camera he became rigid, uptight and pretty boring. Paul Warhurst was similar; he was frustratingly tedious when the camera was rolling, but quite the fascinating footballer once he had rested his feet upon the table, slouched back in his chair and recalled how he enjoyed his days playing up front for Sheffield Wednesday in Europe and nearly dying after scoring a goal milliseconds before the goalkeeper punched him in the head.

It was as if the footballers who were not media-savvy were programmed to give very little away - err on the side of caution - even in the nice, relaxed, friendly and subjective Mariners World environment, where tough questions were encouraged to stay at home and phone in sick. With this in mind, it was bitterly disappointing to get all the boring, predictable dross on film, and get all the interesting anecdotes, reminisces and memories that made Town's (failed) footballers appear that much more amiable when the camera stopped rolling. The one player who attempted to buck this trend was Aidan Davison, who often advised himself mid-sentence to be careful of what he said next.

You see, to me the names of those players that we would like to banish from our memories forever (maybe with the exception of Davison) generate different, less aggressive emotions. I remember their performances on the pitch in a truly forgettable season, but I also remember how each one of them - for different reasons - helped me realise that you have to be bloody clever, subtle and sensitive to teaze out the good stories. They made me realise that I had to work on a lot of techniques that would get the best out of an interview - although I still maintain that some of the top football reporters who work for the BBC and Rupert Murdoch continue to ask ridiculous and pointless closed questions which give the interviewee the perfect opportunity to squeeze in as many clichés as possible within a 30-second period.

While I may have ended Des Hamilton's football career, then (and some may like to buy me a drink for that, I don't know), I'd like to think that the players enhanced mine.