Cod Almighty | Article

by Tony Butcher

26 August 2024

A year after the enforced retirement from the BBC we thought the dust may have settled sufficiently and we can have a fireside chat with the erstwhile mouth of the Humber, to get to know the man behind that unpopular myth - the voice of Radio Hullberside.

And the result may stagger you - his Grimsby connections are deeper than many of those sat in the stands. In hindsight he's the messenger who got shot for asking the questions many didn't want to hear at the time. Times change and people change over time.

In the week before the season began we sent Tony Butcher over the bridge and onto foreign soil to dig down and ask: who is David Burns?

Thursday 1 August 2024
In a land, far, far away a door opens and there's a familiar voice coming from a familiar face. Not on the screen or through the radio, but there in normal life. Just a man at home and hopefully at ease.

Into the conservatory and a coffee negotiated - which required wifely directions for our broadcasting legend is very much a tea man. Look around, what do I see? A wall of family photographs, of children and grandchildren all in black and white: Black and White Stripes.

Over two hours we roam the globe, we go beyond the headlines, we find Burnsy arriving in Cleethorpes one fine day, at the birth ska and not seeing too much fighting on the dancefloor, counting pennies in peculiar places. We see the other side of the Helen Shapiro incident, take a peek into the Big Pink Fenty File, chortle at the wacky world of Dave Gibbons, visit the Winter Gardens, talk Town, George and Alan and find out what's next.

It's a tale of one man's life and times, the canary in the mine when it came to John Fenty. So open your minds and see if your eyes are opened a little further on the local broadcasting legend.

TB: Go on let's get the life and times of David Lord Burns out of the way. Before being part of our public life, you had a life, some may say an eclectic one. You were born in Glasgow, lived here, there and not quite everywhere, including dear old Grimsby.

DB: I left Glasgow when I was 5 – kicked out because I was too hard for Glasgow! Then we went to Nigeria. My dad worked for Dunlop so I went out there with my mum and dad to a place called Ikeja just outside Lagos and we stayed there until the Biafran war – I didn't start it – and then went back to Glasgow initially. I went to school there for a while and then my dad got posted to Trinidad. I didn't go because by then I was approaching secondary school age. I ended up staying in Edinburgh with my auntie and uncle and cousins for three years whilst my parents were in Trinidad.

They didn't completely abandon me, I went out to see them in school holidays. As a ten-year-old boy it was weird. I used to fly down from Edinburgh to Heathrow on my own, get picked up by a chauffeur, who dropped me at a hotel for the night (as a ten year old boy in a hotel on me tod ordering room service), then chauffeur driven to the airport next day and put on a jet to the West Indies.

TB: So, great training for when you eventually became a broadcaster?
DB: Well, yeah, I became very used to the jet set lifestyle, and after that glamourous post in the West Indies my dad was transferred to…Pyewipe. That's how I got my association with Grimsby and Cleethorpes.

TB: When you have to move at that age you have work out how to assimilate. Did you have a Scottish accent?
DB: Oh yeah, definitely when I was five, but I was a bit of a chameleon. I don't know when I lost it, but I got it back certainly when I went to Glasgow and Edinburgh. I spent a lot of time on first days in new schools fighting people. It was just the way it was so that no-one messed around with you.

We came down on a very foggy New Year's Day 1972 and stayed our first night in the County Hotel in Grimsby. We lived for a while in a guest house on Clee Road, near the Memorial Hall and then my mum and dad bought a house down Taylors Avenue. I went to the wonderful Clee Humberston Foundation school for boys. I don't think I'd ever been to a school before that had it's own song.

TB: That became Matthew Humberston in new money
DB: Don't ask me to sing the school song. So I've gone from a comprehensive in Scotland – Boroughmuir High School, a famous Rugby Union playing school - to Clee Grammer. After about a year my education just went south 'cos we merged with another school and they introduced girls. And then there was a lot of boys' education at Clee Grammar…

Well, I enjoyed, I loved school, absolutely loved it. I wasn't one of these kid who hated going. Great social interaction, you got to see your mates every day, got to play football and do stuff. I loved it. It was the social stuff more than the educational side really. I was a relatively bright lad but I was not dedicated to working hard. I was just there for a good time. Which has been my life story really.

I've been invited back. I bumped into somebody in a pub who's a teacher there and asked if I'd do a talk. I remember Graham Taylor coming when I was in the sixth form to do a chat.

TB: Mmm, I read somewhere that you are Rangers fan and your dad was a Celtic fan. How did that work out?
DB: My mum and dad were in a mixed marriage. My grandpa and uncles on my mum's side were Rangers fans and when I was still living in Scotland they took me. My dad was away so they took me to the football. Their club.

TB: How did that impact at school?
DB: I can't remember it ever being an issue. I wasn't at a Catholic school or anything like that. My family weren't religious but my father by tradition was a Celtic fan. I'm old enough to have seen Alex Ferguson play, he was not a bad player. Jim Baxter I've seen play for Rangers. I went to the odd Celtic game with my dad, but that's where I was first introduced to football.

In Nigeria and Trinidad I used to go and watch matches – don't ask me the teams I went to see! I used to go to quite a lot of Scotland games through my childhood as my dad's best friend was the secretary of the Scottish Football Association – always good for tickets! I went to Hampden when there was well over 100,000 – I think the highest crowd was 147,000 – I went to Wembley with my dad, usually to see Scotland lose.

TB: You were broken in early for attending football matches.
DB: To disappointment, yeah

TB: Local Town players who were roughly the same age, you sort of cross over with a couple – you would have been in the same school year as Tony Ford and Paul Emson
DB: : I was never in the first team, I wasn't good enough. I was gobby, so I would tell other people what to do. I played in a five-a-side tournament once at the Leisure Centre and we somehow got to the final – we were just a rag bag team of mates – and I think the team we played had Emson and the lad Klug who went to Ipswich. They absolutely tonked us.

TB: I was going to ask what your school team colours were
DB: Black and white stripes at Clee Grammar!

TB: After Matthew Humberston you went to somewhere in Birmingham
DB: I went to Birmingham Poly – like I said I enjoyed school but I didn't really concentrate and Birmingham Poly was about the only place I got in to do a degree. Birmingham was chosen for the reason it had lots of football teams and at the time loads of bands. Punk was happening – I was into punk – and I knew a family in Brum that my parents had known from Trinidad so I could always get a meal if I had pissed me grant up against the wall. Technically it was a four year course – one year was a sandwich and I worked for Tates in their head office near the flyover.

TB: What were your academic studies?
DB: I do have an honours degree in Business Studies. Three years at college and I had one night in, the rest of the time I was out watching bands and going to football and just doing stuff. I bullshitted my way through college and life.

TB: Your time in Birmingham was a bit of a riot, well, you enjoyed it
DB: I loved it, me and my college mates all came from different places, a lot of us were football fans. We'd go to Villa or the Blues but mainly we all adopted West Brom because it was the great Ron Atkinson team: Laurie Cunningham, Bryan Robson and Cyrille Regis and people like that. They were just a wonderful football team to watch, such exciting football. Birmingham at the time, like most British cities, was run down, lacking in investment and all that, but there was much more going on than there was in Cleethorpes. I was in heaven really.

I was there for the birth of Ska – the Specials, the Beat – they were my pub bands. I can remember seeing the Specials as a support act with three people in the audience – me and my two mates - and you just knew then they were amazing. They were just fantastic. We really got into it. We went round the charity shop searching out suits that we couldn't …no I never had a pork pie hat – I bought a Buttoneer! You couldn't find button-down shirts very often – but you could buy shirts and put the buttons in, so we converted all these charity shop shirts into button-down shirts with a Buttoneer. We used to go all over the place watching the Specials and the Beat and get up on stage – you dive up on stage and join them and dance in your suit and everything. It was fascinating to be in at the start of that.

TB: Was there any tension in the audience? The stories in the press were all about racial tension and attacks on their gigs
DB: I can't recall ever being at one where there any big scraps. The only one I do remember was at Cleethorpes Winter Gardens: Sham 69. It descended into an all-out brawl on the dancefloor after about three songs. I remember Jimmy Pursey saying "sorry we're going to have to abandon it, we will be back". I've still got my ticket and he's never come back.

TB: So what happened next?
DB: Well, I didn't have a lot of options. I had no idea what I wanted to do for a long time, and still no idea to some extent. I figured I'd end up with no special talents working in an office. I've never been career driven, haven't a clue what I wanted to do. In my time careers advice at school nobody said "you could talk shite for a living". Nobody says that so you just go and do a business studies degree and then I spent a year back in Cleethorpes unemployed just living with my mum and dad. It was okay, joined the Cambridge Club so I could have a couple of pints in the Notts and when I get kicked out go down the Cambridge Club, hang out with me mates, play snooker, play in the Grimsby and District Sunday League Division 10 for the Cambridge Social B Team. It may even have been the C team.

TB: Ah, so what was your position?
DB: In the hole! We were playing out on Bradley pitches and I famously, well in my own head famously, shouted "pass it". My mate who was further back shouted "Where are you?" and I replied "I'm in the hole, I'm in the hole". Everyone else is pissing themselves laughing because I'd become very Glenn Hoddle trendy.

After that year on the dole I got a job as a temporary auditor at Cleethorpes Borough Council, which is strangely enough where I met my wife – we'd gone to the same school as we found out when we were having a conversation as we got off the bus one day. Highlight of my auditing career was going to Immingham Leisure Centre and counting the penny chews in the shop. I thought, mmm, life might be better than this.

Then one of my mates from college got me a gig on the Community Programme which was designed by the government to get the unemployed back into work. I went to live with him in Mossley up in the hills outside Manchester as a painter and decorator. Well I painted and decorated his house – I got paid and he got his house painted.

Then I got a job in the local council in Ashton-under-Lyne (Tameside Borough Council) in the payments section. I obviously did alright as I was soon running the payments for the local authority. I had staff, I was okay at it. I enjoyed it, then child number one came along, known to all my listeners on the radio as Noisy, and I moved back from Mossley. The next step in my career was governed by the availability of babysitters – the in-laws were all back in Cleethorpes.

I got a job in BBC Finance and Personnel which is where my technical skills lay. Eventually that led to getting a chance at the football thanks to the encouragement of John Tondeur and my other good pal Rob Palmer. I did the Finance and Personnel job for about seven years, did all sorts, including running the legendary listener trips on the North Sea Ferries to points in Europe for a weekend away. I was like a travel agent. Anywhere between 200 and 750 taken away for two nights on a ferry and a night in a four star hotel in The Hague or Amsterdam or Bruges. I remember organising my own coach and bus shuttle service in Rotterdam and we arranged civic visit to various places. I once got 250 people on the free wine in Cleethorpes' twin town Königswinter!

It was at that point in that seven year period that I thought I could actually have a go at the football commentary lark. I know a bit about football, I don't think I know any less or more than the lads that were doing it. I started doing Clubcall games, Grimsby one week, Hull City the next and built up some experience – you know you can do it if you can do 90 minutes on a phone on your tod describing football to people paying 50p a minute on an 08989 number to get an update on their team.

Anyway, JT failed a fitness test one Saturday morning when Town were playing Blackpool. Gibbo (Dave Gibbons) the Sports Editor at the time rang me in the morning asking me to get to Blackpool by 2 o'clock, while I was still working in Finance and Personnel. That day convinced people I could do it on the radio, the bosses said they enjoyed it then I got more games. That's when I was working to get into sport full time.

TB: That takes us straight into where you popped up on our radios. Thirty seven-ish sometimes glorious years in broadcasting, some highs, some lows, professionally for you and for all the clubs in this region. What was the best season to report on (not just the outcome, but for the whole vibe)? Or do they all blend into a blancmange of broadcasts?

DB: It does. The game highlight is not a Town one, it's Hull City getting into the Premier League at Wembley and Dean Windass scoring – I'd predicted that there would be a Windass Wembley Winner. The Town game at Liverpool where Jevons scores the goal…I do chuckle every time because JT is the main man at Town, he's a great friend, but I do gently nudge him to remind him that I did the commentary on what was voted the greatest ever Town goal. That winds him up a little bit. That was just fantastic.

The sad occasion of the relegation at Burton, from a professional point of view, was really good for us as we won a Sony Bronze award at the Radio Academy. The BBC were very good at sending me on courses to make sure I didn't libel anybody or end up in any trouble.

TB: (raises eyebrow)
DB: There's a file of just one misdemeanour – Mr Fenty – maybe we'll come to that later…

TB: Did your business background give you more insight and improve your broadcasting?
Mmm, maybe, I've never really thought about it. I always thought my degree was fairly useless. Well, it got me a job and into the BBC, but in terms of the football aspect it was useless. I had some basic understanding of finance but it was more I was keen to tell the story and I wasn't interested in the bullshit and the bluff. I wanted to get behind it, I wanted to talk to the people who were making decisions.

I thought it important to not talk the usual football bollocks with managers and players but get to the decision makers above and see what the chairman is doing. There are times when I regret it – (points at big pink file) crossing swords with John Fenty and all that.

Getting a Bronze Sony with JT and Matt was a highlight, as I came back from Radio Sheffield with the aim to make us the best local radio sports team, if not the best sports team, in the country. I know it was only a bronze but every sports team in the country was in for it. The ones ahead of us were BBC World Service and the one that won it was 5Live's Fighting Talk, which to my dying day is not a bloody sports programme, it's an entertainment comedy programme. Still gets right up me nose.

We had a brilliant night, we met Ronnie Wood from the Stones and The Faces. It was a black tie do and we're all on a table, me, JT, Matt and I think we were sitting with Anne Diamond, weirdly enough. We'd all been a bit star struck. I had a picture taken with Natasha Kaplinsky, Matt wanted a picture with Rachel Stevens from S Club 7. I spotted Ronnie Wood coming across the room and everybody was very deferential, trying to be cool. It was a big ballroom and a long walk, and I thought, bollocks, that's Ronnie Wood "Ronnie any chance of a picture?" JT's straight out of his seat! And he cropped me and Matt out of the picture!

That made the night – big Stones fan and I love the Faces as well. I think that was the career headline from a sports point of view.

TB: That day was a low for Town, but ultimately a career high for you all, but given the make up of the Radio Humberside broadcasting team that day there wasn't just professional disappointment. When you looked over at the mass of fans during and after those spectacular victories (and disasters) what do you see, what do you feel?
DB: Mm, it's a good question. If I'm honest I was trying to be the hard-headed, hard-hearted professional. I was trying to make sure that we were capturing this historic moment in Grimsby Town's history. While I might be describing the emotion of it I was trying to be emotionless...I was just thinking…good radio, tell the story, get the drama, get the emotion. There is a clip in the programme of me haranguing John Fenty as he walked past the Press Box and I'm saying "What have you got to say to the people Mr Fenty? You've taken the club out of the Football League, etc, etc." I can't remember the exact words; I was trying to get the story, I just had me game face on.

TB: But your background – all the backgrounds of the broadcasting team that day – did that help with that professional reflections? Did that give you an extra edge as there was something within you there as well?
DB: Well yeah, maybe, I've never really analysed it. It's an interesting question. Yes, and you understand what people are going through.

TB: Yes, that's why I asked the question about when you look out and describe what you see – which is us
DB: Part of me remembers post-match stuff, it got a bit tasty didn't it, it got a bit stupid. I'm thinking, you're just letting the club down, so again it was just trying to do that in a professional way to describe what was going on. I seem to remember someone threatened me in the Press Box – a Town fan! I was doing a bit of Scunny, a bit of Hull and people gave me a bit of stick for it but I was just trying to be professional and cover all the clubs.

TB: That’s another interesting aspect, particularly Town fans, they took agin you as Radio Hull and all that "oh he's a Hull fan". You'd spent a lot of your life, your formative years, in Grimsby, you have an affinity with the place – so from your perspective listening to all that, sorry to go all Kilroy Silk, but how did you feeeeel? What was the impact on you and did it change the way you communicated?
DB: No...no…no, because I wanted to do my job. I genuinely wanted us to be the best local radio sports team in the country. And I think we were at one point. I wanted to cover all the clubs, but equally you've got to be aware that sometimes the bigger audience is the Hull audience as it's the biggest city. You've got to play it right so you do the right thing. I'm proud of what we did for and with Town and Scunny and City so it didn't bother me. I got two Twat of the Year awards from The Fishy – back to back!

TB: You missed the hat-trick
DB: I know, I'd have kept the match ball then. But no it didn't really bother me.

TB: Water off a duck's back?
DB: A little, yes, because I just knew we were doing a good job covering the local football scene. I knew we'd improved it. I came back from Radio Sheffield where I'd presented Praise or Grumble, the world's oldest football phone in. Humberside didn't do that nor did they have expert summarisers…I'd worked with the likes of Billy Bremner, Mick McCarthy, Mel Sterland, people like that. I thought, come on let's get back and do that, let's get summarisers in, a post-match phone in and all that sort of stuff.

My first programme back was at Plymouth with Town in the Championship (as is now) and Hull were at home and this story really makes me laugh. The first caller comes on to the new Football Forum on the first day of the football season and he says "Burnsy, I've been to City today, it was wonderful, it was fantastic, scored four goals, I'm so excited I'm off home for four Yorkshire Puddings and a wank". There's no time delay and I'm thinking…bollocks…that's the end of the Football Forum.

TB: How did you get out of it?
DB: I was stunned for a while and eventually found the fader and just moved on. I should have said "most people just have gravy". Luckily the boss saw the funny side of it and the phone-in became a fixture.

TB: Are you the person who used to find the summarisers at away games, or did you delegate?
DB: I brought summarisers in. I used to do it collectively with JT and Matt and Mike. We used to work towards getting regular summarisers, so the likes of George Kerr, etc, as it is so difficult to book summarisers for every game. Yes, you get a different voice or a name from the past and you get a different perspective, but tracking them down takes a lot of your time. I love George to bits, George would always be there and you don't waste time as you knew he'd seen the team and could analyse and refer back to previous games. You get a better quality of analysis with regular summarisers as they know what's going on.

TB I do remember George Kerr as the summariser. There was one great one where he just kept going on about the railway behind the Scunny away end. And then he started talking about the Vikings in their longboats going up the Humber and down the Trent
DB: He was entertaining old George. George's team, bar none, was the most exciting football I have seen from any team – and half of them were local – it was just a remarkable team and the way he had them playing football was terrific. That destruction of Sheffield United on the final day of the season was unbelievable. He was my number one choice when I came back to do Town. And Scunny. But Town games particularly. I think we saved him, he was in a bad way at the time, he was not leading a pleasant life necessarily. I think we gave George back purpose to his life. I loved working with George.

TB That word purpose runs through all the interviews I've done this summer, with you, JT and Jason Stockwood
DB. Yes, it is important. You've got to know what you're doing and trying to achieve. From the football point of view I wanted to do all these things journalistically but I still wanted it to sound like you were going to the game with your mates and going down the pub to talk about it with them. I still wanted that feeling. I wanted all that football chat and nonsense around it but with the serious stuff and the added thing of pros analysing.

TB: Post-match interviews are where most of the fraughtness occurs – it's something I asked JT too - what's your method for assessing the substance and tone of the encounter? Or don't you care, you're just going to ask what you’re going to ask
DB: I just wanted to get behind the bullshit - "I'm disappointed" – I know you're disappointed 'cos you've lost. Why have you lost? What have you done, why did you make those decisions? Why did your team do that? Why has your team lost for the xth time in a row? I wanted to get into the whys and wherefores. I've never been interested in the bland. Occasionally that rubs people up and, well, I probably became a bit more aggressive as I got older and more established in my career, so the two-footed challenge from an interview point of view might go in straight away. I always said to my reporters keep your opening question…open…the aim is to get them to talk. I would be looking for a bit of a reaction. I was always trying to get beyond the bland, always get beyond the bland if you can. I wouldn't go into every interview like that.

I loved working with Alan Buckley as the expert summariser and loved his football – but he could be a tough interview, especially post-match. You had to be on your game with Alan. I remember Town had lost to Leicester 1-0 at Blundell Park on a night game. He didn't come out, we were off air, but I was still hanging around waiting to hear what he had to say about this because that's my job. He eventually came out about 11 o'clock.

"You still here David?" "I just want to interview you, Alan." "OK"
"So, Alan you've lost the last three home games 1-0. What are you going to do about it?"
"What the fuck's it got to do with you, David?"
"Cheers Alan, we'll leave it there."

I was quite combative at times, but it was all about trying to get the story, the reaction, the truth of what the managers were actually thinking. Steve Bruce at Hull was very good as he would come out straight away and take the wind out of your sails by coming out on air and saying "yeah, that's not good enough, we were rubbish today, sorry to the fans we were really bad today". He had the nous to calm it out, whereas with others it would be the bland stuff so then it was time to go in and shake it up a bit and get to the nub of it.

TB: All very defensive
DB: Well yeah. Manager relationships are difficult, but I did have good relationships with most of the managers I dealt with. You'd go down during the week when there is less pressure and you'd get a flavour of what was going on and talk to them. But post-match was when they were a bit wound up as their team has lost or didn't do what they wanted, and some big Herbert comes along, sticks a mic into their face and tries to get to the heart of the matter. It's a tough gig, but for me it goes with the territory. They are paid by the fans, they should explain what's going on and why they made those decisions.

TB: It's a two way relationship – media and club
DB: I've been pinned up against walls by managers…I'd had an off the record conversation with one of the staff at Hull and I'd said "The club's a disgrace at the moment. Look at the state of the stadium, the paint's peeling, it sends all the wrong messages". I went down to an interview and a naked Terry Dolan walked out the shower to berate and ban me. I've been banned by a few managers but I don't think anybody never talked to me again, usually we kissed and made up somewhere along the line.

TB They can't, not really, unless Humberside gets banned
DB: Ah yes, getting banned by John Fenty at Town, banished to broadcast outside beside a bin by the Hull City Ownership (the Allams). Maybe it's the Glaswegian in me. It was more bans from club owners.

TB: Managers – and owners - come and go, they have a public role and public persona. Man and myth may be different: all we see or hear is what's on the screen or on the radio, which is how they choose to present themselves. Now you've stepped back there's no need to be diplomatic. Who are the most egregious Jekylls & Hydes you've come across during your whole time of broadcasting, not just football?
DB: I don't know whether they were Jekyll and Hydes, hopefully I was trying to get them as they were. There were no managers I disliked at all. The owners were the same. What you saw from John Fenty is what you got, he wasn't Jekyll and Hyde. That was just John. There was no sweetness and light privately and aggression on the radio, it wasn't like that, he was what he was. I admire him for that, I don't have a problem with that.

TB: I was thinking of the more experienced managers – in Town terms – people like Lennie Lawrence and Ian Holloway, who were the epitome of outside Big Names coming to a smaller club/town. That's an interesting dynamic. As fans we have our own views from interpreting what we see and hear – it always felt as if they were coming down to us as the Big People talking to the little people and that may have infected how they dealt with local media. From your perspective, how did that operate?
DB: It's a good point, I'd forgotten about Lennie Lawrence. I'll start with Ian Holloway, who I liked. I didn't really know him, I was obviously aware of him, and I didn't have a lot of dealings with him. I didn’t do a pre- or post-match interview with him, but I did a couple of interviews for my mid-morning show and he was charming and funny, but I was not the one who saying, post match, "hold on what's going on here, where are the signings coming from, why are the team performing like that, have you lost the plot here?"

Lennie Lawrence, he was okay to deal with, he was fine, I think he knew the game and played it quite subtly. He wouldn't know me if he fell over me in the street. I did once recommend to Lennie and Cockers that they go and buy the Mansfield team. I'd seen them play against Scunny and they had half a dozen really good players – Disley, Boulding, Liam Lawrence, Wayne Corden, Williamson. In the week after the game I said to Lennie and Cockers get your scouts down to Mansfield, there's some players there that could play at Championship level no problem. Quite a few went on to play top level football. The response was like "what the fuck do you know about football?". So that's the only thing I remember about Lennie Lawrence – he didn't pay attention!

TB: At least YOU got the Liverpool game out of him
DB: One of the great triumphs and great nights.

TB: I teased out of Mr JT that, like players in the dimmer past, you did have to room share at away games. Now, what's your perspective on touring with JT. Weren't you ever tempted to go to that Helen Shapiro weekend?
DB: We were staying in Ealing for a game at Brentford. We went to the front reception and, well, JT had his big moustache…and Helen Shapiro had a big gay following, so when the two of us rolled up sharing a room…JT took umbrage and I was just peeing myself laughing. That was the weekend when England won the Rugby Union World Cup – we watched it together in the hotel room.

We got out of the habit of sharing rooms because my snoring became worse…twin beds let me hasten to add…and I thought when other people go about normal BBC business they don't have to share rooms. Managers and other staff, or if you go on a course, you don't share rooms. We'll get our own rooms. We're grown men.

TB: I have visions of Morecambe and Wise
DB: Heh, Morecambe and not so wise.

TB: Ever missed a game?
DB: No, but JT tells the story at Watford where the pair of us were doing commentary and we'd been out the night before – away trips were always a social occasion – and he'd started the commentary and half way through the first half I'm due to take over. So at 22 minutes in, JT said "and here to take you through to half time is David Burns". I managed a few words then said "Sorry back to John Tondeur". I basically, well, it had caught up with me and I had to…

TB: Seek out the local facilities?
DB: I threw me headphones off, dashed down and legged in just in time. And you know what football ground toilets are like, or used to be, not a pleasant experience. I managed to come back for the second half for toilet purposes. But I've never missed a game as we always seemed to sort out any problems. Or maybe I have blanked those out.

TB: We can't avoid the Fenty years, was there a single point you reflect on as a turning point, especially the relationship with the media, or was it simply gradual disintegration?
DB: I think the turning point was the Keep The Mariners Afloat campaign. I think John blames me for sinking it before it had really set out.

TB: I do remember sitting in the car down Brereton Avenue hearing that interview. You said "you're a millionaire".
DB: I thought I said "You've got a board of directors that's full of multi-millionaires. Why are you asking the fans to get their hands in their pockets?" And he was not happy with that and blamed me for the campaign's failure. Maybe I did, but it wasn't the intention. It was just that "hold on a minute John, yes we appreciate the ITV Digital thing has caused some financial problems, I'm sure the fans would put some money in, but you lot need to get your hands in your pockets, you're wealthy men. Now is the time to take responsibility for the company…so what are you putting in?"

I liked John and think he liked me, but we got into a fractious relationship and ultimately – I do reflect on this – the fans missed out because we weren't doing commentary. I remember being at Louth Golf Club in the annual Radio Lincolnshire v Radio Humberside golf day and I was about two holes in and looking forward to the day. I was going to have a look around the Ivano Bonetti Suite! Someone walked out to the course to fetch me as I had an urgent call in the clubhouse: "Oh no, has someone died, what's going on?" The boss at the time basically said get your arse back here I need to talk to you now. "Have you been briefing the Electronic Fishcake, John Fenty is complaining". Tail between legs, raced back and ended up in a formal disciplinary hearing internally within the BBC getting a 12-month slap on the wrist.

In essence all I was trying to do was what I always tried to do through my career – inform people what's going on. I'd said to BillO on The Fishy that it was off the record and what the situation was. I wrote "some people think this is a pissing contest between me and John. It's not, this is what's going on from our point of view and John has his perspective".

I think there were two OFCOM complaints. The context was that it was in Macca's last ever game (Shrewsbury away). We were in dispute with the club and didn't have access. Macca wanted to come on air and say bye to the fans – I wasn't there at Shrewsbury, I was at the Hull game. So I said that "John McDermott, the club's record appearance holder wants to come on and talk to you and say thanks very much but the owner of Grimsby Town, John Fenty, won't let him, the plonker". I apologised but it just felt wrong.

Fenty was a fascinating character, I admired him for taking on the local football club, but I do remember the first time they got relegated under him at Tranmere under Nicky Law. I said in my post-match summation that the way he is running this football club he'll take it out of the league and it'll happen sharpish. I just felt he was a man standing over a drain ripping up fivers. Whilst he was trying to save money on some things it was short-sighted. Something that would save £1,000 would end up costing him £10,000. Short term, false economies. Don't get me wrong, it is not easy to run a football club, but he couldn't work with anybody else.

Now Bill Carr was a lovely man, and I feel the same way about Steve Wharton who was the chairman at Scunthorpe, proper old-school gents who would never put their club in trouble. I remember talking to them and asking don't you need to be a bit more ambitious, but Grimsby and Scunthorpe were well run football clubs under these old-style local businessmen who were quite conservative in their nature, but there would always be a football club.

TB: It's all about duty and responsibility, they don't regard the club as their personal plaything, they don't put their personal interests first
DB: Yeah, but there's also power and ego for some people. Dudley Ramsden was on the board and he had his money in the club. John couldn't work with other people – his way only. I thought Dudley may not be that interested, but his money is in the club, alright, keep the money in. But John wanted to do it his way – that caused conflict. I can see what he was trying to do but he just got it wrong. I've never been a cheerleader. I remember John coming up to me before a couple of games – "Be positive David, be positive" – Hartlepool away (8-1) and the other one was Oldham away which was Grovesie's last game.

One of my regrets in my broadcasting career is I don't think, as a broadcaster, I supported Grovesie enough. I didn't point the finger enough and say "it's nowt to do with him". I can remember saying "He's gonna go, he's got to go here" and I should have said "This is not down to him, he's had his legs cut off at the knees". I had a lot of time for Grovesie. It's a great shame really, John needed a steadying influence, but I don't think he wanted one. Credit to him building up a successful business and he felt he could run a football club like a fish factory. You can't do that, it's a harder thing to grasp and pull together and you need everybody pulling in the same direction.

The OFCOM complaints – they were both thrown out.

TB: I read them – basically a flea in the ear, a complete waste of time
DB: Mentioning fleas, George was quoted in the OFCOM complaint as he said "if you go to the flea circus enough you get fleas". He was talking about the transfer policy.

I have regrets in that I got the station banned, but to be true to myself I honestly don't know if I could have done it a different way. I obviously didn't learn my lesson because, subsequently, I got banned at Hull and the station banished. Swanny who I work with as the expert summariser said to me, and on air, "You cost me two season's money". It is difficult in football because of that famous cliche "it's a game of opinions, isn't it". So when you are asked to analyse or talk about a football club it is difficult not to, which is a dangerous thing for a BBC broadcaster.

Could I have done it better? Maybe, but I would have had to kiss a lot of arse and say things that I didn't believe in and not tell the whole story of what was going on at the football clubs. And that's not doing your job.

As always we are deeply appreciative of the time and hospitality given by our interviewees