Cod Almighty | Article

by Tony Butcher

3 September 2024

He's been here, there and everywhere but all roads lead back home for Burnsy. Those were the days when mid-morning once mattered almost as much as the Winter Gardens. There's more tales from both sides of the riverbank as our man with a mic ponders burning bridges but always tries to look on the sunny side as he looks to the SKY deal for the future.

TB: Turning to the end of empire days: the Alex May interview. What punches did you and Humberside have to pull – or did you just sit back and let him punch himself in the head? When you were interviewing him what research did you do?
DB: The Telegraph had got the story – I wasn't the Sports Editor at this point by the way. Alex May texted me out of the blue after the front page splash on the Telegraph. It wasn't a great look – a convicted fraudster hobnobbing with John Fenty.

TB: At that point what was going through your mind?
DB Well, if this who he says he is let's get him on air.

TB: Between that text and getting him on the air what did you do?
DB: It all happened very fast on that morning. I said to my producers let's establish whether it is him. My producers managed to do that sharpish so I had not much research beyond the Telegraph. As he's chatting away I was thinking "why, why are you doing his, why haven't you kept your head down?" Then it came out that he'd been in meetings with the council…bye-bye Mr Fenty I was thinking.

TB: An obvious question is "You've only been out of prison just over a year for a fraud offence and you want to give £1m to a football club. Where's that money come from?"
DB: The whole thing was bizarre. I just thought when we got to the end of the interview that John Fenty's position was, to me, at the club and as the Deputy Leader of the Council, untenable. I still don't understand why Alex May came on and how he got my number. He talked and I'm still amazed.

TB And at that point, in your journalist head, what happens next?
DB: John Fenty's toast and we were already trying to get hold of Phillip Jackson as the council were involved in something that sounds very murky. Why are you dealing with a convicted fraudster? It's not a good look. We got a very bland statement.

TB: Yes, they did not do what Nottingham Council did when he'd turned up at Notts County. They literally got up and walked out of the room the second they knew who he was, whilst our council knew but carried on. There was a big political story there that wasn't followed through
DB: We were trying to get Philip Jackson, we just got a bland statement, but I knew in my heart of hearts the way it was going to go. It was shaming, it was shabby.

TB I've just one more thing to ask you about sports broadcasting. Are you ready? Dave Gibbins…
DB: Ah, the legendary Gibbo. He's one of the most fascinating characters I have ever come across. He was great company, if you ever wanted someone to broadcast without pause or breath about the inside of a table tennis ball in a pitch black room Gibbo would be your man. He was real entertainment. Gibbo got excited by the oddest things. If Goole Town were changing the colour of their reserve team socks he'd get excited by that as the big story. I liked working with him as a reporter.

When I got the call to come back from Radio Sheffield Gibbo had moved on to telly in the South. The ratings were low. I was poached – tapped up – I was offered four grand more, Premier League football and a sexual favour. I never got the sexual favour, or the four grand, I only got half. That had a big impact given how that related to my pension as it rolled through the years.

TB: As Sports Editor was he as chaotic and unstructured as he was with his commentaries?
DB: Yes, funny really, as he was very much a pens in the right place sort of person; everything was in order, things underlined in different colour pens. You'd go into the studio and he'd say "Listen to this!" and he'd play a cart(ridge) of a footballer not really saying anything and play it twenty times.

Lovely lad. There's a programme somewhere in the BBC that will never get repeated because Stuart Hall presented, which includes a section on BBC local radio commentary clips, ten of the most outlandish, and Gibbo has about half of them.

TB: He was in the National Football Museum where he peaks way too soon, there's about eight things that happen after he reached the top of his voice
DB: Yeah, there's a Clive Mendonca goal somewhere where it sound like someone has gone into the Commentary Box with two bricks and just slammed them on Gibbo's knackers 'cos his voice during the Clive Mendonca goal goes skyrocketing high. And there's the legendary outgrowing radish. I would say to this to anyone reading this on Cod Almighty, somehow search for the outgrowing radish. I think it happened at Blundell Park, a goalkeeper in a green jersey with ginger hair. He was searching for a phrase to describe this springing save and…and…and…he's…he's…he's leapt, he's leapt like an outgrowing radish. It's wonderfully Gibbo, shame it'll never appear in public again.

TB: You're not just a sports presenter, your mid-morning matters programme became a local institution. How did that come about? What was the approach?
DB: Yeah, huh, yeah. The head of the region asked if I fancied doing some daytime and sprinkling your fairy dust on it. I said I'd do it as long as I could continue to do some football. My first broadcasting love is football commentary. It worked out all right; as sports editor I was working 60-70 hours a week, so I ended up doing less hours for more money. I hadn't had any great ambition to present a daytime programme.

TB: What was the remit, you just made of it what you wished?
DB: Yes, basically, I just thought it would be the sort of show I wanted to listen to. I wanted it to be a show that made a difference, that celebrated the area but also wanted to make the area a better place. So question politicians, question the decision maker. I also wanted it to reflect local talent, so I gave bands and comedians a break to play live sessions. I just wanted to reflect the whole cultural life and give people a voice so if they had a problem with a council or an organisation they could ring the Burnsy Show and we'd try and help them. Sometimes just that initial call resulted in things being sorted before they even made it to air. I didn't want it to be bland, but to be something that helped, without being pompous, occasionally entertaining, hard hitting and make a difference.

TB: So not too dissimilar to Jason Stockwood's approach and how he wants to use Town as a catalyst for the town, and the town as a catalyst for change. One of the things you mentioned earlier was organising listener trips – you had a bent for doing things, to make a change, to have purpose
DB: Yes, sort of I suppose, but it is just giving people a voice, a platform. I love a phone in, opening up the platform so people could come on and talk to me. Regardless of what it is about, it may be funny, it may be serious, it may be something tiny but they've had a chance to talk with somebody. I mentioned earlier Praise or Grumble, and I nicked that for the radio on a fairly regular basis because you didn't know what was coming out. I loved the challenge of it, I didn't want the formulaic radio show where every Tuesday we did an antiques phone in and Wednesday's would be gardening. Not interested in that. Every show had to be different.

TB: Looking from afar, from deep in the South Bank, it was a bit like That's Life (without misshapen carrots). A mixture of the serious and the mundane, the trivial, and the comical, but anything that reflects real life: that is life. This is around the time local media was about to disintegrate so there was a reducing oversight and voice locally – was that an accident of timing?
DB: It was. I was conscious I wanted to hold people to account, because I think that is important. Local councils and politicians, we had a fair amount of them, because the decisions they make impact on all our lives.

They decide to make the road surface and pavements look the same in Grimsby Town Centre, or decide to have a structure down the North Prom that's taller than anything in Cleethorpes. I actually quite liked that palm tree. But I was there to give people a chance to talk about it. From day one I always wanted to do that, it didn't happen because of the decline of local media.

TB: Ah, so I see the future, you're going to lead the construction of the big white elephant palm
DB: Yeah, I quite liked it as an attraction, they need something to happen down the North Prom. They just got ahead of themselves, didn't they. Well, it never happened and maybe it's Fenty’s Folly.

TB: In this mid-morning matters what's the one thing that you would want written in your obituary?
DB: Saving Dead Bod in Hull.

TB: Dead Bod?
DB: Dead Bod is something that most people had never heard of. It was a piece of drunken graffiti of a dead bird on a corrugated shed on the river side of the River Humber that became a navigation and a homecoming point for sailors coming into Hull. In the new Seimens development it was under threat and someone rang me on air "Burnsy, you've got to help – the Dead Bod's about to disappear". Most people had never heard of it. I hadn't. And we saved it, and it is a work of art in the Humber Street Art Gallery. I can remember being in New York wearing a Dead Bod T-shirt and a couple of people came up "Burnsy, how y'doing". I am proud of that, and saving the house that J Arthur Rank was born in.

So many contributions to British life from J Arthur! He was from Hull and in his day he was the Richard Branson of British culture, cinemas, things like that. Martin Scorsese was a great admirer. A bloke from Goole sent me an email about the Rank House and I went down this road where there was a blue plaque on this crumbling property. The house was derelict, pigeons and junkies using it, holes in the roof, etc. We saved it with help from the council and other people. It brought the Rank family back into the city of Hull and they started spending a bit of money through their foundation. And people now live in the house, people who wouldn't have been able to afford to live there.

One of the things I wanted to say to the people of this area is "we do achieve", but we just don't make enough of those who have, so we don't send a message to the next generation: you can be a big thing coming from this area.

TB: Again this a parallel with Jason Stockwood. You are looking at saving cultural heritage as it impacts on local pride and if pride rises things follow, investment comes back
DB: I was looking to make great radio, but also looking to make a difference and I'm big on the local aspect of things. People from this area should be able to achieve, and they have achieved, but we've forgotten some of them. I'll hold my hands up that, because the show was based in Hull and the majority of listeners are from there, it tended to be that the big projects were in and around Hull. If I'd been on air I'd have done everything to have kept Cleethorpes Winter Gardens. Everything. And not let it become nice flats, that was cultural vandalism. How that was allowed I do not know. Like JT, music is a huge part of my life and my formative musical experiences were there – Winter Gardens are where it started.

TB: Music vies with football as your first (non-family based) love. Firstly, we do have a standard question to ask, one that gets to the very heart and soul of a man: Rush, say it ain't so!
DB: Rushhh, no I don't like Rush, not my bag at all!

TB: Excellent, we can proceed across the bridge, that's the right answer
DB: If I'd said yes would that have been the end of the interview?

TB: Well, from this point on I'd have been talking at you about how wrong you are. You are of an era where we still had the Winter Gardens, the Mecca Ballroom down Wintringham Road…
DB: Ooh, never went there, that was before my musical time.

TB: …and not forgetting Thursday nights at the Spider's Web. Where did your musical journey begin and where's it going?
DB: It began at the Winter Gardens, I think I was 16, the original line up of AC/DC. Bon Scott on vocals and I went to it with me mates. It is not really my bag, not into the heavier rock, but it was brilliant stuff, I loved it, great experience. Then I started going to see bands in and out of town. Sham69, The Undertones, Dexys Midnight Runners the week they went to number one. One of my mates reckons we were there, upstairs at a birthday party, the night the Sex Pistols played. I have no recollection of it, though I do have the poster – it doesn't say Cleethorpes Winter Gardens on it – but I know, because my mate's brother worked at there and he got the poster out of the window for me. It's all framed now, but I don't have a recollection of going downstairs to see the Sex Pistols and I am not even sure I was there at that party, but one of my mates is convinced we were.

The Winter Gardens gave me the opportunity to go to live music and when I went to Birmingham Poly I got to see loads of bands. Punk and 2–Tone were kicking off. I still go to gigs with JT. He's a massive fan of Springsteen, I'm not. We’ve been to see the Stones together, twice to New York to see them. Only saw them once because they pulled out.

TB: After the Helen Shapiro incident, separate rooms I assume?
DB Actually no, the BBC weren't funding it! We did have a BIG room and I tried to curb my snoring. The Docks Academy has been fantastic for the town in terms of bringing music back, including touring bands, so well done to Will and Kay for doing that. I was in the Sunnyside Club in Cleethorpes the other night – down Grant Street near the station – to see Darren Capp who used to be in a local band called Life and Times of the Brothers Hogg. So there's a cultural experience.

TB: We haven't addressed the end of the BBC
DB: I think my bridges are burned with the BBC. They made a decision they wanted to clear out the old farts of local radio. I could see the way it was going, the music was becoming far more formulaic, we were sounding like '80s commercial radio. We shouldn't be doing that, we should be rising above it but they seem obsessed with commercial radio; we should be offering something different to the licence fee payers. We should be standing out from the crowd, not joining in. I had hoped to keep the football and had a gentleman's agreement to do so, but the higher ups in the BBC did not like the final tune on my final show which was The Lunatics Have Taken Over the Asylum by The Fun Boy Three. They, as I understand it, vetoed any chance of me getting back to do the football.

TB: So the BBC, that's the end, no chance of any return?
DB Yes, that's it and I miss it terribly, I miss the people, I miss making a difference. Look at the world now, there's loads of shite going in. But it is not to be with the BBC.

TB: Post BBC - what is life? Do you still have press credentials, or are you just like us now, someone who has to queue for the bus at Crawley. And rather than what are you doing, what do you want to do?
DB: I'm doing a couple of community radio shows on Hull's Radio 107FM. I am releasing my inner John Peel on a Monday night with Burnsy's Eclectic Circus. I'm playing a lot of music off the beaten track but with a beat. I am also doing a cultural show on a Friday Burnsy's To-do List which you can get all over the world. We get to see the figures. One night we had listeners in Iran, Moscow and Afghanistan and we just needed someone in North Korea and I'd have the full set for the Axis of Evil FM. I said that on air and next week we had a listener in Cheltenham. I'm also back in football: a freelance gig with the new EFL/SKY/IMG tie up. I am on the IMG roster for League One and League Two games. I don't know how many games I'll get, I'm excited at the prospect of at least getting a chance.

TB So it could be anywhere, not regionalised?
DB: Yep, could be Blundell Park, could be Bradford, could be wherever. I am looking forward to it. All the admin's being done at the moment, I don't know yet whether I have a game on the first day of the season. At least I'm in the mix. I've watched a bit of football in the last year – and I've said this to JT – it won't be the same. For so many years I have been involved in the game. You're there, you're at the game because you are involved in it, you're doing the commentary, you're talking to the summariser, you're analysing, you're doing the post-match interviews, you're part of the game. I'm going to the game now as a punter and I find it really hard.

TB: I've heard you say before that it's hard to watch football for itself now, so in a way has being a broadcaster for so long destroyed your ability to be a fan?
DB: Yes, I think so, and because I have covered so many clubs here and Radio Sheffield, I don't have a club identity per se. I go to games, and I go with my kids and grandkids and me mates to Town or Hull. I'm doing a Hull City podcast at the moment, and that's good as it keeps me focused on talking about football. But in terms of the games…I want to say stuff about it. It's not the same watching it, you don't feel involved, it's weird. I've warned JT about it so he's aware that will happen.

The other thing I am doing is that I have got a new project which is kicking off with Hull Libraries, called Curiosity.

TB: Mmm, I'm curious about Curiosity…
DB: I'm doing a couple of podcasts for them and also doing some social media. It's about people being able to ask questions – if you want to know the answer to something ask a librarian, they know everything.

TB It's mixing some professional experience with a social good?
DB: Yes, you've got to keep doing things otherwise you just wither away and die. You've gotta keep your brain going, you've got to be involved in something, I still feel I had something to offer. I'm 65 but I am hoping it's the new 45, well it's not really but you cling to it. These new opportunities are good and I am looking forward to doing them. I really enjoy the radio work at Hull 107, especially the John Peel sort of stuff. I am listening to more new music than I have been for a while, going to see bands and it feels good. I'm playing local stuff, it's back to that thing of giving local talent an opportunity.

I've been across to see gigs at Docks Academy. The first gig back after Covid I was in the middle of the Docks Academy bursting into tears because I hadn't been to a gig in two years. This blues artist from London called Errol Linton, Docks put him on and I was stood bubbling for the fact I was back at live music after being not allowed out properly in a social setting. It was great.

I went to the Docks Fest at the Meridian Showground, which was wonderful, been to the Sunnyside Club, hosted a gig at the Baths Hall in Scunthorpe for Dirty Stirling. Bands are sending me stuff now which I play on my two shows because they know on my old show I gave bands a chance – they were played on daytime radio which wouldn't have happened otherwise. I am not sure it happens now.

TB: Still there, still in the business, still doing things...
DB: Trying to. It's the involvement in football…I'd like more and at my age you can't really afford to be wasting a year not doing stuff.

TB: That leads neatly on to my next question. What are you missing most and is that the same as what you thought you'd miss most? And the flip side, what aren't you missing from broadcasting and sports presenting?
DB: I don't miss the research, I miss the people, both the people I worked with and those that rang me up to interact. You just miss doing something and making a difference. I've not been bored necessarily. Some people are working all their lives to retire, they hate their job and everything like that. I loved my job, I knew I had one of the best jobs in the area. I loved doing it and I was good at it. Well, I think I was good at it. When that's taken away you think "oh bugger, what am I going to do now?"

TB: Did any of the local sporting clubs get in contact and ask if you could do something for or with them when they found out you were going to be released?
DB: I've done a couple of things for Town, Debbie Cook asked me, which was really nice. City and Scunny…no.

The club feels like a different football club, it's great, it feels more part of the community. I've met Andrew at JT's final game, seemed a nice guy, enjoyed his company. I've done a couple of interviews with Jason in the past. I like where he's at, like what he's doing and I liked what Debbie was doing. I don't know the new CEO but the club feels more together, it feels a more welcoming place, there's less conflict.

Ultimately it comes down to what people feel in the moment, which is about the team and how they are doing. I don't know what kind of season they are going to have, I suspect it will be a bit of a struggle, that's my gut feeling about it, and David Artell's under a lot of pressure. Nice guy, knew him when he was a centre-half at Rotherham when I was at Radio Sheffield. Bright intelligent lad but whether he can translate this into make a successful football team only time will tell.

TB: Coaching and management are different
DB: Yeah, so I dunno, I saw them pre-season against Rotherham. I thought I'd go and have pint with JT and Matt and also with this new League One/League Two thing, tried to be professional and have a look at a few players and get me head around being at a game.

TB: What was initial impression of what you saw?
DB: Yeah, it's funny, JT and I were talking about it as we were coming out of the ground and somebody up by the old Imp said to me "I hope you don't mind but you've taken me back to my childhood. I've just followed the pair of you out of the ground and it was like listening to the radio". I said there were probably more F-bombs dropped in that conversation than you'd hear on the radio. Nothing really grabbed me but I don't know if that was because I don't feel involved in it now and I've not got my analytical head on. And it's pre-season which I hate anyway. Was there something where I thought "he looks a player"? None of that. There wasn't a player on Tuesday that was at Holohan's level and just being able to keep the ball and move it along.

JT said to me that the best players on the night were all players they had already and that none of the new signings looked any better than what they had before. So whether that is budget, it may not be Artell. I don't know how competitive the budget is, but those are the sort of questions I'd be asking if I had the chance to do that.

You see the thing that I would have asked Artell last season and nobody did – I would have come straight out with it – "is it player power here, you've changed the whole system and the way you're playing. Has player power kept you in this division?"

TB: And then you’d ask “are those the players you have to get rid of?”
DB: That's how I would have approached it because there was that meeting, he admitted there was a meeting between the players and management, and previously he'd said "I'm not changing my style"…then he changed. That's the players. Personally I'd be into that, what's the relationship there. You say you want to play this way but the players don't want to play for you that way…what's going on?

TB: Now we're approaching the end, let's get to the hard question. Were you a packed lunch man or did you rely on the hosts? I suspect there was a spectacular change when Hull rose to the Premier League. No more curly ham sarnies!
DB: Ooh yeah true! I'm of the generation where there wasn't really much catering at football matches unless you brought it yourself. Occasionally you'd get a pie in the Press Lounge, which was fine. I didn't take pack-ups other than when the doctor told me I needed to lose some weight so I took me own stuff rather than eating pies. That didn't last long but when you get to the Premier League the catering is immense, like at Arsenal they bring individually wrapped portions of fish and chips at half time…

TB: But what kind of fish, I bet it was cod (dripping with disdain)
DB: Now that is a good question. I was just excited that I was getting free fish and chips. It was tasty enough.

TB: Tasty enough…for the South
DB: Exactly. Chelsea was incredible. You got a drink after the game, some took a drink during the game. Different gravy the catering, but I'm still in for the traditional pie.

TB: I understand that at Town you get a sausage roll at half time AND at the end
DB: Yeah, at Town there were always nibbles and sausage rolls in latter years. Sharon, who looks after the Press Room at Town, was always fantastic.

TB: When does a sausage roll get you three points on a Saturday? So, from now on, the future, is it getting better all the time?
DB: Oh yes, for me, especially if this commentary gig works out. I'd still have liked to be doing games for Humberside, just on a freelance basis, be it Scunny, Hull or Town. I just wanted to do games and be part of it, but it wasn't to be. I've pissed on me own chips.