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The #LUFC Breakfast Debate (Wednesday 13th October)

Discussion in 'Leeds United' started by ellandback, Oct 13, 2021.

  1. OLOF

    OLOF Well-Known Member

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    :D
     
    #21
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  2. FORZA LEEDS

    FORZA LEEDS Well-Known Member

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    Yeah well Olof I’ll have you know I’m deeply offended by your hurtful remarks ;)
     
    #22
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  3. Irishshako

    Irishshako Well-Known Member

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    They must have really hit a nerve. <laugh> I think being mistaken for a Yorkshireman is hard to take for Ringo<party>
     
    #23
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  4. Irishshako

    Irishshako Well-Known Member

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    **** just seen your comment OLOF....<doh>
     
    #24
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  5. Irishshako

    Irishshako Well-Known Member

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    That's harsh....<laugh>
     
    #25
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  6. Irishshako

    Irishshako Well-Known Member

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    <laugh> Este is on 3 million pesetas :grin:
     
    #26
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  7. Irishshako

    Irishshako Well-Known Member

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    You protest too much I think<laugh>
     
    #27
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  8. ellandback

    ellandback Well-Known Member
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    Tony Currie: Four days a week, I was drunk. I wrote a suicide note… but Sheffield United saved my life

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    By Richard Sutcliffe Oct 13, 2021

    Tony Currie, the one-time England international whose name adorns the main stand at Sheffield United, is in no doubt as to the debt he owes the city that has been his adopted home for the past 35 years.

    “This place saved my life,” he says. “Not just Sheffield United by offering me a job when I was at my lowest. But the city. By coming back here after finishing my career, suddenly I had people looking out for me again. They genuinely cared. And liked me. That was huge.”

    The tale of how Currie, one of English football’s great entertainers whose shoulder-length blond hair in the 1970s meant he would have looked equally at home as the lead singer of a glam rock band, went from the darling of the terraces to contemplating suicide is a sadly familiar one for ex-pros.

    A bad injury — in his case a crippling knee problem — saw a playing career, that had seen him paid only a fraction of what his talent merited, brought to a premature end in his early thirties. His marriage by then already over, Currie embarked on a series of jobs to try and make ends meet to the background of excessive drinking that today makes him shudder.

    “I got myself in a bad way,” the 71-year-old tells The Athletic. “I’d lost my marriage in ’81. My career then ended a couple of years later after QPR didn’t renew my contract.

    “After that, I tried taxi driving until the car blew up. I look back now and I’m glad it did, as otherwise I might still be there — driving around women who were literally pissing themselves all over my back seat on the way home. There were five of them in the back of the cab that night and at least two of them did it.

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    Currie at Sheffield United in 1971 (Photo: Peter Robinson/EMPICS via Getty Images)
    “Another time, this bloke put something in my hand to pay and then ran off. I looked down and it was a load of bolts and crap like that.”

    Currie, who made more than 600 appearances in a glittering career that included three years at Leeds United and captaining QPR in the 1982 FA Cup final replay, winces at the memory before adding: “No-one recognised me when driving the cab and I was glad about that.

    “I then worked in a video shop for a couple of months. It was in the same street where I was living with my mum. No one ever came in. I couldn’t understand it. I’d be sitting there for hours and see no one. The owner paid me 90 quid a week, which was the same as I’d been getting for the taxi driving.

    “Sixty quid went to the ex-wife in maintenance. Twenty quid to my mum and that left me with a tenner to spend. Even then, you couldn’t get very far on that. I bought my weekly travelcard to see the kids and that was about it.

    “I wasn’t one for going out anyway, even when still playing. So, the times I was drinking, I did that on my own at home. I’d drink a bottle of whisky and smoke 20 fags, then the next day I couldn’t face it.

    “I was on-off, on-off. Four days a week, I was drunk. The other three drying out. Not a good time at all. This was when I decided enough was enough and thought about suicide.

    “I wrote a note to my son. I might have written to all three kids, I honestly don’t know. But I certainly wrote to my son. The kids never got them, thankfully. I had them for weeks afterwards but somehow pulled myself together enough not to send them. Eventually, I ripped them up.”

    Salvation, as Currie readily admits, lay 150 miles up the M1 via the club where he had made more than 300 appearances. United’s offer to stage a testimonial in 1986 provided a much-needed lifeline.

    The £13,000 proceeds from a match featuring an eclectic cast list — George Best made an appearance alongside TV’s Dennis Waterman and Paul Heaton, the lead singer of The Housemartins — helped Currie put a deposit down on a house in Dronfield.

    Then, a couple of years later, came a job opportunity in the newly-established Football in the Community scheme.

    “If I hadn’t moved back to Sheffield, I don’t know where I’d be now,” admits Currie, whose autobiography Imperfect 10 — The Man Behind the Magic is released later this month. “I started the job on February 1, 1988 — exactly 20 years to the day after I’d signed on for Sheffield United as a player.

    “That date wasn’t planned. Not by me anyway. But it proved a lifesaver. I was getting £105 per week. Next to nothing to some people maybe. But, to me, it saved my life.”

    “A quality goal from a quality player.” John Motson’s iconic commentary to describe one of Bramall Lane’s great goals could, in fact, be a fitting description for any number of Currie’s strikes in a 16-year career.

    There was the thunderbolt that left Ray Clemence grasping at thin air when United beat Liverpool to go with that wonderful solo effort against West Ham United that had Motson purring.

    Or the stunning banana shot in Leeds colours against Southampton that won ITV’s Goal of the Season for 1978-79, pipping in the process an equally audacious effort on the opening day of the same season at Arsenal.


    The Athletic ventures that this finish from an almost impossible angle near the touchline in front of the North Bank is our favourite, a revelation that elicits a smile from one of the game’s true showmen, followed by a confession.

    “I was asked about that goal once,” he says. “I joked about looking up and seeing only John Hawley in the box so decided to hit it with the outside of my right foot. It got a laugh but then I bumped into John a year or so later and he said, ‘Thanks for that, TC — that wasn’t very nice’. I felt awful. John’s a lovely lad.”

    Upsetting former team-mates aside, Currie is just pleased that goals such as those against Arsenal and Liverpool were captured for posterity by the TV cameras being present.

    This was far from a given back in the days when flagship shows Match of the Day and The Big Match covered just three or four games apiece every weekend. This scarcity of coverage in the 1970s and early 80s is why one of Currie’s most treasured possessions remains a half-hour DVD featuring many of his best career moments, including his three England goals.

    “I play it now and again,” he says. “Usually if we have people around. Which has been rare these past 18 months, obviously. I also have a few old videos, including England v Poland in 1973 with Polish commentary. I have no idea how I ended up with that!

    “And then there are my Cup final and the replay videos. I cringe when I watch that damn penalty back!”

    Ah yes, the 1982 Wembley showpiece occasion between Second Division QPR and Tottenham Hotspur that those neutrals who had admired Currie’s skills for years hoped would prove to be a fitting swansong to a great career.

    Instead, having inadvertently got a touch on a Glenn Hoddle shot that found the net in the first drawn game, he then gave away the spot kick in the replay that Hoddle converted to seal a 1-0 victory for Spurs.

    That Currie, who made just two more appearances for Rangers after that final due to his worsening knee problems, had been named captain in the absence of the suspended Glenn Roeder only added to the sense football had been denied a great fairytale ending.

    “I still watch those videos a couple of times per year,” he says. “I am a bit of an old sentimentalist and choke up when anyone lifts the FA Cup. Or we win a medal in the Olympics. You appreciate what they have done to get there.”

    Leeds and QPR may have been enjoyable stop-offs in a career that also included a brief final stint at Torquay United but there is no denying his heart lays at Bramall Lane. The feeling is mutual with Currie — who only got what seems a criminally few 17 England caps — voted the club’s greatest-ever player by fans in a 2014 poll for his 54 goals in more than 300 appearances over seven years. The South Stand was renamed in his honour four years later.

    Recent years have even included a stint on the United board, plus his work as a club ambassador.

    “That was fun,” he says about life as a director. “I only did a couple of board meetings, both on Zoom. But it was really interesting. Kevin (McCabe, former owner) was still here then. I’d go to all the away matches with the missus, see all the lovely boardrooms and meet a few old faces. Not that some had a clue who I was.

    “There was one game at Chelsea. Frank Lampard Sr was sitting in the Chelsea bit and I went over to ask him, ‘Who am I then?’ He’s looking up at me, and says, ‘I should know you’.

    “So I gave him a clue by saying we’d played together for England Under-23s before adding. ‘And think of who Chelsea are playing today?’ He got it then. We had a great laugh.”

    Those boardroom catch-ups with old adversaries such as Lampard and Kenny Dalglish at Liverpool were a long way from those post-playing days when things became so bleak that taking his own life briefly seemed the best option.

    “I owe Sheffield United so much,” adds Currie. “First the testimonial and then the job offer with Football in the Community. Everything good that has happened since — my name on the stand, being voted best player, joining the board — came from that moment.

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    Currie in front of the stand named after him
    “That job brought me out of my shell. On the field, I played a certain way. People seemed to take from that I am a big-headed extrovert. But that was never me. On the field, I treated that like my stage. But I was totally the opposite off it.

    “Instead, I was a private person. Still am, in many ways. People might see me on a match day these days, talking to anyone, and think, ‘He seems confident enough’. But it was only those 20 years going out visiting schools, speaking to the teachers and kids, as part of the Football in the Community that helped me do that.

    “Looking back, I probably should have had therapy at some stage after packing in playing. But I never did. And I’m not sure I’d have accepted the help even if it had been available back then. That’s just me.

    “It is the same with decision making. On the pitch, it came naturally. But off it, I was useless. I could have gone to Manchester United in 1973, as Bobby Charlton’s replacement.

    “I was getting phone calls from Tommy Doc(herty) and Paddy Crerand all through that summer. I didn’t want the phone to ring because I didn’t want to say ‘no’ or ‘yes’. I was the same after I’d finished playing and there was the chance of a job at Chelsea.

    “Ken Bates wanted me to play for the reserves, basically to help bring through their kids. I went down to Stamford Bridge, had one interview in that old building with all the ivy down the outside and the job was pretty much mine. But then I never got back to him. I just didn’t want to make the decision myself.

    “I’m still the same today. I leave it to the wife. Typical me, the imperfect 10.”
     
    #28
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  9. Ringo Lion

    Ringo Lion Pumpkin

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    I could had worded it better Forza<laugh>, I have never complained:emoticon-0165-muscl
     
    #29
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  10. Irishshako

    Irishshako Well-Known Member

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    One of my fav Leeds Utd players at the time. Gutted when he left for QPR citing that his wife was homesick or something like that. I remember the goal against the Saints, unbelievable it was. Also remember seeing John Hawley pre season at ER, I think it was around 1978.<ok>
     
    #30
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  11. Irishshako

    Irishshako Well-Known Member

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    <laugh> I knew it Ringo, I thought a wally complaining.:grin:
     
    #31
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  12. wakeybreakyheart

    wakeybreakyheart Well-Known Member

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    Really good read i enjoyed that.
     
    #32
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  13. ellandback

    ellandback Well-Known Member
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    @Minxy has a thing for Currie!!!!
     
    #33
  14. oldschool

    oldschool Well-Known Member

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    He was a class act..... simple, would love him in his pomp now :emoticon-0103-cool:
     
    #34
  15. ellandback

    ellandback Well-Known Member
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  16. ellandback

    ellandback Well-Known Member
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