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Wad a character!
some recollections of an ex-Leeds United security man

If you've ever been to or seen any premiership football on T.V, you'll notice that many of the wealthier sides can afford to hire specialist firms rather than traditional stewards to enforce security within grounds. I was employed as a security man for a couple of seasons during the mid '90's at Elland Road, where I witnessed the decline of the Championship winning Leeds side, Howard Wilkinson's descent into madness and also several memorable characters and incidents as I patrolled the players tunnel.

An ancient proverb states that the size of a man's ego is usually proportional to the size of his wallet, and footballers are no exeption to this. The worst group of posers were the Liverpool side of the time which contained the "Spice Boys" - McManaman, Fowler, Redknapp, McAteer, Babb & Collymore. Incidentally, several months later they capitulated to London's 1st and best supported team in the F.A. Cup Final after wearing those disgusting cream suits, which would've had poor Shanks turning in his grave. If only they could play as well as they ponced about!.

However, when it came to individual tossers,Teddy Sheringham was out there on his own - and this was when he was playing for Spurs!. His head must be of astronomical proportions now that he has a
European Cup Winners Medal. He pranced around sporting a superior air which suggested we were not worthy of being able to look at him for free, never mind talk to him - not that we wanted to anyway, the stupid looking twat.

There were always 3 men assigned to the tunnel which was a plum job, but the bum job of the tunnelmen was the guy who had to stand by the phone which was like a hotline in case of emergencies, while the other duty meant being at the front of the tunnel checking passes, generally seeing what was going on and
keeping abreast of all the gossip, so we always took it in turns to man the phone.

I happened to be standing there during a visit from Arsenal. It was the period when everyone wanted Howard Wilkinson out because Leeds were really poor and I think we eventually lost the game 3-0 with Ian Wright delivering the coup de grace with an amazing looping lob over the woeful John Lukic.

Before the match, the Arsenal players went out for their warm ups and I distinctly remember being awed at the size of David Seaman who is so tall he skirted the top of the foldable tunnel with his head. As I stared at the England keeper - someone punched me in the stomach!

I spun around to see Wrighty laughing as he trotted past with the words "You're a Security Guard, you should have been ready for that!" in the broadest Cockney accent imaginable.

After the Arsenal boys had finished their warm up and had started drifting back into the dressing room , I was waiting for Wrighty as to be ready to jokingly get my own back. I was still at the batphone when I saw him pop his head around the tunnel wall, look at me and then retreat back out onto the pitch again!.

About a minute later he reappeared walking so close behind Arsene Wenger that you would've struggled to slide a sheet of paper between them. As they walked past Wrighty gave a sly wink and flashed his gold tooth as he grinned in victory. What a top man!

But the visits of Wimbledon & Sam Hamman topped even this. On this occaision Wimbledon had made an appalling start to the season and were facing Leeds about 4 or 5 matches into the campaign. They were near the bottom of the league with no wins and desperate for points. Unlike the Liverpools of the world, Wimbledon were an extremely friendly and down to earth organisation, and their then chairman Sam Hamman led by example.

Before every away match started Sam and this other ancient guy whose name I don't remember always walked from the players tunnel right around the pitch to salute the few hundred Dons fans who had made the trip. I would presume that this was a ritual, something they did at every away ground, as they always did it at Leeds and I can guarantee that no other Chairman would have made such a gesture in those days.

After his excursion around the pitch, Sam entered the tunnel and instantly started chatting loudly to me and other members of the security staff.

"I can't believe we've got ······ ···· as referee again!" he exclaimed.
"Every time he referees the Crazy Gang the bloke sends a couple of my boys off!".

Sam reached into the pocket of his overcoat and pulled out the largest wad of tenners I have ever seen in my life.

"I'll tell you what lads, if you go over to the referees room and knock ···· out before the game, you can have this wad of cash and life membership to the Crazy Gang!".

All this was said about two feet from a couple of uniformed Policemen. He was totally oblivious to our warnings, though luckily like us they were in gales of laughter at Hamman's obviously tongue in cheek remarks.

Sam then tucked his wad back into his pocket and and made his way up to the directors box - top man!