8
THE BIGGEST regret of my life is being estranged from Claire, the daughter from my first marriage. The second was marrying her mother, Julie. The breakdown of my relationship with Claire was something I fought desperately against but as I write, I’m not even sure if I shall see her again or my two grandchildren whom I have only ever met fleetingly. The only good to come from a long and bitter tale was that I met and married Maureen and we now have a happy and complete family together, but the hurt remains and is as deep as ever.
I suppose at the heart of it was my lack of knowledge of women, the outside world even, so that I was married at 21 and burdened with a mortgage at a time when most lads are out enjoying themselves. Before I met and married Julie White I had only one real girlfriend, Kathleen Brown, who I had met at a Belmont youth club. I may have been a First Division footballer but I was still living at home and was a bit naive. Unlike many of my contemporaries I had a nice car and plenty of money, so much in fact I didn’t know what to do with it. Kathleen’s parents, Wilson and Ruth, used to watch our games but they were not starry-eyed so when I asked if I could get engaged to their daughter, they said no because they felt Kathleen was too young. I don’t blame them. I would have done the same but the result was that the relationship fizzled out and we drifted apart.
On the rebound I met Julie and things were never right almost from the very beginning. With a footballer’s wages burning a hole in my pocket I bought a three-bedroom house off plan in Hett village as an investment from estate agent Mike Weston, the former England rugby international with whom I played cricket at Durham, and longed to settle into it.
Julie and I had only been going out about six months when she said she was pregnant, a shock at the time because that sort of thing was still frowned upon outside marriage. I did what I felt was honourable and asked her to marry me. Soon after we had announced our engagement she told me she had lost our baby but by then we were committed to a big wedding in Ferryhill. I think I knew I was making a mistake even on my wedding day in 1976 although three years later we had our lovely daughter together. I had hoped Claire would be the cement that would hold our relationship together but it didn’t work out that way and I suppose it was unfair to expect a baby to be able to do that.
Almost from day one I felt trapped, smothered in part by Julie’s parents. Every time I came home from training there they were, sitting around our smart new home, and I came to the conclusion that she had married me to have a baby for herself and her family. This made me resentful, so much so that I started not to want to go home, taking up golf to fill the afternoon hours when I might have been with my wife and baby. I remember parties with the Sunderland players and we had a good social life together but somehow it was not what I wanted.
One summer I had hoped we would go on holiday to St Lucia but Julie wanted to leave the baby at home and I was not having that so we didn’t go. Little irritations became major clashing points, not least the way she chewed gum to conceal her smoking. I hated smoking and I quickly realised that I had got myself into a relationship I disliked almost as much, made tolerable only by the wonderful presence of our daughter. While Julie basked in the reflected glory of being a footballer’s wife, I became tense and anxious and fearful of the future, a future that I knew could not possibly involve her.
I wasn’t looking for another relationship, far from it, but it happened. I played golf with Bobby Kerr at Boldon. A friend of ours and a local businessman, Terry Simpson, invited us for lunch to meet some of his clients and it was then that we chanced upon Maureen and her best friend, Linda Kirtley. Three of us were married to other people and Linda was in a relationship, Maureen had two children and there was no suggestion of anything untoward going on between any of us. But we all found we liked each other’s company and we used to meet regularly just to catch up and I suppose it gradually became clear the more we talked that none of us were in relationships that we liked.
I listened to Maureen and she listened to me and it was six months before we even so much as kissed. Even then I wondered why she appeared to want me. Maureen was three years older but being in her company only compounded the feeling that I had made the wrong choice. I went home one day and told my wife I was moving out and returning to live with mam and dad. It was not a decision taken lightly. No one likes to admit to a failure in marriage and more so in this case because I had worked particularly hard as a footballer to get where I was.
Julie’s parents came over to my family home to sort it out and I fled upstairs and went to bed while below me I could hear a major row taking place between the two sets of parents. Julie’s dad, a prominent mason incidentally, insisted I went back to their daughter but dad said, ‘He’s staying with us.’
Having made my decision, which I knew was bound to be costly, although at that stage I didn’t know how costly, Maureen later made hers to leave her husband. At the same time Bobby Kerr was getting together with Linda, deserting his family home to be with her, two prominent North-Eastern footballers breaking up their marriages at the same time. The two ‘new’ couples used to go to the Ramside Hall Hotel, a four-star luxury hotel and golf complex, on Saturday nights but any hope of discretion was ruined by me showing up in my sponsored car with my name emblazoned all over it.
Bobby and Linda eventually married. Maureen was especially brave in difficult times for us all. She had left her husband, Howard, and taken their two sons aged 11 and seven with her to rented accommodation in Washington, County Durham, and while I saw her every day I went home to mam.
As the relationship blossomed it became common knowledge and inevitably attracted interest. I took Maureen and her children to Scarborough for a weekend to get to know them all better and I became aware that my mother-in-law had gone to the News of the World and spilled the beans about how First Division footballer David Armstrong had abandoned his wife and daughter to run off with an older woman and her ‘three’ children. Good News of the World copy, except they got it wrong about the number of children. Even so, it terrified me, the thought of our affair becoming national news and on the day the article appeared I went down to the nearest newsagent and bought every copy of the paper in the shop.
In retrospect it was a daft thing to do and the only winner there was the newsagent but the bitterness had dug deep and we knew our love was going to be severely tested if it was to survive. And survive it did thanks to Maureen’s love and resilience and our determination to make it a success.
This all coincided with my testimonial season at Middlesbrough, awarded to me at 26 which is especially young to receive such an accolade but recognition of my nearly ten years of service and for my loyalty in staying with the club when other major players were moving on. Now I was about to do the same. Feeling that I needed a fresh start away from the prying eyes and the gossip in the North-East I asked for a transfer, which must have felt to some as a betrayal. Then, with my emotions all over the place, I had to go through the messy business of a divorce.
Up to this point I was wealthy for a lad of my age and background. There was the house on which by now there would be a healthy profit if sold and of course money coming in from my testimonial, all the cash-raising social events plus a match from which I was entitled to the gate proceeds. When it came to the court hearing to work out who got what I was by now a Southampton player having moved about as far as possible from Middlesbrough, the little matter of 320 miles. I knew I would have to be prepared to pay Julie a considerable amount of money but I didn’t want to be greedy because I wanted the best for my daughter.
Anxious to prevent my wife getting away with too much I bought myself a smart red Mercedes from Sparshatts garage in Hampshire and headed north again for the judgement. I had been advised to hire a barrister at Teesside Crown Court, which in itself cost a fortune, only to be confronted by a judge who was known by reputation to favour the women in divorce cases. To prove it the judge sported a bandage across his head, apparently the legacy of a chair thrown at him by a man who had been the victim of one of his damning verdicts. Now it was my turn.
The details of the marriage breakdown were read out and it became clear to the judge that I was heavily in the wrong. I had gleaned about £11,000 from my testimonial year and I didn’t expect much of it to remain in my hands, and I was absolutely right. Adjusting his bandage, the judge said Julie could have the house and its contents, that I should finish the payments on a car I was buying for her and that I should pay £15,000 a year maintenance for Claire until such time as she completed her education or if Julie remarried. Claire was about three at the time. In addition I had to pay Julie’s costs and my own. ‘And you,’ sneered the judge, ‘can keep and live in your red Mercedes.’
It was a staggering blow. I had been made an example of, to use the judge’s words and I came out of that court and burst pathetically into tears. I sobbed and sobbed. My lawyer advised me to appeal but I looked at him and said what with. I had no money any more. I am sure there were people thinking that as a top footballer I would be able to cope with the financial penalties but the money then was nothing like it is today.
Here I was, an England footballer, completely skint. My first contract at Southampton promised me £35,000 a year before tax. From that I had to pay the £15,000 maintenance and eventually a mortgage on our property at Fair Oak, which even now still has a few years to run. Julie only remarried when I stopped earning the comparatively big money from my playing career.
Being those 320 miles from the scene of the ‘crime’ was a great blessing but it was a huge upheaval for us all, not least Justin and Christian, Maureen’s two boys. They had been taken from their home, from everything they understood, their grandparents, their school and their friends, to set up with a man they hardly knew in a totally different environment at the other end of the country. When Maureen was living at Washington in the early days of our relationship, the boys ran away, wanting to be with their dad, but in fairness they soon adapted to life on the South Coast and have always been a great credit to their mother, their father and their stepfather. I am as proud of them as if they were my own and all those tribulations were made worthwhile by the love of Maureen.
There were inevitable early problems, as much my fault as theirs. Neither of the boys is sporty and I could never comprehend why they always wanted to stay indoors when there was so much to do outside. I laugh about it now, but I used to lock them out of the house so they could get some fresh air. In addition, on Saturday mornings, match days, I needed peace and solitude to prepare myself for the game ahead but that seemed to be a cue for them to crash about the house, making as much noise as possible.
But these were minor grumbles from a period of re-adjustment for us all and we came through it. Our family was completed with the birth of Kate in 1983. The boys dote on her and so do we but she is all the more important to me because of the collapse of my relationship with Claire.
I could understand Julie being bitter. Her world had been smashed by my desertion and she too had to start again. But while she had custody of Claire, provision was made in the judge’s ruling for me to visit my daughter whenever possible, bearing in mind that I was now living on the South Coast and for me to see Claire required a lot of travelling. On Saturdays after matches at The Dell, while my team-mates were enjoying a pint or two, either of my friends Bertie or John The Horse, as we knew them, would take me to Heathrow for an evening flight to the airport at Teesside. On Saturday evenings I would go out with Bobby Kerr and the plan was for me to meet Claire next day and take her out between 10am and 4pm, as the ruling had indicated I could. But by my estimation only about one in every ten times was I able to visit her without interruption or some barrier being put in the way.
Most occasions I never saw her at all. As Claire grew older her mother poisoned her against me and more often than not I would fly back to Heathrow not even having seen my daughter. I used to board that plane crying uncontrollably. Many a divorced father wonders what to do with their children when they have temporary custody and it’s not easy to fill the time but I used to take Claire to mam’s house until I realised all I was doing was babysitting for a few hours. Claire did meet Maureen and our kids and we always got on well, so there was never any tension, but Claire and I were never allowed to bond as daughter and father.
Julie eventually found an Irishman she wanted to marry and to be with him meant leaving the country so I took out an injunction to stop her doing that, later relenting when I knew my visiting rights were preserved. I always wanted Claire to come with my new family on holiday and it was agreed with Julie that I would fly to Belfast to pick up Claire at the airport there, take her back to England and then on to Minorca where we would be holidaying with Bertie and his wife, Sheila. But when I got to Belfast there was Julie with Claire and her new-born baby Lauren.
Julie was playing mind games. She could have sent Claire to the airport with her husband but when it came to the parting, Claire wanted to stay with her mother and refused to leave. There was nothing I could do in such a situation without making a scene but I knew Julie had set this up deliberately. I had the humiliation of turning round and boarding a plane for the trip back as tears ran down my cheeks. Later Claire changed her surname to that of her stepfather without telling me so that cards, presents and other mail never reached her. I still send her cards every Christmas and birthday to the last address I had for her but I never get any acknowledgement and I suppose we might never now have a relationship. I tried my best and I believe I did so with a clear conscience.
All I know of her is that Claire has a partner and two children, Lucas and Summer, my grandchildren. I have only met Lucas twice and Summer once. Maureen has been very supportive and did all she could to include her in our family. In addition her boys have always had a good rapport with their father and always saw him whenever they wanted, as should always be the case. Their dad, Howard Pearson, has been very much part of their lives, as have Howard’s parents, Bob and Beatrice, and Maureen’s parents, Paddy and Lilian. I wish Claire had been part of mine and I fear she missed out by not getting to know her stepbrothers and half-sister and being part of us. Even now I would say to Claire if I ever got the chance: there are two sides to every story. You are old enough to ask a few questions, be mature enough to listen. I would give you honest answers, a clear picture of what really happened without bitterness or rancour.
Justin is at the time of writing sales manager for the Carnival Group, one of the biggest cruising companies in the world, and lives in the Southampton area with his partner Joanne and our grandson, Harrison. Christian married in some style in India to Poornima, whom we know as Nicky, and they have a child, our granddaughter Asha. Kate is an accounts manager in Southampton and has a partner, Dylan. The extended family is a big one and probably because of what we went through at the start a close one. It is sad that Claire is not part of it, but there is still time and I hope for a reconciliation.
Maureen and I were married at Southampton register office on 16 September 1982. As I said, we had to move the date to accommodate one of my England involvements and Bobby Kerr, after what we had both been through, was a first-rate best man. It was a good way to close a stormy chapter in our lives and to begin the process of looking forward. Maureen has been a wonderful wife through thick and thin and has my love and admiration for the way she has coped with so much turmoil.
All through this I was trying to play football for Middlesbrough. There had been changes over the years as Jack’s team evolved into John Neal’s. In 1978/79, for instance, a year we finished 12th, Neal brought in a foreign player in Bosco Jankovic, a qualified lawyer from Yugoslavia. In recent years our team, while not exclusively from the North-East, didn’t travel far for recruitment so a foreign player was probably someone from south of Nottingham.
In many ways Bosco took us into unknown territory. For a start he carried around a pouch, what would now be known as a man-bag, an object of some curiosity for his team-mates and not the sort of thing many men in Middlesbrough placed at the top of their Christmas list. Not unlike Dimitar Berbatov in many ways, strong but not especially quick, he was a real character and much loved by the Ayresome Park crowd. Bosco was a crowd-pleaser, a wonderful footballer and an inspired signing by Neal. The manager was trying to make us an attractive side to watch and I think the fans appreciated what he did. Micky Burns came in, so too Terry Cochrane, an exciting winger from Burnley for £233,333, and then Bosco in February for £100,000.
Some of the old guard were moving on, Cooper to Bristol City and Jim Platt loaned temporarily to Hartlepool and Cardiff, Maddren was forced by a knee injury to retire while Mills at last got away to West Bromwich in January 1979. I was sorry to see Mills go because we had been stalwarts together for many a year by this time. We played Newcastle at home once and of course the atmosphere was electric, as it was for all derby matches, and Mills was getting some stick from the Chicken Run, the popular part of our ground, for one or two errors. At one point a dog appeared from their midst and ran on to the pitch, eluding all attempts to catch it. The dog took a liking to Mills and started to follow him around. Every time Mills made a run, so too did the dog, like an additional marker. Eventually the dog was grabbed and taken away, at which point the fans chanted, ‘Leave the dog on, take Mills off.’
Burns was a busy, intelligent player and he appreciated the way each of us played. Irishman Cochrane was what was known years ago as a ‘tanner ball player’, gifted but temperamental, lots of skill but always moaning if he didn’t get the ball. He could and did beat the same defender three or four times, to the frustration of his team-mates so that he never quite fulfilled expectations.
Right at the start of the season, 26 August, we went down to Southampton and lost 2-1, a match in which I scored. The day was boiling hot and I wasn’t used to the sun, or at least not to such intensity, and I didn’t much like The Dell either. The fans seemed to be right on top of us, the pitch was hard and Saints were in our faces throughout so that it wasn’t a particularly pleasant experience. We seemed to take ages to get down to Southampton and ages to get back. I remember thinking on the long journey back to Middlesbrough there was no way I would ever want to play for Southampton.
Once again I didn’t miss a match, while breaking through about this time was Craig Johnston, who as I revealed, had been retained only on the intervention of George Wardle. Craig showed what could be achieved by sheer bloody-minded determination, returning in the afternoons to build up his slim physique and work on his technique. George kept him going through the dark days when he first arrived, told him to persevere and provided him with one valuable piece of advice: never show the opposition you’re tired. Not the most gifted, Craig proved numerous fine judges wrong and I know he was forever grateful to George for seeing something in him others did not. Craig merely endorsed my own views of George, who as a teacher knew how to develop people through encouragement and cajoling and his masterly insight to the human condition made him a great psychologist.
I was top scorer in 1979/80 with 14, a decent figure for a midfield player, and I imagine it was one of the reasons why England began to show an interest in me again. John Neal made sure we were always super fit, taking us off to Aberystwyth for some pre-season endurance work on the sands, staying at the university and it paid off with a handsome 3-1 win at Tottenham on the opening day. I always loved playing our first game of the season away because the expectation is heavily with the home side, especially with a club like Spurs who expected to challenge, and still expect to challenge, for honours. Fans build up their anticipation throughout the summer and then see them dashed on the first afternoon. I got one of the goals, Bosco got another and Burns the third and things got better when in the following game we beat Manchester City 3-0 as the prelude to one of our better seasons.
We were in the top ten most of the season, finishing ninth, and another highlight was drawing 1-1 at home to Manchester United. There were some 30,000 squeezed into Ayresome Park to see me get a second-half equaliser and only a great save from Gary Bailey denied me the winner. The one thing about playing United was that we never needed a team talk. Even during some lean years they were always the team to beat.
At one stage a place in the UEFA Cup beckoned after we got to fifth by the end of March, but we fell away thereafter by going seven matches without a win. Craggs and I were the only players to appear in every league game but we were starting to lose more of those who had become so important to the club over the good years. Boam had gone to Newcastle, Sunderland claimed Cummins for £100,000 and Mahoney had moved to Swansea. We were starting to become a selling club and the manager was becoming concerned. Who would be next?
I won’t forget 1980/81 in a hurry. It was the season of my first cap in Sydney, the season my long run of consecutive appearances came to an end and it was the season I was awarded a testimonial at the age of 25. I was actually 26 when my testimonial match was played but it was very rare for a player in his mid-20s to earn such an accolade and of course I was flattered.
Middlesbrough were often struggling for money at the time and Neal was becoming agitated by the way his best players were being sold from under him. Newcastle had taken Peter Johnson and Alan Ramage had gone to Derby and bigger clubs were circling round myself, Craig Johnston and one or two others. By awarding a testimonial, Middlesbrough were trying to stop me joining the growing exodus. To be honest I was not bothered about the money, my first wife got all of that anyway, I just wanted an acknowledgement from the club of my worth to them. I wanted to be appreciated.
I was growing uneasy at the way the likes of Souness and Mills had been allowed to go and not been replaced and getting first into the England B side and then the full international team made me realise that there was a life outside Middlesbrough and that it wouldn’t take much to find another, more glamorous club. I had after all been at Middlesbrough since I was nine and in the first team since I was 17 so in terms of experience and matches played I was due some reward. Normally it’s lads of 35 or 36, coming to the end of their careers and facing uncertain futures who are awarded a testimonial season, which in addition to a match includes dinners and other fund-raising activities. It means a busy year with lots of social activity but mine was coinciding with the chaos of my home life and the subsequent breakdown of my marriage. So it was never straightforward and once or twice a little awkward.
My testimonial match was played in front of a crowd of 10,000, who as always showed their great support for me, and it was preceded by a match involving my pals from Durham. A team of celebrities played against New Durham Club and Durham Boilers, whom I had coached and for whom playing in front of such a big crowd was a chance to shine. But, as I say, the money soon disappeared.
This was a great year for me on the field. I was eventually fans’ player of the year to go with my first England cap and I felt that I was absolutely on top of my game. I doubt that I ever played better in my life or consistently so well. I was still young and yet battle-hardened and increasingly canny and I think perhaps only Bosco outshone me, finishing with 13 goals and regularly catching the eye, never more so than at home to Ipswich on the penultimate day of the season. Bobby Robson’s Ipswich were a hair’s breadth from the league title but we beat them 2-1 and Bosco got both goals, leaving their championship hopes in tatters.
In September 1980 a rare event took place, namely a Middlesbrough football match without David Armstrong taking part in it. After playing in the first four I was injured and missed the next two against Nottingham Forest and Sunderland. I am ‘ashamed’ to admit that I missed a third in March, ironically against Southampton, because of that Geoff Palmer tackle in the FA Cup. I could have missed more but played through the worst of the injury.
My first absence meant that my run of 305 league matches, 365 in all competitions, dating back to March 1973 had come to a halt, some seven years and five months since a Middlesbrough team had last gone on to the pitch without me. Of course I’m proud of my achievement but much had changed over those seven years and five months. Only the seemingly indestructible Craggs and the reinstated Platt remained from when I started.
But while my career was taking off a little, the club were going through difficult times. We finished 14th and in May 1981 Neal resigned when Craig Johnston was sold to Liverpool for £575,000. Middlesbrough needed the money and Neal couldn’t face losing another major player. Bobby Murdoch was promoted from youth coach and while I had great respect for Bobby as a supreme player, he struggled to continue Neal’s fine work. I was sorry to see Neal go, not least because the discipline which he had imposed was breaking down rapidly under the new regime. Apprentices no longer held their seniors in proper regard and all the good habits drilled into me at an early age no longer seemed to apply. Things were changing and not for the better.
I think when Johnston was sold I realised I too had to go but it was not going to be straightforward breaking the umbilical cord. I suppose the exposure to players from other clubs had opened my eyes a little and I realised that if I was to have an international career it might be better served by a club more often in the hunt for honours. My off-field problems were coming to a head and I came to the sad and inevitable conclusion that I had to move on.
And the red Mercedes? It was while I was test-driving it that Maureen and I spotted the house we still live in at Fair Oak. But the car was soon sold during hard financial times which followed my transfer. My little plan to make sure money from my testimonial didn’t get to my first wife failed to work out.