Mr Unbelievable. Chris Kamara
out so … [another and another: FERDINAND 9, DAVIDSON 14]. If he wants to tell me off, sorry Micky.’
Micky, who had headed back to his office to watch the programme, could do nothing to stop me.
‘Look, Steve Bruce,’ I shouted down the camera, ‘Scowcroft’s playing. So is Isset, and Marcus will be starting up front.’
Moments later I bumped into Micky’s goalkeeping coach, Tim Flowers, a Premiership winner with Blackburn Rovers and another former team-mate of mine from Swindon. We had a quick chat for the camera (after he’d almost dropped a ball I’d thrown at his midriff to test his reflexes), and I dropped him in it too.
To camera I said, ‘One of the best goalkeepers I ever played with…’
‘You lying git,’ he said, not realising what I was about to say.
‘… was Mervyn Day,’ I added quickly, scarpering to the away dressing-room.
Dennis, the Birmingham City kit man, had also laid shirts out for the players. Unfortunately, he had never seen Soccer AM, so he had no idea that he was supposed to say no when I asked him to turn the shirts over. He just shrugged his shoulders and told me to get on with it. By now, Helen and Tim were in hysterics as I read out some more names for the telly. I turned over the first shirt and it belonged to Clinton Morrison. ‘Oh dear,’ I laughed. ‘I must be at the rubber dubs’ [subs] end.’ As soon as the Birmingham players streamed into the ground, Clinton came looking for me. He cornered me by the pitch. Like many of the current pros, he loves the programme and knows we’re only having a laugh. They all realise I’d never be vindictive or nasty, but he was a bit miffed all the same.
‘Somebody rang me on the bus and said you took the mickey out of me this morning,’ he laughed. ‘Well I’m not on the bench. I’m playing today and I’m going to score.’ He did as well. Clinton later agreed to an interview after the game for Soccer Saturday. He couldn’t stop himself from rubbing my nose in it.
‘You said I’d be with the rubber dubs this morning,’ he said. ‘But I’ve proved Morrison is the man.’ Clinton was laughing his head off. Fair play, for once it was me who had been caught on the hop.
Like a lot of Premiership stars, the Soccer Saturday lads like to have a bit on the side. Now, before any of the ‘Sky WAGs’ start throwing the crockery around, I’d like to point out that I’m talking business interests rather than Page 3 models, G-list pop stars or Jordan. Jeff, for example, presents Countdown, where he presses a button and sets off the famous clock several times a day. It doesn’t look like a lot of work, but he gets to look at the pins of Rachel Reilly, his glamorous assistant, so you can’t knock it. It’s also better than looking at the pins of Matt Le Tissier and Thommo on a Saturday afternoon, I reckon.
Meanwhile, Paul Merson has made a name for himself as an entertaining speaker on the after-dinner circuit. There’s a lot of money to be made from reliving stories from your glory days and a lot of Arsenal players have some great tales to tell from the eighties and nineties when Merse played. Ray Parlour was telling me recently about a time when the Gunners were away at Liverpool. Ray wasn’t in the squad, so he went to the Carlsberg Lounge with Andy Linegan and a few of the spare parts for a beer. The lads were on their fourth pint when assistant manager Stuart Houston dashed into the bar.
‘Ray! Ray! One of the lads has got injured in the warm-up,’ he shouted. ‘Get changed, you’re on the bench.’
Quick as a flash, Andy Linegan turned around. ‘Stuart, have a heart, at least let him finish his pint first.’
Ray said he sat on the bench with his legs crossed for the entire half, praying that he wouldn’t get on. Merse was part of this boozy culture at Highbury – it put him in rehab – so he has loads of these stories to tell with plenty of punters willing to listen.
It may come as a surprise to learn that I’ve made a name for myself as a club singer. Most readers will have winced at my booming tones over the course of the show on a Saturday afternoon. Some of you might even be thinking, ‘How could that shouty bloke from the telly possibly hold a tune?’ – but the weird thing is, I can. I’ve even cracked a few a cappella numbers on Soccer AM in a section of the show called ‘Kammyoke’.
I first sang in front of an audience after making my debut for Leeds, a friendly against the Irish team Shelbourne, although we nearly didn’t make it across the Irish Sea at all. Two days after I’d signed for Leeds we headed off to Leeds airport for the short trip over. With the winds raging at over 70 mph, Leeds managing director Bill Fotherby was told by airport officials that the airport was to be closed. At the time, Leeds United needed the cash that this lucrative and popular friendly would bring in, and Bill could see this slipping away. He begged for the airport to allow us to fly for our evening kick-off and eventually the powers that be duly obliged. The small aircraft, no more than a 30-seater, powered by the gale-force winds, weaved its way down the runway, reminiscent of a drunk staggering home on a Saturday night. The look on the faces of my new team-mates was of pure fear. Once airborne we were subjected to the delights of the plane bungee-ing its way across the Irish Sea. Defender Peter Haddock and striker Lee Chapman were both feeling very ill and were unable to hide the fact when their pre-match lunch made a reappearance. Gordon Strachan’s face told the story that he had never endured anything like it before, for all his previous globetrotting with Manchester United. Our team-mates Mel Sterland and Imre Varadi continuously looked over to Vinnie Jones and me for reassurance that all would be well. The nervous laughter they were rewarded with did nothing to hide the fact that the two ‘hard men’ of the team were also crapping themselves!
Despite the worst flight of our lives we won 3–1 that evening, and afterwards the squad stayed at the fancy Burlington Hotel near the centre of Dublin. After a couple of beers, I spotted a pianist in the hotel bar and soon convinced him to give me the microphone for two Elton John numbers, ‘Your Song’ and ‘Don’t Let the Sun Go Down On Me’.
This was my way of introducing myself to the lads. According to team captain Gordon Strachan, a number of players actually exchanged worried glances as I began to perform. The lyrics probably didn’t help: ‘It’s a little bit funny, this feeling inside/I’m not one of those who can easily hide/I don’t have much money but boy if I did/I’d buy a big house where we both could live.’ According to Gordon, the common consensus among the Leeds squad that night was, ‘Who’s this shy bloke Howard has signed!’
Word soon got around that I was a bit of a crooner. I was later asked to sing on a charity album called In a League of Their Own. The recording sessions had been organised by legendary gaffer Ron Atkinson and also featured Gabby Logan and Ally McCoist on vocals. Former Villa striker Dion Dublin played a mean saxophone, so he was roped in, as was Blackburn striker Matt Jansen on piano and Chelsea and Leicester City’s Frank Sinclair on drums. It was like Band Aid, except none of us got to play at Wembley afterwards.
I sang two songs on the album, ‘Summertime’ by George Gershwin and Van Morrison’s ‘Brown Eyed Girl’. And while the album barely dented the hit parade, it got some pretty good reviews. ‘Chris Kamara sings “Brown Eyed Girl” better than Van Morrison,’ wrote one reviewer. ‘But then Van Morrison was a better football player than Chris Kamara.’
I later scored a regular gig at the Pigalle club in Piccadilly in London through some mates of a mate, Tim Ellerton and Joe Stillgo. Once a month I’ll sing three to four songs at a night called ‘Kitsch Lounge Riot’ hosted by Johnny Barran at the Café de Paris, which holds 500 people. It’s always packed out. Just before Christmas 2009 I had the honour of doing a duet with former EastEnders star and comedian Bobby Davro, which was cracking. I’ve got quite a repertoire of songs, but generally I belt through ‘Stuck in the Middle with You’ by Stealer’s Wheel, Elton John’s ‘Don’t Let the Sun Go Down On Me’, ‘Summertime’ and ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ (naturally), before I finish on a real belter: