Tragic tale of fanatical goalkeeper

In bed, he might have added, he also wore goalkeeping gloves and occasionally football boots, undertook endless action replays, would shout warnings to defenders and on one fabled occasion gave a ten-minute Match of the Day interview in his sleep.

Known throughout football as Budgie, he disliked the nickname almost as much as the notion that he was some sort of number one nutcase.

"I'm the most boring person you'll ever meet," he once told Backtrack. "I come home and I'm quite content just to sit watching television. All I want to do in life is to make great saves."

Now, three days before his 50th birthday and sustained by daily anti-depressants, he is making an agonised recovery from a 1999 road accident in Oman, still unable so much as to catch a ball.

"It now takes him five minutes to get off the floor," says his wife, Janet. "Putting his socks on is a ten-minute job."

Today in Manchester Burridge launches a legal claim against the British owners of the vehicle he claims was responsible. "The doctors said that if I'd been of Asian build I'd have been dead ," he says.

"I was a little bit crazy for a time afterwards, a little bit loopy-loo."

This is the remarkable story of how Budge nearly fell off the perch, and these are the tears of a clown.

Best remembered at Newcastle United - but veteran of 798 English and Scottish league games and at nearly 30 different clubs - he became a national coach in Oman in 1998. Still he maintained his daily fitness regime, his apparently obsessive diet, his formidable self-discipline.

The accident, he claims, happened when another vehicle pulled up in the cycle lane in front of him and he had to swerve into the road to avoid it.

He had a boat and a beautiful house by the beach, did daily weight training at the "fabulous" national stadium, was on good terms with the Sandhurst-educated Sultan.

"We're very British in Oman," he says, unselfconsciously.

One day while cycling back from the gym, however, he was in collision with a car coming at 70mph in the opposite direction and was dragged for 50 yards beneath the vehicle.

The accident, he claims, happened when a van pulled up in front of him in the cycle lane and, in swerving to avoid it, he was hit by the other vehicle.

Taken to hospital ("they don't have an ambulance service in Oman, you just get put in a van and dumped") he had 147 stitches in facial wounds and to replace his partially severed left ear.

Subsequently he underwent three skin grafts and other operations, has a new shoulder and 14 new teeth, has one arm shorter than another, hands that can't even grip a tennis racket, a damaged nervous system, "knackered" back and a permanently unsteady gait. He gets by, he insists, on Prozac.

"It's been totally devastating," says Janet. "The first impression is that he's still quite fit, but that's until you see him move.

"He spent his whole life perfecting his fitness and his goalkeeping and he was still playing for the army in Oman. It's like a violinist without any hands.

"There was nothing ever got in the way of his football and getting his body right, but you had to live with him to understand the dedication. People made fun of him but it didn't matter, the feeling of flying through the air was the only motivation he needed.

"The morning of the accident he seemed so fit, but now he puts himself through agony every day, just total and utter determination. He is prepared to do anything to get his fitness back."

He was a Workington lad, miner's son, played for his home town club before moving to Blackpool, then went on the most circuitous round Britain tour in football history.

While at Newcastle, however, he fell in love with the North-East, moved to Durham City and opened several sports shops in the region. His car registration was A5AVE.

In 1995 he played for Manchester City in a goalless Premiership draw with the Magpies - the club where he was goalkeeping coach - and in 1996 alone continued the glove affair at Notts County, Witton Albion, Darlington, Gateshead, Grimsby, Durham City, Queen of the South and, most improbably of all, Purfleet. He was a big player in Oman, too.

"For 33 years I was the hardest trainer in British football. People can take the mickey out of me, call me a crackpot, but in eating rice and fruit and having self-hypnosis tapes on the bus I was ahead of my time. That sort of thing's everywhere now, but they call it sports psychology."

He was also, he admits, a contract rebel before Bosman. "I was ahead of my time, revolutionary. If it said two years then after two years I negotiated again. People said I was trouble because of it, but it was totally the right thing to do.

"I always said that if they wouldn't pay it, I knew someone else who would, and I did."

He continues as a national coach in Oman, but with severely restricted mobility. "I'm in total agony just jogging, it's only the love of the game which keeps me going.

"I was 47 and I would win all the cross country races. Now my day is chiropractor, phsyiotherapist, acupuncturist and training in the evening.

"I can't get in the goals to lead from the front, I have a lad who has to do the dives for me. I'm just like any other coach now. I blow the whistle and put drills on."

After touring the Gulf trying to find his telephone number in Oman, the column had finally tracked his son - a Great Britain ice hockey international - and was told that his dad was home on compassionate leave.

His 82-year-old mother is seriously ill in Workington, he's staying with his in-laws in Blackpool. His mother, coincidentally, was also in a serious road accident seven years ago.

"Until then we'd always said she was like the Queen Mother, she'd go on for ever. It's not the immediate effect on you of these things, it's the way you deteriorate."

Three days from his 50th - shaven headed, summer suited, still recognisable - the once ebullient Budgie anticipates little to celebrate. "Maybe I don't look bad, but I'm not the John Burridge you know, and if I'm like this now, what the hell am I going to be like when I'm 60?"

HAILS of Hartlepool writes in formal mode, recalling in the same missive A E Ellis, R A Mortimer, F B Coultas, A W Leuty and A E Evans - all of whom were top-class football referees - and L F Shackleton, who only thought that he was.

Recollection of the great Arthur Ellis's man management skills in Tuesday's column sent Ron Hails - once a Church League whistler himself - burrowing among his bookshelves.

It was Sunderland v Fulham at a frosty Roker Park - the Hails fellow was there - when Sunderland were awarded a free kick on the edge of the area.

Shack grabbed the ball, made a small mound from the peat that covered the pitch in bitter weather and prepared to take the kick. Ellis kicked the peat away.

Shack rebuilt his tee. Ellis again removed it.

His autobiography recalled Shack's insistence that there was nothing in the rules to say he couldn't do it.

"Naw," said Ellis, "and there's nowt that says you can."

Brought down an inch or two, the Clown Prince still hammered an unstoppable 20-yard free kick past Scottish international goalkeeper Ian Black.

The subsequent conversation between referee and striker is, unfortunately, unrecorded.

ARTHUR Ellis, brewery rep by trade and referee by calling, had charge of the 1952 FA Cup final, Arsenal v Newcastle. The fee was £10 or a medal - he chose the medal - and afterwards he was invited to both clubs' dinners.

"I didn't want to show any favouritism so I went to both," he said.

He was also referee on perhaps the only occasion that the late Bob Paisley, that true gentle man of Hetton-le-Hole, was known to have lost his cool.

Bob was playing for Liverpool when clouted once too often by a Middlesbrough opponent. Turning on his tormentor he vowed, in what doubtless was the argot of the age, to part the so-and-so's hair for him.

Arthur Ellis, as ever on the spot, instantly pulled a comb from his top pocket. "There you are Bob," he said. "Do it now if you like."

The antagonists fell about, the moment passed, the game continued peaceably.

After retirement, A E Ellis (as dear old Hails would have him) had an 18 -year career on the television programme It's A Knockout and was for 30 years chairman of the Pools Panel. He died, aged 84, in June 1999.

MANY hundreds filled St John's in Shildon for the funeral on Monday of John Raw, central pillar of Shildon BR Cricket Club for more than half a century.

At the wake, however, they were looking to the future. Though the pitch remains the best in local league cricket, last season they struggled to field two teams.

Propositioned players, they explained, always asked how much. Many who wouldn't pay £1 for their tea had £100 in their pocket to hit the town after stumps.

Shildon Railway, as now they are, are anxious to hear from any enthusiastic cricketers before the winter turns. Contact Peter Dargue on 01388 773346.

TEN years ago this week, Newcastle United fielded seven North-East born players - Steve Watson, Robbie Elliott, David Roche, Alan Thompson (all Newcastle), Matt Appleby (Middlesbrough), Steve Howey (Sunderland) and Kevin Scott (Easington Lane) in the goalless draw against Blackburn Rovers.

"A second division matinee of decidedly second class rating," the Echo observed, adding somewhat icily that Ossie Ardiles had been manager since April Fool's Day.

The crowd was 23,639, the season's second highest, the Magpies remained £5m in debt and Newcastle fan Gavin Ledwith from West Rainton claims it as a post-war record for the number of North-East born players in a "Big three" team.

Gadfly readers' native instinct may suggest differently....

ANOTHER record, perhaps, Billingham Wanderers goalkeeper Paul Dodd, 46, saved all five penalties in last Saturday's shoot-out against the Lord Seaham from Sunderland.

It was the Over 40s League's Villa Real Cup. Wanderers strayed similarly, it should be said, their only punitive penalty converted by former Boro and Hartlepool player Bobby Scaife, now also 46.

Paul, whose "umpteen" clubs have included Billingham Town and Norton in the Northern League, is anxious to play the achievement down. "There were one or two good saves but really I just got lucky," he insists.

League secretary Kip Watson, named last week as the Echo's overall Local Hero 2001, may think differently. Word is that Kip, 84 next Wednesday, is buffing one of his end -of-season trophies already.

TOW Law Town know about missing penalties, too. We reported on November 2 that Lee Innes's spot kick against Brandon was the Lawyers' first to find the net in eight attempts.

Ten days later, however, Lee - cricket professional for Greenside last summer - took off for a cricket post in New Zealand. Just over a week later he was home again, sub against Billingham Synners last Saturday.

Doc Forster, Tow Law's manager, reports that, despite relentless interrogation, his man is reluctant again to be put on the spot.

"All he'll tell me," adds the Doc, "is that he prefers his weekends in Consett."

FRANK Moore, the man who proved that there's no Poolie like an old Poolie, has died. He was 91.

He'd first been taken to the Victoria Ground by his father, past the pig sties and rubbish tips where the Mill House stand now stretches. Lads sixpence, dads a bob.

Frank, lovely man, never lost the blue and white vision. Until recent ill health he'd always stood behind the goal, home and away, content to stride the generation gap.

When he became too unwell to take up his usual place, he'd sit alone in the supporters club, patiently watching the score on Teletext.

"He was always with younger people than himself, but that's probably because he couldn't find anyone older," former Pool manager Mick Tait once told the column.

Before the war, Frank had also been the twopence a line Hartlepool area correspondent of Boxing magazine, chronicling the likes of Cast Iron Casey, Jack London and Barney Stockton, from Hartlepool.

We'd last seen him on a perishing cold night in January 1999, fixed in his six-days-a-week seat in the Corner Flag club and not very clever even then. Pool had lost 3-0. "We'll be better when the weather gets warmer," said Frank, ever the optimist - and so, of course, it proved.

THE first Welshman to win a European Cup winner's medal (Backtrack, November 27) was Joey Jones of Liverpool.

Today back to Arthur Ellis, referee of the notoriously violent World Cup quarter-final match between Brazil and Hungary in 1954.

Readers may care to suggest the belligerent name by which that game is still better known - more war stories, with luck, next Tuesday