Too Many Crooks

Chapter 7 – Messing about in boats

After beating off The Sun in a vicious bidding war, The Gaffer is proud to announce our serialisation of Ian Crook’s autobiography, ‘Too Many Crooks’. The ex-Norwich hero’s book promises to lift the lid on a tumultuous career, and a much-anticipated chapter will reveal the truth behind the white and purple away kit Norwich only wore once because very few teams play in yellow. This week, Ian recounts a boozy boat trip on the Norfolk Broads.

Norfolk Broads

What with the glamour trips to Munich and Milan, people forget that the 93-94 season wasn’t all bratwurst (sausage) and bier (beer). We drew seven games on the trot in the early part of year, a run that put the mockers on any European aspirations we had bar the annual fortnight on the Costa del Sol with the missus. As we trooped into the dressing room at Carrow Road after being held 1-1 by Sheffield Wednesday (ironically on a Saturday), I sat down next to Gossy and remarked “I’ve had enough of these stalemates”.

Gossy looked around at the rest of the lads before replying: “Yeah, and I’ve had enough of these draws!!” It was classic Gossy, pulling a wisecrack straight out of the top drawer to raise our spirits. But he was right, we all needed freshening up and it would take more than a quick splash of Old Spice this time.

We sorted it with the Gaffer that we could have the week off training to go boating on the Norfolk Broads. Robert Fleck had just agreed a new boot deal with Pony, so he coughed up the instalment and we hired a motorboat. Ian Butterworth has almost as keen a sense for river navigation as he did for dealing with the opposition’s big man up top, and we were soon on our way. It felt wonderful to be out in the open, answering the call of the nature – which was unfortunate, because nature had chosen that particular moment to call on Gossy and he was taking a leak over the side of the boat.

Me and Ullers quickly demolished a four-pack of Boddingtons and young Daryl Sutch wanted to get some refills for his Soda Stream, so we stopped off for supplies in Cantley. We all had an ice cream even though it was colder than the subs bench at Boundary Park. You could tell I was the only one who regularly holidayed on the continent – I had a Neapolitan, while the two Ians plumped for choc ices.

It was at that moment we saw Terry Nutkins, who was filming on the Broads for The Really Wild Show. Nutkins is famous for bearing a grudge, so we really should have steered well clear but the balding naturalist had already clocked us. It turned out one of his lads was a City fan and he asked if he could bring him along to the changing rooms after a game some time to meet the team.

“Only if we can have a look at Michaela Strachan’s beaver in return,” Gossy blurted out, but thankfully that went over Nutkins’ head, despite him being a tall man. We swapped car phone numbers and said our goodbyes but Sutchy, mad as hatter, went up for a high five rather than the traditional handshake. Needless to say Nutkins was livid, taking it as a reference to his loss of two fingers in an unprovoked squirrel attack as a boy. He stormed off, leaving Sutchy hanging.

Back on the boat we got into the spirit of the trip: drinking like fish and doing a bit of ‘bird-watching’, if you know what I mean. To be fair there were moor actual hens than hen parties out on the river, and surprisingly few ‘broads’ out on the broads. The next morning I had a headache the size of Carlos Valderrama’s barnet and it was midday before I joined the lads on deck.

They were discussing what to do about lunch, when Culverhousey piped up with “I could murder a Chinese”. Gossy, who’d been practising his Cruyff turns over by the sun loungers, yelled “How about some crispy duck?” and sent a sizzling half-volley into a flock of Mallards on the riverbank. Who should step out from the bushes with his camera crew but that bastard Nutkins? Normally Gossy was about as accurate as a Pools Panel prediction but his netbuster had only gone and killed an endangered warbler stone dead – and Nutkins had the whole thing on tape!

The story made that evening’s broadcast of BBC Look East, but luckily they couldn’t identify the shooter and we survived a working over from the RSPB’s heavies by pleading the Fifth. The next day, we were back at training and when Mike Walker came marching over I knew we were for the high jump, the Gaffer never missed the 6 o’clock news. As he raised his finger to give us all an earful, Gossy interjected with the immortal line: “It could have been worse, boss, they tried to make us sing like Canaries!”

Needless to say the Gaffer was livid.

Next time Ian talks about life under the back pass rule…

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