Too Many Crooks

Losing Chris

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 unveil “John Deehan and me”. This week, Ian reveals all about Chris Sutton’s record breaking £5m move to Blackburn

Long before Iain Duncan Smith, Chris Sutton was the quiet one. While Gossy, the two Ians (Butterworth and Culverhouse) and Rockin’ Mark Robins would be leading the shenanigans on away days, ‘Super Chris’ would be quietly sitting at the back of the coach with his nose in a John Grisham. So when we heard he was off to Blackburn to form a strike partnership with Alan Shearer (and occasionally Mike Newell) it was no surprise that it wasn’t from the horse’s mouth, but Norwich’s local rag, The Pink ‘Un.

Me and Rockin’ were driving back from Gossy’s house where we’d been checking out the snaps from his holiday to Euro Disney. We pulled in at the local Spar for a Tab Clear where Rockin’ spotted the headline, “Sutt-on his way to Ewood”. Rockin’ said to me “Do you think Chris is really leaving?” I replied “Norwich are a club on the up, I’m not sure he would want to.” Rockin’ looked at me and said “E-wood!” while pointing at the headline. I didn’t know whether to laugh or be quite annoyed.

Once the lads found out Chris was on his way to Blackburn it was game on. Chris was never one for fun and games but we had a week in which give him a good send off while he waited for Jack Walker to cross the i’s and dot the t’s. And it wasn’t just any old week, we had a pre-season training camp planned at the HMS Raleigh, Plymouth.

We started with the small stuff, greasing his rope of the assault course, ripping out the final page of The Firm and telling him that big Paul Warhurst was f*cking livid about his place in the team coming under threat, and was going to have Chris’s guts for garters. He seemed to take it quite well and started to become a bit more social, even joining in with a game of doubles pool with me, Gunny and Polsters. Sadly he was terrible so we had to replace him with Ruel Fox for the second frame.

Chris’ last game for City was a hastily organised friendly with local boys St Blazey on the Astroturf at the barracks where we were training. Never one to miss a trick, Gossy (whose mum worked in the club shop) replaced Chris’ yellow number 22 with the unpopular blue away shirt for 91/92 and got “Traitor 21″ printed on it to annoy him. It did, and Chris vowed he would get revenge on the Welshman. Eagle-eyed members of the Ewood faithful noticed that Chris produced a leek from his shinpad when he scored his first goal for Rovers.

After five days of hard work with the sergeants and corporals we were dismissed on the last night and headed to nearby disco Harbour Lights in Torpoint. We dragged Chris along and I don’t mind saying he looked pretty uncomfortable in his jacket and slacks, so Gossy bought him a couple of bottles of Rolling Rock and he was away, sleeves rolled up and ripping up the floor as soon as MC Sar and the Real McCoy came on.

By the end of the night Chris was wobbling to the kebab shop, drunkenly saying he might like to stay after all, as if the money raised from selling the Chief was well invested we had a good punt for a European place. However, little did he know as he said this that Culvers and Butters were coming up behind him to remove his stuffy clothes for good and with it our chances of holding onto our best player.

When Blackburn arrived at Carrow Road the following season the pictures of Chris naked and tied to a train track papered the walls of the away dressing room and inspired him to further compound our relegation worries.

Needless to say, the Gaffer was livid.

Next time Ian reveals all about Mike Milligan’s amusing phobia of shallots.

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