Roy McDonough holds a footballing record unlikely ever to be beaten. Playing in the rough and tumble of the lower leagues in the seventies and eighties he was shown the red card an astonishing 22 times. For Roy the early bath was an occupational hazard. Though he insists the litany of brawls and flying elbows that makes up his disciplinary record was entirely a function of self-defence.
âI ainât being funny, it was self-preservation,â he says, speaking at his home on the Costa del Sol. âI never set out to hurt anybody. Never once entered my head.â He pauses for a moment.
âWell, except that time with Tony Pulis, the Welsh t---.â
His altercation with the now Middlesbrough manager came when Roy was playing for Southend. He and Pulis, then an uncompromising midfield enforcer with Newport County, had squared up in the previous league game, a face-off during which, Roy claims, Pulis had spat at him. In the dressing room before the rematch, Roy had warned his manager Bobby Moore that there may be trouble ahead.
âI said to 'Mooro': âHeâs going to get one, the gobby Welsh getâ. And Mooro â who was an absolute gentleman â said: âRoy, son, donât let me down. We need 11 out there. Whatever you do, please stay on the pitchâ. I said: âyou can trust me bossâ. I was out there for all of seven minutes. Opportunity came too early. The ball was about neck high, and I kung-fu kicked him. Even in them days, when you could pretty much get away with murder in the first 10 minutes, I had to go. Lucky I didnât take his head off. Mind, it was worth every penny of the ÂŁ100 fine.â
It is safe to say that they do not make them like Roy McDonough anymore. As he enjoys a second career as a salesman of Spanish property, Royâs tales of punch-ups and pint-swilling are another world from our current sanitised football climate. It is unlikely, for instance, in these days of sparkling water, cryotherapy units and mobile phone cameras, that any current player would become renowned for an ability to down a pint in six seconds while standing on his head. But that was Royâs party trick.
âI remember going to Chelmsford cricket club one summer in the late eighties with Perry Groves and the Arsenal boys and Tony Adams getting me to show him how to do it. A tip if youâre trying this at home: itâs easier with Guinness for some reason.â
So technicolor are Royâs tales (as Southendâs moustachioed centre-forward, for instance, he claims to have earned his nickname of âThe German Porn Starâ by sleeping with more than 400 women, âthough they didnât get much sleepâ) that when the journalist Bernie Friend first sat down with him to write his life story he assumed it was all made up. It wasnât. Roy really did behave like that. And, as detailed in the pairâs hilarious account â called, naturally enough Red Card Roy â it is some yarn.
âIâm not proud of the record cards by the way, but thereâs a lot more to me than that,â he insists. âFor a start I played for three managers whoâd won the World Cup.â Indeed he did. When he was a 17-year-old local prodigy at Birmingham City, Sir Alf Ramsey gave him his debut. He then moved to Chelsea where he played under Sir Geoff Hurst. It was not a relationship charged with mutual respect.
âAbsolute muppet,â he says of Hurst. âBobby Gould was his assistant. Letâs just say as a pairing they werenât in the same league as Alex Ferguson and Brian Kidd. To be honest they werenât in the same league as the Chuckle Brothers.â Then there was Moore at Southend. âWhat a privilege it was to play for him,â he says. âThe highlight of every week was the eight a side game on a Thursday at training which heâd join in. Iâd always try to play alongside him, to watch what he did. Heâd suddenly drift out to the wing and youâre thinking: whereâs he off to? And the ball would go exactly where heâd gone. He read the game off the scale. Trouble was, as a manager, he couldnât get it across to idiots like me.â
Communicating was never the issue for Roy. It was staying on the pitch. His problem was, he says, he was a target man in every sense.
âWhen you were a centre-forward in them days, you had to fight off two 6ft 2in heavies for 90 minutes. Mind you, I loved that. You set out to get their respect. Yes, youâd take an elbow or two across the mooey, but youâd not go down. You wanted to show how hard you were. That was the test.â
The best centre-back he played against, he says, was Steve Bruce at Gillingham. âYou only have to look at his face now to see heâd put his head in anywhere. So brave. Never once moaned, just kicked you back.â
After the sort of scrap he encountered facing Bruce, Roy invariably headed to the bar. Where he would stay for most of the weekend. And the following week.
âI had great life, had a few beers, few girls, had a right giggle,â he says. âBut I think I gave the fans value for money. They liked to see a scrap. You donât get that anymore. Thereâs no physical test in the game. Itâs gone. When was the last time you saw any claret spurting out of a playerâs nose? Nobody gets asked questions physically anymore. Most of them these days would fall over if you put them in Burtonâs shop window. Theyâre mannequins, not footballers.â
Always the social secretary of any dressing room, Roy found his popularity put to good use when he was appointed player-manager of then non-league Colchester United in 1991.
âMy opening gambit to the squad was:Â we are going to play from the back, passing game, do it my way and weâll have the biggest beano of our lives. They did exactly what I asked and we were pissed for ten months. The spirit was off the scale. And I loved being player-manager. It meant I could pick myself every game.â
As a tactic it paid off. Handsomely. In his first season he led Colchester to a double of the Conference title and the FA Trophy.
âI spent ÂŁ742 on the team and rewrote the history books. The next season we missed the Fourth Division play-offs by three points. I thought, Iâm doing all right here.â
But then he fell out with the chairman (it was possibly not a good idea to run off with the groundsmanâs wife, given that at the time Roy was married to the chairmanâs daughter). He was soon relieved of his duties. And despite his initial tearaway success, he never found another job in the game, his every application for a managerâs job undermined by his ill repute.Â
Eventually, frustrated at never even landing an interview, he headed to Spain, where he has been entertaining expats with his stories ever since. Though there is one thing he is anxious to point out: that his reputation as footballâs wildest of wild men may have been a touch exaggerated.
âListen, the last game I was paid for playing was when I was 44. I turned out as centre-half for Harwich. The manager was a drinking buddy and he was desperate. I had to borrow a pair of boots. So I played for 27 years, 22 red cards. If you average it out thatâs less than one a season.â
Red Card Roy is published by Vision Sports ÂŁ9.99