Part 8 (1/2)

Being John Burridge, the court case was a big story at the ti out I was a bit of a Flash Harry, and even reported that I'd driven off after the hearing in my jeep with personalised plates Yes, I had a personalised registration number my number plate was A 5AVE but, so what? It didn't pin, did it?

I was fined nearly 16,000 and I left the court feeling sick and depressed

CHAPTER 24

THE PRIORY TO THE LIFE OF REILLY

'Not to put too fine a point on it, I becaland'

It was a feeling I thought I would never experience, but for the first tiet out of football, and get out of England, or I would end up losingspell in ement at Blyth I did enjoy the job ie where I ended up feeling like I orkingto do too le the de jobs at Leeds and Newcastle and helping out with the sportswear shops too My state of h, but the court case over selling counterfeit goods was probably the straw that broke the caoat, I was ashamed to see my name plastered over all the headlines I beca about me in the street People who should have known better see all the facts, and I knew they all just thought I was on the fiddle I would probably have felt the same in their shoes, but it's really hard to take when you're on the receiving end

Not to put too fine a point on it, I became mentally ill I was overworked and way too stressed and eventually that ht up with me andthe clock back and walking into a top teaain, even if I had wanted to I had worked one a bit doolally Weeks after I finished with Blyth, I just wanted to die As I outlined at the start of the book, I sat in my room for three or four days at a time and wouldn't come out I really didn't care if I died

After I'd been overpowered in my bedroom, injected in the buht when I came to was to hatch an escape plan The staff you find in these places are well trained in how to deal with difficult patients, and I'ory in those first feeeks I must have been a pain in the arse The fact that I'd been sectioned o home I was there for a reason to et my head around that It wasn't exactly One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest though, and if you showed the right attitude, then the staff did everything they could to help you get yourself together and get well again

They started giving me some medication and I calmed down and became an easier patient to deal with I had the odd setback, but afteret a bit better each day After a while, trust grew on both sides, and I would be allowed to put onto help with my therapy There was one day when I accidentally went out of the gates at the Priory and set off a full-scale alaro for a 20-minute run 10down the road, I looked round and could see doctors co at the top of her voice: 'Johhhhhhn, co to make a break for it The nurse had been about 400 yards behind ed on a bit, the next thing I knew she was grabbing hold of my arm she must have been some sort of Olympic athlete to catch me because I was quite a fast runner! They took h I tried to explain to the to coainst ot double medication after that for a few days to stop roup therapy, where I heard the poor wo her husband and her children in a car crash, I dug deep and gotabout my mind, and I just needed to harness them The healthiest outlook I felt I could take was to try and soet a fresh start I became determined to look forward and not back I knew I definitely had to get away froht back into depression

When I caht that there had to be a better life than working your bollocks off, and not for a fortune either I was lying on the settee one day and thought to myself: 'There'sdown and blowing a gale' And that's when I started thinking about opportunities abroad

Because I hadup the Scottish Football association where I had sat all es and told them I was keen on a move abroad They were really helpful and printed off a form and sent it toit a bit of thought, my first choice was America, my second choice was Australia and my third choice was Dubai The SFA uploaded e, along with all round and qualifications, and I didn't have to wait long before I got a call I was delighted to hear the voice of my old boss at Sheffield United, Ian Porterfield

Ian said he'd noticed froht want to coie,' he toldI'm just a few hours away in Oman' I was upfront with him and explained to him that I'd been in hospital, but he said that wasn't a proble to lose, so I thought 'what the hell', and a few days later Janet and I got on a plane to Muscat We stayed in a lovely hotel, and were i was stunning sunshi+ne, mountains and beaches, and I ell iht it was paradise I had a good chat with Ian, as in charge of the national team, and he told oalkeeping coach There wasn't much to think about it was an offer I couldn't possibly refuse We kept the house on in Durhas were packed for a new life

To begin with, the teaanised, but the lifestyle was absolutely wonderful and it was just what I needed at that ti the life of Reilly Unfortunately, the national team's results were poor and Ian Porterfield was sacked Coaches weren't given long to get results, and unless they so run, then they would be dispensed with I was panicking I thought I would be out too because it had been Ian who had brought me in, but the Oman FA were honourable people and not only were they happy to keep ah just doing the job on a caretaker basis, because I thought if I took the job per my death warrant It was the kind of job that had a very short lifespan After Ian's departure, they first appointed a Brazilian coach, Valdeir Vieira, as only in the post for a year between 1998 and 1999 He had been a career coach rather than a faest names in world football the brilliant full-back fro teaot on like a house on fire, and I really enjoyed working under hilish, but ere able to communicate and he had a brilliant sense of hu and I didArabic and a bit of Swahili! Sooalkeepers were 'Ruah alla Toule' (go straight), 'Fawk alla Toule' (get up), 'Ascut' (be quiet), 'Box Filwadga' (punch him in the face) and 'Murafani a Hafa Alrwajoul ila h translation: 'next ti a few si tostyle was always to talk to the players and encourage them the best I could It earnedto go through a translator all the time; it would have frustrated the hell out of me and it's not my style anyway I prefer to co in O for the Arain turned upside down I had a near-death experience, and I consider myself very lucky to have survived

I was on the road cycling back froym one day, when a van pulled in front ofand as I swerved to avoid it I was hit by a car travelling at 70mph in the opposite direction I don't reed for 50 yards underneath the car

My body was battered beyond recognition The daruesome and all the : I had a partially severed left ear, 147 stitches in ed teeth, a severely daed nervous system and one ar me Steve Austin after the Six Million Dollar Man But I was the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Budgie all istered 35 per cent disabled and becaether I also needed a hell of a lot of counselling I had spentmyself on my fitness, so it was a bitter pill to s I felt like an invalid, and having found such a good life in Oman I felt I was back to square one It was a terrible tih it Thankfully, there was no question of land My job was safe and everyone rallied round to ot back on my feet

I'll never be allowed to say as responsible for the accident, as I took them to court backed by the PFA and won colad that justice was done and thatall those hay bales when I was 12, and a lifeti, had prepared me for the worst, and thankfully I lived to tell the tale

CHAPTER 25

A STAR IS BORN

'The thing that struck me most about Ali Al-Habsi was that his dedicationgoalkeepers in Oer to learn, and to watch theress before your eyesbefore I discovered oal for a Third Division side and straight away I thought he was fantastic He couldn't speak a word of English and was huge for his age His nao on to becolish Prean

I took hiht hiht I was crazy The thing that struck me most about Ali Al-Habsi was that his dedication matched mine When he was still at school, he lived 15 miles outside Muscat, but he would catch a ramshackle minibus to come and train with round, where I would have the cones set up, ready to put hiot too hot He did that every day for a year and a half and I kneas going to be a professional

I obviously still had a lot of contacts in England, so I rang Sir Alex Ferguson up at Manchester United, told hied to bring him over for a trial I went to the federation and asked for them to subsidise two plane tickets, and when they said no, I paid for them myself We went over to the UK and I took hiht's trial, where he wasin the company of stars like Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Ruud van Nistelrooy I was standing behind the goal, talking to hie fro ht he was brilliant, but because he was so young there was no way United could arrange a work permit for him, and reluctantly they had to drop their interest The same proble and took hier at the tient fella, and he worked out that if Ali played in another country for a couple of years, he would be able to build up his number of appearances with the national tea a work permit in the UK So Ali Al-Habsi went to Lynn Oslo for a couple of years, and proved a sensation there, while also playing the 75 per cent of national games that you needed at the tito find Ali a club, I was sacked by the O up for him in a roith the national coach Carlos Alberto had left by this time and they had a Czech coach called Milan Macala, hom I never really saw eye-to-eye By this tiot a job as a fireet hiht him back to Oman, Macala called him to one side and, in full earshot ofto you You will never be a professional player, you will be back here crying because you don't have a job In oalkeepers better than you'

When I overheard what Macala was telling him, I went berserk and punched hi Ali a massive disservice I was hauled before the federation the next day, after Macala coht s like that to a 16-year-old kid, even if he did feel he wasn't any good They said they didn't want me to take Ali out of the federation and away to another country, but I said they couldn't stopand told theain, but not for long I was soon approached by the biggest club in the region, Al Ain, and they gave reat job in Abu Dhabi The only problem was that it was too far away to commute on a daily basis, and I more or less had to live away from my wife for three years

While I settled into th He was voted the best goalkeeper in Noro years running and my phone never stopped I had Souness from Newcastle, Houllier from Liverpool, Stuart Pearce fron him, but I had shaken hands on a deal with Sa crazy money because Ali was hot property, but I had to honour my handshake to Saland and he hasn't even reached his peak as a goalkeeper

Abu Dhabi is still enormously rich and the Al Ain Football Club is the focus of a lot of the wealth in the region Because Al Ain is the same distance inland from Dubai and Oman, it was a popular place The chairman of the football club is the older brother of the Manchester City owner Sheikh Mansour Sheikh Hazza bin Zayed Al Nahyan, so you could i about Al Ain, in reality, are probably as rich as Manchester United They only get 8,000 people at their ga theh to buy United, and have plenty of change left over

The job at Al Ain was fantastic and I was on a money, but I found it a hard place to live because I prefer to be next to the sea After being so settled in O on in Al Ain it really was the middle of the desert When you're inland in the desert, there is not much to do outdoors to keep your mind occupied because it can become unbearably hot I was put up in fantastic accommodation, but I missed Janet, who couldn't joinher own career as an estate agent back in Muscat Al Ain was only about a three-hour drive fro back and forward each day, and I just had to stay there when I orking and pop back to Muscat whenever I could

The culture in Abu Dhabi was an eye-opener, and I learned so new every day The Sheikhs would do all their business between Saturday and Wednesday, then return to Al Ain on a Thursday and Friday, which is the weekend in the Middle East Saturday is like a Monday ht drive to Al Ain to spend ti so many wives would be an expensive life If you buy one wife a Rolex or a Rolls-Royce then you have to buy the other three exactly the same That's the rules, and you have to be a very wealthy man to have four wives People will read this and think that's horrible, but that's just their culture it's different and who are we to say it's wrong? It's very land, where the wife gets half of the wealth in a divorce Here, you only have to tell her in public three times, on three separate occasions, in front of friends and witnesses, that you want a divorce I wasn't shocked by any of this; I just find other cultures fascinating I've lived here so long now, I know all the rules and regulations inside out and I' with the players could be a weird and wonderful experience too One day a player, as meant to be a full-time professional, came up toto in Dubai' I couldn't believe what I was hearing and told hi He obviously feared his motherWhen I fined hiht on the phone to the Sheikh to co under Ron Saunders or Alex Miller! I h, the attitude of players in the Gulf has come on in leaps and bounds since then and they have started to grasp what being a professional

I lovedapart from Janet and I missed Muscat The Oman FA re-hired me, and I returned to work under their new Gere a brilliant character that led to the o and work for Saddam Hussein!

CHAPTER 26

SADDAM OR BE damnED

'If I took the job in Iraq, e moved on from O before he got in touch to say he wanted , as far as I could see, was that Sadda the roost in Iraq at the tie of the football federation Effectively, if I went there, my boss would be Sadda for Uday, who had an even worse reputation than Saddam!

I had already heard all the stories in the aftermath of the 2002 World Cup about Saudi Arabia's players returning ho their faces slapped in public as a punish slapped was nothing co out of Iraq if their players had underperformed or returned from a particularly bad tournament We heard that Uday had put so their feet with a cane There was even talk of players being shot There were also rumours about ent on within the football stadiuest outdoor venue in the country, Saddaet as many people as possible to come to his rallies, where he could rant and rave like Hitler I was told that he actually used to take wo adultery out onto the pitch at half-tioal to worry about Because the war on Iraq was kicking off at the tier train and play in their home country, and were based most of the time in neutral countries like Jordan Bernd pushed and pushed and got the Iraqi FA with both Sadda on the top of the letterhead to sendcoach