RECENTLY, I learned that my old friend, Martin Gorry, is dead. He played for Barnsley FC between 1971 and 1977, then signed for Newcastle United for £60,000 – a lot of money at the time.
I first meet Martin in the week he signs apprentice professional forms, 55 years ago this month. After a warm-up on the Queen’s Ground, Bob Parker, Youth Team and Reserve Team coach, introduces him to the rest of the apprentices. Martin is slim, long legged and wears a permanent smile – he seems to love life.
“Into pairs!” orders our coach. “We’ll play attacker versus defender.
“Steelie,” he says, turning to me, “Play against the young lad from Derby.”
There are eight pairs of footballers, and Martin and I have to go first while everyone watches. Someone’s ego is about to take a bashing.
“Ronnie, I want you to dribble past Martin and reach the touchline. Ok? Martin, you simply have to stop him.”
Martin, full of adrenaline, comes charging in to steal the ball. He’s experiencing what our coach calls ‘a rush of blood’. It makes beating him easy. I just push the ball to one side of him and run round the other side.
Phew! I’m so relieved. I really didn’t want a newcomer embarrassing me on his first day.
(After that session, I can’t recall ever dribbling past him again.)
Later, I’m asked to show him the ropes – how to avoid getting the booby prize for the worst trainee of the day, how to find your way around the rabbit-warren of a main-stand, how to dress on match days, how to polish the first teamers’ boots, how to clean the baths and showers and outside public toilets, etc.
Martin Gorry and I soon become big pals. He’s intelligent, articulate and he’s a reader – he’s certainly not the stereotypical young footballer. He thrives when he’s the centre of attention and enjoys making people laugh. With Bri Smith, Graham Collingwood, Phil Sanderson (and later the Scot, Garry Wilson) the six of us form a bond forged through mutual respect.
However, Martin has problems that the club manager hasn’t foreseen. He’s only 16 and has left his family and friends in Derby and is now living in digs. So, after training and work, he’s stuck in his bedroom, bored, lonely and miserable.
He’s fine when he’s at the ground playing football, or ‘acting the goat’, or showing off his incredible strength in the gym. But away from the stadium his life starts to fall apart. I hear rumours that he’s drinking, and after six months he’s thrown out of his third lot of digs.
“Ey up, Martin,” I say. “What’re you laiking at? Are you trying to get sent back to Derby in disgrace?”
“I’m not happy, Ronnie. The alienation of life in digs is driving me flaming potty.”
He starts doing other crazy things. He cuts his own fringe, but when it goes wonky he takes a bit more off and then a bit more. When it looks to be at its worst he goes at it with his razor blade. The result is shocking and I’m horrified, but he’s in stitches and eventually I too find it impossible not to laugh.
God, I love his innocence.
He finally settles down when Garry Wilson comes to Oakwell from Scotland on an extended trial. Garry is put up in the same digs on Shaw Lane, opposite Holgate Grammar School.
All three of us spend time listening to the Beatles, The Who and Dylan, at my parents’ house, and by now, as 17 year olds, we’re playing together in the reserves.
A few years later, when I’m at teacher training college, Martin is making a name for himself in the first team, so I go to watch him. In the warm-up, the ball lands at my feet in the Brewery Stand so I toss it back to him. When he sees me, his face lights up and he vaults over the low wall and hugs me like I’ve just scored a goal.
Soon after this game, Newcastle United sign him but he’s never content there. Perhaps it was the digs? He soon leaves to make a name for himself at Hartlepool United and later becomes a phenomenon in New Zealand football.
From 2011 onwards, I regularly try to contact Martin via the magic of social media, but fail. Then, when I hear that he died in New Zealand, in 2023, the sad news knocks me sideways.
