LIFESTYLE - SUMMER 2017

JIMMY: Do you knowwhy? Because I couldn’t see the menu. JOHN: Yeah it was dark. Luckily I had a light on my phone! JIMMY: It was black in there. JOHN: Nice, though. We had steak and black pudding. JIMMY: And that roast cabbage! JOHN: Yeah the cabbage – that was the best. They roasted it in anchovy buer sprinkled with rosemary. JIMMY: It was absolutely stunning. JOHN: That was the best dish. Ah, it was beautiful. HANDICAP? JOHN: Mines me chipping! JIMMY: Mines waking up to go and play golf. No we both love it. JOHN: We love it. JIMMY: And we’re very, very, passionate and we love winning. JOHN: But we’re not very good at it. JIMMY: And we think we’re beer than what we are. The thing is if we do play against each other it generally ends up in a fight. JOHN: It won’t go on longer than an hour, though. The one thing that will set us aside from any other managers, or most of the managers, is we had to take a team into the football league. No one was going to hand it to us on a plate. We’ve also got up at 6 am every day to do other jobs outside of football. So consequently, every day when we are training with the players, the thrill doesn’t wear off for us. Now other managers, the great majority of managers, will have played professional and will have been professional since they were 16/17 years old, and would not know any other life. So it becomes a bit blasé to them. But it never does to us. The thrill of geing paid to play football, or to be involved in football, will never wash off for me and him. ANY OTHER HOBBIES? (Together) We both like playing golf. HAVE YOU EVERY HAD A FIST FIGHT YOU TWO? (Both laugh) JOHN: Yes! Stopped the car about four times once. JIMMY: Arguing over players, different views.

HOWTO SUM EACH OTHER UP IN FIVEWORDS... JIMMY: Passionate JOHN: Loyal JIMMY: Angry JOHN: Put that down for him as well! JIMMY: Stubborn JOHN: Yeah you’re stubborn too JIMMY: Fun, we’ve both got a good sense of fun JOHN: Argumentative JIMMY: No I’m not!

THE SEASON FINISHES SOON, AREYOUGOINGONYOUR JOLLIES? JOHN: We’re going to a lile fishing village just outside Alicante... JIMMY: ... called Benidorm! We’ve booked a couple of days there, but we’ll probably have a few lile family holidays too. WHAT SORT OF STUFF DO YOU DO ON HOLIDAY? HAVEWE GOT A BBQ KING HERE? JOHN: I’m not a BBQ king, no. JIMMY: I’ve had a go like.

we’ve got an owner who we really get on with, Andy Holt. JOHN: There couldn’t be a beer time to be in Accrington now, could there? JIMMY: No. He’s an absolutely smashing fella, and he’s like us. Very similar age, humour, his lifestyle and he can tell a story, can’t he! Very similar to what we’ve done in our life. Just wish we had some of his money! But he’s very level headed. JOHN: Very grounded. JIMMY: He's given us a bit of stability and backing. As John says, it’s a very good club at the minute. You know, in the past it’s been a very good club, but, from one day to the next, you always thought it could go bust. Andy has turned that around. JOHN: He’s put the club on a stable financial footing and it’s constantly improving. There would have been times under previous ownership when we never got paid for three months, but what can you do? Moan about it? Just get on with it. We’ve had some good experiences recently as well haven’t we? The Burnley one for example. We’d never played Burnley in a competitive game and for them to be a premiership team when we do actually play them and beat themwas great. And the lad who scored the goals was May Pearson, you couldn’t have a nicer kid. HOWDO YOU GO OUT AND CELEBRATE AFTER SOMETHING LIKE THAT? JIMMY: We go out and celebrate! We’re not like Bob Paisley who had a cup of tea and went home.

YOUMARRIED ATTHE AGE OF 18 JOHN, AND YOU AGED 23 JIMMY; YOU SETTLED INTOMARRIED LIFE ONTHE SAME STREETDIDN’TYOU? JIMMY: Yes we did, Chiltern Drive in Kirkby for around 15 years. I have three sons aged 26, 24 and 18. JOHN: And I’ve got three daughters aged 34, 31 and 29. Plus three grandsons on the back of those! DO YOU SEE YOURSELVESWORKING TOGETHER UP UNTIL RETIREMENT? JIMMY: But when’s retirement? The lads said yesterday that I’ve got two and a half years before I am 55 and can go into sheltered accommodation. I’m looking at myself thinking that I’m still a young lad! YOU’VE BOTH HAD REASON TO SERIOUSLY REFLECT ON LIFE THIS PAST YEAR HAVEN’T YOU? JOHN: Both of us have a serious accident within three weeks of each other. And we both managed to come through them. I was a pedestrian and Jimmy was driving. I got hit by a stolen motorbike from behind, thrown up in the air and my head smashed on the floor. I was in the trauma unit; I couldn’t move my legs for six or seven hours. It just puts life into perspective, doesn’t it? You’re not so much worrying about retirement; you worry about the day to day living. There but for the grace of God...Both of us could have been killed this year. WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU JIMMY? JIMMY: I was turning right and a car overtook me at the same time ploughing straight into my door. They are both ongoing legal cases, so we can’t go into too much detail. YOU’VE MOVED FROM CLUB TO CLUB AS A PAIR - WHAT HAVE BEEN THE HIGHLIGHTS OF YOURWORKING CAREER? JIMMY: For me, it’s that silver trophy there on the sideboard. That is the highlight of my career. The first year we took over here we won the league, the Unibond First Division, in 1999. When we took over, we really struggled for the first half of the season. We were 17th, 18th in the league. Then from Jan 1st, we went on this unbelievable run to the end of the season, which culminated in winning the Unibond League. We put everything into that! The stress! And we won the league on goal difference – the last game of the season. (HOLDSTHETROPHY) Anyway, look at the state of it. I found it in the bin outside. One of the past chairman’s assistants decided to have a clear out and put all our trophies into the skip around the side of the building. At the minute

DO YOU LIKE COOKING? JIMMY: I do yeah. JOHN: Yeah I like cooking.

WHAT’S YOUR SIGNATURE DISH? JIMMY: Fish pie.

JOHN: When we worked for Sligo we lived together for five months because our wives didn’t come. So it was like Men Behaving Badly. Very badly. I conjured up some tasty dishes, though. I’ve always enjoyed cooking but I just don’t do enough of it. I like cooking steak and sea bass. I like my steak done medium, and cook it in a bit of soy sauce. JIMMY: I love food. Any food. All different types of food and variety. JOHN: I love Tapas me. We went to the theatre last week to see Brick up the Mersey 2 and aerwards went for something to eat with one of our former players. We went to a lovely lile restaurant calledMaray in Liverpool. And I got to choose all the dishes.

I’vegot two andahalfyears beforeIcango into sheltered accommodation! Jimmy

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Top: John and Jimmy in the Wham stadium proudly displaying their Unibond League trophy. Opposite: A winning team on and off the pitch.

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