Chris Gowen has had Brian Clough as a defence solicitor and been mistaken for Carl Fothergill during an almost 20-year Non League career.
York City, Frickley Athletic, North Ferriby United, Pickering Town, Barton Town, Selby Town and Armthorpe Welfare have enjoyed the presence of the popular left-back who is still playing at local level with Pocklington Town.
Gowen has played for some of Non League’s most colourful and most successful managers including Jimmy Reid, Billy Heath and of course the legendary Brian France who he has a few tales about.
Gowen played for France’s North Ferriby’s during their 2005 NPL Division One title triumph and in an interview with Non League Yorkshire he takes us through the characters he encountered and tells some stories from his Non League journey.
YTS at York City
“I was a junior at York from under 12s level and I became a YTS. I left around 2000. You can imagine some of the stuff that went on. Paul Stancliffe was our manager and he was an old school coach and he used to make us run round the ground. Everybody hated it. One day he came into the away dressing room where we’d get changed. He said ‘right lads, we’ll call it a day, get changed’. Everyone was like ‘quality’. When he went out of the room we all did a silent celebration. There was a big skip thing for kit and one of the lads Scotty Emmerson jumped in it and he started shouting ‘get in there’. All the time Stan was stood behind the door and he opened the door and went ‘I’ll see you out there in five minutes’!
“We used to go in the gym at the away end at Bootham Crescent and we used to play a game of strip two-touch so if you lost the ball you’d have to lose an item of clothing. A lot of us were down to our boxers and Pete Vasey lost everything. As soon as he lost everything, we all looked at each other and that was it. We scooped all the clothes up and ran off. He was left in there starkers and he was shouting ‘lads, lads, I need my clothes back’. There were people in the ground as well and he was there naked.
“I read Christian Fox’s interview and us YT’s were in the turnstiles for that Manchester United friendly. People were desperate to get in that day and they throwing money at us. The place was rammed. I’ve still got the programme.”
Into Non League with Frickley and meeting his ‘defence solicitor’ Brian Clough
“I got released from York and I ended up at Frickley and I played under three managers – Steve Richards, Gary Marrow and Phil Sharpe. In the summer of 2001, Gary Marrow had left and Phil Sharpe had taken over and I kid you not, at the first pre-season training session there was me, Jon Wordsworth and Pete Myers and we did training. Believe or not we did a bit of ball work. I forget where we finished that season, but we stayed up.
“Phil could lose it a bit, he nearly came to blows with Phil Lindley at Stalybridge, but the stories about Phil were just that he used to love to say ‘I’ve played on the Continent I have’. Phil moved onto to do well with other clubs and I have played ten games at the end of one season for him at Harrogate Railway and he had mellowed. At Frickley he was a ticking time bomb, but at Harrogate he was so different because he was chilled out and he hardly lost it. I guess you learn as you go along.
“I’ve played Non League football for 17 or 18 years and a lot of my early stuff was in the UniBond (NPL). Don’t forget that the UniBond was one step down from the Conference until 2004. There were teams like Burton Albion, Accrington Stanley, Gateshead – teams who are either in the Conference or higher now. The leagues were tough back then and social media wasn’t around. When I want to look back and search for things about those years, you can find anything online. There’s not many pictures.
“The 2001/02 season was my season at semi-professional level and I played 49 out of 50 games. We went to Burton who were already up and it was like a Man City moment as they were on 99 points and 98 goals, something like that. We went on a Tuesday night, second to last game of the season. I think we got rolled over 4-0, but I got sent off in that game and I still maintain that it was never a sending-off. I was deemed as the last man and I went off and got changed. It was in their old stadium before they moved and I went and sat in the stand. There was one this old bloke with a flat cap on and he tapped me on the shoulder and he went ‘young man, very unlucky that, you got the ball’. I looked round and it was Brian Clough who was there as Nigel was the manager of Burton. I had a little chat with him and it was weird because he was sat on his own. I think he used to shout random things from the stand too.”
Winning trophies at North Ferriby under the eccentric, but hugely successful management of Brian France
“Paul Olsson, Bri’s assistant knew me from York and they wanted me so after two years with Frickley I went to Ferriby. I played my best football at Ferriby. The pitch was unbelievable as it was like a carpet as Hull City reserves played there. We played proper football and in my first season I think I ended up with seven goals from left-back. None of it is on YouTube as it wasn’t filmed which is a shame.
“When I first signed for Ferriby, I met Les Hare, Olly, and Bri halfway in Market Weighton in the Londesborough Arms pub/hotel. Bri was chatting and he said ‘I’m going to this and that’ and ‘ambition is to do this’ and to be fair they weren’t far wrong.
“We won the NPL Division One title in 2005 after winning at Mossley on the final day. We were up near the top all season and you don’t realise what you did until you look back on it. Mossley had to win that game to get into the play-offs so it wasn’t an easy game and it wasn’t until there was ten minutes to go that Gary Bradshaw scored to win the league for us. He was the best striker I played with by a long way. I wouldn’t say he single-handedly won us that league, but he must have scored 37 goals in 45 appearances. It was something ridiculous.
“We had a couple of ex-pros like Bob Dewshurst, but a lot of the side were local lads which makes it an even better achievement. We all know Non League Football and we know there is teams who chuck money around to get big-name players. Sometimes you don’t need to.
“No-one has any photos from that day which is a bit sad really, but basically the coach journey back was crazy. You could get those big crates for £20, well I think we got nine crates of beer. I remember every 15 minutes one of the lads needing the coach to stop because they needed to go to the toilet. We ended up going back to the clubhouse at Ferriby because Les Hare opened the bar and we drunk it dry. Half of the lads can’t remember getting home. I must have left at 9pm, but the lads stayed at the club until at least 1am. My dad was a breakdown driver so I got him to bring his breakdown truck from Pocklington to the ground to put my car on it and to take me home as well.
“From what I have won, that is my best achievement. It takes a lot to win a league and we finished ahead of Ilkeston and Telford, two big clubs.
“In the following season we nearly got promoted again as we lost to Farsley in the NPL Premier Division play-off final. Farsley’s captain Ryan Crossley was pumped up and he was jumping and down in the tunnel before the game and he cut his head open on a metal bar. Blood was splattered everywhere. We were like ‘he’s played here for so long, why’s he head-butting it, he knows it is there’. It was mental and he went off after ten minutes because blood was still gushing out. That game went to extra-time and it was very late in the second half of extra-time when they scored the winner.
“Bri left then and the squad broke up and I think after one more season I went back to Frickley.
“Bri was a great manager, but there’s some stories. He was like Alex Ferguson because he was always on the phone at training. I’m sure half of the time he was talking to himself. It was more Paul Olsson doing the training on the astroturf behind the ground. It was more five-a-sides. Training was more about getting the lads together and having a few pints.
“Bri once came into the changing room before a game and named the team. He used to have the team written down on sheets of paper. The team normally picked itself because of the form so we sort of knew where to sit. This day there was a few changes so a few of the lads moved around. Five minutes later he walked back in and went ‘here’s the team for today lads’ and he named a different team. It was like ‘Bri, what are you doing, what’s the team’? So he checked his papers and went ‘hang on, sorry that team is from another week, I’ve picked the wrong piece of paper up lads’.
“He rang me on a Sunday once and he was chatting away. It was a bit strange because he never said ‘aye up Gows’. Bri used to go on a bit so I was a bit like ‘yeah, yeah, yeah’. He started going on about a header I had and I couldn’t remember the header. Then he said ‘you need to be a bit stronger when there is a defender behind you’. I went ‘yeah, I should do’. He goes on and he starts saying ‘you took too many touches, just get your shot off’. I didn’t have a clue what he was on about? But then he said ‘right, Fothers, I’ve got to go’. I had been on the phone for 15 minutes and he’s rung the wrong person. I replied ‘Fothers? Its Gows’. He went ‘oh sorry son, you were alright yesterday, I’ll see you at training on Tuesday’ and put the phone down. He thought I was Carl Fothergill.
“We were away at Warrington and we were losing 3-0 or something and we were down to ten men. We were getting battered and there was no-way we would win the game. Instead of Bri shoring it for goals-difference reasons, he went to two at the back. It goes back to Bri thinking he could never lose. I think we may have gone down to nine men later on. I was playing centre-half in this two man defence and Bri was like ‘we can still win this game, come on’. I was like ‘no we can’t’.
“He had mad ways and he didn’t have a lot of patience. After we won the league he brought in Michael Price and me and him shared the left-back position. If I was on the bench, within a minute if Pricey had given the ball away Bri was like ‘right, Gows go for a run, I’m not having that’. I was up and down all the time and I dare say Pricey was when I was playing.
“Like Mourinho does when something isn’t working, I’ve known Brian to make a couple of substitutions after 20 minutes. It was mad. At half-time you were kinda laughing under your breath because it was funny when he was going mad. There would times when you thought you had played well and he’d go absolutely nuts. Then there’d be other games where you had been awful and he’d say we were brilliant. You could never quite work him out which was a good thing.
“I played four years with him and he was one of the best managers I worked under, along with Billy Heath. Look at what Bri won. He won that league and he won a couple of East Riding Cups at the KC Stadium. He also got us to the NPL play-off final. He didn’t too bad at Scarborough either.
“I don’t have many regrets from my time playing football, but one of them might be not going to Scarborough when he was chasing me for a bit. I didn’t go because of the travelling from York and because I had started as a fireman and getting the time off was getting harder and harder. When Olly took over from him and I was at Selby I was all set to sign for Scarborough, but he got sacked after a midweek game.
“When Bri passed away I went to his funeral and they couldn’t fit everyone in. It was pouring down with rain and people couldn’t get in the crematorium because he was that well respected. It speaks volumes about the kind of guy he was.”
Billy Heath’s touchline antics
“I remember playing against his Brid sides and he screamed and shouted all the time and you thought ‘I’ll never play for you’. I played for him at Frickley and under all that he is a top guy and a good bloke to talk to as well. When he gets going at football he can strike a bit of fear into you. I don’t know if he has mellowed over the years?”
Manager Mick Gray taking innovation too far at Selby Town in 2011
“It was snowing and it wasn’t little bit of snow, it had properly set and it was over your ankles. Everybody was texting Mick asking if training was still on. He was adamant that it was. We went down and in the home changing room he had us doing ball work, i.e passing the ball and then moving with five or six lads each side. If you know Selby’s changing rooms, you’ll know how ridiculous it was. It is bigger than some, but not big enough to do some passing and moving, put it that way. All the lads were looking at each other. If you took a bad touch, he was going mad with you as well. He had something going on the away changing room. If it could get madder, he went outside and put poles in the ground to do some running. I kid you not, the snow was up to our shins when he had us running. I’ll never forget it.”
Silverware with Jimmy Reid at Pickering Town
“Jimmy Reid was a character. He was just as mad as Bri France. He was loud and always joking around. I knew his lads Tosh and Arran, but I never knew Jimmy. I had known his name, but never seen him before. Pete Vasey had been sacked and Jimmy took over. Before his first game he came over to me and we started chatting away, but I had no idea who he was. It turns out that it was Jimmy.
“We had half the team Scarborough based and the other half York based. So for away games we used to meet at Bilbrough Top on the A64. There were six or seven of us in Pickering Town tops. All of a sudden, three kids and their dad came running over. We didn’t know what was going on. The dad tapped me on the shoulder and when I turned round, he looked at our tracksuits and he went ‘oh sorry son, its Pickering’ and said to us ‘sorry lads, we thought you were Leeds’. They had wanted some autographs if we were Leeds.
“We won the North Riding Cup with Jimmy. We were the first Pickering team to do that and Marske had Jordan Hugill playing for them. West Ham paid Preston £10 million for him a few years ago. We had a slow start that season, but we finished fifth and it was a good season.”
Finishing second in the NCEL Premier Division with Barton Town
“Dave was steady away, he was sound and we had a great season at Barton. I signed for Barton and we went on a 23 game unbeaten run. We finished second to Brighouse and I think they won 13 out of their 15 games. We were top of the league at one point, but Brighouse had five or six games-in-hand and they had to win all of them. You don’t expect that to happen, but they did and they won it comfortably in the end.”
Last throw of the NCEL dice with Armthorpe in 2016
“I started the 2016/17 season with Selby but things happened and Mike Carmody who had been a coach at Selby at the beginning of the season had taken over as manager of Armthorpe. It was a long way from home in York, but I was at home and bored on a Saturday and I thought ‘you know what, I’ll phone him up’. He was spot on was Mike. We got relegated, my first relegation, but I got player of the year award. I’m sure he gave me that so I’d play another year!”
Back with his home-town club Pocklington Town
“I’ve gone full circle as I’m back at Pock Town. I’ll be 38 in a few months. I went back last year and we won the league and cup. They’ve always wanted me to come back ‘home’ if you like. I never felt I was ready until then because I always to play as high as I can as long as I can. I keep saying it is my last year and when it starts again, I keep saying ‘sod it, I’ll go again. I’ve had a good career. I like to think I was a steady player who went under the radar and was a steady seven of ten each week. Very rarely did I have a poor game. I played 17 years in Non League Football so I must have been doing something right, if I look at it like that.
“Dressing rooms have changed. During the Frickley and Ferriby days, you’d go in and it was all banter and chatting. Now it is quiet. People are playing with phones or putting bets on. After a Frickley or Ferriby game, we’d be sitting in the bar for two hours. Games now, people are just straight off. It was more at Ferriby because I lived at Pocklington and it was only 30 minutes away, but there were times where we had an away game, had a few beers on the coach and me and a few others would have a spontaneous night out. I’d have to borrow clothes off people. But now it has all changed.”
Chris Gowen was interviewed by James Grayson