McVay - Steak-- Diana Ross : diary of a football nobody

David McVay

Reid Publishing

David McVay 2012

First published in 2003 by The Parrs Wood Press

This book is copyright under the Berne convention All rights reserved. Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

The right of David McVay to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

ISBN: 9780955880797

Book design by Andrew Searle
Cover design by Tony Rose

Published by Reid Publishing
53 Church Gate, Loughborough,
Leicestershire, LE11 1UE
Tel: 07974 304022 Email:

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It is almost ten years since SDR first appeared in print and news that Billy Ivory is scripting a stage play, Diary of a Football Nobody, for the Nottingham Playhouse has inspired this reprint. Billy, a self-confessed County nut, has been championing the book for stage and screen since I asked him to run his expert eye over the rough draft and to write a foreword for it, to which he readily agreed. I am pretty sure his delight and pride in achieving one part of his ambition will be as equally great, if not more so, than my own upon seeing the stage adaptation. I have read the script and it is what you might expect from someone of Billys artistic merit and standing bloody awesome was my considered literary turn of phrase to him!

To assist in the reprint, I picked up a copy of the book for the first time in years and I must admit re-reading it induced one or two awkward shivers and cringes. But if it is crude, raw and clumsy in places, then how perfect to reflect the player and youngster I was back then. In some respects, SDRs content is even more relevant in the modern era of football, blighted and bedazzling as it seemingly is in equal measure today. I may recoil at some ghastly turn of phrase or event but Im glad the good, the bad and the ugly are all still in there, particularly so the ugly in all its shapes, sizes and genders. And Im glad for the characters who still remain.and for those we have mourned in recent times, Im just glad to have shared the pleasure of their company in those manic, formative years of my youth.

For William McVay (1901-1975) often recalled the day he saw Workington Reds take a one goal lead against Manchester Uniteds Busby Babes at Borough Park in the FA Cup. A great football fan and grandfather to whom I never did say goodbye.

Arthur Mann (1948-1999) the friendliest of colleagues and a tower of strength in some of my darker hours at Meadow Lane. God bless Archie.

My son Tom who is old enough now to know that I was not the David Beckham of my day while my daughter Jessica, for the moment, will love me all the same even if I played like Victoria Beckham. My grateful thanks to them and Debby, my gorgeous wife and a great solace to me while enduring late nights burning the midnight oil trying to complete this task from Bunny to Florida.

Acknowledgements to the library staff at the Nottingham Evening Post and Mick Holland for his advice and invaluable help.

Additional photos courtesy of BackPass magazine

IT opens on a rubbish tip that doubles for a training ground littered with refuse engineers known in those distant pre-politically correct days of 30 years ago as dustmen and ends, more or less, at Elland Road, home of Leeds United and the European Cup finalists the previous season. The diaries of David McVay, written during his formative years as a teenager with Notts County in the 1970s, invite readers on an undulating and nostalgic soccer sojourn that can never be repeated in the context of the modern game.

McVays jottings create an evocative tapestry of a bygone and almost innocent age for football and his contemporary observations and insights deftly portray the decade that style forgot, but one which still haunts a generation condemned to sleepless nights in fashion hell. From February 1974 to October 1975, the scenery varies from The Shay at Halifax to Old Trafford while the cast of characters includes such luminaries as Don Revie and Brian Clough: the Ford Capri and Cortina provide the car chases with background music courtesy of assorted artists such as Slade, Yes and Nick Drake. Of course nobody takes the credit for the wardrobe or dress sense director.

On the pitch, Manchester United visit Meadow Lane and their fans almost destroy it as Jimmy Sirrel, the Notts County manager whose marvellous idiosyncrasies illuminate the book, repels the Mancunian hordes with a bunion scalpel.

Off it, Paul Smith opens his first boutique in the back streets of Nottingham (his prices have risen steadily since) while the Exorcist and Abba arrive in equally garish manner.

Steak Diana Ross: Diary of a Football Nobody celebrates with candid humour the team ethic and provincial camaraderie that was endemic in the sport long before the foreign legions invaded. The drink was always strong but the women stronger as a raw and diverse mixture of combustible personalities, thrown together into the community of the dressing room, strived desperately to win matches and remain friends despite a hectic social calendar.

By Billy Ivory

(Notts County fan whose credits as a screen writer include the award-winning film Made In Dagenham and creator of the acclaimed 1990s television drama Common As Muck)

MCVAYS story is an extraordinary one. Or an ordinary one. Depending upon when you were born and whether you remember the days when the team kit tended only to be worn by the poor buggers out in the middle, desperately trying to survive a waterlogged pitch and the cruelty of a five thousand gate.

It is the story of a star, nevertheless, a man who was looked up to (by me, among others) but for whom the current heady days of massive salaries, celebrity status and TV presenter girlfriends was all but a dream.

McVay played his soccer in the nineteen-seventies, for Notts County amongst others, when players were still of the peopleelevated true, but still inhabiting the same world, as he ruefully remembers when describing his salutary bus journeys home to Clifton in Notts with some of the late returning crowd not all of whom approved of the young colts performance.

The book is desperately funny and sad too. McVay writes beautifully about his family and the difficulties of adapting to the dream existence as a young soccer player (in his case) very much concerned with life beyond the pitch.

Above all though, the book is comedy. The best kindthe kind that makes beer shoot down your nose when an unexpected sentence pokes you violently in the ribs.

For the Notts County team of Jimmy Sirrel, which McVay forced his way into, reveals itself a rogues gallery, par excellence. Make no mistake, these lads could play, they made it to the old Second Division in no time, but they had other talents too. And boy could they drink, swear, fight, skive, feign injury, incite riot and above all indulge in post-match leg-overs the likes of which would these days result in six weeks on the physios table and a cruciate ligament op.

And thats the thing about