How the goalposts have changed
Last updated 11:13, Friday, 15 August 2008
THE setting is Brunton Park on a warm summer’s morning; the occasion is Michael Bridges’ 30th birthday. The player breezes through the club’s main entrance, smiling and clutching a box of confectionery into which Greg Abbott, Carlisle’s assistant manager, quickly delves.
A few minutes later, I’m sat opposite Bridges in an office, trying to prise him out of the celebratory mood. After the cakes comes the inquisition: the striker’s first detailed interview since his return to Carlisle in the summer and the chance, I hope, for him to lay down on the record the extent of his misery at Hull City. The headlines are pre-formed and simply await his words.
MY FEUD WITH HATED MANAGER…
But the tortured account of life under Phil Brown never quite comes;
MY TEARS AT WEMBLEY AXE…
But it turns out none were shed;
I’LL ALWAYS HOLD GRUDGE OVER MY HUMBERSIDE HELL...
Yet the evidence suggests he’ll do nothing of the sort.
Half-an-hour in, after some persistent questioning on the subject, Bridges finally stirs a little from the equable mood he has maintained throughout the interview. “Look, not playing football gets you down,” he says. “But there are people dying in the world. There are worse things going on. You’ve got to get a reality check.
“Who wants to listen to you moaning about not getting 90 minutes on a field? There are people who would give their right arm to be in the position you are. So you come in, do your job, work hard, look after yourself, and just get on with it.”
What is the source of all this perspective, this philosophical take on misfortune? It’s true to say that Bridges is a generally optimistic man who wears his past adversities – the injuries, the dip from Champions League star to lower league hopeful at the age of 27 – extremely lightly. But there’s another thing. An experience which dumped a whole truckload of perspective at his feet.
It came nearly two years ago, shortly after his £350,000 move from Brunton Park to the KC Stadium: the transfer that was supposed to put Bridges back on the path to the top-flight. There was a stunning start: a spectacular, matchwinning solo goal at Leicester, but then a couple of niggling injuries which kept him out of the Hull team.
This, however, was no longer priority number one. Bridges and his wife Kate had just become parents for the first time. The arrival of the twins, Riley and Sadie Grace, pitched Bridges into a personal paradise. Then something intruded.
“They were two months premature, so they had to be kept in an incubator,” he says. “But when they were in there, they caught MRSA, the hospital superbug.”
MRSA: the virus which caused more than 1,500 deaths in the UK in 2006. MRSA: the bug which took more lives worldwide than AIDS in 2007. Still interested in the football bit?
“They were in there for two months,” continues Bridges. “It was a bit of a nasty time. It’s the sort of thing that brings everything home, puts it all into perspective. You try to put on a brave face, but…it’s not the easiest thing to do. And you certainly don’t think about football.
“The club (Hull) were brilliant, to be fair. They gave me time when I needed it and I cannot thank them enough.
“Fortunately, they both got through it. And they’re fighting fit now.” A beaming smile. “There’s nowt wrong with them!”
THE book on Michael Bridges’ sporting life will come in two volumes. One will carry the tale of his fresh-faced rise to stardom with Sunderland and Leeds, the £5 million transfer, the 20-goal Premiership season, the European nights and the grievous injuries which eventually thwarted his England dream.
Part two will be the account of his attempt to remake himself down the divisions: Bristol City, Carlisle United, Hull City, Sydney FC and Carlisle again, on the season-long loan which has just begun. Our business today starts with that move from Cumbria to Humberside on transfer deadline day in August 2006, on the heels of a season in which Bridges achieved instant hero status with 15 title-winning goals in 30 United appearances.
“Paul Simpson leaving was a big factor for me,” he says. “Hull were a Championship club and it was too good to turn down. It should have been a fantastic move, but the manager (Phil Parkinson) got the sack a few months down the line and a new manager (Brown) came in with his own ideas.”
Those ideas did not, it seemed, account for Bridges as a central player. “It became a bit of a nightmare and I was looking back thinking, ‘You should have stayed at Carlisle’. At the time I made the decision, I thought it was right. Looking back, maybe not. But you cannot turn back time.” If Simpson had stayed, would Bridges also have remained? “It would have been a big factor.”
Diplomacy (he remains contracted to Hull) leads Bridges to decline my invitation to explain his relationship with Brown. As, presumably, does a general unwillingness to reopen a healing wound. Instead he is quickly onto the account of how, after a season-and-a-half on the fringes at Hull, he found himself bound for the Australasian A-League.
“I was supposed to be going on loan to a few clubs in London and I was wondering whether it was right,” he says. “Then someone said, ‘Do you fancy going to Sydney?’ My first thought was, ‘Nah, if I don’t want to go to London I don’t want to go halfway across the world’. I thought about it for four hours, spoke to a few people like Dwight Yorke, who had been out there, then I thought, ‘Ah, stuff it, why not?’
“It was an amazing place to be for a few months. I’m laid back anyway, but they are more laid back than me. It was training, then back for barbecues on the balcony, and cool-downs on Bondi Beach. I did the Harbour Bridge climb twice, once in the morning and once at night. The first time, I was looking at all these photos of legends on the wall doing the climb. The second time, all my family were over, and there was a picture of me up there, which was a bit funny.
“The standard of football was better than I thought. I suppose if you expect nothing, everything’s a bonus. There were a lot of good players over there – Kevin Muscat, Craig Moore, Tony Popovic – and we were getting 30-40,000. When LA Galaxy came over, with Beckham, we got 84,000. And we beat them 5-2, which shows you the standard of the A-League compared to the American league. The only thing was the travelling. One of the local derbies was a three-hour flight.”
The adventure was terminated in January when, with Sydney in the end-of-season play-offs and desperate to retain Bridges’ services, he was summoned back to Hull with a new transfer window having opened. It closed without Bridges moving on, but even then he sensed a new door might be ajar.
“I did well over there,” he says. “I got games, which I needed, got a bit of sunshine on the freckles and when I came back I thought I would be able to force my way back in, to help the lads push for promotion. But I soon came to the conclusion that it wouldn’t happen no matter what I did. I was back to square one.”
SATURDAY, May 24, 2008: The Championship Play-Off Final. Bristol City 0-1 Hull City (Wembley). Hull: Myhill, Ricketts, Brown, Turner, Dawson, Garcia, Ashbee, Hughes, Barmby (Fagan 67), Campbell (Marney 90), Windass (Folan 71). Subs not used: Duke, Doyle. Att 86,703.
HOW did it feel to be sat in the shiny new stadium while his colleagues achieved immortality? How did it feel to be there, but not there? When Hull begin their Premier League campaign against Fulham tomorrow, and Bridges is battling for a place in the Carlisle team to face Crewe in League One, won’t he allow himself the odd jealous thought?
“Look, it’s tough for anybody to take when you’re not in the 16,” he recalls of the Wembley experience. “There were five or six of us not involved during the run-in. But I can honestly say it was a great day even though I didn’t play. It’s a squad game, the banter is still there on the bus, and although I’ve been to the old Wembley twice with Sunderland, the new one is something else.
“Nah, there’s no jealousy, none whatsoever. After the final, I flew out to Portugal with the family, then I came back in pre-season ready to give it my best shot. It’s the Premier League after all, where everybody wants to play. But before long I realised I wasn’t going to be involved. That’s the time you start looking elsewhere.”
News of John Ward’s interest, he says, “brightened up my day”. On July 24, the loan deal with Carlisle was done. Two days later, he played in United’s pre-season friendly against Preston, in front of 2,843 fans. Hardly a throbbing European night at Elland Road. And yet.
“The reception was magnificent,” he says. “Amazing. After the game, I thought about it and got a little lump in my throat, because those people appreciate what I did here before. All credit to them. I cannot thank them enough.
“Carlisle is a small club but it’s got a great history. I got a good vibe about it and you don’t turn your back on that.
“My old man was delighted when I told him I was coming back. He used to come up here every week and get looked after. And the other day my mam went in the club shop, saw they were short staffed and offered to lend a helping hand. I don’t think the girls could believe it. It’s the sort of place where everybody knows each other, and that’s a good factor.
“Some people were telling me not to go back for a second time because sometimes it doesn’t work. But that was never in my head. You’ve got to be big enough to stand up to it. You make your own history, but you make your own future as well. We shall see.”
HIS immediate obligation is to press his way into Ward’s starting XI, after arriving short of first-team sharpness. He declares himself impressed with the squad he has entered, and the style of play Ward is encouraging this new season. The fascination of the coming weeks and months lies in Bridges’ ability to make the years tumble away again, and entertain Cumbria afresh. But then, if he does, won’t he be off again just as quickly?
“I said last time that it was a stepping stone for me,” he replies. “I’m not in that frame of mind any more. I’m 30 years old now, and I want to be settling down at a club where I know I’ve got a future and I can build on it. I’m on loan, but if anything happens to make it permanent, it would be fantastic. If I was wrong to leave the first time, hopefully I’m back to put things right.”
The longer-term may bring a return to punditry – he was heavily involved in Sky Sports’ coverage of the Leeds-Carlisle play-off semi-final in the spring – and perhaps an end-of-career return to Australia. “I want to play as many games as I can before my career ends,” he says. “Maybe not to Dean Windass’ level – he’s 39 and a freak of nature – but he was my roommate last year and listening to how much he still wants to do in the game made me want to take a leaf out of his book.
“The only other thing I’d like to do is coach kids. I’m working with my mate’s Sunday League team in Whitley Bay and I thoroughly enjoy it.”
And fatherhood? “It’s everything I didn’t think it would be. But it’s fantastic. You see these two things lying in the cot and you think, ‘Why am I worried about not playing football when I’ve got these two here?’
“I just cannot wait to get home to see them. I’ve already got Riley out with a golf club, except he keeps hitting his sister instead of the ball. But we’re getting there. At least he’s swinging.”
A smile, a laugh, a handshake. Interview over. Negative thoughts suspended. Oven-ready headlines thrown in the bin. Not the story you were expecting to write. Neatly done.
