ANOTHER GREAT TRIP WORTH THE WORLD

England and the USA are worlds apart in many ways and I’ll give you two typical examples: Let me tell you about my first two homes, one on the outskirts of Wimbledon – where Americans will relate to our greatest sporting event – where my home in Southfields, which is the closest railway station to the Tennis Courts, where the likes of John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors etched their places in the hearts of all that followed such a tournament, I suppose had I been a professional tennis player I would have been ‘Super Brat’ as JM was called. John was an impressive genius with a very high emotional level, something which was his making. How I loved John McEnroe. Anyhow back to Sispara Gardens, which was a home I bought for 23 thousand English pounds, two years before Stoke City paid ten times that amount for my footballing skills. Oh, the difference, which was when having my House Warming Party’ my next door neighbours (through jealousy I suppose) called the police. The police arrived about 1.30am and left at 4am after having a chat with me and my family and friends and then run them back home to Chelsea.

When I moved into my home ion the hill in Seattle, my next door neighbours, Bob and Jean Barman from California, were quite the opposite. There was a knock on the door after a couple of nights in our new home and on answering it, there stood Jean with a cake.

“Welcome to Seattle” said this very attractive young lady. I knew their name because unlike in England they had it on their pigeon hole, which we call a mail box. I knew we were going to get on as soon as I looked at Mr. and Mrs. Barman, thinking ‘They have even given me my very own bar staff’.
Secondly, and not least, when we signed a contract to wear boots in England we received about a hundred pounds and a couple of pairs of Nike boots. I was soon to find out that here in the USA we received as many pairs of boots you wanted and at the end of a hard season (about 20 matches) they took you on a five day trip to Hawaii. This was not just a trip it was Heaven if there is such a place. Yeah, there is because we spent 5 long days and nights in Honolulu in great company, and I think Steve Buttle and I never spent a minute without a glass in our hand. There were players from all over the NASL and we were like one big family, Our hotel was on the ocean’s edge, and looking out I kept waiting for Jack Lord or Tom Selleck to walk from their speed boat and over to the bar. Wow, this was a million miles from a trip to Sweden with Dave Sexton.
I remember sitting by the Swimming Pool Bar with Stevie when we noticed Cameron Mitchell of High Chaparral fame bobbing up and down on the other side of the water’s edge. I knew at that moment ‘Buck Cannon’ was in deep trouble if not in deep waters, for Buttle was lethal with drink in hand. And the he let loose on the man who was simply recovering and recuperating from a heart attack, so we were told, and this had me thinking if he not had one he just might any minute as Buttle let rip with his one liners. This was all a part of the rip, although people like Mitchell did not know when they booked their hotel that we were there also.
Whilst on him, he was in one of my all-time favourite movies ‘Love me or Leave Me’ with my favourite actress and singer the gorgeous Doris Day and the extraordinary James Cagney. I could not help thinking what really would make this heaven was if those two walked in and joined us and to make things even crazier Buttle standing eye to eye with Cagney wand calling him a ‘Dirty Rat’ for pulling his bird. That was Buttle.

Cameron Mitchell trying to seduce Steve Buttle’s girlfriend the beautiful Doris Day
What I have not told you about this trip was that it was all-expense paid, everything from a beer, to champagne to your wife or girlfriend (or both) having all of that fancy treatment you see in top hotels. However, we boys were happy with the basics. The funniest thing happened on the morning of departure, although it was not funny leaving this place, as the Nike representative approached Steve and I at the bar. We were having our last drink and it was like someone you loved had just died, and I mean we were going back to Seattle not London, the place that was no longer ours. His first word was the obvious, “Did you enjoy yourselves?”
As he asked me I wondered what this had cost, and knowing that it was much more than a couple of hundred quid and two pair of size eights, or in Stevie’s case, sixes. So I asked. To my complete and utter surprise he said that he was shocked and delighted that it was under the budget. We had failed. As soon as he began to smile I ordered a half-a-dozen bottles of their very best champagne. And that meant that we were joined by a couple of others passing by who thought it was straight to the Airport, What these other NASL players had to learn was that you must always make the most of something special, and oh boy, this place was special.

The backdrop to these stories, are that it was all down to me signing for The Seattle Sounders after all of that I went through at Arsenal.
At this point of any of my stories about Arsenal in either any of my books or shows that we former players put on, I always, without fail, apologize to both my Arsenal team-mates and supporters at Highbury. They never saw the real Alan Hudson play and I was absolutely gutted, sincerely, about that, not only because I loved my time there – even though it was a nightmare on the field – but because it was Arsenal who were such a massive part of my football education given to me by my father, Bill. He was a bloody hard working Dad, that worked all hours for his three children, and me and my brother John in particular, as he wanted us to be something that he dreamed about being, a professional footballer. He left no stone unturned to achieve that, and that is where I got my attitude from. I was never as tough or physical as Bill – he was a “hard nut” – but I got through by making up for it in other ways. I was always called one of the best trainers seen at all of my clubs, but I was never a natural. I had to work as bloody hard as my Dad, if he was tarmacking roads or painting and decorating someone’s home. Yeah, Bill brought me up so brilliantly and then when he took me as far as he could take me and handed me over to my mentor Number 2, Tony Waddington, and by the time I left Waddington, although I was never looked at as a top international – two games, two wins, five goals, none against, and the first against World Champions, West Germany in the March of 1975, with Franz Beckenbauer and all of his pals, I had enjoyed many both wonderful and important experiences. Not all great, of course, but that is where you learn what I thought was going to be my next trade, a manager, and I learned from the very best and very worst there was available in those days.
What made this so wonderful was that when reaching Seattle I was in a very strange situation, for after winning the FA Cup and European Cup Winners Cup, being selected for the 1970 World Cup squad for Mexico and runner-up in the Football Writers Footballer of the Year by the time I was the age of those young Americans I was now going to play with, was odd. This was eight years on, and I had been through the most incredible roller coaster ride of a career, where heartbreaking moments far outweighed those wonderful times.
I always say about that 1970 injury that cost me so very much, and hurt so much, was it was watching all of my toys being put under the tree the night before Christmas only to wake early to find Santa had not come.
But as luck had it I found out there was no such thing as Santa as I missed my first ever Christmas in 1997 and first ever, as my mate TD calls it ‘Old Years Night’ because of his birthday. Being in that eight-and-a-half week coma was quite a mixed bag for me, or should I say, coming out of it to find my whole world had changed, only this time forever. Apart from my wife deciding to leave me once she saw the state of this five and a half stone weakling, I was faced with never being able to run again, which was much like telling Francis Albert Sinatra, he had lost his voice and could no longer croon. No, there is no word for such a voice. However, as we all learn, life goes on and on turning up at Seattle’s new training ground I put on the bravest of faces in front of the new Sounders of today, I simply could stand no longer as my legs began shaking. The last time I shook on a Seattle training field was after being out with Adt5ian Webster, Steve Buttle, Mike Ivano the night before.
I can only finish this piece by saying how grateful am to both Bobby Moore and Jimmy Gabriel on that fateful day at Stamford Bridge, a place that I loathe these days, but back on this particular day it was the greatest stadium on earth. One other strangest thing was that when that “moron” Bruce Anderson sacked me and I could not find another club, I ended up going back to Chelsea under Ken Bates, and then Stoke City again (all down to Waddington) and somehow turning a one month loan into a three year contract by help saving them from relegation. When I signed for these four Saturday afternoon’s my old club were fourteen points adrift at the bottom of the table, and that was in the days of two points a win. We won three of them, something they had not done since the ‘Old King’ died, and I was the Red Adair of the Victoria Ground once more time – yeah I had done a similar thing four years before arriving in Seattle. With the greatest respect to those wonderful Stoke City supporters, who had changed from my first time around, my heart was still in the Great North West and to make things worse, so was my wife, who stole my two boys from me. But thankfully, I have got one back and although it does not make it right, I am saving like hell to return to Seattle with him by my side and, of course, this time, Adrian Webster.

Keep the motor running David!