Kevin Randall: Spireite hero Blooded at Droylsden

Interview by Phil Tooley

Droylsden 1961-62 Season: Back Row (From Left): Alan McIntosh (manager), Malcolm Plant, Kevin Randall, Tony Logan, Don Booth, Ron Blakey, Dave Brooks, Billy Wheeldon (trainer). Front: Dave Phillips, Eddie Stott, Alan Walker (captain), Frank Orme, Geoff Tonge.

I'd been playing for Snipe Wanderers who were run by Sam Ellis's Dad and I'd had a trial at Manchester United as well as playing for my school team, Openshaw Technical High School. I was living in Audenshaw near to Droylsden and had watched them play quite a bit when I was a youngster.

My first competitive game for the area team had been as a nine year old, I was a year ahead of my time, I played at right back against Ashton Juniors at The Butchers Arms and I also played the following year as an inside right, we won both games 4-0 and I scored the last goal in the second year.

It was an older player called Stuart McKay who was playing for Droylsden at the time who told me they were starting a youth team and I went and played a couple of practice matches and the bottom line was they were playing Bradford City in the Youth Cup and I made the team and we went to Valley Parade. It was my first competitive game for the club. Trevor Hockey was in the Bradford team and we lost 6-3 but I scored one of the goals and from then on I started playing in the reserves and it progressed from there and I soon got into the first team and played a few games at the age of 16.

At the time the first team was in the Lancashire Combination. There weren't too many ex League players at that level but there were some real characters. The club was very much part time, train a couple of nights a week and play on Saturday and all the lads had full time jobs, though I was still at school at the time.

Towards the end of the season I drifted out of the first team and wasn't really enjoying it, I had exams coming up so I stopped playing for Droylsden but carried on with the school team and one day after a break I saw a lad walking by our house with his boots under his arm and I got the urge to play again so I wrote to the Droylsden manager, Alan McIntosh, who was an ex keeper at the club, and asked if I could come back.

I started playing again, spent a season in the reserves and then made the first team. My only ambition in the game at that time was to try and make myself a regular in Droylsden's first team. It wasn't until I'd had a full season in the first team that my ambitions got a bit higher when I started reading in the Football Pink that there were clubs watching me. That gave me an inkling that I could do a job at a higher level. Alan McIntosh quite liked me as a player and he gave me my chance and things progressed from there. When I went back when I was 18 and was working The Solicitors Law Stationery Society in Manchester.

When I went back there were several of the players that were there a couple of years earlier. The captain Alan Walker was still there and a goal-scorer called Malcolm Plant, Geoff Tonge went from Droylsden to Bury and played a few games for the first team before coming back.

Looking at today's non-league pyramid, I'd guess the Lancashire Combination would be around the standard of the regional Northern Premier League and but it helped me a lot. There were experienced men that I learned off, Alan Walker was particularly good to me, he'd give me a lift home after training and he'd try to convince me I was good enough to play professionally. At that time I wasn't expecting to have a career in the game but he seemed to recognise I had some talent and encouraged me a lot.

I was always a player when I was younger when I wasn't particularly self-confident, I needed the manager and other players to give me confidence until I got established. Once I was established, I was OK and by then I was fairly highly rated by quite a lot of people. I started reading bits in the paper the season after we won the Manchester Interim Cup in 1965.

That was an end of season competition featuring clubs like Macclesfield, Mossley, Bury reserves, teams from different leagues and Ashton United as well, our big local rival who were in the Cheshire League at the time. After we beat Mossley in the semi-final and Ashton in the final, the Mossley manager used to come round to my house every Sunday at sit outside the house in his car. I'd go out and have a chat with him every Sunday for four or five weeks and he tried to persuade me to go to Mossley. I asked my Dad what he thought and he said as Droylsden had given me my first chance I should stay with them, so I did. However, fairly early in the new season the opportunity to move into the league came along with Bury who at the time were managed by Bert Head.

Before I went to Bury there was speculation that Manchester City and Aston Villa were interested. I didn't know about Bury watching me. I was supposed to be going on a three month trial with Manchester City and Bury got wind of that and they jumped in and signed me from October 1965 until the end of the season. In retrospect now I was a bit naïve, with giving up my job I should have insisted on a deal at least a year longer and give me a better chance to establish myself, but when you're young you just want to get into the game you do what you're told, so I just signed until the end of that first season.

I was playing for Droylsden right up to signing for Bury and within a few weeks of moving I played in the first team. My debut should have been against Charlton Athletic at home. In those days before home games Bury used to travel to Blackpool on a Friday night and stay over, they were in the equivalent of the Championship then, but there's been a lot of bad weather and the game was postponed due to snow and water-logging at Gigg Lane. My debut eventually came at Plymouth Argyle the following week and we drew 2-2.

When I was back at Chesterfield as Assistant Manager we played three friendlies at The Butchers Arms and I played in all three games, though one of them was only a cameo appearance along with Dave Rushbury.

My favourite one of the three was in 1994 when I was 49 years old and our team included Chris Marples, Steve Spooner, Chris Perkins and a young Kevin Davies and I took the pressure off myself by saying I was only going to make a cameo appearance but I'd trained quite hard and I organised the tactics to suit me. I put myself in at sweeper and intended to play the whole game and I did do. We drew 3-3 and I was quite proud of myself. All my family were there, my old Chesterfield skipper John Archer came to me at the end of the game and told me I was the best player on the pitch, and to be honest, I know I was! I was proud that, at 49, I'd got through the game, played quite well and I scored a penalty.

I said I was never going to play again but the phone used to ring on a Sunday morning and someone was short on numbers, so I'd play Sunday League a few times but it was my last start and last 90 minutes for a professional side. Having played my first ever representative game there 40 years earlier aged 9, you can see the place is very special to me.

The game that day, and again a year later when we won 3-2 and I came on late on as a sub, were for the Kevin Randall Trophy that, I must confess was all about trying to help my ex club and create a bit of nostalgia for me. Mind you I was surprised to read somewhere that it was billed as the Kevin Randall MEMORIAL Trophy!

It's fantastic to see Droylsden visiting Saltergate. They got a great draw at Darlington, a 0-0 draw, then the draw put the winners against Chesterfield and I thought it would be nice for the two teams to meet but I felt Droylsden may have lost their chance but to be fair they played Darlington twice, didn't concede a goal and Lee Richardson told me Droylsden were the better team when they won the replay 1-0. I hope it'll be a great game and I hope I can be there but I may be working elsewhere (Kevin is covering games for Crystal Palace now). I'm genuinely sad that this fixture never came out when I was at Saltergate but you can't have everything.

My fondest memory at Droylsden was winning the Manchester Interim Cup in 1965, which was quite prestigious in its time. I once saw Ashton play Droylsden at The Butchers and there was a massive crowd and I felt that it would be great to play in a game like that so when I was a player there we played Ashton, at Ashton, in the final and we won 3-2 with over 2000 there.

Dave Ewing, one of my old Manchester City heroes, played for Ashton United and Rod Jones, who went on to keep goal for Blackburn Rovers and Dave Boylen who later joined Grimsby Town all played for them but we were the better side on the day. I was an attacking wing half then and I scored a great goal from way out, 35 yards, I just caught it right and it went into the top corner. I remember we came back on the coach, all of a mile, with the cup out of the sun roof on the bus and we all had a great night.

I had some great times at Droylsden and the money seemed good too. When I started work in the centre of Manchester my basic wage was £4-10 shillings a week and when I got established in the first team we used to get £3-10 shillings a match so if you played Saturday-Tuesday-Saturday £11 or so was good money then, plus we'd get five shillings if we won, 25p, laughable now but in those days you could have a decent night out and still get some fish & chips on the way home! You only got the money of you played on a non-contract basis but in my second spell when I was starting to attract attention the manager wanted to sign me on a contract so I'd just got married and got a young kiddie and he offered me £4-10 shillings a week, not every game, but I got it whether I played or not, plus the win bonus as well, so when I look back to then I suppose I was doing OK.

I still have links with Droylsden, my brother Nigel works at the ground as he has done for 30-odd years. He's done bar work, groundsman, MC, cloakroom attendant, you name it, he'd done it and it's great to see the progress the club's made under Dave Pace, he's done a fine job there.

The last time I saw them was a remarkable match on New Year's Day this year. The Bloods were 2-0 up before York, another of my old clubs of course, pulled one back. With three minutes left and 2-1 to Droylsden, York equailsed. Then, would you believe it Droylsden made it 3-2. Into injury time and York equalised and then, four minutes into stoppage time York scored the winner, 4-3 to them, an incredible end.

Thanks to Kevin for the chat - always a pleasure - and for the beer too! Watch out for Kev's autobiography in a year or two, he's about to start writing that and with a memory like he's got, it'll be a fantastic read. Phil Tooley.