I SAID THEY COULD PAIR UP AND BRING THEIR DINNER WHEN I SAW THE DOCUMENTARY, I WAS DEVASTATED

The day I first heard that Channel Four wanted to film a documentary about Leyton Orient, I was sat in my office at Brisbane Road. I went to speak to the chairman and the vice-chairman, and they asked me what I thought. I said it could be a good thing. Leyton Orient are surrounded by big clubs. To the north, Tottenham and Arsenal. A few minutes down the road, West Ham. Through the Blackwall Tunnel, Millwall and Charlton. Leyton Orient are looked upon as the smallest club in London, so any publicity would be good and it might promote the club. The chairman and the vice-chairman said, ‘OK, we’ll do it’. But instead of being a fly-on-the-wall documentary about Leyton Orient, it ended up as a documentary about me.

I was born in the East End of London. As a promising centre-half, nine clubs were after me – Arsenal, Manchester United, Tottenham, Aston Villa, West Ham, QPR, Colchester, Fulham and Chelsea, who I decided to sign for. I was in their first team at 18, but I got thrown under the bus. It was the aftermath of Chelsea’s great side of the late-60s and early-70s – they were playing the kids. We had seven managers in six seasons and I fell out with the last of them, Geoff Hurst.

I began to dig him out over the training regime – no patterns of play and no drilling the back four. They just ran the bollocks off us for nine months, doing seven-mile runs in Richmond Park. Geoff said I had too much to say for myself, was very opinionated and an integral part of the drinking culture at the club. I wasn’t – I didn’t even like to drink. I just went out with the lads as a bonding thing.

I parted company