Beer? I gave my blood for victory
THERE WAS only one game in Brian Kilcline’s entire career that he did not celebrate with a drink – Coventry’s 1987 FA Cup win at Wembley.
It took something drastic to stop the 6ft 4in skipper with the Viking looks hitting the beer.
But Kilcline, then just 24, had injured himself playing his part in the biggest match in Coventry’s history – their 3-2 extra-time win over Tottenham.
“The cup final was the only game in my life that I never had a drink after, which is unbelievable,” he said.
“I had to go into hospital the next day. I had mistimed a tackle on Gary Mabbutt and hurt myself. I had a bleed in my thigh muscle and it just blew up to twice its size.
“They said, ‘You can’t have anything to drink because you’ll be going in’. I did the open-top bus bit then I went and had it sliced open and drained.”
The rest of the squad were in Magaluf celebrating their shock win.
“I got a phone call in the hospital,” said Kilcline. “It was Cyrille Regis and a few of the others saying, ‘It’s absolutely brilliant out here, Killer. We’ve got to go, the taxi has just pulled up’ – the so and sos!
“I checked myself out of the hospital, got a flight over and spent the next three days trying to avoid George Curtis [Coventry’s managing director] who suspected I was out there and was trying to find me.”
Now 55, ‘Killer’ still has the flowing locks and the beard, just a slightly different shade these days.
In today’s fifth round, League Two Coventry face Premier League Brighton, whose boss Chris Hughton was in that losing Spurs side at Wembley all those years ago.
Kilcline’s career ended before the cash started pouring into the game.
He began at Notts County before his seven years at Coventry, then moved on to Oldham, became Kevin Keegan’s first and “most important” signing at Newcastle, briefly graced the Premier League with Swindon, then moved down to Mansfield and Halifax.
“I missed the silly money,” he said. “We were earning ‘not bad’ money just as I was leaving and on the way down.
“You earned better than the working man but you couldn’t retire on it. You’d have to do something else.” Kilcline turned his hand to renovating houses, and that is how he spends his time now in the picturesque Yorkshire town of Holmfirth – made famous by Nora Batty and Last of the Summer Wine.
And there is something gloriously batty about Kilcline, who says his life is not defined by his time as a footballer. He just loves a laugh with his wife Lynn and their friends.
“A lot of people spend all their lives not liking themselves,” he said. “I don’t mind myself. I think I’m all right. I’m not a bad person. I don’t take myself seriously. We go to Goth weekends. We like steampunk – check that out.
“We dress up. I like doing silly things and having a laugh, things that people don’t expect. We went to one event and there was this Reliant Robin outside and a guy asked me if I could give him a hand.
“He’d got a big Dalek in the back and couldn’t get it out – brilliant!
“Footballers are different animals now. When we were playing it was more about playing the game and then having the craic afterwards – and I loved the craic!
“The way I’d describe it is that we were shirehorses. The footballers today are thoroughbreds. But there are still some Brian Kilclines out there.
“In the 20-odd years I played football I had probably four games where I was totally 100 per cent fit. These days, they just won’t play.”
Kilcline wishes Coventry well today and for the rest of the season.
“None of us realised we were going to be remembered for the rest of time,” he said.
“What we did that day is something that’s going to be there forever.”
They were in Magaluf, I was in hospital