Mum’s the word on Berahino

A LOT of players will have had some sympathy for Saido Berahino on Sunday, when he turned up for Stoke’s clash with Man United 24 hours before he was supposed to.

The striker (left) is not the only one to make that mistake. We had a weekend off when I was at Crystal Palace, and after travelling back to Cannock I asked my mum to drive me to training on the Monday morning.

She didn’t like driving even locally and gave me a piece of her mind, but she then agreed to make the six-hour round trip to south London in her tortoiseshell-blue VW Beetle. You can imagine her response when Peter Prentice, the old gatekeeper, told me I wasn’t in until the Tuesday.

She hit the roof as she drove me to my digs and then rang me again at 10.30pm to give me, literally, the mother of all rollockings.