MILLWALL MADNESS, BOOTING DURRANT, SOUNESS RUN-INS AND A GOAL AGAINST CELTIC
FORMER RANGERS ENFORCER TERRY HURLOCK RECALLS A RIOTOUS CAREER
TERRY HURLOCK has a text message from Wally Downes, the manager of AFC Wimbledon. It can wait. He is in full flow, just as the ale pumps have been in this bustling london pub where we meet.
‘It was mental, we actually trained at the same place as Wimbledon in the late Eighties,’ says the former Rangers and Millwall enforcer, a midfielder among the most intimidating of his generation.
‘We’d be running past them on the next pitch, eyeing them up, Wally, Vinnie (Jones), little Dennis (Wise) — I wanted to strangle him. We’d be shouting across: “crazy Gang? We’re the real f ****** crazy Gang. We’re Millwall, from south (‘saarf’) london. Wimbledon? You country f ****** bumpkins”.’
Hurlock owned the Prince of Wales pub in Walthamstow. one Tuesday afternoon, ahead of playing Wimbledon on the Saturday, Millwall players met for a drink. Tony cascarino and Teddy Sheringham teased Hurlock, demanding to know what he had planned for Jones.
His knuckles clench, white. He leans in, snarling, saying: ‘What would I do? This is what I’ll do, so I ran and kicked this f ****** door… wallop, hanging off the hinges.’
He buries his fist in his palm. Then laughs: ‘cost me a few quid to repair, that did. I wish I’d done it in someone else’s bleeding pub.’
Wimbledon won. ‘We never beat them?’ adds Hurlock, irritated. ‘A bloody liberty. It was always a battle — kick and bite.
‘It once went off in the tunnel, John Fashanu was touching cascarino’s backside, winding him up. cas turned around and windmilled him!
‘I loved those boys, really. Vinnie was a great fella, too smart to come near me on the pitch, though. I was happy when they won the FA cup (in 1988) and you’d always end up having a beer with them.’
Such as in 1987 when Hurlock’s son was born. Downes, the crazy Gang ringleader, joined the head-wetting party in the pubs around Brentford’s Griffin Park, Hurlock’s first club.
Hurlock, now a granddad at 60, recalls: ‘I had to buy champagne for everyone — I didn’t want any more kids after that! It was a lively affair. We stripped off — me, Wally and my mates and had a race around the ground.’ The pair remain pals, not that Hurlock will have split loyalties when AFc Wimbledon host Millwall in the FA cup fifth-round tie today. Hurlock (left) had two spells with the lions, first signing in 1987 after playing for Brentford and Reading. He had long known Millwall was the club for him. ‘They used to batter me about Brentford,’ he says. ‘But loads of my mates were Millwall.
They told me: “We’d love you in our side, Tel”. I loved the feel of the club. The fans were like me. I thought: “I’d be happy here”.’
And he was. Nicknamed ‘Terry Warlock’, he led them to the old Division Two title before finishing tenth in Division one (now the Premiership) in 1989.
Hurlock was the club’s Player of the Year and his goal in a 3-2 win over QPR took them to the top of the table in october. ‘You know the bubble will burst,’’ he says. ‘But top of the league, it was f ****** terrific.’
The bubble did burst. They were relegated in 1990 and Graeme Souness paid £375,000 to take Hurlock to Rangers. He returned to Millwall, via Southampton, in 1994 and one of his first games was against leicester at The Den.
By now a dad of three, the family were watching live on television at home on a Sunday afternoon.
‘After nine minutes, I’ve tackled this geezer (Iwan Roberts),’ says Hurlock. ‘He lashed out at me on the floor, so I booted him back. The referee saw it, red card.
‘The missus had only left the front room to put the roasties and gravy on. When she came back, the kids were asking: “Where’s Dad?”. She hadn’t a clue.’
It was one of seven red cards from 637 career games and Millwall boss Mick Mccarthy later told Hurlock he was being released because he ‘incited the crowd’.
Hurlock’s thoughts? ‘What a load of b ****** s’.
It is, though, easy to see why David Beckham said that he ‘stayed away from Hurlock as much as possible’ when playing for Preston (on loan) against Millwall.
‘I take that as a compliment,’ declares Hurlock. ‘But I was never dirty. I was hard and fair.
‘I’d never be a coward. Not like the fella who did me. (Martin) Grainger (Brentford defender), two-footed tackle in a pre-season
We won title and League Cup in my season at Rangers and I scored a belter against Celtic... the fans don’t forget that
game, broke my leg. That f ***** me, I retired after that. If I could go back for one more tackle, it would be with him.’
Hurlock then announces: ‘I don’t like doing interviews but you seem nice enough.’ That is a relief.
It still feels risky producing a picture from his Brentford days — wild, curly hair, grizzly beard, two earrings dangling — and asking if the perm was done in a salon.
‘What? F*** that,’ he answers. ‘I used to say it was natural. My mate did it, actually. Before I went to Rangers, he cut it too short, like a girl. I hated it. I couldn’t go to Glasgow like that. They’d throw bricks at me. I said I had gastroenteritis and waited for it to drop an inch.’
West Ham released Hackneyborn Hurlock at 18. He worked as a coalman and window cleaner before joining Brentford at 21.
‘I turned up wearing no socks and a pair of moccasins. They thought I was one of the painters.’
Ragged off the pitch, they soon realised Hurlock was a smart act on it, anchoring a midfield with Stan Bowles and Chris Kamara.
‘Stan was nearly done but was still out of this world,’ says Hurlock. ‘I always had to graft, run, tackle, shut down.
‘But Stan was a natural, give it to his feet. It opens your eyes. You know the level you’re at. He needed someone to take the dirty (work) off him. That was my job.’
Hurlock was recently voted Brentford’s fifth greatest player. He enjoys legend status at Millwall and, as the Rangers fan who interrupts our interview to shake his hand before kissing him will testify, he is revered at Ibrox.
He explains: ‘In my one season there, we won the league, the League Cup and I scored against Celtic, a belter from 25 yards, and those boys up there never forget.’ Rangers icon Ian Durrant will never forget him.
‘One of my first days training,’ adds Hurlock, ‘Souness is playing, and he’s a different class. They all are — (Terry) Butcher, (Trevor) Steven, (Ally) McCoist. We’re playing keep-ball and I can’t get near it.
‘Souness stops the session and shouts: “Hold up. What the f*** have I signed here? You’re allowed to touch the ball. Get involved”.
‘The ball goes to little Durrant. I fly in. “Whack!”. Souey stops it and tells me: “F ****** easy.”. I said: “Don’t wind me up then, you told me to get involved”.’
Hurlock is rattling through stories with the same ferocity as those tackles. But he has a confession. There was one occasion when he wasn’t up for a scrap.
‘We were playing Liverpool (for Millwall) and Steve McMahon caught me around the ribs. I got up. I told him: “I’ll f ****** do you in the players’ lounge”.
‘I got changed all quick. Then, my ribs started playing up, I couldn’t f ****** move, I was in agony. I’m in the bar, he comes in. I’m thinking: “I’ve got to front it up, but if he hits me, I’ll get knocked all over the place”.
‘He walks up and puts his hand out. “It’s only a game, Tel, no hard feelings”. I thought: “Thank f*** for that”. Hurlock’s dress is sharp, yet a little menacing — dark coat, crisp shirt, waistcoat, flat cap. He removes the cap — the perm is long gone — and it leads to conversation about three more cherished pieces of headgear.
‘My three England B caps,’ he begins. ‘I’m so incredibly proud of them. We played a tournament in Scandinavia (May, 1989). I was in midfield alongside Gazza. What a pleasure that was.’
But there is also regret. ‘I got player of the tournament,’ he recalls. ‘I thought I’d done enough to step up. Gazza and David Platt did. There was talk of me, but I think politics killed it — they didn’t want Millwall around the England squad.’
Hurlock took Gascoigne under his wing. ‘I was his looky-after man on the pitch. I loved him off it as well, such a good heart,’ he says.
‘There were three meals a day and my waistline couldn’t cope with that. Neither could his. So we tried to miss lunch. We sat on my bed, starving. He said: “I can’t handle it. I’m going down”.
‘Half an hour later, there’s a knock at my door. I answer but no-one’s there. I look down and there’s a tray with spaghetti bolognese and a knickerbocker glory, just to wind me up. Cheeky git!’
Hurlock had missed the start of Millwall’s post-season trip to the Far East because of his call-up. He grins, taking up the tale.
‘I was meeting up with them in Penang. I got there early and headed to the bar. I put all my England gear on, my shirt and shin pads, the lot. They walked in. “Alright lads, I play for England now. Fancy a drink?”.’
Hurlock will always have that, just as he will have the medals from Rangers and the adulation at Brentford and Millwall, the club he will cheer on this afternoon.
Beat Wimbledon and he’ll reply to that message from Wally Downes. The forfeit for the loser might just be a lap of Griffin Park.