I used to play park football on Sunday mornings ... now I’m on telly in the FA Cup!
HOW SCAFFOLDER PETER JEFFRIES HAS BECOME A HERO AT BLYTH SPARTANS
HE’S the ‘ be s t scaffolder’ in the firm, declares his boss as his star employee lifts the FA Cup. ‘Big and strong, good pair of hands, reliable,’ the gaffer continues.
‘Don’t drop it,’ hollers a colleague. Not a chance. Peter Jeffries is standing on top of the scaffolding he has just assembled in double-quick time. In his grasp is the iconic cup, glistening amid the gloom of a murky morning on Teesside.
Jeffries is clad in a navy boilersuit, luminous jacket and safety harness complete with the tools of his trade.
Tonight, however, he will be wearing nothing more than a goalkeeper’s kit and a pair of gloves. He will be at Hartlepool United’s Victoria Park, just a few miles from his place of work and a goal-kick away from where he grew up and now lives.
But Jeffries — a former seasonticket holder at The Vic — will not be turning out for his hometown club. Instead, on live television and playing at a ‘proper’ ground for the first time, he will be representing the green and white of one of the competition’s most celebrated minnows.
Blyth Spartans, the Northern League club, made it to the fifth round in 1978 — losing 2-1 in a replay to Wrexham in front of 42,000 at St James’ Park — and were beaten 1-0 by Blackburn in the third round in 2009.
That same year, Jeffries was part of the Travellers Rest pub team which triumphed in the Hartlepool Sunday Morning Cup against Thros-
‘Blyth’s Cup history is the first thing they tell you about’
ton Wanderers. Victory in the second round of the FA Cup this evening and the likes of Manchester United and Chelsea lie in wait.
‘ It’s mad,’ the 28- year- old tells Sportsmail as we sit in the boardroom of his firm’s headquarters and he stares at the FA Cup resting next to us.
‘It’s magic. I know that gets said a lot, but the early rounds are where the magic of the cup is now. This is what it’s all about.
‘I was playing on a Sunday morning not so long ago. Now I’m on telly at a proper ground, at the place I went with my dad and two brothers as a kid and with all my family and friends from Hartlepool in the Blyth end — although I had to convince my dad to go in!
‘We really think we’ve got a chance to win as well. Hartlepool are struggling, they’re bottom of League Two. We’ve been flying in the Cup, we love it. From that very first match, this is what you dream about.
‘The FA Cup history of the club is the first thing they tell you about when you sign. It’s massive. They get about £70,000 with this being on TV and that could help us with promotion in the long run.’
Blyth, like the majority of the 232 non-League sides who took part in first-round qualifying in September, would have been watching this weekend’s ties on TV had it not been for Jeffries.
They were goalless at Darlington 1883 FC when the hosts and strong favourites were awarded a second-half penalty. Jeffries recalls: ‘Myself and the goalkeeping coach, John Bottensien, had looked the night before at where their lad put his penalties.
‘It was a one-off special game so we did the research. He either goes top left or top right. I decided to dive as far as I could to my left and somehow saved it. I have no idea how I did it. I just threw everything I could that way and ended up saving it with my right hand, tipping it on to a post. We might not have been here without that save.’
Blyth won 3-0 in the replay before negotiating ties at Skelmersdale United (4-1), Mickleover Sports (2-1) and Leek Town (4-3).
They then hammered Conference side Altrincham 4-1 in the first round proper.
Jeffries was in the living-room with his wife, Toni, and children Amy, six, and Harry, three, when Hartlepool emerged from the hat in the secondround draw.
‘When Hartlepool came out there were still 20-odd balls left in,’ he says. ‘ Then it was number 39. I just thought, “Wow, that’s us”. I started jumping all over the living-room, my family didn’t know what was going on. My daughter was a bit scared.’
He adds: ‘ To go back to The Vic will be special. I was going during their best period — the League One play-off final in 2005 and Sunderland away in the FA Cup when we took nearly 10,000. ‘I went all over the country with them. The playoff final in Cardiff was probably my best day as a fan, even though we got beat by Sheffield Wednesday.’
All the while, football- mad Jeffries was a striker. ‘I wasn’t a goalkeeper until I was 19. I was a centre forward, or at least I told myself that,’ he reveals.
‘One Sunday I got put in goal when we were short. Everyone started telling me I wasn’t bad. People started to come to watch me.
‘I actually wanted to play in goal when I was about eight, but my dad said no. I often tell him that if I’d started earlier as a keeper I might have made it much higher in the game.’
A move to Hartlepool FC and then Bishop Auckland followed before Blyth paid Spennymoor Town £3,000 for Jeffries in the summer. He is already a crowd favourite at Croft Park. Juggling a young family, work and his football, however, can prove even more difficult than keeping out penalties.
‘We train twice a week and it’s an hour and 10 minutes up to Blyth,’ he explains. ‘I work from 8am to halffour, so it’s quite a gruelling schedule. I get in, get my stuff and head straight out.
‘Scaffolding is hard graft as well, very hard. I’m not at a desk, I’m constantly climbing and lifting. I have broken my fingers quite a few times.
‘You do feel it and it takes your back and arms a while to adjust. But it keeps me fit and strong and it helps with my goalkeeping, I suppose — I’m using my hands all the time anyway!’
Today, at least, Jeffries has been afforded some time off. The star scaffolder has a bigger job on his hands across town.