ALL THE LIP AND A REAL EYE FOR GOAL!
FOR most players, legendary status is the painstaking by-product of loyalty, goals, medals and memories.
Others become icons in a single moment. Journeyman keeper Jimmy Glass made just three appearances on loan at Carlisle United in 1999, yet the last-gasp goal he scored to prevent relegation to the Conference enshrined his name in Cumbrian folklore.
Nor will anyone forget Roy Essandoh, a jobbing striker who answered an ad on teletext, joined Wycombe Wanderers on a two-week deal and promptly scored the winner in an FA Cup quarter-final.
Chris ‘Budgie’ Kelly’s contribution to Leatherhead was, admittedly, rather more substantial. A nimble striker of considerable skill, he scored prolifically, and often spectacularly, over the course of six seasons with the Tanners.
Nevertheless, it was a single fortnight in the winter of 1975 that propelled the 26-year-old upholsterer to national fame.
Having scored a late winner to down Brighton in the FA Cup third round, Kelly appeared on that evening’s Match of the Day to ‘discuss’ the Tanners’ prospects of beating top-flight Leicester City in the next round.
“We’d all gone for a meal afterwards,” recalls Peter McGillicuddy, who played in midfield for Leatherhead. “He’d had a few beers, but he wasn’t half cut. The BBC sent a car, dragged him out and took him into London. Then he opened his mouth.”
“Leicester? They’re rubbish,” Kelly told a somewhat startled Jimmy Hill. “We’ll stuff them in the next round.”
Within hours, the Daily Mail had dubbed Kelly the ‘Leatherhead Lip’. Kelly, a natural extrovert, revelled in the role and before long was lobbing hand grenades from the back pages of national newspapers, Nationwide and even Tomorrow’s World.
Foxes players were “robots”. Jeff Blockley, the Leicester defender, was “useless”. Asked about Leatherhead’s decision to switch the tie to Filbert Street, Kelly responded: “The bigger the stage, the more we like it. It’s about time a Non-League side reached the final.”
“It was typical Chris,” says Tanners team-mate Dave Sargent. “People said he was drunk, this and that. But he was always confident. Always on the wind-up. We called him the mouth.”
McGillicuddy agrees. “It wasn’t exceptional,” he adds. “I don’t think Budgie took anything seriously. Before a game, we’d be waiting for kickoff and he’d mimic the ref’s whistle. The players would all kick-off and he’d be stood there laughing. Daft things like that.”
Indeed, Leicester were far from the only victims. Dave Bassett, then in charge of a rapidly-rising Wimbledon, hated Kelly’s sledging so much that according to former Dons player Wally Downes he treated every Leatherhead game like a cup final.
Even Leicester’s supporters weren’t spared.
“On the day of the game, there were 32,000 people there,” recalls McGillicuddy. “We went out before kick-off and Budgie is strutting round in this coat with loads of tassels. You’d think he was Muhammad Ali.
Selfish
“He’s standing in front of this packed stand, winding them up. At one stage, they came running towards us. I was going ‘Budgie, give it rest, you’re going to get us killed mate’.”
Kelly, though, was more than bluff and bluster. Two-footed and tricky, he was famed for a move known as the Kelly shuffle.
“Chris was very frustrating, because he played for himself,” says McGillicuddy. “Against Brighton, he only had to slip the ball to me – twice – and I would have scored. But no, he tried an overhead kick. That’s not knocking him, though. As a forward you have to be selfish.
“And he was exceptionally skilful. Probably the most skilful player I ever played with. It’s like when you watch the pros play now. They take a touch, turn and move in one fluid motion. Chris was like that.
“I played with some great lads at Enfield, where we won the Trophy. At Leytonstone, where we won the title. But I’d put Chris in the top five best players I played with in NonLeague football.”
Sargent adds: “At that level – especially in those days – you didn’t get many forwards who could hold the ball and beat people. Chris could do both, and he was quicker than he seemed. Having him up front was a big boost for us.”
And, for 45 minutes, too much for Leicester to handle. With Match of the Day in attendance and a few thousand Nottingham Forest fans bolstering the away end, McGillicuddy poked in for 1-0 before Kelly glanced a 27th-minute header into the far corner. Leicester were in disarray.
Guile and cheek
“Chris said they were rubbish,” laughs McGillicuddy. “And they were for about three-quarters of the game. We had a lot of the ball. In the commentary, John Motson says ‘You wouldn’t think you were watching an amateur side here’.
“Leicester’s players were all arguing, having a row. They were nearly fighting at one stage. And the more they were arguing, the more Budgie was mouthing off to them.”
Ultimately, though, it was Leicester who had the last laugh. Shortly after half-time, Kelly broke clear, shuffled past the goalkeeper and struck a shot that was cleared off the line. Galvanised, the Foxes roared back to win 3-2.
“That moment will always be in my mind,” says Sargent. “If Chris had scored, things might have been different.”
Kelly’s new-found fame would yield an instant move to Millwall, but he returned to Leatherhead within months and remained at Fetcham Grove for the rest of his career.
“Chris will tell you that he didn’t like Millwall, but it was Millwall who didn’t like him,” says McGillicuddy. “He wasn’t the most… professional, you might say.”
Later that year, he featured on the back of Fletch’s Daily Mirror in an episode of Porridge. Today, Kelly lives in France, still remembered as the man who put Leatherhead on the map.
“Budgie stood out because he had that little bit of guile and cheek about him, but that Cup run wasn’t about him,” says McGillicuddy. “It was about the team, and that still gets my goat a little bit. He knows that because I’ve told him myself.
“But God love him. He’s a good friend, a very funny man and he was an exceptionally talented footballer – even if he was hell to play with!”