Red Card Roy

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In September 1990, he returned for a second spell at Colchester, and was sent off on his first start – but after that, not again for a relatively impressive two years. McDonough wasn’t a changed man exactly, but he was a married one – since June 1988, in a strange twist after his womanising had continued unabated to that point – and at 32, playing in the Conference, he knew this was probably his final shot at areturn to the Football League. What nobody could have predicted, though, was the manner in which he did it. London-born Whitton began his career at Coventry City in the late 1970s, before enjoying a fruitful career with West Ham, Birmingham, Sheffield Wednesday, Ipswich and Colchester.

The violence wasn’t pre-meditated, it was self-preservation. I never set out to hurt anyone, well only once.” At Colchester, McDonough met and befriended Lyons, who was haunted by abuse from his own club's supporters as well as problems in his personal life. I’m not proud of the record cards by the way, but there’s a lot more to me than that,” he insists. “For a start I played for three managers who’d won the World Cup.” Indeed he did. When he was a 17-year-old local prodigy at Birmingham City, Sir Alf Ramsey gave him his debut. He then moved to Chelsea where he played under Sir Geoff Hurst. It was not a relationship charged with mutual respect. Things did seem to get a lot easier after the two difficult early rounds and next to be faced at home was Morecambe.Cunningham, Matt; Glendenning, Barry; Ingle, Sean (26 June 2003). "Away penalties at Old Trafford". The Guardian . Retrieved 16 July 2016. Roy McDonough (born 16 October 1958) is an English former professional football player and manager in the English Football League. McDonough had been appointed Colchester’s player-manager in the summer of 1991, following the departure of Ian Atkins as boss.

I’d told them I’d got the job and when I slowed down, they were all out there spraying my car with champagne!

As the paper reported, with the floodlights gone, the stadium was into darkness very soon after the final whistle. In pre-season, me and Trevor Francis had been on fire. We scored 16 goals between us, he got nine and I got seven. We complimented each other. After the sort of scrap he encountered facing Bruce, Roy invariably headed to the bar. Where he would stay for most of the weekend. And the following week. I am not fluent in Spanish, but the kids are, which is all we need. Everyone speaks English out there anyway.

Cambridge was also the scene of the most extraordinary of many drink-driving episodes. So plastered after the club’s Christmas night out that he was unable to feed coins into the parking meter, McDonough put his foot to the floor and hurdled the 10-inch ramp guarding the exit “like the Dukes of Hazzard”.

I always thought I was invincible, I still do but I’ll be 64 this year and your body tells you to leave off a little bit.

Between 1985 and 1986 McDonough moved first to Exeter City (21 appearances, 1 goal) and then Cambridge United (32 appearances, 5 goals) before returning to Roots Hall and Southend. In his second spell at Southend, he became to some fans a cult hero. [10] In around 186 appearances he scored 30 times, however certain sections of the crowd were not always enamoured with his playing style. Joining Walsall was the biggest mistake of my life,” 60-year-old continued. “My debut was against Swindon and I got man of the match. He also boasts of having bedded 400 women, drank up to 20 pints a night and regularly turned up to pla1y 'half-p***ed'. I played the footballer-playboy-drinker-womaniser because it got me accolades from my peers in my own immature mind.As a tactic it paid off. Handsomely. In his first season he led Colchester to a double of the Conference title and the FA Trophy. There are McDonough's own battles with loneliness and with managing an anger borne of his desperation to win his father's approval.