Roy McDonough might not be a household name, but his book, Red Card Roy, explains how he was branded more aggressive than Vinnie Jones, and that he may have almost signed for Lincoln City.
McDonough’s book isn’t new. It came out in 2012, and I’ve only just got around to picking it up in the last week. It made a refreshing change from all of the rubbish top-flight memoirs you read, and Lincoln City get a fair mention.
McDonough is famous for holding the most Football League red cards (13) with Steve Walsh, and the most in total (22) across his football career. The very first of those came playing at Sincil Bank, almost 47 years ago this week. That’s not his only connection with the Imps: it sounds like he almost signed for us, as well as bagging goals against us.
His uncle, Fred Harris, captained Birmingham City, while his father, James, played for Bath City. McDonough and his twin brother, Gaz, signed schoolboy forms with Aston Villa after Roy impressed as a prolific scorer for Birmingham schools and Warwickshire county schools.
His disciplinary problems started early. In March 1975, aged just 16, he received a six-month suspension for throttling a referee during the Birmingham Schools Cup final, and Villa manager Ron Saunders did not offer him professional terms.
Family connections helped him secure a trial at Birmingham, where four goals in two games earned him an 18-month apprenticeship. He subsequently turned professional and made his Football League debut against Sunderland at Roker Park on 7 May 1977, with Birmingham losing 1-0.
His first-team opportunities were limited, although he scored once in his two league appearances. In 1978, he left Birmingham for Walsall, seeking the regular football he had been unable to find at St Andrew’s. In the first of several tenuous links with the Imps, he signed for Walsall on the same day we signed Jim McCalliog from SFK Lyn.
One of his first teammates and managers was a former Imp, Alan Buckley, who he discusses in his book.
“Buckley liked playing alongside me, but there wasn’t any love lost between us, ” he said. “He wasn’t the bravest player on the planet, and I saw him put the brakes on a few times when the ball was there to be won.
“He was seven years older than me and a short arse, but he had quick little feet, great technique at that level and was an excellent finisher.
“Not for the last time in my career, the forward alongside me reaped the benefits of my all-action displays, stealing the goals and headlines after I’d out-muscled the defence.”
That was Buckley the player, but he also encountered Buckley the manager, and was less impressed.
“Buckley just wasn’t my sort of bloke. I thought he was Charlie Big Potatoes, especially when he would get changed in a room by himself. He was in his late twenties, very young for a player-manager, but rarely socialised with the lads and didn’t care whether people liked him or not.”
On October 3rd, 1979, McDonough got the first of his red cards, as City drew 2-2 with the Saddlers at the Bank. City led 2-1 with 11 minutes to go, with McDonough getting their goal, before it all went off like Krakatoa.
“The trip to Sincil Bank would herald a landmark in my career, my first professional red card, 13 days short of my 21st birthday,” said McDonough.
“I didn’t go it alone. The referee was weirdly-beardy Trelford Mills, who wasn’t an official I was particularly fond of. He sent our midfielder Ian Paul off for the most innocuous challenge and I went mental at the utter injustice.
“Now, if I’d been 30 yards away it wouldn’t have happened, but I was right in the referee’s earshot, so I started throwing fucks at him. And being arrogance personified, like most of the fuckers, he seized the chance to steal all the attention for himself, pushing his red card in my face before it had even gone back in his pocket.
“There was no dominating Mills. He was like a bloody school teacher ruling over his pupils and had this whole, ‘How dare you question me,’ attitude. But most of them were like that. And I had every right to query their decisions. I was the professional footballer who knew how to play the game. All they did was make it 10 times harder through their sheer incompetence.”
The book doesn’t mention that the striker was shown a yellow card shortly after Gordon Hobson gave us a 2-1 lead, and that approaching the incident ten minutes from time, he was already walking a tightrope. Mills flashed the red, and McDonough left the field at the old school Sincil Bank, making an impression on the locals, whom he labelled dimwits.
“There was a cage around the players’ tunnel at Lincoln, and as I took the walk of shame, their fired-up fans ran up to it and started spitting at me through the rusting old wire. With green-and-white slime sliding down my face and shirt, I turned towards the animals on the other side of the cage, shaping to throw a punch. The dimwits all took a flinching step back, forgetting they were being protected by a metal fence.
“I just chuckled, not even wiping the disgusting gob off my cheek, and walked into the dressing room, where a shocked Ian heard my studs tapping on the concrete.”
At Walsall, McDonough began to establish himself. He scored 15 goals in 82 league appearances and helped the Saddlers win promotion from the Fourth Division as runners-up in 1979/80.
A move to Chelsea followed in 1980, but his time at Stamford Bridge brought no senior competitive appearances. World Cup winner Geoff Hurst was the manager, promising the striker the world, but ultimately handing him nothing. This isn’t a great period in his career, and by 1981, he was on the move again, joining Colchester United and beginning a relationship with the club that would eventually define his career.
However, it could have been very different as he labelled Layer Road the ‘arsehole end of the world’ before he signed. He claims if he’d been thinking straight, he’d have gone to talk to another club showing interest: Colin Murphy’s Lincoln City, where we were hunting a successor for Mick Harford.
There is another link to City as well: the assistant at Colchester had played 161 times for the Imps.
“I wasn’t offered a tour of this crumbling football temple’s inner sanctum, which was shielded from sight by the high brickwork walls of the car park. I was shoe-horned straight into a tiny office to meet smiling manager Bobby Roberts and his Lurch-like No.2, Ray Harford, who were both squeezed in behind a small table.
“Roberts was a true Scotsman, who liked a wee dram and had played in Leicester’s 1-0 FA Cup Final defeat against Manchester City in 1969. He was doing his best to sell the club to me, but I found myself looking around at the peeling, faded wallpaper and chipped skirting boards. It certainly wasn’t the deluxe grand designs of Stamford Bridge’s interiors, it was the arsehole end of the world.”
“If I’d been thinking straight, I might have turned round and gone back to London, or headed on up the road to speak with Lincoln. And I wasn’t interested in the manager’s patter either, I just wanted to get down to the nitty-gritty, how much was he willing to pay me to play at this Dog and Duck dive?
“Colchester were offering a two-and-a-half-year contract of £200 a week, plus a £9,000 signing-on payment. Remembering Dennis Rofe’s advice, I said it wasn’t enough and told him to get the calculator out to see if he could come up with any better sums, while I retreated to the car and listened to Led Zeppelin on the chunky eight-track cassette player.”
McDonough scored 24 goals in 93 league appearances during his first spell at Layer Road before joining Essex rivals Southend United in 1983. That initial stay at Roots Hall was brief, producing four goals in 22 league games.
Spells with Exeter City and Cambridge United followed before he returned to Southend in 1985. This time, he stayed for five years, scoring 30 goals in 186 league appearances and helping the club win promotion from the Fourth Division in both 1986/87 and 1989/90.
In September 1990, he returned to Colchester, who had dropped out of the Football League and into the Conference. Following Ian Atkins’ departure the next summer, McDonough took over as player-manager and delivered the most successful season of his career.
Colchester won the Conference title and FA Trophy in 1991/92, with McDonough scoring 29 goals across all competitions. Their promotion battle with Martin O’Neill’s Wycombe Wanderers went to the final day, with Colchester taking the title on goal difference after the two clubs finished 21 points clear of their nearest challengers.
Back in the Football League, he continued to combine management with playing, making another 63 league appearances and scoring 16 goals. The first of those came at, yep, Sincil Bank, where he cancelled out Dean West’s opener to give his side a 2-1 victory. However, his second spell at Layer Road ended when Colchester sacked him as manager in May 1994, on the same day City relieved Keith Alexander of his duties for the first time.
McDonough scored 24 goals in 93 league appearances during his first spell at Layer Road before joining Essex rivals Southend United in 1983. That initial stay at Roots Hall was brief, producing four goals in 22 league games.
Spells with Exeter City and Cambridge United followed before he returned to Southend in 1985. This time, he stayed for five years, scoring 30 goals in 186 league appearances and helping the club win promotion from the Fourth Division in both 1986/87 and 1989/90.
His uncompromising approach made him a cult hero among some supporters, although others were less enthusiastic about his style. A tall, imposing forward who could also operate at centre-half, McDonough rarely avoided a physical confrontation.
In September 1990, he returned to Colchester, who had dropped out of the Football League and into the Conference. Following Ian Atkins’ departure the next summer, McDonough took over as player-manager and delivered the most successful season of his career.
Colchester won the Conference title and FA Trophy in 1991/92, with McDonough scoring 29 goals across all competitions. Their promotion battle with Martin O’Neill’s Wycombe Wanderers went to the final day, with Colchester taking the title on goal difference after the two clubs finished 21 points clear of their nearest challengers.
Back in the Football League, he continued to combine management with playing, making another 63 league appearances and scoring 16 goals. However, his second spell at Layer Road ended when Colchester sacked him as manager in May 1994.
McDonough subsequently moved into non-league football with Dagenham & Redbridge, followed by spells at clubs including Chelmsford City, Canvey Island, Heybridge Swifts, Bishop’s Stortford, Braintree Town and Harwich and Parkeston. He also held managerial roles at Chelmsford and Heybridge.
His book is a fascinating read, and you’ll likely be utterly disturbed and entertained at the same time. I can’t look at pictures of his moustache without retching, and terminology like ‘watching the docking procedure’ takes on a whole new meaning. McDonough is honest about his career, which he claims he threw away in a haze of booze.
One wonders if maybe Colin Murphy could have been the manager to turn him around, a bit like the missed Gazza and Ferguson partnership?
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