Football League personalities: Barry Fry

Whether it is with Southend United, Birmingham City, Barnet or Peterborough United, Barry Fry is a man who has left is mark. Filling job roles both on and off the pitch, from player to manager to director of football, Fry has made a name for himself for his erratic, often aggressive, and enthusiastic approach to football. A man famed for the over-the-top, from his touchline dashes to the delivery of his own grand-daughter, Barry Fry is a character that the Football League just wouldn’t be the same without.

Fry was not always synonymous with the Football League. Having started his playing days at Manchester United in 1962, Fry spent two years at the Old Trafford club. Actually, I use the term ‘playing days’ loosely – Fry failed to make an appearance.

In fact, it would be fair to say that Fry’s career on the pitch never really took off. In his twelve years as a professional, the now 70-year-old played for ten clubs; starting at Manchester United, and finishing at St. Albans City.

It was clear that Fry’s footballing destiny did not lie on the pitch, having not stayed at a single club for more than three seasons, whilst only spending one at every other club.The next step was management. Picking up where he had previously played, Fry became manager of Dunstable Town, and a couple of seasons later, at Barnet, which is where Fry’s Football League life, and the madness that came with it, began.

At Barnet alone, Fry claimed to have been fired an astonishing eight times by the same chairman, Stan Flashman. As well as sounding like a creepy, naked superhero, Flashman was also one of many chairman’s Fry worked of who were, let’s say, ‘colourful’.

During his time at Barnet, as well as the eight firings, and seven times he was brought back, Flashman also threatened to bury Fry in cement under the M25. So what does Fry himself think of Flashman? His recollection was that he “went a bit funny in the end”.

But Barry’s time at Barnet proved that he was more than just a comedy sketch, and in particular, his second spell at the club, where he brought a team struggling to stay in the Conference to second place three times before eventually winning it, shows a man who knows what he is doing.

Speaking to The Independent about his time at Barnet, Fry said:

“My first five years at Barnet, just keeping a team in that [Conference] division I think gives me as much satisfaction as anything. Then going back there and finishing second three times in the Conference before winning it, and reaching the play-offs with a part-time team because Stan wouldn’tgo full-time.”

His time at Birmingham followed, and was a mixed bag at best. It started terribly, relegated in their first season in Division two, Fry’s side were down. But the club’s new manager was adored. Despite the loss on the final day, Fry was still carried off the pitch by Birmingham fans at Tranmere.

Fry’s time at Birmingham may best be characterised by his erratic and often rash transfer policy. By the end of the summer transfer window of that year, the squad was nearing the 50 player mark. Over his two and a half seasons at St. Andrews, Fry averaged three signings a month!

Life long Blues fan Jasper Carrot famously said that Fry “was probably trying to sort out the unemployment problem single-handed!”

The beginning of their campaign in Division Three though showed the relationship between Fry and the board begin to fray. On the first game of the season (away at Leyton Orient) Fry read a copy of the Birmingham Mail, in which Chairman David Sullivan said that Birmingham better be in the top three by Christmas, “or else”.

Fry claimed he was “well and truly p*****d off” by his Chairman’s comments. The media battle between the two continued when Fry, in a live TV interview, accused Sullivan of “not knowing the difference between a goal line and a clothesline”, after Fry had pushed and pushed for a midfielder who Sullivan thought would cost too much..

His transfer radicalism was bought to a head when co-owner Karen Brady came down to the dressing room and dragged Fry from the showers. Still dripping wet and naked, Fry received a hammering from the business woman for publicly criticising Sullivan’s transfer policy.

When Trevor Francis took over the reigns, he said on his arrival that “There were 47 players when I arrived and a week later I opened a cupboard and two more fell out.”

His time at Birmingham also brought out the somewhat spiritually suspicious side of Barry Fry. The specific incident came after City had failed to win a match in three months, so, perhaps in the most bizarre move of his entire career, Fry proceeded to urinate in every conner of the pitch in a bid to lift a ‘Gypsy curse’.

“We went three months without winning … We were desperate, so I p****d in all four corners, holding it in while I waddled round the pitch,”  Fry stated in an interview with the Guardian.

“Did it work? Well, we started to win and I thought it had, then they f*****g sacked me, so probably not.”

And so with Barry’s urine still moist in the corners, Fry departed the St. Andrews pitch for the last time.

But despite his battles with Sullivan and the rest of the Birmingham City board, Fry remains firm friends with the City Chairman. Sullivan was even willing to lend Barry money during his severe financial troubles as owner of Peterborough United.

The Posh were the club who came calling next for Fry to manage, and also gave him the role of Chairman. This would be Fry’s longest stint yet in a footballing job, serving nine straight years as the club’s manager.

In those nine years, Fry experienced every possible emotion that a manager can. The jubilation of a Wembley win, and the humiliation of relegation.

First up was relegation, again in Fry’s first season at a club. The Posh dropped from Division Two to Three, and it took them, and Fry three years to get their Division Two status back – But they did it in the best possible way.

Peterborough United versus Darlington was the contest. Wembley was the venue. The score was 0-0 entering the final 15 minutes, when Andy Clarke is sent through on goal to fire past the Darlington keeper at the second time of asking. Cue one of Barry Fry’s most iconic moments; his touchline dash to celebrate with his players.

The chubby, balding, bag of expletives raced down the touchline into the Wembley rain with a heart warming grin, punching the air as he ran.

That’s right, Mr Mourinho, Barry did it first!

After the match, Fry provided an amazing piece of self-deprication, claiming that he “had always been a crap manager, but sometimes I get lucky and that’s what happened tonight as we were outclassed in the first half.”

But it was during Fry’s time as owner of Peterborough United where the world of football really saw how much the sport meant to him.

With the club in huge financial crisis, Fry did everything he could to keep pumping money into the club, including remortgaging both his family’s home, and his mother in law’s house. He also put in money from his own pension, and all the £200,000 proceeds of his testimonial match against Manchester United.

Fry, therefore was massively grateful when Irish businessman Darragh MacAnthony offered to buy the club.

“The chairman saved the club. I owned it and it was killing me.” Fry told The Independent.

“The pressure of finding £150,000 wages every month and realising everyone downstairs is relying on you to pay their mortgage or their rent was too much for me. I had four years of it and how I survived I don’t know.”

The fact the Barry is still here is some cause for surprise, with the charismatic Fry suffering two heart attacks in his period as owner.

Fry was placed in the role of Director of Football, putting him at the head of all transfer negotiations, which, given his history in the transfer market may have been a risky move. But Barry has excelled in his role, managing to negotiate huge fees for outgoing players, such as the £6 million sale of Britt Assombalonga.

Whilst at Peterborough, Fry faced the media more than he had at any other club. First, came ‘There’s only one Barry Fry’ documentary, which featured some of Barry’s fiercest dressing room ‘pep’ talks, which involved more swearing than a million stubbed toes.

Then in 2006, Sky One’s ‘Big Ron Manager’ series, in which Ron Atkinson acts as a trouble shooter for struggling teams, followed Fry’s last season in charge of The Posh. Atkinson’s aim on arrival was to help Peterborough achieve promotion from Division three, but only helped them to 10th. The show again, highlighted Barry’s fierce temperament in the dressing room.

But in 2010, Fry was able to use that temperament to get himself on one of the biggest reality TV shows of all time – Big Brother. Although he was only in it for a ten minute segment, Fry, rather predictably, was asked to give one of his scaving team talks to a bunch of celebrity has beens, who had been ushered in to a mock dressing room.

The housemates laughed uncomfortably as he laid into each of them with his usual healthy dollop of expletives. Only glamour model Nicola was spared a shouting at with Fry saying: “You look good out there, I want to see more of you – much more”.

But Barry’s most remarkable moment was much more of a family affair than his usual antics are.

When his daughter Amber, went into labour, her husband and ex-Posh striker Craig Mackail-Smith ran her a bath whilst he phoned the hospital. Barry, however, was downstairs watching the highlights of the England versus Scotland match, aware that his daughter had gone into labour, but naive to the level of commotion upstairs.

Speaking to Sky Sports News, Fry said he only became aware of his daughter’s state when he “heard all this screaming, and foul and abusive language” adding ironically; “I don’t know where she got it from”.

Barry rushed up stairs, and found his daughter having contractions in the bath, and Mackail-Smith trying desperately to hear the instructions on the other end of the phone. They soon realise that they will not be able to get her into hospital, so Barry and Craig are told to stand her up.

“I’ve seen the head and I’ve caught the head” continued Fry, saying that his old cricket coach would have been proud of his catch. Speaking of his father in-law’s reactions, Mackail-Smith said he’d “never seen him move so quick”.

Player, manager, chairman, owner, director of football, television star and midwife. Barry Fry is a real Swiss-Army man. A man who should be respected and treasured by the footballing community, There are not many men like Barry left in the game. People who are so immensely entertaining, and also have such an immense passion for the game.

For someone to still love the game so much, despite the game at times, treating him so poorly, and giving him two heart attacks, is a cause for massive respect.

 

 

FEATURED IMAGE: Alan Walter

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