‘FIVE, four, three, two, one — go!” The message is barked into the biting cold of a Tyneside night. Three players hit their stride, arms pumping, from the halfway line of a football pitch, driving to make the byline in six seconds, then they jog back to the halfway line and take a quick breather.
“Go!” The cry is repeated. Off they go again. Every step is watched and monitored.
By the sixth sprint the only thought of those men is to create some space in their lungs. Nostrils are cleared — anything to ease breathing.
“Come on, one more.” The three do one more. “Right, one minute recovery then we do seven more sixes.”
A player finds the energy to speak: “Jesus.”
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As they walk, Steve Harmison resets the stopwatch in his right hand. In his left hand he is carrying white and yellow cones. He is wearing a white woolly hat, running shoes and a hoodie underneath a black tracksuit bearing the crest of Ashington FC of the Northern League Division One, the ninth tier of English football.
Behind him are a set of fences and behind that is a crane that is putting in place the steel for a new 250-seat stand and clubhouse at Woodhorn Lane, to where the club moved in 2008.
Harmison, the former England fast bowler who terrorised Australia in the 2005 Ashes and retired in 2013, drives the trio one last time. He then walks over to the rest of his squad, a group of teachers, bricklayers, students, sports coaches and factory workers who are paid between £40 and £100 a week to turn out for Ashington. These players have been his for a month, since he entered the minefield of football management in an old mining heartland. Behind his dugout is a reminder of that history. “NUM Northumberland area support Ashington Community Football Club.”
Harmison had to move quickly after his appointment: Ashington were on the brink of a relegation fight. The first signing he made was his brother James, a commanding central defender. He picked the respected coach Ian Skinner, who was managing Bedlington, and Lee Anderson, who has played more times than anyone for Ashington, to marshal his dressing room.
Tonight they are playing Guisborough in the quarter-finals of the Northern League Cup and, in the dressing room before the game, Harmison delivers his final message.
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It centres on a second-half capitulation at Consett three days earlier. On that night, he was prepared to tear into the team after 2-2 at half-time became 6-2 at full-time. Skinner got there first, however.
“Saturday is not acceptable,” he tells the men in black-and-white stripes, one of whom has been signed from the Northern Alliance Second Division, just for the night.
“You’ve got to work out what you did wrong on Saturday because it’s not going to happen again on this watch.”
Then they are gone. Harmison, 36, follows his players out of the dressing room. Cricket has left his back in such a state that he cannot duck under the perimeter barrier that surrounds the pitch. He must climb over it.
A corner of the technical area will be his for the night. He rarely moves. Within a minute his men have a free kick and when it is fired in, wind assisted, he punches the air. The goal is disallowed. Permission to take the kick quickly had not been given. Towards the end of the first half Joe Moscrop scores. Skinner and Anderson celebrate but Harmison is more reserved.
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The second half is a struggle. The wind rises to a new level and there is defending to be done. “Stand him up,” he screams at a player. Goal kicks are flying into the air and heading back towards the Ashington penalty area. James Harmison starts taking them. He wins a barrage of long balls fired towards the home goal. A crowd of 140 are warmed by the spirit of their side.
The referee calls for seven minutes of stoppage time. “Get out the box,” shouts Harmison. In the closing seconds. Guisborough have a penalty claim. It is turned down. Harmison celebrates with his coaches. He has rarely looked ruffled.
In the dressing room afterwards he simply watches his players. “I didn’t say anything,” he says later. “I just sat. We looked at each other. They had done it all. You don’t have to say anything. No words can describe what happened Saturday. There are not words that can describe what happened tonight.
“They’re all congratulating each other, high-fiving each other. They’re in the semi-final of the cup. Why spoil it by sitting them down and telling them this, that and the other? Let them go.
“If you do say something, that spirit and energy they’ve built up immediately gets dissolved. Let them go with it.”
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It is the camaraderie he misses most from his playing days — it is for most former sportsmen. “I’ve always been asked if I miss playing. No, not one bit. I miss the dressing room like you’ve never seen.”
He let the Ashington players draw up their own list of fines. “I police it,” he says. “If someone steps out of line I will impose it. It’s your ship. If one starts rowing in a different direction I kick them back in.
“Why should 15 blokes wait for one? Why should 15 blokes wear something that one doesn’t want to? If anybody thinks they’re different they will be quickly reminded.”
We are sitting in the hospitality suite at Woodhorn Lane, just off the bar. Harmison points at a picture of the 1966-67 Ashington team. The stand in the background at Portland Park, their former home, is full. “Look there, that’s my dad,” he says. “He was 12 then. It tells you what Ashington means to all of us.
“He played here for years. He was assistant manager and played for other big non-league clubs, but this is where he started. They were in the Amateur Cup semi-final at Roker Park all them years ago. We have the programme from it at home. He was involved.
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“To the family it means a hell of a lot. It tells you a lot that in 1966 he’s there as a boy in the background and in 2015 I’m managing the place.
“Ashington is not a very big place so if you come from Ashington you support the cricket team and you support the football team. The northeast is like that. Managing anyone else would not have been of interest to me.”
He felt he could trust the committee at Ashington and its chairman, the Labour MP Ian Lavery. “With my background I wouldn’t want to put my head on the block if things go wrong.
“Did anyone from my family say, ‘Are you sure?’. Yes, James. He knew what was coming. My wife was fine, the kids are loving it. It all fell into place. It gave me a purpose to get out of bed.”