Mickey Thomas: Welcome to Wrectum

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1:09Mickey Thomas:Tee off on the Turkish Riviera, Europe's premier golf destination. with championship courses in Bilek and Antalya, luxury all-inclusive resorts and year-round sunshine. It is the perfect getaway under the Mediterranean sun. Play immaculate fairways designed by golf legends, then unwind beside stunning beaches and five-star hospitality. Search Turkey on TripAdvisor now to book your ultimate golf holiday in the Turkish Riviera. These days, Wrexham Football Club is a saccharine Disney Plus fairy tale starring white-toothed Hollywood megastars. But there was a time when the club's biggest hero was a champagne-swigging convict with a thirst for beauty queens and fake banknotes.

1:58His name was Mickey Thomas. From seshes with George Michael to screwdrivers up the Aris, this is the story of the Welsh George Best. Welcome back to The Upshot, I'm Jack. Hi Zach. Hello Jack. Hello and we are joined by absolutely nobody. We've got no guests. We've got no guests. We did hit up several Welsh people in attempts to get a Welsh guest on this but they all turned us down unfortunately so we'll be instead doing extremely questionable Welsh accents to try and fill in the gaps. We just watched a video on how to do a Welsh accent and realised it's a South Welsh accent and Mickey Thomas is from North Wales.

2:37And doesn't actually have much of a Welsh accent. No, he doesn't. But I think we're going to do it anyway. Yeah, for the benefit of the tape, we tried Ellis James. We tried the Bloke Off Extras. You know the one, the Welsh one. And yeah, I think... So we're a very nice emo back, but still rejected. Yeah. So if anyone's got any fun Welsh friends, we would love to have them on. Yeah. We just don't know any. We don't. And our previous brushes with Welsh readers and listeners haven't always gone down that well. We have, you know, I feel like we make jokes about lots of different national stereotypes in this or just jokes in general.

3:15And generally they go down well, but our encounters with Welsh fans haven't been that smooth. So there was, we did a story in our, I think it was in the build up to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. and at the intro of our like guide to the world cup email we did a very soft joke it was um the world's premier footballing nations and wales are off to qatar yeah we had a reply that was literally like fuck you you fucking cats loads of exclamation marks capitals yeah it was one of the angriest emails we've ever received um so so yeah looking forward to some more of those yeah we're making amends today we love love wales and the welsh people and mickey thomas who will have a slightly poorly executed accent today enjoy and mickey thomas is he's a real sort of don't make him like that no more character isn't he sort of a mainstay of football's slightly seedy 70s and 80s where like they made no money but they would be shagging beauty queens and boozing all week yeah i i mean it's funny because they they didn't have the sort of celeb glamorous lifestyle that footballers have today but they still did kind of move in those circles but but we're like relatively ordinary as people i think it's the same but without the money isn't it yeah basically and i feel like you could also tell that when you look at pictures of them because like now uh top football is obviously so like preened they got like plucked their eyebrows and you know their hair is immaculate whereas you look at footballers from that era and they're just quite like knobbly and you know they spend a lot of time out on rainy muddy pitches getting elbowed in the head by bulky defenders and it shows and then boozing all week and he's certainly we said the Welsh George best it's pretty accurate I mean even down to the like tricky little winger with a low centre of gravity maybe not quite as prolific but played for Man United played for Man United played for Chelsea played for Leeds some of the biggest teams.

5:19Boost hard into beauty queens, maybe not quite the same level of famous George Best's beauty queens, and got into some very funny capers, particularly at the end of his career, which we will get into, obviously. They're pretty wild. Something out of a sitcom. Should we get into it? Let's do it. Yeah, so Mickey was born in the village of Mochdray in North Wales in 1954. he grew up on what he describes as a rough council estate and left school at 14 unable to read unable to write even spell his own name but he was hella good at football and after a local factory owner bought him a pair of boots wrecks him end up taking him on as an apprentice there's something quite Dickensian I feel like in this in this scene of a factory owner forking out to get him a pair of boots A kindly philanthropist.

6:16Quite like sort of Oliver Twist. Please, sir, can I have some football boots? But those boots were fucking rock hard, tough. Yeah, yeah. He actually has a similar trajectory to Oliver Twist in terms of moving into a life of crime later on. Which we'll come to. Yeah. But anyway, he signed for Wrexham as an apprentice and makes his debut for the first team in 1972. He's 17. and that first season he really becomes a star. Wrexham win the Welsh Cup and he scores a lot of goals on that run. They win it again a couple of years later and even make it to the quarterfinals of the European Cup Winners' Cup.

6:57Oh, so they're like giants at this point. Yeah, they're playing in the third division. Oh, sorry, I thought they'd won the league there. Sorry, the top flight league. No, so they do actually. so that in 1978 they win the Division 3 titles they're playing in like the English Football League system as they are now so that is like it's the Welsh Cup that they win oh and that gets you into the Cup Winners Cup yeah I see yeah and then that's a spaggot entry I mean but this is sort of their previous golden age compared to now we mentioned in the intro the sort of the Ryan Reynolds Rob McElhoney yeah I think it's it's very much a different era but I do think Reynolds and McElhoney kind of want the same thing that that Victorian factory owner wanted which was like for all the locals to get together and be like, cool, Mr.

7:40McElwiney. I think you're the best damn thing about this little old town. Do you know what I mean? And instead, they've just got a stadium filled with obese Texans. Here be dragons t-shirts. But to be fair, they might be back in European competition in not long. Cool finals of Cup Winners' Cup. Again, for the Welsh Cup champions to do that speaks to a more romantic footballing age, I think. Yeah. and his starring performances for Wrexham are enough to attract the attention of none other than Man United who signed Mickey Thomas. He's 24 at this point so no whippersnapper but you know Man United they're in a bit of a state of transition at this point.

8:24They've just sacked their manager Tommy Doherty after he was caught having an affair with the physio's wife. Love it. Again more romantic era. Yeah. This is about five years after they'd been relegated with George Best. You know, when George Best leaves and they get relegated. I think this is about five years later. So they're back in the top flight. Back in the top flight. He's sort of a George Best replacement. Yeah, they've got the Welsh George Best, really. So, yeah, but, you know, they might not be the giant that they were in the 50s and the 60s. But it's still one of the biggest teams in the West as much as you know what we're talking about.

9:00and understandably Mickey's pretty nervous with the increased level of scrutiny and pressure that he's facing so he said I was petrified I had to pull over and be sick violently sick on the way to sign for them I would train with the first team then sit in the reserve team dressing room waiting for the first team to go home because I was so nervous around them this is getting worse and worse Mrs. Doubtfire went right up the long quotes are the long quotes are hard but he says I was intimidated yeah yeah I mean as as you would be as you would be again George Fess parallels when you talk like that when you speak in a multi-regional dialect west country Scottish and Welsh yeah I think the Man United players were mostly just confused yeah I can't understand a word What are you saying?

9:57So were they friendly, welcoming? They were not, by the sounds of it, a welcoming bunch to Mickey at all. So he said, My era was a tough era. You had to be a proper man. If you said you were a bit scared, they'd say, Fuck off. Knock you out. Right. They were just proper bastards. Yeah, I think different era again. Very. Just pretty rough. It's proper shoe shitting. Yeah. Dog eat dog. It's almost pre-shoe shitting. it's like just punch them in the face vibes, isn't it? I feel like shoe shitting is 80s. Yeah. Yeah. Then it becomes a bit more silly. Yeah. It's still, still. Back then it's just a bit more like be a fucking dick.

10:37Yeah. Prison rules. Yeah. Yeah. Sink or swim. Exactly. And so he ends up spending three years at Man United, makes 110 appearances altogether, but still never really settles. and it was Man United is where he first starts to booze much like George Best it's a way of easing his nerves and he says like it's two things it's easing pre-match nerves and also helping him deal with just this constant stream of gawping fans because you're mega famous you're playing for Man United he said you couldn't take a dump without someone slipping in your nose is that worse? yeah he said he said in his book

11:23he said in his book you couldn't take a dump without someone slipping an autograph book under your lavatory door again we're touring touring the UK with that accent he doesn't even have a Welsh accent this is just yeah well luckily because nor do I but yeah you know it's that thing again like footballers have the same level of fame then as now you just don't get paid for it You get all the bullshit. And he says he's boozing really hard. The night before a game, he said his standard was two to three bottles of wine. Two to three bottles the night before match? Yeah. That's paralytic. That is like, can you imagine how I'd feel awful?

12:03Yeah. Yeah. But when you're 24, it's a bit easier. Yeah, I suppose. It's a lot of booze. He says it gets to the point where he's even drinking right before matches. And he actually found he played better because he's more relaxed. Okay. Which, yeah, again, seeing a lot of George Best here. Yeah. And so his favourite place to booze in Manchester was a club called The Biz, which we've heard of before because it was run by Thin Lizzy star Phil Dynat's mum, Phyllis. So we talked about this on the George Best episode. George Best used to go there. It was mainly a place for shift workers to have like a post-work drink.

12:37But George Best would go there at the end of the night. And when everyone else was having their post-work pint, he'd be having an Irish stew and vodka at 6am on his own. Deeply depressing. but Mickey would booze there with Phil Liner and also Alex Higgins Hurricane Higgins okay yeah you've got George Best and Alex Higgins in there then you get a sense of the vibe sort of place where no one's checking what time it is anyway when he's not playing or boozing in Manchester he's driving back and forth to Wales especially after meeting the lovely Debbie Dean who had just placed she was quite a famous beauty queen she'd just finished fifth in Miss Wales.

13:16Wow. So, you know, you see what we're talking about. He's dealing with the creme de la creme. We are right at the very top here of Welsh beauty queens. And after just three months of dating, it's like a whirlwind romance, three months of dating, and then they elope and get married in a secret ceremony. But it was quite a tumultuous relationship, you'd be surprised to learn. The pair were pure tabloid fodder. There was a lot of cheating. So Mickey said that he used to climb out of windows during, he'd like go on away trips and do a lot of womanising and he'd have to climb out of the like team hotel window where they were staying and then he'd go out and spend all night with a girl come back having not slept and then just play straight away.

13:54So he's at it a lot and they're arguing a lot. Debbie takes exception to the fact that when at home Mickey's just watching videotapes of himself playing. I guess you'd call it analysis. Yeah. But she's so annoyed by this one time she just grabs, rips out their video player all the video equipment throws it out the window and then kicks a glass door and ends up needing 12 stitches in her foot. So it's one of them. Sounds a bit toxic. Yeah, one of them. A lot of arguing. Meanwhile, on the pitch, the 1980-81 season is another disappointing one for Man United. They finish eighth, which to be honest, they bite your hand off for this season.

14:31Nevertheless, Mickey does decide to stay at United. He signs a new contract and the fans have every reason to think he's going to be in it for the long haul. He tells the press, I've signed an extra year

14:44Mickey Thomas:I've signed an extra year on my contract which means I've got another four years here at least and I would be happy to stay here for life but that doesn't last long because InWalk's new manager Ron Atkinson wouldn't exactly call him a friend of the pod but a bit of a wrong in his old Ron in his old age do you not remember the racist Marcel Desaille incident we've talked about before oh that's Ron Atkinson and then he makes the documentary I actually want to do an episode on him at some point so in walks Ron Atkinson the new gaffer and he organises a pre-season tour to Kuala Lumpur it's quite an exotic destination for an 80s football club and the players are excited all of them except Mickey Thomas who hates flying hates going away from home he just wants to be back in Wales getting his tummy rubbed by the lovely Debbie and then sneaking out for a shag so anyway Mickey reluctantly goes to Heathrow with the squad anyway.

15:40And in the departures lounge, all his teammates are teasing him because they know he gets homesick. And so they're all winding him off about how long the journey is and all these exotic dishes that are waiting for him on the other end and how he's going to spend the whole month on the toilet. And in his book, Mickey recounts, this is a long quote. In his book, Mickey recounts,

15:59Mickey Thomas:I didn't fancy it one bet. So I told the lads I was going home. They burst out laughing and told me it was too late because my bags were on the plane. Then a few of them bet me a tenner each that I wouldn't do it. Anyway, my bags went to Kuala Lumpur for three months and I walked out of Heathrow with 50 quid in my pocket. And that was the end of my time at Man United. That wasn't a bad accident. Almost distracting. So yeah, three months is a pre-season tour back then. I could kind of see why. Yeah, I don't blame it. I don't fancy it. Three months. Yeah. but yeah I guess back then almost steamship era not quite I feel like in those days flying was pretty glamorous yeah true three months is a long fucking trip anyway it was indeed the end of his time at Man United because Ron Atkinson's so angry about this that he flogs him to Everton where it doesn't go very well he does three months then falls out with the manager there and then he goes to Brighton where it also doesn't go very well he just doesn't like it It's too far from Wales.

17:06Yeah, wasn't he? I think he was still living in Wales. I think his family was still back in Wales. He was traveling back and forth the whole time. Pretty much his whole career he was doing that. He was happy when he went to Everton because it's pretty close by. He can get back easily. And then moved on to Brighton. Yeah.

17:24Mickey Thomas:He says later, signing for Brighton was a mistake from the beginning. So I decided the worse I behaved, the better chance I had of getting out. I broke the club record for fines after going missing for about four weeks I like that that's the logic of getting out you could just maybe explain to the manager the family's back home struggling a bit, just handed a transfer request you're now not getting paid because you're getting fined on one occasion he goes missing and it turns out he's just fucked off to Marbella for a holiday mid-season beauty pageant he does come back for Brighton's final game of the season against Ipswich, where he's very unpopular with both sets of fans.

18:07So obviously the Brighton fans hate him because he's just been fucking off to Marbella and Wales. And the Ipswich fans hate him because a couple of years earlier, he'd scored this really controversial penalty against them and he'd winked at the camera to celebrate. And that wink had been used in the opening montage of Match of the Day for like ever since. And so he gets there and he's expecting loads of abuse from both sets of fans. So he walks out with cotton wool stuffed in each ear. Very nice. So after that, he does a couple of years at Stoke. She ends up splitting up with his wife, Debbie, during that period, which he puts down to a clash of personalities.

18:44She's got a different story. You'll be surprised to hear. So apparently this poncho for disappearing for weeks on end wasn't just a football thing. So she said, she Welsh as well. Yeah, Miss Wales, fifth place, mate. How can we forget? She's a Welsh icon. It wasn't just a wife he wanted, but a combination of a mother and a slave. I was the last one to know about his birding and his boozing. Maybe that's closer to North Welsh. I have no fucking idea. We don't know. Should emphasize Mickey Thomas does not have much of a Welsh accent. Debbie Dean, Mike. Debbie Dean possibly does. Birding and boozing.

19:20Oh, so he's actually doing the thing of like, I'm going out for milk and then just fucks off. I think so. George Best did a lot of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And do you remember John Fury, Tyson Fury's dad? We've talked about him. he like went out for milk or eggs or something and came back like three months later he's been in marbella didn't he have the way he told the story was if it was always as if he was on like jake humphrey's like high performance podcast of like how did you like come out of this there's like i woke up i had one moment i woke up two brasses in the bed and i realized it's time to go home two brasses in my bed yeah yeah it was like it was like this really inspirational story.

19:58Overcoming hardship. Yeah. You've just been shagging prostitutes in Spain three months with your wife's at home with a kid waiting for you to bring the fucking milk back. inspirational story. With that genre of cheating has basically disappeared I guess because of the phones. Do people just pretend they're going to the shop and never come back now? I don't know. Let us know. You've experienced that. You are currently on the run. It'll be a happy tale.

20:26Should we do a Reader's Tales? Yeah. I'd quite enjoy that. That's a good Patreon. That is a good one. I think once you take out the I am a famous sports star glamour and it's just you being a piece of shit to your other half, I don't know how fun it'll be, but try us. That is actually a good Patreon. We should do that. Just Reader's Wild Stories. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. Anonymized, obviously. Yeah, we'll do it on Patreon. Let us know if you've got any. Yeah. Email in. Anyway, despite his marital issues, Mickey has a bit of a renaissance when he's at Stoke and bags himself a move to second division Chelsea.

21:05So their chairman, Ken Bates, has quite serious reservations about signing Mickey. His reputation precedes him. He knows that at Brighton he just fucked off to Marbella mid-season. But the manager is keen and eventually Ken relents and agrees to sign him. and he's driving Mickey to Stamford Bridge in his Rolls Royce to sign the contract and they stop at the traffic lights and Ken turns to Mickey and he says I've been told by many people that you are trouble and Mickey just leans back in his seat and then he spots this attractive girl crossing the zebra crossing in front of them and she's waving back at them and he leans back and he says I'd love to spend a few nights with her and Ken looks back at him and he says that young man is my future daughter-in-law she's engaged to Ken's son yeah exactly lovely so yeah not the best start but on the pitch it is a good start because on his debut against Sheffield Wednesday Mickey scores twice and knocks out a defender when the ref's back is turned just lamps him lovely which obviously goes down well with the fans.

22:24Off the pitch, though, it's not all good. So Mickey says that he basically wasn't earning enough to afford to live in London. So he's still commuting back and forth from North Wales each day. And when he wasn't able to travel, he was staying at this homeless hostel around the corner. Well, because the footballers are just not making any cash, clearly. Presumably. Or he's spending it all. Yeah. so it's basically the most basic hotel you can yeah even like a dorm I guess so yeah something out of like the road to Wigan Pier it kind of makes me think you know I don't know if it's true or not that the origin of the phrase hangover is those Victorian hostels the cheapest form of accommodation is just a rope yeah you can just fall asleep leaning on you know the ones I mean I've seen those I'm just picturing that yeah it's probably a bit better than that so you've got to play West Ham tomorrow um he actually said that other times he'd borrow the the keys to stanford bridge from the groundsman and would just sleep in there so he said i'd sleep in the referees room or in the dressing room i wasn't on my own though i had some female companions right okay um so he actually claims that he wants shagged a girl in the center circle of stanford bridge i can believe that yeah is it an attractive invite back you're at a nightclub and then the guy's like do you want to come back to the the referee's room at Stamford Bridge probably it's quite I think it's probably it sounds more glamorous than it is especially back back then the dressing room was just like freezing cold like a wooden bench do you want to help me clean someone's boots with a toothbrush yeah yeah the toilet's overflowing stinks of like sweaty boots yeah but you know that's one for one to tell the grandkids anyway um actually another time he's he's staying at this homeless hostel and ends up being invited to a party at george michael's house um and obviously when george michael comes calling you don't say no you can't and he spends the whole night boozing with him and andrew ridgely is there as well uh and then gets dropped back to the hostel in a limo at 4am and then plays against West Ham the following afternoon.

24:42Love it. Could they not, having dropped him in the limo, could they not see that maybe we should just put him up at ours in a spare room for a bit? I do love this thing though of him going foot in both camps. Yeah. It's quite sort of like rakish Oscar Wilde. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, I wonder, can you imagine staying big at a homeless hostel and then Mickey Thomas just walks in? Yeah, gets out of George Michael's limo. Yeah. He only lasts about a season at Chelsea, though, and then a new manager comes in and quickly clears him out, does a couple of stints at other English clubs. A new manager comes in on his first date, Vicky's just asleep under the bench.

25:19Are you not supposed to be playing the wing? I think we'll move him on. And so he sort of travels down the football pyramid a little bit before washing up in Kansas, where he turns out for the Wichita Wings in the newly formed Major Indoor Soccer League. So this isn't exactly the MLS. It's a six-a-side league with rolling subs. But you know, this is like when they're trying to really push soccer in America. And it's highly gimmicky, but quite good fun. The Wichita Wings fans insist on calling him Mickey English, which really grates on him as a proud Welshman. And apparently he's constantly playing this.

26:00Can't you hear my accent? Yeah, I think they literally don't know what Wales is. They're not familiar. Is this the same era when George Best is there, Pele, similar sort of time? Yeah, Beckenbauer. But they're playing in the North American Soccer League. They did play 11-as-a-half. They're not playing in sports halls. I think it's the same sort of timings, isn't it? They're just trying to do sort of basketball style, right? Yeah, I don't really. I think they're like, we need to simplify this and make it more sort of just like silly. It doesn't really work out. Most of the teams in the league fold.

26:30and after about a year and a half, Mickey's back in the UK where he makes the romantic move back to where it all began. In 1991, at the ripe old age of 37, Mickey Thomas rejoins Wrexham. Welcome back to Wrexham, who are now in the fourth tier. They've slumped down. Yeah, they have slumped down. But there are some real highlights. So Mickey's second stint there is extremely famous. It's probably the three things he's most famous for are the three things that happen in his second stint at Wrexham. So first of all, in January 1992, he scores his greatest ever goal when Wrexham knock reigning top flight champions Arsenal out of the FA Cup.

27:11It's even now considered one of the great all-time giant killings. And Mickey is the star. He scores a rocket of a free kick. We've got a clip here. Now, 11 is Phillips. Five there is the captain, Mickey Thomas. Mickey Thomas feels he's got a score to settle against Arsenal. Lost in a cup final against him when he played for Manchester United. and it's Thomas who takes it. Oh, what a goal, Mickey Thomas! Superior. He's done it. The magic little man at the venerable age of 37 has produced a sensational goal.

27:47They're going absolutely wild. Slip the fires. Yeah, great goal. Screamer. Just sort of like direct diagonal. I mean, no curve on it as far as I can tell. None of that shit. But what's interesting about that clip as well is it starts to feel, it's football like a bit more as we youngsters know it, isn't it? It feels a little bit more Sky Sports. It's a famous game. It's a famous goal. But that fine moment is eclipsed by the second thing his stint at Wrexham is remembered for, which is the time he was stabbed 15 times in the backside with a screwdriver. Yeah, up the Aris. So one night, Mickey is in the corner of an idyllic farmer's field, making love to a beautiful but married woman on the backseat of his motor.

28:34And, you know, they're getting down to it when suddenly two masked men appear at the window, banging on them. Hello, boyo. What's this? They smash the windows, drag him out and start stabbing him in the arse cheek with a screwdriver. With a screwdriver. I feel like screwdriver is actually worse than a knife because it's blunt it's a fucking horrible you know flat top Phillips or flat head which is worse I'd say Phillips Phillips is the full point yeah Phillips is the point flat head I reckon flat head's worse do you think yeah because it's blunter still yeah I suppose it's blunter yeah depends how sharp it is and also then if they twist the flat head yeah true yeah yeah the flat head's sort of At least it's pointy.

29:23Yeah, I think you want Phillips head. Yeah. I think. Yeah. If anyone is going to do that to me, who's the guy who's not threatening us, but you know what I mean? Oh, Kian Harrow. Yeah, if Kian Harrow is listening. Kian Harrow is listening, yeah. I choose Phillips head. At least let me have that choice. Take you to his toolbox. I think there's no other tool in the box that I'd rather. No. I don't want any kind of saw or pliers. No, saw would be horrible. Pliers would be horrible. Hammer? Hammer. Hammer to the arse. Probably the arse is the best place to be stabbed, isn't it? Yeah. Cheek. Anyway, back in a farmer's field in Wrexham.