Interview ~ Chris Vinnicombe

After the Grimsby F.A.Cup Match I interviewed, Chris Vinnicombe.

Ted: Vinny you're now in your third season at WWFC. How are you enjoying your football in Bucks? 

Vinny: It's good, Neil Smillie signed me and since I've been here I've been very impressed with the club. It’s very friendly, it is a family club. Everybody around the club will speak to you nobody will fob you off; they're all very friendly.

Ted: Tell us about your career before Wycombe Wanderers. Particularly your spell with Rangers.

Vinny: I started at Exeter City, I did two years YTS and in my second year apprenticeship I signed professional. Halfway through my first year as a pro Rangers came in for me and signed me. Graeme Souness took me up to bonny Scotland to play for 'the old firm'. 

Ted: How did you find it playing Scottish Football?

Vinny: it took me a while to get going up there, the first game I actually saw up there was Rangers v Celtic at Ibrox. There was forty two and a half thousand supporters there and I stood behind the dugout and I was flabbergasted at the pace and the noise because you couldn't hear the person next to you. You had to shout to make yourself heard. After I settled in it was a good experience even though I didn't play all that many games. I played twenty-six games and when Graeme Souness left to go to Liverpool and Water Smith bought David Robertson from Aberdeen and then my chances were limited but it was a very, very good experience. Learning about Scottish football and the whole Rangers/Celtic thing, it's a really big thing up there. We knew a family up there who had two sons, one supported Rangers and the other supported Celtic. These boys shared a bedroom and one half was blue and the other half green, duvets and everything had to be in their colours. Of course the argued all the time when an 'Old Firm' game was on. So it is a big thing, even in close families.
After four and a half years up there I went to Burnley, Jimmy Mullin signed me an I spent four years there and then I was at a loose end until Neil Smillie invited me to come down and do pre-season training and have a look at the club and he'd have a look at me and we'd take it from there. We I came and did the pre-season he seemed impressed and asked me to sign.

Ted: How much longer is your Contract here for?

Vinny: I've got until the end of next season.

Ted: Will you be looking for an extension?

Vinny: Hopefully yes, if it keeps going the way it is and the way I'm playing at the moment. If my contract was up at the end of this season I'd hope that I'd get another contract.

Ted: We've slipped a bit in the league, what's the mood like amongst the players?

Vinny: it's still good, the gaffer has been saying "don't let your heads down" and today we're still only six points off sixth place. We've got games coming up that we can win both home and away, we've played everybody in the league and nobody frightens us. There isn't a team who we would say thing like "oh! We're playing them and they're a really good side". There isn't anyone we fear, we've beaten Walsall and Millwall and taken points off other 'top' sides. 

Ted: We never seem to do well against the lower sides, for instance this Friday we're playing Luton, and we've never beaten them, which for me is frustration as I lived in Luton for over twenty years and some members of my family still live there or support them. I am sick to death of Saturday evenings, the phone rings and I get laughing down the phone, it's making me very depressed.

Vinny: Maybe this Friday it'll change and you can laugh at them.

Ted: When you first joined us, a Burnley supporter told us that you were a 'sick note' did you suffer a lot of injuries whilst you were there?

Vinny: My first season that I was at Burnley I had my jaw broken in three places from an elbow, so I can't call that an injury as such, (Ted: I'd call it an injury) but it is because I'm not playing but how can you say I get injured when someone comes at you with an elbow and smashes your jaw? And I did break my ankle, 'HERE' playing for Burnley.

Ted: that wasn't one of our 'little' wins over Burnley was it?

Vinny: Erm! The one that sticks in my mind was the 5-0 Tuesday night game here.

Ted: Yes, we'd been having a bad season until that game and then everything changed.

Vinny: Mickey Bell got the ball in his own box and ran the full length of the pitch, crossed it and somebody scored. That summed up the night for us.

Ted: Yes, that was a great night for us, we really enjoyed it. Where do you now call home, do you live locally or do you travel in?

Vinny: I still travel in from Brackley which is only forty-five minutes up the M40, it's just one junction up from Bicester, it’s not that far.

Ted: Where were you born?

Vinny: Exeter. Opposite St James's football park so I used to watch all their games from the top window.

Ted: You are obviously married what is your good ladies name and where did you meet?

Vinny: Her name is Paula, she is a care assistant and she is involved in health care, she works a lot in Hospitals, Nursing Homes and paces like that. She works a lot with the elderly and a lot with special needs, it's a job se really enjoys. At the moment she's doing a massage course and hopefully after that she'll do a 'Sports Massage' course, which take her into football clubs doing massages on players.

Ted: And you don't mind that?

Vinny: Well if that's what she wants to do.

Ted: What about your kiddies?

Vinny: I've got two little girls, the eldest is Page and she's six and the youngest is Abby-Rose and she'll be four in February. They're both little horrors, no! They're both good a gold really.

Ted: How about other family, mum, dad, brothers and sisters?

Vinny: Obviously mum and dad, who live in Exeter. I have one elder sister who is married and is expecting a baby in March. Paula's family is also from Exeter and that's where we met. We actually met at a football game when I was playing for Exeter City. Her brother was mascot; I was injured at the time and had to present him with his plaque at half time and it took off from there.

Ted: Do any of your family come to watch you play?

Vinny: Now and again my Dad and my sisters husband travel up when they've got the weekend off. He's been here a few times and when we play at places like Swindon and the two Bristol Clubs they come up, but he's getting on a bit now, he feels the cold.

Ted: How do you feel about your current form?

Vinny: I'm quite happy about it at the moment, it's the best season I've had since I've been here and the football has been going really well for me.

Ted: We certainly seem to be using you down the left and overlapping a lot.

Vinny: Yes! The gaffer has said when he has his team talks that I do it naturally, but you can never do it naturally as such, but you have to be at the right place at the right time to get the ball out on the left. He encourages me and Mark Rogers or Ben Townsend when he plays to get down the flanks and give the option to get the ball into the box, which seems to be working for me this season.

Ted: You've not scored since you've been here, does this bother you at all?

Vinny: I haven't scored for quite a while!

Ted: I seem to remember a penalty attempt, what happened there and how come you get to be the penalty taker?

Vinny: Brownie missed a penalty and the gaffer said we'd have a penalty competition in training to find out who'll take the penalties. I came second to Martin Lee who actually won it but as he's not going to be playing that often it came down to me to take the penalties. Obviously the keeper moved otherwise it would have gone in. (lots of laughter).

Ted: Who would to say was the hardest/most difficult player you've ever played against?

Vinny: Roy Keane! I was playing for the England under 21 side and we were playing the Republic of Ireland under 21 at Bradford City's ground. He was playing right midfield and I was playing left back and we just kicked lumps out of each other the whole game. I felt as if I'd been ten rounds with Mike Tyson let alone Roy Keane.

Ted: Hopefully it was shaking hands afterwards?

Vinny: Yes, of course it was, we swapped shirts, it was good.

Ted: Who has influenced your career the most?

Vinny: My dad! I was a couple of hours old and he'd bought me a little football and he was swinging me to kick it. When I was about eight or nine he got me into the local boys club and encouraged me that way and when I was fifteen or sixteen I was playing Saturday and Sunday morning and afternoons, I couldn't get enough of football. And then during the week it was before school, break-time, lunchtime and after school. It was football, football, football it was all I wanted to do.

Ted: When you were growing up, did you have any particular boyhood hero? 

Vinny: I've always like Liam Brady, especially when he was at Arsenal. I thought then that he had the best-left foot ever. But now everything is technical, it's all down to diet and different stretches everything has gone totally technical. Back then it was fish 'n' chips to eat on the bus back from a game and cans of beer to drink.

Ted: Do you have any particular friends among the players here at Wycombe?

Vinny: I room with Mark Westhead when we go away on trips and he actually came here at the same time as me so we struck up a relationship straight away. We used to be in the Hotels together and spend the afternoons together. He has now moved to Brackley as well, he moved there last year so when we're both fit we tend to travel in together.

Ted: What are you tastes in music/food/movies?

Vinny: I like a bit of everything really, foods wise I like Pasta, Jacket Potato's and lots of vegetables. I do like prawns, prawn cocktail is my favourite but I don't have too much of that because the sauce is a bit fattening.

Ted: Just eat the prawns then?

Vinny: Yes! But it's not as nice. In music I like a bit everything really. I like from Bon Jovi to Craig David even Madonna. Films, I like action films but then again if it's a good 'soppy' film I'll enjoy that as well. I sit down with Paula to watch a film, we get the tissues out and she goes to sleep and I finish watching the film on my own.

Ted's Notes: This interview was conducted at Adams Park after the F.A.Cup against Grimsby Town. I have to give my utmost appreciation to Vinny for sparing the time for me to interview him and I must say that I found him charming and helpful.