'Breck', a book and a lifetime of Rotherham United stories

If John Breckin mentions it once, he mentions it a hundred times.

We’re speaking a few days before the launch of ‘Breck, My Life in Football’, the autobiography chronicling his everlasting love affair with Rotherham United.

Apprentice, left-back, coach, assistant manager as the other half of the Ronnie Moore dream team, trusted aide of present boss Paul Warne, matchday compere at AESSEAL New York Stadium, honorary life-president, legend ... Breckin has half a century of stories to tell in his own inimitable way.

“A big part of it is the eight wonderful years me and Ronnie had and some of the great miracles of Millmoor,” says the 67-year-old, casting his mind back to the Millers’ famous former home, the era of promotion glory and the seasons of beating the big boys.

“Ronnie’s done a little bit on me and I’ve done a bit on Ronnie.

“We don’t see as much of each other now because our families have taken us down different paths but when we do get together it just clicks and straightaway it’s just like the old days. We just bond. We did do as players. It’s never changed.

“There’s a chapter on a great friend, Seamus McDonagh, a Canklow lad who was our goalkeeper when I was playing. I couldn’t use some of his stories!

“Harry Redknapp’s in there, Sir Alex Ferguson as well. There’s a chapter on how we had to handle the chairman, Ken Booth. He was a great character and saved the club.

“I didn’t get on with Emlyn Hughes when he was in charge. I didn’t see eye to eye with him and we did fall out at one point. It’s all in the book.”

Breck, who made his debut in 1971 as a teenager and went on to make more than 500 appearances, has poured out his heart for a cause that is close to it.

Hundreds of £12 copies have already been sold and all profits are going to Rotherham Hospice where staff took such loving care of his wife, Denise, before she died of cancer 15 years ago.

“Me and Les are overwhelmed with how many people have bought it,” he says

Ah, Les, that’s the co-author and another of his big pals, Les Payne, the journalist who wrote about the Millers for The Advertiser and then The Star for nearly all of his distinguished career.

“People have said for a few years now that I should write a book,” Breck says. “It was in the lounge at New York and I told a story about an old fan, Derek Dalton, to a table where Dean Andrews (actor and Rotherham supporter) was sitting.

“Dean took me to one side and said: ‘Breck, there’s a good book inside you, Mate, It’s for your family in years to come when you’re no longer here.’ He said ‘He’s your man’ and he pointed at Les who was in the lounge as well.

“Me and Les have always been pals. I was always taught that your local-rag man is your best friend. When things are going badly in management, what he writes might just get you that extra three games in the job that you need to turn it around.

“We go back a long, long way. I used to phone him up and say: ‘We’re in for so and so. Do your homework. Don’t do anything in print yet but we’re in for Guy Branston so get ready to press the button.’”

Pre-Covid, Breck and I have been car companions on the way to matches many times in the past. He makes journeys fly by with some of the best tales you’ll ever hear accompanied by some of the worst impressions.

I’ve rung him at the house in Wickersley he shares with partner Jill and the laughs don’t stop for the next 40 minutes. He’s just as good company on the phone as he is on the road.

Writing up our interview is a new experience, though. Normally I’m cramming in as many details as I can but this time I find myself leaving them out so they can be told in much more vivid colour in his own tome.

He and Les have made a great team.

“We’ve become even bigger mates doing this together,” he says. “It’s been really enjoyable and it goes right up to today and me being in the lounge and helping out at the training ground. Me and Warney, it’s all in the book.

“The club have been brilliant with us during lockdown. They let us have the top floor at New York to work together socially distanced. I took my scrapbooks in and we sat three or four yards apart from each other, him at one end of the table and me at the other. We were on the top deck looking out at the pitch. We had four hours a day doing it.

“I’ve no idea how many hours we’ve put in. Les had done even more than me because he’s done all the research and writing. He had to get appointments down at the library. He had to book sessions. He’s been staying up while three o’clock in the morning working on it. He’s an encyclopaedia on Rotherham United.

“We’ve spent three and four hours on the phone in a single night just doing one chapter. I didn’t know what a hyphen was — I left school when I was 14, Mate — but I do now. I’ve learned where full stops go and everything.

“We hope people buy a copy. I’ve joked with him that if they enjoy it, it’s my book and if they don’t, it’s his book!”

I ask him about his favourite period with Rotherham and his reply takes in the entire gamut of his five Millers decades without ever coming up with a definitive answer.

Essentially, he’s loved virtually every minute of virtually everything.

The idea that he might ever sever his links with the club and head off into a quiet, well-deserved retirement brings a good-natured hoot of derision.

“I think they’ll have to carry me out of New York in a box, Mate,” he says. “I hope it’s a long time from now! I’m so lucky. I’ve had a massive bite of the cake.

“I went away from the club on two occasions — once as a player and once as an assistant manager — and both times I thought that was it. I’m like a boomerang, I just keep coming back. They can’t get rid of me.

“I knew every nook and cranny at Millmoor, every cubby hole, every hiding place. There wasn’t a cupboard I wasn’t aware of, not a drawer that I didn’t know the contents of.

“I’ve been blessed. I played for the club, I helped to manage them and I never thought I’d be made an honorary life-president and still be doing bits after all these years.”

Our time together is coming to a close. He tells me I’ll be receiving a free review copy but I pledge my £12 anyway,

It’s a small price to pay for a worthy cause and to a worthy man.

Apologies if this article is a little light on memories and anecdotes.

But, remember, they’re all in the book.

‘Breck, My Life in Football’ can be purchased at wwwverticaleditions.com, from Amazon, from the Millers’ Club Shop and from all good bookshops.

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HIS HAPPIEST TIME? HERE'S BRECK'S FULL ANSWER:

“It might have been when I signed for the club as a teenager. I loved being an apprentice, although we had a lot of hard work to do that wasn’t always connected to football.

“The 1980/81 promotion season was the highlight of my playing career. It was just a fantastic year. There were some unbelievable characters in the dressing room. You wanted them on your side, every one of them.

“All the players would come in an hour before training. The banter was brilliant.

“I won the Intermediate League Cup when I was in charge of the youth team. I got about eight kids from the youth team into the first team from scratch, from nowt. We didn’t even have a youth policy.

“Then I took the reserves and we won the league. After that, I was Phil Henson’s assistant manager with the first team and we won promotion.

“Then Ronnie comes in and what an eight years we had together.

“Now I’m back at the club holding the mic in the lounge before games and also doing a bit to help out Warney here and there. It was a privilege when Warney asked me to get involved when he became manager four years ago.

“The club were in a mess at the time and it was hard at first.

“There was so much to sort out. Things are so much better now.”