John Burridge represented the majority of English football clubs in his near-30 years in the game. Two of them, of course, were Crystal Palace and this week’s opposition, Wolverhampton Wanderers. Before the match, we got Budgie on the phone from his villa in Oman.
Over 40 minutes, he covers everything from Kenny Sansom to Ali Al-Habsi, gymnastics to the English sun and obstructive groundsmen to Lionel Messi. There’s a lot of laughing and a lot of swearing. We hardly ask a question.
He drinks a green tea, flips our call to a FaceTime and takes an enforced break through laughter after a story we cannot reproduce.