Former Sheffield United and Leeds United goalkeeper Paddy Kenny reflects on crazy career

To quote the last line of his new book, The Gloves Are Off, that career was “not bad for a fat b****** from Halifax.”

Rejected by his home-town club, it started at Bradford (Park Avenue) and saw him play for the Blades and Queens Park Rangers in the Premier League, and for the Republic of Ireland.

But Kenny’s autobiography is not all happy-ever-afters, laying bare mistakes and personal crises, too. There was a nine-month ban for taking an over-the-counter cough medicine containing a banned stimulant, the arguments – some forgotten the next day, others career-shaping – and boozy nights out, including one ending in a curry-house brawl and 12 stitches in a bitten eyebrow, plus the marital issues he asked to be left out of the Ireland squad to deal with them and was never asked back.

Kenny is unafraid of bringing up so many public highs and lows again.

“I wanted it to be an honest book and there were a fair few stories I wanted to put straight,” he says. “I wanted to tell everyone what a crazy career and life I’d had. I was a fiery little bugger but deep down I’m just a normal bloke. It made me realise how good a career I had.

“I was told by Halifax Town at 15 I would never make a goalkeeper – they said I was good, but I was just never going to be tall enough. I left school, got a job and played men’s football, getting knocked all over. When I did become a (professional) footballer I appreciated it more.”

Kenny was spotted and signed by Bury, who loaned him to Whitby Town. Part of his appeal was he never seemed to change.

“It’s been nice to stay that way but I was still going out as one of the lads, putting myself in positions I probably shouldn’t because I wanted to live a normal life,” he admits. “I don’t wish I’d changed this or that. I achieved a lot more than I thought at 15, 16.

“If I’d been a weaker person my career could have been done and dusted early. Then again, if I hadn’t been as fiery, would I have walked away from things?”

Four years at Bury earned a move to Sheffield United in 2002.

“The first season we lost in two semi-finals and the play-off final but we had a good season,” he says. “I got player of the year. Neil Warnock said the plan was the Premier League. It took three seasons but we got there.

“I still speak to three or four staff at Sheffield United. I always get tickets if I want to go back and I can’t say that about Leeds.

“I tried to buy some for one game last season and they wouldn’t even sell me them!”

The Premier League was not the fairytale the Blades hoped, relegated on goal difference after one season by a Carlos Tevez-inspired West Ham United. His was an illegal third-party signing but the punishment was a record fine, not a points deduction that would have kept the Blades up. Given £20m compensation by the Hammers, the Blades took 12 years to get back.

“It wasn’t until after it felt like we’d been robbed,” says Kenny. “But with two games to go we only needed one point and we’d have stayed up. If we had there’s more investment and they might have spent the next 10 or 15 years in the Premier League.”

Kenny stayed loyal to the Blades and they to him when he tested positive for ephedrine in 2009, giving him a new contract. In 2010, QPR activated his buy-out clause and Kenny reluctantly moved to London, signed by Warnock for a third time. He would do so twice more.

“Sometimes we got on like cat and dog but we’d have an argument and it was forgotten about,” says Kenny.

“When I signed for Leeds, I asked why he kept signing me and he said, ‘I know what I get from you and that’s what I want from a goalkeeper.’ At Rotherham he said, ‘Campy (Lee Camp) is in goal, just put a bit of pressure on him, you’ll be good around the dressing room.’

“Neil almost brought me up because he’d seen me from day one and he knew I’d bring him a little bit of trouble now and again but he had a lot of trust in me so he cut me a little bit of slack.

“He even said in the foreword to the book the days seemed to go quicker when I was around but I knew there was a time and a place.”

When Leeds and Warnock came calling for Kenny in 2012 it was not at the well-run club of Revie, Wilkinson or now Bielsa.

“I was so excited, I was a West Yorkshire boy so I knew so many Leeds fans,” says Kenny. “If Neil could get the club going it could be massive again but we were swapping owners, sometimes we didn’t get paid. (Massimo) Cellino took over and I couldn’t get why you’d buy a club like Leeds United and cost-cut – draining the swimming pool, turning the sauna and jacuzzi off, getting rid of cleaners and chefs, making players buy their training socks and bring our own dinners in.

“People will say what are you going on about but this is a professional football club penny-pinching. It’s nice to see the club has recovered, got stable owners and an unbelievable manager, squad and team.

“Leeds sort of killed me off. I damaged an artery in my foot on Boxing Day (2013) and prior to that I was playing really well. (Manager) Brian McDermott begged me to keep playing but I should have got myself right. When you only train once a week, you lose your sharpness and I let a goal in against Ipswich, David Goldrick from about 40 yards when I should have put my cap on it, I got beaten at my near post from a really tight angle against Sheffield Wednesday in a 6-0 defeat. I feel like Leeds fans only remember the last couple of months and don’t know I should never even have been playing.

“I ended up going to clubs on the back of keepers getting injured and my knees started hurting more. I’d played over 600 games and it had taken its toll. Mentally and physically, I was ready to retire.”

Whereas 71-year-old Warnock’s inability to walk away is a long-running joke – two weeks ago he passed 1,500 matches as a league manager – Kenny had no such problem.

“I went to Northampton as goalkeeping coach for seven months (in 2016-17) but I didn’t really enjoy it,” he says. “I enjoy what I’m doing now, I love weekends to myself. I’ve got my own little transport company, I do one-to-one coaching, I have the kids every other weekend – I’m in a good place. I’m excited about this book as well.”

The Gloves Are Off, by Paddy Kenny with Danny Hall, is published by Vertical Editions