Why life is a tale of goals, Frankenstein and mirth

PICTURE the scene. It's a wintry Saturday afternoon in December 1986 and a group of delirious footballers are cavorting about in a sunken bath deep within the bowels of Ewood Park.

The players of Chorley Football Club are celebrating the finest result in their history after they've just held Preston North End to a 0-0 draw in an epic FA Cup second round tie, a gripping drama played out in front of 16,000 breathless fans.

Suddenly, every national newspaper in the land wants a piece of these plucky part-timers from the Multipart League, who first hit the headlines when they dumped Wolverhampton Wanderers out of the famous old competition in the previous round.

As Ken Wright and his team of plumbers, decorators and candlestick makers revel in their 15 minutes of fame, the home dressing room is in a state of chaos.

Somewhere lost within the clouds of steam, a band of fearless photographers risk a soaking from the shower of exploding beer cans as they grapple to get the picture all their sports editors are craving.

Amongst the tangle of naked bodies and drooping moustaches, the 'man' demanding all the media attention is a rather curious looking figure.

Perhaps it's his sombre garb, or the fact he stands just two feet tall.

But legend has it the Frankenstein doll which John Hughes and his Chorley team-mates adopted as their mascot that season possesses a certain mystical power.

At the beginning of that campaign, the club were in dire straits and teetering on the brink of financial ruin.

Then one day a strange-looking doll was discovered under a pile of old rubbish at the back of a store cupboard in the main stand at Victory Park, and from then on Chorley's fortunes suddenly took a turn for the better, culminating in a money-spinning FA Cup run and promotion to the Vauxhall Conference a season later.

"I can still see us now on the team bus with that little Frankenstein doll. They're great memories," said Hughes, who recently returned to Chorley as the club's new manager.

"We had some great characters in that team, people like Gary Buckley, Steve Phillips and Phil Marsden, and that was a big part of our success at the time.

"Now I want to get a bit of that old spirit going again because you always need to bring a bit of character to a football club and that's something Chorley have been missing lately."

Hughes's decision to quit Great Harwood and return to his roots will see the 41-year-old reunited with his friend and mentor Ken Wright, who has been something of a father-figure to him throughout his career.

Wright was the manager at Chorley for the majority of the six years Hughes spent there in the mid-to-late Eighties, and the pair also worked together in subsequent spells at Horwich (alias Leigh RMI) and Accrington Stanley.

Now they're hoping to re-create the old magic all over again, but this time with Wright as chairman and Hughes as the manager.

"When I first told Bill Holden (the Great Harwood chairman) I was going to Chorley he was gutted," said the new Magpies chief.

"If it was anywhere else, I wouldn't have gone but it's Chorley and I've known Ken Wright for 20 years.

"When I first spoke to him about taking over I said 'you keep cropping up in my life' and I suppose he's become a bit of a step-father to me in a way.

"Before I met him I was always moving about but now Ken says to me 'wherever I lay my hat, that's your home'".

As I speak to Hughes on the patio of his house overlooking Pendle, it's easy to see why Wright has played such a prominent role in his life.

Hughes was never particularly close to his own parents as he grew up in Longsight and then Gorton, two of the tougher neighbourhoods in Manchester.

As a kid, his talent as a footballer stood out from an early age and it wasn't long before he broke into the Manchester Schoolboy side and then the England Schoolboy set-up.

Inevitably, the scouts started sitting-up and taking notice but Hughes's rough background put off many would-be suitors.

Then one day, the biggest club of them all came calling -- Manchester United.

"My dad was always pushing me as a kid and one day we went to see Dave Sexton at United.

"I remember him coming into the room and saying 'come into my office because I want you to sign'.

"I deliberated before eventually signing but in those days your parents had to sign, too, and my dad didn't.

"I don't know why he didn't. Whether it was the money thing or not, I don't know.

"When I see him now he says 'we should have done this and that', but I've no regrets.

"I trained with the likes of Mark Hughes and Martin Buchan, Joe Jordan and Paul McGrath so when I look back now at least I can say I've been there.

"My dad pushed me but I'm glad he did, otherwise I wouldn't be where I am now."

Hughes did go on to have a brief professional career, first signing for West Brom then moving onto Bury, where he played a handful of first team games before an injury cut short his spell at Gigg Lane.

Then he went into non-league, initially joining Altrincham, before a move to Chorley saw him develop into one of the classiest full-backs outside the Football League.

There were opportunities to return to the full-time game but no-one met Chorley's asking price so Hughes ended up spending a total of six years at Victory Park.

When he eventually left at the end of 80s, he went on to play for a number of other clubs in the area, notably Accrington and Rossendale United.

Then came the move into management at Great Harwood and his two years at The Showground proved an excellent grounding.

Two successive top-six finishes helped to revive the ailing club's fortunes, culminating in promotion to the North West Counties League First Division at the end of last season.

During that period, Hughes also built up a reputation for honing young talent, the most notable example being Matt Derbyshire, the precocious teenage striker Harwood sold to Blackburn Rovers for £20,000.

Now he's hoping to do a similar job at Chorley, who have fallen on hard times of late.

He said: "Chorley should be as big as Accrington Stanley and, potentially, they're even bigger so we should be looking at what Stanley have achieved and aim to follow it."

It could be time to dig out little 'Frank' again.