How cocaine claims ended ex-Sheffield United player's police career

Julian Broddle, aged 52, admits the force had no option but to fire him with the information they had at the time – but insists he had never knowingly taken drugs in all the years he was a footballer or a PC.

He blames an anti-stress ‘medication’ he rashly bought via the internet.

Broddle revealed how he was detained in a cell for nine hours, had his home and car searched, before eventually being fired.

The Dinnington father-of-three’s dismissal turned his life upside down.

But he has now decided to publish his memoirs, so people can make up their own mind about him and his life.

Broddle, who also played for Barnsley FC, says: “I had drug tests throughout my football career and never had a problem and I certainly wouldn’t have taken drugs as a front line police officer at 51. “

A dream come true

Julian Broddle achieved every football-mad youngster’s dreams.

A Sheffield United fanatic, he snapped up the chance to join their junior programme, training alongside his heroes.

The Laughton-en-le-Morthen-born youngster’s first manager was England World Cup hero Martin Peters.

Peters and his predecessor Ian Porterfield both showed faith in the former Dinnington Comprehensive schoolboy’s abilities. And he seemed destined for stardom.

“They were my team. Tony Currie was my hero” he said.

“As an apprentice, I used to clean Keith Edwards’ boots. He was so superstitious, he always wore the same boots in training and in games and I had to gaffer tape them together to keep them falling apart,” recalled Broddle.

“He was top scorer and scoring goals for fun then and didn’t want anything to change.

“When I turned professional, (he was a Blade from1981-1983) Keith asked if I’d continue cleaning his boots, and gave me a few quid to carry on.”

Broddle played a single first-team game, against Halifax Town.

“I had just hit 17 and was the youngest player to play for Sheffield United for 100 years.

“I was playing alongside my heroes, Keith, Tony Kenworthy, Colin Morris and Keith Waugh.

“I played at a wing-back position on the left, I was super-fit and Porterfield believed in me, and put me in the team...but looking back I was not ready for it.

“They brought in Jeff King (1981, from Sheffield Wednesday) who was a skinny Scot who sometimes slept in his car at night.

“I got too big for my boots and when Scunthorpe came in after me I signed for Allan Clarke (1983–1987.)

“I left United just as Paul Stancliffe came, he had a long career with the club (1983–1990.)

“At Scunthorpe, I was a tricky winger and scored a lot of goals.

“My first for them was at Bramall Lane on my birthday, against Waugh, another player I’d been an apprentice for. It was weird going back, playing under those floodlights.”

After Scunthorpe, he went to Barnsley, rejoining Clarke in the old Division 2.

“I did really well there. Everything clicked. We missed getting into the top league by one point.

“I enjoyed it, even when they played me at right back!”

Broddle played 399 games and scored 50 goals in all competitions. He retired in 1998, his last team was Ross County in Scotland.

A career in the police

After 17 years in professional football, Julian Broddle suddenly had a big hole in his life.

What was he going to do for a living?

After trying his hand at being a driving instructor he passed the entrance exams for the police service and was recruited by Greater Manchester Police, serving in Stockport and Ashton-Under-Lyne.

After a spell with Nottinghamshire police in Carlton-in-Lindrick and Ollerton, he then joined South Yorkshire, serving at Doncaster and Maltby.

Throughout his service, he remained a PC, saying: “I was never interested in going up the ranks.

“The police service was never the be all and end all. For me, football was that.”

He received two commendations, for saving a drowning girl in Liverpool and for his conduct after being attacked by masked armed robbers, armed with sledgehammers and a shotgun, in Farnworth, Bolton.

“I saw a lot of horrible things in the police. One of my colleagues was killed by Dale Cregan (a notorious drug-dealer.)

“ At one point in South Yorkshire, I was the only officer prepared to go on single crew at nights (no colleague with him) and I seemed to always be the first to turn up at sudden deaths.

“It was stressful, especially in a force that was having (image) problems with the Hillsborough disaster and the paedophile ring in Rotherham. “

He said pressure was building up on him, especially after his shotgun-attack experiences earlier in Manchester, which sometimes returned to haunt him.

“Then one day, I was asked to take a random test – I had been to a domestic in Brinsworth and went from there to north Sheffield for the tests.

I had drug tests throughout my football career and never had a problem and I certainly wouldn’t have taken drugs as a front line police officer at 51.

He gave breath, hair and urine samples.

“I went back to work as normal and then one day at Maltby nick my Inspector Helen Lewis asked me to go upstairs and see some professional standards officers.

“She was bright red-faced.

“One of them said: ‘Julian Broddle, you are under arrest for possessing a controlled drug.’

“POSSESSING? What were they on about? They’d got that accusation completely wrong and I was wondering what was going on.”

Broddle, now, questions the protocol of his arrest and subsequent searching of his house and career. But at the time, he was stunned by his sudden predicament.

“I was devastated. I remember looking into the eyes of my Inspector as if to say: ‘I haven’t done this.’

“They locked me up in a cell for nine hours.

“The sergeant there was really good to me and offered to keep the door of the cell open, but I was that embarrassed I asked him to shut it.

“I had locked up hundreds of people and now I had a card in my hands telling me my rights.

“I just couldn’t get my head round this, how it could have happened.

“But I have never taken cocaine or any other drug. So I thought they must have made a mistake with the samples.

“Years earlier I had rashly bought some drugs over the internet to deal with stress.

“It was a stupid thing to do and I can’t remember much about it other than they might have been from America. Lots of people do it.

“My culture was never to take a day off work and be sick and to deal with the stress I was under. Many years later, I found them and took some.”

He didn’t know at the time, he says, but they contained cocaine or some cocaine-like substance.

“I have never done drugs in my life. It would be crazy for a 51-year-old cop to start, knowing he could get tested.

“And yet it seems I had enough in my system to have been taking cocaine for three to four months.”

He says, at that time, with his mind “a blank” he hadn’t connected the pills he’d been taking with the cocaine charge and thought the forensic experts had got the samples wrong.

Broddle exercised his right not to be present at his disciplinary hearing.

“I was told that my Federation rep would give a speech and apologise.

“I just blanked it out of my head,” he said.

“Then on December 20, last year, I was driving from Hull when I got a call from my Federation rep John Fox who said [the equivalent of] ‘Merry Christmas, you are fired.’”

Since then Broddle has done some private investigation work, and has submitted himself to three drug tests, all of them showing he is clear.

Four years ago he started writing his memoirs about his 17 years in football, 16 in police.

It was mainly for his children, now aged 27, 25, 22.

Now he has updated it with the cocaine incident with a play-on-words title of Down the Line.

He hopes the book will help him find a new career.

“Lots of people have supported me, Allan Clarke has written the forward to my book, they believe me and I hope somebody will now give me a break and give me a chance.”
Broddle, who lives in Dinnington, doesn’t blame the police for firing him – with the information available to them, he says he would have done the same.

n Down The Line: The Julian Broddle Story is available now in paperback and Kindle format through Amazon.

No option but to dismiss

The police case against Broddle suggested he was a regular abuser of cocaine.

The Chief Constable Stephen Watson said: “While he has let himself and the force down, most importantly he has let the public down in failing to adhere to the standards expected of a police officer.”

He said there was no option but to dismiss Broddle.

He said Broddle’s previous good service as a police officer for the past 18 years merely highlighted ‘the folly of his actions’.