Hammered - I Played Football for West Ham, Man City and Everton… Then the Police Came Calling and My Life Fell Apart. Mark Ward
Chesters notching the other goal. Although my natural position was wide right, Kingy used me as both a striker and midfielder and the two different roles certainly enhanced my overall understanding of the game.
That opening round success sparked a superb run in our quest to reach Wembley. After further victories against Croydon, Bangor City (after a second replay) and a quarter-final win against Blyth Spartans, which also required a replay, we reached the semi-final again, this time against Dagenham. We were really wound up for the home-and-away tie and desperate not to experience the bitter disappointment of missing out on a trip to the Twin Towers for the second time in a year. We just edged the first leg at home – 3-2 – and although we knew the return clash at Dagenham was going to be tough, the Vics players were determined to get to fulfil our manager’s dream of reaching ‘Treasure Island’.
Dagenham were a good side and, once again, Kingy put me up front for a game played in front of a crowd of more than 3,000. I just wanted one chance to take us to Wembley and in the second half it came my way. I pounced on a through ball played over the top of the Daggers’ defence. The pitch was hard and bobbly and as the ball bounced in front of me, it didn’t fall kindly in my stride.
I’ll admit it now, what I did next was cheating.
I used my hand to deliberately guide the ball forward into my path, before hitting an unstoppable right-foot shot that rocketed into the top corner of the net.
It wasn’t blatant – nothing as obvious as Maradona’s ‘Hand of God’ – but a few of the Dagenham players appealed and I fully expected the referee to disallow the goal. But my team-mates mobbed me, screaming ‘We’re on our way to Wembley!’ And we were. My decisive, illegitimate goal was allowed to stand.
I was 20 years old and I’d already enjoyed a great year. I‘d married my childhood sweetheart, somehow passed my driving test and I’d just found out that I’d been included in the England semi-pro squad. And, best of all, on March 30, 1983, I became a father when Jane gave birth to our beautiful daughter Melissa.
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I was determined to progress and make a full-time return to professional football, to resume where I’d left off at Everton. I just needed a manager to take a chance on me.
With money tight at home, I pressurised Northwich to increase my wage to £60 a week and I also pushed the club to help me get a job. They came up trumps. One of Vics’ directors, Alan Gleave, was sales director of the local Roberts Bakery, who were the club’s main co-sponsors.
He created a role for me at the bakery as a checker, keeping tabs on all the bread trays that left the large site at Rudheath each morning. The bakery had been losing thousands of these trays each year but I found it an easy job.
I earned £120 a week at the bakery and, added to what I was getting as a player at Northwich, life became more manageable. I enjoyed getting up early to do a day’s work and with our Wembley date looming, I became a bit of a local celebrity at the bakery.
The build-up to the big day – May 14, 1983 – was the most exciting time at the club since Vics reached the fourth round of the FA Cup in 1976-77, having beaten league sides Rochdale, Peterborough and Watford before going out to Oldham Athletic at Maine Road. We were rigged out with special suits for the grand occasion while the wives and girlfriends all got together to travel in their own bus to the game. There were constant rumours and reports linking me with Football League clubs before the end of the season – Crewe Alexandra and Scunthorpe United were mentioned in the press – but nothing distracted me from my burning ambition to be a Wembley winner.
In the tunnel before kick-off it was awesome, enough to make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I stood there, gazing up at the famous Twin Towers and kept telling myself that I wanted to be the best player on the pitch. My moment had arrived and I didn’t intend to blow it.
Stan Storton, the Telford boss who had managed at Northwich in 1980-81, had done his homework. In the very first minute their left-back, Tony Turner, hit me hard and late with a disgraceful, over-thetop tackle that left my shin in a mess. A player would be banned sine die if he committed a tackle as violent as that today but it was clearly a deliberate ploy by Telford and Turner to put me out of the game. I cried out in anger at the realisation that I’d been reduced to a virtual passenger for the rest of the game.
I was gutted not just for myself, but for all my family and friends who had travelled south to support me. I just couldn’t compete. We ended up losing the game 2-1 and I was bitterly disappointed. So much so that when the final whistle blew, I started to walk towards the tunnel. I remember an FA official trying to drag me back, saying: ‘You can’t just walk off, you’ve got to collect your medal.’
I just ignored him and kept on walking. I honestly didn’t care about a loser’s medal. I didn’t want it.
When I reached the quiet solitude of the dressing room, I stripped off and got in one of the big individual baths to soak and mope. It seemed an age before my valiant team-mates, who had effectively played the whole game as 10 men, joined me back in the dressing room. I felt that I’d let them down.
Kenny Jones, Vic’s all-time leading appearance record-holder, the man who had been quick to stick up for me when that nutter from Barnet tried to end my career, handed me my medal as I lay in the bath. I appreciated his gesture but I didn’t want it and flung it to the other side of the dressing room.
Kenny went over to pick up my medal and handed it to me again. He said: ‘If I can accept a medal, then so can you.’
His words made me come to my senses. I had so much respect for Kenny, both as a player and as a man. He ended up playing for the club 961 times, so who was I to petulantly toss my Wembley medal away like that, as if it meant nothing?
We drowned our sorrows late into the night after our Wembley woe. It would have been a fairytale finish to a great year for me if we’d won the FA Trophy but it wasn’t the end of the world – either for me or Vics. Just 12 months later, the club returned to Wembley and after drawing 1-1 with Bangor City in the FA Trophy final, they won the replay at Stoke City’s aptly named Victoria Ground. I was absolutely delighted for the players, supporters and everybody involved with this great, little club.
I don’t have a great number of mementoes from my playing career but I do still have a copy of the Northwich Guardian’s souvenir cup final special and the club who gave me a route back into league football will always have a place in my heart.
Just before the start of the 1983-84 season I received a phone call at home. It was the call I’d been waiting for – from a legendary centre-forward who I knew all about as a former Everton and England star. He was by then a young, up and coming Football League manager and he wanted to meet up for a chat in a Liverpool pub.
His name was Joe Royle, the boss of Oldham Athletic.
OUR Billy was well into boxing and I’d work out with him and the other lads at the Whiston Higherside ABC Boxing Club in my efforts to be as fit as possible before the start of the 1983-84 season.
Their fitness regime was very gruelling and although I struggled to keep up with the others in the gym, I stuck at it because I knew it was definitely making me stronger. Billy kept himself very fit and I’d work on the pads and the bags in between some very strenuous exercises. But I’d particularly look forward to the road-run at the end of the session, knowing that none of the boxers could get near me when it came to running.
Boxing instilled discipline in Billy and, like many of the lads at the gym who also had a reputation for getting into trouble, the art of boxing no doubt helped to keep them on the straight and narrow.
Throughout our childhood we’d compete against each other. Being just over nine months older than Billy, I’d give him a head-start whenever we raced together. Dad would set Billy off from our house two minutes ahead of me. The usual course was over two and a half miles through the streets