Hammered - I Played Football for West Ham, Man City and Everton… Then the Police Came Calling and My Life Fell Apart. Mark Ward
for stop-searches. I had to take off all my clothes and put them in the box set in front of me. A screw told me to turn around, spread my legs and open the cheeks of my a***. I did as I was instructed before being given back my clothes.
Undressing in front of anybody has never been a problem. As a footballer, taking off your kit in the dressing room is an everyday occurrence. But to be told to bend over, spread the cheeks of your a*** and lift up your b******s so that prison officers could check to see if I was hiding anything, was a degrading experience.
They then asked if I had any valuables on me. The only thing I had to disclose was a Gucci watch, a present from my former West Ham teammate Alan Devonshire for playing in his testimonial match in 1987. They logged it down on my property card and gave it back to me.
I was then escorted to a larger room where other prisoners were waiting to be told which wing and cell they would be allocated to. I sat down and looked around at the others – all of them looked dog-tired, restless and in need of a good feed. Some of the lads knew each other and were talking about prison and other establishments where they had stayed. Time dragged on and, having not slept properly since my arrest two days earlier and the hours of police interrogation that followed at St Helens nick, I felt shattered.
The door opened and a screw asked if we wanted a welcome pack of tobacco or sweets. Everybody asked for tobacco except me.
The screw left us and soon returned with 11 packets of Golden Virginia and a small bag of ‘goodies’ for me. A young lad asked the screw why it was taking so long sort out our cell allocations. He explained that the prison was full to the rafters.
The same kid approached me and asked if I was Mark Ward, the former Everton player, and I answered ‘Yes’. He told me he also came from Huyton and knew some of my cousins. He was quick to tell me that I’d be looking at eight-to-ten years inside. ‘Get yourself a good QC and watch yourself when you get on to the remand wing – that’s B-wing,’ he added.
As he offered me this advice the skinniest prisoner came up to me and asked for a bar of chocolate. I gave him a small Milky Way and watched him scoff it down as if he’d not seen food for weeks.
The door opened yet again and this time we were asked by a nurse if any of us wanted to see the doctor for medication. Everyone except me joined the queue to see the prison doctor. When the rest had all been given their medication I soon sussed that most of the lads – drug addicts – had been given methadone to calm them down.
The room stank of tobacco smoke and, being a non-smoker, I began to realise that I could soon be banged-up with one of these lads.
Then the youngster from Huyton started to tell everybody that we would be put on K-wing. ‘If that’s the case,’ he said, ‘tell them to f*** off.’
I asked him what was wrong with K-wing and he just laughed out loud. ‘Wardy, lad, that’s where all the nonces are. The scum all get put there.’
Another prisoner approached me for a bar of chocolate. I gave him a Snickers before the Huyton kid told me to stop giving away my bag of treats. ‘You’re gonna have to learn fast,’ he warned. ‘Some prisoners will take the eyes out of your head for a deal of smack.’
We’d been waiting around for four hours and I was feeling overwhelmed with absolute mental and physical exhaustion. Finally, a screw opened the door and my name was called out. I followed him into another room where he told me to sit down. He took my photograph and put the passport-sized picture in a plastic cover with my prison number underneath it.
I used to be proud to wear No.7 on my back in my playing days. Now I was NM6982 – a number I’ll never forget until the day I die. ‘Don’t lose that Ward and always wear it around your neck,’ he told me.
I was then shuffled along to see a more senior screw, who informed me that I was to be put on the lifers’ wing – A-wing. He pushed a bundle of clothing and bedding into my arms but I nearly dropped my belongings at the thought of what he’d just told me. Lifers’ wing! F*****g hell – I hadn’t killed anybody!
I knew that although the drugs and paraphernalia were not mine, and nor were they put there by me, I’d be held responsible because the property they had been discovered in was rented in my name.
What a dickhead I’d been.
REACHING the top in football became my goal very early in life, so it was perhaps appropriate that I was born in the attic of 25, Belton Road, Huyton, Liverpool on October 10, 1962.
My sister Susan had arrived a year before me. As the eldest of seven children, we became very close as kids. Like all families in the large Ward clan, Mum and Dad kept very busy and seemed to produce a baby almost once a year. Billy turned up just nine months after me, then Tony, followed by Irene, Ann and Andrew. Mum lost a child somewhere in between, so there should really have been eight of us.
In later years I asked Dad why, as his eldest son, I was named Mark William Ward and not Billy, after him. He explained that it was deemed unlucky in our family to name the eldest boy after the father. Apparently, there had been a series of tragic deaths in previous generations of our family, so Dad chose to name his second son Billy instead.
Billy Ward senior came from a large Catholic family of 13 children, with him and Tommy the two youngest. Tommy – who has been a father-figure to me and my brothers since Dad died – tells me that my grandfather had been a stoker in the merchant navy, travelling to Russia in the first world war. My mother, Irene, was one of six kids in a family of Protestants. I’ve got so many cousins and relatives, I’ve never even met half of them.
Dad’s family originated from County Cork in the Republic of Ireland. He used to tell me about his grandmother, Mary McConnell, who came to Liverpool on the boat from Cork. She was blind and he and the other children would have to carry her to the toilet or bathroom.
Ward is a very common name in Ireland. I found out from my Uncle Paddy that they were tinkers – or ‘knackers’ as they were also sometimes called. Many a time on my visits to Ireland as a footballer I’d be asked if I was a knacker. They were not well thought of and were widely regarded as trouble-makers who loved a scrap. That doesn’t sound like me!
Ireland has always been one of my favourite destinations. I love the place and the people who make it so special. I’ve made so many friends in the Emerald Isle and I could happily live there. Dublin is Liverpool without the violence.
I can’t remember much about living in Huyton as a kid, although I do recall my first visit to hospital. I was three or four years old and Mum would allow me to go to the shop at the top of our road – Keyos – that sold just about everything.
I always had a football to dribble to and from the shop. I remember being nearly home, as happy as Larry with my pockets stuffed with sweets, when, all of a sudden, I was hit from behind. It felt like one of the worst tackles I’ve ever experienced. A large Alsatian dog attacked me and caused me to hit the pavement so hard that my head split wide open, with blood gushing everywhere. Luckily, Dad was at home and he picked me up before carrying me all the way to Alder Hey Hospital, where I had the first of many stitches I’d need throughout my life.
I was told the next day that the dog wouldn’t be attacking any more children. Dad had taken his revenge on the beast with a metal pipe.
However, this painful childhood experience did not dampen my desire for sweets. In fact, this mishap effectively became my first-ever coaching lesson. From then on, whenever I went to the shop I’d dribble the ball but with my head up, so that I could see and be aware of everything around me. Instead of looking for my next pass, I was alert to the opposition – the dogs. I’d learned the hard way and didn’t want to go back into hospital again. I wasn’t going to be caught out by any more vicious dogs and there were plenty of them around. Huyton, in the L36 postcode district of Liverpool, was such a tough area, the locals used to reckon that even the dogs would hang around in pairs! In fact, Huyton was also known