Hammered - I Played Football for West Ham, Man City and Everton… Then the Police Came Calling and My Life Fell Apart. Mark Ward
had a great egg collection. I still call him The Egg to this day.
Peter McGuinness was our left-back with a great left foot. We became close friends and remain so to this day.
Our Whiston Cross team was so successful that we were invited to play at Everton’s Bellefield training ground against the best kids on their books. It proved to be a big turning point in my life. Dad came along to watch but he wasn’t like all the other fathers. He wouldn’t go religiously every week to see me play, whereas some fathers would kick every ball for their boys from the sidelines.
I reckon that Dad knew I had qualities, although he never, ever told me I was good. I’d score four or five goals in a game and dominate the opposition but he’d never tell me afterwards that I’d played well. It was only quite a bit later in my career, when I was at West Ham, that he ever lavished any praise on me. I’ll never forget it. We were sat together in a pub, on one of my home visits, when he suddenly commented I was a far better player than he ever was. I nearly fell off my chair in shock.
Dad didn’t coach me and never told me to do this or that. He just let me develop in my own way. He knew my size would be an obstacle I had to overcome but he also knew I had the qualities of strength and speed that I’d inherited from him.
That game against Everton’s kids was a real lesson. They murdered us 6-0 but – and don’t ask me how – some of our players still came out of the game with credit. Afterwards Everton youth coach Graham Smith approached my father and asked if it would be okay for me to go to Bellefield after school every Tuesday and Thursday night for proper coaching.
Dad agreed and going home that night he told me to just go along and enjoy it. Kevin Hayes – ‘The Egg’ – was also invited back by Everton even though he’d conceded six. It still amazes me how they saw any positive play from me that day, because I hardly kicked the ball – Everton’s kids were that good. But Graham Smith said that it was my never-say-die attitude, even when we were being hopelessly outclassed, and the fact that I kept trying to do the right thing and never hid, that caught his eye.
Dad presumably felt chuffed to see his lad attracting the attention of Everton – the club he’d supported all his life – but if he was, he never showed it.
Training twice a week at Bellefield improved my technique and it was the first time I’d had the benefit of proper coaching. Playing for my school, then Whiston Cross on Sundays and the St Helens Schoolboys district side meant that hardly a day went by without me playing a game. I couldn’t get enough of it.
My mate Colin Port and I would go to Goodison to watch Everton play one week and then see Liverpool at Anfield the next. I was brought up as an Evertonian while Colin was a Rednose.
It was around this time that I was called in to see Ray Minshull, Everton’s youth development officer. I was concerned that I might have done something wrong but he counted out my expenses for travelling to training and they gave me a pair of brand new Adidas boots. They were size six, and a little big for me, but it was a wonderful gesture and made me feel good.
Ray then asked if I’d like to become a ball-boy at Goodison for first team games. Wow! In those days it was every schoolboy’s dream to play for his hometown club and being a ball-boy provided a great opportunity to at least get onto the hallowed turf. The feeling I had while running out with the other nine ball-boys before the opening game of the 1974-75 season was magical. I remember the deafening noise from the crowd, the Z-Cars music and every hair on my body standing up as players such as Bob Latchford, Andy King, Mick Lyons, George Wood and Martin Dobson ran out of the tunnel. It wasn’t the greatest side in Everton’s history but it felt fantastic to be so close to the action and able to take it all in at the age of 11. I realised then, more than ever, that there was nothing I wanted more than to run out with the blue shirt on my back.
Other clubs who showed interest in me included Blackburn Rovers, Manchester United and Liverpool. Jimmy Dewsnip, the local Liverpool scout, invited Dad and I to be Liverpool’s guests at Anfield, where I was dying to meet my idol Kevin Keegan. Even though I was an Evertonian, I loved to watch him play. I can’t remember much about the game itself but I was introduced to Kevin outside the changing rooms afterwards. I was a star-struck 15-year-old as the England star, wearing a vivid red polar neck jumper, shook my hand. The first Cup final I recall watching on telly as a kid was Liverpool’s 3-0 win over Newcastle in 1974, with Keegan scoring twice.
Liverpool were definitely pushing the boat out in an effort to impress. Soon after our visit to Anfield they arranged for me to travel down to Wembley, with a number of other schoolboy players they had their sights on, to watch the 1977 FA Cup final. Liverpool lost 2-1 to Manchester United and the mood on the journey back to Merseyside was very glum, but Bob Paisley’s Reds were destined to lift the European Cup for the first time in Rome just four days later.
Everton got word of my trip to Wembley with their Merseyside rivals and quickly offered me schoolboy forms, much to the annoyance of Jimmy Dewsnip who arrived at our house hoping he’d done enough to convince me to sign for the Reds. The truth is, I was never going to sign for any club other than Everton. I was determined to live my dream and playing for my club would mean everything to me.
Although football dominated my every waking hour, it was around this time that I started to become more aware of my parents’ badly deteriorating relationship. Dad was a proud man and he found it difficult to come to terms with being out of work and unable to provide properly for his family.
He also had a terrible jealous streak where Mum was concerned. It’s so sad, but this was the main cause of their marriage problems.
I couldn’t stop them from breaking up. All I could do was focus all my efforts on becoming a footballer. I lived and breathed the game and my burning desire was to play well enough to earn myself an apprenticeship at the club when I left school at 16. Bill Shankly famously said that football was more important than life or death. That’s how I felt too.
HOW ironic that my first-ever appearance as a player at Goodison Park, on September 12, 1978, was largely thanks to … Merseyside Police!
The same constabulary whose officers arrested me in May 2005 were responsible for giving me and my team-mates at Whiston Cross (Juniors) the experience of a lifetime. Our local police force organised a five-a-side competition throughout Merseyside in the summer of ’78 – and the reward for reaching the finals was the opportunity to play at Goodison. It was a huge competition and winning it was no mean feat.
Our team comprised goalkeeper Kevin Hayes (‘The Egg’), skipper Peter McGuinness, hatchet man Carl Thomas and the two playmakers, Andy Elliot and myself. Andy was the best player at our rival school St Edmund Arrowsmith and we became good pals. The early rounds of the competition were played locally and we comfortably swept through the games and advanced to the semi-finals at the police training grounds in Mather Avenue.
Our journey by minibus to the semi-finals was one full of excitement and nervous expectation for our team of 15-year-olds. We’d all known each other from having played in school matches over the years and we were very confident of going all the way.
I travelled to the game in a pair of bright red Kickers boots that Mum had bought me. Nobody else around our way had them at the time and I thought of myself as a bit of a trend-setter. Dad was none too pleased to see his son strutting around in red boots but I was very much my own man even in those days. Just because my family are all Bluenoses, it didn’t deter me from wearing what I wanted – even if they were in the colours of our big Mersey rivals. In fact, I wore those boots until they fell off my feet and was forever gluing the soles back on them. This was the era of baggy jeans and I must have looked ridiculous.
My choice of music was different to that of my mates. I was influenced by my eldest sister Susan’s boyfriend at the time, Les Jones. He was into Earth Wind & Fire and I’d borrow his records and listen to this magnificent American R&B band. In later years I was lucky enough to see them perform live on two occasions.
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