Psycho Pat - The Autobiography Of Pat Van Den Hauwe. Pat Van Den Hauwe
down. What a pain in the arse it turned out to be as my uncle took it upon himself to drive me there every Tuesday and Thursday which, depending on the rush-hour traffic, could take an hour-and-a-half each way. I hated it. I put up with it for a year but it did my head in so I simply stopped going and carried on playing for the Kestrels. My uncle and parents, although disappointed, knew that’s how I was and there was no way they could change my mind. Even from an early age, if I did not enjoy doing something, I found the easiest way to deal with it was simply to jack it in.
It was about this time when I met Susan Cross, who was to become Mrs Van Den Hauwe Number One. I was about 14 and very shy – I’d never really had a girlfriend. But Susan was stunning, one of five sisters, who were all very pretty girls and a credit to their parents, so I suppose you could call her my first love.
Apart from the academic side of things, I was enjoying life but soon came across a kid who was older than me and who decided to make my life a misery, a horrible bully called Tony Merriman. By this time, I had started going into the pub, not drinking as such but just for the banter and running the odd errand for the older blokes. It was obvious from day one that Merriman took an immediate dislike to me. This twat would not so much beat me up but bully me in its purest sense – grab me by the hair in front of the other lads, slap me around the head, twist my ear and generally abuse me. He was obviously hoping for a reaction. I made it clear to him that I wanted no trouble, but every time he saw me he would give me grief. He was a horrible person and, in later years, he came very close to regretting making an enemy of me as a teenager.
Eventually, my continual no-show at school came to a head. They were sending letters to the house but I was taking them off the postman and replying to the head teacher pretending to be my mother, until one day I came unstuck. On the sorriest day of my life to date, I had to endure the embarrassment of my father marching me through the school gates while everyone was leaving.
A teacher called Mr Adhern took me under his wing and, although he was a rough-and-ready type of bloke, deep down he was a very compassionate man. The kids were not afraid of him but respected him as he wasn’t a bully. Remember, in those days teachers could knock the shit out of you, and many did, with no comebacks. Mr Adhern, although more than capable of doing that, just had a presence that made you respect him. He warned me that if I did not toe the line, I’d be sent to a special school but, as I was not really causing trouble, he tried tremendously hard and succeeded to a certain extent to rehabilitate me back into the educational system. When it came to the final year and the exams, I simply did not bother and I left school without a single qualification so, although I respected him, I let him down badly. He was the first but certainly not the last person I let down.
Before I had to look for a way of earning a living, I was offered a trial at Chelsea and that probably saved me from a life of either mundane jobs or crime. Sometimes, when I look back at my life, maybe I would have been better off turning down Chelsea and going down the same route as that of most of my mates. We were shown round Stamford Bridge and even went into the dressing rooms where we saw Ray Wilkins blow-drying his hair wearing just a towel.
We did a full tour of the ground and, well over an hour later, as we arrived back near the dressing rooms, I asked if I could nip back in there as I desperately needed a piss. I walked in and Wilkins was still there in front of the mirror, in his towel, blow-drying his hair. Now, I am no expert in hairdressing, but later on in my life I married quite a famous young lady who was very keen to look her best. I swear to this day she never took as long doing her hair as Wilkins did that day. Looking at him now, maybe he over-cooked his barnet a bit!
After the trials, I was taken on as a youth trainee but had not signed anything and there were an awful lot of young lads in the same boat as me, so I knew I would have to dig deep and work hard to impress. Life at Chelsea was tough; we would play other clubs around London and I was under the watchful eye of Dario Grady, who was to make a very good name for himself within the game, especially when it came to spotting young lads and bringing them through the ranks.
Dario was not the only person on the staff with an eye on the lads, though, and I took a dislike to one of the coaches who seemed to be a bit too friendly, if you get my drift. This fella, who was a giant of a geezer, used to drive us about everywhere in a clapped-out club minibus and get us doing all the shitty jobs around the ground.
One day he told me he needed to show me the games room that the first team players frequented that was situated high up in the new stand that had recently been built. We went up in the lift and I got a feeling that he was standing a bit too close to me and when we got in the games room for the life of me I did not know why he had taken me there. I made some excuse and made a quick exit and was so upset by the bloke’s presence I even told my father about him.
He told me to steer well clear and I did, but soon after I was told that, despite trying as hard as I could, Chelsea had decided that I was not good enough and I was released with about a dozen others. We were quite simply told that Chelsea had too many players our age and that we were no longer required to turn up the following day. I was upset but glad to see the back of the coach who, a few years later, was bombed for possessing so-called ‘indecent material’, so maybe my instincts were correct and it was me he fancied, not a game of pool or table tennis.
Chelsea’s rejection made me realise that football was a ruthless game. I would hazard a guess that that day finished some of my team-mates’ football careers for good. Luckily for me, I was given a chance elsewhere; sadly, not everybody would get that chance.
Due to my lack of education, football and a few boxing and judo moves was all I knew so it made me more determined to not give up. I was so relieved when I was asked if I’d like to join four of the other lads who had been released and travel to Birmingham with a view to joining them as an apprentice on a one-year deal.
I did not really want to up sticks and leave London – I was still a kid – but I was realistic enough to realise that, after binning Arsenal off and getting bombed from Chelsea, my options were limited. I went home and told my mum and dad that I was packing my bags and leaving home. It was heartbreaking both for me as well as my parents and plenty of tears were shed when I walked out the door to embark on a truly amazing journey.
They gave me what spare cash they had to tide me over until I got paid, although I’m not sure if they would have been so upset had they realised that, 15 years later, I would return to the same home after my journey had come full circle with less money in my pocket than they had given me when I’d left.
I arrived in Birmingham on 8 June 1977 with a sports holdall containing my boots and a few items of clothing and about a tenner in my pocket thanks to my parent’s generosity. Four lads joined me on the journey from Chelsea to Birmingham and two of them, Paul Ivey and Mark Dennis, like myself, eventually signed professional forms at St Andrew’s.
We were met by a gentleman called Alan Gilbert Instone, the club secretary, and signed an 18-month apprentice agreement in the presence of my father. My basic wages were £16 a week but I was promised in the contract ‘win and draw bonuses in competitions where the rules of the competition so provide’ and also reasonable travel expenses on authorised journeys! So the ride had begun.
The first team manager at the time was Willy Bell and, just a couple of months into my apprenticeship, he summoned me to his office and said that it was his opinion that I was not going to make the grade. I had not set eyes on the fella previously, apart from when we were sweeping the dressing rooms out, but pleaded with him to give me another chance. He muttered something about discussing it with the coaching staff but the following day he was sacked – much to my delight! He never worked in football again and ended up as a religious preacher, so what does that tell you about his football knowledge?
Sir Alf Ramsey took over from Bell but I had no dealings with him whatsoever and just carried on training with the youth team under Keith Bradley.