Ollie

by Ian Holloway

  Publishing Rights

  This edition first published in the UK in 2007

  By G2 Entertainment

  © G2 Entertainment 2011

  www.ollieontour.co.uk

  Publishers: Jules Gammond and Alan Jones

  Robert Segal Representation

  The right of Ian Holloway and David Clayton to be identified as authors of this book have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or utilised in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher.

  The views in this book are those of the author but they are general views only and readers are urged to consult the relevant and qualified specialist for individual advice in particular situations.

  G2 Entertainment hereby exclude all liability to the extent permitted by law of any errors or omissions in this book and for any loss, damage or expense (whether direct or indirect) suffered by a third party relying on any information contained in this book.

  Chapter 1: Believe

  I must confess I had to have my arm twisted to write this book because my initial reaction was, ‘who’d want to read about the life story of Ian Holloway?’ I’m still not convinced this won’t end up in the bargain baskets of book shops around the country because let’s face it, I’ve not got the track record of Sir Alex Ferguson or Jose Mourinho – at the moment – even if I am better looking than both of them.

  Maybe a few Blackpool fans will be curious enough to pick it up and I’m sure there’ll be one or two Bristol Rovers supporters who might bother, too. Throw in the odd QPR fan, my mum, Helen and Max off Soccer AM and we might creep into double figures. Who knows what life will throw at you next? I’ve learned to take each day as it comes in both my professional and personal life over the past 46 years, as you’ll discover in the next 270 or so pages, and if you’ve not shed at least one tear or had a couple of good belly laughs by the time you finish, then I’ve not done my job. Lovely jubbly!

  So, like all good yarns, which I hope this is, I’ll start at the beginning. My mum and dad gave me a wonderful home life and we were a family in every sense of the word. My dad, Bill Holloway, was an only child whose mother died when he was just a toddler but he was fortunate enough to be put in a loving home and adopted within a year by a relative on his mother’s side. Sadly, he was never actually told that until he was 13 and then it was only because of circumstances that left no other choice. The man he’d thought was his natural father was blown up during the Second World War. He’d been serving in the Home Guard when a German bomb landed just 500 yards from the family home with the poor bugger right underneath it.

  Not long after, a life insurance man brought a cheque to my dad’s house and when he answered the door, the bloke looked at his documentation and asked, “Is your step-mum in, son?”

  Understandably confused, dad said, “What are you on about? You’ve got that wrong, I think…”, but the bloke insisted he was right, tapping his documentation that suggested exactly that, just as the woman dad had thought of as his natural mother ran down the stairs screaming, “Oh my God, no!”

  It was a hell of way to find out he’d been adopted and, hardly surprisingly, it took him a long time to come to terms with it, but he did eventually. Rather than developing into some kind of insecure, untrusting adult, however, that shocking revelation moulded him into the most wonderful husband and father anyone could wish for. His loss would be our gain, because whatever emotions might have been stirred within him by his own experiences, they only served to make him protect and love his own children all the more. He sheltered us under his protective wings and all he ever really cared about was his family and doing right by us. Whatever we wanted was more important to him than anything else in the world, and he’d go about trying to get us it in his own, old fashioned way.

  Christened William Holloway, he was born in 1928 – old school stock, as they say. He’d open the door for ladies, pick up their hanky, and was always a perfect gentleman in their company. He never swore in front of my mother – though he’d make up for it when he was with his mates at the match because he was a man’s man, too. He loved football and he was a fair player – much better than he’d ever let on, and if he allowed himself one passion outside of his devotion for his family, it was football, something I would happily inherit from him.

  He was dark-haired and fairly dark-skinned for a Bristolian so he’d often got mistaken for an Italian, which used to annoy him a hell of a lot. “You from the old country?” he’d occasionally get asked from some olive-skinned stranger. “No, I’m bloody not! I’m English and proud of it,” he’d bark back.

  My mum was christened Jean Malcolm Young – her dad had given her the middle name of Malcolm and she absolutely hated it! Her parents were both Scottish, but she was brought up in Saltash in Devon and attended a local grammar school there. She had two elder brothers, Bert and Tom, and she was five years younger than my dad.

  My parents first met on a train coming over the River Tamar. They started chatting politely about the weather and both felt comfortable in each other’s company. She liked him and he liked her and that journey turned out not just to be a means to get from A to B, but the meeting of two hearts and minds that had been destined to join since the day they were born – if you believe in that kind of thing, of course, like I do! Mum was wary of this handsome stranger, though, if for no reason other than because he was a sailor. Her father had been a chief petty officer in the Royal Navy and that had left her with a lasting impression of men who went to sea for months on end, travelling the world with a different girl at every port, so the legend would have us believe. She didn’t see her dad much as she was growing up, or care for some of his antics when he did come home. He’d drink too much and would shout a lot when he returned on shore leave and it was obvious his real life was on the ship, not in a home built from bricks and mortar. She knew from an early age that she didn’t want to be a sailor’s wife and if the good-looking, personable William Holloway intended on continuing his adventures at sea, this would be one port he would have to sail on past. After he plucked up enough courage to ask whether or not they might meet again at some point, she told him straight – if he was serious about courting her, he’d have to leave the Navy. Wham! No messing, no ifs or buts – those were her conditions and, of course, her test of how serious he really was – but that’s exactly what he did, no doubt already love-struck! It suited dad, in all honesty, because he’d never really wanted a life at sea, anyway. His heart had been elsewhere when he’d joined up – Eastville, to be precise – then home of Bristol Rovers Football Club, where he had once had a trial. He would have been offered a contract, too, had he been patient enough, but he got fed up waiting (another trait I’d inherit) and went to sea instead, probably wanting to be as far away from his boyhood dreams as possible. He wasn’t the first

  man to sail into the horizon leaving a shattered dream behind and he won’t be the last.

  So Jean and William met, fell in love, got married and moved up to Bristol to live with dad’s side of the family, and soon after their first son was born – my brother, John. Life wasn’t easy, but they were blissfully happy together and when mum fell p
regnant for the second time with my sister, Sue, dad managed to get a brand new council house in the small Bristol suburb of Cadbury Heath.

  The grass in the garden hadn’t even had time to grow yet, but my dad was as chuffed as a badger when he first got the keys. He even managed to keep it from mum until it was all signed and sealed, so it was a complete surprise when he eventually told her they had a new home in which to raise their young family. Fantastic!

  I was conceived and born at that house – 175 Earlstone Crescent – making my way into the world on March 12, 1963. The house has only ever had the Holloway family living in it because it had just been built and was part of a new housing estate, and mum’s still there to this day.

  They were a perfect match in every way. Mum is a very kind-hearted, warm and wonderful person – a motherly mum, if that makes any sense – whom my dad loved very much. He was a gregarious character, very out-going and very much a people person. He gave everyone a lot of love and was very generous, all of which, I believe, came back to him. He was a man of statements and he liked to say things that influenced me, picked up from here, there and everywhere. He wanted to be a rock in our lives having not had his own father around from the age of 13 onwards, but he was, in actual fact, more of a mountain. He was very independent, strong-minded and stubborn. The stuff dad said was so clear and concise that I remember everything as if he’d said it yesterday and I’ll be forever in his debt for that.

  My brother John is nine years older than I am and is very well-read and intelligent. He found school very easy and ended up going to Kingsfield Grammar in Bristol. My sister is six years older than me and is one of the kindest people you’ll ever meet in your life – an embodiment of our parents’ nature and beliefs.

  John had it tough because dad would be harder on him simply because he was the first child. “You’re the oldest, you should know better…” he’d tell him, even if it had been Sue or me that had done something wrong. He was very strict and very hard on John in that respect, but he handled it well. Dad was very much a boys-don’t-cry sort and I think he favoured my sister slightly, because she could get away with things John and I would land in hot water for.

  Being the youngest, though, I got a lot of mum’s attention and thinking back I was very astute at getting it – I was playing the game and playing it bloody well, too. Whenever mum popped out, I’d side up against John because, bluntly, I preferred my sister to him back then. There was a lot of arguing in my early years, usually caused by me or over me. I’d cry on tap when mum got home from shopping or tending an elderly relative and it worked most of the time. Even if she thought I’d been bad, if she gave me a slap on the leg I swear she’d pull back a bit just before she hit me! I was a bit of a grass on John and I’d squeal on him because I knew how to manipulate the situation to my advantage and I can’t say I was a particularly nice kid, in all honesty. I’d rather go out and play with my sister and her friends rather than stay with John because all he wanted to do was sit and read, which I couldn’t relate to. I just wanted to be outside kicking a ball around and if that meant hanging on to Sue’s coat-tails to get out, no problem.

  I always had a keen sense of fairness and if I felt something wasn’t right, I couldn’t let it go. Being the youngest, the pocket money I got was less than John’s and Sue’s, which I didn’t think was right and obviously my curfew time in the evening was earlier, too, which of course was right, though I didn’t think so at the time. I always seemed to get the wrong end of the stick. I was so easy to punish it was a joke, because all dad had to do was stop me playing football – end of story. He’d just send me to bed if I’d done anything wrong and I daren’t answer him back – once he’d spoken, that was it. Seething at the injustice of my world, I’d seek retribution in some form or another, albeit on a minor scale in the grand scheme of things. I used to have posters of Tottenham Hotspur on my bedroom wall because I liked their kit and wanted to be Steve Perryman or Peter Taylor, and I’d lift them up and gouge out holes behind them, taking my anger out on the walls in frustration. The Shawshank Redemption had nothing on me at that age.

  I was a terrible loser too, and if dad and I had a knockabout in the garden, I was never allowed to score a goal against him – I had to try and beat him fairly and squarely. He’d tell me that I’d get a lot more satisfaction when I actually did rather than him pretend I was better than I was. “You might not have beaten me today, son,” he’d say, “but one day you will and then you’ll know what it feels like.”

  He was good at most things and would never let me win anything – even draughts or darts – but he’d always play with a sense of humour, telling me, “I’m the south-west champion of England at this,” no matter what we played. Sometimes I’d lose my rag completely, even if only because he’d taken three or four of my draughts in one move, and I throw the board up in the air in a fit of pique. “Right, get to bed,” he’d say. I think that’s where I got my competitive edge from, though there were other influences, too. I’d even throw a strop playing pitch and putt with my mates if I didn’t win and I’d throw my clubs a mile in anger if I lost. They hated me for being like that, though I had no idea they felt that way at the time because I honestly couldn’t help myself.

  Our house was always open to other families during the school holidays and because mum didn’t work, she’d end up looking after kids whose parents did. This was my mum, with other kids getting the attention I thought should be reserved for me, so something was going to give. My mum’s best friends, (Auntie) Vera and (Uncle) Gordon had three kids, Gary, Mark and Colin Thomas, all around the same age as me, give or take a couple of years, and I’d resent them being there, especially when I got sent to bed for reacting to any winding up I was on the end of. They could play the game too, and you’re always going to come across as nice and polite in somebody else’s house aren’t you?

  I think a lot of my frustration stemmed from a time my mum went into hospital to have a bunion removed. Nobody told me where she’d gone and I hadn’t a clue where she was. She was missing for a week but her whereabouts were kept from me because she thought it would upset me, but by the time she came home, I just turned evil. Keeping things from me had worked exactly the opposite and I suppose I rebelled for a while.

  Mum was always busy running the family, a full-time job in itself, and dad was the breadwinner. He’d leave home at the crack of dawn, not returning till early evening, and he’d come home and expect his dinner to be ready by a certain time, as most men would in those days. Sometimes he’d joke to us as he ate, “God, I wish I hadn’t said I liked this…” because if he enjoyed a particular meal, mum would make sure it was a regular on the menu to the point of overkill, and you could almost tell what day it was just by what we ate for our tea.

  It was hard to make ends meet, but they did it somehow and dad would come home on pay-day, hand over his wallet to mum and say ”Right, there it is, all yours.” He gave her complete financial responsibility for food and bills and just let her get on with it – a foolproof policy for any husband! She’d put the wallet back in a sideboard drawer when she’d accounted for everything and if there was anything left by the end of the week, he’d go up to the local working men’s club and have a drink with his mates. Some weeks there’d be hardly anything left and he’d say, “Well, I suppose I won’t be going out tonight, then, my love,” but he’d always do it with a wry smile and a wink. He’d never deprive us for his own gain and I can remember him almost bursting with pride every time he talked about us, which I thought was a bit strange back then because we’d be in the room with him. I now know that he was just speaking his thoughts out loud.

  He was very opinionated and strong, but he stood up for all that was right and good. He wouldn’t be talked down to and he drummed that into all of us. “If you see someone being bullied, you step in and do something about it,” he’d instil in us. He wouldn’t stand for anything like that and he wouldn’t allow u
s to, either. He was fair, in a life where most things aren’t fair, and he and mum – who was unbelievably fair and the closest thing to an angel I’ve ever known – brought us up knowing that we came first by a million miles. They showed us how to love ourselves and how to love others, and for that, I feel very privileged.

  “Come here, love, and give us a cuddle,” he’d say to mum. “You’re a cracker, absolutely beautiful,” he’d say lifting her off the ground. He always tried to make her feel special, though it wasn’t all sugar and sweet. There was jealousy on occasions because he was quite a good-looking fella and attracted glances from other women from time to time, and they’d argue like any other couple.

  I’d class it as a normal family home where what we had, we had to work for and, come Christmas and birthdays, it could be tough, but we always got something because they did their best for us. I remember being asked what I wanted the most in the world prior to one birthday and I said a snooker table and dad just laughed and said, “Well there’s no chance of that, try again.” A week later, though, they’d somehow managed to get me it and it was a belter, too. Proper balls with a lovely green baize surface and I absolutely cherished that table and after I’d mastered it, I even beat dad and he was right, it did feel good. I still get goose pimples thinking of the first time I saw it.

  During the late Sixties and early Seventies, we didn’t have a car or a phone for many years and our telly was black and white, but we appreciated the things we did have rather than mope about the things we hadn’t got. That was all material stuff anyway, and in terms of love and security we were one of the wealthiest families in the south-west and it was the perfect foundation for any kid to have.

  Chapter 2: Gordon Bennett!

  Dad had numerous jobs over the years. One of them was working in a local shop as a deliveryman and he got to know an awful lot of people during that time, driving round in his delivery van, long before the days of Tesco home delivery. He would try his hand at anything so long as he was able to collect a wage and provide for us all and he put his heart and soul into whatever he did.