Pat Van Den Hauwe

by Pat Van Den Hauwe

  Obviously, I contacted my parents and told them the difficult situation I had found myself in and it made matters worse when my father told me I should play for Belgium and my mother told me I had to choose England … so, being an awkward bugger, I opted for Wales!

  Joking aside, my reasoning was that although Wales were not really in with the same chance as England to qualify for the World Cup finals, I would stick to my original decision and join up with the Wales squad.

  Within the time it took me to decide between England and Wales, a bit of friction had surfaced between the two managers, with Mike accusing Bobby of unsettling me and trying to scupper his chances of me playing for him, even though Bobby never really intended to select me for England. Although it was nice to be wanted, I was a little upset by it all as, despite what people think about me, I am quite a shy person and found the fuss a little embarrassing. During this time, may I add that Guy Thiess had made no attempt to try and make me turn down both the home countries in favour of Belgium. And no one from the Belgian Army had been desperate for my services either!

  I called Mike and we agreed that I would join the next squad and looked forward to becoming an international footballer. Little did I know at the time that it was a decision which nearly ended my professional career a couple of years later, but more of that later.

  There was quite a bit of a reaction in the press about my choice of nations, with some people questioning my right to play for a country that I had no ties with. Kevin Ratcliffe was supportive and mentioned in the press that I was more than welcome to play for Wales, while Mike England was quoted as saying, ‘It is my job to select the best team available from the players available, and that is what I have done.’

  I will make it quite clear that, despite some articles claiming I had Welsh blood in me, I did not. No parent or grandparent – or even great-grandparents – of mine were Welsh. In fact, apart from an uncle from South London who claimed he had been sent to Rhyl as a child during the War, no members of my immediate family had even set foot on Welsh soil.

  Undeterred, I set off with Neville and Rats and joined up with my new ‘international’ team-mates prior to a World Cup qualifier against Spain at Wrexham’s Racecourse Ground, so my hope of world travel began with a 15-mile car journey.

  I had the début that dreams are made of. Spain were a decent side and had battered Wales in a group game six months earlier but, with a full house of about 25,000 roaring us on, we annihilated them 3–0. Ian Rush got a couple and Mark Hughes scored what I believe was voted goal of the season to send the locals home very happy indeed. The goal from Sparky was typical of him – the ball came in at a height that 99 per cent of forwards would have got their head to, but Mark dipped his shoulder and fired an unstoppable scissor-kick into the top corner. Very few players would have been able to execute that shot perfectly, but to him it was common practice.

  Before this game, it was mentioned that Wales had four world-class players in Southall, Ratcliffe, Hughes and Rush; after the game, Mike England had been so impressed with my performance he told that I had joined the others and nicknamed me ‘Dai Five’!

  Despite the dream start, even after one game I had doubts about how far the team could go as although we now had five players whom the gaffer deemed as international class, the remainder of the side was made from clubs such as Bristol Rovers, Watford and Oxford. I am not trying in any way to be disrespectful to the lads at these clubs, but the facts are that half the team were unheard of outside their own back yard and we were supposed to be competing with Europe’s finest.

  However, what we lacked in quality and strength in depth was offset by the way the lads stuck together and went about their business and, from day one, it was evident that the team spirit was second to none. With Mike England in charge, we were always in with a chance of causing an upset or two as the Spaniards had just found out.

  My next game was typical of the luck – or lack of it – that Wales had over the years. We needed to beat Scotland to make the World Cup play-offs and the game had a bit of extra spice for the Everton lads as Graeme Sharp and Andy Gray were playing for the Jocks. There was no softly-softly approach to these pair of buggers; it was business as usual and myself and Kevin agreed to give the pair of them a few knocks early on to let them know this was international football, not a club friendly at Bellfield. The problem was they obviously felt the same and, from the first minute, they were at it, leaving an arm in here and an elbow in there, usually in my ear, in Andy’s case.

  The game at Ninian Park was a full house with loads of Scots in the near 40,000 crowd and it started well when we went one up after an early Mark Hughes goal. It was no classic with so much at stake, and they were not causing us too many problems when the ref gave them a penalty late on for a nothing handball. Davie Cooper kept his cool and slotted the ball past Big Nev; they saw the game out and, once again, Wales had fallen at the final hurdle.

  I was really pissed off. I was close to the penalty incident and, to this day, feel the referee cheated us, harsh words that would probably get me in big trouble in this day and age. But it was 25 years ago, so bollocks to it – we were cheated out of the chance of playing in the greatest tournament in football.

  After the game, the news reached the dressing room that Scotland’s manager Jock Stein had been taken ill and had sadly died. That was tragic and it put things into perspective. The referee was fortunate, as the headlines were rightly focused on Mr Stein’s passing, and not the scandalous decision he had made.

  I went out after the game to drown my sorrows and ended up bringing a local girl back to the hotel. I managed to sneak her into the health suite and we set about having a good time. We were in the middle of doing what comes naturally in the sauna when a security guard came in and politely told me to pack it in and asked her to leave. It was a bad night all round.

  A few days later I got a call from one of the girls at Everton who worked on the switchboard asking me to call a young lady who had left her number. I was never one to pass on the chance of a potential kiss and cuddle, so called the number to be greeted by this demented cow from the sauna accusing me of stealing her watch! I politely told her that I would not do such a thing as I earned enough money to buy a box of watches, but she kept on and threatened to sell the story of our hotel romp and the alleged watch theft to the papers. I called her bluff and told her to go ahead and put the phone down, although I must admit that for a week or two I read the papers to see if she had carried out her threat.

  Despite the disappointment of missing out on the World Cup finals, I was fully committed to my international career and was looking forward to giving it my best shot when the European Championships began the following season. Mr England had rightly been given a vote of confidence from the Welsh FA, who, so far, I had not had the privilege of meeting. All the players were up for the challenge ahead, although the next game gave me an inkling that the Welsh public saw things slightly differently.

  I was called up for a friendly against Hungary at Cardiff and it was a nightmare, a cold miserable October night and just over 3,000 turned up to watch us get hammered 3–0. I hated playing in front of such crap crowds as, when the fans abuse you, not only can you hear what they are shouting at you, you can spot the individual calling you all sorts. That night they were calling me a few things I had not been called before and, may I add, they were not speaking Welsh.

  Next up was a friendly in Saudi Arabia which I pulled out of and, in all honesty, I can understand why some of today’s top players go missing for such games. The club never put me under any pressure to miss any Wales games, but our brief on international friendlies was always, ‘If you are not 100 per cent fit, don’t play …’ So if I had the odd niggle and it was a nothing game, I would do as I was told and made the call, simple as! It’s worth remembering that I was playing 50-odd games a season, so there was no need to risk potential injury for the sake of making trip halfway across the world that had probably been arr
anged to give the suits in Cardiff a free holiday anyway.

  Nev Southall was the complete opposite – he would turn out as an over-age player for the Welsh schoolboys if asked. He was totally committed to anything they asked him to do, but this came back to bite him on the arse when he broke his ankle in the next friendly in Ireland when the Lansdowne Road pitch was like a bomb site. As I have said previously, I believe that injury cost Everton big time and it was a pointless game, so make your own mind up about such games. I did, hence my low cap count.

  It was at this time when I began to notice that our away friendlies were all in quite exotic places, so fair play to the Welsh FA for sorting them, whatever the reason! As I said, though, I was happy to stay at home and rest and let them get on with it from time to time, so I also missed the following trip to Canada along with the injured Nev, Rats and Rushy, which caused a bit of bad press over there as Wales had promised to bring a full squad as part of the deal. We had just finished a long, hard season and it was days after the first Merseyside Cup Final and we hardly needed to play any more football, so when the FA called to ask me to reconsider to save their arses, by a strange coincidence I was out when the phone rang.

  In fairness, the Welsh FA had some decent people on board; they were very proud, patriotic people but with every one good member came two free-loading hangers-on. I used to have a drink and chat with a gentleman called Elfed Ellis, a North Wales Evertonian who was a close friend of Mike England’s. He was a true ambassador for the country he loved and enjoyed a drink.

  One morning after a game, I thought he was up early having breakfast before being told by the waitress that he had not been to bed! He would for ever be bringing fans into the hotel and buying them drinks and giving them tickets and his catchphrase to his fellow FA members was: ‘These people have put us in this privileged position, so look after them.’ It was a shame some of the others never had that attitude; if they had, Wales may have attracted bigger crowds.

  The thing I noticed about Wales compared to Everton was that everything seemed to be done on the cheap – the hotels, the travel, the kit, it was all second-rate. Quite often you would see the likes of Kevin Ratcliffe and Ian Rush, world-class players, humping the kit bag at the airport while about 20 FA members made it through to the first-class lounge to hammer the free bar. That kind of thing seriously pissed us off, if the truth be known.

  Once again, I was injured along with Nev when we opened our Euro ’88 campaign in Helsinki with a 1–1 draw, but we were both back when we drew with Russia in a friendly that I used to improve my match fitness. I also played when we walloped the Finns 4–0 in the return at Wrexham before a dreadful crowd of less than 8,000. We were doing well and I could not get my nut around the fact that we were getting such piss-poor crowds; where had the 30,000 gone from the Scotland game? To make matters worse, I limped off early as my injury nightmare continued.

  The next two games were hardly classics but we got a point at home to Czechoslovakia thanks to a late Ian Rush goal, and then gave ourselves a great chance of qualifying when we beat Denmark in Cardiff courtesy of an early Mark Hughes strike. However, once again we contrived to balls it up when we lost the return to the Danes 1–0 in a game we should have got something out of.

  I will never forget the few minutes before the kick-off that night. As we were lining up for the national anthems, we stood in line and the Danish tannoy blasted out ‘God Save the Queen’! Now, I have nothing against Her Majesty, I am sure she is a very lovely lady, but that was taking the piss and it did not go down well with some of the lads. I never knew the words of our own anthem but, from the first time I heard it, it gave me goose bumps and made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck in the same way the ‘Z Cars’ theme tune did at Goodison. I was not alone, as very few of the lads sang it, but when it came to the chorus it was stunning, so to hear the wrong one being played before such an important game was not really inspiring.

  The defeat meant we had to win in Czechoslovakia to stand any chance of qualifying and we lost 2–0 meaning that, once again, Wales had missed out on going to a major tournament, which was bad for the players but worse for the FA members as they would have to pay for their own summer holidays!

  The saddest part of failing to qualify was that Mike England parted company with us and I was very sad to see him go. Mike had given me the chance to play international football and put his head on the block with some people who were against non-Welsh nationals being selected. He had shown great faith in me and I will for ever be thankful to him for that. He was a man’s manager and treated people with respect, unlike the bloke appointed to take over from him. Mike’s record as manager was decent, with about a 50 per cent win rate, which was excellent considering the limited number of players he had to choose from.

  Dave Williams stood in as caretaker boss for a game at Swansea and the public voted with their feet as less than 6,000 turned up to see us get turned over. Our scorer that day was Dean Saunders, a young, confident lad who would play many more times for Wales than myself. This was very frustrating with Wales as it always seemed that as we lost players other good lads came through – the likes of Barry Horne, Gary Speed and Ryan Giggs would be called up, but it was almost always when someone like Joey or Mickey retired. So it was a case of one in, one out, and so we never had a dozen top-class players to take us through to the next level.

  Dave must have upset some of the clowns at the Welsh FA HQ with his tactics or probably he was daft enough to send a petrol receipt in, as he was bombed after just one game. I was told that our new gaffer was going to be Terry Yorath, a quite well-respected gentleman who’d had a very creditable playing career. That was all well and good, but as a person I thought within a minute of meeting him that he was an arrogant bully and a total prick.

  As I was introduced to him, he grabbed my hand and slapped me across the back of the head with his other hand. It was not a playful pat but a proper slap, and I pulled away from him and said, ‘Don’t ever fucking do that to me again!’ So after two minutes it was safe to say my Wales career was coming to an end.

  Under Yorath I missed a friendly in Sweden, a country I would liked to have visited for all the wrong reasons but agreed to go on an end-of-season ‘jolly’ as, once again, the FA had come up trumps and sorted us two games in Malta and Italy. I’ll once again be bluntly honest and tell you I was going for anything but the football. I had just finished probably my worst season at Goodison during which, although we were always top four, we were never really in a position to challenge for the title, so I thought a few days in the sun would give me a lift and was more than happy to join up with the lads. This was the decision that came close to ending my career, as well as my marriage.

  I had ended the season with a slight hamstring niggle, so I sat out the Malta game. However, the night before, knowing I wouldn’t be playing, I’d sneaked out to sample the local hospitality, meeting up with a local lady who, shall we say, was quite happy to show me some Maltese delights! I had a stunning night in her company and, the following day, watched the game in between some sunbathing and swimming. My hamstring was improving and, as I sat on the pool side with a beer in my hand and the sun on my back, I thought to myself how could things possibly be any better? Little did I know that inside my body was beginnings of a virus that could hardly be any worse.

  We travelled to Italy the following day and I noticed that my ankle had swollen slightly but thought it may have been from the flying or possibly all the swimming I had been doing. The Welsh medical assistant – although he was probably a vet knowing how the Welsh FA liked to save money – strapped me up and I played the full game in Brescia, albeit with some discomfort. We won 1–0 and that night we all went out for a few beers and a meal and, as it happened, I once again ended up with a local lady, so went home in good spirits.

  A day or two after arriving home, I began to feel a little discomfort in my nether regions – and I don’t mean my ankle – so I went to the club doct
or at Everton and, within days, was in hospital and never kicked a ball again for three months. Everton were not happy as, thanks to an Irish pitch and a Maltese bitch, they had lost two of their top players while on international duty, although in slightly different circumstances.

  A month later, the club secretary at Everton handed me a letter from Italy and I opened it to discover that it had a medical card stapled to it and, although I can’t read Italian, I knew it was from the girl I had slept with in Brescia. I had a good idea what it was about and I was quite sure it was not a request for me to pop back to Italy to marry her.

  I was struggling to get fit – injuries are one thing but a blood disorder like mine was extremely hard to get rid of and I was playing a few games then missing a few as I was quite simply not well enough to play regular, top-flight football. I missed the first World Cup qualifier in Holland when the lads played well but got pipped 1–0, but was back in action for a disappointing 2–2 draw at home to Finland. We then had another worthless friendly in Israel that I missed, but I played what turned out to be my last game for Wales on Wednesday, 26 April 1989, just a week or so after the Hillsborough disaster.

  The next game was a massive one for Wales, at home to Germany, a game that was to be played at the National Stadium which was usually only used for rugby matches. It was a game any footballer would love to play in, and I was really looking forward to the occasion. Disaster struck during extra time in the Cup Final against Liverpool as, once again, I felt my hamstring go and, after the game, our physio said I’d have to give it a couple of weeks’ rest. Then the powers that be phoned the Welsh FA and informed them I was withdrawing from the squad.