Darkness and Light

by Joe Thompson

  Suddenly the front door swung open. ‘Afternoon gentlemen, how are we doing?’ asked a familiar voice. Shit. It was Keith Curle. He’d walked in without knocking and was heading for the living room. I picked up the rail with our clothes on and chucked it over the other side of the sofa. There was a dart board near the table, so two of us pretended we were playing a game of arrows to guard our stash of ale. ‘So, this is how you spend your afternoons, is it?’ he laughed, as he saw us throwing darts into the board. ‘Yeah, yeah, gaffer,’ I replied, trying to disguise my fear. ‘I thought I’d come and check that you’re looking after this place,’ he said. ‘The cleaner says she doesn’t have much to do, you keep it pretty clean and tidy.’ We all agreed with him and carried on playing, while inwardly praying he didn’t ask to see the inside of the fridge, where our crate was chilling.

  He made a bit more small talk and then went upstairs to have a look around the bedrooms before deciding he was satisfied with his inspection. He told us to get an early night ahead of the game and then left. As soon as the door shut we all collapsed on the floor laughing. We were so relieved we’d got away with it, having been metres away from being rumbled. If he’d found the beers I’m certain he would’ve gone mental and accused us of not focusing on the game. Who knows, he might’ve even separated us like naughty schoolboys at the back of the class. It was one of many funny memories I’ve got of living in that house. Pranks happened on a daily basis. On one occasion, Charlie thought it’d be hilarious to tip my bed up with me still in it, just after I’d turned the light off and gone to bed. I threatened him with revenge but he didn’t listen, none of them did, nobody was ever safe. All the lads were professional when it came down to football, but I felt like I was sampling university life without the midweek booze-ups. Sadly, the floods meant we had to move from hotel to hotel until the final weeks of the season, which meant our little family unit was broken up, but we at least had the memories.

  I’d done everything that had been asked of me and Keith rewarded me with another six-month contract in January, which took me up until the end of the season. My relationship with him was the best I’d had with a manager since my days working under Keith Hill. I knew we’d get on from the moment I first met him when I arrived at the training ground. I remember watching him as a player and he was a fierce competitor but as a manager he’d often bottle up his rage. If you continuously bollock players the impact wears off and I think he was aware of that. I’d sensed that we’d been close to seeing his angry side come out on a couple of occasions after poor performances and got the feeling he wouldn’t be able to contain it forever. It turned out I was right.

  Players and managers all have their own peculiar habits and Keith was no different. Before every game he liked his dressing room to be organised in a very specific fashion. His habits were bordering on OCD. In his head, a clear dressing room meant a clear mind. After a dismal 1-0 defeat away to Newport, on a freezing February afternoon on a terrible pitch, he noticed that something was out of place. The kitman and Lee Fearn, our physical conditioning coach, had made the mistake of having a tidy up and had moved things from their normal stations. It tipped him over the edge. ‘Why are all those protein shakes in the middle?!’ he shouted, pointing at the plastic shakers sat on the table. Nobody dared to say a word. I knew that any moment they were about to go everywhere. Seconds later he erupted and started throwing shakes all over the dressing room. Nobody escaped. There was pink liquid splattered over everyone. He wasn’t done there. He grabbed a basket full of GPS monitors and began launching them at everyone, bouncing them off the floor and walls. Everyone was ducking and diving in the corner like a boxer trying to slip punches.

  There was a stunned silence, before he began his verbal attack. ‘None of you have got the bollocks to get up and say anything because you know I’ll bite your fucking face off,’ he screamed. ‘I’m fucking right and you know it, you tossed it off, not one of you fancied it today!’ He used to play for Wimbledon during the Crazy Gang era and now I could see why he fitted right in. Sometimes you feel hard done to when a manager has a go at you, particularly if you’ve just been beaten by a better team, but on this occasion our performance had been dreadful and he was right to be livid. The coach journey home felt like a funeral procession. Keith had the respect of everyone, but he definitely had more power after that dressing down because his reaction had come as such a shock. I secretly loved it. Nobody wanted to risk another bollocking and it was no surprise that we went on a good run in the aftermath of that game.

  Unfortunately I found myself on the bench as the season drew to a close, though I was happy with my performance on the final day, as we thumped Notts County 5-0. Keith had been sacked by the club a couple of years earlier and I could tell that result meant a lot to him. He’d stuck two fingers up to them and showed them what he was capable of. As a squad, it was a display that highlighted how much we were behind him. There was no chance of us switching off and coasting through the final 90 minutes, we wanted to get that win for him and made sure it was emphatic. The result also gave us momentum heading into the next season.

  We finished in tenth place in League Two, which was a successful season given the club had narrowly avoided relegation the previous year, as well as the impact of the floods. At our end-of-season awards night, everyone came together to celebrate the campaign, which had seen both the club and local community come through great adversity. After the prizes had been handed out, Keith came over to have a word. ‘So, what are you thinking then?’ he asked me. I told him I was going to enjoy the night, because it was potentially my last with the group, but we agreed to meet the following day. My contract was about to expire and I needed to make a decision about my future. A day later he laid his cards out on the table. ‘I could offer you another 12-month contract, but I can’t guarantee that you’d be in my starting 11 and I think you want more now you’ve found your feet,’ he said. He told me he saw me as a striker in a 4-4-2 or a 3-5-2, but Jabo Ibehre and Charlie Wyke would be his first-choice partnership and I’d be the first substitute off the bench.

  I was grateful for his honesty and happy that we were on the same wavelength. I’d spent the last two years rebuilding my mind and body and had been in and out of two different teams. I was ready to play football every week and it was time for me to go somewhere where I could do that. He understood and told me how amazing it had been to see the impact I’d made on the dressing room and the respect I had from all the players and staff. I thanked him for taking a chance on me and more importantly giving me my confidence back. We shook hands and left on good terms. It was probably the best one-on-one chat I’ve ever had with a manager and showed just how good he was at dealing with players individually; he’d made me feel valued even when delivering bad news.

  Towards the end of the season me and the boys had moved back into our house but now I had to pack my bags again and leave for good. We’d spent so much time together in the house and in the car driving up and down the motorway, and had become really close. This was the end of the road for our little football family and we all started to well up as we put our suitcases in the boot and started the drive back to Manchester.

  For the first time since I’d been at Rochdale, I’d felt like I was a key part of a dressing room and had forged genuine friendships with several of the lads. I’d only been there for a year, but we’d been through so much together. The camp in the Lake District had pushed us to our limits and then everyone had pulled together during the floods. The club and local community had become one and I felt privileged to have been part of that story. The storm had passed and it was time to chase the sun.

  Chapter 13

  Chasing the sun

  THE start of my stag do was like a scene from The Hangover, as me and nine of my closest friends met at Manchester Airport at the crack of dawn and steeled ourselves for five days of mayhem. At least there ought to have been nine, but we were already one man down. My mate Matt missed his taxi, meaning he
faced a race against time to make the flight. There was also another problem; Lloydy had forgotten to fill in his ESTA form and wouldn’t be allowed to fly without it.

  He called his personal assistant, Joanne, who had sorted out all his travel bookings in the past. He asked her why she hadn’t done the form, but she wasn’t taking any of his rubbish and told him it was his responsibility, having already sorted his flights and accommodation. Reuben started filling in his details on his mobile phone in the hope we could complete it in time before we jetted off. He was under pressure, but he works as an accountant and handles big-money deals on a daily basis, so he was the perfect person to have on hand as we waited at the check-in desk.

  It was a revealing few minutes. For years, Lloydy had insisted he was 39, but we had a suspicion he was hiding the truth. ‘Fine, I’m 46, but I’m 39 to you,’ he said. We all started laughing. I’d seen him tell so many people over the years that he was 39 with a big beaming smile made brighter by an expensive set of veneers. Now we knew his true identity at last, we faced a nerve-wracking wait to see if he’d be let on the plane. As he placed his passport on the scanner, we all held our breath and watched the dial on the screen go round and round like a roulette wheel.

  My proposal to Chantelle in Dubai 12 months earlier had been equally nerve-wracking. The day before I got down on one knee, I visited a nearby restaurant to plan the big moment with the staff and my close friend Yas. I’m not normally one for romance, but the plan was for a crystal ball to be brought out with dessert in a plume of smoke. Hidden inside would be the box containing the engagement ring. I had to leave the ring with the staff overnight, but the fear of them losing it or my cunning plan not coming off meant I didn’t sleep a wink. Chantelle slept soundly, blissfully unaware of what was about to happen.

  Twenty-four hours later, my worst nightmare nearly materialised. She looked a million dollars and we both had a brilliant meal, but she was adamant she didn’t want a dessert. Our waitress intervened. ‘The chef insists you try something, we’ll bring it out,’ she said. I was a nervous wreck trying to hold it together. She returned a few minutes later and placed the crystal ball on the table. Through the smoke I could see her smiling and before I had a chance to go down on one knee, she dived into the box. ‘Yes, yes, yes!’ she said. ‘I take it you want to be my wife?’ I laughed. We were both ecstatic and I rang her parents a short while later to tell them the news. I deliberately proposed on Father’s Day as a gift to her dad, but also because it was an occasion that I could only celebrate as a result of her bringing Lula into this world safe and sound.

  Our plan had been to get married two years later, but we brought the wedding forward 12 months after Chantelle’s dad fell seriously ill. When I first met Paul, he was a real man’s man, strong and full of life, but fibrosis of the lungs had left him weak and reliant on oxygen cylinders just to be able to breathe normally. He was a proud Yorkshireman, but he moved to Manchester from Hull to be closer to his family. When she went on her hen do, I moved in with him and saw the full extent of his suffering.

  I spent a week in the life of Chantelle’s mum, Anita. She’s an angel and never complained once about the burden of caring for him, even though it must’ve been physically and mentally draining. He was out of breath all the time and didn’t even have the energy to cook for himself. It was horrible to see. I could tell that he felt embarrassed at having to ask me to pass him the remote or get something from the fridge. Lula was only three, but she could sense he was ill and sat on his lap and watched TV with him. She didn’t misbehave once and it was incredible to see how in tune she was with his situation.

  As much as I hated seeing him in pain, I’m so happy that we spent that quality time together, and I think he appreciated having another man around the house, having been surrounded by women for so much of his life. We had some deep chats about life and he told me he’d have passed away a long time ago had it not been for Lula. He looked forward to her coming to visit him every weekend and felt energised by her playfulness. His only regret was that the weekend always seemed to pass by so quickly. In his eyes, she could do no wrong. She was his angel. If anyone told her off he’d tell them to leave her alone and stop being nasty. Lula would take full advantage and immediately back him up: ‘Yeah Gangan, tell them!’ Paul has sadly passed away shortly after our wedding.

  I read an article recently about a new initiative at old people’s homes in America. Once or twice a week they take young kids to visit and engage the residents’ brains. It reminded me of the impact Lula had on Paul. My grandma, who has been ravaged by dementia for a couple of years now, also seems to have benefited from her presence. She’s forgotten my name and pretty much everyone else’s in the family, but she still remembers Lula’s. Although I was at a different stage of my life, she had been my motivation during my battle with cancer. When I was at my lowest ebb, throwing up repeatedly, I was driven on by the thought of making more memories with her. There’s something infectious about youthful promise that breathes new life into your world.

  Three years had passed since I’d been given the all-clear, but cancer still hovered over our family like a cloud. A few months earlier, my uncle Terry had passed away following a long battle with bowel cancer. I went to see him at a hospice in Bath, where patients who have failed to respond to treatment effectively go to die. He was sat in a wheelchair and was almost unrecognisable. His legs were full of fluid because his body was shutting down and the rest of his body resembled a skeleton. Chantelle burst out crying when she saw him.

  I wheeled him outside to a bench so we could have a talk in private. ‘Do you fancy pushing me all the way down the hill?’ he joked. Despite how sick he was, he retained his sense of humour. He loved football and was proud of what I’d achieved, having followed my career from the very beginning. One of my earliest memories is playing football with him and some friends at a park in Bath. I nutmegged him and ran through on goal, but out of nowhere he swiped my legs from underneath me, leaving me in tears. His competitive streak went too far that day, but I laugh about it now and his desire to win was infectious.

  At his funeral I was overcome with a sense of guilt. We both had cancer at similar times but he’d gone in one direction and I’d gone in another. As I carried his coffin into church with Reuben, I glanced at family and friends and felt like I was witnessing what could’ve happened to me. I pulled myself together and managed to do a small reading during the service. His passing broke my mum and Niecey’s heart. They’d all been close and their lives would never be the same again. But despite everything, there was still so much to celebrate. Me and Chantelle were going to get married but first we had to get through airport security and survive the bright lights of Vegas.

  I could almost see the sweat on Lloydy’s brow as he looked at the scanner and waited to find out if he’d be let through. After what seemed like an age, the gates opened and he walked through a free man. His details had been processed just in the nick of time. A short while later, Matt came sprinting through and joined the group. We were only a couple of hours into the stag do but it was already carnage. We all headed to a lounge, where we had a drink and a bit of breakfast and the boys got to know each other. I knew them all individually; they were a combination of ex-team-mates, schoolmates and family friends, but they hadn’t mixed as a group before. Lloydy’s revelation about his true age was a nice shared experience to get everyone going and he continued to justify his big lie. ‘I struggled to accept it when I turned 45, but I reckon I’ll be fine when I get to 49.’

  I’d told the boys to bring £2,000 each, but after my first trip to Vegas I knew that figure could easily double. We were staying at the Cosmopolitan Hotel, which was slap bang in the centre of Vegas. I calculated that we’d need £400 to £500 a day for a pool party in the day and then a nightclub. We ended up doing a fair bit more than that. Paul McGovern was the first casualty of the trip and pulled out of the opening night out after complaining of an upset stomach. He was the but
t of the jokes for the rest of the trip. On the Saturday we went to a pool party at Wet Republic to watch Calvin Harris, but I could tell the pace was already catching up with Lloydy. It was a baking hot day and the set was due to start at 3pm but the crowd were told he was running late. ‘Nobody makes Gary G wait 15 minutes. It’s baking hot, I’ve drank far too much, I’m going.’ For some reason, he’d decided to change his name from Gary Lloyd to Gary G, his Vegas alter ego. It was bizarre, but that was him.

  He stormed off and disappeared through the crowds, but 45 minutes later he called me to say he couldn’t find the exit of the MGM Grand. ‘How the fuck do I get out of here?’ He said. ‘I’ve been going round and round in circles.’ I could hear an American accent giving him directions on the other end of the phone and a few seconds later he put the phone down. We saw him when we got back to our hotel later that afternoon and let him know that he’d missed an amazing day. It’s funny seeing how people react to the relentless pace of a stag do, and I could tell he was on his last legs. ‘Tomorrow night is going to be my last night mate,’ he told me. ‘Don’t tell the other lads, I’m just going to get off. But I’ll see you when you get to Ibiza.’

  We planned to hit Saturday night hard and Lloydy was on a mission to go out in style. We went to a club called Jewel to watch the rapper Swizz Beatz. We’d all clubbed together and paid for a table, but Lloydy still wasn’t happy with where we were sat, because he couldn’t see the stage. He called one of the promoters over and demanded that we were moved to a better table. ‘I’m sorry, sir, the tables over there cost $10,000 more than this table,’ said a guy in a suit. ‘Fine, I’ll pay it,’ he replied. I was stunned. ‘Lloydy, are you sure mate?’ I said. He was insistent. ‘I’m probably never going to come back here, so I’m going to do it my way,’ he said. I couldn’t believe he’d just forked out for it like he was ordering a bottle of beer at the bar. That table must have taken his total spending on the trip to £20,000. About half an hour later, the table service arrived, with sparklers coming out of the drinks and a big banner with the name ‘Gary G’ plastered across it.