by Bishop, John
Elated, we all jumped to celebrate: Daniel and my nephew Lee running around the corner, Eddie, Duff and me hugging as we leapt. And then, at that moment, we turned to see a mass of blue and white behind us.
We were right in front of the Cardiff supporters, whose disappointment at conceding a goal was compounded by Liverpool supporters dancing in front of them.
Before we could even adjust our response to the situation we had found ourselves in and walk away quietly, the abuse began. The usual finger-pointing, vein-bulging-in-the-neck rants that you see football supporters do when they are angry. The stewards quickly appeared, as did the two police officers who provided our escort through the ground, and tried to get us back through the exit.
I don’t blame the Cardiff fans for their initial response, but when I saw someone throw a plastic bottle that just missed Daniel I lost it. I could see the culprit, who looked like he was in his thirties, with close-cropped hair and glasses, and a face so red and strained it looked as if he was trying to lift a car, anger and frustration etched across it. The bit I couldn’t understand was the glasses. Whilst he was voicing threats of violence against me when I came to Cardiff on tour, I kept thinking, ‘You can’t be that mad, you’ve remembered to put your glasses on.’
Everyone else had been led away so I was the last one left, looking at the mass of angry blue, but all I could see was the bottle thrower. Just before the police officer came to get me, I managed to shout, ‘Fuck off, four eyes!’
There is nothing more satisfying than seeing a grown man lose total self-control after being called a playground name. His head looked like it was going to explode, and even the people around him started to step away as he raged even more.
When I went to Cardiff later that year on tour, I had nothing but the brilliant time I always have had there. Mr Angry had actually been in correspondence with my nephew, and once it was explained that where we were at the time of Dirk Kuyt’s goal was not something of our making, and we had reacted without knowing our location, it all cooled down and apologies were exchanged. He even said that he was coming to see me on tour, although I would not have recognised him unless he painted his face red. He probably went back to his life as an accountant, where nobody has ever seen him about to burst a blood vessel in frustration. I mean, football is not so important that it should influence your life that much, everybody knows that.
We boarded the motorbike taxis, said goodbye to Eddie, Daniel and Lee and raced through the streets of London to Paddington. When we arrived, Bex was waiting for me with a worried look on her face.
‘What happened?’ she asked.
‘It went to extra time, but I just had a text to say we won on penalties.’
‘Not the result. Lisa has just rung to say call her straight away as Radio 5 Live have phoned to say you were arrested for crowd trouble at the game!’
Can you imagine worse publicity for a charity event? That, the night before, the main protagonist is ‘banged up for kicking off’ at a football game?
I called Lisa and the misunderstanding was cleared up and, along with Beth and Duff, I boarded the train to Paris, a football game behind us, and a week of hell ahead.
CHAPTER 37
WEEK OF HELL
In a period of five days, I did what I consider to be probably the most significant thing of my life. Significant not because it was challenging or physically difficult; not significant in any particular way that was unique to me being there, but significant because of the efforts of others. Literally millions of people donated money to Sport Relief as a direct result of those five days, and it was they who made something that could have just been a celebrity challenge into an event that raised enough money to ensure that some people are alive today as a direct result of it.
The challenge had been adapted to start in Paris and end in London. This meant that the first day was a 185-mile bike ride. I had not slept well in anticipation, but now I was to be seen off by Lisa and a small band of friends, as well as a contingent from BT, who were the sponsors, and Sport Relief.
I was wearing all the appropriate Lycra Sport Relief-branded clothing to let the world know I meant business. I was to have a phone call with Chris Moyles on Radio 1’s breakfast show, whose support proved integral to the success of the event. He was to sound the klaxon that signalled the start of the challenge. As my feet were clipped into the pedals of my bike, in order to talk to Chris on the phone and leave promptly when he sounded the klaxon, I had to continually ride around in circles. This meant the obligatory photographs and video links would not work, so I ended up being propped up by Sport Relief staff. I looked like I was being taught how to ride without stabilisers, rather than being prepared to face the biggest sporting challenge of my life.
I rode the first few miles with Olympic Gold medallist Chris Boardman, before setting off towards the coast. It was so well organised, we had motorbike outriders holding back traffic where we needed to. Behind them rode two bicycle outriders, Andy and Gordon, who, along with Greg, acted almost as targets for me to try and reach, although they were usually more than a kilometre ahead of me; I was not allowed to ride too close to anyone in case I was seen to gain an advantage from a drag in their slipstream. If I was going to do this, nobody wanted to be accused of making it easy.
After 90 miles I was joined by mates Martin, Bomber, Chris and Andy from The Big Dogs cycling club. It only seemed right that they should take part in the ride since they had helped prepare me for it, and it was a great lift to see them at the point where I was really starting to tire.
The ride was taking longer than anticipated due to factors that were out of our control, such as the need to pause and do radio interviews and press – all things that help raise money but which interrupted the progress. The distance of 185 miles is also a very long way, so if you are behind on time at the 90-mile mark it’s very difficult to pick it up; you can only go as fast as you can.
What made it worse was that in rural France there are no street lights, not even cats’ eyes in the road, so as night fell we were riding into complete darkness. You had no idea you were going uphill until you started to slow down; then you only knew you had passed the apex when you found yourself suddenly going faster.
Like everybody else, I had assumed the road to the coast would be flat, and it probably is if you’re sitting in a car. But if you are getting there by peddling it may as well be the Alps after the first hundred miles. We eventually rode into Calais at 4 a.m., at least four hours late and with a wake-up call at six, which didn’t leave much time for rest and recovery. On the one hand, I was pleased one leg was over, but I knew it represented only a fifth of what I had set out to do, so there was no time for slaps on the back.
I went to the hotel room and started what was to be my nightly routine: I had an ice bath for 10–15 minutes, before putting on compression tights to stop my legs swelling. This part was never captured by the documentary crew; a man in his forties wearing compression tights is not a sight that would encourage people to donate to Sport Relief; instead, they would be more likely to want to help the poor fellow with rickets and squashed genitals. Then I had a massage from the physio, Dot.
When I say ‘a massage from the physio, Dot’, I mean a proper massage. Dot is not, as his name may suggest, a dainty lady, but a six-foot-three ex-serviceman who is built like a barn door. If ever you need someone to straighten your body out, he is the man, whether your body wants it or not.
The second day, I was woken after an hour’s sleep. I was tired but excited: I was going to row the English Channel, which was never something I could have even conceived of doing when I was at school. I was going to do this once-in-a-lifetime experience with four great people: Freddie Flintoff, Davina McCall, Denise Lewis and Mike, an experienced cox who had done the Channel crossing a few times. We’d trained for half a day with Mike near Portsmouth so had some grasp of what we were doing, but we four rowers were in a boat that normally needed six oarsmen.
; The recommended way to cross the Channel is with a team of 12 people, six rowing, and rotating with the other six every 2–4 hours. It made an afternoon on the water seem not very much preparation at all, but it was all we’d had time for, so there was no turning back.
What we didn’t know was that the Channel crossing had been a problem right up until the night before the start of the challenge. What I didn’t realise is that you are not allowed to cross the Channel from France to England in anything less than a suitable ferry or boat. If you want to swim it, row it, water-ski it or cross it in whatever fashion is deemed unusual, you have to start in England – the French simply don’t permit it.
Perhaps the fact that the destination is England rather than France means that nobody has been incentivised enough to challenge this law. At least if you go the other way, there will be a chance of a topless woman on the beach or decent wine and cheese at the end. Climbing out of the water in Dover to a bag of chips and a nursing-home day-trip is hardly the same.
Kevin had reassured me that this would all be sorted before we started the challenge but, as I was learning, Kevin had a habit of being reassuring about things that were not yet in place; after all, if he didn’t take those chances, a lot of things would simply not happen. However, if we could not row across the Channel, we would have a real problem.
Kevin had asked Gordon Brown – with whom he had a good relationship since he had taken part in a Smithy sketch for Comic Relief a few years earlier – to help, by calling the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy. This was done and, unbeknown to me, it was only the night before I left for the challenge that Kevin had received a message that the Admiral of Calais (a title which sounds like a name you give a pub) had given approval for us to row on Tuesday morning.
It is a great illustration of the respect that the organisation commands that Kevin was able to ask a former prime minister of the UK to help, and that he was then prepared to pull his weight with his counterpart in France. I am not so sure this would have happened had Nicolas Sarkozy been aware that my first ever joke as a comedian was about the French not stopping the Germans in 1939. Still, let’s not mention the war.
We boarded our boat and started rowing at around eight in the morning. It was to be some 13 hours before we would climb out of the boat again. Thirteen hours is a long time doing anything; 13 hours rowing seems even longer, like dog years. The reason is that rowing a boat in the sea quickly becomes boring. Mike was counting our strokes, which after an hour also starts to get dull, but he was using this technique to keep our pace up. The problem with the Channel is that as soon as you reduce your pace you start to drift off course and then have to work hard just to get back to where you were in the first place. After the first hour, during which we were happy to joke and laugh, we settled down to the slog of the row. Freddie summed the tedium up perfectly: ‘Rowing is shit. No wonder they give people knighthoods for doing it.’
A few hours in, and fatigue was beginning to take its toll. As I was rowing, I was falling out of pace with the other three and even Mike shouting to keep me focused didn’t seem to help. I kept shaking my head and trying to concentrate on the rowing action, but when I looked into the water at my oar I was beginning to see double.
The problem with seeing two oars is that you don’t know which one to put in the water. If you get it wrong, as I did, it has the same effect as a boxer throwing a punch that does not connect – you just carry on going. I fell back and was helped back into my seat by Freddie, who was very nice about it: if only four of you are rowing and one keeps falling out of his seat, it must take a lot not to want to throw him overboard. But all three of them just kept encouraging me on.
After four hours I had to take a call with Greg James for Radio 1. The phone was handed over from the support boat and I recall hearing Greg’s voice, but I have no idea what I said – the tiredness was such that I could hardly speak. Davina quickly intervened, took the phone from me and did the interview on my behalf. My accent is not great on radio at the best of times, but, four hours into rowing the English Channel after an hour’s sleep, I sounded like I was walking out of the dentist with that silly pink water still dribbling down my chin.
There is a moment when exhaustion and drunkenness have the same effect. You start slurring your words, you start rolling your head, your blinks become 20-second naps and you are useless in a boat. The support boat was summoned and, after a quick look and a discussion between Greg and the doctor, Matt, a bunch of tablets were put in my hand.
To this day, I don’t know what they were, and perhaps the discussion between the two was to see if we had reached international waters, so that everyone knew what laws were being broken when I took them. I ate an energy bar, drank some fluid and let the pills kick in, and we started rowing again, us band of four with our cox, Mike.
The reality was that I could not have given up; I knew I would have let so many people down. I am sure the charity would have managed to salvage something from the situation, but these things are not set up to fail. Who wants to donate to someone who nearly did something? Knowing the benefits the money could bring spurred me on; not wanting to let my kids or Melanie down by failing spurred me on; not wanting to face the world as someone who couldn’t complete something spurred me on; but, most of all, the four people in the boat spurred me on. Mike did his job admirably as a cox, but the bond between the rowers was something that moved me. In that boat and on the day, I could not have wanted to be with better people.
At my lowest point, Freddie leaned forward and patted me on my back: ‘Don’t worry, mate, we’ll get you home.’ Had it been Denise or Davina who had said that, I would have kissed them, such was my gratitude that I had these special people with me. But as it was Freddie, I just said, ‘Thanks, mate,’ and attempted to carry on rowing.
The sun was setting as Dover came into sight. Being in a rowing boat and seeing your eventual destination is almost worse than not seeing it, because for ages you feel that you aren’t getting any closer.
We had been rotating around the boat every hour to balance out who took the front position and set the pace, but for the final three hours we just sat and rowed as Davina set the pace, showing all those fitness DVDs are the real deal, and we kept up as much momentum as we could.
Freddie and Denise have been world-class athletes because they have that thing inside that makes them winners. They would never have stopped until we reached England, no matter how long it took. Davina is one of the most determined people I have ever met, and led us into the port under Mike’s direction. Meanwhile, I was doing all I could to not let them down.
As we neared the dock, we saw a small crowd had gathered. Then, as we approached, we realised it was not such a small crowd at all, but a sizeable contingent to welcome us home. This was a surprise, as I had told my friends and family that I would see them at the end of the challenge – if I made it – and not before. However, when I saw the other members of the boat greet their friends and family, I wished I had asked them to be there. But then I realised I was not even halfway and, for me, the time to celebrate had not yet arrived.
We rowed up to the berth where we docked the boat but, before we climbed out, we shared a moment. A cricketer, an athlete, a television presenter and a comedian had just rowed the Channel. None of us had ever thought we would do something like that, and we all knew we were likely never to do it again. I also knew that in the middle of the Channel, when I had had nothing left, they had carried me through. To the press, this may have been four celebrities in a boat; but to us, it was four friends, and I will always owe a debt of gratitude to them all. I kissed Davina and Denise goodbye, then I turned to Freddie, looked in his eyes and shook his hand.
He may have saved me in the middle of the Channel, but there was still no way I was going to kiss him.
After an ice bath and a heavy night’s sleep, I was woken up by Dot bringing his treatment table into my hotel room. I had a massage, got dressed, ate breakfast and prepared
for three days of running. This was a daunting task, as I had never run more than a half-marathon prior to training, but I felt confident that I had a chance to do this. Running is putting one foot in front of the other. I had been doing it for most of my life, so I convinced myself that this was all I had to do.
It was not to be too long before I realised it would not be that easy. As a surprise, Comedy Dave from Chris Moyles’s show turned up to run the first five miles with me. A small crowd had gathered to send us on our way, and we started the journey towards London.
Within the first few hundred metres I noticed vehicles on the road were beeping their horns at us: cars, school buses, lorries, motorbikes – it seemed like everyone was beeping at us. At first, I just thought that this was what people in Dover did: a kind of early warning to signal to anyone who had just driven off the ferry to let them know what side of the road they were on. It was Dave who told me that the beeps were for me.
Having spent the last two days out of the country, I was unaware of how many people knew what I was doing. Of course I had done interviews, and Radio 1 was playing a massive role in supporting the challenge, but you don’t think that will automatically result in people being bothered. Everyone has a busy life, so you could easily miss a radio interview. I wouldn’t have blamed anyone for wondering why two blokes were being filmed whilst they ran, particularly as the pace they were running at hardly meant that they were training for the Olympics. It was a great lift to have people beeping their horns as I passed, and it continued right till the end, although at times I was almost too tired to acknowledge it.
After Dave left, I continued to the halfway point, where I was to meet Dermot O’Leary. Dave I knew from going on Chris’s show; Dermot I had only met once before, but he is one of those people it is virtually impossible to dislike. We ran together for 10 miles.