I’m Not Really Here

by Paul Lake

  A couple of hours later, in the hospital, I was informed that I’d need another arthroscopy to ascertain the damage. Great, I thought, just what I need. Another hole to be drilled into a knee that was already looking like the last Eccles cake in Asda. I was told not to worry too much, since I’d probably only tweaked the ligament. It doesn’t feel like a f***in’ tweak, I thought as I rubbed my tender, inflamed knee and geared myself up for yet more scalpel action.

  The results, as I’d suspected, showed that my ACL had indeed re-ruptured. I was given the bad tidings that I’d have to undergo a second knee reconstruction, followed by another lengthy lay-off. I was too distraught to speak. I felt like throwing up. Whilst I had little medical knowledge, even I knew that the first procedure had clearly failed, and that somewhere down the line my injury was being badly managed. Piling on the agony was the fact that I had absolutely no control over what was going on.

  Everyone could see that my head had totally gone, and I was told to go on holiday, get some rest, and give myself some time to come to terms with the forthcoming surgery. My knee was so swollen that I couldn’t have the operation straight away, anyhow. So, in the words of Peter Kay, I booked it, packed it and f***ed off, jetting over to sunny Tenerife for a week with my good mate John Clarkson.

  We took things easy – it’s hard to trip the light fantastic when your knee’s bollocksed – although I made a point of drinking myself into a stupor every night, necking down vodka and tonics like they were going out of fashion. Anything to take my mind off the trauma that I knew lay ahead.

  The aftermath of the second op was horrendous; much, much worse than I’d ever anticipated. As well as being as sick as a dog from the anaesthetic, I had to contend with pain in my right knee (clamped in that horrible CPM machine) as well as a sore left joint, from which a second piece of tissue had been taken. My discomfort wasn’t improved by the lip-service paid by the conveyor belt of doctors, physios and consultants who flitted past my bedside, some of them barely able to look me in the eye.

  ‘Your knee will feel better than ever, trust me …’

  ‘You’ll be given all the time you need, Paul …’

  ‘No stone will be left unturned, I can assure you …’

  Save your breath, I felt like saying as these empty soundbites went in one ear and out the other. Don’t treat me like some kind of pea-brained lab rat. You know as well as I that, deep down, no one truly knows what’s in store for me now.

  I was confined for nearly a fortnight, staring blankly at white-coated doctors as they bored me with their jargon, rolling over impassively as the nurses injected me with painkillers, and smiling wanly as the tea-ladies ladled out Knorr’s soup of the day.

  Although I appreciated visits from family and friends armed with fruit and magazines, in truth I’d never felt so alone and isolated. The prospect of ever playing for my club and country again seemed a million miles away, and it continually preyed on my mind. My thoughts, becoming ever bleaker by the day, drifted to some lucky sod in a sky blue home strip, a big number 11 stitched on to his back, rubbing his hands in glee and thinking ‘less competition now that Lakey’s out again.’

  I contemplated the upcoming Euro ’92 tournament, visualising Graham Taylor Tippex-ing my name from the squad list, blowing it dry, and scrawling some other jammy bastard’s name in its place. I don’t doubt that mine was a skewed version of reality but, as far as I was concerned someone else was wearing my shirt, and it was hard to stomach.

  So, my morale crushed, I was never going to be the most sociable person on the ward, and kept myself very much to myself. My fellow patients, however, assumed that all I wanted to talk about was football. They weren’t to know that I’d have rather discussed Russell Grant’s star signs than Brian Clough’s star signing. The bloke in the next bed would routinely pop his head around the curtain to inform me that the football was on the box, probably thinking that he was doing me a huge favour. I’d always nod politely, before pulling the covers up tightly, burying my head under the pillow and willing myself to sleep.

  From autumn 1991 to spring 1992, I embarked yet again on the rehab trail, doing my usual two weeks out of three in Shropshire.

  ‘D’you want your usual room, Paul?’ the girl at reception smiled as I checked in for another stay. I was like a football version of Alan Partridge, for the Linton Travel Tavern read Lilleshall, for Norwich read Telford. I’d later learn that no other player in the centre’s history spent as much time there as me.

  It was at this stage of my rehab that I really started to notice the chasm widening between the quality of my treatment at Shropshire and in Manchester. The meticulous care and attention from the FA physios contrasted sharply with the understaffed and time-starved medical team at City. I think I was somewhat of a conundrum to them. Being the only long-term injured player at the club for whom return wasn’t imminent, meant that I wasn’t high on their list of priorities.

  I’d undergone a unique surgical procedure which should have been followed up with specific rehabilitation techniques and defined timescales. But it didn’t happen that way. Instead, I was met with ‘ums’ and ‘aahs’ and puzzled expressions from people whose expertise lay largely on the training pitch. Maintaining a fit first team squad was time consuming – I fully appreciated that – but being at the bottom of the pile was incredibly dispiriting.

  Coming up against this wall of apathy did nothing to fill my confidence vacuum. I quickly came to the conclusion that the only way to progress during my week-long spells in Manchester was to devise my own gym-based rehabilitation. Using a local health club as my base, I replicated what I did at Lilleshall to the letter, training alone for hours on end. The medical team at City, probably relieved to get me out of their hair, had no misgivings about this unsupervised DIY rehab.

  It remained that way for a couple of months, until the time came for me to be welcomed back into the first team squad for pre-season training. I felt like Doctor Who as I arrived at the club that bright June morning. Like the Time Lord, I felt I’d undergone some kind of personality change, morphing from an optimistic young captain to a confidence-sapped nearly-man.

  Helping me readjust to life at City were long-standing team-mates like David White and Bob Brightwell, plus a smattering of new faces including Tony Coton and Adrian Heath. Being able to join in with all the gossipy banter and gallows humour in the dressing room gave me an enormous lift, and really brought home to me how desperately lonely the last 18 months had been.

  ‘Welcome back, Sicknote.’

  ‘Hey Lakey, how much disability benefit did you get, you f***in’ scrounger?’

  I also remember the squad’s elder statesman, Gary Megson, taking me aside for a little pow-wow.

  ‘Great to have you back, mate,’ said Meggo, ‘but if I can give you one piece of advice, it’s this. You’ve got to give it your all now. You can’t be cautious, you can’t hold back. If it ain’t gonna happen, it ain’t gonna happen, but at least you’ll know that you gave it your best shot.’

  My training at Wythenshawe went well – I could feel my fitness levels rising by the day – but I still had plenty of psychological hurdles to overcome and regaining the normal mindset of a carefree footballer was proving to be my biggest struggle. With my self-confidence in recovery, I was light-years away from being able to wake up in the morning, have a yawn and a stretch, throw open the curtains and think positively about that day’s training session.

  My first waking thought wasn’t how’s the weather? but how’s my knee? Then I’d roll out of bed, cautiously place my foot on the floor and consider whether I should ice my knee before or after the training session. As I brushed my teeth, I’d wonder if my joint was going to stand up to 90 minutes of football. In the bath, I’d compare left knee with right, debating whether I felt better or worse than the previous day. The uncertainty was ever-present, the insecurity all-consuming.

  We were lunching in a quaint little pizzeria when the gaffer announced the
line-up for the opening game of our pre-season tour to Italy.

  ‘And, last but not least, wearing the number 11 shirt against Brescia tomorrow will be Mr Paaaaaul Laaaaake,’ said Reidy, hamming it up like a boxing promoter. The lads all jumped to their feet, clapping and cheering, as I tried to swallow the huge lump in my throat.

  Being named in the side was a major achievement for me, of course, but I didn’t want to get carried away. This was going to be the first time I’d kicked a ball in earnest for nearly two years, and I was keen to manage expectations, both my own and other people’s.

  Sensing this reticence, the gaffer gently eased me into the action. I played half of the game versus Brescia and even managed to nick a goal, scoring from close range. Second only to the goal itself was my delight at the nutmegging of Romanian maestro Gheorghe Hagi, who laughed, wagged his finger and clamped his legs shut when I had the cheek to try it a second time.

  Against Cremonese, I managed three-quarters of the match and played a blinder, looping a chipped shot over the Italian goalie to score my second of the tournament. And I featured in the entire game against Verona, operating well alongside Quinny and Mike Sheron, the latter banging in a brace.

  While I was encouraged by the flashes of the ‘old me’ – my pace, touch and timing seemed to be intact – there was still plenty of the ‘new me’ to contend with. A nagging hesitancy continued to bother me, as did the fact that my movement around the pitch seemed more mechanical than natural. But what was most perturbing was the length of time that it took for my knee to recover after a game. In Italy, while the rest of the lads were enjoying a post-match drink in the bar, I was holed up in my hotel room, icing my swollen knee for the thousandth time.

  The British press were full of praise for my continental comeback, however.

  ‘I’m just delighted to have Paul back. It’s like being handed a new £3 million player,’ Reidy was widely quoted as saying. I really appreciated this unstinting support, but it didn’t make the burden of expectation any easier. As the new season loomed, the pressure for me to be fully fit and back to my best was mounting by the day.

  Half the World Away

  CITY’S OPENING FIXTURE of the 1992-93 campaign, on the evening of Monday 17 August, saw us lining up against Queen’s Park Rangers at Maine Road. It was an occasion thick with significance. As well as being our first game in the newly formed English Premier League, it was to be the first match ever to be broadcast live via satellite by BSkyB. And, with any luck, it was going to be the night that I jump-started my football career.

  I arrived at the ground nice and early, parking up in the players’ car park, signing autographs for well-wishers and shaking hands with a couple of stewards who waved me through the gate into the stadium. I took a deep breath and stepped inside. The Platt Lane Stand, midway through a redevelopment project, was an empty shell. But the pitch, smooth like a bowling green, looked as immaculate as ever.

  ‘If you can’t play on that you don’t deserve to be a professional footballer,’ my old coach Glyn Pardoe had once said to me while staring wistfully at the glossy surface. Too right, Glyn, I thought as I walked alongside the Main Stand to the changing rooms, just hours away from making my comeback on this hallowed turf. I turned into the tunnel, made my way towards the hubbub of players’ voices, and timidly pushed open the dressing-room door.

  Like a kid on his first day at secondary school, I was gripped with first-day nerves, worried that I’d find it hard to fit into the new set-up. There had, after all, been a seismic shift in personnel since my last league match in 1990; old muckers like Steve Redmond and Jason Beckford had left for pastures new, with players such as Rick Holden and Keith Curle arriving in the opposite direction. This change in group dynamics was something that I’d just have to get used to, not least the appointment of Curle – a £2.5 million signing from Wimbledon – as team captain. He was a good lad and a useful defender, but this still didn’t stop me feeling a pang of envy when I watched him slip on the black armband.

  Give them their due, though, my team-mates couldn’t have been more encouraging that day, patting me on the back, wishing me luck and breaking into chants of ‘Lakey is back, Lakey is back hello, hello …’

  I tried my damndest to look cool and composed when the time came to pull on my kit, but in truth my heart was in my mouth. Slowly on went the white shorts, the shin pads, the navy socks, the tie-ups and the sky blue short-sleeved shirt with LAKE 8 on the back. My hands trembled as I put on my Adidas boots and tied the laces. These pre-match jitters must have caught the attention of David White, who came over and sat down beside me.

  ‘Shall we go out onto the pitch, mate, get a feel for it?’ he asked quietly. ‘We can have a butcher’s at the cheerleaders, eh …’

  This was Whitey to a tee. It was a big night for us all, but his primary concern was to calm his old mate’s nerves. You don’t forget things like that.

  The BSkyB bandwagon was in full swing when we ambled out of the tunnel for our warm-up. Helping to usher in this new dawn of sports broadcasting – ‘A Whole New Ball Game’, proclaimed the adverts – was a circus of reporters, cameramen, musicians, skydivers and dancing girls. Hoisted in the corner of the Main and North Stands was a makeshift studio that housed the TV pundits and buzzed with technicians. On the touchline, blokes in headphones carried out sound checks and the cheerleaders practised jiggling their pompoms. In the centre circle, a troupe of roadies rigged up a podium in preparation for the on-pitch ‘entertainment’, which amounted to a fireworks display, the assassination of Gerry Rafferty’s ‘Baker Street’ by some tribute band, and the delivery of the match ball by parachute.

  I felt like a stranger in my own backyard. It was as if the traditions of Maine Road, and football in general, were quite literally being trampled on (‘it’s like bloody Disneyland out here,’ I remember whispering to Whitey). Being cut off from the club for two years was hard enough to cope with, but all this American-style razzmatazz only added to my feelings of disorientation. I tried my best to shake off the distractions, though, concentrating on some leg stretches and stride-outs.

  Back in the dressing room, Reidy hollered out his instructions. I was going to be deployed up front behind Quinny, my remit being to play off the big man at every opportunity and to try to make things happen. It wasn’t my instinctive role by any stretch, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to get out there and play. The gaffer, it seemed, was prepared to give me some leeway for my first few outings; I’d need a handful of games before I properly found my feet, he reckoned, and I’d be wise to take things step by step.

  ‘No pressure, Lakey. Try and relax, play your natural game, and remember that the lads are there to help you. Just take it easy and things will come right, I’m sure of it.’

  Cheers pealed around the stadium as I ran onto the floodlit pitch, with ‘Alive and Kicking’, the Simple Minds anthem, booming out of the sound-system. I trotted over to acknowledge the fans in the Kippax. As I got closer, their emotion was palpable. Keep it together, Lakey, you’re on telly, I remember thinking as a BSkyB cameraman shadowed my every move.

  The game itself turned out to be something of a damp squib. Both sides cancelled each other out with their similarly cagey approaches, creating a party-pooping atmosphere that made all the pre-match hype look a bit daft. From a personal perspective, though, I was delighted to feel my confidence soar with each touch of the ball. And, better still, in the 37th minute I was involved in the game’s first goal. The move had started with Niall Quinn, who’d neatly put Rick Holden into the channel. I’d met Rick’s first-time cross and, after my strike at goal was parried by Jan Skejskal, the rebound was finally smashed in by David White. As I legged over to join the communal mauling of Whitey, the roar from the stands was phenomenal. A lot of things had changed at Maine Road, but that familiar wall of sound from the fans was as stirring as ever.

  So was I heading for a dream comeback? Was I f***. This was Paul Lake, not Roy Race. Just
before half-time, an incident near the halfway-line put the mockers on everything. I’d thwarted an advancing Alan McDonald with a block tackle – something that had always been an intrinsic part of my defensive play – and, as I lunged towards him, my kneecap juddered violently, almost giving way beneath me. Yet again, the frailty and instability of the joint had been exposed, causing my head to drop immediately and the alarm bells to ring louder than ever. I managed to make it through to half-time but to my relief was substituted 15 minutes after the restart.

  ‘Well done, Lakey,’ said Peter Reid as I walked past the dugout, trying my utmost not to limp. ‘At least that’s 60 minutes under your belt, lad. Onwards and upwards.’

  Masking my grimace with a grin, I gave him a half-hearted thumbs-up and headed straight to the dressing room where a pair of ice bags awaited me.

  After the game, which finished 1–1, I took part in my first ever formal press conference for the national media. Standing before a roomful of TV, radio and newspaper reporters, I fibbed my way through a five-minute Q&A session. Yes, I was extremely happy with how my first game had gone. Yes, the plan had always been to bring me off after an hour. Yes, I could indeed confirm that I’d had little reaction to the injury. And yes, I was sure that I’d be able to cope with a gruelling schedule of three games in seven days, including the match on Wednesday at Middlesbrough.

  I hated spinning them a yarn but, since I couldn’t face revealing the truth, the only other option was to lie through my teeth.

  The squad travelled to Teeside the next day, staying overnight in a luxurious olde-worlde hotel. After a hearty breakfast we ventured outside for a few stretches, followed by a quick game of head tennis on the lawn. My knee felt terrible, like a stone in a beer can. I hovered around the sidelines, limiting my involvement as best I could, before sloping back to my hotel room, flopping down on the bed, flicking on MTV and phoning down to room service for a bucket of ice.