by Paul Lake
Jo and I had known each other for a while – she’d worked in Manchester City’s commercial department – and over time our friendship had grown into something more serious. We were kindred spirits, the missus and I, and our wedding at a small Cheshire hotel, surrounded by our nearest and dearest, was a day I’ll never forget.
Being in a happy, solid relationship did me the world of good. The cloud of depression that had suffocated me during the 1990s gradually began to lift, and before long I’d weaned myself off the anti-depressants and cancelled my Priory sessions. However, it was only when I ceremonially dusted off my treasured CD collection that I knew I was properly on the mend. I remember welcoming my beloved music back into my life by sliding Oasis’ (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? into my in-car CD player, each sublime track reminding me exactly what I’d been missing all these years. As I warbled tunelessly along to ‘Champagne Supernova’, tapping my fingers on the steering wheel, I felt my sparkle returning. My old self was back. I’d missed him.
My graduation day added further bounce to my step. In May 2003, following four years of hard graft, my fellow students and I gathered together at a conference hall at Salford University, dressed in our black gowns and mortar boards, to celebrate our achievements. As I went up to accept my degree, with Mum and Jo looking on, I felt all the weight and tension lifting off my shoulders. I’d done it. I’d stuck it out. I’d made the grade.
With its compact but ageing stadium, together with its tiny but loyal fan base, Macclesfield Town had the air of a non-league outfit rather than a Division Two side. Home attendances rarely exceeded 2,200; not surprising, perhaps, for a club that hadn’t exactly been blessed with success, and that happened to be situated within 20 miles of both City and United. Trying to persuade the local townsfolk to choose Moss Rose instead of Maine Road was always going to be an uphill struggle.
The club’s facilities were functional, to put it mildly. My physio room was a shrine to the 1970s, with its woodchip wallpaper, greying net curtains and cheap carpet tiles, together with the most ancient ultrasound-machine-cum-Enigma—code-cracker that I’d ever seen. But what the club lacked in flashiness, it more than made up for in friendliness. Macclesfield Town’s greatest asset was its dedicated workforce, a cluster of tireless employees who wore more hats than the Queen Mother.
One such gem was Eric Campbell. Every lower league club has its own Mr Fixit – a man with a pencil behind his ear and a Swiss army knife in his pocket – and Eric, God rest his soul, was ours. He did everything. If the showers were knackered, he’d mend them. If a coach needed booking, he’d sort it. If the goalposts collapsed, he’d rebuild them. Put it this way, had your aeroplane crashed into the Amazon jungle, it’s Eric you’d have wanted sitting next to you. He was a wonderful man who made coming into work a pleasure.
As the club’s sole physio, I was the proverbial blue-arsed fly. I hardly stopped to catch my breath. If I wasn’t treating the youth- and first-team lads – massaging backs, taping limbs, patching up blisters – then I’d be either shuttling the non-driving players to the training ground or stopping off at Tesco to buy 30 ready meals for the weekend coach journey. In fact, I did everything for the lads other than spoon-feed them their lunch or wipe their backsides (and even Eric would have drawn the line at that).
As regards the playing staff, let’s just say that Macclesfield struggled to attract the cream of the crop. Most new signings were either lower league specialists like Steve Payne, or 30-something journeymen, such as Tommy Widdrington and Clyde Wijnhard, in the twilight of their careers. Finally, there were the short-term loan signings from bigger clubs, namely Boaz Myhill and Colin Little, who came from Aston Villa and Crewe Alexandra respectively.
A constant presence amid all these comings and goings, however, was our player-coach, John Askey. Macclesfield born and bred, John had spent his entire professional career at the club, notching up over 700 appearances in the process. He was also a former team-mate of my brother Mike, who’d spent a couple of seasons with the Silkmen in the mid-1980s.
John was a revelation. I remember sitting in the dugout when, at the grand old age of 40, he scored a memorable goal against Rochdale on the last day of the 2002–03 season. He’d hardly featured in the team that year, concentrating mainly on his coaching duties, but an unprecedented glut of injuries had led to his name being added to the list of substitutes that day. John was so delighted to poke in the 88th-minute equaliser that he dived into the crowd of adoring home fans, badly injuring his calf in the process.
‘It was worth every one of these bruises,’ John said the next morning, as I patched him up in the physio room. ‘You’re a long time not playing, as you know yourself, Lakey. I’ve got to enjoy it while I can, haven’t I?’
It was, as it happened, his final match for the Silkmen. But what a career, and what a fantastic servant.
It was at Macclesfield, probably more than any other club I worked at, that I bonded most with the players. My five-year stint at Moss Rose gave me the chance to get to know the squad well, particularly the injury-susceptible lads who’d spend more time on the treatment table than on the training ground. For many of them, I like to think that my physio room was an oasis of calm, a place where they could ditch all the macho dressing-room banter and chat freely and frankly.
Nothing of a personal nature ever went further than my four walls, and once players realised that they could trust me they’d frequently open up, discussing their problems and divulging their innermost secrets. Sometimes the subject matter would lean towards on-field matters – fear of losing their place in the team, for example, or anger at being played out of position – but more often than not the chat would involve affairs off the pitch. As I treated their injuries, I’d hear stories of marriage break-ups, financial meltdown and severe depression. I felt like Moss Rose’s resident agony aunt: a psychologist, financial adviser and relationship counsellor rolled into one.
I remember trying to mask my shock when a self-confessed sex addict once poured his heart out, admitting to me that he’d seen 50 different prostitutes in the space of a year. Then there was the lad in his early 20s who was so plagued with worry about his heavy gambling debts that his game had gone into freefall overnight.
‘How can I keep my mind on the pitch when I’ve got bailiffs knocking on my door, and heavies threatening to smash my face in?’ I recall him once telling me.
Getting to know all the lads helped me from a professional perspective, too. I became an expert at determining each player’s pain threshold, pinpointing which mard-arse players were more likely to hit the deck like a wet paper bag, and identifying those hard nuts who’d stay down only if they were in serious trouble. Throughout my physio career I usually found that players who theatrically writhed around following an injury, rolling about in seeming agony, often weren’t badly hurt. It was those who remained completely still on the ground – a sure sign of the body going into shock – that aroused the most genuine concern. I’d had enough personal experience of this to know the score.
There was always a strong Manchester City contingent at Moss Rose. Many of the players, including Michael Welch and Danny Adams, were lifelong Blues’ supporters, as were the kitmen, Paul and Frank. And, in the summer of 2004, joining a band of Maine Road ex-pats that included manager Brian Horton, was my old buddy Ian ‘Bob’ Brightwell. Bob’s arrival as reserve team coach pleased me no end, as he and I had always got on famously. He possesses the most irritating sense of humour of anyone I know (his favourite prank being to stir your cup of tea and burn your hand with the spoon) and it was great to rekindle our old friendship. Richard Edghill came aboard a couple of seasons later, having decided to see out his playing career at Moss Rose.
This influx of City aficionados meant that the morning chatter in my physio room often had a distinct sky blue theme. Over mugs of tea and bacon butties, we discussed Joe Royle’s replacement, Kevin Keegan who, together with new chairman John Wardle, had succeeded in bring
ing some stability to the club after a couple of yo-yo seasons. We discussed the merits of new signings like Peter Schmeichel and Robbie Fowler. And, in the spring of 2003, we mourned the end of an era, the decision having been taken to relocate Manchester City Football Club to a brand-new stadium at Eastlands, the venue of the 2002 Commonwealth Games.
On Sunday 11 May 2003, a bright, sunny day, Maine Road staged its final game. Along with a host of other former players, I’d been asked by the club to make a guest appearance on the pitch before kick-off to mark one of the most poignant occasions in City’s history.
I took Zac along with me that day, purposely arriving nice and early so that I could give him a potted history of Dad’s old stamping ground. Shepherding him from one side of the stadium to the other, I pointed out various Maine Road landmarks. Stan Gibson’s house that adjoined the souvenir shop; the window of Ken Barnes’s old office-cum-social-club; the turnstile that Albert the milkman and I used to walk through; the old fella weighed down by his ‘Repent All Ye Sinners’ sandwich board.
After letting Zac pat the nose of a friendly police horse, I walked him past the bustling main entrance, where we were grabbed for a radio interview by England rugby star (and City fanatic) Will Greenwood. And, as we passed the St John Ambulance meeting point, I decided to tell Zac all about my infamous tongue-swallowing story.
‘And d’you know what?’ I said to him after describing the gory drama that had unfolded, ‘your daddy nearly died on the pitch that day.’
Zac paused and looked at me, his eyes widening.
‘Can I have a hot dog, Dad?’ came the reply from a six-year-old far more bothered about a sausage in a roll than my near-death experience.
I bought him his hot dog, and for nostalgia’s sake grabbed myself one too. As we wolfed them down, leaning against the ticket office wall, I told Zac to savour all the sights, the sounds and the smells of Maine Road, because soon all this would be no more.
Then, with him clinging on to my coat, just like I’d done with Albert all those years ago, we wound our way to the Main Stand entrance. We mingled with hundreds of supporters as they emerged from the backstreets, trudged across the forecourt, and passed through the turnstiles, their faces riven with sadness. This lovely old stadium had been home to some wonderful memories, had been a haven to generations of Mancunians, and over its 80-year existence, had touched thousands of lives. For many fans, myself included, it hadn’t properly sunk in that our temple, our shrine, would soon be reduced to rubble.
I hoisted Zac onto my shoulders and walked onto the Maine Road pitch for the last time, joining the throng of former players gathering round the centre circle. This roll-call of footballers spanned five decades, from Roy Clarke and Ken Barnes to Gary Owen and David White; from Tommy Booth and Dennis Tueart to Uwe Rösler and Georgi Kinkladze.
Each of us was handed the microphone for a couple of minutes, having been asked to address the sell-out crowd with our own Maine Road memories. I told everyone how grateful I was to have played in this wonderful stadium, in good times and bad, and thanked the fans for their unswerving support through the years. As my little speech came to a close, I felt a wave of emotion wash over me. And, in the spring of 2003, we mourned the end of an era, the decision having been taken to relocate Manchester City Football Club to a brand new stadium at Eastlands, the venue of the 2002 Commonwealth Games.
‘No matter what happens, and wherever we go, one thing will never change,’ I said, just about holding it together. ‘Once a Blue, always a Blue.’
Zac and I returned to the Main Stand to watch a typically tragicomic City performance. On such a momentous occasion, in a stadium full to bursting with diehard fans and former footballers, the lads wilted under the pressure and were beaten 1–0 by Southampton. Compounding this was the fact that all the ex-players had been herded into seats located behind the biggest pillar in the stand. Occupying the worst position in the stadium meant that we could see only one half of the pitch.
‘Are all City games like this?’ asked a bemused Zac, unimpressed with the crappy view and the even crappier scoreline.
‘No, son,’ I replied. ‘We’ll probably play better than this next season, and still get beaten.’ And I grinned at him, inwardly pleased that he was experiencing a day in the life of a City fan, with the usual dashing of expectation and shattering of illusions. His character would be built upon it.
Sitting elsewhere in the Main Stand that day was my wife. Despite being heavily pregnant, Jo, a life-long Blue, had insisted on attending this momentous match with her friend Adam, waddling through the back streets of Moss Side and up the concrete steps of C Block.
Exactly a month later, another Lake was welcomed into the world, a dark-haired, blue-eyed boy whom we named Edward, in memory of his grandad.
It was on a freezing-cold January night that I paid my first proper visit to our new ground, the City of Manchester Stadium, part of the Eastlands sporting complex. I was attending the club’s inaugural Hall of Fame awards dinner, Blues’ fans having given me the ultimate accolade by voting me into an elite that included Bert Trautmann, Colin Bell, Francis Lee, Mike Summerbee and Joe Corrigan.
I’d been concerned that City’s new home would end up an ugly, soulless block of concrete like other grounds that I’d visited. My fears subsided, however, when I walked up Joe Mercer Way and was confronted by what I can only describe as a work of art. With its gleaming glass panels and blue uplighting, together with its spiky, space-age cables and spiral ramps, it took my breath away. I made my way to the main entrance and stared up in wonderment, marvelling at the symmetry and detail, hoping that the City squad realised how lucky they were to call this monument to perfection their workplace.
The stadium interior was equally impressive. While nothing would ever replicate the comfy homeliness of Maine Road, I was nonetheless blown away by the plush facilities, more in keeping with a five-star hotel than a sports venue. As I followed the guests into the hospitality lounge, I heard a familiar voice call out my name.
‘Come here, Paul,’ said my old friend and former testimonial committee chairman Tudor Thomas. ‘Let me show you something before the ceremony starts.’
He proceeded to lead me through a door that opened out onto one of the most beautiful playing surfaces I’d ever seen. Flooded with light and framed by a swathe of 47,000 sky blue seats, it looked absolutely stunning.
‘What d’you reckon?’ asked Tudor.
‘I think it’ll grow on me,’ I smiled.
An hour or so later I was officially welcomed into the Hall of Fame, proudly sharing a stage with some of City’s most revered players. Niall Quinn accepted his award just before me, and brought a tear to my eye when he made a point of singling me out, describing me as the best footballer he’d ever played with.
The joy of the occasion, however, was tinged with sadness. It was on this night, perhaps more than any other, that I found myself yearning for my father. I really wished he’d been there to share in such a huge honour, and I said so in my acceptance speech.
‘This one’s for you Dad,’ I said, kissing my award and looking skywards.
There Is a Light That Never Goes Out
IN A MOVE that came as a surprise to many, Paul Ince was appointed player-manager of Macclesfield Town in October 2006. With the Silkmen propping up the Second Division, seven points adrift of their rivals, the Moss Rose board had sacked Brian Horton and taken a gamble on the former Manchester United midfielder, despite his complete lack of managerial experience.
‘All right, Lakey,’ chuckled Paul as he walked into my physio room on his first morning in charge. ‘Been a long time, eh?’
Fifteen years, in fact, had passed since I’d last seen my old opponent. It had been on Christmas Eve 1991, waiting in the queue at HMV in Manchester city centre, that I’d felt a tap on my shoulder and had turned round to see Paul standing there with his wife, Claire.
‘Lakey, how are you, mate? Good to see you,’ he’d smiled.
With Claire only weeks away from giving birth to their first child, we’d chatted for a while about their plans and preparations for the new arrival, Paul shaking his head as his other half described the amount of baby gear that was being stockpiled at their Bramhall home.
‘I’ve spent a bloody fortune in Mothercare,’ he’d said. ‘Seriously, you wouldn’t believe how much a pushchair costs these days. Nearly as much as a car …’
Despite his Red allegiances, over the years I’d got on very well with Paul, and football-wise we’d always had a lot in common. Until injury had ruined my best-laid plans, our careers had followed similar paths, both of us enjoying schoolboy and youth team success (his school team had won the National Six-a-Side championship the year before mine), followed by a swift progression to professional football and England honours. He and I had also been Adidas bedfellows, the pair of us having secured exclusive boot deals as our careers had ascended.
As we stood nattering away in that record store, however, it struck me that our circumstances couldn’t have been more different. There was I, in the midst of my post-op rehabilitation, struggling physically, emotionally and financially. And there was Paul, fighting fit and entering the prime of his career, cementing his place in the England set-up and playing for a United side that was on the cusp of greatness. He was well off, happily married and with a kid on the way – life was obviously treating him well.
He told me to get fit soon (‘I need payback for that 5–1 nightmare,’ he grimaced) and we bid our farewells. I shook his hand, gave Claire a kiss, and wished them both a merry Christmas and a happy New Year.
‘The same to you, too,’ Paul smiled. ‘Hope 1992’s a good ’un for you, Lakey …’