Hammered

by Mark Ward

  At 38, it was a defining moment not only in my career, but my life as a whole. If I’d been left alone to run the team at Alty, I remain convinced to this day that I’d have gone on and enjoyed a decent career in football management. If I hadn’t been unfairly sacked by Altrincham in March 2001, I’m sure I would have done good things there the following season, possibly got them promoted, and my fledgling management career would have gone from strength to strength.

  I was mentally torched over what happened and unable to sleep properly for weeks. The overall feeling of frustration and anger really got to me and I felt bitter about it for a long time afterwards.

  Two years later, I did get a little satisfaction from a phone call I received from a good friend of mine who was abroad at the time. ‘Anton’ Taylor had left Manchester and was abroad when he bumped into friends of mine. He was looking to do business with them but slipped up when he tried to do a bit of name-dropping and mentioned to my contact about ‘having worked with Mark Ward at Altrincham’.

  My mate rang me to ask about Anton’s credentials. I told him in no uncertain terms not to do any business with the pretentious prick. ‘That will do for me,’ he said. So, indirectly, I did gain a little bit of revenge.

  But my time at Altrincham should have been the stepping stone to better things and the start of a promising new career in football management. Instead, I was sliding faster down the slippery slope.

  28. ARMAGEDDON

  TIME was running out for me and after my bad experience at Altrincham I was desperate to get another coaching or management role. But in football, as in many different walks of life, it’s often not what you know, but who you know that matters most. Maybe my reputation was now counting against me on the job front but I believed then – as I still do now – that I can coach well and get the best out of players. But men, not groups of children, as I discovered on an eventful trip to the USA.

  It was well into August 2001 and I’d been invited by Dave Jones, who had been involved with me at Leigh RMI, to coach kids in New York. He’d been coaching youngsters in NY for a year and was constantly badgering me to come over and give it a go.

  To be honest, coaching children had been never my cup of tea – I didn’t have the patience nor the communication skills to get the best out of them. But with nothing else lined up at the start of the 2001-02 season, I booked my ticket to America for a month – and what an experience this turned out to be.

  ‘Jonesy’ was a very likeable bloke and had been renting a room off Brian, a Bolton lad who had been living in the States for 12 years and had an interesting job coaching the under-18s women’s university team. Dave, though, was working for a guy originally from Liverpool – I can’t even recall his name – who had lived Stateside for 25 years.

  This fella recruited 34 coaches from South America and Europe and he was delighted to have an ex-Premiership footballer join his coaching staff. But there was something I didn’t like about him from the start. He was a phoney but, for the time being, I just let him babble on and gave him the benefit of the doubt.

  My first day of work for him was a nightmare. I had to coach football – or soccer, as they call it – to 34 kids all under the age of eight. It wasn’t really coaching, though – babysitting on a massive scale and I couldn’t manage it successfully. And as I found out, none of the other coaches could either. The sheer number of children was overwhelming and, not surprisingly, I found it very difficult to teach proper skills and pass on my knowledge and experience to any of them.

  After the first session the owner of Kiddies Soccer took Jonesy and me for a pint. Me being me, I told him straight that what he was doing, and what he expected his army of coaches to do on his behalf, was cheating the mums and dads, because the coaches he was employing weren’t able to do their jobs properly. Needless to say, we had a big fall-out. I’d only been working for him for a day but I told him to stick his job. It just wasn’t for me.

  Back at Brian’s house later in the day, Jonesy told me I’d blown my chances of working there after my forthright comments to the owner. On the other hand, Brian was made up that I’d spoken my mind, as he’d had a falling out with the same guy years earlier and gone his own way. ‘I’ll tell you what, Mark,’ he said, ‘I’ll send an email to everyone I know here – I’ve got a soccer coaching database of over 300 email addresses.

  ‘I’ll say: “Ex-Premiership footballer, here for one month only, willing to do one-to-one coaching”. How much do you want an hour?’

  We agreed a fee of $70 an hour, bearing in mind Kiddies Soccer had been paying me $25, or would have done if I’d hung around with them for longer than a day. Brian said the Americans loved one-to-one coaching sessions and that $70 wouldn’t be a problem.

  The next morning Brian woke me up to say there had already been 25 responses from families wanting to hire my services.

  ‘Get on the phone, Mark, and make yourself a few bucks,’ he said enthusiastically.

  I sat and phoned all the numbers from the email enquiries and most of the mums I spoke to had two children for me to coach. After an hour on the phone that morning I had a full coaching schedule lined-up.

  It was great meeting all the parents, who always stayed to watch me take the kids and help them with the basics of coaching. I’d give them exercises to do that I’d done a million times and try and pick up on their weak spots. Just a simple instruction on how to run up to the ball makes all the difference to some kids.

  One father was so impressed that he offered me his indoor astroturf gym in the winter to use for coaching. It was all going swimmingly … until the morning of September 11.

  Jonesy was helping me coach four youngsters who were related. Just as we started the session, one of their dads came charging on to the field shouting: ‘We’re being invaded.’

  He scooped up his kids and bolted off to his car. The other parents all quickly whisked their children away, too, leaving me and Jonesy to gather up a load of footballs. We’d heard sirens and also noticed helicopters above. We packed our gear away into the car and switched on the radio to hear those immortal words: ‘The Pentagon has just been hit.’

  ‘Fucking hell, Jonesy,’ I said ‘You’ve brought me to Armageddon!’

  We rushed back to the house and were amazed at what we were witnessing on TV. Everyone will remember where they were and what they were doing as that awful day of 9/11 unfolded.

  I was just six miles from Ground Zero and the destruction of the Twin Towers, where official estimates reported that around 2,800 people died, devastating the people of America. We didn’t move out of the house for two days. My family couldn’t get in touch – all the phone lines around us were down – and all they knew was that I was working somewhere in New York.

  It really was a life-changing experience seeing people, who couldn’t get back into the city, crying in the street not knowing if their loved ones were alive.

  Obviously, all my coaching plans collapsed there and then, but what did that really matter in the grand scheme of things? This catastrophic event that destroyed so many lives will never be forgotten.

  It took me more than two weeks to get on a flight back to the UK. I thanked Jonesy and Brian for all their help but, in truth, my timing couldn’t have been worse and it had been a disastrous trip for me financially. The reality was that I’d not had enough time to earn any decent money and I had to pay £800 for my return flight. I had a stroke of good fortune, though, when I was upgraded to business class on the way home. As I pondered my future, I was pampered by the cabin crew and got very drunk.

  A month or so after returning from the States I returned to play non-league football, back at Leigh RMI. My second spell with them lasted 14 months but I found that I was no longer enjoying the playing side. I’d had surgery on a cartilage injury and as well as that, the legacy of the ankle I’d badly broken while playing for Everton at Blackburn eight years earlier was also now taking its toll.

  On December 11, 2002 I played m
y last game of competitive football at the age of 40. The next 18 months were really just a blur as I tried desperately to fill the empty void left by the game I love. It had gone badly in the USA but surely, I kept telling myself, there were other places I could go to try and earn a living.

  I knew for sure that I needed to get away from Liverpool.

  29. UP TO MY NECK

  AFTER my divorce from Jane in 1996, I got the opportunity to travel to Australia and spent four months in Brisbane. I’d hoped to spend a season playing there, or maybe even stay permanently if things went well. I travelled to Oz with a mate called Barry Jackson, who had previously lived there for 18 years and was on his way back hoping to re-settle in the Queensland capital.

  I loved the laid-back Aussie way of life and used my time there to soak up the sun and try and get myself established in the game they call soccer. I met Frank Farina, manager of the successful Brisbane Strikers club, who was keen to sign me on but their season was nearly over and it would have taken too long for a work visa to come through for me to play any part in that National Soccer League campaign. My short visit did me good, though, and I was very impressed by the whole Australian experience.

  In spring 2004 I got the opportunity to travel Down Under again but this time I was determined that I wouldn’t be returning to England. I’d been offered the chance to go and stay in Coogee Bay, Sydney with an old school friend, Peter Jones. He had been home to Liverpool visiting family when I bumped into him in a pub. We reminisced about times we spent playing in the same football teams as kids, and he was adamant that a fresh start in Oz would be perfect for me.

  He could see how difficult life had become for me in Liverpool. We had a good chat over a few drinks one night and he actually warned me that I could end up getting myself mixed up in a bit of bother if I didn’t get away from the environment in which I’d grown up and lived for most of my life. He thought I’d do well as a soccer coach in New South Wales, especially in the development of kids.

  I kept in touch with him after he returned to Sydney and things came to a head when I received a letter telling me that my time for claiming social security was up. I suppose I must have been drawing the dole for around a year but it was no good – I had to sort myself out and get back into full-time employment one way or another. It was an easy decision for me to go and stay with Peter on the other side of the world – once I’d worked out how I could afford to get there.

  Billy and most of the family encouraged me to take the plunge. Once again, Billy was willing to give me enough money to tide me over until I got on my feet. Mum had also heard of my opportunity to start a new life and she, too, wanted to help.

  I arranged to meet her and went by train to Wolverhampton, where she picked me up from the station. She took me for a coffee and we had a good heart-to-heart about my future. She said I had ‘flown too close to the sun at times’ and I think she had a mother’s intuition that I could end up in trouble if I stayed in Liverpool much longer. She had always said that when I was a kid, if I got bored I’d always find time to get myself into bother. How right she would prove to be.

  I’d become close to Mum again at that stage, having not spoken to her or seen her for 16 years after she had left Dad in very sad circumstances.

  My reconciliation with her came about because my girlfriend at the time – she’s asked not to be named here – kept on at me to arrange to see Mum, or else, she told me, I’d regret it for the rest of my life. My ex was friendly with my youngest sister, Ann, and they both chipped away at me until I relented.

  I wanted to meet Mum again on my own terms – alone. My girlfriend and I travelled down to Wolverhampton to stay with my eldest sister Susan, and it was arranged that I’d meet Mum in a pub car park. As I drove into the car park, I saw her sat in her car. I opened her passenger door and noticed how well she looked for her age. It felt awkward for a few moments, so, to break the ice, I told her to ‘start speaking English,’ as her Scouse accent had been replaced by a Black Country dialect.

  It was a strange feeling, seeing and being with Mum again after spending so many years apart. We talked and listened to each other’s differences and I soon felt very comfortable with her. At the end of the day, she is my mother and I’m her eldest son, who she felt very proud of. She had missed out on so much, especially my success as a footballer, and I’d been the only one of her seven children stubborn enough to have maintained my distance. I think that stemmed from that horrible day I was with Dad when both our lives were turned upside down.

  Mum was so keen for me to go to Australia and stay with Peter Jones that she very kindly offered to pay my air fare. After coffee we visited the travel agents, where she paid for a flight that would be leaving Manchester for Sydney in two days’ time. She even bought me a big suitcase especially for my trip.

  As she drove me back to Wolverhampton railway station, I started to feel very emotional. We both hugged each other not knowing when we’d see one another again. She had been out of my life for so many years simply due to my stubborn streak and I wanted to make up for so much lost time. As I walked away from Mum that day, I glanced back and saw her crying. I shed some tears, too.

  The plane touched down in Sydney on May 2, 2004 and I was excited about my decision to start a new life in New South Wales. We’d arranged for Peter to pick me up at the airport and, being a Friday night, I knew there would be a pub full of expat Scousers in Sydney waiting to greet me.

  I passed through passport control and waited for my cases to reappear on the airport carousel. As I loaded my second case onto the trolley, a woman customs official approached and asked me to follow her. I was dying for a pint and couldn’t understand why they had singled me out.

  After being told to open my suitcases, I stood back and watched and then I was approached by another officer who wanted to check my leather soap bag, containing my mobile phone, which was my hand luggage. A few minutes later a more senior officer emerged and asked if I could explain why there were traces of cocaine found in my soap bag? I was gobsmacked.

  My heart started pumping and I knew I was in a serious situation. They were demanding an explanation, plus full details of where I’d be staying and my personal background. I was shitting myself.

  They X-rayed everything I was carrying, including bottles of lotion, toiletries and even the shoes I was wearing. The most senior official came to speak with me, pointing out that the swab they had just taken could detect even the tiniest trace of drugs and that their test was coming up positive in my soap bag – even though there was no physical evidence of drugs.

  I started to get my head around what must have happened. I told them of my last night in Liverpool, spent in my brother’s pub. I know some of the lads in there took my mobile from me to insert their numbers into my phone’s memory. I know so many people, some of them good friends, who use coke and smoke cannabis. I have never touched or sampled drugs but whether you approve or not, it’s part of modern culture – not just in Liverpool but throughout Britain and society in general.

  The logical explanation was that the residue of cocaine found on my phone could have been transferred there from the hands of someone who had used my handset on my last night in England. As my phone was transported in my soap bag, that explained why the airport check had come up positive. Thankfully, when the customs officer heard my explanation, he finally let me proceed.

  It had taken me two hours to get through customs and I needed a drink. Peter, who was still waiting patiently for me in the arrival lounge with his girlfriend, Kirsten, said: ‘I knew they’d stop you.’ He told me that a lot of lads travelling alone from England are routinely stopped because customs officers believed there would be a fair chance of them carrying drugs.

  I arrived in Sydney with £2,000 courtesy of my family’s kindness and Peter and his family and friends made me feel very welcome. On the football front, I made many contacts with the aim of starting a soccer school. I also gave a live interview to the local
radio station about the upcoming European Championship finals to be held in Portugal that summer and met a guy in the top sports television network who was in charge of The Premiership show that covered English Premier League matches. He told me that if I could obtain a visa, there was a chance of me being asked to make regular appearances on his show.

  But I soon realised that without a work visa, a foreigner can’t legitimately gain employment in Oz. I needed to be all above-board, especially as I’d hopefully be working with and coaching kids in the future.

  As I said, it was my original intention to stay and live in Australia but I started to run out of money and after three months, I thought it was best to return home, get my visa sorted out properly and then return to Oz and fulfil my dream.

  I don’t have many regrets in life but I wish now that I hadn’t returned to Liverpool in the summer of 2004. If only I’d stayed put in Sydney, I wouldn’t have written this book from a prison cell.

  I didn’t stick it out in Sydney because I couldn’t bum around and rely on others for hand-outs – it wasn’t my style. Before I flew back to England, Peter managed to find me two weeks’ working for a Scottish brickie known as Dessie, so at least I’d be able to travel home with some money in my pocket. Or so I thought.

  I’d never worked so hard in my life. I ended up looking after and labouring for three bricklayers. Keeping one happy was hard enough, let alone slaving away for three of them. I was still very fit at the time but I discovered muscles in my arms that I never knew existed.

  On my last day at work I was told to meet them in the pub where I’d be paid. I was travelling home the next day and had been looking forward to pay day. I showered and went off to the pub on that Friday night to enjoy a pint with my work colleagues – Peter, Tommy, Griff and Nib – but there was no sign of Dessie.