Catch A Falling Star (21 page)

By now I was in a really bad way.
Totally depressed.
On TV it said a number of people had already died as a result of this batch and I had taken the same pills. While I was in hospital three people died in my ward in one night and I really thought – am I next?

Eventually I came out of hospital but the scars took an awfully long time to heal. Nevertheless during my time in there I was in a ward next to a chap called Ian. We became quite close friends and chatted a lot even though he was a red!

Ian was in a really bad way though so I used to make him laugh to try and make him feel better and take his mind off things. When I was discharged I went back to visit him. I was going in for blood tests twice a week by that stage anyway, in fact they gave me rat poison so that I could make a full recovery, so bobbing down to the ward wasn’t as big a deal as it may seem. At one stage the doctor told me that if I ever cut myself shaving I would bleed to death because my blood was so thin.

Anyway, one day when I visited Ian I told him: “When you get out of your wheelchair I’ll take you to watch United and then to City to see some real football.” So the day finally arrived and I went to his house in
Bredbury
and took him to Old Trafford. We had a police escort all the way down

Jack Duckworth from Coronation Street or should I say, Bill
Tarmey
to give him his real name, lived near Ian and heard all about his story. He was only too glad to help. Just goes to show not all
United
fans are a nightmare to befriend!

Eventually we finally managed to get Ian to walk again, very slowly around the room, which was very moving, everyone was in tears. It was a truly emotional moment in my life which I’ll never forget. When you’ve been low yourself, seeing people fight back in life can be a tremendous feeling because you can really empathise with them. You have to have lived through the lows to understand it fully.

One time, when I was feeling low, I wanted a copy of the 1969 FA Cup Final. I rang Granada TV but they wanted £350 for a copy, money I simply didn’t have. Then I saw Gary
Lineker
on TV and I remembered that he was a 
Leicester
fan who had been at that game. Could he help? So I wrote him a letter and explained my predicament, told him who I was and posted it. Two full weeks went by and I thought maybe he didn’t receive my letter or perhaps he just couldn’t do it for me. Well you can imagine my surprise and delight when I received a little package one day through my letter box – there it was in full colour, a tape of the ’69 game with a lovely note from
Gary
that read:

Dear Neil,

I was ten when you beat my team and I remember crying my eyes out going back home from Wembley with my dad. However it gives me great pleasure to send you this copy of your game…

From a fellow striker,

Gary

What a lovely gesture. I sent him a note back to say thanks for making a fellow pro very happy.

10. Back in the Public Eye

In September 1993 my old friend Francis Lee launched his takeover bid for the club. I, like most City fans, felt that Swales had outstayed his welcome and that we were going backwards at a time when most of the other big clubs seemed to be looking after their finances better. He was old fashioned and didn’t seem to have planned for the Premiership/Sky era. We’d always spent heavily under Swales – he always made money available to his managers, that’s for sure – but now it was time for him to move on and I know that he stubbornly dug his heels in at first, refusing to show Francis the books. Later on it was rumoured there was something of a scorched earth policy taking place, Swales putting certain long-term deals in place which left any new regime with too much to do.

Francis seemed like the knight in shining armour but unfortunately he got things wrong at the club. He improved things to a degree off the park with the building of the new
Kippax
Stand, however it was on the pitch where we suffered and where things went from bad to worse.

I remember going to
Liverpool
in the very early
Shankly
days. Everything at the club, from the way the team trained to the way the manager knew everything about the youth team players seemed geared for success. Anfield wasn’t the best ground in the country but they concentrated on making it happen on the pitch first and that’s the right way round to do things. Fans like comfort but give them a choice of a nice seat to watch Division Two football or a restricted view watching a side that’s top of the league and there’s no comparison.

At the time the club decided to rip out the famous gym where we’d play head tennis under the Main Stand and replace it with a new restaurant. Other bars and restaurants were installed. The main entrance was refurbished and new carpets were put in. All very plush but at the same time the team was sliding into the obscurity of the Nationwide League.

Then again on a personal level I felt welcome at the club once more. When Francis came back into the club in 1994 he invited me onto the pitch for a home league game. It was the first time I had set foot inside the stadium for about fifteen years. I received a tumultuous reception from the City
supporters,
it really did fill me with immense pride. By now I’d already started coaching kids and I spent one day a week at City coaching some of the Academy lads.

I remember training up Franny Lee’s son one Sunday and telling him he was a chip off the old block. Slowly but surely I was regaining self-respect and coming back into the public eye again.

*

Every time I was invited to a
City
Academy
dinner I came across a real Neil Young fan. He is Steve Thomas, the son of Tudor Thomas, who ran the bar at the club back at

I mentioned earlier in the book how I didn’t feel sufficiently confident to speak when a microphone or a Dictaphone was placed under my nose. Well, after years out of the game, I received a phone call. Brian Moore, the veteran football commentator, wanted to interview me for his television programme and I was delighted to jump at the chance and happy to be recognised, so one day the camera crew came round.

We had a great
afternoon,
I really enjoyed the interview as we talked about all the old times. At the end of the interview he threw in a question about my testimonial: “Had I had it yet and if not, why not?” Well I didn’t mince words and, having got it off my chest I thought that would be that.

The programme was shown while I was on holiday with Carmen, my future wife, in 
Tunisia
. On our return, Carmen’s son, who had been round to our flat to water the plants, phoned. Apparently a gentleman by the name of Dave Cash had seen the programme on Sky and was interested by this testimonial wrangle. To this day I have no idea how he got my number but he’d left a message as he felt he’d like to try and organise this for me and on our return I contacted him and we met up.

Now I must place my thanks on the record to Dave and his wife
Vanda
because they did so much hard work on my behalf. Although I did tell him at the time that he’d only get so far and, as it turns out, that is exactly what happened.

There are a number of issues I have raised here concerning discussions with former directors and chairmen and the campaign that was organised by the fans to give me a testimonial game is part of my life story. The purpose of this book is not to open up old wounds or to name names or anything like that. In fact I am no longer pushing for a game anymore yet I feel that this is my opportunity to set the record straight.

First of all I wrote to Mr Bernstein to ask if he would consider organising a game for me. Following on from that correspondence we had a meeting in November 2000 when he asked me why I felt I deserved a game and I told him why. He then suggested we visit all the City Supporters’ Club branches to gauge the strength of public opinion.

People have asked, as David Bernstein did: “When your friend Francis Lee was chairman of
Manchester
City
, why didn’t you ask him for a game then?” Well, he was and remains a personal friend but during his time as chairman he was presiding over a
very
divided board at the club. He was faced with a 4-3 split and I didn’t want to put him in a position where he might have had to turn me down. Bernstein said he understood my situation and promised to look into things for me.

So we had a big push around
all the
Supporters’ Club branches, we visited around thirty in all. One special moment was during a question and answer session and I announced that “My wife to be is with me tonight” and all the supporters cheered. Carmen blushed though, she couldn’t believe it.

I also had a lot of support from players during that year: Peter Barnes, Francis Lee, Tommy Booth, Fred Eyre and Mike
Summerbee
, they all came along to meetings with me. I must say the supporters were fantastic, cheering me each time I went along. I never really realised just how much I was loved by these true blue supporters and I would like to thank each and every one of them from the bottom of my heart for their support at that time.

There were letters on the internet and pledges of support from places as far
afield
as
Canada
,
USA
,
Australia
,
Malta
,
Germany
and even
Singapore
! There were some lovely nights and a lot of laughter but Carmen felt awful. She felt as though I was going round with a begging bowl to all of these branches getting £100 here, £50 there.

“The people giving us their money are in the same boat as
yourself
, if not worse,” she said. To her it felt wrong.

After a few months I also felt that this wasn’t what it was supposed to be about. The whole thing was supposed to end in a pre-season game for me – this never happened.

Don’t get me wrong. Thanks to the efforts of Dave,
Vanda
and my Testimonial Committee, quite a chunk of money was raised, for which we’re both very grateful. All this was down to people like Dave and other City supporters such as the Supporters’ Clubs’ chairmen giving up their spare time to organise evenings on my behalf.

However the main disappointment came when we asked a few influential people at City to come onto the Testimonial Committee and when they declined an alarm bell rang in my mind – not everything was going to plan.

In effect we had a ‘Testimonial Year’ without the Testimonial! It’s been said that certain City players didn’t have a good attendance when their testimonials took place. Only three have broken even in recent times, those for
Paul
Lake
, Bert
Trautmann
and Colin Bell. I think they all fully deserved their games. But the point is they still had their games and with a bit of imagination and with some clever ticket prices we could have done something similar, I’m quite sure.