Читать книгу Psycho Pat - The Autobiography Of Pat Van Den Hauwe - Pat Van Den Hauwe - Страница 14

As soon as I arrived in Birmingham, I was put in digs with Paul Ivey and we were looked after by a nice elderly couple who we nicknamed George and Mildred. Both Paul and I found it hard – we were homesick and had little spare cash, I was so skint my parents used to send me money as well as food parcels, as I was not being fed as much as I was used to either.

George used to drive us round in his clapped-out, blue Robin Reliant; it was embarrassing but he was a top fella and he loved taking us to his friends’ houses as even though we were only apprentices he felt privileged as a Blues fan that he had potential first-team players living under his roof.

After training, Mark Dennis and I would meet up, have some dinner and drink endless pints of blackcurrant and lemonade while we took on all the other lads in darts competitions in Birmingham City’s sports club. We both became very good darts players and we began going into local pubs and playing regulars for money. With not drinking alcohol and practising every afternoon, we won more often than we lost before people began to suss us out and blokes stopped playing us. We had to start hanging around different pubs with a pint of beer in our hands before locals would take us on. It was a great way to top our apprentice money up.

I was a fit lad and found the training quite easy but, at times, it could get a little intimidating as there were fall-outs between so-called team-mates on a regular basis. One such occasion was when two centre-halves, Joe Gallagher and Pat Howard – whom we had just bought from Newcastle – squared up to each other. They were huge blokes compared to us kids and fell out over something or other and, as they were arguing, Joe headbutted Pat and broke his nose and they ended up having a quite serious punch-up. It wasn’t nice to see two team-mates fight like that as a young pro, but I soon got used to it.

There always seemed to be unrest where Joe Gallagher was concerned and I remember him having another fall-out with my pal Mark Dennis a few years later when Joe accused Mark of tipping off the press that Gallagher had set up a move to Aston Villa. It was a controversial topic – they were our hated rivals – and when it went pear-shaped, Joe blamed Mark for some reason. It was no surprise to anyone that when Alf Ramsey left, Gallagher was one of the players involved in the bust up.

The first two years were all about growing up and getting to know each other and then when we signed professionally we were allowed to find our own digs, so I moved in with a gentleman called Brian Rogers who was connected with the club and owned a huge house in which he let rooms to four or five of us. Unlike George and Mildred’s, which was more like a boarding school, this move gave us plenty of freedom, which was not a good thing in my case as I soon began making the most of it!

Brian was the manager of a nightclub called Faces and that was the turning point of my time at Birmingham as I began to hit the town. Most nights, I’d be in Faces and I soon got my confidence with the women as Brian knew everyone worth knowing. It was nothing mental – we used to have a few beers, chat the birds up and go for a curry, normal lads’ stuff. The problem was, I wasn’t an electrician or a student. I was now a professional footballer who had to train the following morning.

Brian was a great guy and loved the women; his wife was always in my ear trying to get me to grass him up and it was a great learning curve for me and I got to know how to duck and dive during my time with him. He sadly died from cancer when I was at the top of my game and I fondly remember him as someone who helped me along the way.

I eventually went to live with Kevin Dillon who had a house opposite one Mark Dennis had bought and, when he moved on, I bought it from him and joined Mark as a homeowner. Susan used to come up for the weekend but by now I had plenty of girls in tow in town and, more often than not, I’d leave her in Dill’s house while I went out with a local bird. Dill used to tell me I was bang out of order, which I was, but it made no difference and I carried on regardless.

I became a regular at Faces and got friendly with some lads called Alan and Peter McAteer, and another lad nicknamed Kimo, who I became best mates with. I was with some of the football lads one night at the club and, for some stupid reason, took my shirt off and was dancing around acting the fool when the bouncers came and told me to put it back on. Knowing Brian, I told them to fuck off, and they grabbed me and gave me a good old-fashioned leg and a wing, throwing me across the room head first. I landed on my chin, splitting it open.

I went home covered in blood, told the brothers, who soon assembled a small firm and we went back to the club and knocked on the door. But the doormen shit themselves and would not come out. That night, I knew that the people I was mixed up with were the proper heads and not to be messed with and, from then on, the door staff stayed away from me.

At 17 I bought my first car, a 2-litre Cortina, and used to drive it all over town without a licence. One night I got nicked for speeding so I had a court appearance coming up and was that worried I confided in Frank Worthington, who kindly agreed to drive me to court to face the music.

Before I went in front of the magistrates, he said, ‘If you want to act like a man, be a man and take your punishment’ I was in awe of Frank and would go along with just about anything he said, so in I went and was given a hefty fine which I paid, although I did not bother getting a licence and kept on driving afterwards.

By the time I was 18, a gang of us started to frequent a very well hidden pub called the ‘Odd Spot’ where a barmaid named Jill worked. She was 34 and quite pretty and soon we started talking and getting on well. Over a few weeks, it was just me going to the pub to talk with Jill and soon we were shagging each other’s brains out. For the five months we were together, all we did was shag, including a record seven times from a Saturday night to the Sunday afternoon.

Jill used to drop me off at training and soon Jim Smith clocked that she was way older than me and began telling me I should keep away from her because I was too fucked to train on the Monday due to all the shagging we were doing. He had a point!

Frank Worthington had taken a shine to me and we began going out and usually I was driving. One night I was getting ready to go out with him to a club called Liberties when he opened a compartment in his wardrobe and took out a small pipe. He then proceeded to fill it with weed and began smoking it before telling me once again it was my turn to drive. En route, Frank asked me if I would like to take a puff from this pipe, which I did, and we eventually got to the club even though I could hardly see. Once inside Liberties, Frank went about his business regarding the birds, while I sat slumped in a seat not knowing what day it was.

I got involved with another firm called the Bagshaws and they seemed nice enough but one night I was in bed with Susan when we were awoken by the sound of someone trying to get into the house. I got hold of a replica gun that the Bagshaws had given me and caught the intruder in the garden and pointed the gun at him and said that if he moved I was going to shoot the fucker, but he just walked off laughing. A few weeks later when we went to London during the pre-season break, I asked Kimo to keep an eye on my house but when I got back it had been burgled – by the Bagshaws. I often wondered if it had been one of their firm a few weeks previously who had tried to screw the house, and knew the gun they had given me was a replica!

Before long, Susan moved in with me full time but one night she got the hump and buggered off for a week. Given my single man status back, I set about enjoying myself and Kimo brought two sisters back to my place for a private party. We were having a great time drinking and watching pornos when, out of the blue, Susan came back. I heard the front door go so I ran into the hall and slammed it on her and she bit my finger as I was trying to stop her getting into the house. During this time, my dog – a huge Doberman – escaped. When the girls eventually got out and Susan had calmed down, I went looking for the dog and, before long, found it sitting outside the pub I frequented most nights.

Soon we had our own little firm at the club who were nicknamed locally ‘The Brummie Bashers’. We were also called ‘The Magnificent Seven’ and, regardless of what other people called us, we were most certainly the original Crazy Gang – myself, Noel Blake, Mark Dennis, Robert Hopkins, Tony Coton, Mick Harford, Howard Gayle and the legendary Frank Worthington were all good mates and, although Frank was not really a member of the gang when it began to hit the local papers, he was a founder member who was always good company to be out with and the fun and trouble we all got are indeed as legendary as Frank.

During a pre-season tour in Scandinavia, we were staying in one of those shitty complexes tucked away in the middle of nowhere. With no nightlife to speak of, the lads set me up with a bird who worked as a waitress. I got her back to my room, which contained little kiddie-style bunk beds – with Birmingham, it was never a case of no expense spared – so I climbed on to the top bunk with the waitress and just as I was about to do the deed all the lads were outside looking directly at us through the window. All the usual suspects we there laughing their heads off, so the bird got dressed, jumped off the bunk and fucked off, never to be seen again.

On the same tour we were in a pub when what I believe was a transvestite latched on to me. He or she came up to me and we had a drink and a chat and, for the life of me, I could not make my mind up if it was a bloke, a woman or a 50/50! He/she said they needed somewhere to sleep and was all over me so, before I invited him/her back to the hotel, I asked them to go to the toilets for a check out. This thing went straight into the gents, which got my alarm bells ringing. So I followed to see what was down below. Off came the knickers and, although there was no visible problem as there was not a cock in sight, I was still unsure, so binned him/her off. I was lucky that I had bumped into them early doors as, if I had been pissed, I may have not been as alert and made a big mistake.

On another tour to South America we had to wait for our connecting flight and, by the time we were due to board the plane, we were well and truly pissed. I became friendly with some girl and we got chatting but, being half pissed, I got my dick out. Unknown to me, there were casually dressed security guards patrolling the departure lounge who quickly arrested me and put me in a lock-up in the airport, saying they were going to deport me back to the UK. Jim Smith was notified and he came and spoke to the officials telling them to keep me there. Without telling me, Smith had asked an official to keep me in there to teach me a lesson, and then release me five minutes before my flight – which they did. I had to leg it to my connecting plane and boarded with my head bowed in shame as the lads chanted all sorts of obscenities about me.

When we eventually settled on the tour, we were messing about around the pool when a club official asked me to come out with him to look for some women. On the way, he said I was not going to play the next day so we went to a brothel for a few drinks and had a good laugh as we knocked back a few whiskies, the drink favoured by the official. We ended up taking the bait and went upstairs with a couple of birds and got into a room with two and began getting our money’s worth. He was on one bed while I was on other when, all of a sudden, his hooker started yelling, ‘No … no … too big!’ He jumped off the bed and shouted, ‘What kind of a fucking knocking shop is this?’

Before he pissed off he told me to come with him but we had paid up front so I told him I’d see him back at the hotel. Once I got back, he had a right strop on and was calling me all sorts. The following day, he had sorted it so I had to play as pay-back for me getting my money’s worth and him losing his.

A few of us quite often frequented a local brothel after training where we could buy some booze, talk to the birds, have a sauna and, if needs must, have a dabble with the girls. One of them came downstairs after being with one of the lads saying that she had never had such a treat in her life, although I believe she still charged my well-endowed team-mate full price!

We also used to visit a mixed sauna, but you had to wear swimming gear. One day, I got talking to a girl for about half-an-hour and I hinted I was off for a shower and she took the wink and followed me. We were soon bang at it but got a bit noisy and some of the older guests weren’t very happy about it. A few minutes later, we were politely asked to leave and told never to come back.

Back on the road, I was driving as usual without a licence having had a few drinks with my team-mate Les Philips. One night, we had a couple of birds in the back of the car and were going from pub to pub when we approached a huge roundabout in the centre of Birmingham. I asked the girl in the back for directions but she had no idea where we were going, so I got the hump and carried on going round and round this huge roundabout. Eventually, she yelled that if I did not stop she was going to jump out, so I carried on doing it. Then on the third or fourth lap the silly cow opened the door and dived out while we were still circling. I calmly carried on driving and slowed down to check if she was all right, saw that she was, so stopped and let her mate get out before we carried on to the next pub.

I was out with Mick Harford and our partners on another barmy night. We had been on our best behaviour, had enjoyed a nice meal and a couple of drinks and were travelling home when these four idiots decided to cut us up on the road. Mick had never had the mildest of tempers so the chase began! We were in pursuit of this car for at least ten minutes, tailing it all over Birmingham. Eventually, Mick cut them off and stopped in front of their car before calmly getting out, joined by myself. They seemed up for it so I asked Mick what he was going to do as, by now, although they had stayed in their car they were effing and blinding at us and generally taking the piss. Mick calmly opened his boot which, coincidently, contained his golf clubs, and selected the heaviest one out of his collection. He then walked up to the car and started smashing it up! First the windscreen, then the headlights and, as he went for the driver’s door, they got out of the car and ran down the road. Mick finished the car off and we got back in and drove off as if nothing had happened. There were repercussions as the club was notified, and Mick had to pay for the damages or face prosecution.

Similar to spending time with Mick, there was never a dull moment when out with Mark Dennis and his wife Jane. On one occasion, we went to a club in Solihull and had a good night but, as we were leaving, an argument began and it was Jane instead of Mark fighting as she ploughed into three girls. Jane could fight like a man and floored the biggest one when she kicked her in the groin. I heard the bone crack and the girl fell to the floor, so we left rather quickly.

On another occasion we were at Mark’s house for a party with a few players and he had an English bull terrier called Charlie. The music was playing yet we still heard a loud, screeching, high-pitched sound. Jane opened the back door to see what was going on only to find out that the noise was coming from next door’s cat that Charlie had just ripped to shreds. The next-door neighbour then naturally went mental, so we left the party just as Mark and Jane started fighting, which, like I said, was the same as two men going at it with each other.

Alan Curbishley was a quiet bloke but he had a brother-in-law who managed The Who. Curbs sorted us all out with tickets and, prior to the gig, we were taken backstage for drinks and to meet the band. The dressing room was full of the usual birds and drink but I noticed a table covered in funny-looking ‘Smarties’ which was an eye-opener for us all. Curbs’ brother-in-law asked whether I’d like to go out on stage for a look and it was amazing. In a football ground, even when it’s a full house, the fans are on four sides of you; here there were literally thousands of people just staring at you and it scared me shitless. I went back to the dressing room and they were dishing the pills out; I wasn’t surprised, for if they had asked me to go on and play the triangle for 30 seconds, I’d have had to take the fuckers as well.

Despite being regarded as a crazy and fearsome group of lads, we decided to give one potential trouble spot a wide berth while on a tour in Peru. We had been given a day off training and a group of us went for a walk to a very busy, open-air market. As we were nosing about looking at various stalls full of junk, I felt a sharp pain around my neck and shouted out to Keith Birchen who was nearby to help me. My solid gold chain with the letter ‘P’ hanging from it had gone and there was blood all over my hand where I had felt my neck.

My first reaction was that some fucker had cut me, so we all went back to the hotel where I looked in the mirror to find I had three deep cuts around my neck. I got the club physio to clean it up and it was not as bad as it had looked. It was a very shady place with no end of dark passageways and, by now, it was pitch dark, so despite being somewhat crazy, we decided we were not crazy enough to go looking for the thief who had yanked my chain. Literally!