Читать книгу No Boundaries - Passion and Pain On and Off the Pitch - Ronnie Irani - Страница 9

If ever a kid was destined to become a cricketer it was me. From 26 October 1971, when I weighed in at 8lb 6oz, I was surrounded by the sights, sounds and smells of the game. Mum and Dad took me home to our house in the mining town of Atherton in Lancashire but, by the time I really became aware of what was going on around me, they had bought a house in Bolton, on the boundary at Heaton Cricket Club. From then until I left home in 1994, I slept in a bedroom with a window overlooking the pitch and, as a child, the outfield became my playground.

My dad, Jimmy Irani, came to England from his home in Bombay, where his grandfather had settled to avoid persecution in his native land, then known as Persia. Dad claims that, when he arrived here in 1961 to play cricket, he only intended to stay six months but he got captured by a pretty 16-year-old Lancashire lass named Anne Main and has been here ever since.

I guess my great-grandfather was the first in our line to be called Irani, which means of Iran. I don’t know if it was a slur in 19th-century India but there have often been comments about it since, especially in the last few years as the political scene in that part of the world has made the headlines. I think Dad suffered some abuse when he first came to England in what was a much more racist time than now, but he was helped by the fact that even then cricket was a multi-racial sport, so he was soon accepted because he was a good player and no one noticed his name any more.

It never really bothered me, though there was an incident when I was about eight involving my first playground girlfriend that sticks in my mind. She was cute and we used to play in the same group and I seem to remember I once snatched a tentative kiss. But one morning she came up to me and said, ‘I told my mum my boyfriend was Ronnie Irani and she said, “Why are you going out with a Paki?”’ It was the first time I’d realised my name was unusual for a lad from Bolton and suddenly all the other kids were teasing me. I was hurt and confused. It only lasted a few days but, at an age when you desperately want to fit in, it was embarrassing and was definitely part of my toughening-up process.

I never had the chance to get to know Dad’s family. His mother died young, shortly after he arrived in England, which I know knocked him back because, in those days when plane travel was out of reach of ordinary people, he wasn’t able to get home to see her before she passed or to attend the funeral. He talked to me about her, about how strong she was, and I wish I’d met her. His father visited us in England. I don’t remember him, although there is a picture of him holding me as a baby and I still have a gold rattle that he gave me with ‘Prince Ronnie’ engraved on it. I knew Mum’s family well – her mother and grandmother were still alive when I was young and there were my aunties Janet and Glad and uncles Johnny, Phil and Ian. It was a tight-knit family and into sport in a big way.

To say Dad loves his cricket is a bit like saying Alex Ferguson likes to win football matches. He played every year until a heart-valve operation forced him to quit in 1999, aged 64. He was captain of Daisy Hill Cricket Club for 12 years and every Saturday and Sunday our family would go to matches, Dad playing, Mum helping with the teas and me just soaking it all up like a sponge. Most of my early memories are of running around the outfield during breaks in play, messing around on the swings and slides or being in pavilions, surrounded by men dressed in white. As soon as I was big enough, I would prepare Dad’s cricket bag, whiten his boots and rub linseed oil into his bat. It was a labour of love – and also earned me 50p.

I had a toy bat almost as soon as I could walk and Dad would ‘bowl’ a spongy ball to me in the living room while he watched Coronation Street. My first six was back over his head beyond the far end of the sofa, and my first paternal pieces of advice were ‘Never throw your wicket away cheaply’ and ‘Bowl to your field’. I also remember him saying, ‘Cricketers are like cowboys in a gunfight – they only get one chance. If you make a mistake in football, you can come back. In baseball, it’s three strikes and you are out. But in cricket, when the finger goes up, that’s it. It’s a one-ball game.’

Jimmy Irani is not one of those ‘the game is the thing’ people. He likes to win and he started to bring over professionals to boost Daisy Hill’s chances. It worked – they won five championships and had several near-misses while he was in charge. These guys used to become part of the family and some of my first cricket coaching came from Sonny Ramadhin, the great West Indies spin bowler from the era of Worrell, Walcott and Weekes. Dad would tell me to stand very still by the sight-screen and watch Sonny bowl. ‘See if you can spot which way the ball will spin as it leaves his hand.’ Dad always wanted me to be a spinner but, as I grew up, I realised it is a skill that is all-consuming and I enjoyed batting, so didn’t want to spend all my time mastering the black arts later perfected by the likes of Shane Warne and Phil Tufnell. I also didn’t like the idea of being swiped all over the pitch, even though Dad assured me I would pick up a lot of wickets from miss-hits.

Javed Miandad, the Pakistani superstar, was only a teenager when he spent a season in Bolton but he became my idol. That year he scored more than a thousand runs and took over a hundred wickets despite missing the last six games. He lived with us and not only made sure I held the bat correctly, he also buttoned up my blazer and sent me off looking neat and tidy on my first day at school. I worshipped him and from then on I used to comb through the Cricketer magazine or the Benson & Hedges Yearbook to find out how he’d done. Even when he went on to become one of the greatest ever batsmen and a Pakistan legend, he never forgot my family. I remember when I toured Pakistan with England A, he sought me out and invited me to spend the evening with him and his family.

I’m not sure what Dad would have said if I’d done a Billy Elliott and said I wanted to become a ballet dancer but fortunately the situation never arose because I was sport mad from the start. Every night, I’d race home from school, grab a sandwich that Mum would have ready for me, then dash back out to play with my mates. Whether it was in the genes or all that gilt-edged coaching, I seemed to take to most sports quite easily and I was lucky because I was always taller and stronger than most kids of my age. That probably had something to do with Mum’s home cooking and the fact that Dad’s ‘day job’ was in the meat business, which meant we would often have steak for breakfast.

I went to kick-boxing classes, played basketball for the north of England, and had tennis coaching with a guy who reckoned I was like a young Roscoe Tanner because I could hit the ball hard at eight years old. But my two passions were cricket and football. Funnily enough, once I was old enough to start playing in teams, which was around the age of six, football was the sport Dad and I shared most, simply because in the summer we would be playing cricket in different matches.

Football was the main sport at my senior school, Smithills Comprehensive. We had some inspirational teachers in Gary Dickinson, former sprinter Steve Caldwell and Stuart Bowman. It wasn’t a job for them: they had real enthusiasm for their sport and loved passing that on to the kids in their charge. They could be tough – if you messed them about they would hang you up on the coat pegs and leave you dangling. They demanded high standards and wouldn’t allow us to drop below our best. Steve Caldwell introduced the idea of warming up before football matches. We would line up on the halfway line in our reversible kit – red for home, white away – and he’d have us stretching, running shuttles and doing star jumps. The opposition used to stand on the sidelines taking the piss but, if we dared look over at them, Steve would bark at us to concentrate. We hated it at first because we felt daft but then we found that we would come flying out of the blocks and often have games won before the other kids had got into it.

There were some good players in that team – Kenny Hampson and Glen Foster at the back, Jason Nash, who is now back at the school as a PE teacher and head of year, and little midfielder Sean Atkinson who could dribble for fun and who Dad loved to watch. I played up front, a Norman Whiteside figure, and had some success. The highlight was probably the day I scored seven in a game on my way to more than 40 in a season.

I went to watch my first league match when I was about seven. Dad had several season tickets at Manchester United and decided I was now old enough to be introduced to the glory that is Old Trafford. This might come as a big surprise to those sceptics from the blue side of Manchester, but there were and are a lot of Man United fans living in Lancashire. It became a regular routine – play football on Saturday morning, grab a quick shower, dash home for a bite to eat while watching Saint & Greavsie or Bob Wilson on Football Focus and then pile into Dad’s red van with four or five other fans in the back and head off to the match. We’d park near some warehouses, not far from the ground. Dad always tried to get a good spot to make a quick getaway after the game but, as he would never dream of leaving before the final whistle, it was usually pointless and we ended up in a traffic jam. On the short walk to the ground, we’d stop at Vincent’s Italian Ice Cream van to pick up a 99 and then meet up with Dad’s friend Kevin Thomas and his family under the Munich clock.

Even though these were not the glamour days at the Theatre of Dreams, I was still wide-eyed. Despite having Lou Macari, Gordon McQueen, Bryan Robson, Ray Wilkins and a young Mark Hughes, United were a workmanlike side who enjoyed a few good cup runs. Mostly the old boys around me talked fondly of the Busby Babes, the tragedy of Munich and the golden era of Charlton, Law and Best. Dad would also tell me about the great players he had seen at Burnley in the 1960s and, if I looked away when Ian St John or Jimmy Greaves were on TV, he’d say, ‘Listen to these guys, Ronnie. They were great, great footballers and they know what they are talking about.’ One of the biggest thrills for Dad when I played for Essex was finding out that Jimmy is a big cricket fan, and they often sat together, watching matches at Chelmsford. Greavsie’s son Danny ran the Essex shop for a while, and my wife Lorraine would help him out some days.

In those days, the average crowd at Old Trafford was around 28,000, so it was always a thrill when you listened to Stuart Hall on Sports Report on the way back from a game and heard him tell of 48,000 being ‘packed into the ground like red-and-white sardines’. Twice a season – against City and Liverpool – the crowd would be a 58,000 sell-out. These were always extra special occasions, particularly when we won.

As talkSPORT listeners will know, I’m still a Man U fan today, although I like to think that I’m not one-eyed and can appreciate other teams and great players whatever strip they wear. Even though Liverpool were ‘the enemy’, I still loved watching their great teams on Match of the Day and rather wished we had signed players like Kevin Keegan, Ian Rush and Kenny Dalglish. Things started to look up at Old Trafford after Alex Ferguson took over, although I can remember the time when the Stretford Enders were calling for him to be sacked. A good job they didn’t get their way! Dad used to watch the reserves as well and told me about a kid to look out for called Ryan Giggs. I saw Steve Bruce make his debut and Gary Pallister arrive and a string of great players like Paul Ince and the incomparable Roy Keane help put the club on the right track. Meanwhile, the youth set-up was discovering talents like David Beckham, Paul Scholes and the Neville brothers, Gary and Phil, who I played cricket against at Greenmount CC.

But for me the most exciting entrance – it was so much more than a mere arrival – I’ve witnessed while watching United was the day a Frenchman strutted on to the Old Trafford stage, his collar turned up, his chest stuck out as though he owned the place. Eric Cantona had just won the championship with Leeds United and Fergie had snapped him up for a bargain million quid. His presence seemed to instil confidence and self-belief in all the others. He was the catalyst for the breathtaking run of success that followed. He made a great club a great team and so, when Lorraine and I bought a proud-looking Doberman in 1999, he had to have a red collar and was named Eric.

Dad and I hardly ever had the same opportunity to enjoy watching first-class cricket together because of our playing commitments. I can only remember going to see one Lancashire county match before I joined the ground staff and I only watched one Test match as a boy. That was at Old Trafford in 1980. Sonny Ramadhin got us a pair of tickets in the VIP section for England against the West Indies and I turned up clutching my sandwiches in my kung-fu bag. Those were the days of the great West Indian pacemen and I recall Michael Holding taking a run up that seemed to start about two rows in front of where I was sitting. The Windies also had some very talented batsmen, including Clive Lloyd and Viv Richards. England had a few good players too, like Mike Gatting, Geoffrey Boycott and Ian Botham, but the star of the show was a little guy named Malcolm Marshall, who was quite new on the scene. He was only about 5ft 9in – tiny compared to his fellow quickies – but he steamed in, knocked over three quick wickets and caused an England collapse. I was massively impressed. Little did I realise that about 12 years later I would play against him. I only faced one ball, but at least I can say I batted against arguably the greatest fast bowler the world has ever seen.

The first West Indian paceman I ever faced was much more hostile. Franklin Stevenson came over to play for Greenmount in the Bolton League and he relished the uncovered wickets that at times made him almost unplayable. I was already in the Heaton first team and, at the age of 14, found myself watching this giant Barbadian charging towards me. Franklin was noted for his clever use of the slower ball, but I never saw any evidence of it that day. Fourteen or not, I was merely an obstacle to be removed and he tried to bounce the shit out of me from the first ball. I ducked and weaved and let a few fizz past my head. Several more whacked into my ribs and chest, but somehow I survived and gradually found a way of getting bat on ball and went on to score a half-century. We lost the game but such was the spirit at Heaton that the lads bought me a pint of bitter shandy to celebrate my achievement. It was a great feeling to be one of the boys when the rest of the boys were men, although, when I took my shirt off to go to bed that night, my body was blotched purple with bruises.

That reaction was fairly typical of Heaton. They had no money to pay amateurs and only a little for overseas professionals. Former Barbados and Kent all-rounder Hartley Alleyne was probably the biggest name they signed, but he’d already been around the wealthier local clubs before joining Heaton. I remember playing against him in the Huddersfield League. But if Heaton were seldom among the trophies, they enjoyed their cricket and were genuinely pleased to celebrate a young player’s success. They always made youngsters feel welcome and on a Friday night there could be more than a hundred kids playing cricket beneath my bedroom window. Jack Taylor was in charge of the juniors and Jeff Todd was club captain. They loved the fact that I was eager to learn and gave me tremendous encouragement. There was never any question of ‘when you get older’ – if you were good enough, you were old enough and they threw you in the deep end. I was in the Under-13 side before my seventh birthday and quickly got used to playing against boys much older than me.

Having hung around the dressing room a lot with Dad, I was used to the atmosphere and unbothered by the language. I didn’t blink twice when a guy named Phil Roberts, who was built like a tank, started coaching me at the age of 13 and yelled after one particularly bad, cross-bat shot, ‘If I ever see you play another shot like that, I’ll kick you up the fucking arse, you pillock.’ I got the point.

League cricket in Lancashire is an institution. It’s hard for people down south to realise just what a big part it plays in life up there. There are clubs all over the place – there must be 40 in the Bolton area alone – and, without wishing to preach, I believe it’s important that these leagues are supported. The clubs are great places for youngsters to grow up – there’s a nice social side as well as the sport and the whole family can get involved. Cricket clubs are not snobbish like some golf clubs and you don’t find the parents yelling obscenities at the officials like you do at a lot of youth football games. I think that most kids that come through the ranks of a cricket club turn out to be all right as people.

Heaton Cricket Club was a great place to be as a teenager because they treated you as an adult as long as you behaved properly. One of my pals, Jason Nash, had a bench and we used to go to his place and do weight training. We were both big lads for 15 and on most Friday nights, dressed in our chinos and blazers – it was the era of Rick Astley after all – we went into town to the Balmoral pub for a few beers and then on to a nightclub called the Ritzy. I’m sure the bouncers knew we were under age but they also knew we wouldn’t cause any trouble. Occasionally we’d bump into people from the cricket club and they’d buy us a pint! We’d roll out of the nightclub late and catch the last bus home where I’d let myself in quietly and creep upstairs before Mum and Dad realised what the time was and how much I’d been drinking.

My parents were always very supportive and, even though they didn’t have that much spare cash, every birthday and Christmas I would get my football and cricket kit. In the early days I used to borrow bats and pads from the Heaton dressing room, but then I got my own first bat, which remains one of the best presents I ever received. Mum ordered my first gloves and pads from a mail-order catalogue and I can still recall the excitement I felt the day they arrived through the post.

I think I was fortunate in a way that Dad wasn’t able to see many of my matches. I was able to perform without worrying what he would say. Even though she didn’t enjoy driving that much, Mum used to take me to matches but she never commented on how I’d played, probably just relieved to have negotiated the traffic and found the ground. When I got home, Dad would ask how I’d done and, even if I knew I’d got out to a crap shot, I’d make out I’d been unlucky or been done by a great ball or suffered a terrible umpiring decision. I knew where I’d gone wrong and there was no point in risking a lecture about ‘knuckling down’ or ‘never give away your wicket’.

Mind you, there was the odd occasion when Dad did watch me and on one memorable day he gave me some match-winning advice. It was a schools cup final and I was captain. I scored a hundred then bowled the first over nice and tight but the lad at the other end got whacked all over the place and went for about 20 runs in one over. I heard a whistle from the boundary and went over to see Dad, who pointed out that my football team-mate Glen Foster, who was our wicketkeeper, was also a good bowler. I took the hint and for the rest of the match I would bowl at one end with Glen keeping wicket, then I’d take the gloves while he bowled. We won the cup but our tactics weren’t widely approved of and they changed the rules the following year.

As I worked my way through the age groups, I set a few league records, started to get my name in the local paper and got picked for Lancashire and England schoolboys, taking 6-24 on my international debut against Wales. Through these games I got to know other young players around the country and struck up a firm friendship with another local lad, John Crawley, who was later at Lancashire with me and then in the same England team.

There was only one innings I regret. Heaton were playing against Kearsley where Dad was now in the second team. Their first XI were short of players that day and, even though he was 57 years old, he agreed to play. He bowled against me with a wet ball, which made it hard for him to get any purchase, and I smashed him all round the ground, including two sixes off consecutive balls, one of which broke the slates on our neighbour’s roof. It’s one of the few things in my life that, if I could take it back, I would. But perhaps his granddaughters will gain revenge for him by spanking me at tennis or golf one day.

From the age of around 14 or 15, I realised that I had to make a decision about my future. If I was going to become a professional sportsman, I would have to concentrate on one sport and not try to be a jack of all trades. Bolton Wanderers, then in the lower divisions, had expressed interest in my becoming an apprentice at Burnden Park and I probably could have made a modest living at that level. But I realised that much of my football success was down to the fact that I was bigger and stronger than the other lads my age and that advantage wouldn’t last when I moved up the grades. In cricket, however, I had been playing successfully against men for a while and knew I could handle it. So cricket it was, and nothing could have been more perfect than when Lancashire offered me a contract at the age of 16.