Читать книгу Longy - Booze, Brawls, Sex and Scandal - Sean Long - Страница 11

I came into this world on September 24, 1976, and my mum and dad tell me I was a fast developer. I was walking at 10 months and talking (not coherently but hey, that’s not changed) a few months after that. My mum says I no longer needed nappies by my second birthday. She hasn’t seen me after 15 pints!

We had no money when I was really young. My little brother Karl was born when I was four and Mum looked after us two while Dad did his best to find work. There wasn’t much work around so Dad was in and out of jobs for years – mostly out, unfortunately. But my folks never let a shortage of brass keep us Longs from having food on the table, even if the way Dad procured it was not exactly legal.

I was about four when I first saw Dad get ready to go poaching in his camouflage gear. I was dressed for bed and watching telly when he came into the front room and sat next to me on the couch to lace up his boots. I remember thinking that he must be in the Army. I asked where he was going and Mum said he was ‘off to get some rabbits and spuds from the fields’ and I pleaded to go with him. He went out most nights, usually poaching rabbits, pheasants, hares and wood pigeons and from then on, I pestered every time to go with him. But he couldn’t be arsed with a little boy getting under his feet, wanting a carry half the time, especially when he might have to do a runner at any moment from a trigger-happy farmer.

But eventually my pester power proved stronger than my dad’s resolve and after about a year he gave in and let me go with him on a potato raid. I remember that first night vividly. He gave me a tiny little sack and he had a big bloody thing and we drove out to the countryside, me in the passenger seat of his brown Capri. I was five years old, up way after my bedtime, and as excited as you get on Christmas Eve. We went just outside of town, a few miles from our terraced house in Wigan, to where all the farms were. We parked up a country lane and when we got out of the car it was pitch black and pouring with rain. Good job I had my Spiderman wellies on!

I was quite scared at first but once my eyes adjusted to the dark I was fine. Dad picked me up and we squeezed through some bushes and onto the farmer’s field. We had to climb a little hill, then Dad quickly went to work filling his sack with spuds and I did the same. We were only there for about five minutes when Dad said we had to scarper. He started walking back to the gap in the bushes and swung his sack over his shoulder. I copied him and the weight of my sack sent me flying backwards and I slid down the hill through the mud, getting caked from head to toe. I couldn’t get up so I shouted for Dad and he turned round, laughed his head off and said, ‘Come on, let’s get this lot in the car before someone sees us.’ Looking back, I was like the kid out of the Roald Dahl story Danny, Champion of the World!

I went out with Dad loads after that, pinching food for Mum to cook for us all. And after a few months, he took me out for some proper poaching. He didn’t let me use his gun when we went shooting, though. He said he didn’t want me killing him, or, even worse, killing myself. I was willing to take the risk on both points but, sadly, he stood firm. Instead, I was in charge of keeping the dogs and ferrets under control until he needed them. Dad set nets at warren holes and then we sent the ferrets down to chase the rabbits out. If they escaped from the nets, the lurchers and Jack Russells went after them. People have asked me what I would have been if I hadn’t been a rugby player and I say I’d have made a good poacher. When I finally hang up my rugby boots, I reckon I’ll take it up as a hobby. Have you seen the price of organic meat these days?

Sometimes there would be six or seven rabbits all lying dead on the kitchen table, waiting to be gutted and skinned. I remember Mum saying to me: ‘Whatever you do, don’t press the rabbits’ bellies otherwise they’ll pee all over the floor.’ Fancy saying that to a mischievous little lad! At the first opportunity I put this amazing nugget of knowledge to the test and found Mum to be true to her word. The kitchen floor was awash with rabbit pee! By the time Mum realised what I’d done I was out playing with my mates in the fields round the back of our house. And I knew I was in trouble when I heard those familiar words, ‘SEAN, YOU LITTLE SHIT!’ bellowing from our garden. I got a serious bollocking off Mum and a good clip off my dad. I didn’t do it again.

As well as helping to catch the animals, I also plucked and skinned them. I wasn’t allowed to use a sharp knife for a few years so my dad would start me off and I’d pull the skin off. My mum has a photo of me aged about five, covered in blood and grinning as I proudly hold a skinned rabbit. I wasn’t squeamish about it because I’d seen my folks do it all the time and it was just normal to me. I reckon being used to all that blood from an early age helped prepare me for some of the gory injuries I’ve had over the years!

I was never a house kid and when I wasn’t out poaching, I was always out in the fields round the back of our house building dens with my mates, playing football and pursuing my main passion, which was collecting birds’ eggs. It’s not very PC these days but all the local kids were into it where we lived in the early 1980s and I had a great collection that I kept in a wooden display case in my bedroom. I got a book for my fifth birthday matching birds to their eggs and I was an expert. Even now, I’d happily challenge Bill Oddie to a match-the-egg-to-the-bird contest! I had common ones like blackbirds, coots, sparrows and dunnocks. Then one day I found a meadow pipit’s nest in a hole in the ground with four eggs inside. I took two – one for my collection and one to swap with my mates. We never took all the eggs from a nest; even as kids we knew that would be wrong. I swapped a meadow pipit egg for a kestrel one and I had the best collection around. It was my pride and joy and I’d spend ages at bedtime, counting the eggs and rearranging them.

We lived in an area of Wigan called Worsley Mesnes. At the time, it was well rough and full of dodgy people. One bedtime when I was about five or six, I was lining my birds’ eggs up along my windowsill when I saw this bloke – who I think was care in the community – run out from his flat, across the area of grass where we played football, and throw a brick through the front window of a house. Two lads lived there, they must have been about 18, and they sprinted out and battered the living daylights out of him. It’s not a nice thing for a little lad to see from his bedroom window, and Mum said we had to get out of the area.

We lived in a two-up two-down end-terrace house and there was a shop over the road where all the older lads used to hang out. When I was five – I remember because I had just started school – I began going down to the shop to hang out with them. I was a little shit, always answering back, swearing and getting into scrapes. I suppose I was a blue version of Bart Simpson. Before my sixth birthday I was picking fag butts up off the pavement and smoking them. Three foot tall and smoking! I’d seen my parents smoke and the big lads were doing it, so I thought ‘Why can’t I?’ But one day I was minding my own business, puffing away on a fag while kicking my football against a wall when I felt a grip on my shoulder. It was Mum. I threw the ciggie on the floor and tried to act all innocent, hoping against hope that she hadn’t seen. Oh, the optimism of youth! I was caught red-handed and she went MAD! But that telling-off was a walk in the park compared to the bollocking I got off Dad when I got home. My fag habit ended that day.

At around that time, something happened to me that sent my world crashing around my ears. I got home from school one day to find that my little brother had taken it upon himself to smash all my birds’ eggs. I’d put them in my wardrobe for safe-keeping but the little shit – he was only three – found them and clearly didn’t realise how important they were to me. When I saw my prized collection destroyed, I was inconsolable. Crying, I ran downstairs and told Mum what had happened. There was only one person who could have done it and I shouted at our Karl and made a dash for him. But Mum stopped me and explained that he was only small and he didn’t know what he was doing. Him chanting, ‘Eggs smashed, eggs smashed’ didn’t help, but I calmed down. I vowed there and then that when he was big enough I would give him a good hiding. Unfortunately, by the time I got round to it, Karl was a lot bigger than me and quite a hard bugger. But if you’re reading this, our Karl, I’m still waiting for my moment!

Every morning I walked to school, St Jude’s Primary, on my own and I used to pass some of the older junior lads who were loitering outside the shop, bunking off. One day, aged six and in my second year at infants, I thought, ‘sod it, I’m not going to school either’ and went with them to watch telly at one of their houses. But I found it boring, so I went to the junior school to meet my friends at dinnertime. I sat on the grass outside the Junior One classroom and waited for them. Some of my mates saw me through the window and pointed and waved at me. Then the teacher opened the window and pointed down the road to the Infants and said: ‘You’re down there. Get to your own class.’ But I had my brilliant excuse – the kind of lie that was to blight my mischievous childhood – ready. I said: ‘It’s ok, my mum has given me the day off.’ She asked why and I gave the clever answer: ‘I’m looking after my little brother.’ She then pointed out that I was alone, and my mates all had a good laugh. I just walked off and went home, knowing that my folks would find out about it. I got in at three o’clock, 45 minutes earlier than usual, and Mum asked why I was home so soon. Knowing the inevitable, I came clean and got my usual two-pronged bollocking: a good shouting-at off Mum, followed by a crack off my dad when he got in. They were pissed off and looking back I don’t blame them – I was an ex-smoker and I was skiving off school. And I was only six!

According to my folks, I was a little shit pretty much from the day I was able to crawl. My cousin Paul, who’s about five months younger than me, used to go through hell when we played together as little kids. From the stories my mum tells me I was like Chucky off Child’s Play, hitting Paul and any other kids with anything from rusks to plastic hammers that squeaked on contact.

I continued being a little sod and was always in trouble at school, but it wasn’t till Junior One that I got my first real bollocking (outside the family home, that is!). The teacher was reading a story and she said the name ‘Aunt Fanny’. I started laughing ’cause I knew what a fanny was, even though I was only seven. I looked over to my mate Jason Callaghan, who was laughing his head off as well. I had my head in my hands, my shoulders bouncing up and down and the teacher stopped reading from the book. I could sense she was looking at me but I didn’t dare look up. I knew I was going to get told off, but I couldn’t stop laughing. After all, the teacher had said the word ‘fanny’! When she yelled ‘SEAN!’ I looked up, tears of laughter running down my face, and she said: ‘Go to the headmaster’s office, NOW!’ She pointed at Jason and ordered him to go with me.

We were marched out of the classroom and through the school to the Head, an old wizard-like man called Mr Lynch – an appropriate name for a guy who loved to punish. The teacher explained what terrible crime we’d committed and left us in the room with him. I will never forget that old git because he fucking caned me! Just for finding the word ‘fanny’ funny. I was a cocky kid with a smart answer for everything, but when I saw him take the cane off his bookshelf I don’t think I could have spoken a single word for the life of me. He told me to hold my right hand out and when I did, I took a deep breath and concentrated on not letting it shake. I didn’t want him to know how scared I was. He was enjoying it enough already.

He lifted his hand in the air and brought the cane down with huge force, right on the ends of my fingers. He was a good shot, I’ll give him that. He only hit me once but the pain was incredible. Jason got his caning after me, while I stood next to him, fighting back tears. I had to look away when he got his. I knew what was coming. We went back to the classroom holding our throbbing fingers and blubbing to ourselves. When we got in, we were sent to the back of the class but I got the impression the teacher felt a bit bad that we’d been caned. I think she thought we’d just get shouted at.

As well as the pain, I vividly remember how wronged I felt for getting caned for such a little thing. I didn’t deserve such harsh punishment. I wasn’t a bad lad; I didn’t hit people or bully them. I was just a bit daft and cheeky. Just after that, caning in schools was banned. I think Jason and I were the last kids in St Jude’s Primary to get the cane. Can’t say I learnt my lesson, though. ‘Fanny’ still makes me smile to this day!

Just weeks after being caned, I discovered the thing that ended up being the making of me – rugby. After school one day, I joined in with some of the older lads who were having a throw-about with a ball. There were only about eight of us practising, just in our school uniforms, tackling and messing about. Afterwards, I was walking home with two brothers, Lee and Barry Owen, and I asked them what they were doing that night and they said they were going to St Jude’s Rugby Club for practise. They were bigging it up, saying it was ‘proper rugby’ where they had to pay subs and everything, like it was an exclusive club. I was impressed. ‘Can I come, can I come?’ I asked, and they invited me down.

I went home and had my tea, packed my PE kit, and walked the mile-and-a-half to the club for training at six o’clock. I didn’t tell my mum and dad where I was going; they just thought I was playing out. When I got there all the lads were 10 or 11 years old; they were loads bigger than me. Lee and Barry introduced me and said I wanted to play and there were a few shrugged shoulders but they let me join in. I didn’t even have the 30p subs but they said I could pay it next time. I had a great time, running round after the ball like a blue-arsed fly and tackling the big lads. I had caught the rugby bug.

When I got in that night I told Mum and Dad where I’d been and they were made up. They just looked at each other and smiled. My dad was really into rugby; he played loads as a kid and watched it all the time on the telly. From that day on my dad did all he could to fuel my love of the game. He took me to watch Wigan play, though he never paid for me. When we got to the window at Central Park, he told me to duck down and he’d pay for himself. I’d scuttle along crouched down for a few feet and when we got to the turnstiles he’d say, ‘I’m just going to lift this little lad over, alreet?’ and no one gave a shit. All the dads did that back then. They wouldn’t get away with it now at the JJB where it’s all computerised and your ticket has a bloody barcode on it.

Anyway, I became rugby-mad and I took my first ball – that my nan and granddad bought for me – everywhere I went. Corporation Park, where St Jude’s trained and played, was a shithole, though. There were two pitches that were always waterlogged and muddy. Along one side were allotments and a pig farm and I’m sure that half the time we were diving around in pig shit that the rain had washed onto the field. But I was seven and being covered from head to foot in mud or pig poo wasn’t a problem. It was a good job swine flu wasn’t around at the time or I’m sure the place would have been a no-go zone!

I had a good idea that where we lived wasn’t very nice, but what really sealed it for me was the day I was shot in the back, still aged only seven, by some older neighbourhood lads. Back then, a lot of the older boys had air rifles and they used to bully the little kids into letting them take a shot at you. One summer’s night I was on my way home from playing hide-and-seek in the fields with my mates when three brothers, who lived a few streets down from me, came over. They were older than me, probably in their early teens, and they made me stand still and lift my T-shirt up so they could shoot me. It was only an air rifle so it wouldn’t hurt, they assured me. Looking back it sounds really stupid, but back then, you did what the big lads asked. I suppose it was a rite of passage thing in an area where big kids were shitty to little kids. The same probably happened to them when they were small. We were behind a social club near my house and I lifted my T-shirt up and closed my eyes. They lied – it did hurt, it hurt me like hell. But I didn’t let it show and I held it in and ran home, being careful not to cry until I was round the corner, out of sight. When I got in the house, my eyes were streaming but when Mum asked me what was wrong, I said ‘nothing’, and ran up to my room. I remember looking in the mirror at the big bruise on my back and hating those lads. That was the kind of place it was – full of fucking scumbags. If those three fancy their chances now, they know where I am.

But away from the nasty sods who lived near me, down at St Jude’s I was always assured of a warm welcome and the feeling of togetherness you can only get by being part of a team. Because I was younger – a full four years younger – than the rest of the Under-11s squad I rarely got a game in those early days. I was there to make up the numbers. But I didn’t care; I just loved being part of the squad.

Oddly, one of my first games for the club was for the Under-12s. They were short one day and asked the Under-11s coach if they could borrow a sub and he said: ‘Go on Sean, you can play.’ The game started and I was on the sidelines as the team’s one and only replacement. Looking back it was madness, a skinny lad of nine facing up to 12-year-olds. Some of them looked like fully-grown men to me. But that didn’t faze me and I was itching to have a go. My prayers were answered when, with about 10 minutes to go, the game was slowing and I was released onto an unsuspecting bunch of big lads.

They put me on the wing, where they probably figured I couldn’t get into too much trouble. But they didn’t allow for my kamikaze instincts. Most of the play was going down the opposite flank to where I was positioned and, looking back that was probably why they put me there. But I was so keen to get involved I ran right across the pitch to tackle and then all the way back to where I was supposed to be playing. I remember seeing Dad on the touchline shaking his head in disbelief, clearly thinking ‘what the fuck is he doing?’ But I knew he was proud as punch to see me on the park competing with kids who were literally, in some cases, twice my size.

Shortly after that, I came home with a medal. I was with the Under-11s this time and we were playing Black Brook Rugby Club in St Helens. Again I was on the bench, stood by the touchline, hoping they’d give me 10 minutes on the wing or whatever. I didn’t get a game but after the final whistle, I was walking off the pitch when a ball came hurtling over in the direction of a woman pushing a pram. It was headed right for her baby and so I quickly dived and knocked the ball off course. The woman was really thankful. Next minute the coach came up to me and said, ‘Well done son, you did great there’ and he gave me a gold medal with the club’s name on it, hanging by a ribbon. I was only seven or eight and I was buzzing. I put it round my neck and raced home, thinking how proud Dad would be. I bolted into the house, grinning from ear to ear and brandishing my first ever rugby medal. Dad went: ‘Bloody hell, where have you got that from?’ I replied: ‘Well, they brought me on for the second half and I scored three tries and got man of the match.’ He was chuffed to bits and jumped out of his chair to admire my prize. ‘Three tries!’ he exclaimed, ‘That’s bloody great, son. Did you really score three tries?’ I could sense that the lie was going to come back and bite me on the arse but it was too late now. ‘Yeah,’ I said, as if trying not to be big-headed, like it was no big deal.

The following Sunday, Dad came along to the game and my fib was found out big-style. We were stood on the touchline, watching my Under-11 team-mates, and Dad boasted to one of the other parents stood next to us: ‘Did you see our Sean last week? He scored three tries, you know.’ The bloke replied: ‘He didn’t get a game, mate.’ I witnessed the exchange and it felt like it was in slow-motion. I was thinking: ‘Christ, I’m for it now.’ My Dad looked down at me and I expected a right clip. But despite the embarrassment he obviously felt, I think he was a bit amused by it and he muttered those three all-too-familiar words: ‘You little shit.’

During those first couple of years I didn’t make a full-time member of the team, just the occasional run-out when they were short or the odd 10 or 15 minutes at the end of a game to shut me up. But when I was nine I was picked to play full back for the Under-11s. I didn’t have any ball skills but I was bloody good at tackling. Time and again the big lads would make breaks through the middle and, smack, I’d take them down. I don’t think there’s a rugby player who wouldn’t agree there’s nothing better than taking down a bigger bloke than you and hearing him thud to the ground. In those age group games there were always some lads who had put on a growth spurt and were twice as wide and twice as tall as their mates. They would find it easy to make the breaks but I’d find it even easier, as the last line of defence, to put them down. I’m not talking about big hits; I was too small for that. These were textbook tackles – I’d grab them round the thighs and slide down to their ankles. With a little fucker like me wrapped round their legs it was impossible to run anywhere!

That ability to tackle got me noticed. My dad always cut out and kept any mentions I got in the local paper. One early report of a defeat for St Jude’s Under-11s reads: ‘St Jude’s Under-11s lost 28-0 to Woolston. Man of the match yet again was Sean Long with some try-saving tackles’. Defensive play has always been as big a part of the game as attack – that’s why so many rugby league coaches are now coaching union sides – and if you make your tackles then it won’t be long before you make an impression. And that’s how I came to be picked to play full-back for the Lancashire Under-11s side during the 1985/86 season. At just nine years old I was the youngest player ever to pull on a Lancashire shirt. Rugby league legend-to-be Andy Farrell was in that same team.

Once I was playing Under-11s rugby with lads my own age, I came into my own and they moved me to stand-off. When I was 10, my dad started coaching at St Jude’s and he remained my coach till I was 16. Having your dad as coach is good and bad. The problem with being coached by your old man is that if, like me, you mess around in training, throwing mud around and taking the piss, you get bollocked at training AND at home. The other lads used to laugh when my dad told me off because I always got it in the neck more than them. When other players got sidelined for being daft, I was sent to the family car where I’d have to sit until Dad whistled for me to come out.

But the worst thing for me was that no matter how badly the other lads behaved in training, they could tell their dads when they got home that they’d trained really hard. When Dad and me got home and Mum asked how training went, I’d say ‘great’ and Dad would say, ‘No it didn’t, he was a little shit.’ Then I’d get done all over again while we were having our tea. My dad would calm down on the drive home, but by asking how it had gone, Mum would accidentally set him off again. It wasn’t easy being me sometimes!

But even back then, I knew it was doing me good, that I needed more discipline than many of the other lads. Dad was a good coach and he was extra strict with me because I needed it. He also saw the potential in me. If I was allowed to fool around all the time, I wouldn’t improve quickly enough to make it in the game.

As well as my new-found love of rugby, things took another turn for the good when my mum’s Uncle Ned and Auntie Amelia said they had a caravan that was stood empty at their farm in New Springs, just outside of Wigan. It was a much nicer area, away from kids with guns and the tight bastards who’d say hello to you then rob your house the minute your back was turned. So we packed up and moved in. To make things even better for us Longs, my mum found work at a local bakery and Dad got a job as a flagger in Bolton. We finally had a bit of money coming in and we didn’t need to go poaching any more. I went to a different school, called The Holy Family, and I calmed down a bit. I was still a rum ’un but I didn’t bunk off.

The caravan was a great place to be for a young lad and me and Karl loved every minute of the 18 months we were there. Mum and Dad had the main – and only – bedroom and us kids slept in the front. In the morning, me and Karl had to fold our beds up and put the table up for breakfast – like you do on holiday. To us, it was one big holiday. We used to go with Uncle Ned to get all the eggs in from the chickens and it was great because they nested in the old tractors that were lying about the farm so we had to climb around them and get in the nooks and crannies to get the eggs. I loved doing that job. But one farm task I hated was mucking the pigs out. I only did it a few times and it was bloody hard work, though we had fun getting chases off the pigs. Me and Karl would jump into the pen and flash our bare arses at them and they went mental, running after us, trying to hump us. We’d run out of the way then dive back in and get another chase. It was a brilliant buzz and great rugby training! In the time we were at the caravan, our folks saved up a deposit on a house and they bought a place in Whelley, about a mile and a half away, where I lived for the rest of my childhood.