Hammered

by Mark Ward

  Eddie introduced me to his wife Shirley and they would join Jane and myself on occasional nights out in London. Jane enjoyed trips to the West End, especially the shops.

  Eddie and Shirley became very good friends of ours. Apart from being great company when we went out as couples, they would also kindly look after Melissa if Jane and I needed time out on our own.

  It was around this time that I met Mick Tobyn, who remains my best mate to this day. Mick lived right beside our training ground and his two young sons, Gary and Danny, would be in the players’ car park every day collecting autographs. It was before an away game at Coventry that I noticed the boys as I got off the team coach. I asked them if they had tickets and that’s when Mick introduced himself to me. I gave them some complimentaries and invited all three of them to join me afterwards in the players’ lounge.

  I enjoyed Mick’s company and invited him to be my guest at the next home game. I liked looking after the boys and Mick, who are true West Ham supporters. Some 24 years on, Mick and I still see each other as much as we can. He has been a true friend and I’ve been treated as one of his family ever since we met.

  It took some time for Jane to settle down, though, and John Lyall soon became aware of the situation and made it his business to sort it out. He was alarmed one Friday when Mick McGiven brought it to his attention that I’d lost half a stone in weight in the space of seven days.

  The players were all weighed by Mick, who would stand alongside the scales clutching his clip-board and pen, after training every Friday. Some of the bigger lads who had to work a bit harder to keep the pounds off, like Galey and Parkesy, were sometimes a little reluctant to step on the scales, but I was never far off 10st throughout my four and a half years with West Ham.

  But on this particular Friday, I’d dipped by around seven pounds and he obviously mentioned this to the manager because John immediately called me into his office to find out what the problem was.

  Jane had gone back to Liverpool for the week with Melissa to see her parents again and I hadn’t eaten as much as normal while she was away. It wasn’t as if I went without food out of neglect or because I couldn’t be bothered to cook. Actually, I’m not bad in the kitchen. Eating just didn’t appeal to me. I can easily go a day or two with hardly anything and, besides, I always liked to feel physically hungry before a game.

  However, John demanded to know why I’d lost so much weight and when I explained that Jane had gone back to Merseyside for a week, he wasn’t at all happy. ‘Get her on the phone now – she’s coming back,’ he insisted.

  She was adamant that she wanted to return to Liverpool permanently at that stage but John was having none of it. I told him that Jane couldn’t settle and it was putting a strain on our marriage. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘I’ll be at your house tonight at six o’clock.’

  I opened the door to John, who strolled in and targeted my wife straight away: ‘Forget the idea of moving back to Liverpool, lady,’ he told her in no uncertain terms. ‘I spent a lot of money on this man and to replace him would cost the club a fortune.’

  Over a cup of tea Jane explained how she felt and how difficult it was for her living some 200-odd miles from home. John was very astute. He somehow managed to convince Jane that our future lay here – full stop. Just before he left he came out with the clincher – I was to receive a £100 per week wage increase. That put a smile on her face … ‘more shoes’, I thought!

  An extra £100 per week wasn’t a massive increase, especially as John insisted that I also had to extend my contract by another year. He had done a good night’s work for all concerned in our home that evening.

  The last thing John wanted was for any of his players to be distracted by worries off the field and his man-management skills were second to none. Despite Jane’s homesickness, I was a very happy Hammer and revelled in my first season with the club. It had been a long, hard campaign but I couldn’t wait for each game to come around.

  Our final home match of that unforgettable season was against relegation-bound Ipswich Town. It was our ninth game in just 28 days during a breathless April in which we’d won seven of our previous eight games, and for the first time all season there were more than 31,000 fans packed inside Upton Park. The senior players who had favoured a bonus scheme based on crowd figures were cursing again but we were now within touching distance of the title and we all wanted to be part of West Ham history.

  It didn’t look good when Ipswich took an early lead but Alan Dickens equalised and then, with three minutes left, I earned the controversial penalty from which Ray Stewart scored the winner.

  I’ve often been asked, did I fall or was I pushed when I darted between Town defenders Ian Cranson and Nigel Gleghorn and came crashing down by the byline at the North Bank end. It wasn’t my style to cheat but let’s just say that I did what I had to do.

  All that mattered is that the ref awarded the penalty and Ray, as usual, stepped up and coolly put it away. The dramatic 2-1 win sparked wild scenes of delight on the Upton Park terraces and on the pitch after the game. We’d kept alive our title hopes. It meant the championship wouldn’t be decided until the last Saturday of the season.

  We thought our 3-2 victory at West Bromwich Albion the following Saturday would be enough to bring the league championship to West Ham for the first time in the club’s history but it wasn’t to be. Liverpool’s 1-0 win at Chelsea clinched it for the Reds, which meant our last game – a 3-1 defeat at Everton – was meaningless, especially as UEFA had banned English clubs from entering European competition for five seasons following the Heysel tragedy a year earlier. How I would love to have gone ‘home’ to Goodison that Monday night still fighting for the title.

  Still, to finish third in the old first division, four points behind Liverpool and two adrift of Everton, was no mean feat and the Hammers have never managed to finish as high in the top flight since then. If we hadn’t made such a disappointing start to the season, failing to win any of our first seven league matches, then I’m convinced we would have done it.

  Ever-present for my third successive season, I’d surprised myself by playing in all 42 league games plus the 10 cup ties – an ever-present record matched only by Tony Gale and Phil Parkes. I was lucky to be involved at a great club run by an equally great manager.

  10. HARD MEN

  MY personal battles against some of the hardest left-backs English football has ever seen were right up my street. I relished every minute of them.

  I faced a number of quality left-backs in my time at West Ham, including Arsenal’s 86-times capped England man Kenny Sansom, Nigel Winterburn (Wimbledon and Arsenal), Terry Phelan (Wimbledon), Derek Statham (West Brom), Tony Dorigo (Aston Villa and Chelsea), Paul Power (Everton), Jim Beglin and Barry Venison (both Liverpool) and Arthur Albiston (Manchester United).

  But Mark Dennis (Southampton & QPR), Pat Van Den Hauwe (Everton) and Stuart Pearce (Nottingham Forest) are the trio I recall as the genuine hard men of my era when I was still an out-and-out right-winger.

  Dennis pushed me flush on the nose, right in front of the dug-out, at The Dell and stood over me saying: ‘You’re not gonna get a kick tonight, you little cunt.’

  I knew of the former Birmingham City left-back’s reputation and we had a good contest afterwards. It was bullying but opponents like Dennis could never intimidate me. If anything, players like him just sparked me into wanting to dominate my direct opponent even more.

  Neither Van Den Hauwe nor Pearce ever resorted to verbal abuse or used wind-up tactics against me. Most of the time those who had plenty to say rarely carried out their threats in any case. But Van Den Hauwe and Pearce didn’t need to be lairy in that way – they were already both physically intimidating enough.

  West Ham fans like to remind me of my physical clashes with the tall, rugged Chelsea and Scotland left-back, Doug Rougvie. I loved my scraps with him and one night I stuck my fingers up his nose as we both tumbled to ground in front of the Chicken Run. To be ho
nest, I felt sorry for him because it was me who was doing the bullying! Frank McAvennie wound me up before the game about getting stuck into Rougvie and that’s what I did.

  I’m not proud of everything I’ve done on the football field. I’ll admit, I once took a bite out of Terry Butcher’s back on the night his struggling Ipswich team came to Upton Park when West Ham were going for the league title. We both fell to the ground in a challenge and as the former England captain got to his feet, I bit him high up on the back. Well, I wouldn’t have been able to reach him once he’d fully got to his feet! He went mad at me, called me all the names under the sun, but then we just got on with the game.

  Afterwards, with Ipswich virtually condemned to relegation, Butcher vented his fury by kicking in the referee’s dressing room door.

  But, by and large, there was a lot more give and take between players back then. Chelsea’s David Speedie was a little hard nut and I remember catching him in the groin after he came out worst in our 50/50 clash at Upton Park. My boot was raised high and I poleaxed him. But then I justified it in my mind by thinking that he’d have done the same to me.

  A few weeks later, I happened to be on a night out in Stringfellows nightclub and bumped into a few of the Chelsea lads, including Speedie. ‘Oi you, you little cunt’, he said after spotting me at the bar. He came over and playfully ‘butted’ the side of my head. I had a little, friendly dig back at him but within seconds Speedie was offering to buy me a drink. ‘You’re just like me,’ he said.

  Players of my era could get away with so much more than they can in the modern game, with 25 cameras scattered all over the stadium. Even if the ref and his assistants don’t spot you doing something you shouldn’t today, then the Sky cameras will.

  Pat Van Den Hauwe would have probably faced a life ban from the game if Sky had been around when we played against each other! I remember him as Everton’s lunatic left-back, a nasty bit of work who would just kick out and assault you off the ball. In the last game of the 1985-86 season we visited Goodison for the game that would decide second place in the championship race after Liverpool had clinched the title two days earlier.

  We were outclassed by Everton on the night but that didn’t deter ‘Psycho Pat’ from leaving his mark on me. With only minutes of this meaningless game remaining, Everton were cruising to an easy 3-1 win. The ball was on the opposite side of the pitch and Van Den Hauwe came in from the side and booted me high up in the groin area.

  Everton skipper Peter Reid witnessed his team-mate’s thuggish act and as I lay on the floor, ‘Reidy’ was trying to help me up. He was going mad at the loony left-back. I was no angel but I’m convinced Van Den Hauwe, who started at Birmingham and went on to play for Tottenham and Millwall, was not either.

  Stuart Pearce deservedly gets my vote as the best full-back I ever played against. He was hard but fair. He’d try and intimidate you with his shorts rolled up showing off those massive thighs and when he tackled you it was all or nothing – the ball, you and everything that stood in his way.

  His nickname ‘Psycho’ was undeserved, though, because he was class on the ball and just had an overwhelming desire to win. Pearce paid me one of the biggest ever compliments in his autobiography Psycho, published in 2000. He wrote: ‘I am often asked who is the most difficult player I have ever faced over the years and people are usually surprised when I reply Mark Ward.’

  Pearce was nearing the end of his playing days with West Ham in 1999, at the time his story was published, before going into management and coaching with Forest and then Manchester City. He went on to be a key member of Fabio Capello’s England staff. Stuart went on: ‘Even West Ham supporters seem surprised that I have picked out one of their less lauded Hammers rather than Marco Van Basten, for instance.

  ‘Mark Ward was a direct little player who liked to run at you with the ball at his feet. It is probably through him that I have had more bad games at Upton Park than at many other places. I was up against him when I was substituted for one of the three times in my Forest career.’

  Stuart Pearce played 570 league games for Coventry City, Forest, Newcastle United, West Ham and Manchester City. He was capped 78 times at senior level by England, many as captain since 1992. That compliment, from a player and a man of his immense stature in the game, meant a lot to me. I can assure him that our respect is mutual.

  11. LONDON LIFE

  THE turning point for Jane to settle in London was when I splashed out £1,800 and bought her a big, black Irish mare from Harvey Smith’s son Robert, who had stables at Quendon in north Essex. Jane had owned a pony as a kid and always wanted another horse, one that looked like Black Beauty. We had ‘Bridie’ stabled nearby on a private estate in Epping Forest and her day to day involvement at the stables made life easier.

  It was good to finally feel more settled as a family again when a negative article about me appeared in The Sun in October 1986, clearly suggesting I was missing Liverpool more than I actually was.

  Journalist Steve Howard came to the training ground to interview me for what was intended to be a piece angled towards my claims for international recognition. John Lyall wasn’t one for pushing his players publicly but early in my second season with the Hammers there was talk of me making Bobby Robson’s England squad. John was great at handling the press and he agreed for Howard to come down to Chadwell Heath.

  I did the interview and, naively, I let my guard down and mentioned how unsettled my wife had been since our move south. I thought nothing more about it until I saw the piece in the paper the next day under the headline ‘Homesick Hammer!’

  When John read it, he was furious and called me into his office demanding an explanation. He had just sold Paul Goddard to Newcastle United and the thought of the fans reading about another player wanting away from Upton Park was unacceptable to him. I’d never seen him so angry.

  I tried to explain that I hadn’t meant it to come out the way it read and that the quotes from me about missing our family and friends in Liverpool really concerned Jane rather than myself. I was very happy to be at West Ham. My off the cuff comments had been taken out of context and once I’d told John what had happened, he picked up the phone and called Howard’s office to vent his fury. I only heard one side of the conversation between the journalist and my unhappy boss but John ended the call with the words ‘Don’t ever step foot inside West Ham again.’

  I had to pinch myself at times. Life had changed so significantly for Jane and I. London life was so different to what we’d left behind in Liverpool. To give you a clearer insight into just how much it had changed, you need only look at the difference in property prices. Only a few months before my transfer to West Ham, after Oldham had increased my money and I’d signed a new contract, Jane and I bought a two up two-down in Whiston that cost £15,500.

  The first house we bought following my move to the Hammers, in Roundmead Way, cost £73,000. We sold that about 18 months later for almost double the price – £140,000 – and moved into a lovely, four-bedroom detached in Rowans Way, Loughton. That one cost £250,000 – but please, don’t anyone tell me what it’s worth today, even in the midst of the latest slump in house prices!

  I look back and believe that Jane would have been the original football WAG if only the phrase had been invented in the mid-80s. She was very fashion-conscious and loved shopping for clothes and shoes. Now she had her own horse, too. I tell you, she would have given the WAGs of today a run for their money!

  Melissa had settled into her school and life couldn’t have been better. My team-mates had all helped me in that first record-breaking season and I enjoyed every moment at the club. Socially, I didn’t go out that much. London seemed such a huge place and the lads lived in all different parts of the capital. I was closest to Alvin Martin, my fellow Scouser, and enjoyed his company.

  The players’ Christmas parties were held at the Phoenix Apollo restaurant in Stratford. Panay and Gill, the two Greek lads who owned the place, looked after us bi
g-time. It was a famous eatery that attracted plenty of TV stars and showbiz celebrities. All the most popular Page 3 girls of the day – Samantha Fox, Suzanne Mizzi and Jenny Blyth – were regulars. Jenny was to become Frank McAvennie’s bird and I knew they were destined for each other as soon as I saw her push her tits into his face after a game at Upton Park. Frank didn’t need a second invitation and it was only a matter of time before they were shacked up together.

  It was a good job I was happily married when I signed for West Ham. If I’d been single like Frank, I think I’d have found it hard to concentrate on the football with all the night life and women available.

  Some of the players would go to the races and the dogs and it was at Walthamstow greyhound stadium where I presented a trophy to the winning owner of the last heat of the night. Each race that night was named after a West Ham player. It was a very boozy evening and by the time the last race came round, I was bladdered. The Mark Ward Stakes could have been won by a Jack Russell for all I knew!

  The rest of the lads laughed their bollocks off as I staggered over the sand to the centre of the track to present the trophy to the winning owner. That was just the start. Then it was off to Charlie Chans, the nightclub beneath the main grandstand, for more ale.

  It was during my nights out with the lads that I was introduced to the lawyer Henri Brandman. He had a mate called Eamonn Connolly who was the property and racing manager for the ‘porn baron’ David Sullivan. I would regularly go to Newmarket, Sandown, Windsor and all the other racetracks in the south-east. I loved a bet and it was great to be invited in to the parade ring and meet the jockeys and other famous people. David Sullivan rarely went to the small race meetings, so when I could I would tag along with Eamonn. Jane loved the races, too. It was an opportunity for her to indulge her favourite hobby of dressing up.