Wingin' It

Walters Mark

Description

Wingin' It is the ultimate story of hope over hate, the insightful autobiography of a footballer who beat the bigots. Due to the colour of his skin, Mark Walters always felt he needed to be twice as good as other players in order to succeed. But Mark drew inspiration from the way the late Cyrille Regis handled his racist detractors, and went on to fulfil his potential by flaunting his dazzling ball skills for England. While a starry-eyed kid in Birmingham, he somehow escaped the clutches of evil paedophile Ted Langford, although his mate wasn't so fortunate. He became an idol of the Villa Park terraces, though his move to Scotland was almost halted by a bloodthirsty mob who pelted him with bananas and pigs' feet. But Walters stood firm to become one of England's most popular exports. After a third successive league title, a GBP1.25 million move to Liverpool reunited him with Graeme Souness. Mark rewrote the record books at Anfield, but would ultimately call his decision to head south 'the biggest mistake of my career'.

Informations

• Publié par: Pitch Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 01 octobre 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781785314711
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

First published by Pitch Publishing, 2018
Pitch Publishing
A2 Yeoman Gate
Yeoman Way
Durrington
BN13 3QZ
www.pitchpublishing.co.uk
Jeff Holmes, 2018
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the Publisher.
A CIP catalogue record is available for this book from the British Library
Print ISBN 978-1-785314-407
eBook ISBN 978-1-78531-471-1
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Contents
Acknowledgements
Foreword
Humble Beginnings
The Monster Within
Signing on at Villa
Proud to be a Villan
Time s Up at Villa
One Gaffer Per Season!
Heading North
Racism Rears its Ugly Head
Who s Up for the Title Then?
A Few Ibrox Icons
Watch Out, Mo s About!
Title Number Three: Don and Dusted!
If the Cap Fits
Answering Souey s Call Again!
Out of Favour at Anfield
On the Move
Enjoying My Football Again
Back to Villa
All Good Things
To Those We ve Lost
For my Mum, Ivy Millicent Walters
My Uncle Rupert
And my children, Mischa and Marlon - my world
Acknowledgements
F IRST of all I d like to thank Graeme Souness for writing the Foreword to this book and for also acting as a guiding light throughout my career. He was a big influence on me so I was delighted when he agreed to provide the opening words.
I have been fortunate to play for some great teams and have met some wonderful people along the way. It has been quite a journey.
Working on this book has also been a new and exciting experience, and also good for the soul. So much has happened in my life and while there are a few things I might have preferred to forget, the good certainly outweighs the bad. Those twists and turns mirror many of my performances on the park!
I have enjoyed working with author Jeff Holmes. We have worked well together and I m delighted with the result. That wasn t always something I could say at 4.45 on a Saturday evening! Jeff has also kept me right on a few things I d forgotten, or didn t believe actually happened until he showed me the proof!
Many people have helped along the way and this book wouldn t have been possible without guys like Alex Boyd and Mark McAdam providing materials for research. And then there is Eddie Watson and Derek McNeill, who put me in touch with my co-author.
Paul and Jane Camillin head up a fantastic team at Pitch Publishing and I thank them for giving me the vehicle to get my story out there. Throughout the process they have kept me fully informed and I m incredibly happy with the final result.
Football is a great life and I played longer than most, which I m extremely grateful for, so I would say to anyone who gets the opportunity to make football their career, It will be over in a flash, so enjoy it while you can.
Foreword
W HEN you call time on your career, there are a handful of players you look back on with great fondness and, as far as I m concerned, Mark falls easily into that category. Apart from his individual brilliance, he was a team player and a real treat to work with. He was certainly my player and I had a lot of faith in him.
As both player and coach, I was fortunate to work with so many talented players and Mark is up there with the best of them because he had so much ability. His team-mates also knew that worth because when things were tight he would come up with a bit of individual magic and win us the game, hence the reason they nicknamed him Flash . Yes, he was that special.
There is a saying in football that you don t know a player until you ve worked with him, but it wasn t a worry for me to give Mark his debut against Celtic in a New Year s Day game at Parkhead. You have to remember that he was coming from a big club in Villa, although there is absolutely nothing that prepares you for a Rangers v Celtic game: it is a unique derby and the most intense game you can play in. Of course there was an element of how he would deal with it but that wasn t because it was Mark, it would be the same for any player. You have to play in those games at some point, so when is the best time? The simple truth is, Mark was a great player and I knew he would handle the occasion.
I would put him in the same bracket as Davie Cooper, and that s high praise. Both were the type who could open the door for you with a little bit of magic.
When I joined Rangers I had a lot of knowledge about players in England, as I had spent most of my time down there. I was well aware that Mark was a match winner; I had seen it at close quarters, but I still sought out those who knew him best for their opinion and everything I heard back was extremely positive, so I had no fears about signing him.
There were very few players like him around, and I knew exactly what he was capable of, so when I got the chance to take him to Liverpool I didn t hesitate. When we were at Anfield together it was a troubled time for the club. I went there in difficult circumstances but I think Mark acquitted himself well and I hope he would look back on his time at Liverpool and say he enjoyed himself there.
He definitely had the talent to be a regular for England, but I think he was unlucky that the level of direct competition around at that time was phenomenal, with guys like John Barnes ahead of him in the queue. That said, you could put him up there on ability with any of his contemporaries, because he was a top, top player. Later on, Mark left Southampton just before I got there and I thought to myself, How unlucky would he have been, having to play for me three times!
Seriously, though, I am delighted that I got to work with Mark during my managerial career. He was a real pleasure to be around and the type of player that not only put a smile on the faces of our supporters, but also everyone at the club, myself included.
Mark is also a lovely guy, and that can be so important when you re working with someone day in, day out.
Thank you Mark, it was a pleasure.
Graeme Souness Former Rangers and Liverpool manager
Chapter One
Humble Beginnings
I F being born with a football attached to your feet was an option, I would ve happily left Marston Green Hospital dressed in an Aston Villa babygrow and clutching a size four Mitre. When I was growing up, I didn t need much, and Mum always knew where to find me. If by some strange reason I missed an evening curfew all she had to look out for was the mini Afro on a little guy kicking a ball around under the nearest street lamp. When I was a kid, that scene would ve played out in Handsworth, Birmingham. Previously a sprawling inner city - but now apparently a city within a city - it s almost impossible to imagine that once upon a time Handsworth was a rural village in the county of Staffordshire, instead of the thriving Afro-Caribbean community it evolved into a decade or so before I was born.
Thousands of people were invited over to the UK from British colonies in the Caribbean to work in local munitions factories during the Second World War, with many more arriving to assist in the rebuilding of the area once the war had ended: the so-called Windrush Generation . My mum was among those who arrived from Jamaica to take up the post-war offer due to a shortage of British men and women of an employable age. Meanwhile, my father had come over from Nigeria and, unbeknown to each other at the time, they both settled in or around Handsworth, thankfully long before racial tension and rioting in the mid-1980s brought the area to a standstill.
In June 1964 though, Handsworth was just another part of Birmingham and home to me, young Mark Everton Walters, fresh out of Marston Green. Mum was renting a room from relations who had also come over to the UK from their native Jamaica, which is the way it was in 1960s Britain, when families looked after each other, especially those who had made a pretty big sacrifice to start a new and better life almost 5,000 miles from home.
At my cousin s, I shared a room with mum and my brother, Michael, who was two years my senior. At that point, I also had a brother and sister I had never met. They were still living in Jamaica, awaiting the green light to come to the UK. That green light would illuminate when we had our own place. As it was, Michael and I slept in the same bed and we had a potty underneath in case we needed the toilet during the night. It sounds light years away today, but we didn t complain as we had never known anything else. I spent the first five years of my life in Handsworth, and I was very happy. Naturally, memories of the early days are sketchy, but having loads of cousins around meant there was always someone to play with, and any recollections I have of that period are positive.
I hadn t long celebrated my fifth birthday when mum was successful in applying for a flat in Newtown. Soon, Michael and I were joined by our older siblings, Kenneth and Vita. We were super excited but apparently that delight wasn t shared by our Jamaican grandparents who were adamant Kenneth and Vita should remain in the Caribbean. Mum eventually got her way and within a few weeks we were finally a proper family. We were grateful for the help given to us by our extended family, but with four kids vying for a shot at the television or bathroom, or even a place at the kitchen table, having our own place was important.
Newtown was, as its name suggests, a purpose-built housing scheme a few miles from Birmingham city centre. In the late 60s, the local authority created the new community by throwing up loads of high-rise