just something i saw here in ireland that might interest you.
Sun, Oct 31 04
Sunday Independent
The vice of reason
AT noon in the New Inn, Brentford last Thursday, everybody was waiting for Stan Bowles. Those who spend their days with Stan in the pubs that are located on the four corners of Brentford's football ground were concerned. Stan doesn't have a punctuality problem - it would be such a minor vice - and when your day is consumed with thoughts of gambling, you probably become practised at being on time. If the traps go up at 12.34, you have to be there before that: being tardy could have saved Stan Bowles a few quid over the years.
They look after Stan Bowles in the New Inn, take his side against a world that has lumped him in with the rogues and the bad boys. Stan, they tell you, is more of a little boy lost.
"I've noticed with Stan," Eileen, the landlady confides, "if you try to say something nice to him, he looks away."
Noon is gone and Stan has not turned up. The "It's not like Stan to be late" comments are more frequent. It is then decided that Stan had arranged the interview for half-past and if he gets here in a minute he'll be early. Stan, you see, is never late.
Among those waiting is Joe Lacey from Wexford. Joe spends plenty of days with Stan. They have shared winners and they both know about love and loss. Joe remembers sitting in Stan's apartment when Stan's second wife confided in him that she was leaving. Now, their days are spent in the New Inn, the Bricklayer's Arms round the corner (Stan calls that his office) and the bookie's. They call Joe 'Lucky' Lacey. Stan never had much joy with that.
For the re-arranged 12.30 meeting, Stan is bang on time even if it turns out he had been waiting in his office since before noon. His girlfriend is going away today to visit her parents. She's German, Stan explains and her parents are wary of their relationship. They have seen the papers, read about Stan's gambling and his womanising.
"I don't think the father appreciates me too much. He's German too. Used to be in the German Army." Stan's girlfriend works for the mental health.
Stan is doing the interview to promote his book and feels pleased that an Irish hack has come to talk to him.
"I'm doing an interview for an Irish paper," he tells a friend who calls. "The Sunday Independent. I grew up with a lot of Irish so that's the connection there."
The reason he told his story is obvious. Stan, as always, needs cash. He hopes to see some royalties, there's talk of a film about his life and a band called 'The Others' have just reached the charts with a song called Stan Bowles. Stan won't get any money for the record but his face lights up like he's pulling off a coup when somebody from the BBC rings and tells him the news about the single.
His book is a comic masterpiece. It tells you nothing about the game of football and everything about those who used to play it. There are plenty who have fallen out with him, but his book rises way above the vindictive, which is often synonymous with honesty in sports books. Instead, he deals with the hilarious truth and approximations of the truth. The book does not tell the story of a hero but a blessed footballer, one of the finest English players of any generation, and a man cursed with a desire to get into trouble.
There were failed marriages and drink problems, but there are scrapes that lift the spirits. Stan's appearance on Superstars was a highpoint (the host David Vine insisted he was the worst-ever contestant) when he and sidekick Don Shanks, took the BBC for all they could. While the others took themselves and the programme seriously, Stan stayed up the night before eating the free food and, naturally, drinking the free drink.
They ignored the barbs of more devoted superstars, with Stan reserving a particular memory for Brian Jacks.
"Brian went on to complete somewhere in the region of 50,000 dips on the parallel bars. He couldn't believe I wasn't taking the competition seriously," Stan writes, "and I remember thinking that if he had made his name in another sport - say as a jockey for instance - instead of being a British judo champion, I would have most definitely had stern words with him and quite possibly have punched him in the face."
He started with his hometown club, Manchester City, during their glory days and ended his career in the top flight with Nottingham Forest as they were winning the European Cup. Few remember those days and nearly everybody assumes he is a Londoner. Stan found his home at Queen's Park Rangers and his accent has lost all traces of Manchester. "The accent comes back when I've had a few drinks."
I got into a row in a pub a while ago and this Irish guy comes over to the group I was fighting with. 'You can't row with Stan,' he says, 'he's a protected species'
He had fallen into the splendidly seedy underworld of Manchester, running bets for the Quality Street Gang who paid him £150 a week, much more than he was getting at City, much more than a bookie's runner would get. "They asked me to do more than that and I don't deny that I did it. If I had to deliver something I did it. It was all above board."
When he moved to London, Stan found his world. He could do the glamour thing, and he formed a real and abiding friendship with Phil Lynott, but the streets of Shepherd's Bush, the gambling clubs of Ladbroke Grove, made him most comfortable. As much as Loftus Road, they were his London Fields.
"I got into a row in a pub on Shepherd's Bush road a while ago and this Irish guy comes over to the group I was fighting with. 'You can't row with Stan,' he says, 'he's a protected species'. If you have a go at me down there, you're having a go at them."
Lynott was equally protective. They became friends in Manchester and stayed close in London. Phil would send his chauffeur to pick Stan up and they would do the rounds. It wasn't all pleasant. "I took drugs with Phillip, I admit that. I wasn't an addict or anything."
He watched his friend's decline, seeing him for the last time at a party a few weeks before he died. "Phil just spent the whole night watching videos of Lizzy. He was very down."
There was a time when Stan was called whenever a footballer blew some money at the horses. The papers would present him as a salutary tale and Stan would play along, happy that there would be a few quid at the end of it. When he sees multi-millionaires blowing tens of thousands of pounds, he thinks he would have done things differently if he'd played today: he would have blown millions. "I would still be making bets that would hurt me. If I woke up and everything was comfortable, there were no problems, it would probably be too easy. I've always had problems and I'm not saying you look forward to them but you learn to handle them. Having said that, I got away with lot of things."
He believes his life to have been a fantastic life. Football was easy. He never felt any pressure and couldn't understand the managers who went crazy as he sauntered into the dressing-room at ten to three, bemoaning a horse that had been beaten by a head and went out and played like an angel.
But gambling beat him. He went to one meeting of Gamblers Anonymous in the early 70s but never went back. He sat down and people told their stories. They told of taking money from the wife's purse or breaking the kid's piggy bank to get some money to fund a bet. Stan was overcome. "I just burst out laughing, I couldn't help it. The stories were funny. But it was an open meeting, so you're allowed to laugh."
Nothing will stop his gambling now, except a shortage of cash. "I'm a gambling addict. As far as I'm concerned it's a disease." The drink did him for a while, too. At the end of his career, Stan took to vodka, woke up in hospital one day in a psychiatric ward.
"Two people died in the beds beside me. They told me I could never drink again, but I didn't take much notice. I'm still here. I wouldn't say I'm an alcoholic, I've got it under control . . . as much as you can get it under control. I'm not an angel, I wouldn't say that. Nobody would say that I haven't my mad days but I can switch it off now whereas I couldn't at one time."
Women won't get him to stop, though all have tried. Stan doesn't think he has been with that many women, but he's probably comparing notes with George Best.
"The women were never really a problem," he says, sounding a bit unconvinced. "I've had three wives, and apart from the last one, I get on with the other two famously."
His children live in Manchester and he has a good relationship with them. But they have something he wants. Stan didn't win much through his career. This is now a source of regret because "medals are worth a few quid". His children have locked two of his England caps in their attic and Stan isn't allowed near them. "I'd probably get about five grand each for them but my daughter wants to save them for her kids. I said, 'Then, they'll want to save them for their kids and I'll never get any money'. I can see her point though. I've got a bad track record."
He still looks good, still dresses well - "The first thing he does when he comes in here is head for the bathroom and fix his hair," Eileen reveals - but the struggle has become normal. "I've done money. I'm skint. I've had good times, bad times. I used to laugh every day, I still laugh every day, even though I'm skint. But I can come to life at any moment, you know what I mean?"
Stan comes to life that afternoon, wandering off towards his office, intent on the glorious business of survival.
"I haven't played football in 26 years, but people still remember me. They just like me. That's fucking amazing."
It's not amazing at all.
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