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“Shazza, listen I’m still in the doghouse here, the Mrs ain’t having it that a 4 day bender after promotion is justified, and she doesn’t even know about the brasses and the Charlie, think you could help us out?” ”Leave it with me”

Not having any Spurs cast offs

Two thirds of the population of Israel think they are direct descendants of God through Adam and that they are the people especially chosen by God to be on the Earth for his purpose. They're all as fucking backwards as each other.

He’s written a book and just posted a paragraph of it on Facebook, it’s quite a eye opener to be honest. Hi all. Hope you don’t mind me posting this. I’ve done a book looking back over my career. It should be out by the end of this year. Just a few stories from all the clubs I played for. This is the first chapter although it’ll be tidied up before it comes out. Titled OLD SCHOOL. Chapter 1. The Charity golf competition at Worsley Marriot Golf Club had been a great success and also a welcome break from all the shit that was going on in my life. I had a real thirst on and was more than ready for a few beers after my round. I’d left my phone in the car so as I came off the eighteenth, I headed to the car park to retrieve it. I was keen to check if any of the lads had left messages to see if I would be going out later on. Is the pope fuckin Catholic? To be fair, it would be a no brainer to everyone, as my main escapism from my mounting financial debts was to go to the pub every day after work and blow my wage from the cash in hand labouring job. I’d then make an even bigger dent into my credit card debts at the weekend. By this point in my life, I’d gone from hitting the giddy heights of playing in the Premiership, to working on building sites for a Golf club friend, Ashley Reece, who owned a local company called Corporate Developments. Ashley was also letting me stay in his flat above his offices for a nominal rent. This was a great favour and supposedly helping him out, with me being a potential deterrent to any would be burglars. What Ashley and the burglars wouldn't have known was that I would have been too pissed most of the time to do anything if anyone did decide to break in. In fact, there were times when I rolled out of bed the morning after a session and thought there had been a break in. Clothes strewn across the floor along with the takeaway that would be my next meal, breakfast. Well, it is the most important meal of the day. At this stage, there was probably only me and my estranged wife, Lindsey, who actually knew how much shit I really was in financially. Apart from the tossers at the bank who were now sending me letters on a regular basis. " Dear Mr Patterson, you have gone over your overdraft and a payment has been returned”, blah,blah,blah… On the other hand, my credit card company didn't seem to mind. They had loved giving me more and more credit until it had spiralled to £25,000. Only then did they start asking questions. I was financially knackered, with only my labourer’s wage from Reecey to live on…the lump sum pension money and injury pay out for having to finish playing football had gone along with the meagre savings I had. The pissed online gambling wasn’t doing me any favours either. By this time, me and Lindsey had only been split up for a few months so when I checked my phone and saw that I’d had around 20 missed calls from her, I knew that it must be something serious. Instinctively, I thought something must have either happened to our fifteen-year-old daughter, Jade or thirteen-year-old son, Scott. This must be every parent’s nightmare. Lyndsey seemed to take ages to answer. More time for me to be thinking the worst. What’s happened? Please nothing serious. Me and Lyndsey may have gone our separate ways, but I still adored my two kids. “Mark?” “Yeh, what’s happened, everythin’ alright?” I knew it couldn’t be alright really. “No, it’s your dad, he’s had a heart attack” … “What?!!!” My dad had just had his 60th birthday ten days earlier, but was still as fit as a fiddle, working a few shifts for my younger brother Sean since he’d recently retired from his warehouse job. Lyndsey wasn’t sure of his condition but told me he had been rushed to Bolton Royal Infirmary. I chucked my clubs and golf shoes in the boot of the car and made hast to the hospital where I hoped I’d find my old man sat up in bed having been given a scare. It could only be a scare, surely? I couldn’t contemplate anything worse. Dad had been there for all of us through thick and thin, working his arse off to put money on the table every week. He was now enjoying himself working with our Sean, doing a bit of building work, kitchen fitting and joinery. All the things he liked to do in his spare time anyway. I set off using the hands-free phone and tried both my brothers, Sean, and my older brother Tony. Both phones were permanently engaged. Come on, come on, get off your fuckin phones and ring me, tell me my dad’s going to be ok. My mind was working overtime. I put my foot down. I’ve not a clue what speed I was doing, I just wanted to get there and see my dad, and make sure my mum was ok as well. God, what must she be thinking, they’d been together forty odd years. Then in between me trying to call them the phone started ringing. It was Lyndsey. “Mark?” “Yeh” “He’s dead” “What?...” “I’m sorry, your Dad’s dead”.... “What?....then silence. I couldn't take in what she had just told me, dead? Numbness. Dead? I couldn’t muster a reply. How I didn't run up the arse of the car in front of me I’ll never know as my head was in bits now. One minute I was flying up the M61, no doubt smashing the speed limit, then suddenly, I was crawling along in the inevitable traffic jam coming off the junction. I can’t really remember anything else of the conversation with Lyndsey. The phone rang again and this time it was Jade. She was heartbroken, struggling to understand what had happened to her Grandad. I was trying to be the strong one, attempting to console her like any father would to his daughter, but it was no good, the tears were flooding down my face and I could barely get a word out. I remember the traffic trickling past and people gawping at me. God knows what they were thinking, but it really didn't matter as with the few words I could muster I tried to calm Jade down. He wasn't just a brilliant Dad; he had also been a brilliant Grandad as well. I was soon at the hospital car park and quickly abandoned my car. As I was running towards A&E our Sean walked out in front of me. “He’s gone, Mark, he’s gone” … We hugged, then he started walking me to the room where my dad was, explaining on the way what had happened. Sean and dad had been working on a new build and my old fella had started to feel a bit short of breath. He’d gone outside and sat down holding his chest, quickly followed by our Sean. Dad then fell forward, and Sean had run across to him, but he reckoned dad was dead before he hit the floor. A neighbour with a bit of first aid knowledge had tried to resuscitate him, but unfortunately, he couldn’t bring him back. When I walked in the room, Dad was still lying on the resuscitation table looking like he was having one of his 40 winks following a hard day’s graft, but this time he wasn't going to wake up and have one of my mum’s brews. The man who I had looked up to as a little kid and who had been there all through my career, the good times and the bad times, was in front of me, but I would never get the chance to thank him for everything he’d done for me. This amazing man, who, along with my mum, had brought us up to have respect and good manners had gone. He’d got up between 4am and 5am day in day out, year after year, to go out and do long distance lorry driving before finishing off in the Warehouse. He looked after me, my brothers and his wife, who he adored, so well, but now he was dead. I’m afraid that after his funeral I went off the rails with the booze even more. Then, because he wanted to sell the flat, not too long after, Reecey told me that he needed me to vacate his flat. One night, just before I moved out, I went on another all-day bender. I somehow made it back to the flat. I seriously thought I was going to piss myself, but I just about managed to get the key in the door and headed to the toilet. I really don’t know what came over me next, but for some reason, in my pissed-up state, I went from the false happy smiling face in the pub to looking in the mirror next to the toilet as I finished off, looked at the state I was in and started feeling really low. I staggered back and sat down on the side of the bath, put my head in my hands, broke down and started sobbing uncontrollably. I then started talking out loud to my dad, asking him to help me. He’d always been able to in the past, helping me to follow my boyhood dream and helped me out in my times of need. I woke up the next morning in bed, just about remembering the night before and my drunken plea for help from him. I’d reached the lowest point of my life at that stage and not long after I had to move back in with my mum. How the hell had I ended up where I was? In 1995 I’d made it to the pinnacle of every schoolboy’s dream and played in the top tier of English football, playing in the Premiership for Bolton Wanderers. I’d played against my boyhood team, Blackburn Rovers, and beat them, even though they were the Premiership Champions and had Alan Shearer playing for them. I had also captained Bolton and scored a Premiership goal at Anfield, the fact that it was in a 5-2 defeat doesn’t matter, does it? Then the manager who gave me my first taste of professional football, the great Howard Kendall, signed me for Sheffield United from Bolton. I got a decent signing on fee and was on over £100,000 a year plus win bonuses, a great salary these days, so think twenty-five years ago! Now though, I didn’t even have my own pot to piss in. I’d gone from living in a lovely bungalow in its own gardens with the wife and kids and being on big wages barely four years earlier, to now being where I was when I was a kid, living with my mum. But the one thing I always had in the past every time I stepped out on to the pitch was a never say die attitude. I didn’t know anything else. There isn’t a better feeling when you walk off the pitch knowing that you couldn’t give any more. Whilst I was still lying in that bed, I vowed that I would never let myself feel that low again. I reminded myself of what somebody had once said to me. “Mark, what’s the point of looking in the rear-view mirror? And to be honest I don’t tend to look back; I always try to go forward, until now….. I’ve managed to turn my life back around now and wanted to write this book in memory of my dad. Also, for my family and friends and anyone who fancies having a look into the ups and downs of an old school professional footballer. Dad, I hope you read this from above with that big smile on your face!

"We saw you cry at the Reebok" would have a whole new meaning!

I know Still bet you don't find many though

Only £ 14-99.

A tiny gesture but a strong one. It matters. It matters to the fans too that we have some self respect after the last tosser.

Scousers have their own wailing walls too.

and Kev Davies was a Southampton cast off. Youri a cast off from some German team? jay jay etc etc. where do you draw the line? a stupid nonsensical statement as it just doesn't work for some players at certain clubs but they can be superb at another.

And that cnut McGinlay from Millwall reserves ffs, Rioch out!

Nothing but pure class shown by Sharon and FV since the takeover, long may it continue

Well said Mr Glypta.

It really isn't. It's more like a big, hard bloke who would be happy to keep himself to himself being attacked by the pub's, useless dickhead, & when dickhead gets put on his arse yet again, he starts blubbing, playing the victim & putting in for a compo payout.

Videos doing the rounds of gangs of Muslim lads exacting vigilante style revenge on some dude that dared to oppose them on social media. This is the problem over here. All these professional protesters have no idea what they’re getting in to bed with when they back Islam. An absolute monster of a religion and set of backwards beliefs like no other. Nothing will stand in their way. How can anyone left leaning back these people?

His select committee appearance is looking like it might be interesting

You don't have to wait for 6 days after your day 8 test it's 2 days. The quarantine period is only 10 days not 14 (It was reduced at some point last year from 14 to 10). It probably takes 2 days for the results to come back

Thanks for posting BB, I wouldn’t have seen or read this otherwise.... Paddy was one of my favourite players whilst he was with us, never shirked a challenge and gave 100% everytime he put on the shirt. I’m devastated that his life post Football spiralled out of control to such an extent. I really hope he’s in a better place with his life today. I will certainly be buying his book when it’s released.

Cheers G.

I heard Woodside rejected you and Leigh White 😉 😜

Seeing pictures of people at Manchester Airport checking in for their Faro flight is making me a bit depressed. What I'd do for that £6 airport pint waiting for your gate to come up on the board. Landing in a foreign country and the heat hitting you when you walk out the aircraft. Fuckers.

Sonia’s gash face painted on their cheeks?

Scum!!

To be fair given how much Sheff U spend compared to Everton it's no wonder they won tonight

But I said I’m sure there are good Arabs, but as a whole many behave like a shower of shite, to each other and to other religions. I’m happy for folk to make their own minds up, my view is the Jews are much the lesser evil here.

Theres likely some right cuntish jews but as a religion they don’t behave like the Arabs, and therefore they get my impartial vote as who’s more to blame on this issue.

I don't think there was anything inaccurate in what Mounts said. Purely in the context of what kicked off the violence in this latest chapter of the problems in that part of the world he's right. I'm sure Mounts could very easily talk about both perspectives if looking at the issue as a whole through history and recognise that neither has even close to a perfect track record. Go outside - enjoy the lilacs and the wisteria and breathe in the fresh air of a country free of the EU, with a Conservative majority of 80+ and Bolton Wanderers on the march again. Progress has indeed been made. And in answer to your question - no, not in the least bit tired. Oh aye - I would request you don't give woke a capital w. It doesn't warrant it.

My rather odd list of transgressions - including cancel-culture, democracy-denying etc. The very same transgressions that have led people to desert the Labour party in their droves. You obviously don't recognise these as undesirable things in a democracy. Did you see the tweet I shared featuring your hero Tony Blair saying pretty much the same type of thing? Mounts did not give an unbalanced view. He simply pointed out that people are firing rockets at Israeli targets and Israel has not unnaturally chosen to defend itself. I suspect you read newspapers that portray things differently however.

I'm on a forum debating/arguing ... whatever word you want to use. I have strong opinions. So do others on here. How is that shutting down free speech? If anything it is the antithesis of closing down free speech. Here is what the woke warriors to whom I address my comments indulge in. * No platforming - denying a person or organisation the right to speak because you have given yourself the powers to deem their views unacceptable. Most often found on University campuses. * Cancel culture - ostracizing people from public discourse or professional life because they have views deemed unacceptable - usually following a kangaroo court on channel like Twitter. Rowan Atkinson recently compared this to a "medieval mob looking for someone to burn". JK Rowling has been another high-profile victim due to the fact she has views on transgender rights. * Democracy-denying - spending two years in parliament brazenly trying to prevent the 2016 Brexit referendum result being enacted. Something that will never be forgotten by those who witnessed it with increasing amazement - as evidenced by the fact that places like Leigh and Hartlepool are voting Conservative in huge numbers. Unthinkable for decades. Do not under-estimate how deeply this is still felt. * Seeking to re-write history - the toppling of statues of people deemed to be "unacceptable" in woke culture, attempting to destroy/erase large parts of British history or put a slant on it that dilutes accuracy. * Seizure of language - awarding yourself the power to decide which words it is or is not acceptable to use and then seeking to ostracize those who won't play ball, as per point two. * An overall aversion/allergy to anything British, any hint of patriotism. I don't do any of the above. I argue with people on a forum. There's a world of difference.