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Wanderers Ways. Neil Thompson 1961-2021

Mark Patterson Releasing A Book


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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!

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I believe he was banned from driving whilst at Sheff Utd and went into training every day on the train from Darwen, with various changes en route.

Being at Bramall Lane might not have been the best thing for him. Howard Kendall's biggest signing there was the drinks cabinet ...  allegedly.

 

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4 hours ago, Mannyroader said:

I believe he was banned from driving whilst at Sheff Utd and went into training every day on the train from Darwen, with various changes en route.

Being at Bramall Lane might not have been the best thing for him. Howard Kendall's biggest signing there was the drinks cabinet ...  allegedly.

 

I once read Paul Merson did the same when he played for Boro, stayed in London and did train everyday to training!

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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. 

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4 hours ago, Farnywhite said:

He was a steady player Unfortunately  Always remember him for fucking up in the quarter finals of the FA cup against Oldham 

Just goes to show, as good a player as you’ve been for a club, some folk concentrate on the few fuck-ups you made rather than the many good games.

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1 hour ago, MickyD said:

Just goes to show, as good a player as you’ve been for a club, some folk concentrate on the few fuck-ups you made rather than the many good games.

This post was brought to you by Dean Holdsworth 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

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14 minutes ago, RONNIE PHILLIPS said:

This post was brought to you by Dean Holdsworth 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

For every Deano, Patterson or Comstive moment, there's a Wilbrahamovich, Savage or DeFreitas to balance it out.  Many players only remembered for one iconic moment.

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