Hammered by Mark Ward

Author:Mark Ward
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Non-Fiction, Football, Soccer, Sports & Outdoors
ISBN: 9781857829013
Publisher: John Blake Publishing
Published: 2010-11-01T04:00:00+00:00

21. WHO’S THE JOKER?

THE day I arrived back from the Cayman Islands, I was invited to a charity dinner held at the Moat House hotel in Liverpool city centre. The event was in aid of the Alder Hey children’s hospital and I was the guest of Caber Developments Ltd – a building company owned by my mates Paul Downes and Barry Jackson, who had been kind enough to give my brother Billy and cousin Kevin some work.

Feeling completely knackered having travelled for almost a full day, I only went to the dinner on the insistence of Billy who told me I’d be okay after the first few drinks.

My brother dropped me off in my black suit and dickie bow for what turned out to be a star-studded evening. Ian Rush was on the next table to me, snooker star Tony Knowles was there and so, too, were comedians Jimmy Tarbuck and Kenny Lynch.

Compering the event was the well known Liverpudlian comedian Stan Boardman, who wasn’t everybody’s cup of tea. A professional Scouser or, to some people, a pain in the arse.

I was to have a big altercation with Stan that evening but the trouble between us had actually started months earlier, when I met him in a bar in Liverpool. Bill Kenwright, an Everton director at the time and now chairman, had invited me and a couple of mates to the after-performance party of his play, The Blood Brothers.

I’ve got a lot of time for Bill. He has Everton blue blood running through his veins and I was happy to accept his offer, attending the party with Peter McGuinness.

The cast of the show were all there, enjoying their evening, and I first noticed Boardman when I heard him shouting above the crowd: ‘Someone get a box for Wardy to stand on, so he can get the ale in!’

I’ve always had the mickey taken out of me because of my size, so Stan’s verbal assault was nothing new. But he wouldn’t leave it there. He was drunk, and even his mate was trying to stop him from winding me up.

I turned to Peter and said that I was going to shut him up the only way I knew. ‘Don’t Wardy,’ he said, ‘that’s what he wants you to do.’

I left the party telling myself I’d catch up with Stan Boardman one day.

At the charity dinner in the summer of ’94, Stan was doing his usual stand-up act on stage but I really wasn’t listening to his tired, old jokes about Scousers. After a long plane journey and no sleep, and with the champagne flowing, I became drunk very quickly.

Stan had actually played in the same football team as my dad – the Farmer’s Arms in Huyton. He was a very good centre-forward and Dad always said he was a character in the dressing room. But on this occasion he went a little too far with his humour.

I was nominated to sing a song on stage, after a table of 10 all put in £50 a man, so I climbed up on stage, where Stan handed me a microphone.

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