Who Ate All the Pies? the Life and Times of Mick Quinn by Mick Quinn

Author:Mick Quinn
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781448131471
Publisher: Ebury Publishing

14. A DEAD CERT

‘You gotta ask yourself one question: “Do I feel lucky?” Well, do ya, punk?’

Clint Eastwood as Harry Callaghan in Dirty Harry

SHEILA WAS STEADILY getting more frustrated with the amount of time I was spending either at the races, in the bookie’s or on the piss. I was getting paid handsomely, but much of it was ending up in the bookie’s satchel. If that was not enough, I had started the Mighty Quinn Racing Club. For a few quid a month ordinary working people could own a share in a racehorse and could watch it run and visit the stables. I knew how much cash you needed to own a thoroughbred and I wanted to make it easier for people to get involved cheaply. The club had a hundred members, lots of runners and quite a bit of success, but I found it difficult to balance the books and the cash from members didn’t even pay for the horses’ training fees. Muggins here picked up the shortfall.

One morning in March 1991 the almost constant arguing exploded into a bloody fight in the kitchen of the Hexham house.

‘You’re a fucking waste of space!’ Sheila shrieked at me. ‘You’re earning good money but instead of spending it on the kids or the house you give it all to the bookmakers.’

‘At least I go out to work,’ I snapped back.

‘You think you’re the big man,’ she bawled, ‘but you’re a loser. What are you going to do when you retire? Spend your life in a bookie’s?’

She paused for breath, then launched into me again.

‘You say you love me but you’re not even man enough to make a decent woman of me and marry me. You think you’re the big man but you’re really a pathetic coward.’

By now I knew exactly how to wind Sheila up. Instead of calming the situation, I once again poured petrol on the flames.

‘Why would I want to marry you anyway?’ I goaded her. ‘It’s just moan, moan, moan.’

An enraged Sheila then grabbed one of the carving knives from its plastic holder on the work surface. Instead of taking the opportunity to apologise, I wound her up again.

‘If you’re going to cut me, then fucking cut me!’ I screamed as I placed my hand on the work surface, palm down. ‘Or haven’t you got the fucking bottle?’

She lurched forward, eyes aflame, and I felt the cold steel blade slice against the bone on the back of my hand. Blood started pissing everywhere. Sheila quickly came to her senses and wrapped my hand in tea towels, but soon they turned crimson. There was blood all over the work surface and the floor. My hand began to throb with pain and I realised I was in real trouble – and I was supposed to be jogging out to face Brighton at St James’s Park in seven hours’ time.

I needed treatment, so I decided to go and see the Newcastle physio. Sheila couldn’t drive so I drove myself with my hand wrapped in a towel.

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