John Bishop - How Did All This Happen?

FOREWORD CONTENTS Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication This book is dedicated to Melanie and our sons Joe, Luke and Daniel. You give me a reason for everything. Acknowledgements Foreword 1. Hello World 2. My Dad and Cars 3. A Boy Learning Adult Lessons 4. School and a Friend Called Kieran 5. Teenage Kicks 6. All I Learnt in School 7. Newcastle 8. I Don’t Eat Meat, or Fight Paratroopers 9. Moving On 10. The Manchester Years 11. The Great U S of A 12. Football 13. Time to Grow Up 14. Learning to Ride 15. Road to Bangkok 16. Indian Days 17. A Day in Buxton Changed Everything 18. A Yank Called Joe 19. A Town That Didn’t Exist 20. Marriage, Fatherhood and Idiot Friends 21. Babies, a Surprise I Didn’t Want and the Snip 22. Bad Hair Day, Removal Vans and Broken Hearts 23. Frog and Bucket 24. Sometimes I Try to Be Funny 25. We All Have to Die on Our Arse Some Time 26. Life Saver 27. How a Wardrobe Can Change Your Life 28. ‘Mum, I’m on Telly!’ 29. Festival of Broken Dreams 30. We Are the Champions! 31. On Tour 32. It’s Always Better When It’s Full 33. Opportunity Knocks 34. 2010 … No Going Back 35. Sport Relief 36. A Family Day at Wembley 37. Week of Hell Picture Section Postscript About the Publisher

I looked around the dressing room and all I could see were legends. There were jokes and shared banter between people who had won European Cups, FA Cups, League titles, international caps: men who were known to be part of the football elite.

The home dressing room at Anfield Football Stadium is smaller and more basic than you would imagine; it could easily pass for a changing room in any sports hall across the country. Yet few dressing rooms have been the birthplace of so many hopes and dreams; few dressing rooms have felt the vibration of the home crowd roaring ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ in order to inspire those within to prepare for battle; and few dressing rooms have ever held the mystique of this one, and been the place where millions of people would want to be a fly on the wall.

I was one of those millions of people, but I was not a fly on the wall. I was a member of a squad who was about to find out if he had been selected to play. Kenny Dalglish stood, about to read out the team sheet. So this was what it felt like sitting in the home dressing room at Anfield waiting to hear if you’d been selected. All of my dreams rested on the next few moments as King Kenny read out the team.

I was substitute. I had expected to be substitute. Surrounded by such legends as Alan Hansen, Gary McAllister, Jamie Redknapp, Steve McManaman, Ian Rush, Ronnie Whelan, Jan Mølby, John Aldridge, Peter Beardsley, Ray Houghton and Kenny Dalglish himself, I had never expected to be in the starting line-up. But at least I was putting a kit on. The magical Liverpool red. I was going to walk down the famous tunnel and touch the sacred sign that declares to all the players before they walk onto the pitch: ‘This Is Anfield’. It had been placed there by the legendary manager, Bill Shankly, as a way of gaining a psychological advantage over the opposition, a way of letting them know there is no turning back.

Having first been brought to the ground by my dad as a small boy, I had always fixated that, one day, I would make that famous walk. As a child, a football stadium was a place where men shared their passions, their ambitions and their dreams with those who played for them on the pitch. You could tell that within the confines of a football ground the stoicism that reflected how most working-class men approached their lives was left at the turnstile. Football was a place where you could scream, jump for joy, sing along with strangers, slump in frustration and hold back tears of joy or pain. Anfield to me was the cathedral through which I could pass to heaven because I knew if I could be successful there, then nothing on this earth could beat it. Within a few minutes, I was going to touch that sign as home players do for good luck and warm up in front of the famous Kop. And there was a chance, a very real chance, that I was going get to play in the game itself. This would be my début at Anfield, something I had dreamed about since I was a boy.

I was 42 years of age. The match was a charity game between ex-players of Liverpool and UK celebrities versus a rest-of-the-world team that included ex-professionals and international celebrities. The game was in aid of the Marina Dalglish Appeal and the Hillsborough Family Support Group. Sitting in that dressing room, where only a few people knew who I was, I realised things had changed for me, but little did I know I was about to embark on the craziest four years of my life.

After hearing my name being read out by the legendary Kenny Dalglish, and putting my boots on in the Liverpool dressing room, I said to myself something I often say these days: ‘How did all this happen?’

CHAPTER 1 CONTENTS Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication This book is dedicated to Melanie and our sons Joe, Luke and Daniel. You give me a reason for everything. Acknowledgements Foreword 1. Hello World 2. My Dad and Cars 3. A Boy Learning Adult Lessons 4. School and a Friend Called Kieran 5. Teenage Kicks 6. All I Learnt in School 7. Newcastle 8. I Don’t Eat Meat, or Fight Paratroopers 9. Moving On 10. The Manchester Years 11. The Great U S of A 12. Football 13. Time to Grow Up 14. Learning to Ride 15. Road to Bangkok 16. Indian Days 17. A Day in Buxton Changed Everything 18. A Yank Called Joe 19. A Town That Didn’t Exist 20. Marriage, Fatherhood and Idiot Friends 21. Babies, a Surprise I Didn’t Want and the Snip 22. Bad Hair Day, Removal Vans and Broken Hearts 23. Frog and Bucket 24. Sometimes I Try to Be Funny 25. We All Have to Die on Our Arse Some Time 26. Life Saver 27. How a Wardrobe Can Change Your Life 28. ‘Mum, I’m on Telly!’ 29. Festival of Broken Dreams 30. We Are the Champions! 31. On Tour 32. It’s Always Better When It’s Full 33. Opportunity Knocks 34. 2010 … No Going Back 35. Sport Relief 36. A Family Day at Wembley 37. Week of Hell Picture Section Postscript About the Publisher

HELLO WORLD CONTENTS Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication This book is dedicated to Melanie and our sons Joe, Luke and Daniel. You give me a reason for everything. Acknowledgements Foreword 1. Hello World 2. My Dad and Cars 3. A Boy Learning Adult Lessons 4. School and a Friend Called Kieran 5. Teenage Kicks 6. All I Learnt in School 7. Newcastle 8. I Don’t Eat Meat, or Fight Paratroopers 9. Moving On 10. The Manchester Years 11. The Great U S of A 12. Football 13. Time to Grow Up 14. Learning to Ride 15. Road to Bangkok 16. Indian Days 17. A Day in Buxton Changed Everything 18. A Yank Called Joe 19. A Town That Didn’t Exist 20. Marriage, Fatherhood and Idiot Friends 21. Babies, a Surprise I Didn’t Want and the Snip 22. Bad Hair Day, Removal Vans and Broken Hearts 23. Frog and Bucket 24. Sometimes I Try to Be Funny 25. We All Have to Die on Our Arse Some Time 26. Life Saver 27. How a Wardrobe Can Change Your Life 28. ‘Mum, I’m on Telly!’ 29. Festival of Broken Dreams 30. We Are the Champions! 31. On Tour 32. It’s Always Better When It’s Full 33. Opportunity Knocks 34. 2010 … No Going Back 35. Sport Relief 36. A Family Day at Wembley 37. Week of Hell Picture Section Postscript About the Publisher

I entered the world at Mill Road Hospital in Liverpool on 30 November 1966. I was the fourth child to Ernie and Kathleen Bishop, with my siblings – in order of appearance – being Eddie, five years older than me, Kathy, four years older than me, and Carol, who was one year older than me. She had spent most of that year in hospital, having developed problems eating, which was eventually diagnosed as coeliac disease. In fact, on the night that I was born my dad had been in the hospital visiting my sister. I’m sure my dad would have been in the hospital anyway to welcome my arrival into the world, although in 1966 men did not participate in the birth, as is now the fashion.