My parents were always very supportive and, even though they didn’t have that much spare cash, every birthday and Christmas I would get my football and cricket kit. In the early days I used to borrow bats and pads from the Heaton dressing room, but then I got my own first bat, which remains one of the best presents I ever received. Mum ordered my first gloves and pads from a mail-order catalogue and I can still recall the excitement I felt the day they arrived through the post.
I think I was fortunate in a way that Dad wasn’t able to see many of my matches. I was able to perform without worrying what he would say. Even though she didn’t enjoy driving that much, Mum used to take me to matches but she never commented on how I’d played, probably just relieved to have negotiated the traffic and found the ground. When I got home, Dad would ask how I’d done and, even if I knew I’d got out to a crap shot, I’d make out I’d been unlucky or been done by a great ball or suffered a terrible umpiring decision. I knew where I’d gone wrong and there was no point in risking a lecture about ‘knuckling down’ or ‘never give away your wicket’.
Mind you, there was the odd occasion when Dad did watch me and on one memorable day he gave me some match-winning advice. It was a schools cup final and I was captain. I scored a hundred then bowled the first over nice and tight but the lad at the other end got whacked all over the place and went for about 20 runs in one over. I heard a whistle from the boundary and went over to see Dad, who pointed out that my football team-mate Glen Foster, who was our wicketkeeper, was also a good bowler. I took the hint and for the rest of the match I would bowl at one end with Glen keeping wicket, then I’d take the gloves while he bowled. We won the cup but our tactics weren’t widely approved of and they changed the rules the following year.
As I worked my way through the age groups, I set a few league records, started to get my name in the local paper and got picked for Lancashire and England schoolboys, taking 6-24 on my international debut against Wales. Through these games I got to know other young players around the country and struck up a firm friendship with another local lad, John Crawley, who was later at Lancashire with me and then in the same England team.
There was only one innings I regret. Heaton were playing against Kearsley where Dad was now in the second team. Their first XI were short of players that day and, even though he was 57 years old, he agreed to play. He bowled against me with a wet ball, which made it hard for him to get any purchase, and I smashed him all round the ground, including two sixes off consecutive balls, one of which broke the slates on our neighbour’s roof. It’s one of the few things in my life that, if I could take it back, I would. But perhaps his granddaughters will gain revenge for him by spanking me at tennis or golf one day.
From the age of around 14 or 15, I realised that I had to make a decision about my future. If I was going to become a professional sportsman, I would have to concentrate on one sport and not try to be a jack of all trades. Bolton Wanderers, then in the lower divisions, had expressed interest in my becoming an apprentice at Burnden Park and I probably could have made a modest living at that level. But I realised that much of my football success was down to the fact that I was bigger and stronger than the other lads my age and that advantage wouldn’t last when I moved up the grades. In cricket, however, I had been playing successfully against men for a while and knew I could handle it. So cricket it was, and nothing could have been more perfect than when Lancashire offered me a contract at the age of 16.
STOP ME IF YOU’RE FEELING FRUITY
I was a month short of my 17th birthday and just finished another good season at Heaton Cricket Club when Lancashire told me to turn up at Old Trafford for the announcement of my signing. I was impressed, thinking they must rate me pretty highly to hold a press conference. It was only when I got there that I realised the main point of calling the journalists together was to let the world know that they had signed England all-rounder Phil de Freitas. The boys from the national newspapers didn’t take much notice of me, but I got reasonable coverage in the local papers and the following day I made my debut for the Lancashire second team against Glamorgan at Old Trafford to round off a good summer.
The signing of de Freitas was a sign that Lancashire were ambitious to win trophies and were assembling a great squad of players. They already had Mike Watkinson as an all-rounder so I realised it would be hard for me to break into the first team, but I was always ready to back myself and to put in the work that was necessary to make it. From now on cricket was to be my number-one priority and I played a hell of a lot of matches the following season, despite the fact there was a new distraction in my life in the form of a stunning-looking girl with legs to kill for.
By this time, Dad had arranged my first non-cricket job, working part-time at Tom Fraser’s butcher’s shop. Tom taught me to bone brisket, grind mince and make sausages, but the job was somewhat lacking in glamour so after three months I moved on. I took up an offer to work in a video store owned by Fil Mercer – he insists on the F because he says it’s easier to spell and that people remember an unusual name. He is one of several brothers well known in Bolton, and indeed further afield, for their entrepreneurial leanings. I went on to work with several of them over the years, with varying degrees of success.
The video shop suited me down to the ground – there was less blood, a bit more money and I’d always liked movies. As a kid I was hooked on the Rocky films and, even though they are a bit cheesy towards the end of the series, they still strike a chord with me today. I identified with the strangely satisfying pain of pushing yourself to your absolute limits in training, the rush you get when you realise that your body has just been stronger or gone faster than ever before, the pleasurable ache of achievement. I can remember the first thrill of watching the scene in Rocky II where Sylvester Stallone comes out of his house in the mean streets of Philadelphia to a fanfare of horns that build into Bill Conti’s uplifting ‘Rocky Theme’ as our hero jogs up the railway line, through the market and then into the city, gradually picking up a trail of kids like a latter-day pied piper until he reaches the top of the steps of the Museum of Art where they all gather round, chanting his name. I wanted to be up there with him. It still makes the short hairs on the back of my neck stand up whenever I see it and I defy anyone to watch it and not feel they could go out and become champion of the world.
I’ve always been chatty – some would say that was an understatement – and I enjoyed helping customers pick out a film, although I tended to be stronger on action than romance. ‘If they ask your opinion, tell them the truth,’ Fil advised me. ‘If it’s crap, tell them it’s crap. But, if they don’t ask, let them find out for themselves.’
One Sunday night, this terrific-looking girl with a great smile came in to return a video. She had all the right bits in all the right places and, being a leg man, I immediately noticed that she had two of the finest-shaped calves I’d ever seen. Her bum wasn’t bad either. It was obvious she knew Vicky Burke, the girl I worked with, so after she’d gone I asked who she was.
‘That’s Lorraine Chapman. Why? Do you fancy her?’
I admitted I was interested and it was arranged that I would ‘bump into’ the two of them in the pub the following Friday night. Lorraine and I got on well. We seemed to click straight away – something to do with my sophisticated charm