‘Go near that kid and I’ll put the fucking head on yer,’ he informed him.
The coach came to an abrupt halt and stood glaring at me and the kid behind me. I nodded my appreciation towards Jimmy, who had spotted the commotion and made his way over. As usual, Jimmy defended the weak or vulnerable. One saying that Jimmy used a lot has always stayed with me: ‘Right is right, even if everyone is against it; and wrong is wrong, even if everyone is for it.’ I suppose these words gave you a good idea of just how Jimmy’s mind worked.
After saving both mine and the kid’s bacon, Jimmy then turned to me and in no uncertain terms very loudly told me never to get involved in anyone else’s business like that again. ‘But you did well,’ he whispered, with a smile.
I then took it too far by trying to add about ‘right being right, even if…’ but Jimmy quietened me down by threatening to hide my Muppet Show pyjamas the next time he babysat. I was 13 years old and knew I shouldn’t be sporting Kermit and Fozzy Bear across my chest. A shame that Auntie Dina in County Offaly didn’t see things the same way. So, in front of the whole group, I went redder than a Royal Mail postbox. If Jimmy had threatened to beat me, then at least that threat would have given me some credibility among the rest of the team. To have my pyjamas outed in public was quite different. Seeing my crimson shade, the whole group began rolling about with laughter and, with everyone now relaxed, there followed a successful trial both for the fat little kid and me.
At the end of the trials, the kid came and thanked me for sticking up for him. ‘Not a problem,’ I told him.
‘My name is Paul McGuigan, but people call me Guigs,’ he replied, offering his hand. Guigs, pronounced as ‘Gwigs’, was the first member of the future Oasis I met. Although short in stature, he had a wide pair of shoulders from which he would hang thick Starsky and Hutch-style cardigans. He seemed like a good kid. Guigs lived on Barlow Road, Levenshulme, a stone’s throw from the local baths. This was less than a hundred yards from where I lived. Unlike most of the local Irish youth, though, Guigs was Protestant, so he attended Burnage High School. I guess that’s why our paths did not cross earlier. After a couple of practice games our friendship grew and we were soon spending time listening to music in the shape of Joy Division and A Certain Ratio. His bedroom became our main place of musical enlightenment.
We went to watch both Manchester City and United in an attempt to form a sporting allegiance. This helped Guigs integrate himself into the Levenshulme mob that I had grown up with. He was a friendly and unassuming young fella, always ready to listen and offer good advice. Some might say he was a lonely lad who relied heavily on those around him. I didn’t feel that Guigs’s neediness was an issue, though. We all need someone sometimes.
Guigs was always interested in what other people were up to, and he took particular note of my drumming. I had now been banging those skins for some seven years. Guigs would sit in my bedroom and watch as I practised roll after roll. He was always trying something new, something different; I called it the Mr Benn syndrome. One day he would be a cricketer, the next day a boxer, and I guess in that mode he sort of just carried on until in later years he became a scooter boy, then a practising Rastafarian. If a notion crossed his path, then Guigs would have a go. He had a strong character, though, and would try harder than anyone else when he had a new project, even if he didn’t actually possess a talent for it. That attitude would serve him well when he met Bonehead a few years later.
We also started boxing around this time. Another constant in my life. The old dole office on Chapel Street had finished its days as a nursery and had been reborn as Levenshulme ABC. The whole of Oasis, bar – not surprisingly – Bonehead, would pass through this gym. It was always full and you had to make sure you arrived early if you wanted to train. A family of six brothers, all ex-professional boxers, ran it. The first time Guigs and me went along, it was a dark November evening. Outside, there were two people arguing. They noticed us and lowered their voices, but we could still hear the anger. As we passed, the taller one smiled at us. ‘All right, boys?’ he asked, in a flat northern accent. He was 6ft plus, with strong shoulders and long, powerful arms. His hair was blond and cropped close to his head. His friend was slightly shorter, with dark hair, also cropped. After we were inducted into the gym, we sat on a long bench in the changing rooms. I slowly pulled the horsehair from the ripped boxing gloves I had been given on my arrival.
‘Oi!’ I sat up, startled.
‘What are you doing to those gloves?’ asked the large blond-haired fella from outside, who had just entered the room.
‘Nothing,’ I stammered. ‘Sorry.’
‘They don’t come fucking free, you know,’ he said, as he pulled the gloves from my grasp and slapped me over the head with them, playfully. ‘I’ve been told to look after you little fuckers, so listen up. No fucking about in the gym. No fucking about in the changing rooms. No fucking about anywhere. Simply no fucking about. Understand?’
Understood. We all nodded our heads as we looked up from our positions on the bench. There was definitely something intimidating about the man.
‘Who the fuck is that?’ someone asked, after the blond man headed off to spar with his friend. ‘He’s a policeman. My brother told me,’ came the reply.
I later found out that this wasn’t strictly true. The only connection to the police force was in the shape of a desk sergeant who had a football scout’s nose for criminal talent. He was convinced the blond fella had serious potential. He presented both of the boys to one of the brothers with a request that they be given a purpose in life and something constructive to do. But the name stuck and we would always refer to him as the Policeman.
My old drum kit was a roll away from total capitulation. I realised I needed a job to fund a replacement, so on a winter’s day in 1984 I walked down Stockport Road in Levenshulme, stopping at each shop to ask for work. There was no joy at the bakers or the candlestick makers, but the butcher was a good fella and asked if I could be up and ready for work at five the next morning. After my time on the farm in Ireland, I considered this a lie-in. I was offered the job and with it the means to earn enough to get myself a proper drum kit. I was ecstatic. The butcher shop was called Needham’s and had been trading since the turn of the century. Good times were ahead. And cheap sausages.
I was there every morning before going to school and every evening after I had finished. I thought nothing of picking up entrails and bollocks, brains and eyeballs, which seemed to impress the butcher. One freezing cold morning, I was emptying a bucket out back, my breath visible in the air, when I spotted a body lying motionless next to the tunnel that led to Levenshulme train station. Fuck me, it’s a dead man, I thought. Ever since the Moss Side riots, local drug wars had been raging and I expected this to be a tracksuit-clad casualty. I cautiously made my way over and the first thing that hit me was the pungent smell of urine-soaked clothing. In front of me was a tramp lying motionless on the ground. Horrified, I fled back to the shop to raise the alarm. The head butcher immediately ran over to examine the dead body, only to find that the tramp was still breathing. ‘It’s Trampy Spike,’ he told me. ‘He’s a local celebrity.’
A local celebrity. I was learning to like my life full of characters. Nowadays, Trampy Spike would probably be followed around by a film crew from some cable channel. That morning they would have captured some strange footage. It transpired that a culmination of morning dew and urine, mixed with the sub-zero temperatures, had left the celebrity tramp frozen solid to the cobbles. He could not move an inch. Someone fetched a bucket of hot water and we slowly poured it round him, watching in amazement as he came back to life. After we provided the Lazarus-like vagrant with a hot cup of sweet tea, he revived sufficiently enough to tell me his name was Spike, adding as far as he was concerned he owed me his life. He swore that he would repay me somehow. Without wishing to sound heartless, this promise didn’t fill me with excitement. After