No Boundaries (15 page)

Just over a week later, on 25 September, the bubbly was out again, celebrating the birth of our first daughter. Being a modern man, I attended all the ante-natal classes. I wasn’t impressed with the breathing exercises, but, as an only child who was completely unused to being around small people, the training on how to hold a baby, how to bath it and, most importantly, how to change a nappy was invaluable.

Lorraine bloomed in pregnancy. She enjoyed it and carried it off with style. And yes, I was there helping when she gave
birth in St John’s Hospital in Chelmsford. She was determined not to have an epidural and, over the ten-hour labour, the gas and air didn’t always seem to do the trick when the going got really tough, so at one stage she sank her teeth into me. A little later, a male nurse, with his deep insight into what it’s like for a woman to have a baby, walked by and flippantly said, ‘Have the injection, dear – it’s not a bravery contest, you know.’ He was lucky Lorraine was in no condition to move or he would have received much more than a dirty look.

Finally, our first daughter was born. The main thing I remember is thinking how gorgeous she looked and what wonderful eyelashes she had. In the weeks leading up to the birth, we’d been round the houses trying to come up with a name, but in the end we decided on Simone Patricia Anne. Simone was the name of the midwife who delivered her and we both really liked it. The other two names were after Lorraine’s mum and my mum.

Simone was premature so she took a lot of looking after. She cried a lot at night with colic and it wasn’t long before Lorraine and I were both knackered. I’m the first to admit it’s much harder for women – babies completely depend on their mum – so I can only imagine what it was like for Lorraine having to feed her every four hours, 24/7. I had it easy by comparison and still felt exhausted. Fortunately, since training for kick boxing as a kid, I’ve developed a kind of addiction to endurance – I get to the stage where just keeping going gives me a buzz, and that took over as we saw Simone through her first few weeks.

We were still trying to sort out the hassles over building our new house so we had moved into the 1940s place, which tended to be drafty and chilly. There were many nights I
would pick Simone up when she was crying, lay her on my chest and pull the covers over us. My heartbeat seemed to send her off to sleep. It was a wonderful feeling. I was an immensely proud dad and would take her in her carrycot to the cricket ground while I had meetings about the upcoming season. And I was obsessive about her having a dry nappy – I’d often change her when there was no need at all.

She also gave me a new incentive to sort out the financial problems on the house to provide her with somewhere she could grow up warm and secure.

T
he dream house was turning into a nightmare. Instead of foundations, it felt as though we were digging a huge hole into which I was chucking money. At times it felt as though my best hope of getting it built was if we struck oil. I’d paid a heavy price to learn that dabbling in the stock market is not for those who know sod all about it and don’t have time to learn. I was stretched to the limit financially. The estimate for building the house had gone up by
£
100,000 and when Nick took a close look at the land he found it needed piling to strengthen it, which cost another
£
28,000. We had to move out of the old house so we could pull it down and found a place across the road to rent but that was setting me back
£
750 a month. Everything I was earning at Essex was going straight back out each month and the money I’d saved from playing for England was now being ploughed into the first stage of building.

I had always planned to have a triple garage with a large granny flat over the top and I decided we would start with that, reckoning that once it was built we could move into the
flat and save ourselves the house rent. Bad move. We got it put up but, when we called in the surveyor from the Bradford & Bingley to give the go-ahead to release the next block of money, he knocked us back. He claimed the garage/flat had no value without the house and he needed to see progress in that direction before he could release more cash.

‘But I’ve spent 80 grand,’ I protested. ‘I need that money.’

‘Sorry, there’s nothing I can do. No one is going to buy a flat above a garage. It’s worthless as it stands. Call me when you’ve made a start on the house.’

I was fucked. I dared not tell him I was out of money or he might pull the plug altogether. I needed a Plan B. I just couldn’t think of one.

After several sleepless nights, I persuaded myself that I could sort it out in the long term. I had a benefit coming up in the next couple of years and that would put things back on an even keel. I tried to be my usual bouncy self around the cricket club – I didn’t want them to know what a prat I’d been with the mortgage money – but to be honest my mind was frazzled, which is why when Nancy Fuller asked me to go to a charity function I turned her down. Nancy is another of those superb people who do so much behind the scenes to make things work smoothly, so I felt bad about saying no. She looked a bit surprised because I’d always been happy to go on personal appearances at schools or charity dos. In fact, I quite liked them.

‘OK, Ronnie,’ she said, ‘but they will be ever so disappointed. They specifically said they wanted you because you would be able to raise the most money.’

I knew I should go and said, ‘All right. What is it again?’

Nancy explained it was called Jail Break and that I would be locked up in Chelmsford prison for the day until enough
of my friends agreed to pay money to the charity to get me out. Ah well, I thought wryly, at least I’ll have a roof over my head and three meals a day.

That’s how I found myself sitting in a cold cell chatting to a guy with a Caribbean accent who was also part of the Jail Break scheme. He told me his name was Damian Thompson. He was great company, loved his cricket and we talked about the game for ages. I finally said, ‘And what about you? What do you do?’

‘I’m the manager of the local Halifax Building Society.’

I laughed.

‘What’s so funny?’

I felt it would be inappropriate to burden him with my problems so just said, ‘Nothing. I’m building my own house at the moment and there are a few problems. I might need a good building society.’

‘Here’s my card. Just give me a call. Whatever it is you need, I’m sure we can help.’

I thought, You don’t know what you’re saying, pal.

We shook hands when we parted and a few days later I decided there was nothing to lose in talking to him. With Simone still suffering with colic, there was no way I could move her and Lorraine into a flat on a noisy, dirty building site. I needed to take some decisive action.

I decided I had to put all my cards on the table so, when I saw Damian, I went through all the figures, not keeping anything back. At the end of it, I said, ‘Can you help me?’

He didn’t commit himself but immediately arranged for an independent surveyor to visit the site and a few days later called me up: ‘Good news, Ronnie. Based on the figures you’ve given me of your earnings and the valuation of the property, you can borrow at least another
£
150,000 without a problem.’

It was as though someone had thrown me a lifeline just as I was going down for the third time. It was only then that I realised just how much it had been wearing me down. I rang Nick and gave him the good news.

Gradually, the house was built and it was everything we could have asked for. The family even surprised me by arranging for a set of stumps and a cricket ball to be built in the stair rail that leads up from the hall.

Soon after we moved in, Nasser dropped me off at home following one of his rare days playing for Essex. He’d last seen the place when the old house was on the site and had told me he thought I was a complete idiot for buying it. I tried to explain my vision for what it could become but he just said, ‘You’re stark raving mad to leave that nice house at Great Waltham for this. I’m telling you, you’ve had a mare.’ He hadn’t been near since, so he didn’t know about all the work that had gone on. He pulled into the driveway and to my surprise jumped out of the car. I thought he was going to get my bag out of the boot but he just walked straight into the house.

When I joined him in the hall, which is quite impressive if I say so myself, he was just staring around. Finally, he said, ‘How the fuck can a couple from Bolton afford a place like this?’

I thought, Cheeky sod, but just smiled and said, ‘Vision, mate. That’s all you need. Vision.’

But things were not going well at Essex. We had a lot of young players who were struggling to come to terms with life in the top flight and Stuart Law was being even more disruptive. He let little things niggle him, like the fact that Nasser had a better car than he did. I tried to point out that Nass was captain of England so he was bound to have top of the range, but he couldn’t see it. It was sad that he felt so
disillusioned and I knew that behind my back he was plotting to get me out. He started to court a few of the members to his cause and I wondered if I should do anything.

Amid all this I had a worrying time over Dad. He’d started to complain that he was getting out of breath walking up the hills to Old Trafford. When I pointed out there weren’t any hills, he brushed it off and said, ‘Must be the onions in the burgers disagreeing with me. I’ve been to see the doctor and he says I’m OK.’

I still wasn’t happy and, after taking a lot of expert advice, I took Dad to see Dr Clesham, a top consultant who did an angiogram and said that Dad needed a new heart valve and double bypass. Dad loved a drop of scotch and soda, so it wasn’t easy when he was asked to choose between a metal valve which would require him to take warfarin for the rest of his life and give up alcohol, or a pig’s valve, which would probably need to be replaced every ten years. After several meetings with top heart surgeon Kit Wong, Dad eventually plumped for the metal valve and went into hospital in London to have the op.

Visiting him that day was scary. My strong dad, a man who had always enjoyed such good health and been so active, was lying there with tubes coming out of him and looking frightened. He gradually got his strength back and is still in Bolton, not as mobile as he used to be, but still taking me to task if he thinks I’m going wrong. Sometime after the operation he queried why I had got out in the 90s for about the third innings running. ‘You must go on and make the hundred,’ he said.

‘I’m doing it for you, Dad,’ I said.

‘What do you mean? I don’t want you to get out.’

‘No, but you always used to have a large Jamesons when I scored a hundred and I can’t take that risk!’

As well as coping with all that, I was trying to improve things for the club and the players by getting involved in fundraising. I thought it was important that we travelled as a team, so I was particularly keen for the club to buy a team bus to take us to matches rather than driving around in our cars. I worked closely with Alan Lilley, the cricket operations manager at the club, and we invented all kinds of packages that people could buy into. I remember visiting loads of companies as diverse as Broad Oak Farm Sausages, Mid Essex Gravel and Geoff Aslett’s tunnelling company Molegrove and persuading them to become involved in the club. It was hard work but I felt it was important. Cash was short and, if we weren’t careful, that would affect the performance on the pitch. At one stage, it looked as though we might have to cut our bowling coach Geoff Arnold to reduce the wages budget. That would have been disastrous, so Keith Fletcher and I went out and raised the money to hang on to him.

I didn’t mind the work – it was still easier than getting up at 2am to buy spuds on a freezing morning in Manchester – but I’ll admit there were times when I felt out of my depth and I spent hours on the phone to John Bird and Frank Dick asking what I should do. Frank suggested I was taking too much on myself and should just concentrate on affecting what went on out on the pitch and leave some of the other stuff to the club officials.

He also gave me one terrific image of captaincy that has stuck with me and which helped enormously as things started to blow up around me. He said, ‘Ronnie, they are your
team-mates
and they know you well. They know you are someone who enjoys the social side as well as the cricket so, if you try to change completely, they will suss out you are being false.
On the other hand, you can no longer be one of the boys. It’s a fine line. The best way to think about it is like a spark plug – if the distance is too great the spark can’t get across and if it’s too close it is snuffed out. You have to try to find exactly the right gap to get the spark going.’

I felt sure I still had the support of the key people at Essex, people like Doug Insole, Keith Fletcher, Graham Gooch, Graham Saville and David Ackfield. They all knew the game inside out and had spotted what was going on with Stuart. I decided just to get on with the job of doing my best for the team. If it was decided the captaincy should be taken away from me, so be it – all I could do was give 100 per cent. I’ve always believed that the club and badge are more important than any individual, including me.

Things came to a head when Nass did an interview with Simon Hughes for the
Daily Telegraph
. I’m sure he meant no malice but in explaining how people approach the game in different ways he said something along the lines of ‘Some work hard, are totally focused and get an early night so they are ready for play the following day, while others like to go out for a few drinks like Stuart Law and Paul Prichard.’

Stuart immediately photocopied the piece and left copies lying around the dressing room. I thought Nasser had made a mistake but didn’t want to condemn him when he wasn’t there, even though I was left to deal with disgruntled players saying, ‘I can’t believe Nass has done that.’ I could sense the lads were sympathising with Stuart over this and maybe starting to take his side in some of his other complaints.

Nass happened to see a copy of the article on our
dressing-room
bench, realised what was happening and lost his cool. He demanded a meeting with the chief executive David East, Keith Fletcher, Sav, me, Stuart Law and Paul Prichard. We’d
hardly sat down when he tore into Prich. ‘I’m sick and tired of this back-stabbing. Prich. I’ve known you since you were a kid. How can you turn on me like this?’

To his credit, Paul kept his temper. He just said, ‘Read the article, Nass. You made it look as though I’m unprofessional. What do you expect?’

Nass wouldn’t have that and insisted on an immediate meeting with all the players and, as soon as everyone was assembled, he started to rant at them. ‘I’m sick of you lot and your back-stabbing. You used to be my team but you’re not my boys any more. The England lads are my boys now. I’m done here.’ And with that he stormed out.

We limped through the rest of the season a pretty unhappy bunch and it was no real surprise when we were relegated. Something drastic had to be done and the committee decided that Stuart Law had to go. No matter how prolific and talented he was as a batsman, the price in the dressing room was too high. I tried to talk to Stuart before he left and asked him why it had come to this. He and I had shared some great times at the wicket but now it had all turned sour. I said, ‘What’s your problem?’

‘The Essex fans don’t want you,’ he replied. ‘They want me.’

‘That’s not for us to decide. That’s up to the committee and they’ve made their decision.’

I had a chat with Keith Fletcher and he said, ‘Don’t worry, Ronnie. We are all behind you. The fans may be unhappy for a while at losing a player of Stuart’s ability but they don’t know the whole story. You are doing well as captain. I’m sure most of the supporters are on your side.’

Once again, Fletch turned out to be right on the button. The 2002 season turned out to be one of the biggest of my career.