Bishop - How did this happen?: my story

HarperCollinsPublishers
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First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2013

FIRST EDITION

John Bishop 2013

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

All images are the author, with the following exceptions:

Image 9 used courtesy of the Southport Visiter; Image 10 Runcorn & Widnes World; Image 15 and 16 Steve Porter (Potsy), Image 17 and 18 Ged McCann; Image 32 Daniel Sutka; Image 37 Paul Home, Image 39 Harvey Collard; Image 41 Mark Taylor/tangerine; Image 42 Hamish Brown, Image 43 ITV/Kieron McCarron; Image 46 Des Willie, Image 47 Rhian Ap Gruffydd, Image 48 and 49 Tom Dymond; Image 50 and 51 Rhian Ap Gruffydd; Image 52, 53 and 54 Rhian Ap Gruffydd, Image 55 Tom Dymond.

Cover layout design HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2014
Cover photographs Rankin

John Bishop asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

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Source ISBN: 9780007436125
Ebook Edition October 2013 ISBN: 9780007436156
Version: 2014-07-17

This book is dedicated to Melanie and our sons Joe, Luke and Daniel.

You give me a reason for everything.

CONTENTS

This book is the book I never thought I would write, because I never imagined I would have lived the life that appears in these pages. I dont regard my life as anything special: like everyone else, there have been times when I have been so happy I have cried and so sad that there was nothing left to do but laugh. Yet to reach the point of putting it all on paper required the help of various people, some of whom I wish to thank here. I have to thank James Rampton who helped me sift through my thoughts to make what is on the page make sense. Everyone at HarperCollins, particularly Anna Valentine for her support from the first meeting to this eventually being printed; a support that has made all the difference. Gemma Feeney at Etch PR for getting people interested in this book. Lisa Thomas, my agent, business partner and friend who took me on when nobody else wanted me and changed my world. Everyone at LTM for their support, especially Emily Saunders, who manages to know what I should be doing when I have no idea. To the lads you know who you are and, before you worry, this is my story, not our story, so hopefully no divorces will result from these pages. Thank you for your friendship, for the memories and mostly for the material. I have to thank my mum and dad for guiding me through childhood to becoming the person I am today, and thank Eddie, Kathy and Carol for being on that journey with me as part of the Bishop family. You were the people who made the foundations of the man I am today and I will forever be grateful for that love. My wife, Melanie, I have to thank because in so many ways she is the glue that holds these pages together and without her I am not sure there would be much of a story to tell. My three sons, Joe, Luke and Daniel, to whom I am nothing more than just a pain-in-the-arse dad but who have filled my heart in ways I probably have never been the best at showing. I have to thank my dog Bilko he doesnt know it, but badgering me for a walk often allowed me to get my head clear when I didnt know what to write next. I finally want to thank everyone who has ever bothered to come and see me perform. Comedy changed my life, but without an audience I would just be a man talking to himself and, having done that too many times, I will always appreciate you being there, perhaps more than you will ever know.

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 Youll 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 youd 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 Mlby, 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 dbut 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.