Ward Tony - Twelve feet tall

TWELVE

FEET TALL

First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2015

A CBS COMPANY

Copyright 2015 by Tony Ward and Justin Doyle

This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.

No reproduction without permission.

All rights reserved.

The right of Tony Ward and Justin Doyle to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

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Hardback ISBN: 978-1-4711-5357-0

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4711-5358-7

eBook ISBN: 978-1-4711-5360-0

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Printed in the UK by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

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The definitive work on this journey is dedicated to four extraordinary children and their equally amazing grandma. To Lynn, Richie, Nikki, Ali and Grandma June, this ones for you.

Contents

Acknowledgements

The last decade has made for the most trying in my six decades to date. But that is the way the dice rolled and so myself, my family and friends had to get on with it as best we could. No different I guess to most everybody out there.

And yet over the last three years I found an interest over and above the ordinary in terms of several people urging me to put my life in print. Twice I went close but I had second thoughts.

Then in November 2014 I received a card to my mailbox in St Gerards.

It went along the lines that as a boyhood fan and now a writer of books, if ever you were to commit your thoughts to print, I would be honoured if you would consider the possibility of doing it with me. I am condensing and paraphrasing what was written.

To cut a long story short, over two months later I made contact with the sender and on the back of two meetings in South County Dublin, the seeds for Twelve Feet Tall were sown. For Justin Doyle this was a mission, and one thing I learned early was of some fiery exchanges guaranteed ahead.

I would be lying if I said this has been a smooth journey. In truth, it has been anything but. Yet in the process I have grown to admire and respect Justin so much. What you see is what you get. He wears his heart on his sleeve and calls it as it is.

We have had several heated exchanges in piecing this project together but never did we fall out, as in the end compromise always prevailed. So to Justin and his wife, Paula: my gratitude for patience and perseverance over and above the call of duty.

We will leave it to others to pass final judgement but the end product carries itself.

To Iain MacGregor and everyone at Simon & Schuster, my enormous thanks for all the encouragement and enthusiasm from the get go.

I guess in thanking the following I am opening the proverbial can of worms. It is like the dreaded wedding invitation list; the more you invite, the more you offend. They say in times of crisis you find out who your true friends are and while I did not need a time of crisis to find out mine, I can certainly vouch for its validity.

So to Keith Spencer, Annette Carroll, David and Leslie Boyd, Gordon Laing, John Moloney, Paud Herlihy, John Scally, Mick Quinn, Peter Purcell, Brian OBrien, Dermot D OBrien, Dave Phelan, Joe McDonnell, Ken Ging, Ollie Campbell, John Redmond, Dave Courtney, Donal Egan, Ken Ging, Terry and Geraldine Quigley, Lorraine Foy, PJ Cunningham, Hubie Gallagher, Sam Van Eeden, Ray Power and Alina Mihai my sincere thanks for all your help, particularly in most recent years when things got particularly rough.

I want to say a special thank you to Michael and Pamela OLoughlin, Br Denis Hooper, Victor and Aisling Drummy, Dave and Kay Mahedy, Tom and Eibhlin Geraghty, Ned and Mary Van Esbeck and Micheal and Josephine McMullan.

Michael OLoughlin, Denis Hooper and Dave Mahedy have long been the blood brothers I never had. Denis and I have been best friends since Junior 2 in St Marys, and Dave and I since that first day registering at Plassey some forty odd years ago.

As for Michael, for sure he is the twin I never had. He was my scrum half, is my solicitor and godparent (along with his gorgeous wife, Pam) to Ali, and he will forever be the one in whom I trust implicitly for advice and guidance. I have no doubt but that in acknowledging the above I have offended so many more.

To that end, can I say simply: mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

Let me add one extra but very relevant thought. In the final run in to deadline, the sudden and tragic death of the unique voice of Sport on 98FM, Johnny Now Thats What I Call Sport Lyons stopped me in my tracks.

There could be no prevaricating. Whatever else, it hammered home the message once again forcibly that life aint no dress rehearsal.

In memory of Johnny and with the health prognosis goodit is onward and upward.

DELIVERANCE

I n the early months of 2012 I sensed something was not right. I was still doing my usual travelling and reporting on rugby matches at home and abroad for my employer, Independent News and Media. But I felt my body was not functioning as it should. I could not put my finger on the exact problem, but I had a strong feeling that there was something wrong somewhere.

When I was passing time between games, a most alarming thing would happen. If I was walking down the street window-shopping, or driving in my car, I would have to run into the nearest shop or pub to have a pee. On one particular day the urge was intolerable. I was in a mad panic as I dashed into a Marks & Spencers store looking for the toilet. It had been becoming increasingly worse. Until then I would shrug it off. I put it down to a chill or perhaps I was drinking too much liquid. But after the embarrassment of that episode, I decided to make an appointment with my doctor.

On 21 March 2012 I went to see Doctor Ray Power at The Well Clinic in Dublin. I had known Ray a very long time. He was the doctor to so many of us in rugby and he also had a long association with St Marys where my career began as a schoolboy. Ray was not happy. He actually dished out a short ticking-off because my last medical examination had been on 31 July 2006. He stressed the importance of having a thorough check-up at least every three years. To be honest I just lost track of time amid my sometimes hectic lifestyle. Although I told Ray I felt sure I had visited him in 2009, there was no excuse. It was irresponsible of me and I apologised.

After explaining my concerns and the symptoms, he did two tests. The first one I was dreading. Although I know it is common procedure, he probed through my back passage to try and detect anything abnormal inside my rectum. When he was finished, I knew by the concern on his face, along with his questions, that all was not well. He was very forthright in telling me that he had felt an abnormality; I think he termed it a hard and jagged edge.