Jeff Holmes - Wingin It: The Mark Walters Story

First published by Pitch Publishing, 2018

Pitch Publishing

A2 Yeoman Gate

Yeoman Way

Durrington

BN13 3QZ

www.pitchpublishing.co.uk

Jeff Holmes, 2018

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A CIP catalogue record is available for this book from the British Library

Print ISBN 978-1-785314-407

eBook ISBN 978-1-78531-471-1

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For my Mum, Ivy Millicent Walters

My Uncle Rupert

And my children, Mischa and Marlon my world

F IRST of all Id like to thank Graeme Souness for writing the Foreword to this book and for also acting as a guiding light throughout my career. He was a big influence on me so I was delighted when he agreed to provide the opening words.

I have been fortunate to play for some great teams and have met some wonderful people along the way. It has been quite a journey.

Working on this book has also been a new and exciting experience, and also good for the soul. So much has happened in my life and while there are a few things I might have preferred to forget, the good certainly outweighs the bad. Those twists and turns mirror many of my performances on the park!

I have enjoyed working with author Jeff Holmes. We have worked well together and Im delighted with the result. That wasnt always something I could say at 4.45 on a Saturday evening! Jeff has also kept me right on a few things Id forgotten, or didnt believe actually happened until he showed me the proof!

Many people have helped along the way and this book wouldnt have been possible without guys like Alex Boyd and Mark McAdam providing materials for research. And then there is Eddie Watson and Derek McNeill, who put me in touch with my co-author.

Paul and Jane Camillin head up a fantastic team at Pitch Publishing and I thank them for giving me the vehicle to get my story out there. Throughout the process they have kept me fully informed and Im incredibly happy with the final result.

Football is a great life and I played longer than most, which Im extremely grateful for, so I would say to anyone who gets the opportunity to make football their career, It will be over in a flash, so enjoy it while you can.

W HEN you call time on your career, there are a handful of players you look back on with great fondness and, as far as Im concerned, Mark falls easily into that category. Apart from his individual brilliance, he was a team player and a real treat to work with. He was certainly my player and I had a lot of faith in him.

As both player and coach, I was fortunate to work with so many talented players and Mark is up there with the best of them because he had so much ability. His team-mates also knew that worth because when things were tight he would come up with a bit of individual magic and win us the game, hence the reason they nicknamed him Flash. Yes, he was that special.

There is a saying in football that you dont know a player until youve worked with him, but it wasnt a worry for me to give Mark his debut against Celtic in a New Years Day game at Parkhead. You have to remember that he was coming from a big club in Villa, although there is absolutely nothing that prepares you for a Rangers v Celtic game: it is a unique derby and the most intense game you can play in. Of course there was an element of how he would deal with it but that wasnt because it was Mark, it would be the same for any player. You have to play in those games at some point, so when is the best time? The simple truth is, Mark was a great player and I knew he would handle the occasion.

I would put him in the same bracket as Davie Cooper, and thats high praise. Both were the type who could open the door for you with a little bit of magic.

When I joined Rangers I had a lot of knowledge about players in England, as I had spent most of my time down there. I was well aware that Mark was a match winner; I had seen it at close quarters, but I still sought out those who knew him best for their opinion and everything I heard back was extremely positive, so I had no fears about signing him.

There were very few players like him around, and I knew exactly what he was capable of, so when I got the chance to take him to Liverpool I didnt hesitate. When we were at Anfield together it was a troubled time for the club. I went there in difficult circumstances but I think Mark acquitted himself well and I hope he would look back on his time at Liverpool and say he enjoyed himself there.

He definitely had the talent to be a regular for England, but I think he was unlucky that the level of direct competition around at that time was phenomenal, with guys like John Barnes ahead of him in the queue. That said, you could put him up there on ability with any of his contemporaries, because he was a top, top player. Later on, Mark left Southampton just before I got there and I thought to myself, How unlucky would he have been, having to play for me three times!

Seriously, though, I am delighted that I got to work with Mark during my managerial career. He was a real pleasure to be around and the type of player that not only put a smile on the faces of our supporters, but also everyone at the club, myself included.

Mark is also a lovely guy, and that can be so important when youre working with someone day in, day out.

Thank you Mark, it was a pleasure.

Graeme Souness Former Rangers and Liverpool manager

I F being born with a football attached to your feet was an option, I wouldve happily left Marston Green Hospital dressed in an Aston Villa babygrow and clutching a size four Mitre. When I was growing up, I didnt need much, and Mum always knew where to find me. If by some strange reason I missed an evening curfew all she had to look out for was the mini Afro on a little guy kicking a ball around under the nearest street lamp. When I was a kid, that scene wouldve played out in Handsworth, Birmingham. Previously a sprawling inner city but now apparently a city within a city its almost impossible to imagine that once upon a time Handsworth was a rural village in the county of Staffordshire, instead of the thriving Afro-Caribbean community it evolved into a decade or so before I was born.

Thousands of people were invited over to the UK from British colonies in the Caribbean to work in local munitions factories during the Second World War, with many more arriving to assist in the rebuilding of the area once the war had ended: the so-called Windrush Generation. My mum was among those who arrived from Jamaica to take up the post-war offer due to a shortage of British men and women of an employable age. Meanwhile, my father had come over from Nigeria and, unbeknown to each other at the time, they both settled in or around Handsworth, thankfully long before racial tension and rioting in the mid-1980s brought the area to a standstill.