Our Lad
How things have changed from that April Saturday afternoon in Portsmouth 2004, the traffic clogged up to shite with me in the middle of it, the geezers and mushes in their motors click-clack wibbly-wobbly-lahhhvly-delerious after beating Man United 1-0 and seemingly being the only team that ever could, me behind the wheel puzzled as to who it was back in the hospital with our lass and as lovely as he was, was he meant to look like a baby turtle? what about the flaky skin, do newborns get flaky skin? Jesus, worse than that what if I drop him? I’ll never hear the end of that one. Shit, who is he? if he’s coming home with us he’ll need a name… Aisha is out of the window now (it always was said Tracy, it’s a black kid’s name, even though I was down with that). Nathan, Christ almighty that don’t fit; Leo? oh aye and have him opening my post and stuff, though I suppose I could open his… I needed to think fast before one of our lasses poncy English ones started taking root and if he want’s to be the county’s best badminton player fine but I aren’t going to make it easy for him. This is serious shit, there was also the call of 3 generations of Billy’s on Tracy’s side but luckily we weren’t in for 4. So ‘Beautiful Boy’ by John Lennon pops into my head on the drive home, the song ending with the words ‘darling Sean’ and the rest is history.
Fucking double ace, Aston Villa’s second best centre half of the 90’s and a personal hero of mine was Shaun Teale. Paul McGrath was technically the more gifted by far, an unbelieveable first touch and such a graceful leap but Teale was the one that could pull nails out of a wall with his teeth, and on the odd occasion McGrath struggled you got a John Wayne last-ditch match saving tackle. And he was a genuine fan and player’s player, having signed from non-League Weymouth late on in his career he enjoyed his footy like you or I would if we were fit enough and got to have a go at that level. So it was a yes from me – and luckily it needed no sell to Tracy, no talk of Lennon or the FA Cup 5th round – it was who he was and our Sean was home.
And as well as being a great Mum to him I thank her for letting him take my surname as well even though we weren’t married. That is a big thing and no matter what we go through that’s the real for richer-for-poorer till death do us part bond, we have a kid now. And no matter what happens we both got him and we love him the same, and looking at it now, having split up we’ll never really get on, but we’ll never really fall out either – all our best bits got sucked into the middle and we have to share. So Sean, for all your Jedi ways, for picking up the word ‘Dickhead’ at football at getting me a parenting ASBO off your Mum, for having a shit on the back of a boiling hot bus in Central China and getting us thrown off, for asking what we were getting Santa for Christmas when you were two, for chatting to two good looking lasses on a packed train over the seats behind us, asking them their names, where they were from and what jobs they had (honest to god), then turning around and saying ‘Hey Dad,come here. This is my Dad, Leo’ and making me look massively like I trained him in the black art of helping me hit on women, for crying when the Uncle killed the Dad on Lion King and saying it was because you were so happy you had me…
Happy 5th Birthday Little Man, and thanks for keeping me young, all my bollockings and lectures come with honesty, humour and lots of love. xxx
