We can only hope there is closure for these brave men and that football pays for their awful betrayal
LESS than 24 hours after Barry Bennell had been sentenced to a paltry 31 years’ incarceration for his unspeakable crimes, less than 24 hours after the most courageous of men had confronted the devil incarnate as he sat staring at the floor of the dock, I bumped into that man, I bumped into Gary Cliffe.
Away from the media’s piercing laser, away from the phalanx of cameras and microphones, he was out walking with his wife in the halfasleep market town we both call home.
Mainly through mutual friends, mainly through the simple fact we are part of the same small community, I have known Gary for some time.
When we met and chatted on Tuesday morning, maybe it was my imagination, maybe it was because it is what I wanted to see, wanted to be true, wanted to be the outcome of the unimaginable bravery he has shown, but I thought I was talking to someone for whom a sort of closure had been achieved.
He looked well, he was animated in a good way, we spoke about things other than Bennell, we shared our concern for a close pal of ours who has just lost his mother.
We shook hands and went our separate ways, exchanging smiles. When it emerged Gary was going to waive his right to anonymity and tell, in horrific detail, how he was abused by Bennell while the youth coach was attached to Manchester City, some naturally wondered if it was the best thing to do.
This brief meeting on the way to one of our local coffee shops told me it was not only the bravest thing to do, it was the right thing to do.
Those far, far closer to Gary than myself are immensely proud of him. Rightly so.
Five minutes and a couple of hundred yards after meeting Gary, purely by coincidence, I bumped into Steve Walters.
You will know Steve as another of Bennell’s victims, as one of those who came forward after Andy Woodward told of his own seemingly interminable horror at the hands of Bennell.
I know Steve as one of the finest teenage talents I have seen in 30 years of reporting on professional football. He was that good, I promise you.
Talk about fine margins. Graeme Souness, then manager at Anfield, came to make a final check on Steve but, in that particular Crewe game, Rob Jones had a stormer and Liverpool took a plunge on him
JOSE MOURINHO’S praise of Scott Mctominay is wellwarranted and lovely.
Among other things, Mourinho likes Mctominay because he has ‘‘no tattoos, no big cars, no big watches, humble kid’’.
Coming from a humble manager sponsored by Jaguar and Hublot, that has to mean a lot. instead. Steve was not just an outstanding talent, he was a flinty nugget of a character too.
God, he should be bitter as hell. But when I saw him after talking to Gary, Steve just spoke about closure, about it being all over, his thoughts and emotions never straying from those who have been through the same unthinkable suffering.
Like Gary and all those who have brought Bennell to further justice – people such as Chris Unsworth and Micky Fallon, among others – Steve is a man of incredible courage, of bravery, of dignity.
I knew Barry Bennell. Or rather, I didn’t know Barry Bennell.
I was acquainted with Bennell but if he could heinously hoodwink family and friends of his victims, putting on an act for a young reporter was simple.
I covered Crewe Alexandra in the late 1980s. It was my start in journalism and, until now, gave me some of my best professional memories.
Memories of Barnet going 1-0 up against the Alex in their first game in the professional ranks only for them to be 3-1 down by the time Barry Fry had got back to his dugout after romping down the touchline.
Memories of players dossing
MODERN pentathlon has been an Olympic men’s sport since 1912 and Great Britain has never won a medal.
It has been an Olympic women’s sport since 2000 and Great Britain has won five medals – one gold, two silver and two bronze.
Presumably, that is why UK down on my bedsit floor, of grown-ups who knew dreams were just that but who were simply clinging to illusions, of kids with dreams.
Kids like Steve Walters.
In my own utterly trivial, meaningless way, I despise Bennell for destroying those memories.
I despise him for destroying the lives of so many people and I despise him, infinitely less importantly, for destroying Crewe Alexandra.
If it was possible, the earth that Crewe Alexandra existed on should be scorched and a new club should be born away from that parched ground.
That individuals during whose tenure these crimes were committed are still involved with the club is unfathomable.
Crewe Alexandra once meant a lot to me and others, now it means nothing to me and others.
They might well be relegated from the Football League at the end of this season. Who the hell, apart from loyal supporters who have every reason to feel betrayed but have the club in their blood, would care?
Former manager Steve Davis fielded a team in the final game of the 2012-13 season that was made up entirely of academy graduates. It is what Crewe Alexandra was all about.
Again, totally irrelevant, but Bennell has rendered that
Sport provides £6.6million worth of funding in an Olympic cycle to modern pentathlon while providing nothing to basketball, a sport played by people mainly from working-class or inner-city backgrounds and very popular with black, Asian and ethnicminority communities.
Still, as Alec Sobel, MP for Leeds unimportant. What is important is Gary Cliffe and Steve Walters can bump into people on a grey, drizzly, peaceful morning far from the madding crowd and talk.
Talk passionately, talk with the passion they brought to football when they played it, talk like people relieved of just a sliver of the unimaginable burden horrendously foisted on them by the horror that is Bennell.
And one more thing. If financial compensation becomes an issue, don’t let anyone dare be sceptical.
Never mind clubs or individuals, football, at all levels, failed Gary Cliffe, Steve Walters, Andy Woodward and all those others.
It let them down on a grand scale.
If it helps the victims, football, wallowing in cash, should pay.
Let’s not wait for complicated legal wranglings, let’s look after the people – and their families – who have shown huge courage to expose the horrible vulnerability of children manipulated by football coaches.
Whatever it takes – emotional support, financial support – football, whether it be clubs or governing bodies, should provide it for the rest of these brave men’s lives forever scarred by an evil that happened on the game’s watch.
North West pointed out in a House Of Commons debate, it is positive news for those sporty types with access to a horse, a sword and a gun. As the debate over Winter Olympics funding goes on, there have been calls for a review of how UK Sport distributes its Lottery money.
It cannot come soon enough.
THE FA statement announcing their findings into the Roberto Firmino-mason Holgate incident probably had to be delicate.
“Having considered all of the available evidence, we consider it is not sufficient to raise a charge.”
What about simply saying Firmino is innocent, which the inquiry has found him to be?