In December 2007, The Cumberland News interviewed Stan Bowles during a visit by the football legend to Carlisle. Following the death of the great maverick Blues player at 75, here we reproduce the interview in full – capturing the character and memories of one of the game’s true icons.
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The interview is five minutes and four seconds old and Stan Bowles is wrestling with my question about the women in his life. The grapple does not last long.
“Women? Listen, I’ve been married three times and that’s me finished,” he says. “I’m gonna have a go at being gay.” Then he adds something unrepeatable, takes a big swig from his pint of bitter, and gazes at nothing in particular. Next question.
What are you doing with yourself these days, Stan? What is occupying the life of a 58-year-old football genius? Some media work, perhaps? The after-dinner speaking circuit? “Nah, mate,” he replies, with a half-smile. “I’m a drug dealer.”
Either you’re pushing the boundaries of naivety, or you’ll have detected something by now. Stan is bored. Bored with the questions he has heard before. Bored with the morning he has just spent in a bookshop, signing copies of a new tome on Carlisle United in which he appears. Bored with his obligation to sign umpteen further copies at the Blues Store, Brunton Park, in half-an-hour’s time. Bored with the idea of watching the afternoon’s match, from start to finish.
He was late for the first signing session, having returned to his hotel at 3 o’clock that morning. There was a queue of two dozen people, waiting to meet the legend. Eventually he strolled in, red scarf clinging to his neck, clutching the cigarettes he has stopped to buy on the way. He removed his jacket, took his seat, sipped at a coffee and then, over 120 restless minutes, during which he escaped three times for a cigarette and once for the toilet, he greeted his public with good cheer.
Two hours later, his work done, he walked out into the bitter Carlisle afternoon. The interview was about to start. You’re not used to spending two hours in a bookshop, are you, Stan? “Too right. It’s the monotony of it…” So where did you get to last night? He puffed out his cheeks and shook his head. “Every - ******* - where. Now, where do you want to do this? Is there a pub round here?”
There are some people who wish their heroes would never age, that the years would leave them gloriously unaltered. Well, tell them it sometimes happen. Introduce them to Stanley Bowles.
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Why are we here? To reminisce about his 11 months, 36 games and 13 goals for Carlisle. Quite predictably, he is listed as one of United’s 20 ‘Cult Heroes’ in Paul Harrison’s new book of that title. That’s how players like Stan tend to be remembered, and he seems content with the bargain.
Everyone knows Stan the gambler, Stan the boozer, Stan the womaniser, Stan the maverick, Stan the ducker and Stan the diver. Fans of QPR and England, especially. But Carlisle people knew those six characters equally well, from October 1971 to September 1972. More importantly, perhaps, they knew Stan the footballer. Hence the bookshop queue. Hence the memories, into which we eventually tap in the King’s Head, on Fisher Street: Stan’s former local.
“When I first came up here in ’71, it was a bit desolate, know what I mean?” he says. “Have you seen the film, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and the big where they get to Bolivia? ‘Where the **** is this?’ they say. I was a bit like that.” A throaty laugh. “There was only one nightclub – I can’t remember the name of it – and in the winter the place used to shut down.
“There were times when you couldn’t go out even if you wanted to. The snow would be up to your windows. The days I couldn’t get to training, they would ring me up and tell me to do some exercises. Yeah, right. I used to go back to bed.
“But I tell you this: Carlisle done me a favour. Things wouldn’t have happened for me if I hadn’t been to Carlisle. If I’d stayed in Manchester, things might have been different. Coming here sorted my head out, basically.”
There are landlords and bookmakers in this city who would unquestionably challenge that assertion, but to Bowles – first jettisoned by Manchester City over his wild antics, given similar treatment by Bury, and then offered a last, hopeful lifeline by Crewe – it is not a matter for debate. His £12,000 transfer from Gresty Road to United, who were then in the old Division Two, salvaged and then relaunched one of the most mercurial talents the game has known.
“We didn’t have a bad side you know, and I got on with all the players,” he says. “Chris Balderstone, John Gorman, Stan Ternent…he used to look after me, did Stan. If there was ever any ruck going on, he would always dig me out. He used to call me ‘the star’. ‘Leave him to me,’ he would say.
“Ian MacFarlane was the manager. People say he was strict, and he was. Sometimes I would go back to Manchester on a weekend, and on Mondays I would make an excuse why I couldn’t get back up. Ian wouldn’t stand for it. He would make me get a taxi from Manchester to Carlisle. It cost about 60 quid. Every so often he would give me a right dig in the ribs, an’ all.
“But on the other hand, he was good with people. He would keep tabs on me, but not in the way Dave Sexton did at QPR. After a game down there I always used to go in the pub right next door to Loftus Road. Dave Sexton found out and wasn’t best pleased. I would say to him, ‘What I do in my own time is up to me. Do I produce the goods? Yeah. Well, forget about the rest.”
‘The rest’ was considerable even at Carlisle. Endless days in the bookies’, endless nights pursuing other dubious thrills. But then, there was the football. Bowles’ days in the blue shirt were brief but timeless. Memories: the Anglo-Italian Cup matches with Roma, including the astonishing 3-2 win Carlisle served up in the Eternal City in June 1972, Bowles performing keepy-uppies during the game to the exasperation of United’s opponents.
Memories: a 4-1 victory at Bristol City when the young midfielder truly announced himself for the first time. Memories: a hat-trick against Norwich City which remains for all time the ultimate Bowles performance in this city. “Somebody told me they was top of the league when they came here. I said, ‘You’re jokin’, aren’t you?’ I took the **** out of them that day. We could have beaten them by six or seven.”
Inevitable, Bowles’ rekindled talent would swiftly lead to greater things: to QPR, specifically, in September 1972, for £110,000. “Carlisle looked after me, you know,” he says. “And they knew they was gonna get money out of me.
“Was I sad to leave? Not really, because I saw all these mugs getting money in football and I thought, ‘I’ve got to get some of that’. I was a mile in front of some of them.
“But when people talk about me they sometimes forget about Carlisle. I’m telling you, I wouldn’t have played for England if I hadn’t come here. That’s the truth.”
Mention of England, for whom Bowles won a meagre five caps, leads to the inevitable question on the issue of the day: what does Stan make of the appointment of the Italian, Fabio Capello, as the new England manager. It’s a futile line of enquiry.
“It doesn’t really bother me, you know. Football is history to me. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the fans and I loved playing the game. But my buzz was the crowd.
“I’ve never watched football. If I had a bet on it, I’d watch it, but even then I’d watch it on the telly, not go to the actual match. Only time I see it is on Match of the Day, now and again. That Wayne Rooney, he’s a good player. And even I couldn’t spend the money they get these days. But I’ve got no grudges against them for getting it. Not that I really follow the game in any case.
“Don’t forget that I walked out on England, as well. I wasn’t bothered about playing for them. I was happier playing for QPR. We had a good side and we would have beaten England, no problem. I was a bit arrogant on the pitch, and with England I was playing with people who I would normally be taking the **** out of. And they didn’t like that. Very cliquey, England.”
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The pints are drained, and he is now walking through Carlisle’s city centre, his coat collars turned up against the cold. In search of a more absorbing line of conversation, I remark that some fans find it difficult to imagine Stan Bowles at 58. “Yeah, people still remember me,” he eventually mutters, that half-smile reappearing. “I didn’t plan it like that. I haven’t been playing for 20-odd years. But I still get stopped in the street.
“It's nice. You have a drink with them and they treat you as one of them. But, you know, when I was in Manchester with the Quality Street Gang [the infamous organised crime gang which operated in the 1960s and 1970s], running bets for them, I was getting more money out of that than I did from playing football.
“And all those boys are still around, too. They’re getting on a bit, but they’ve all got plenty of dough, I’ll tell you that much.
“Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had plenty of dough too. But I’m a gambler. Started when I was 15 and backed a winner. Worst thing that ever happened. I thought it was easy. Unfortunately it didn’t quite work that way.” Hundreds of thousands of squandered pounds since then confirm this brutal truth.
Asked again how he is occupying his time, and he is more forthcoming. “I live in London but I’ve been in Manchester seven weeks because my mum’s very ill. She’s 82, and where she was as sharp as anything, now she’s lost it a bit. You can’t do nothing but laugh, I suppose. It could happen to us all.
“Wok? Well, I do a few question-and-answer nights, that makes me a few quid. And one or two other things.”
Bizarrely, those ‘other things’ so nearly included an appearance on I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here! earlier this year. “They asked me to go over to Australia and be ready to go in that jungle when some guy was going to pull out. In the end, he stayed in. But I was never going in there, don’t you worry about that. I was out in Australia for eight days, just having a wander around on the Gold Coast. And I got paid. I got 25 grand.”
The media appearances, which used to be infrequent, have now dried up completely. “I had a bit of a fall-out with Sky. The last job I had was with George Best, just before he died.” Best, incidentally and inevitably, gets this wayward genius’ vote as the greatest player who ever drew breath.
“It went down well, but the busses there said it was more like a comedy show than a football programme,” he adds. “‘So what?’ I said. Anyway, that was that. They pay well, Sky. 800 quid, that was.”
His closing thoughts emerged whilst walking down Warwick Road towards Brunton Park, a route with which he surprisingly declares himself unfamiliar. He is late for the next book signing, and is striding against the clock and the chill. As he runs a comb through his silver hair, the obligatory question is served. Does Stan Bowles harbour any regrets?
“Nah, mate. All my career, I used to laugh every day. What more can you say? I’ve had an easy life, you know what I mean? Compared to some people, anyhow.”
A shiver, and a yawn. “Now, where is this ******* ground?”
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