A story from comedian Chris Mcglade’s new book that I think City fans will enjoy...

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Kieran from Heywood fought and won proudly displayed his belt a Fray bentos pie tin tied round his waist , tremendous !

The event at the Bradford was on another level

 

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This is a post I made on Facebook last week. It’s the second instalment of my book, The Jigsaw.

This is a massive post, but there again, it’s not a post, I’m writing a book. So to all those who enjoyed the first part, I hope you take the time to enjoy this.

I’ve just been watching the boxing from Gibraltar at my daughters house and as I was watching, I had another great memory from my career.

I can’t remember the year, I think it was the early thousands? 2001? And I got a gig for “The Man City Guvnors” (a notorious hooligan firm) at the Bradford Hotel in Manchester close to the then city of Manchester (Etihad) stadium, before the match between Man City and Newcastle. The pub was run by the Guvnors ‘top boy’ Mickey Francis.

I’d been doing shows for Man City supporters/hooligans, since 1998, when I first worked for them at Heaton Park club in Manchester. I remember saying “what the fuck?” when the agent told me that I had to be there at 7.15 in the morning on this Saturday in late October. I couldn’t believe it? Quarter past seven? Who was going to be there at that time?

I soon found out.

As I drove up to the club, there were dozens of what are known as ‘boys’ in the football hooligan world, walking up the road, stone island and aquascutum (hooligan regalia) resplendent. When I got to the club, I went into the reception. There were about ten big lads hanging round drinking. They all looked at me looking at them, trying to work out if one of them was the organiser? One of them said “what ya after pal?” I said “I’m the comedian mate, who’s the organiser, I’m after Don, Don Price?” He said “hang on, I’ll go find him” and he went in the main room. I peeped in the door as it swung shut behind him. Inside, at quarter past seven in the morning, I couldn’t believe that there were about two hundred and fifty lads and a few lasses too, swigging beer, some running in and out of the toilets for the recreational stuff. I found out that they did this four times a year before certain ‘grudge’ matches. This one was before Oldham away.

I was a bit unsure of how to approach the gig? Not only because they were going to be pissed and a ‘handful’ by the time I got on, before the strippers at nine o’clock, but also because I was from the Boro and there had been some argy bargy at Maine Road between Boro and Man City some time before, when apparently, some Boro hooligans, some of them my mates, had stormed into the Kippax (a Man City stand) and mayhem had apparently, ensued.

Now, at the time, I was a fourteen stone skin head, wearing a pair of jeans, doc martens and, incriminatingly, a grey Terry towelling T-shirt with a round, red, Boro crest on the chest. I was also wearing a three quarter length, battered, Hugo Boss, leather trench coat that had been given to me by a drug dealer I knew in Redcar. I wore it to all my gigs and loved it. I was a big lump of a lad but I’ve never been a fighter, but when I put that coat on, it was like snorting cocaine, it made me feel empowered and as confident as, so I wore it to my gigs.

So I just thought “fuck it”, these bastards don’t know I’m a fanny, so Howay son, just get in there and give em it”. As I strutted in this packed room, this bloke was just bringing Don Price, the organiser, to the door. “Alright mate, he said, are you the comedian?” I don’t think looking at me, that he could believe it. So I just said “yeah”, “where ya from mate?” he said, I swear, Dons my mate now, but I didn’t know him from Adam then. He’d seen the crest on my shirt so I thought fuck you and told him what he’d already sussed, “Boro” I said. He smiled in disbelief and said “ok, I’ll show you to the dressing room”. The strippers weren’t there yet so Don showed me in and left me to it, telling me I’d be going on at nine o’clock as he walked out.

So I just sat there for a while, in the dressing room, quiet. I could drop the ‘confident front’ now because I was on my own, but I was dreading it. Then I thought “bollocks, come on Mcglade, get yourself out there and go mingle”. So I did. I took the leather coat off so everyone could see my Boro T-shirt and I went to the bar for a pint of water, a prerequisite for any of my gigs, and I’ll tell you why.

Because since 1996, after a massive spiritual experience that I’d had in Gran Canaria, where I’d been working for months in a cabaret venue called the Barbacoa, I’d been dropping a pebble, a small brown pebble that I’d found on a beach in Cumbria that year, into a pint of water at the end of my act, I still do it now.

When I drop the pebble, I explain that during my act I create ripples, ripples of laughter and thought and that if anyone finds anything I say funny, or if I’d made them think, to go out and tell those jokes and spread those thoughts to as many people as they could, so those ripples of laughter and thought spread out. I then tell them that we’ve been, as far as I’m concerned, divided by a fascism called political correctness and that it has built up so many walls of division, and that we’ve been discouraged from laughing at other people and ourselves, we’ve been discouraged from laughing WITH each other. I then say that it’s up to all of us, ordinary people, to bring those walls of division down so that my child and my audiences children can all live in unity and peace.

My club act is very hard hitting, I work in the middle of the audience, I have done since 1998, and I attack the audience and invite them to attack me, so we’re laughing with each other. No matter how outrageous the gig has been, I always drop that pebble at the end, I’ve been doing it for twenty five years now and when I do it, no matter how much chaos has taken place, nine times out of ten, the audience is silent. They listen and most understand.

The first time I did it was in Blackpool in 1996 not long after I’d come back from Gran Canaria. It was a stag night and I’d split my act into sections so I went on before the first stripper, in between each stripper and then before the strippers ‘last spot’. By the time I went on to introduce the lasses on for the last time, the audience of about a hundred and twenty lads, were absolutely shit faced drunk. I’d never dropped the pebble before, but I just knew I had to do it. I remember walking out in front of this drunken mob, in this hotel bar. They were shouting and screaming and not taking any notice whatsoever, but I stayed calm and lifted my pint glass full of water, up in front of me.

“Lads I said, I wanna show you a little trick” I swear to you, that’s all I said and every last one of them and I mean, all of them, shut up and looked at me. I’d had a half decent gig, but nothing flash, I’d had them laughing, but I hadn’t had them rolling in the aisles and certainly not enough I thought to warrant such attention now, when they were smashed at eleven o’clock at night. But they were silent, I’m talking pin drop silent. Looking back on it, it was like a scene from a movie. But this was real. It really happened.

“Lads, I said, I get my pebble and drop it into my water and what have I just done? I’ve just created ripples, ripples of laughter and ripples of thought and for me, that’s what life is all about. Laughter. We’re being divided by this fascism called political correctness, it’s building walls between us, so go out and if you’ve found my stuff funny or it’s made you think, tell it to someone else, let the ripples spread out from this room and laugh at other people and be big enough to take other people laughing at you, because when you’re laughing at other people and other people are laughing at you, then you’re laughing with each other, you’re laughing together and if we can all start laughing together, then perhaps, just perhaps, we can start tearing those walls and divisions down and we can stop fighting each other and making weapons that can kill us all, and if we can do that, then my child and hopefully one day, grandchildren and your children and grandchildren can live in peace”.

I stood looking at the small brown pebble at the bottom of this pint glass of water for what seemed like ten minutes, but which was actually, a second. All of a sudden, this slaughtered drunk audience erupted, clapping and cheering, some getting to their feet to do so. Some lads came forward to shake my hand, the strippers, who had never seen anything like it on the stag comedy circuit before, were stood in the women’s toilet doorway (that’s where they always got changed) and they were like “what the fuck?”.

That was the first time I ever dropped my pebble and I’ve been dropping it on every single gig, all around the world, for as I say, twenty five years now.

I dropped it at the end of my first gig for the Man City Guvnors on that Saturday morning in October 1998 too. I went on stage that morning and despite there being some rivalry there between Boro and City because of some aggro at a match months before, I got well and truly stuck into them and they loved it. I faced two hundred and fifty of them on my own when they were half drunk and coked up, or some of them, and then I did my pebble at the end and the whole room, after roaring with un-pc laughter, stood, en masse and applauded me. The buzz of that was indescribable.

I then got asked back, and then again, I became friends with some of them, like Don Price and his circle. They used to come to other gigs I did in Manchester that they hadn’t organised, they’d invite me to city matches with them, they put me up in their homes, one massive Dutch lad who ran with a hooligan firm in Rotterdam in Holland but who used to follow City aswell, invited me to go stay with him in Rotterdam.

Then on March 28th 2001, I think? They asked me to do a gig in a place called the Bradford Hotel near Man City’s new ground, The Etihad stadium, or City of Manchester stadium as it was then. The Bradford, was run by City’s ‘top boy’ a big black bloke called Mickey Francis. In the three years I’d been working for these lads, I’d never met Mick. But he was there this particular day. He wasn’t like I expected? Yeah, he was massive, but there was no football regalia? He was wearing shorts and sandals and the loudest Hawaiian shirt I’d ever seen. Don and Mickey took me upstairs of this hotel to a function room and honestly, you’ve seen nothing like it!

There were over two hundred lads and once again, a few lasses, in this tight room. But in the middle of the room, they’d erected a boxing ring and before I’d got there, they’d been putting their names into a hat, getting drawn out in pairs and then getting in the ring and knocking fuck out of each other with head guards and boxing gloves on! I’d never come across this before, anywhere. The atmosphere was electric but what made it even better was that to the left of the ring, was the sparring partner of World Champion Ricky Hatton and two times British feather weight champion and WBU super feather weight champion from Manchester, Michael Gomez.

I got into the ring to do my spot more or less ten minutes after arriving at the venue. They were playing Newcastle at three o’clock and I’d got there at about midday. It’s difficult working a boxing ring. Any comedian will tell you that and it’s especially difficult for me because I thrive on being in amongst the audience, touching them, in their faces. But I went on an I slaughtered them, especially Mickey Francis for wearing his Hawaiian shirt that fit where it touched and especially two times British feather weight and WBU super feather weight champion, Michael Gomez.

The crowd loved it, Mickey and Michael Gomez loved it. At the end, I dropped my pebble and said my piece and once again the audience stood and applauded. But then, and I don’t know why I did this, I said “listen, I’ve had Michael Gomez’ life this afternoon so how about I give him a chance to get his own back? I went on, if you all put some money in a bucket, I’ll go two three minute rounds with Michael in this ring and all the money we make, we’ll donate to a children’s cancer charity, hows that?”

Hahahaha before I’d got the last syllable out of my mouth, Mickey Francis had gone behind the bar and got a champagne bucket that people were emptying their pockets into, Michael Gomez was already in the fucking ring! I always remember Don Price getting in the ring shaking his head and laughing saying “you crazy fucker, you fucking crazy bastard”. He put my gloves on then my head guard and then went into ‘my corner’. Just before they rang the bell, I’ll never forget saying to Michael Gomez “where’s your head guard?” to which he replied smiling, “against you? I won’t fucking need one” no sooner had he said that, the bell went for the first round and he smacked me right in the mush!

I thought he’d have eased up a bit, but no, did he fuck! He let me have it big time. He was jabbing me and punching me all over the fucking place. In the end it was like that laurel and hardy episode where the skinny one, Stan Laurel, was in the ring with this massive bruiser who was chasing him round the ring as Stan Laurel was trying to keep him away at arms length. Only this was the other way round, I was fourteen stone and Michael Gomez was about nine stone ringing wet with a bag of sand in his pocket. He knocked shite out of me and the audience were in fits of laughter. Two minutes of that and I was shagged. The bell went and I sat on my stool. Don came up laughing and threw a pint of water in my face, the crowd were in hysterics. Another two lads crying with laughter were saying “keep your guard up, then jab, jab”.

The bell for round two went and it was more of the same only this time, he hit me in the kidney. I swear, me body went, all down one side, I was like an animal that had just been stunned before they get the bullet, or the victim of a stroke. I was dragging my right arm and leg around before I finally dropped to my knee. The next thing, instead of my corner throwing a white towel in the ring, they threw my old, battered, three quarter length drug dealers coat in the ring, even I laughed at that. There I was, on one knee, out of breath, with a world champion hanging over me laughing as I was laughing, magic, pure magic. The roof lifted, absolutely lifted.

I got to my feet with Michael’s help and he lifted my arm up. Someone shouted from the crowd, “ah ya Geordie shithouse” I said “shithouse? I’ve come onto your manor, again, took the piss out of you all including your main man, on my own and then fought a champion boxer for charity? Shithouse? Shut up you daft c**t. And by the way, I’m not a Geordie I’m from Boro, and I hope you stuff em later”. Every single person applauded.

I was exhausted after that, absolutely done. Don took me to his house where I had a cuppa, literally a ten minute power nap and then I was up and off down to my second gig that day at the Rover club in Birmingham where I then played to a very middle of the road cabaret audience. Same sort of approach in style and content, just a much softer application and I levelled that gig too. I drove home a very happy man.

About two weeks later, I got a parcel and when I opened it, the Man City lads had made me a laminated plaque that said “On the 28th of March, British Featherweight champion and WBU champion Michael Gomez, fought Middlesbrough Comedian Chris McGlade in two two minute rounds and raised £375 for the Kirsty Howard cancer charity in Manchester”.

I cried.

Not just because of the thought they’d put into doing it, out of the respect they had for me, but because there’s absolutely no love lost between Man City and Man Utd and yet even though David Beckham from Man Utd had championed Kirsty’s charity, these Man City hooligans had still donated their money to it.

I’ve not worked for those lads and lasses for years now, but I came close about three years ago. I forget how? I think on Facebook messenger, a lad I’d never spoken to before from Manchester, got in touch with me. He told me that one of his mates was dying with cancer and only had a short time to live. He told me that his mate had said that he wanted to have his wake before he died, so he could enjoy it too, with all his friends. But he said what he wanted most of all, was to have me perform at his wake, before he died and for me to take the piss out of him and everyone there, just like I had when he’d seen me at so many of the Man City gigs, including the one when I fought Michael Gomez, because I was his favourite comedian.

I was overcome and agreed saying I’d do it for nothing. Sadly, he passed away before the gig happened. But I was so proud, that the message of my pebble and my approach to my comedy had touched this man so much, that he wanted me to come and laugh at, and with him, at his own wake, as he was dying with cancer.

That’s the power of laughter and not taking yourself too seriously and those glorious afternoons with those city fans, will stay with me forever.

wasn’t there at the time but have the dvd from the whole day.

some very good boxing fights on that day and you were very funny