_What follows is a chapter from an as yet unpublished book I’ve been writing. It’s a one-off departure from focusing on Manchester City so,_ **_if you only want to read about City on Read But Never Red, go no further!_**
_It is based on a true story - a first-hand account through the eyes of the victim - albeit the names, dates and places have been changed at this stage, so as not to reveal the identities of those involved._
_It relates to an individual involved in English football, a man who’d be familiar to many, someone who must - for now at least - remain anonymous._
_Written under the auspices of my other venture Right Word Comms, this is but one chapter in a manuscript which presently runs to 110,000+ words._ **_It's a long read but hopefully one that will capture your attention as well as entertain you…_**
This blog represents a one-off departure from writing about City, giving an airing to a chapter from an as yet unpublished book.
The legendary Bill Shankly once said: “Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I don’t like that attitude. I can assure them it is much more serious than that.”
It’s a great quote. The ex-Liverpool manager was renowned for his all-consuming passion for the game. His obsession with football is well chronicled, as are so many of his ‘pearls of wisdom’, but it doesn’t matter whether Shankly’s words were ironic or meant to be taken literally – they don’t stack up in reality.
Football matters – it really matters – to millions upon millions of fans around the globe, but any direct comparison with life and death is absolute nonsense. I’ll readily testify to that. I was just 40-years old when I was attacked by a machete-wielding madman and left for dead on my own office floor.
Monday, July 26th, 2010 had started out as a beautiful sunny morning, with above normal seasonal temperatures. I could tell it was going to be a hot one, so I’d left one of the doors open to allow some fresh air into my office on the **XXXXXXXX** Business Park, just outside of **XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.**
I was in early, around 7am – nothing unusual there – and I was alone in the office. There were folk on the adjacent factory floor, but I was the only one in the office. At least that’s what I’d thought.
I was standing at the fax machine and I had this feeling – I can’t rightly explain it – this sense of a presence behind me. I turned to look. The first thing I saw was something long and silver hovering over my head. In an instance it was coming down at me. I thought it was an aluminium baseball bat.
Instinctively I raised my left arm to defend myself as the ‘blows’ began raining from above, but they weren’t just hitting me, they were chopping into me – chopping, chopping, chopping, this relentless fucking chopping into my flesh and bone.
The first one sliced deep into my forearm, wiping out the nerves. Another one cleaved through my wrist. Thank God I was wearing a big stainless-steel watch with a thick metal strap – had I not my left hand would’ve gone.
The machete ricocheted off the strap, but the blade had slashed open the artery and blood was pissing out like a fountain.
My left arm was fucked. Dead. No feeling. I was kicking out, so the madman targeted my legs.
The razor-sharp blade tore into my hamstrings, severing both left and right, as the frenzy of slashing movements continued unabated. My kneecap was butchered – hacked in half – a huge gaping wound revealing a mass of red raw ligaments and mangled tendons. A chunk of white bone protruded through the angry, bloodied gash, as the carnage continued.
My attacker was **XXXXXXXX XXXXXX**, a man who, up until a few weeks before, had worked for me. It was as if he was in a trance.
He seemed detached from reality as he lashed out again and again, ripping open my belly and tearing flesh off my arse. All I could do was kick him as best I could, but my hamstrings had gone. My legs felt paralysed, no sensation, no co-ordination, nothing. I had multiple wounds – massive lacerations all over my body – but no pain.
No fucking pain. What the fuck was that all about?
Survival instincts must have kept me going, but it could only last for so long. I’d fought so hard to stay alive, but the blood was everywhere.
It had spread like mad across the floor. It was dripping like snot off the walls and the tables. If you can imagine a murder scene from the movies this was it.
A gory crimson tide was seeping from my body – like an oil slick from a ruptured tanker, holed beneath the water line, spewing out its cargo into an unsuspecting sea.
I knew the fight in me would eventually drain away. I’d be unable to sustain my desperate efforts much longer. I’d dip into unconsciousness and the life would ebb from my violated and mutilated body.
I kicked out at him again. My legs were numb. I had no notion if they were moving. Were my frantic kicks even connecting with him?
It must’ve been a frenzied attack, but I had no concept of time. It wasn’t as if time had stood still, but in my mind it had all played out in slow motion – it was the weirdest thing ever.
I can’t explain it. This bastard is chopping at me like billy-o only in slow motion. Conversely, I felt my reactions were faster than his. I could anticipate where he’d strike next. I felt I was one step ahead on how best to defend myself, but I wasn’t in control of the situation – far from it.
Equally, I knew the time was fast approaching when I’d be unable to physically react. Mentally I’d probably still be on it, but I’d be powerless to stop this mad cunt’s machete ripping through me.
I shouted at him: “You’re murdering me, you’re murdering me.” It was stating the obvious, but what the hell else was I supposed to say?
Whether I was trying to convey the enormity of the crime he was in the process of committing, I don’t really know. Whether I truly believed it would bring him to whatever senses he had left, I can’t be sure. The one thing I do know is that, within seconds, it was over.
Whether he thought he’d carved me up sufficiently and I’d just bleed out and die, I don’t know. Whether he’d underestimated my will to live and the ferocity of the fight within me, I don’t know. Whether the words, ‘You’re murdering me’, got through to him, I don’t know. All I knew was he’d gone, he hadn’t finished me off in that moment.
I’d remained lucid throughout the attack. My presence of mind was staggering. It must have been the mother of all adrenalin rushes – animal instinct – I don’t know what the hell it was – but it’d seen me through.
So, there I am, chopped to pieces, blood pissing out everywhere and I’m marooned – quite literally – on the floor. We had a big open plan office with a window facing out onto the factory. I’d been attacked behind a partition wall. This meant I couldn’t be seen by anybody looking into the office from the factory.
Nobody had seen or heard the attack. This time, I really was alone in the office. I needed help and I needed it quickly.
I hadn’t felt any pain during the attack – I’d been deadened to it by a mixture of adrenalin and my nerves being shredded.
As the adrenalin levels started to drop I could feel a rising surge of excruciating pain. Nobody heard my anguished cries for help as the agony seared through my very being. I was slumped on the floor. Up ahead was a desk with a phone on it. It was about 15ft away – my one and only lifeline was so close, but how could I get there?
My legs were useless. My left arm was fucked, my left hand barely attached to it. The only good thing about losing bucket loads of blood is that it’s one of the best materials for lubricating a floor – it’s so fucking slippy.
I managed to crawl, shuffle and slide over to the desk. I couldn’t reach up to the phone, so I pulled the lead and it fell to the floor. I punched in 999 with my right hand – nothing happened.
Nothing! ‘For fuck’s sake, what’s going on?’
Then it dawned on me. I had to dial ‘9’ to get an outside line. I pressed ‘9’ for the fourth time and it started ringing out at the other end. As I held the receiver with my right hand, I was trying to stem the uncontrollable bleeding from the slashed artery on my left wrist. It was squirting out between my fingers. It was never going to stop.
After a couple of rings the Emergency Services answered. I told the woman I was bleeding like a stuck pig and that I’d been attacked by a guy with a machete. I needed an ambulance, and I needed it bloody quickly. I told her the name of my would-be killer and said the police needed to find him as soon as possible.
She took all the information and urged me to try and stay calm. “Is there anybody who can help you while you wait for the ambulance crew?”
I said: “Yes, but they’re on the factory floor and they can’t see or hear me. They don’t know what’s happened.
“There’s a phone just outside the office door in the factory area. If you ring back on this number I won’t pick up and it’ll go through to that phone.” I cut the line. Seconds later the phone rang out. I didn’t answer. I let it go through to the factory.
A lad called **XXXXX XXXXXXXXX** took the call. I could hear him as clear as day, even above the noise in the factory. The woman was telling him he needed to come into the office because his boss had been attacked and needed urgent assistance.
Apparently he looked through the window, obviously he couldn’t see me and, assuming it was a crank call, hung up and went back to work. The emergency services woman rang again. I picked up. She explained what had happened and said she’d try again. I told her I was going cold, really cold. She knew my body had started shutting down because of all the blood loss and trauma.
It was turning into a red-hot day and I was freezing. She knew the signs. She told me not to worry; help was on its way. She was doing her best to keep me going.
She rang the factory a second time. Once again, XXXXX answered the phone, took a peek through the window, couldn’t see anything untoward, thought it was a wind up and put the phone down a second time.
Thank God the 999 lass persevered.
She rang for a third time. I left it alone and the call by-passed the reception and went to the factory floor. She must have must have pleaded with XXXXX, implored him to come into the office, instead of just gawping through the window.
Finally – finally – I heard him open the door. He walked round the partition and saw me lying on the floor amid this gore-fest.
He went as white as a sheet and started swaying as if he was about to faint. I’m lying on the floor bleeding out, and the only bloke who can help me at that moment, was on the verge of passing out!
I screamed: “For fuck’s sake get a fucking grip! Just give us your shirt and go and get help.” It gave him a jolt and brought him back to his senses. He pulled off his T-shirt and handed it to me so I could apply pressure to my left wrist.
Blood was still gushing from the artery. **XXXXX** went to get reinforcements.
**XXXXXXX XXXXXXXXX** – one of our sales guys – rushed into the office. He was ex-Army and he’d been in combat zones. He knew what he was doing. He took control, calling for towels, rags, cloths – anything to try and stop the bleeding.
**XXXXXXX** barked out: “Don’t use paper towels, they’ll just keep sucking the blood out,” as both he and XXXXX worked so hard to keep me alive.
I’d been thinking this was ‘it’. I was going to die young. I was going to die alone and suffer the same fate as my Dad. Now I had hope. These guys had handed me a chance to come out of this alive, a chance to once again see my beautiful wife **XXXXXXXX** and my kids.
But I was still going colder and colder. I hadn’t lost consciousness, I was completely aware of what was happening, but I was beginning to perish.
The police arrived before the ambulance. They had some medical kit in the patrol car and this copper went straight into action – on his knees in all the blood, no hesitation, not squeamish in the slightest – telling me it was going to be okay.
After what had seemed an eternity, the ambulance crew were on the scene with more bandages and wrappings than a convention of Egyptian Mummies. The paramedics were cutting away my shirt, my trousers and my pants – I was bollock-naked –but that was the least of my concerns.
The crew had come all the way over from **XXXXXXXXXXXX**; hence it’d taken them 18 minutes. It wasn’t their fault, but I could’ve done without the delay. The ambulance which was normally stationed just around the corner from my office was already attending another job when my 999 call went in.
The paramedics loaded me into the ambulance. After that everything went blank. I don’t remember much about my first five days in hospital. I was in Intensive Care, effectively paralysed and dosed up the eyeballs on morphine. It was just one big haze. I’d recall the occasional light being shined in my face and some murmurings and noises, but that was it. I didn’t have any cognitive powers.
They couldn’t operate on me. I’d already lost too much blood. I would never have made it through surgery. I had transfusions going in through my hands and my feet. My levels had dropped perilously low. I’d lost half of the blood in my body. They had to stabilise me before they could do anything.
My injuries were horrendous. I was completely incapacitated – ‘bolloxed’. I was effectively strapped to a ramp and not allowed to move. If I was to have any chance of having the damaged nerves reconnected, I couldn’t risk any movements, especially in my left leg and left arm.
As I emerged from the morphine induced fog and began to regain my sensibilities, I plunged into the depths of despair.
There was one isolated incident where I sank to perhaps the lowest point of my life. Looking back, I can see it was probably quite innocuous, but it didn’t seem that way at the time.
I’d had five days of heavy sedation and pain management. I didn’t have a single conscious thought worth recalling throughout that time. As is the case when you suffer physical damage or you’re post-surgical, some of your natural bodily functions take a hike and shutdown until further notice.
In this instance the hiatus had ended. After more than 170 hours, I needed a shit.
I was strapped to this ‘ramp’. I couldn’t move for fear of snapping any of the ultra-delicate nerves damaged in the attack. They were critical to my prospects of ever returning to anything approaching normality.
I was desperate to have a shit, but equally reluctant to do it. I had to go. Once I’d started I thought I was never going to stop. This young nurse had one of those cardboard containers – shaped like a pork pie hat – for collecting the shit.
The poor lass was throwing them under me like they were going out of fashion. I felt so bad. I cried. It was dehumanising. It was the ultimate humiliation. Any last vestige of dignity was stripped away when she had to wipe my arse.
At that moment I honestly and truly wished I’d died. I felt I’d have been better off dead. The funny part about it – if there is anything remotely funny about having to have someone else wipe your arse – is that they never do it right. It’s like they’re afraid of upsetting you.
They don’t want to intrude any more than they already have. Consequently, they’d tend just to take the top off and leave you with half a turd stuck up your arse.
It was beyond embarrassing at the time, but full credit to that nurse and her colleagues. They did what they had to do for me with no complaints. It was part of their job and they got on with it.
All I can say is that when I needed the National Health Service it was there for me. It takes plenty of flak nowadays but, in my proverbial hour of need, it was superb. The same could be said of the neurosurgeon that saved my left leg.
The chances of successfully re-establishing nerve activity ebbed and flowed over a period of time. One day it was likely to be salvageable, the next, it was erring towards amputation. [](http://amputation.It)It was a scenario where the most desirable medical outcome was pain. Perverse as that might sound, it made perfect sense.
The nerves had to be re-attached in order to send signals to the brain. The healing process would inevitably involve a large degree of discomfort, but pain would mean progress. With such catastrophic damage inflicted down the left side of my body, my biological ‘Sat-Nav’ had lost its signal.
Anxious and fearful of the ramifications of the attack, I wanted to know what was happening to me. Why were my senses so out of kilter? I had this thirst for knowledge. I needed to understand what I was going through, and why? I was crying out for new knowledge and insight.
I became aware of what is scientifically known as proprioception – often referred to as man’s ‘Sixth Sense’.
Proprioception is the sense of self movement and body position. An easy illustration is a person’s ability to touch the tip of their nose while keeping their eyes closed. Even though they cannot see their finger or their nose, they can sense how to touch them together.
Barely able to move, not even daring to do so for fear of fucking up any chances of recovery, my brain could not compute where my left foot was located.
I just ‘felt’ – _if that’s not a contradiction in terms_ – nothingness. Any foothold I once had on spatial awareness had gone. It was so disorienting it was untrue. For 12 months my left leg was in a state of complete paralysis. Over a prolonged period, the network of nerves gradually reconnected. The pain went up exponentially.
Having been dead to the world, life was slowly returning to the limb, but at a price. My pain threshold had plummeted.
The most innocuous sensation – something as mild as a draught blowing onto my leg – would have me writhing in agony. I just wanted the tenderness, the hurt and spasms to stop.
I was bedridden, wheelchair bound and hobbling round on crutches for what seemed an age. In all, I had five years of morphine dependency. That’s a long time and a bloody hard habit to break! To this day I still have very limited feelings in my left leg and that will never change.
Severely physically impaired, the only exercise regime available to me was mental agility, reflecting on what had happened, what was going to happen, but above all else, why had it happened?
Fighting the effects of any morphine muddling of my mind, I sought answers. I retraced events, the decisions I’d taken and the factors that had influenced my thinking. Could I have done anything different, had I called it right, should I have envisaged the escalation of events?
My attacker had been an employee at **XXXXXXXXXXX**. I’d fired him a few weeks before he almost killed me. Obviously, that was the spark for what was to follow. I reflected on whether I was right to dismiss him, could I have dealt with the situation in a more lenient way, and did he deserve to lose his job? I don’t take the decision to sack anybody lightly. I never have and I never will.
Loyalty is very important to me in all walks of life, with family, friends, in business and in football. I weighed up all the pros and cons. The answer was ‘yes’, it was 100% the correct call.
Nonetheless, it made me think, whatever the rights and wrongs of any given situation, there are always two sides to every story, every debate, every argument and every confrontation, however unpalatable.
It’s crucial that I am always fully aware of the impact my decisions have on other people’s lives. I have to balance the needs of individual employees with the medium and the longer-term requirements of the business.
Theoretically, if I had to cut business costs I might have a choice of laying off ten people – hourly paid workers on lower rates of pay – or a full time manager – whose annual salary equates to the combined wages of the other ten. It’s a horrible dilemma.
Whoever gets the sack will be facing inevitable hardship, worrying how the hell they’re going to pay the rent or the mortgage, how are they going to pay the bills, how are they going to feed their families and themselves? I can limit the fall out for ten people by sacrificing just the one, but that doesn’t mean it’s right for the business.
Thankfully it’s not something I’ve had to agonise over very often. I have people who’ve been with me since the start. I have people who work for me, whose kids are now working for me – it’s that kind of business. I’ve had folk come up to me and actually thank me for employing them. They love working at **XXXXXXXXX** and they don’t want to work anywhere else.
It’s gratifying to hear and illustrates the two-way trust and loyalty.
People who knew me before the attack say it changed me. They say it made me a better person. I’m inclined to agree. I wish to fuck it hadn’t happened, but it did and it changed my outlook.
I wouldn’t describe myself as ruthless, but I was very forceful. I’ve always had this inner drive, a determination to succeed and that hasn’t gone, but I’ve mellowed and consider myself a more rounded person.
People would ask if I was scared during the attack? Did I panic? There’s an assumption you’re going to say ‘yes’, but the truth is I was neither.
It’s a contradiction, but I felt as if I had nothing to lose and everything to lose, at the same time.
My attacker was charged with attempted murder but pleaded not guilty. He later pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of wounding with intent, a plea that the prosecution accepted.
Prosecuting Counsel, **XXXXXXX XXXXXXXX**, said it was, ‘As serious a case of wounding with intent that could be contemplated.’ In court, he described my injuries as, ‘grave and life-threatening.’
The man who so nearly took my life received a 12-year jail sentence. The attack and the aftermath of that brutal day was a terrible ordeal, not just for me, but also for my family.
My wife **XXXXXXXXX** is the love of my life. She went through hell, but she was with me every step – every torturous step – of the way. They say you marry in both ‘sickness and health’ and she most certainly fulfilled that side of the bargain. I can’t adequately express what I feel for her, she was fantastic. It caused me to reflect on one of the best decisions I’ve ever made in my life.
I was working for another company – long before I had my own business – and I gave this gorgeous girl from Belfast a job. She was a great candidate, very able, technically competent and instantly likeable. It didn’t hurt her employment prospects that I took a real shine to her at the interview.
A few years later I ended up asking her to marry me.
_If you’ve persevered with me, I can but thank you for your indulgence and hope you’ve enjoyed my work, away from writing about City. Normal service will be resumed as Pep and the team embark on the tail end of the season with ambitions of FA Cup and FIFA Club World Cup success, as well as Champions League qualification._