I don't care who goes down... as long as it's Sunderland!
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Football icon Stan Bowles doesn't care who goes down... as long as it's Sunderland
What a player: Bowles (left) with model Jenny Clarke in 1976
A Mancunian showboater of the Seventies often mistaken as a Cockney wide boy would be the last person you would expect to carry a mischievously burning desire to see Sunderland relegated.
Then again, Stan Bowles never did stereotypes.
The hair is white now, the face weathered by age and a steady diet of cigarettes and alcohol, yet the chirpiness which once saw him knock the FA Cup off its perch at Roker Park and cause a riot that shattered Sunderland's post-Cup final honeymoon still swims impishly in the crystal-clear blue waters of his 60-year-old eyes.
'I don't care who goes down on Sunday as long as it's Sunderland,' Bowles says, a half-smile running across his lips. 'They don't like me to this day up there. Do I like them? No, not really.'
One of English football's generation of entertainers - alongside the likes of George Best, Charlie George, Alan Hudson and Rodney Marsh - Bowles cared not for protocol or respect, especially on that Roker evening in May 1973.
Second Division Sunderland had beaten mighty Leeds to lift the FA Cup. Four days later, they hosted already-promoted Queens Park Rangers in their final league game.
The Cup was paraded, celebration was in the air. Not content with kicking a ball at the Cup and tipping it off its table, Bowles goaded the Sunderland players throughout QPR's 3-0 win, in which he scored twice.
One Wembley hero, midfielder Mick Horswill, was sent off for a tackle on him, and Bowles then pulled the ultimate stunt on keeper Jim Montgomery, whose double save had passed into Cup final legend.
'I went round him and put the ball almost on the line waiting for him to scramble across his goalmouth before I tapped it in,' Bowles said.
'That was it. All of a sudden from the top end the fans came on the pitch. It was madness, seeing a few thousand people running at you. I made sure I got down the tunnel sharpish.
The man: Stan Bowles strides confidently away from the goalmouth after scoring against Manchester United for QPR
'The fans had seen I was taking the p***. Asking the Sunderland players how the f*** they had beaten Leeds and getting them angrier and angrier by the moment.
'We weren't allowed to go out after that game because the fans gathered outside the hotel where we were staying. I think they got fined for it afterwards, for something I caused. F****** good job. I never played at Sunderland again. If I'd seen the fixture coming up, though, I'd have thought about inventing a groin strain to get out of playing there.
'If I had a choice of who's going down on Sunday it would be them.'
That's Stanley Bowles. As irreverent and irrational today as during a playing career that many believed could have been glorious had he committed as much attention to his football as he did to gambling. He was given his first racing tip at 16, when he pressed raincoats in a Manchester factory. He put a fiver on the horse at 10-1. It won. Just about the last time he backed a winner, if you believe the stories.
Mad for it: The legendary Bowles poses with Oasis guitarist and Man City supporter, Noel Gallagher.
'I was renowned for being arrogant. I wasn't really. I just knew what I was doing on the pitch. When I was on my game I felt unstoppable and I let them know. I'd go past a fella trying to tackle me, look back at him and say, "Come on, get up, I'll let you have another go".
'That's why they never liked me in the England squad. Even the Liverpool players didn't really talk to me. Kevin Keegan was all right, but the rest - Emlyn Hughes and Phil Thompson among them - were a bit frosty because I'd taken the p*** when we played them.'
Bowles walked out on England after being substituted against Northern Ireland. He would later walk out on Brian Clough and a place in a Nottingham Forest European Cup final side - 'That medal would be worth 20 grand now'.
The tales he tells are part of his after-dinner speaking routine. How he was sacked by Manchester City for missing a flight to play Ajax. 'I told them I was on my way, but what I didn't know was that the flight was delayed for three hours. I didn't actually try to go at all.'
How he was shown the door again after five weeks at Bury. 'I took a cab to training and told the manager to take the fare out of my wages. He wouldn't, so I jumped back in the cab and went back to Manchester.'
Down in one: Bowles, who wants Sunderland to get relegated on Sunday, enjoys a pint at his local during his interview with Sportsmail reporter Ivan Speck.
How he would arrive at the QPR ground from the bookies at 2.50pm and throw on his kit, how he asked fans with radios which horse had won the 3.20pm at Kempton.
Then there were his drinking sessions with the late George Best.
'It was always at an Irish pub in Chelsea Harbour. George used to have white wine and soda in a glass bigger than a pint glass and double brandies with it. I couldn't keep up with him. I normally just drank beer, so I'd come out of there and start walking the wrong way, over one of the bridges. That's how drunk I was.'
Thankfully for Sunderland fans, they don't make them like Stan Bowles any more.
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OMG
i hope it Hull City better
Amd that Model shiok -
Originally posted by Bus&Soccer l0v3r (VO3x 1):
OMG
i hope it Hull City better
Amd that Model shiok
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Originally posted by Bus&Soccer l0v3r (VO3x 1):
OMG
i hope it Hull City better
Amd that Model shiokhaha, but if you see her now, she'll be covered in wrinkles.
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Newcastle will go into the abyss... !!