Catch A Falling Star (23 page)

Carmen is great to be with, she’s very smart and looks after her appearance very well, but most of all we have great fun together which is vital in any relationship. She’s very caring and generous towards me in many ways, just as my dear mother was.

We are well-suited and we have lots in common. We go for long walks round
Mottram
Hall, we both like decorating and we both like going dancing, which we do twice a week. We both love it: cha
cha
, foxtrot, tango, waltz, quickstep, it’s really good fun. We go dancing once a week and once a month we go to a dinner dance. When I was at City, most days after morning training I used to go to the Plaza dance hall between twelve and two and then back to

We were finally married in 2003. Like I say it took us fifteen years to get to that position because of the scars we carried from previous marriages so I suppose we wanted to take our time and really enjoy our lives again. It’s worked out all for the best.

Her three children, Susan, Nick and Michelle are all married and they all treat me with great respect. They are three very loving people. They have five children so I have five step-grandchildren: Sam, Leah, Amy, Charlotte and Megan who I adore and who love me to death, which at my age is great because I feel like a real grandfather at last.

Very soon Michelle is due to have her second child so that will make it six grandchildren to love. I think in my life that is one thing I have really missed, having grandchildren. Now that I have them it feels really good. Every year they come round to see me on my birthday and it’s amazing to have them so close to me and it’s very rewarding to see them growing up. What more could a man ask for? Well, the next stage I suppose is for them to all start going down to the Blue Camp on a regular basis!

Everybody should be loved because without it you can become a misery and, as I’ve explained, it’s not very nice to live your life not knowing love. Carmen’s children have all turned out to be very good and caring parents themselves which is a sure sign that they have had plenty of love from their mum. I have not seen my own children from previous marriages for fifteen years. They’ve all long since grown up now. They all seem to be best left getting on with their lives. I know that they are all happy and healthy and that makes me feel good.

Carmen and I often talk about what we would really like and we both dream about having a little house with its own little garden because the flat we have is two flights up, we have a four-foot square veranda which is not quite the same. So we both dream that one day we might win the lottery so that we can have our garden.

As an example of how inseparable we are – the reason I didn’t attend City’s last ever game at

Francis Lee heard about my plight and offered to get me another ticket. I thanked him for his genuine concern but it was too late. I just felt saddened and empty by the whole affair and decided to stay at home with Carmen. Maybe people couldn’t understand it at the time however now, by getting these things out in the open, people may be able to understand my point of view.

I will leave my medals to Carmen because I know she will look after them and she will use her judgement as to what to do with them. I can honestly say I trust her in every way. When I die Carmen says she is going to have me cremated and she is going to mix the ashes with sand from Blackpool, stick it in a box, paint it blue and white and sell it as ‘
Youngy’s
Egg-Timers’! Personally I think that’s a great idea! As you can tell, she has a wicked sense of humour and a strong sense of fun.

Carmen’s family keeps me strong. As I say I haven’t seen my own children for a number of years. To add to that, I had the tragedy with Claire when I felt I had to let her go and you can imagine the guilt and sorrow I felt for that decision.

We always used to watch programmes on TV like Surprise, Surprise where families who hadn’t seen their relations for years and years meet up after ridiculous amounts of time. Carmen always used to say to me: “What would you do if Claire knocked on your door? What would you say?”

Claire must have been too young to remember her real dad but something must have happened when she realised I was out there and she made it her mission to find out where I was. 

One day a couple of years ago the phone rang.
“Dad?”
It was Claire. “Is that my dad?” I was elated and excited but also very nervous and after a brief conversation Carmen and I went along to meet Claire in a café in
Stockport
.

Well I must say her mother has done a very good job with her. Claire is a bonny
lass
, she was seventeen when I saw her and we talked and talked and she even plays football – she’s left-footed too!

I went to watch her play on a Sunday and it was just like watching
myself
, the way she runs, the way she moves, she has long legs just like myself.

She told me she was going to play football in
America
and I have not heard from her in the last few months, so I am not sure whether she is there now. Having her come back into my life simply turned my world upside down, having her walk back out of it just as easily, even more so.

Maybe she has all the answers she needs. Maybe that final jigsaw piece has been found now and she can move on again. I know she had been on the internet posting messages and she had spent three years looking for me. I don’t know whether her mother knew that that was happening… anyway, my door is always open for her, whenever she contacts me again. 

*

Carmen and I enjoy going holidaying together, especially to the beautiful country of
Malta
from where she hails. A few years ago we went to
Malta
to visit Carmen’s brother Tony. We just got a cheap flight and stayed with him for a week. It was Boxing Day and we were enjoying a stroll when we heard a cry from the opposite side of the street. There was a man staring at us as we were walking along and this went on for about thirty or forty yards before he crossed over and stood before us. I honestly thought he was going to mug us both.

Then he broke into a smile and bellowed out: “It is! It is! I knew it was! It’s Neil Young! It’s my hero!” He was obsessed with City. He told me how old I was when I made my debut for City, how many goals I scored in my career, what time of day it was when I scored my Cup Final goal. He knew simply everything about me.

He’s a chap called John
Galea
and since then he’s been over to watch a match at City with his son Rodney.
John and his wife Anna – what a nice family they are.
We always meet up when we go to
Malta
.

Even now, when I go round the shops, I get people coming up to me saying: “It’s Neil Young, you were my favourite player!” I find it amazing that people still remember me after so long out of the game.

Actually that last statement is not strictly true any longer. I have been in the game for the last decade. Some of you may know that I run a soccer school near to where I live in
Handforth
. It all started with a visit from Fred Eyre following one of my many illnesses. I was very down at the time and pondering my next move and he said he had a friend called Les Edwards who ran a coaching course for Under-12s in the
Salford
area. 

He invited me down for a drink, we met in a pub and I attended one of his sessions. He also ran three junior teams and he asked me to present the end of season medals which gave me a real thrill. When I went down to his coaching sessions I took one group on shooting and did a new routine with them. That’s when I realised I had the ability to coach. He said if he could do it, there was no reason why an ex-professional couldn’t and, with my name and history, I was sure to get more lads than him on his courses.

So I went to my local school and made an offer. I said, “If I coach your school team for free, can I use your pitch for an hour on a Sunday?” They agreed. I had previously contacted the council who said they wanted £2.50 per child for their pitch which would mean I’d have had to charge each child £5 just to play football which was far too much. So I advertised to coach football in my local paper. Carmen made up some training bibs, I bought twelve footballs and some cones and off I went.

I started with about fifteen boys and I loved it. I was finally actually doing something that I loved. I was making peanuts but I was happy. So I wrote a few more letters to other schools and I received some encouraging letters back and it went on from there.

Another school in
Bramhall
wanted me to coach their children but my first day at
Pownall
Green
Junior
School
was a fiasco. It was a Saturday morning and fifty boys turned up! So I had to split them up – twenty-five for the Saturday morning and twenty-five to return on the Sunday.

I had a police check and got myself insured against injury to the boys. At one stage Francis Lee’s two boys came down and were quite good players if memory serves and another time
Georgi
Kinkladze
came along which was a special treat for all of us. The old confidence was starting to return – I’d been through such a horrid time and I could finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. I was on a bit of a roll and I was happy to see where it took me.

I was in my element for about six months before disaster struck again. My luck was going too well – I suppose it had to take a turn for the worse once more. I was struck down with pneumonia and I had to stay at home for three months and I wasn’t able to do anything at all. I had damaged one of my lungs so now I realised that I had to be very careful when I went out, to wrap up well otherwise I could get flu-type symptoms.

Even now Carmen implores me to give up smoking and I know that if I carry on with this habit it is sure to catch up with me eventually. Then again I think I smoke through boredom because when I’m coaching I don’t have the same urge – my mind is occupied, I’m too busy to think about it. I never smoke in front of the kids when I’m there and if I go to someone’s house and they don’t smoke then out of respect I won’t smoke either.

So this latest setback meant I had to start all over again.
Pownall
School
let me continue on a Friday, which I still do now and I also made contact with another school in the area, Neville Road Junior, where I coached the school team there. Then another school was added to the list, Lacey Green Primary. I still make peanuts but I thoroughly love what I do. My heart is in it.

At this point I’d like to thank the following head teachers for allowing me to coach the young hopefuls at their schools: Helen Ashcroft at
Pownall
Green in
Bramhall
, Dave Booth at

*

When parents ask me: “Do you think my son is good enough to play professional football?” I usually ask them: “How old is he now?” Then I say: “How old do you have to be when you take your GCSE’s?” and they’ll reply: “Fifteen, sixteen.” Then I say: “Ask me then because that’s how long it takes to become a professional footballer.” You have to work hard every day to stand any chance at all of making the grade. Don’t forget out of a thousand boys probably one may turn professional. It’s everyone’s dream but it happens only for the few. Then again the hardest part of the job is telling boys that they are not quite good enough.