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.
