http://menmedia.co.uk/manchesterevening ... obiographyPaul Lake, whose career with Manchester City was brought to a cruel end by injury, pulls no punches in his moving autobiography
James Robson
July 27, 2011
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Lake, right, with Ian Brightwell, left, and Andy Hinchcliffe Lake, right, with Ian Brightwell, left, and Andy Hinchcliffe
Ask any Manchester City fan fortunate enough to see him play and they will tell that Paul Lake had the potential to be a world beater.
Not a world beater in the manner of countless starlets who fall by the wayside when the brutal reality of the professional game hits them like a ton of bricks. But a genuinely special talent, who was handed the captaincy of his beloved Blues, aged just 21 and, after narrowly missing out on Italia 90, was tipped by Bobby Robson as a future skipper of his country.
Powerful, graceful, athletic and versatile, Lake could play anywhere from full back to withdrawn striker. But far from the dreaded ‘utility player’, he was simply so good that no matter where you played him, the team would be all the stronger for it.
More of a Duncan Edwards than John O’Shea, if you like.
He was still in his early twenties when Sky changed the face of football forever, making superstars of even average players.
It is no exaggeration to predict Lake could have been every bit as big as Paul Gascoigne, Alan Shearer and David Beckham.
Instead, this Premier League player had to resort to renting out his modest house in Heaton Mersey because he couldn’t afford his £1,000-a-month mortgage.
Crippled
This would-be legend for club and country suffered the indignity of moving back in with his parents – and had to beg his employers to pay for potentially career-saving knee surgery in the US.
Lake’s story – told in heart-breaking detail in his autobiography, I’m Not Really Here – chronicles the series of incidents that saw City and England robbed of one its brightest stars.
Three cruciate knee ligament injuries left him in danger of being crippled, let alone ending his career before it had even begun.
But the most depressing part of Lake’s tale is a frightened young man’s feeling of isolation, neglect and sheer terror. A heady combination that led to his descent into depression.
He believes his career could have been saved if he had received the same treatment for his initial injury, in September 1990, later afforded to players like Niall Quinn and Richard Edghill.
Instead, he endured six soul-destroying years of setbacks and false dawns before being advised that he would end up in a wheelchair if he didn’t give up the fight.
England manager Graham Taylor was watching Lake when his knee gave way for the first time, intercepting a pass to Tony Cascarino during a game against Aston Villa.
Lake recalled: “As I hit the deck I felt a weird clunk in my knee, followed by a sharp, searing pain.
“I lay on the pitch in the foetal position, frozen with shock, totally unaware that my life had changed forever.” After X-rays, Lake says he was told he’d be out of action for six weeks and given a ‘basic rehab programme’.
It was only after he broke down in training that he underwent keyhole surgery to reveal a rupture of the anterior cruciate ligament.
He would receive pioneering surgery and spend much of the next year rehabilitating at the FA’s School of Excellence in Lilleshall. Set to make his comeback in June 1991, he broke down again in a practice match, enduring a ‘sickeningly familiar’ pain in his knee.
He returned for the start of the 1992 season, but admits he should never have been on the pitch when his ligament snapped for a third time against Middlesbrough.
On the advice of fellow players, Ian Durrant and John Salako, he decided that a trip to Los Angeles specialist Dr Domenick Sisto was the only way to salvage his career – but says he was met with opposition from then City chairman Peter Swales. Lake said: “Loath to foot the bill, and reluctant to admit any culpability for my predicament, he sanctioned the surgery only after Peter Reid had convinced him that we’d exhausted all options in England, and that an op in the States was my last chance.
“I think Swales also felt under pressure from certain sections of the media, as well as some vocal supporters, who’d started to ask pointed questions as to why I hadn’t received the same treatment as Salako and Durrant in the first place.
“I believe Swales saw my injury as both an irritant and an embarrassment. He gave the distinct impression that I was the failure, and that my ongoing knee problem was somehow my fault and nobody else’s.
“He’d never shown any sympathy for what I was going through, hadn’t once picked up the phone to check how I was.
“I grew to despise the man, my hackles rising every time I caught sight of his Brillo-pad hairdo or his Bri-nylon suit.”
In LA, Dr Sisto was shocked by the state of Lake’s knee.
“He’d seen quarterbacks smashed into by huge linebackers who had more stable joints than mine,” said Lake.
“But what he couldn’t fathom out was why I was seeing him so late in the day.
“‘If I’d seen you straight away you’d have been back playing soccer by now,’ he said.”
Lake’s relationship with City disintegrated further when he says they refused to pay for his girlfriend to fly out to his bedside. Instead it took a whip round from his team-mates to cover the flight.
But his feelings towards his club reached an all-time low when, six days after his operation, with his knee in a fragile state, he was booked into a cramped economy class seat.
“Presuming that the airport staff had made a mistake, I explained that I’d just had a serious operation on my knee, and that my employers would have made the necessary arrangements to ensure I had an extra spacious seat,” he said.
“I hadn’t been mistaken and, not for the first time, I’d been left distinctly underwhelmed by my club’s idea of aftercare.
“It shouldn’t have taken a rocket scientist to question the wisdom of shoving a 6ft 1in guy on crutches, recovering from major surgery, into such a confined space.
“It made me realise just how low in status I’d sunk – and made me ask myself again why I was being put through such physical and mental torture.
“I had to request a wheelchair after touching down at Manchester airport. The eight-hour flight had inevitably taken its toll, and my knee was now so contorted that I could hardly walk.”
Lake was later told that the ordeal of the flight had contributed to the depression he would go on to suffer.
But his grievances with the club he’d supported from boyhood didn’t end there.
Despite signing a long-term contract shortly before his initial injury, much of his salary depended on performance-related add ons.
“Without any appearance money or win bonuses, my income had almost halved, my bank balance had withered to nothing and I was struggling to afford the £1,000-per-month mortgage on my house,” he said. “I had no option but to rent it out to cover the monthly repayments, and use my parents’ place as a base whenever I was training up in Manchester.”
He says he had to undergo his rehabilitation in virtual isolation at various gyms in Manchester.
Pounding
But, ultimately, it was to no avail. At the end of 1995, Lake was told he’d have to call it a day or risk being crippled by his disintegrating knee.
Gone were the dreams of surpassing Alan Oakes’ 676 appearances for City and Colin Bell’s 48 England caps.
He trained then worked as a pysiotherapist until last year and is now an ambassador for City in the Community. But his knee problems go on.
He said: “I’m riddled with osteo-arthritis, and with muscles that are gradually wasting away, it gives me grief every waking hour.
“I’ve lived with the pain for nearly two decades now, and the constant, pounding soreness and the sharp, stabbing twinges have become part of my daily life.
“My left leg hasn’t been in great shape, either. After years trying to compensate for my right limb, it’s recently begun to bow very badly and earlier this year I had yet more surgery to straighten it.
“The way things are going, it’s looking likely that I’ll become one of the youngest ex-professionals to undergo a double knee replacement.
“I’m trying to stave off the operation for as long as I can since prosthetic knees have a life span of between 10 and 15 years – with a maximum of two per lifetime. I don’t really fancy consigning my 70-year-old self to a wheelchair.”
Lake says he doesn’t know if he’ll be remembered as one of City’s youngest ever captains, his part in the infamous 5-1 derby win against United in 89 or for his snapped cruciate.
The truth is, he deserved to be remembered for so much more.
I’m Not Really Here – A Life of Two Halves, by Paul Lake is published by Century and on sale now, priced £14.99.
