The Gay Courier has been established to provide news, information and info on, from and about the gay community, and other social events and happenings from around the world, from all sorts of sources, to all who are interested in this news, information and info!
The postings are as is, and all copyrights and or ownerships are and remain with the original copyright-holder and or owner!
Search This Blog
Wednesday, November 23, 2016
Second footballer reveals abuse by serial paedophile Barry Bennell
Second footballer reveals abuse by serial paedophile Barry Bennell
Steve Walters, a prodigiously talented midfielder, became Crewe
Alexandra’s youngest debutant in 1988. Having read the account of
club-mate Andy Woodward in the Guardian last week, he now feels
empowered to tell his own harrowing story
Steve Walters says he has suffered panic attacks. ‘My dad found me at
the house in Crewe, lying on the floor, shaking,’ he recalls.
Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian
It
was May, 1988, when a prodigiously talented teenager by the name of
Steve Walters became the youngest player in the history of Crewe
Alexandra, at the age of 16 years and 119 days, and it is a record that
stands to this day at a club renowned for its production line of
footballers.
Walters was a skilful, combative midfielder with a Plymouth accent,
an eye for a pass and an almost obsessive desire to get to the top of
the sport. He was at Lilleshall, the Football Association’s school of
excellence, in the same crop as Andy Cole and Ian Walker, two future
England internationals, and chose Crewe because of their reputation for
giving teenage prospects a quick route to the first team. Tottenham
Hotspur were among the clubs that wanted him but Crewe had their own
attractions, with a heavy emphasis on youth development, and the young,
impressionable Walters liked what he heard from the man who invited him
to Gresty Road.
That man was Barry Bennell, the serial paedophile who has featured prominently in these pages
over the last week and, until now, Walters has never felt able to talk
publicly about what happened to him at Crewe, the shattering effects it
had on his childhood and how, at 44, he has spent more than 30 years
with everything bottled up, living with the secret that has distorted
his life.
Then, last Wednesday, he read Andy Woodward’s interview
about the years of sexual abuse and mental torture he suffered from
Bennell, from the age of 11 onwards, and how his old friend feared that
many others – hundreds, potentially – had been targeted by a man
described by the American authorities as having “almost an insatiable
appetite” for young boys.
For Walters, a year older than Woodward in the Crewe system, it was a
gruelling, difficult read but, in another sense, exactly what he needed
to start his own process of rebuilding. He, too, was abused by a man
who has described himself in legal proceedings as a “monster”. The
difference is Walters was never part of the case against his former
coach. Woodward’s interview left him with a feeling of empowerment he
had never experienced before and the sense, finally, that he had the
chance to free himself of his own turmoil. He picked up the phone and
made the call that will change the rest of his life. Others have come forward
since Woodward, one of the footballers who helped to secure Bennell’s
longest prison sentence, waived his right to anonymity but Walters is
the first to speak publicly. “All these years, I’ve had this secret
inside me,” he says. “But I have to let it all out now. It’s the only
way. I want closure and I know, for a fact, this is going to help me
move on. It’s been unbearable but, just from reading the article from
Andy, it already feels like a massive burden off my shoulders. I have to
do this, and I just hope it will help bring more people forward, too.”
Those are precisely the reasons why Woodward felt compelled to tell
the story that has inspired Walters to realise the first stage of
recovery is to confront the secret that has dominated three-quarters of
his life. Both are aware of other victims who have suffered in silence.
But there will be more, Walters fears, given that Bennell worked in
junior and professional football across three decades. Many more?
“Definitely.”
For Walters, it all began in 1984 at the Butlin’s holiday camp in
Minehead when he won the first stage of a schoolboys’ football
competition where the prize, ultimately, was to train with Manchester
United. Walters went all the way through the different stages of the
competition and, at the age of 12, travelled to the Cliff, United’s old
training ground, to show what he could do in the company of Bryan Robson
and the rest of Ron Atkinson’s players.
Bennell, who had a close association in the past with Manchester City
and also had links with Stoke City, as well being involved with junior
teams in Derbyshire, Staffordshire, Cheshire and Greater Manchester, was
on the touchline and liked what he saw.
Steve Walters, right, in action for Crewe Alexandra against York City in 1993. Photograph: Sean Dempsey/PA Archive/PA Images
“He’d just finished with Man City and started with Crewe,” Walters
says. “To start with, I would stay in Crewe during my school holidays,
as well as the odd weekend, and sometimes I’d stay at his house. To me,
he was the top coach there was. He could do tricks with the ball I’d
never seen before. Everything was so impressive about him and he had
this ability to make you feel special. He used to promise me he would
make me a better player. He would tell me I was the best young midfield
player he had ever seen, and that he would help me play for England, and
I believed him.”
Bennell, he says, had “loads of boys” staying with him and,
initially, that helped his own settling-in process. Later, his father,
Chris, moved up from Plymouth and, a talented coach himself, started
working for Crewe, eventually becoming the club’s community officer and
such a revered figure in the town more than 1,000 people attended his
funeral and there is now a memorial for him at a sports centre close to
the ground.
Before then, however, Bennell had easy access. “The first time he
tried anything I can remember getting a bit aggressive with him,”
Walters says. “It was a dark room and I was on the top bunk when he came
in. I told him to get out and, after that, nothing happened for quite a
while but that was him testing the water. I think it was a case of:
‘There’s nothing happening here, but give it a bit of time.’ Then, two
or three months later, it started again. I just wish I could turn the
clocks back but I was at such a young age I felt almost paralysed.”
Advertisement
Some of Bennell’s other victims dropped out of the game, too emotionally scarred to continue. Waltersnever
gave up on his dream. His debut came in a 1-0 defeat for Dario Gradi’s
team against Peterborough United on the final day of the 1987-88 season,
and very quickly the 16-year-old was being talked about as a star in
the making. Crewe played Red Star Belgrade, the 1991 European Cup
winners, in one pre-season fixture and Gradi said Walters was the only
member of his team talented enough to play for the opposition.
“When I was 16 I was flying,” Walters says. “At 17, they thought I
was going to sign for Liverpool. People were talking about me being the
first £1m teenager. I scored against Chelsea in the FA Cup at Stamford
Bridge. I was such a high-profile player for a kid, especially having
gone to Lilleshall, but all the time I had this secret.
“I just had to pretend it never happened and block it out. I knew it
could never come out and I was absolutely petrified because I thought
that if it did ever come out that would be it for my career – finished.
In my mind, I wouldn’t even be able to go out, never mind play football.
And football was my dream. It was my life. Even at Lilleshall, I was
the one boy who used to train extra all the time. They used to say I was
crazy, but I was so determined to succeed.”
On the surface, Walters was a boy with the keys to the football
universe. Yet, inside, he was suffering more than anyone knew. “I was
confused. Why me? I retracted in myself. Dario used to say to me:
‘You’re a strange boy’ and I used to think: ‘Well, one of your coaches
has done this to me.’ It was sheer confusion. I used to think: ‘Am I
gay?’ and the culture back then was that there were no such thing as
gays in football. Obviously it’s completely different now but if it had
come out then I would have been hammered.
“The first team at Crewe used to crucify me anyway, saying I was the
‘son of Dario’, and it felt like my career would have been finished.
That’s why, when the investigation started and the police started coming
to see me, I never said anything. The CID came round a few times, but I
kept denying it. In my mind, if I’d said what happened to me I didn’t
think I could carry on playing football.”
Advertisement
The
abuse lasted for a year before Bennell, in keeping with the pattern of
his offending, moved on when Walters was 14. Then, at 17, Walters was
diagnosed with a blood disorder. “I was ill for about five months. I
lost a lot of weight and then I started getting temporary arthritis in
certain joints. It’s called incomplete Reiter’s syndrome. I went to see
all these different specialists and, after a few years, I was told I
would never play football again. They told me the infection can be
dormant in your body for years. But you can also get it because of
something passed on through sexual contact. So I’ve got to think now:
has that come from him? That, for me, is one of the hardest things. I’ve
always got that doubt in my head: has that man caused me to have this
blood disorder? It might not have been him, but the doubt’s always
there.”
He did continue to play at a lower level, moving to Northwich
Victoria before having spells at Morecambe, Stevenage Borough, Kidsgrove
Athletic and Rhyl, as well as playing for England’s semi-professional
team, but there was always the risk his body would fail him. “It could
flare up at any time. We played at Hayes when I was with Northwich and I
had to be stretchered off in the warmup. My knee had come up but once
they gave me some anti-inflammatories I was able to play. Everyone was
having a laugh about it on the touchline, saying our physio must be
Jesus because of the way he had cured me. I just never knew where I was
with my body. It was embarrassing.”
The Guardian’s interview with Andy Woodward, published last week,
prompted other former players to contact the police. Photograph: the
Guardian
He has had periods where he has “been really low, a bit of an
introvert. I thought I was having a heart attack one day. In those days,
nobody knew what a panic attack was. My dad found me at the house in
Crewe, lying on the floor, shaking. I ended up in hospital for a few
days.
“Before I went to Crewe, I was full of life, full of energy. But it
knocked the stuffing out of me. I was a confident, outgoing person but
sometimes now I can just go into a shell. I have nightmares sometimes
and sleeping problems. My wife tells me how I’ve woken up and, straight
away, sat bolt upright. I don’t even know I’m doing it. I can have
little periods where I am fine but then something might trigger it off.”
Bennell, he recalls, had various ways to exert his control. “There
was one game against Manchester United’s A team when we under-performed.
His punishment was to drop us off at Beeston Castle [15 miles from
Crewe]. He told us to run round the castle three or four times and then
he pointed us one way and said: ‘Home’s that way, you can make your own
way back.’ Except he’d pointed us towards Chester. It took us eight or
nine hours to get back to Crewe. We were kids and we didn’t have phones
or anything in those days to show us the route. In the end, we had to
hitch-hike. Just imagine that happening these days.
Advertisement
“I
also remember one Christmas Eve when he took us into the centre of
Manchester. It was dark, late at night, and he was showing off about all
the rough people he knew – ‘I know him, that bouncer there’ that kind
of stuff – and basically leaving us scared. He used all these mind
games. Another time, he told us we were going to a haunted house. It was
pitch black, in this old, haunted house, and we were shit scared. Then
he started telling us all these scary stories to leave us even more
petrified. It was all so we would cuddle up close to him.”
Even in prison, Bennell used to try to exploit his position with the
footballers who had once been under his control. Walters was among the
ones who received a letter Bennell had written from his cell. “It was
just a brief letter asking if there was any chance we could help him out
and send some money. I ripped mine into a million pieces. ‘How the hell
can you be asking me?’ I thought. But, my God, the arrogance of the
man. He always had that arrogance.”
Bennell’s house was set up like a “kids’ grotto” with its caged
monkey, pool table and other attractions. “There were jukeboxes, games
machines, all sorts,” Walters says. “I always remember this little
monkey, wearing a yellow shirt, sitting on my shoulder and shitting
everywhere. Barry just used that as an excuse for me to take my top off.
Barry Bennell, who coached at Crewe and other clubs, was described by
the American authorities as having ‘almost an insatiable appetite’ for
young boys. Photograph: PA/PA Archive/PA Images
“He had all the makes, the T-shirts, the football shirts – Lacoste,
all that sort of stuff. One room at his house was full of shirts and
boots and he would tell you to help yourself, whatever you wanted. At
other times he took us around warehouses looking at clothes and, again,
it was ‘choose what you want’.”
It is a release for him to be able to talk openly about what happened
– something he has kept from everyone bar close family and friends –
but it clearly pains him that there has been so little response from the
club he represented for England at youth-team levels.
“I feel massively let down by Crewe,” Walters says. “There were
always rumours going round about Crewe. The club need to get their heads
out of the sand, make an apology and say something properly. It was
Crewe Alexandra where it happened. It wasn’t a feeder club to Crewe. It
was the worst-kept secret in football that Barry had boys staying at his
house but nobody at Crewe, as far as I can tell, used to think anything
of it. It [their reaction] is scandalous really. But they’ve always
been the same.”
Over the last week he and Woodward have been in regular contact,
reunited for the first time in more than 20 years. The conversations
have been emotional, difficult and uplifting, all at once. A number of
other victims have also been in touch, going all the way back to when
Bennell was involved with junior teams in Manchester in the 1970s, and
the Football Association is setting up a hotline for other victims.
Walters, speaking with great dignity and courage, can expect
overwhelming support judging by the response to Woodward’s interview.
Bennell, meanwhile, is out on licence, using the name Richard Jones,
after being sentenced to two years in prison in May 2015 for a
historical case involving a 12-year-boy on a football course in
Macclesfield. Now 62, he previously served nine years for 23 specimen
charges of sexual offences, including buggery, against six boys aged
nine to 15, one of them being Woodward, with 22 other offences allowed
to lie on file. Bennell’s crimes were first detected in 1994 when was he
given a four-year sentence in Florida after admitting to the buggery
and indecent assault of a boy on a football tour.
Walters, waiving his right to anonymity in order to speak, believes
“a man like that should never be let out” and has been in contact with
the police – along with at least five others – and the Professional
Footballers’ Association. “It’s been a really tough week because of the
way it’s brought everything back but, at the same time, I’m so glad Andy
has started this. It’s going to help me to move on with my own life.
I’ve been so upset but this is the first step to recovery.” • The NSPCC’s helpline is 0808 800 5000 or Child Line for children and young people can be contacted on 0800 1111. • In the UK, The Samaritans can be
contacted on 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline
is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is
on 13 11 14.
No comments:
Post a Comment