Nuno Espirito Santo may have issues to solve at Premier League strugglers West Ham United, but at least he doesn’t have to worry with the sort of headaches Ian Bishop gave Frank Lampard Sr back in the day.
Footballers, these days, tend to be as professional as it comes. With the odd exception, of course.
In Ian Bishop’s day, though, well there is a reason why most footballing anecdotes from the 1990s tend to involve some heavy boozing at one point or another.
Bishop saw the Premier League change the face of British football during nearly a decade at West Ham United in the late-20th century. The former midfielder-turned-artist and cockatoo fanatic arrived in the Lou Macari era during the dying embers of the old First Division, and departed just shy of the Millennium and shortly after West Ham’s first-ever £5 million signing.
John Hartson, by the way. And he has a lot to answer for.
Now, speaking on the latest edition of the Ironcast podcast, Bishop recalls one unexpectedly wild night out in Soho with the big, friendly Welshman. Well, he recalls the aftermath anyway – the bellows of Frank Lampard Sr still ringing in his ears – if not so much the night itself.
Ian Bishop recalls an ill-advised night out with West Ham United hero John Hartson
Bishop, understandably, is not short of an anecdote.
And if the older members of the West Ham fanbase ever wondered why the former Everton graduate did not get onto the pitch during a clash with Manchester City in the 1990s, well, an ill-fated call from John Hartson and a very tempting offer goes a long way to providing an explanation.
“Big Jonny got me in trouble one night!,” Bishop recalls. “He went, ‘look I’ve got this radio thing to do’. It was Thursday night, obviously we are not allowed out [before the weekend’s fixture].
“My missus was pregnant, she had about three weeks to go with our third child. And big Jonny’s gone, ‘we’ve got to go down Soho to do a radio show’. I went, ‘alright mate, but nothing heavy. Nothing stupid!’
“At 4 o’clock in the morning, we are getting a cab. I get into bed, my missus is fuming with me.
“I forgot to tell her that we weren’t training in the morning. We were meeting at the hotel to get the bus, and we were going to train in Manchester when we got there to play at Man City. I forgot to tell her!
“I woke up at 10:30am. The bus was gone! That feeling was horrendous. My phone had been ringing like mad and my missus didn’t bother waking me up. She was angry with me. She didn’t realise what was going on.”
The Upton Park icon managed to hoodwink Frank Lampard Sr
It did not take long before Lampard Sr, then the assistant coach to Harry Redknapp at Upton Park, noticed Bishop’s absence.
“Eventually, Jonny phones me; ‘We’ve already left. Frank Lampard is fuming at you, he’s been calling you all sorts!’
“[Lampard Sr] goes, ‘Where the effing hell are you? I went, ‘hold on a minute, I’ve been in the hospital all night, my missus went into labour!’
“He went, ‘oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know. Don’t worry!’ I said, ‘No, no I’m going to drive up [to Manchester]’. He said, ‘no, you don’t have to! So I drove up and ended up on the bench.
“[Lampard] didn’t find out! She had [the baby] a couple of weeks later! We called him Frank!”
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