Merseyside rivals to toast true football hero
It’s just three months since Liverpool’s You’ll Never Walk Alone and Everton’s Z Cars were being played at her husband’s funeral. Gary — the only player to win FA Cups with both clubs — died from cancer on Jan 2, aged 46.
On Monday, the full story of his glittering football career and heartrending battle with illness will be told with the publication of his autobiography The Time Of My Life, a book he completed one month before he died and which now features a prologue by his wife.
Jackie, 39, who will be at Wembley today with children Scarlett, 16, Reece, 15, and Riley, 11, told the Daily Mirror this week it is going to be an emotional day for the family.
“We were overwhelmed by the reaction after Gary passed away,” she said. “He had no idea how much he was loved. He’ll be looking down on us all. Just don’t ask who he’d be supporting!”
After being diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma in Jul 2010, Gary endured months of chemotherapy, more than 40 lumbar punctures and a bone marrow transplant. His treatment led to diabetes and Bell’s palsy — which caused his face to droop — he lost his hair, and steroids left him puffy and unrecognisable. But, as his book attests, he remained optimistic right to the end.
“I couldn’t read the book until weeks after he died,” said Jackie. “But when I got to the final chapter where he’s saying, ‘I’m going to be all right — I’m going to get through it’, I knew I had to finish it for him. From the moment he was diagnosed, we both knew we had to fight. Even when he was told he only had six months to live… you take it in but you don’t want it to be real, so you just carry on.”
Jackie says Gary was more worried for his family than himself. “He was amazing. He only had a few wobbles. Once he woke in the night in a panic, sobbing that he wouldn’t be around for me and the kids. In the book he said I told him, ‘Don’t be so bloody stupid, of course you’ll be here’, and that I filled him with optimism. What else do you say? He’d always been so strong for me and the kids. It was my turn to say, ‘It’s going to be fine’, but I didn’t know that.
“Losing his hair really upset him. In the end I got clippers and just said, ‘Let’s shave it all off’. Gary was devastated but the kids started joking about giving him go-faster stripes at the side and he laughed along.”
In December, Gary’s condition deteriorated but he made the decision not to return to hospital.
“Things happened so quickly,” Jackie said. “He’d been nagging me to get a puppy for the children for Christmas and I finally relented and brought Bella the bulldog home on Christmas Eve. Now I realise he wanted us to have someone to look after when he’d gone. He’s still looking out for us. At his funeral I kept thinking, ‘Just let me know you’re all right’ and a shaft of sunlight suddenly filled the cathedral.
“We didn’t know for sure that Gary was going until the day before,” she recalled. “But I’m glad he was at home, so we could be with him. It still doesn’t feel real though. I still think he’s just going to walk through the door. You go through so many different emotions every day — even a sense of relief, because Gary isn’t suffering anymore.”
The boys have inherited their dad’s love of football — Reece is a Liverpool fan and Riley supports Everton.
“They play for local teams and after Gary passed away Riley was desperate to score his first goal so he could dedicate it to him. He’s scored at every single game since, bless him. He does his celebration, pointing to the sky to his dad.”
Gary Ablett’s family are in the process of developing a charitable foundation in his memory. The emblem will be a purple heart, combining the colours of the two clubs who renew an old rivalry, and one to which Gary Ablett contributed so much, at Wembley today.
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