Ashley Ward, ex-Blackburn Rovers, for La Liga?
Rumours that Ashley Ward, the ex-Blackburn Rovers centre-forward (in the loosest possible term) has been spotted having trials in Spain this week have surfaced – we have EXCLUSIVE photographs of him doing his ‘thang’ here.
As you will remember, Brian Kidd, a week after signing the superstar that was Matt Jansen for 4.5 million, showed his true colours by squandering the same amount bringing ‘the water buffalo’ to Rovers. Not only was Ashley so dire that the only recorded compliment his manager said of him was ‘he had a heart like dustbin lid’, he holds the dubious record of being effectively sacked by three different Premiership clubs.
Not only was he (IMO) Rovers pound for pound worst ever player, he caused his Chairman at Bradford, Geoffrey Richmond, to have a heart attack on the night he actually scored – twice. It’s uncertain which of the goals pushed Geoff over the edge, but he still paid up his contract to get rid of ‘el agua toro’ pretty sharpish afterwards.
Ashley was always famous for his love of wildlife; not only did he have small farm in his village of Mobberley, housing pot bellied pigs and llamas amongst other exotic creatures, but he was also renowned for being married to the sixth Spice Girl – known amongst the Rovers WAGs as ‘Common Spice’.
I always had a soft spot for Ashley after watching a typical bustling performance by him when we was away at Walsall on a rainy Tuesday or Wednesday night, when we had our small break from the Premiership at the start of the century. Maybe it was the ponding water in the goal mouth that was too tempting for Ashley to resist wallowing in, but when the ball was passed upfield for a chance for him to score, not only did he miss getting anything like a connection (seemingly his forte) but he collided with not just the goalie, not just the centre half, but 3 out of the back five – and all ended up entangled in the net.
On another visit to watch his sublime skills, this time at a pre-season friendly in Dublin, Saint Patrick’s Athletic, one of his adoring fans passed out, so close was she to her hooven hero. Cue the ambulance; this being a sparsely attended game, and with not much in the way of St Johns Ambulance, in the best spirit of Mohammed and mountains, the ambulance drove to her – right along the terraces, down to the corner flag. On opening the gate to let the ambulance reserve, we couldn’t resist trying to coax Ashley through the gate, in a manner akin to the clowns do at the Calgary Stampede. However, ‘one man and his bovine friend’ is clearly a more difficult game than we considered at first. On reflection, maybe we should have took a Taser to more Rovers games and put us all out of our misery?
Another snippet of Ashley legend was that like most footballers, Ashley was partial to driving his car somewhat recklessly (maybe it was the hooves on the pedals?). Consequently he was stopped by the police and received a summons. He tried the old ‘but I’m a footballer, show me some latitude and I’ll see you right’ line. Needless to say, the peelers didn’t believe him – clearly they remembered his time at Man City – and he still remains to this day to be the only guy Nick Freeman (the celebrity lawyer known as ‘Mr Loophole’, reknowned for getting footballers off driving offences) actually sprung Ashley by confirming he was actually an ex-footballer, thereby getting him off on a technicality as the cops couldn’t prove Ashley’s identity at the time. So, in essence, they didn’t believe he was a footballer either…..
Anyways, as you will see from these exclusive pictures, Ashley is tearing up the town – quite literally – in Spain it seems.
Keep watching on this site for more exclusive news – rumours of Jason McAteer launching a late run for the Nobel Peace Prize for science are as yet unfounded.
