In an exclusive extract from Jon “The Beast” Parkin’s new autobiography; ‘Feed The Beast: Pints, Pies, Poles and a Belly Full of Goals’ he recalls a 1-1 draw at the Cardiff City Stadium in December 2010, just weeks before departing Preston for South Wales.
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“It was a frustrating spell, but in one game at home to Cardiff, I let things get the better of me. The Cardiff fans had been giving me shit and I had built up a lot of frustration over the past few months so when Michael Tonge put us 1-0 up, I grabbed the ball out of the net and leathered it into their fans. I still don’t know why I did it.
I didn’t think any more about it until I got into work on the Monday and one of the coaches came up and said I had to attend a meeting on Thursday, so I said: “Oh, okay – who with?” He said it was the club solicitor. Apparently when I’d kicked the ball into the Cardiff fans, I’d broken some guy’s arm. I said: “No way! Seriously? I must have caught it well!”
I met the solicitor, told him I’d meant to lash the ball back into the net – even though it was blatantly obvious I hadn’t meant to do that at all – and he took a statement from me. That was the last I heard of it. Or so I thought.”
At the start of the 2011/12 season, Parkin found himself behind Kenny Miller, Robert Earnshaw, Joe Mason and Rudy Gestede in the Cardiff pecking order. Resigned to his fate and with one foot out of the door, he then received some unexpected fan mail.
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“I remember around that time i checked my Twitter feed and saw there was a direct message from a young lad saying I’d broken his dad’s arm when Preston had played Cardiff at Deepdale. I tweeted him back saying how sorry I was. He came back saying not to worry about it as they’d got a new kitchen and holiday out of it! Cardiff’s insurance must have covered it or something and I’d seemingly made a good impression on one Cardiff supporter. It turned out he might have been the only one by the time I’d finished.”
Jon Parkin’s entertaining autobiography – ‘Feed The Beast: Pints, Pies, Poles and a Belly Full of Goals’ – is published by Sport Media and on sale now. It is available from Amazon or all good bookshops.
