Glenn Mulcaire
Currently on police bail as part of the phone hacking scandal at News of the World, Glenn Mulcaire was one of the most mentioned names in the media for the second half of 2011 and throughout 2012. When he arrives in court next month, he’ll be back in the spotlight again – for possibly the rest of 2013 – and beyond. There have been many articles, broadcasts and even books acknowledging him, but who is he? This blog could not find anything comprehensive on his background, his upbringing, his family, his friends or his football. Not in national newspapers or on Google. So we went to find a bit more about Glenn Mulcaire…
The son of an Irish dustman Michael and Geordie housewife Eileen, Glenn Michael Mulcaire was born at St Stephen’s Hospital on Fulham Road, London in 1970. Mulcaire’s earliest memories would be of the World’s End Estate, at the west end of the fashionable Kings Road in Chelsea (south-west London), where aged four, the family, with his 14 year old brother Steven moved in from nearby Battersea in 1975.
St Stephen’s Hospital now Chelsea and Westminster
The World’s End Estate, Chelsea
Designed by Eric Lyons and named after the pub (still) located on the site of the buildings, work on World’s End began in 1968 and, after a number of breaks and a builder’s strike, 750 homes to house some 2,500 people were finally completed nine years later in 1977. The red bricked estate consists of seven high-rise tower blocks interlinked by nine low-rise walkway blocks with two internal courtyards. The way the buildings merge into each other, it effectively results into a single building. The Mulcaires would have been one of the first generations of residents on the estate.
The World’s End pub
A former choir boy at St Stephen’s church (also on Fulham Road), Mulcaire went to St Stephen’s primary school a few doors down from the church opposite the site of the old St Stephen’s Hospital (now Chelsea & Westminster). The primary school and the church are still there now but are both known as Servite. Mulcaire attended the catholic secondary school St Thomas More in Cadogan Street in Chelsea. He left in 1986 with O levels and went on to further education in the intervening years since.
St Stephen’s primary school now Servite
St Thomas More secondary school
Like most schoolboys, football was Mulcaire’s main passion. As Stamford Bridge was just a stone’s throw away from the World’s End, Chelsea was the local team and followed by the Mulcaire household and his father would take him to home games. He used to play at Flashpoint, the estate’s play centre, and Chelsea Boys Club. He later trained with Chelsea FC at youth level as a 16 year old in Battersea Park where their team trained with the then Chelsea youth team coach Gwyn Williams, but left a year later. Ex-Chelsea footballers Jason Cundy and Frank Sinclair were part of that youth set up and played in the same team as Mulcaire. Both went on to break into Chelsea’s first team and in Sinclair’s case won an FA Cup and a European Cup Winners Cup medal with the club in the 1990’s. Cundy is now a pundit for Chelsea’s in house television channel ChelseaTV, while Sinclair has recently been appointed as team manager of Blue Square Bet North side Colwyn Bay FC.
Jason Cundy
Frank Sinclair celebrating with Mark Hughes (No10)
Mulcaire’s childhood best friend in World’s End was Carlos Gomez, now 41. Gomez told this blog: “Me and Glenn were best mates as kids, we were always together.” Gomez’s family, like Mulcaire’s, moved into World’s End in the late 1970’s from Portobello Road in North Kensington with his Spanish parents (and younger sister Diana) at the age of 6 and so would have been first generation tenants too. Their paths soon crossed. “We were just normal kids who were into normal things at the time. We went to the same primary school and played out together after school. We were keen cyclists. We used to ride around the corridors of the estate at silly speeds. Roller skating and skate boarding was big then too.”
“I remember always going round to his house and playing on his Atari and staying the night. His parents used to take us on caravan holidays with them to Camber Sands and his dad used to take us to Chelsea matches at Stamford Bridge. They really were always nice and opened armed with me. One funny memory is when we got into break-dancing. We used to practice in Glenn’s room for hours then go out and battle other crews on lino mats” he recalls, laughing. Gomez moved out of World’s End in his early 20s and moved to join his then girlfriend in Croydon. “When I left, Glenn was still in Worlds End but I hardly came back to visit as my mum and dad sold up and went back to Spain soon after I left, so we lost touch but we had many great times growing up on the World’s End”. Gomez now lives with his wife in South London.
Another Mulcaire friend from the estate and fellow footballer who asked not to be named and who no longer lives in the country, told us via email “He was great footballer with so much skill”. He went on, “one goal i remember him scoring at Flashpoint all those years ago was, one high ball came over and instead of heading it, he done a scissor kick but landed on his feet, it was top corner cracker. I wanted to play like him”. Years later he met Mulcaire by chance at AFC Wimbledon’s trials in Wimbledon common in 2002. They had lost contact before that but their friendship resumed thereafter. Mulcaire got picked at those trials, and would go on to write his name into the club’s history. “He started at Chelsea Boys Club like the rest of us. He was member of the year there once and even did some work. There was a time he used to look after us as he was a few years older and went on trips with us as a staff member.”
Someone who did go on to play professional football who was also present at Chelsea Boys Club then, was former Crystal Palace and Southampton defender Darren Powell who also grew up on the World’s End. Powell’s and Mulcaire’s fathers often bump into each other at the bookies and sometimes exchange tips on horses. “I was youngest in the team and Glenn was on it every Sunday. He was a winner. I still see him from time to time.” Powell also went to the same secondary school as Mulcaire but was a few years below him.
Darren Powell
Another member of that team who often comes back and visits World’s End now but did not want to be named by this blog told us: “I’ve known Glenn a long time. I remember going to his wedding all those years ago. I still see him now and sometimes stop to speak to his dad in the street when I see him too. Glenn was crazy about football back when we were young at Chelsea Boys and Flashpoint, but we also played all over London against so many teams, and if we were 2-0 down and he scored, we’d try to celebrate with him, but he wouldn’t have any of it. He’d push us away and tell us to f**k off, just because we were still losing! He was that determined to win. He played as a centre forward and had a good left foot. He use to play like Duncan Ferguson with his arms and elbows swinging all over the place…he was hard and aggressive with defenders. Then he became the manager of the team.”
At Chelsea Boys Club, it was Teus Young who first looked after the young Mulcaire then gave him his first part time job. Young who ran the club sometime between the late 1980’s and early 1990’s says: “I remember Glenn well from back then. On occasions he could be stubborn but that made him strong-minded. Generally speaking, he was a good kid. I used to speak to his mum and dad all the time. When I first came to Chelsea Boys Club, I formed the junior football team at the club which he was part of with Darren Powell and Alan Hudson Jr (son of 1970’s Chelsea footballer Alan Hudson).”
He added: “He was an all round sportsman. Good at most things we did like Pool, Table Tennis as well as Football, obviously. I asked him to come and work for me because I could see leadership qualities in him. He was different from the other boys. The thing about Glenn I remember back then was that he was extremely bright, switched on and certainly quick on his feet. He didn’t let out much emotion either but he was kind-natured and I think that was his way of letting you know he liked you. He worked for me for about a year and was a good worker. He coached the under 9’s football team and we used to go on trips like Chessington (World Of Adventures) or Southend. He communicated well and cared about the children. He really enjoyed working there”.
Young and Mulcaire lost touch for many years after until Mulcaire’s wife tracked down Young through mutual friends to invite him to Mulcaire’s surprise 40th birthday party. “I got a call off his wife Alison telling me to come to the house for his birthday. So I turned up at the door and knocked and Glenn answered and couldn’t believe it was me. We had a good party and we’ve met up a few times since to chat about the old time.” Young, now in his 50’s, currently works as a learning mentor at a school in Battersea.
Chelsea Boys Club now Chelsea Youth Club
Flashpoint
After leaving Chelsea FC as a youth player, Mulcaire joined neighbours Fulham FC but suffered an injury that was to end his professional ambitions and instead turned to non-league football and continued playing. In his spell as a non-league footballer, the highlight for Mulcaire came playing for AFC Wimbledon in July of 2002, the year they were founded, where he scored the club’s first ever goal against Bromley FC. The club are now in npower league 2 with professional players and part of the football league – albeit bottom of their division. Still, they’ve come a long way since that ‘Trigger’ goal that can be viewed on YouTube.
Mulcaire met future wife Alison Simmons in 1988. Simmons from Inworth Street in Battersea, and Mulcaire married in 1991 at the same Catholic church on Fulham Road he attended with his parents as a boy. They bought their first home together in the late 1990’s on Somerset Estate in Battersea Church Road before moving to Cheam (south London) two years later where they presently reside. They have five children together between the ages of 8 to 19.
St Stephen’s church now Servite
Somerset Estate, Battersea
Mulcaire agreed to speak to this blog about the events of 19th September 1981, a day Mulcaire will never forget. “I still remember it vividly” he says. That day, his brother Steven had gone to watch Chelsea play away at Shrewsbury with four friends. They had all squeezed in what was a four seater car. “It was in the days of before rear seat-belts being compulsory fitted”. Tragically, the car crashed, all survived but Steven didn’t make it. He was 21. Mulcaire, 11 at the time, reveals: “I didn’t go to the funeral.” After a short pause, he continues: “My parents took me to a physiatrist who advised them not to let me attend”. He concludes “I knew then I had to learn how to look after myself.”
He is not political and asked by this blog if he read newspapers or blogs and which ones, and though he did confirm, this blog was legally advised to omit it. However, we can confirm that he doesn’t use Twitter or Facebook, and despite being too old to play football at the level he once enjoyed, he still has a kickabout with friends and keeps fit by going to the gym regularly. He socialises with a drink but is not a smoker.
Currently studying, Mulcaire hopes to start a new career once his present problems are over.
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