I was just a boy when I first started walking like Nick Faldo.

Probably eleven, or twelve.

I would watch on telly as he strode down the final fairway at St. Andrews, golf bat in hand, Pringle sweater across his back, servant (sorry…caddy) trotting on behind.

He was imperious.

It was all about the walk, I thought, and I knew I Needed one.

The walk was “languorous,” I decided. I was annoyingly wordy even at a young age. And it was the walk of a man in control. Slightly arrogant, but not aggressively so.

It added presence, I thought.

I studied the moves.

I imagined I was strolling past the gallery, having holed a tricky chip from fifty feet, and walked how I felt. For a while my hip joints clicked as I forced on them the unnatural movements of a globally famous golfer.

By fourteen, having safely negotiated clicky-hip stage, there was no other phrase for it: I was Faldo-esque.

Albeit a young and better dressed-version.

In my early twenties, the walk developed. As Faldo’s career began to decline I knew I needed to up my game. I needed a contemporary strut fit for the “Cool Britannia” 1990’s.

Living in Oasis-era Manchester at the time, there was only one direction to take. My Faldo stride morphed into a Gallagher strut. All simian arms and jutting chin. Bandy legged and half-comic.

But underpinned by that consistent Faldo-esque stride pattern.

In even the most unforgiving conditions – drunk, on the sticky dance floor of an indie nightclub, for example – my Gallagher walk maintained its integrity.

I became known for the consistency of my strut.

And yet I never revealed the source of my powers.

A badly dressed control freak with a spiky personality.

Faldo…not Gallagher.

(Image: By Pearson Scott Foresman [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)