I DON’T care what the legendary Bill Shankly was supposed to have said, there is more to life than football – much more.

Just ask the family, friends and colleagues of Gary Parkinson who is lying in a coma in the Royal Bolton Hospital after suffering a stroke.

At 42 and with a lovely wife, Deborah, and a young family he should be in the prime of his life, but the football world was shocked and saddened to learn last week that one of their own, who is currently the youth coach at Blackpool and who played for a number of clubs including Bolton Wanderers, had been laid low in such tragic fashion.

Me and David Lee – who were close to Parky when he was a member of the Burnden Park family in the 1990s – went to visit him on Sunday and the experience of seeing him on a ventilator overshadowed anything else that happened over the weekend.

So forgive me for not talking about Saturday’s defeat at Arsenal or any of its repercussions because Parky’s plight has hit us all so hard. So many of us here at Bolton have such strong connections with him and, needless to say, we were all devastated when we got the news that he was seriously ill We were all mates: Owen Coyle was here at the same time, so was Didsy (David Lee), Nicky Spooner and Dean Crombie and, of course, Jimmy Phillips was a team-mate both here and previously in their careers at Middlesbrough, where Parky made his name. Steve Davies – another of the backroom staff here – played with him at Burnley.

We all remember him so fondly and you can imagine we are all rooting for him.

It’s amazing what you remember about your connections to people when you are faced with situations like this: Didsy recalled how Bruce Rioch got him and his missus to show Parky and Deborah round the area looking at houses when they first arrived at the club – well, he could hardly trust that job to me and John McGinlay because the only houses we’d have shown them were public houses!

Actually me and Parky were room-mates. He used to make me nice cups of tea – when I was awake that is, which wasn’t that often.

I remember being in the hotel room on the afternoon of that memorable match at Hull at the end of the 92-93 season. He couldn’t believe I could sleep before such an important game. He was too nervous and spent the afternoon watching the racing on the telly and listening to me snoring.

He’s a smashing lad, though, and any of his old team-mates, whether from his time as a trainee at Everton, or his senior days at Middlesbrough, Bolton, Burnley, Preston or Blackpool, will tell you he was was always the life and soul of the squad. You couldn’t fall asleep on the bus to away games when Parky was around, he’d wake you up.

It gives you an idea of how well-loved he is by those who knew him that Ian Holloway and the Blackpool players dedicated Saturday’s win at Newcastle to him and his family – as the nation saw when the players showed their “4-Parky” T-shirts.

I really don’t think there is anyone in the game who is held in more affection by those who have worked with him, which apparently came as a surprise to his three kids who admitted at the weekend that they never realised he was so popular. But it would be typical of Parky that he would never boast about that at home. As we left the hospital on Sunday I got a phone call from Alan Stubbs asking how Parky was and wanting his best wishes passing on to the family.

Stubbsy, who was also in the Bolton team that Bruce Rioch built so carefully and skilfully, knows from the experience of his own successful battle against testicular cancer how important it is to have moral support from your extended football family.

That is what Gary has in abundance – as I told him as I squeezed his hand and told him to hurry up and get himself out of that hospital bed.

There’s no way of knowing whether he is aware of it at this moment in time but Gary Parkinson has an awful lot of people on his side, all wishing him a speedy and full recovery.