Gazza: My Story (14 page)

Before the semi-final against West Germany, Bobby told me privately, ‘You do realise you’ll be playing against the best midfielder in the world.’ By which he meant Lothar Matthäus. I said, ‘No, Bobby, you’ve got it wrong. He is.’ Then I walked off. I think it took him a few minutes to work out what I’d just said. I might have been nervous and hyped up before a game, but I was always confident of my own ability.

The semi-final was to take place on 4 July in Turin. The night before, I just couldn’t relax. I knew I would never get to sleep, so at about ten o’clock I sneaked out of my bedroom and went to the hotel’s tennis courts. I found two Americans and persuaded one of them to have
a game with me. We’d been playing for about twenty minutes when I heard this Geordie voice shouting, ‘Gazza, where the fuck are you?’ It was Bobby Robson looking for me, having discovered I wasn’t in my bedroom. I dropped my racket and ran like hell. We were supposed to be in our beds, if not sleeping, then at least resting. I could see Bobby questioning the two Americans, but it was obvious they didn’t know who I was. The name Gazza meant nothing to them. They were not football fans, they just happened to be staying at the same hotel as us. Before Bobby returned, I managed to reach my bedroom, get into bed, and pretend to be asleep.

The game against West Germany went well for me. I felt I got the better of Matthäus, and I had one of my most disciplined games. After ninety minutes the score was 1–1. The Germans had gone ahead with a lucky deflection but Lineker pulled us level with about ten minutes to go. Then we were into extra time. All I wanted to do was win for England, for me, to keep it all going. It was in the first half of extra time I think, and I got the ball near the halfway line. I beat off two German players and was going really strong, heading towards their goal, when I overhit the ball a bit, which gave Thomas Berthold the chance to nick it off me. I lunged towards
him, to get the ball back, no intention of trying to get him as he wasn’t a threat in that area of the field. I just wanted my ball back. As I stretched to get the ball with my left foot, my right foot must just have caught him. But it was nothing more than that. I hardly touched him.

But he went down in a heap. Like I’d hit him with a sledgehammer or something. Rolling over and over. The moment he went down like that I knew I might be in trouble, even though we’d barely made contact. So I wanted the ref to know straight away there was nothing nasty. A foul maybe, but nothing more. So I put my hands right up and headed over to Berthold. Just to show there was nothing in it. He was probably still rolling. I can’t quite remember. And then I saw the ref holding the card up. I couldn’t believe it. I was devastated. I realised what it meant the minute it happened and the tears just came. I’d already picked up a yellow card so that was me out of the next game. I wouldn’t be playing in the World Cup final, if we got there. And I was sure we would, we were doing so brilliantly. At that moment, when I looked down at the German still on the ground play-acting, I could have slapped him.

I’ve since seen the television pictures relayed to the viewers at home. In one shot, Gary Lineker signals to
the bench, a gesture taken by most of the TV audience to mean that he thought I should be pulled off in case I did anything else daft. But in fact this wasn’t what he was communicating at all. He was just alerting them to the state I was in, and suggesting that someone on the bench would have to calm me down. Chris Waddle told me settle down and get on with it.

I didn’t need telling twice. I resolved to give my all for England in whatever time there was left; to do my utmost to get them to the final regardless of the cruel fact that I wouldn’t be there myself. So I played my heart out. We came so close – Chris Waddle hit the post – but at the end of extra time there had been no further score. Now it was all going to come down to penalties.

I was supposed to take one of the kicks: that had been the arrangement. But I was still so worked up that I decided it wouldn’t be wise. Platty took the one that would have been mine. At least he scored with it. Poor Chris Waddle and Stuart Pearce missed. I was heartbroken for both of them. In a way, I suppose it was better that two of them missed rather than just one of them, otherwise he would have felt he had to shoulder all the blame. Either way, that was it. The Germans had won. By the time the final whistle blew, I was in floods of tears.

I felt even sorrier for Stuart afterwards when he was called for a random drugs test and had to go and give his sample straight after the game, leaving the rest of us in the dressing room, either crying or trying to comfort each other. At least we had each other; Stuart, poor sod, had to suffer on his own.

I was so disappointed that England hadn’t made it to the final. Had we got there, I was sure we would have won it, whether or not I had played. But losing the semi was not the only reason for my tears. I was also crying because it was the end of the tournament for us; the end of those terrific six weeks or so in our World Cup camp. I didn’t want to go home. I wanted to stay in Italy playing in the World Cup finals for ever. That would have suited me champion. So the realisation that all this was over was deeply depressing. I was wondering whether I would ever have this sort of fun again in my whole life. The suspicion that I wouldn’t made me cry even more.

That evening, we all had a drink, of course, to drown our sorrows. Now that it was all over, we had Bobby’s permission. In fact, there was quite a party, with Nigel Kennedy playing his violin. We chucked Bobby into the hotel pool, with all his clothes on. We threw him so hard he nearly split his head open. I think most
of the players got pretty drunk. If the press had seen us, they would probably have said it was disgusting, how could we have a big party when we’d just lost our chance to win the World Cup? Of course we were gutted to be missing out on what we’d worked for for months, all our lives, really. But at the same time, we genuinely felt we hadn’t let the country down. We’d done our best. We’d all played well. So why not let our hair down?

Before we could go home, there was the anticlimax of the third-place play-off to be faced. Our opponents were the other losing semi-finalists, Italy. Because of my yellow card, I could only watch as they beat us 2–1.

On the plane back to England, I remember Gary Lineker warning me that life would change from now on. I didn’t really know what he meant, whether he was referring to me or to all of us. He’d been a hero of the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, scoring six goals and winning the Golden Boot, and when he came home he was staggered by all the attention. But I didn’t expect much excitement on our account. I thought there might be a few hundred people waiting to welcome us at Luton when we landed, and that would be all.

I couldn’t believe the sight that greeted us. It was bedlam. There must have been about 100,000 fans at
the airport, and the noise was incredible. And people were singing and shouting my name. I hadn’t, of course, seen myself on telly, so I didn’t know about all the close-ups of me crying. I soon discovered that over 30 million viewers had been riveted by my tears. I suppose they identified with me, understood what I was going through and felt sympathy for me, though at the time I’d been completely unaware of that.

As we shoved our way through the airport, someone gave me a set of joke plastic breasts which, of course, I immediately put on. It was said later that it was some pressman or photographer trying to set up a stunt picture that he had planned in advance, but I don’t think it was. The lad who gave it to me looked like an ordinary punter, an England supporter who had brought it along for a laugh and just handed it over. Apart from big, bulging plastic breasts, it had a huge stomach, though you couldn’t see that as clearly in most of the photographs that appeared in the papers. The joke was that I was overweight, a fat bastard, a jibe which, of course, I’d had to put up with in England from rival fans for some while. At the time, it was what I was best known for, being fat – that and for Vinnie Jones grabbing my balls. But after the World Cup I
was known by everyone, inside and outside football, for my tears.

From the airport we went on an open-topped bus for a little parade around Luton. As I was leaning out of the bus, shaking someone’s hand, my medal was pulled off my neck. We had all come home with a World Cup medal – for coming fourth – including me, even though I wasn’t able to take part in the third-place play-off. I don’t think this bloke was trying to steal it. He was just trying to kiss and hug me, and accidentally dragged it off. I screamed at him to give me back my fucking medal, but the bus was moving on. Luckily, someone else picked it up and handed it back to me.

Back at the airport, my father was waiting for me. I’d just bought him one of those motor home things. I got in along with Chris Waddle, who we were taking up to Newcastle, and we drew all the curtains and got out of the car park without being mobbed. I don’t suppose anyone was expecting to see two England footballers in a camper van.

Halfway up the motorway, I suddenly felt starving. I was dying for a burger or chips or something. Me father pulled up at a McDonald’s and I opened the door to get out and fetch myself a burger. The minute I was on the
pavement, I was surrounded – yet no one could possibly have known I was going to stop there, or could have recognised the motor home. In seconds, I was mobbed by people shaking my hand, wanting autographs, grabbing me. There was no way I could get my burger, so I had nothing at all to eat till we got to Newcastle.

That little incident was the first sign I had of what life was going to be like from then on. It was my first experience of what was to become known as Gazzamania.

In the north-east, I was offered free champagne in all the best hotels. I discovered that no one wanted to take money from me for anything, which was also nice. But what happened nationally became a sort of madness. Offers came flooding in from every conceivable company and business and media outfit, all competing for a bit of me, wanting my presence at events, my endorsement of things, or just my name on any old tat. It was overwhelming. Mel Stein and Len Lazarus, my advisers, could hardly cope with all the requests and turned down far more than they accepted.

I hadn’t really much of a clue about what was going
on, and what all these deals meant, but I was endorsing all sorts of things, from lunchboxes, calendars, bedroom rugs, T-shirts, keyrings and shell suits to stuff which I was told could bring in hundreds of thousands of pounds, such as videos, TV series, records, books, newspaper columns and boots. I can’t even remember half the products now. Over the next few months, I was invited everywhere, from 10 Downing Street to Buckingham Palace. Madame Tussaud’s made a waxwork of me and
Spitting Image
had a Gazza puppet. Although it was all a bit of a whirlwind, I enjoyed being in the limelight. It was certainly very exciting.