Gazza: My Story (38 page)

I remember, at Spurs, seeing Gary Lineker giving interviews for free to kids’ comics and fanzines when he could have earned a fortune for the same stuff and same amount of his time elsewhere. It was a sensible thing to do. He wanted to broaden his outlook, to see all sorts, as even then he was thinking of a career in the media.

I did once give an interview for free, to Brian Viner of the
Independent
, when I was at Everton, and that was, for a change, mainly about my football, not my personal life. I should have done more of that. The kiss-and-tell,
booze and binges stories eventually became the only part of my life people read about, and it just led to them wanting more, or finding more, or making up more of the same, if they couldn’t get it from me. It gave no insight into what I was really like, or into my dedication and passion for playing football.

It’s December 2003 and I’m sitting in my hotel in Shropshire, Patshull Park Hotel, which has 280 acres, a golf course and a huge fishing lake. I’ve played some golf but I haven’t done any fishing. They have trout and pike, but I don’t like them mixed up in the same lake. The estate and the landscaped gardens and the original manor house date back to 1768, so it says in the information by my bedside. It was originally laid out by Capability Brown, it says. Dunno who he was. Perhaps a relation of Wes Brown.

For the last two months I’ve been playing for Wolverhampton Wanderers Reserves. This place has been handy for their training ground, where I’ve been going
each morning, taking a taxi there and back. I haven’t been getting paid, just training with them. It was my old England and Boro mate Paul Ince who suggested it. I told him I wanted to get fit, do some proper professional training, and he said, ‘Why not come here?’

David Jones, the manager of Wolves, was very good, letting me join in. He told me when I arrived I was in too much of a hurry. ‘You want to be fit yesterday,’ he said.

In my first game, at home to Sunderland, I played the full ninety minutes, which pleased me, although we were beaten 3–1. It was at Telford United’s ground. The gate was about 2,000, instead of the usual 200-odd. So I must have brought in a few interested spectators.

In the next game, against West Brom Reserves, I couldn’t get back on to the team coach because of all the fans wanting autographs, hundreds of them. I hate turning people away, but I knew the lads on the coach would be getting pissed off waiting for me, and I just couldn’t get through. In the end I borrowed a steward’s orange jacket and was able to dodge between the media and the fans. The steward had to run after me to get his jacket back.

In the local evening paper next day, the
Express and
Star
, they said that putting on the steward’s jacket was a ‘classic Gazza prank’. They went on to say that my body ‘will no longer obey the brain in time for English football to once again savour one of the most glorious and instinctive talents’. Bastards.

I played four games (we lost three and drew one), scoring one goal. Then I got a groin strain and had to come off in the last game. Wolves are bottom of the Reserves League, which was where they were when I arrived.

At the back of my mind, I suppose I was half-hoping that I might get a contract out of them. Not a big one, obviously; just a small, modest one, to last me for the rest of this season. I find it hard to let go of my old fantasy of finishing my British career in the Premiership. I had offers from several Third Division clubs, like Boston and Carlisle United, offering quite good money, around £5,000 a week and a share of the gates. Wes Saunders, my agent, thought I should have taken one of them, made some money and played competitively, rather than carrying on playing for no money in someone’s reserve team. But at the time I didn’t fancy the English Third Division. Mind you, things can change.

I have to admit that the training has been
knackering me. I’m fit enough, lean enough, but my whole body aches all the time. It’s so much harder to recover from any knocks when you get to thirty-six. I can’t remember feeling like this before, being in agony in training. Even three years ago, I don’t remember twinges or pains or tiredness when I was in full training.

When you’re young, you can play two and sometimes three proper games a week, but not at my age. One is more than enough. In the old days, I could train for hour after hour, no bother. As you know, I was often half-drunk. Perhaps the alcohol killed off or disguised the aches and agonies so that I couldn’t feel them. Now, when I’m not drinking, I can feel every little twinge. Perhaps I should start drinking again. Only joking.

I never actually liked drinking. That’s something people have never understood. I don’t understand it myself, for that matter. I didn’t even really like the taste. Stuff like Baileys I enjoyed, but that was because it was sweet. When I was with Chris Evans and Danny Baker, I very often poured my drink into a plant pot because I didn’t like it. Ask them. They’ll tell you.

The only reason I drank was to numb my brain. It was good fun at the time, drinking to feel numb, and
I enjoyed being daft with my mates. But my main aim was always oblivion.

Danny always says I’m not a mad drunk, just a mad risk-taker. And I did take crazy risks, like jumping in front of buses without thinking. I did that on the pitch as well, which was why I had so many injuries. And I did it as a boy, swinging between trees, to see if I could, then falling off and breaking my arm. At the time I didn’t feel brave, or that I was taking a risk. I just didn’t think ahead to what the consequences of my actions might be. Of course, drink does make you braver, so I suppose I was even more of a risk-taker when drunk. Today I like to think I’m more careful, more cautious.

Drinking also makes you dehydrated. With age, you’re more likely to get injured, and dehydration makes it harder for the body to recover from the injuries. I’ve been told all that often enough. In training at Wolves, I was thinking all the time, what the fuck am I doing? Is this really worth it? What’s the point of all this fucking training? Then I told myself I couldn’t give in, not yet. I was still a winner. I could still do it. I could still help a team.

But now, sitting here in my hotel, I’ve had to admit to myself that it’s not going to work. Wolves are not
going to give me a contract, however titchy. It’s heartbreaking, but I might as well acknowledge that that’s it. I feel devastated.

I only hope I won’t go into a deep depression. For the last two months, training has been all I’ve really been concentrating on. It’s all I’ve done. I trained all morning, came back to the hotel and rested. Then I played a bit of solitaire on my mobile phone, or a chess game, playing against myself. I usually have the telly on as well.

I still quite like living in hotels. It doesn’t depress me, thinking I haven’t got a house of my own to go to. Even when I was married, or had my own house, I would move into a hotel for the odd week or so, on my own, just to have peace and quiet, get away from everyone. I don’t eat in the dining room. I just stay in my room, order food from room service. I don’t get bothered. Other guests have been asking for autographs, so I’ve arranged a system with the girls on Reception. People leave their autograph books there, and I sign when I next pass through.

I ring people a lot, talk for ages on the phone. Or people ring me, old friends like Archie Knox from Rangers and Everton. We have a laugh. Or I ring Jimmy, ask him to do little things for me. He came down from
Gateshead and drove me to Telford for my first game for Wolves. When we lost, of course I screamed and swore at him, and he screamed and swore back, saying it was my mistake. Jimmy has been there for every first game I have ever played in my career, from Newcastle to Lazio, Rangers to China, every one.

I don’t feel lonely, not really. It’s just nice and quiet. You don’t have arguments when you’re on your own. I like hotels the way I like hospitals. After all, I’ve spent years of my life in hotels and in hospitals. It’s the sense of being looked after, and the comfort.

I especially like it in hospitals when they give you morphine. I could do with more of that, just to zonk me out, stop me thinking. I suppose it is part of my longing to escape, my fondness for hotels and hospitals; of wanting to cut myself off from the real world, from bills, the public, the media. In a hospital or a hotel, you are not aware of family worries or domestic aggravation.

I’m not missing the drink, but I don’t know how long that will last. I’ve got lots of panic pills and antidepressants which I take instead of getting drunk. They’re supposed to settle me down. Before that first game for Wolves, I left them behind in my hotel room, so I got myself in a panic. Having Jimmy with me helped.

I don’t suppose the lads at Wolves realise I’ve been taking these pills. But they’re bound to have noticed how quiet and serious I’ve become, very different from the loud, daft Gazza they thought they knew. I’ve enjoyed their company, tried to help the young lads where I could, talked to everyone, but I can be very subdued with people I don’t know. Wary, perhaps, rather than shy. Over the years, I’ve learned to be wary of new people, of what they might be trying to get out of me. But in dressing rooms, I’m not a stranger. I know how they work.

I would like to have some sort of final exhibition match, a testimonial for myself, perhaps at St James’ Park in Newcastle. I’ve appeared in lots of testimonials for other people over the years – such as Alex Ferguson, Paul Merson, Matt Le Tissier, Peter Beardsley, Alan McLaren, David Busst. When you play in a testimonial, you do it for no money. I hope people will do the same for me. I’ll give a good proportion to charity, of course. I’ve been invited to do some after-dinner speaking, and I quite fancy that. I need some income, after all.

So, have I ended up with nothing? Not quite. Fortunately, I did manage to do one very sensible thing. When I moved to Lazio, I put all of my £2 million signing-on fee into a bank in the Channel Islands. I’ve used bits
of it, but it’s still mostly intact, except it was put into US dollars. That was the advice I was given. Dollars have gone down in value, but I’m hoping it will be enough to keep me going. I probably won’t be able to live on it, or on the interest, not these days, but at least I’ve something set aside. My plan is to put it into something which will give me an income and also perhaps a job, if I need it.

With my Channel Islands nest egg, I might buy an estate in Northumberland with a trout farm, and try to get an income from that. Or a little string of pubs which Jimmy could manage. We could call them Gazza’s or Five Bellies. That’s still an idea.

Or I might pack it all in and move to Australia or the US. I could open my own coaching school, like Bobby Charlton did.

I can’t see myself pursuing a career as a football commentator or pundit. During the 2002 World Cup, I did a few weeks for ITV, but I wasn’t comfortable with it. Sitting in a studio, I was nervous, and it showed. I was with people who are very good at the job, and very experienced, like Ally McCoist, which just emphasised that it wasn’t for me. I know some people thought I was drunk in the studio, but I wasn’t. In the hotel, perhaps, but not in the studio. I didn’t drink in the studio. But
I was taking lots of sleeping pills to help me sleep, and having to get up early meant I was still a bit slurry in the mornings. I got on better when they sent me out in the streets to talk to fans. Being among ordinary people, on my own, suited me more.