Rio Ferdinand--Five Star--The Biography (3 page)

And back then Rio already had a very clear idea which celebrities interested him. He even told one friend: ‘If I could read their diary I'd go for Madonna's or [the US basketball player] Dennis Rodman's because he's a lunatic.'

Matt Delaney, Rio's PE teacher at Bluecoat, said he was so naturally gifted that he could have excelled at any sport. ‘Rio was one of those kids who was talented at everything. Even as a chorister he was a great singer. He also had a great talent for basketball. He was the best football player we had. He wasn't head and shoulders above the rest, but he was very determined and really applied himself.'

Denise Winston was Rio's tutor at the school for five years. ‘He was a bit of a Jack the Lad and at one stage he did seem to be falling in with the wrong crowd. But his mother was always there at the end of the phone and if he thought I was going to ring her he'd soon buck his ideas up.'

Later, while he was at West Ham, Rio returned to Bluecoat to hand out an award. He signed autographs for dozens of pupils and still called Matt Delaney ‘sir'. Delaney recalled: ‘He was still talking about how we won the Met Police five-a-side competition when he was at the school. He's still proud of that. He is such a down-to-earth lad who had great support from his parents.'

According to Leon Simms, who was Rio's close friend at Bluecoat and played alongside him in the school team: ‘Rio's always had a funny word to say. Guess it was his way of keeping on top of things. But when he started on a run with the ball there was no stopping him!' Leon never forgot how he and Rio and the rest of the class went on a school field trip to Cornwall. ‘Rio and some of us got up to some right tricks. Nothing really bad, but Rio was in the thick of things.'

Also on that school trip – when Rio was coming up to 14 – was a beautiful, ebony-skinned classmate called Latifah. ‘She really looked after herself,' recalled Leon.

Rio fell head over heels in love with Latifah and because he was the tallest boy in his class, at almost six feet, he managed to be the first to date her. ‘Rio and Latifah were kinda serious for quite a while,' Leon added. ‘He was so proud of her because she was so beautiful.'

Rio dated Latifah for almost two years and he has since admitted that she broke his heart. Leon explained: ‘Rio was real serious about Latifah. Rio loves women and Latifah was a goddess, man, if you know what I mean.
Latifah was the one …' Rio's friends say he tried to keep the romance as low-key as possible because he knew his mother would not appreciate the diversion from his school work and football ambitions.

Sport was particularly important to Janice because she believed it would help keep her son off the streets. And Rio knew all about the temptations that lay ahead. ‘This is a tough place and, like a lot of areas, there are kids going off the rails and others trying to stick to their guns and do well for themselves, academically or playing sports. Fortunately, the majority of my friends were sports-orientated. There were others, though, who did a bit of sport but got involved in negative things as well … smoking, stealing, dabbling in drugs. But that wasn't the way I wanted to be.

‘I guess I was lucky I had strong friends around me, many of whom were older. They knew the road I wanted to go down. They knew I was serious about football and they wouldn't smoke stuff in front of me. And if they ever saw me doing anything like that – not that I would – they would have stopped me. They didn't want to push me into that.'

One of Rio's most daring late-night pastimes was to visit a friend in a nearby flat who had cable TV. Rio would stay up late to watch foreign league matches. ‘We'd watch anything we could. A lot of European football especially. We were also bunging football videos on all the time. The player I really wanted to be like was Dutchman Frank Rijkaard. Not when he played at the back. He was a midfielder then.' One of Rio's favourite soccer videos was about the genius of George Best. He would make notes while watching it and then try to repeat some of Best's trickery out on the playground the following day.

Watching all that TV football simply reinforced Rio's
determination to make it as a professional player. ‘I wanted to play football, and fortunately I had the talent as well as the determination.' But there were other kids on the estate who wanted to earn big money and didn't care if that sucked them into a life of drugs and vice. ‘I had a couple of friends in prison. It's unfortunate but it's part and parcel of life for some people brought up in certain environments.'

Rio's closes friend from his childhood, Gavin Rose, said: ‘There was a close-knit group of about seven of us and we realised Rio's potential. We always said one of us had to make it as a footballer and it became obvious that he was going to be the one, so he was specially looked after by the rest of us.'

But ultimately it was Janice who deserved the most special praise. ‘My mum was really strong,' says Rio. ‘She never let me off the estate unless she knew where I was. I had to tell her the time I would be back. We lived on the fourth floor of the flats and because the lift was always broken I always had to run up the stairs to tell her where I was off to.'

Often, by the time Rio got back down, his mates were halfway along the road. ‘But I knew that if I went off the estate without telling my mum I'd get a good seeing-to when I got back. It got on my nerves at the time, but I'm grateful now for the way she treated me.'

As Kate Goodwin, wife of local league organiser and coach Dave Goodwin, pointed out: ‘There are a lot of dangers living on a city estate and Rio would be the first one to admit that he could easily have gone the wrong way.'

At Bluecoat, still greatly influenced by his father, Rio continued his interest in drama as well as football. ‘I always
wanted to be the centre of attention. I loved singing, dancing, acting.' When Rio was 13 his school put on a performance of the musical
Bugsy Malone
and he was given the role of Fizzy, the man who swept up the floor of a speakeasy. It was Rio's first opportunity to sing on stage and he belted out a number called ‘Tomorrow'. He explained: ‘To me Fizzy was the top man and I had to sing that song. I couldn't wait.'

So Rio, complete with a flat cap, braces and boots, immersed himself in the role of Fizzy the sweeper-up. (Ten years later he would face a lot of ribbing from teammates about that first-ever role as a sweeper!)

This is what Rio – in the role of Fizzy – sang to his beautiful leading lady, Velma:

Rio never forgot the standing ovation he got from the audience at the end of that night. ‘It was wicked, wicked. That ovation just went on and on.' It sent a shiver of excitement up his spine. I want some more of that, he thought to himself.

His classmate and pal Mark Atkinson also never forgot Rio's stage debut: ‘I remember one scene where Rio had to wipe my shoes. That's not likely to happen again, is it?'

But Rio's love of acting sparked a more down-to-earth response from his great friend Gavin Rose: ‘Let's just say Rio picked the right career in football.'

At Bluecoat, Rio was teased mercilessly about his haircut,
as classmate Tanya Saunders recalled: ‘We used to call him Bart Simpson because of his high hair.' Others said it was very similar to the hairstyle of world-famous boxing promoter Don King.

Rio and Gavin Rose often travelled to the school in Blackheath together from their homes on the Friary Estate. Gavin explained: ‘We never had the right bus pass, so we'd quickly flash our passes in front of the driver. Once a bus inspector came on the bus and, when he saw our passes weren't valid, he held up the entire bus for about an hour. The same thing happened on the train one December. The inspector said he would lock us up over Christmas. I remember Rio's face! Then he threatened to call Rio's mum and Rio kept saying, “She won't be in! She won't be in!”'

Dave Goodwin's daughter, Daniella, never forgot the day she went to a local fair with Rio. ‘We were about 13 and I had this handbag which was my pride and joy. Anyway, when we came off a ride, Rio said he was going to be sick immediately, so I had to empty my prized possession for Rio to be sick in. Later Rio bought me a beautiful Prada handbag to make up for that.'

She also discovered Rio had a passion for window-shopping. ‘He came to Lewisham Centre with me because I had £15 to spend. He didn't have any money, but he came around all the shops helping me choose what to wear. He got his own back years later when me and my mum sat in a shop for three hours while four people fussed around helping him choose suits.'

Rio was undoubtedly very popular with the girls and could talk to them with ease, unlike most boys of his age. Many put that down to the influence of his mum. His school friends also recall that he was still seeing Latifah throughout this period. Tanya Saunders explained: ‘Rio
dated Latifah for two years and she was very beautiful, a trophy. He was very sweet with her. He always showed girls a lot of respect, even though he liked to give you a cheeky grin. The girls were keen on him and he didn't mind. But he was very loyal.'

Mark Atkinson also remembers Rio being very popular with the girls. ‘They were always hanging around him.' And another classmate, Yung Chu, recalled: ‘Rio loved pretty girls and he had more success than most of us.'

Meanwhile, at the local league matches on Saturday and Sunday mornings, Rio was showing off a different kind of talent. Schools league organiser and coach Dave Goodwin was astounded by the number of club scouts who were turning up to watch the youngster. It could only be a matter of time before one of them snapped him up.

W
hen Rio was 14 something happened to one of his Bluecoat friends which is still reverberating around Britain to this day. For 23 April 1993 was the day when a bunch of racist thugs murdered schoolboy Stephen Lawrence at a bus stop near his home in Eltham, south-east London. Rio recalled: ‘The whole school came to a standstill when we were told. Stephen was three years older than me but we used to mess around together and have a laugh playing daft games on each other. It was a terrible shock when he died.’

Dave Goodwin noticed the effects of the murder on his young star player. ‘Rio couldn’t stop talking about it because he took it so badly. I told him he had to let go but he said, “But I knew him and he was a nice person. Why do these things happen?”’ Rio needed a father figure to give advice and his coach was that person.

As Rio vividly remembered: ‘It was mad. The whole day got frozen. People were coming in saying, “Stephen Lawrence got stabbed.” He was a quiet, nice boy, into art and music. He had a purpose and wanted to do something in life. For him to be taken away that way seemed so unreal. People didn’t know what was going on, or why.’

There was a lot of anger among black students at Bluecoat. Some talked of taking revenge on the white youths suspected of involvement. But Rio knew that revenge would serve no real purpose. He diplomatically tried to encourage his seething school mates to calm down. He knew from first-hand experience that violence served little purpose. He’d survived on the Friary Estate by treading a thin line between the good guys and the bad guys. There was no point in starting a race war.

Years later Rio had some very strong advice for young people who found themselves victims of racism at school or in the streets: ‘At school you’ve got to tell your teachers. If they don’t sort it out, tell your parents, get them down to the school and tell the head teacher. It’s got to be sorted out straight away. If you ignore it, it can escalate and become worse and worse. If you don’t deal with it, the bullies will think you are accepting it.’

The murder of Stephen Lawrence provoked talk about a wide range of racial issues. Rio knew that for years young black men with flashy cars had been stopped by police more than any other group of people. Later, when Rio took delivery of his first car, he was stopped by police within minutes of driving on to his manor. It happened repeatedly, and they’d always ask, ‘Why have you got this car?’ and ‘Where did you get the money?’ As Rio says: ‘There is a view that a black man driving a car is a drug dealer or something.’ After the tragic murder of
Stephen Lawrence, Rio avidly read up about the lives of his two latest idols – Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King. More than ever he wanted to understand where all this hatred came from.

By this time Dave Goodwin, as well as being Blackheath and District Schools League organiser and coach, was also an analyst for manager Lennie Lawrence at Middlesbrough. In order to keep on eye on Boro’s future opponents he often went straight from Saturday-morning school games to watch senior matches, mostly in League Division One. Before long he began taking Rio along with him, which proved an education for the youngster. ‘Dave would tell me, “Watch him, he’s a good player, and him too, look at the formation, see what they’re doing at corners.” So I got a bit of knowledge about the game, and that was really good for me.’

The first club to make a proper approach for Rio and persuade him to consider joining them was Queens Park Rangers. Rio trained for a few months at QPR but hated making the journey across the Thames to west London, so it always seemed unlikely he’d stay with the club. Then word reached the ears of West Ham scout and former star player Frank Lampard that there was a talented young midfielder called Rio Ferdinand available to sign schoolboy contracts.

But before Lampard contacted Rio, Middlesbrough whisked Rio up north to try and persuade the 14-year-old to sign for them. ‘They wanted him as soon as they saw him,’ Goodwin explained. ‘But I sensed that Rio wouldn’t be happy so far away from his family. So, even though I worked for Boro, I told him not to make his decision just for my sake.’ Rio told Middlesbrough he wanted time to think over their offer.

Then Charlton made an approach to sign him. He went for a trial at the Valley but was so upset by a racist remark made by an opponent during the trial that he told friends he didn’t want to join them. Goodwin recalled: ‘A couple of weeks later we were playing another team, which included the individual who made that remark. Rio pointed him out to our skipper, who then proceeded to make the best-timed, fairest but hardest challenge I’ve ever seen in my life and then told him, “Now who’s a so-and-so.”’

So Rio had a tough side to him after all – and it would have put Roy Keane to shame! One of Rio’s old pals commented: ‘Beneath the friendly surface, Rio can be a hard character. You have to be to survive that sort of childhood.’

Next followed a chance to go to the FA’s National School of Football Excellence at Lilleshall, in Shropshire, but Dave Goodwin believed that once again Rio wouldn’t be able to handle being away from his family and London. There were even rumours that Millwall were about to make a grab for Rio, whose Peckham friend Tony McFarland had just been signed by the south-east London club.

Then West Ham traced Rio and asked him to attend a trial. But he failed to turn up despite repeated requests. So one night Frank Lampard arrived unannounced at Rio’s home on the Friary Estate and persuaded him that the Hammers really did mean business and that a Youth Training Scheme contract was on the cards if Rio proved a real talent. A few days later Rio travelled to east London for the first time in his life. It would become his home for the next eight years. Though he was grateful to QPR, he knew that a move to West Ham could only be good for his career.

‘I was much happier when he decided to start training at West Ham,’ says Goodwin. ‘He was streetwise and just like
any other teenager. But it was just that the situation there suited him better.’

As the Hammers’ manager, Harry Redknapp, recalled: ‘He never came to us as a kid with a big reputation. He had no England schoolboy honours or anything like that. Dave Goodwin was the scout who first told me about him. But Frank Lampard put in a lot of work to bring him to West Ham and it paid off.’

And all the attention seemed to spur Rio on to produce even more impressive performances for the Blackheath and District Schools League. He was then given a try-out for the England U-15 squad. Afterwards he was handed an assessment that read: ‘One pace. Lacks concentration. Good attitude. Mark: B.’ His failure to get an ‘A’ and make the squad left Rio devastated.

West Ham youth team coach Tony Carr was not in the least bit surprised that Rio didn’t get into the England U-15 side. ‘He was always tall and skinny as a lad but what really stood out was his mobility. He wasn’t the type of player to shine in that environment.’

Soon Rio’s schooling at Bluecoat was being seriously affected by his training at West Ham. His teacher Angela Rezki explained: ‘There were a few times when we clashed with West Ham because Rio would be fit enough to train with them and then tell me he was injured so he had to miss lessons. But he was never big-headed about having to use our facilities, which weren’t great, especially when you’re training with a top football club. I even had to paint our changing rooms because the school had no money.’

In the last game of his school season at Bluecoat, Rio switched from midfield to attack and then to defence. ‘We didn’t have enough defenders, so they put me in there.’ Everyone watching the game that afternoon was impressed
by the way Rio surged through the middle of the defence to inspire attacking moves with great style. Back at West Ham he continued playing just behind the front line.

The strong relationship between Rio and Dave Goodwin helped Rio create a good early impression at West Ham. Goodwin gave many words of encouragement to the youngster, but he insists it was Rio’s family who played the most important role in encouraging his love of football. ‘They are the rock upon which Rio’s later success was based. Rio’s family have been tremendous in looking after him. They’re a good and close family, but his are closer than most and his mum Janice was really great. My family have also been very supportive and my wife Kate has often had him round here for a meal and he’s been on holiday with us.’

And Rio’s appetite for food was just as phenomenal as his skills on the pitch, as Kate Goodwin knows well. ‘Rio would eat anything, although his favourite was chicken. If eating were a sport he would have won a platinum. He would come into my house and immediately say, “Have you got any chocolate? My belly’s aching.” The meals his mum cooked for him could have fed a family of four. We treat him and love him like a son, and my daughter, Daniella, around the same age, dotes on him. The other main thing, and I think the most telling, is that he’s got this incredible attitude which speaks volumes for him. The most important thing in his life is football. It was then and it is now – nothing has changed.’

Dave Goodwin had always noticed that, from a young age, Rio maintained a strong, streetwise image and was very popular with everyone, though he could also be quite ruthless about his football. It came first, second and last even then.

And Rio’s hunger for football was growing by the day. He couldn’t bear to be without a ball at his feet for more than a few minutes. He’d stand on his own on the edge of the playground on the estate practising tricks and improving his control.

Rio was soon reading countless books about football. One of his favourites was an autobiography by the legendary Jimmy Greaves. Rio gleaned lots of useful tips by reading it. It helped Rio redefine his ambitions. Greaves was full of dire warnings about drinking and getting consumed by the adulation of fans. Up until then Rio had not realised Greaves had suffered such personal hell as a self-confessed alcoholic. ‘At school I couldn’t stand reading
Romeo and Juliet,
or thrillers, so I absorbed myself in autobiographies. I borrowed that book about Jimmy Greaves from the school library and learned all about what he suffered and what he put others through. It shocked me to see what could happen to someone who was such a major figure in the game. But it did make him a stronger person.’

Out on the streets of south-east London, Rio and his mates from the Friary Estate still got up to mischief. Nearly every Saturday, after playing football, they would hop on a Northern Line tube train up to the West End and wander past all the incredibly expensive clothes shops in Bond Street. Rio takes up the story: ‘But they wouldn’t even let us through the doors of those shops. I used to look in the window and think, I want these clothes so bad. But they used to stop me and say I couldn’t come in.’ He presumed that his colour was the main reason why he wasn’t welcome. ‘I couldn’t ever have afforded to buy anything, but they didn’t know that. I could have been a millionaire for all they knew. I used to think, when I make
it famous and become a footballer, you’re going to want me to come in.’

And when he wasn’t hanging out with his mates or training at West Ham, Rio was dating the beautiful Latifah. He made a point of not taking her out with his friends. He liked to keep her to himself even though, as one old friend said: ‘Rio loved bumping into people when he was out with Latifah because she was such a looker. But he drew the line at actually letting her hang out with him and his mates.’

One rain-lashed night Harry Redknapp got aboard the West Ham team coach, contemplating a grim five-hour journey back from Newcastle. After seeing the Hammers slump to defeat, their manager wasn’t exactly in the best of moods. As the bus headed down the A1, Redknapp took a mobile call from his dad. Harry Redknapp senior had just got back from seeing West Ham’s rookies pull off an amazing comeback against Chelsea to lift the Southern Junior Floodlit Cup. And he was full of praise for one particular youngster.

‘I’ve just seen the best kid I’ve ever seen play for your youth team.’

‘Who?’ replied Redknapp.

‘Guess,’ came the old man’s response.

Redknapp recalled: ‘I went through the names and when I couldn’t guess who, he told me, “That young lad Rio Ferdinand.”’

The young Hammers had lost the first leg 4–2 at Upton Park and few believed they stood any chance of winning the away leg by a big enough margin to win overall, but they did it.

Redknapp again: ‘Rio was still at school back then. In fact, I think the reason he had not played in the first leg
was because we couldn’t get him time off. I didn’t even know he had played in the second leg. But I think Tony Carr, the youth manager, had put him in because we had nothing to lose and to see some of the younger players perform.’

Rio was just 15 at the time and giving three years away to most of his opponents. But Redknapp’s dad said he was running 60 or 70 yards with the ball at his feet, showing pace, skill, everything. And for Redknapp: ‘He was the sort of player English football had been crying out for – someone who could bring the ball out of defence with style and flair. He was a midfielder when he came to us and we converted him into a central defender. You look at all the greats and they have moved back there. Franz Beckenbauer, Lothar Matthaus … they began in midfield and looked so cultured when they went to the back.’

The muddy boots in the corner and the grimy tracksuit emphasised the fact that West Ham’s training ground at Chadwell Heath, in Essex, was in many ways like a throwback to the old days in footballing terms. But then, for Harry Redknapp, the grind of day-to-day football management had been in his blood for years. He wasn’t interested in posh titles like ‘Director of Football’. He wanted to always be where the action was and he wasn’t shy about telling others. ‘Yeah, Director of Football. That’s the one to get into at the moment – that’s the one they’re all aiming for. Players don’t want to retire and be managers any more. They want to be Directors of Football – it’s definitely the one to have.