Gazza: My Story (30 page)

He had still been picking me, though, so that was something. After the Italy draw, I had played against Cameroon and then, in May 1998, in World Cup warm-up games with Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Belgium. I wasn’t totally fit in the Belgium game, and had got a dead leg which meant I had to come off, to be substituted by Beckham. But we weren’t beaten in any of those games except that one against Belgium, on penalties.

Twenty-eight players were taken out to La Manga, from which Hoddle would need to select his final squad of twenty-two for the World Cup. I was pleased, naturally, but not surprised, to be told I was on my way to Spain. Given my form for England, everyone expected me to be picked.

It was all light-hearted at first, a bit of training, bit of fun. We had karaoke one evening and I got drunk, but so did several others. Dave Seaman took me to my room and tucked me in while the others carried on drinking. At least eight of them were still up at four in the morning.

Next day, we were left to play golf, swim or just hang around the pool. It was then that I heard that Hoddle was calling in every player, one by one, at a set time, to tell them who would be in the final twenty-two.

This is fucking stupid, I thought; he’s treating us like schoolkids. The idea of keeping us all sitting around doing nothing for several hours, waiting for our appointment, was petty. The more I thought about it, the more I thought, I’m not having this. I don’t do waiting.

I wasn’t drunk. Not at all. I might have had a couple of beers earlier that morning on the golf course,
but I certainly wasn’t drunk. Perhaps a bit hung over from the night before, but that was all. I was just so annoyed and irritated. I barged into a room where Ray Clemence, Glenn Roeder and John Gorman, the England coaches, were sitting. I glared at all of them, daring them to tell me whether I was in, to give me some sort of clue. I could see in Glenn Roeder’s eyes what Hoddle had decided. There might even have been a tear there. It was clear to me that they all knew the score.

I couldn’t control myself any longer. I burst straight into Hoddle’s room, where he was talking to Phil Neville, and I went ballistic.

‘What the fucking hell are you doing? You know what it means to me, you fucking bastard.’

‘Let me explain,’ Hoddle began.

‘I don’t want to hear any fucking explanations. I don’t care what your reasons are. You know what you’re doing to me? You are a fucking bastard …’

I went over to his wardrobe and kicked in the door. Then I overturned his table, smashing a pottery vase and sending it crashing to the floor. In the process I managed to cut my leg, so now there was blood all over the place as well. I didn’t attempt to hit Hoddle, though I would have liked to. I suppose, deep down, I still
respected him, as a player, if not as a manager. And perhaps I also had an inbuilt respect for the position of manager, if not for the man in it. I didn’t lay a finger on him, but I was in a complete fury. It wasn’t long before that he had led me to believe I would be in the final twenty-two, telling the world that we had not seen the best of Gazza yet.

But now I didn’t want to hear any of his rubbish. I was hell-bent on trashing the whole room, and not listening to one word he was saying.

‘Gazza, just calm down and I’ll tell you why I’ve had to do it.’

‘Just fucking shut up, you bastard.’

‘The thing is, Gazza, your head isn’t right.’

‘I got you to France. I saved your skin, your fucking job, and now look what you’re fucking doing to me.’

I was about to start smashing all his windows, when David Seaman and Paul Ince burst in and managed to restrain me. Then they called for the doctor, who gave me a valium tablet to quieten me down.

I was taken to my room. All I wanted now was to leave La Manga at once and never see Hoddle again. Walter Smith’s words echoed in my mind. ‘Hoddle will want to make a name for himself …’

I rang my dad and told him to cancel his French holiday. He wouldn’t be going there any longer. None of our family would be going, not now. Then I got the first plane out of Spain, along with Phil Neville, Ian Walker and Dion Dublin, who had been chucked out with me. Six of us in all had been given the boot. The other two were Nicky Butt and Andy Hinchcliffe. I found out later that most of the squad were surprised, and some were stunned, that I’d been excluded.

From Luton Airport, I shared a car into London with Ian Walker. I rang Shel and asked if I could stay with her for a while. She was brilliant. The first thing she did when I arrived was to give me a big hug. I stayed with her for five days.

I didn’t watch any of the 1998 World Cup, not even any of England’s games. I don’t like watching football at the best of times, as I’d always rather be playing. In these circumstances I really couldn’t face it. I was too sick and gutted.

The press were stalking me, trying to catch me exploding, or doing something else daft. They doorstepped Shel’s house and hid in the garden. One bastard of a photographer managed to creep up on little Regan and the flash went off in his face. Poor little sod. It hurt
his eyes. He was in tears with the shock and the pain. For several minutes he couldn’t see and we seriously wondered whether his eyesight might be affected.

I rang the newspaper this photographer worked for, sounding all calm and reasonable, but I was seething. Why didn’t their photographer, the one who had just snatched a photo of Regan, come back and take a really nice photograph? I suggested. We would give him proper time so that he could do Regan justice.

The prat fell for it. The moment he arrived in his car, I drove mine behind it so that he couldn’t get out again. Then I smashed his door handles. When he got out his camera, I smashed that as well. Some neighbours appeared, having heard me screaming that I was going to kill him. I let him go in the end without actually hitting him. Well, not very hard.

I went inside and told Shel the police would be here soon. ‘I’ll probably get arrested for assault, but fuck it, I don’t care.’

The police did come, and took a statement from me. I just told them the truth: what the photographer had done to my son. I fully expected to have to go to court, but nothing ever happened. I presume the newspaper decided to withdraw charges. No doubt they could
see I had a case; that they had caused all the trouble by invading private property and hurting my son. They must have realised that if it went to court, it wouldn’t make them look very good.

I went on holiday to Florida with Shel and the kids to try to get over it all. But I was in a terrible state for about a year after that, which probably explains a lot of the stupid things I did during that year.

What really pissed me off was when, almost immediately after the tournament was over, Hoddle published his World Cup diary. In it, he described how I trashed his room. I might have spoken to the press about some of it at the time, but it is only now, at six years’ distance, when he is no longer England manager and it doesn’t matter any more, that I am giving my full story of what happened. I’m not denying what I did, but Hoddle should not have written about it while he was still the England manager. He was just cashing in on his position, making money out of my misery. I thought that was disgusting. I was not the only one who thought that, as he was widely criticised for producing that book.

I can’t help wondering why Hoddle didn’t realise when he dropped me that I might cause a scene; that I wouldn’t be able to wait for his poxy appointment; that
I would not be able to control myself and would go mad and cause trouble. After all, he could have dropped the six of us quietly in England, ringing us privately at home, and then announcing the final squad to the papers the next day. But instead he dramatically dropped the axe while we were away in La Manga, all warming up together for the World Cup, being with the lads. I don’t know what the reason for Hoddle’s decision was, but clearly his mind had been made up before I lost it in his room. Yes, as I’ve admitted, I had been drinking the night before, but, as I’ve also said, I wasn’t the only one. And it wasn’t the first time I’d had a drink while with the England squad and gone on to play a blinder.

I still hate what Hoddle did to me, but I don’t bear personal grudges. Never have done. Not for ever, anyway.

I met Hoddle by chance not long ago, in a hotel lift. I shook his hand and he said, how’s it going Gazza? and I said fine, and he smiled, and I smiled, and that was it. It’s all over now. But it will never be forgotten, at least not by me.

I wondered, of course, whether this would be the end of my England career, which was what everybody was suggesting at the time. It was obvious that Hoddle would never pick me again, after what I did to his lousy
bedroom. I just had to hope that Hoddle himself would not be in the job for too long.

I was pleased when David Beckham wrote in his autobiography in 2003 that he felt Hoddle went about things the wrong way. England got through their first group, but were knocked out by Argentina in the quarter-finals, so they didn’t get as far as we did in 1990. David clearly thinks I might have helped. ‘I still wonder if that wasn’t what we were missing in France ’98,’ he wrote. ‘I think we’d have been better with Gazza there. Paul could bring something to the team nobody else could. He could change a game on his own. And I know we’d all have liked him to be around as part of the squad.’

Thanks, David.