Gazza: My Story (36 page)

First, though, I had to do three days’ training with them. It was knackering. When I tried to have a rest, they kept on passing the ball to me. I said, ‘Don’t keep passing to me. What’s happening?’ Then I remembered. I was supposed to be becoming one of their new coaches. They were passing to me all the time so that I would show them what to do with the ball.

After the three days, they offered me a contract. Meanwhile, the first team came back and said they’d take me after all. I said, ‘It’s too late, I’m accepting another offer.’ The British press gave the impression I’d been turned down by the first team, that I had somehow failed, but that wasn’t the case. Wes and I agreed a deal for one year, and I came back to England to sort out various things. Then, in February 2003, I set off for China again, this time to start a new career as player and coach.

The club was called Gansu Tianma, and it was owned by a multimillionaire who lived in Hong Kong, so my first stop was there, to meet him. I flew out with me dad, Jimmy and Wes. We had three first-class tickets and one club class, so Jimmy had to take that. At the Marriott Hotel at Heathrow, where we stayed overnight after coming down from Newcastle to catch the plane to Hong Kong, I had a few glasses of wine, and a brandy, and a few ciggies, just to pass the time. But if I’m scared of flying, my dad is worse. He was in a right state.

An Italian barman from the hotel came across to speak to me in Italian. I replied in Italian. He turned out to be a Lazio fan. They’re everywhere. He asked me to fill in the hotel’s Guest Satisfaction Survey – giving him top marks, of course. So I filled it all in, both sides, even
though he’d said he was going to frame it and stick it above his bar, so there wasn’t much point in writing on the back. But I always complete things. It’s part of the obsession I’ve got, having to have everything neat and tidy.

As my home address, I put China. It looked like a joke, but it wasn’t really. I still didn’t have a home. The survey asked for questions, so I wrote ‘Do you take yuan?’ It amused me, and kept me occupied till the plane took off.

I was really looking forward to getting to China after the Hong Kong meeting, and especially to getting away from the British press. I don’t mind being followed in the street, people looking at me, Italian barmen coming up to talk to me – it’s the lies and stupid tales in the papers that get me down.

The other week, for example, there was a piece headed ‘Gazza wants to be a Girl’, complete with a computer photo of me with boobs and a frock. God knows where they got that from, or why. Just stupid. There was another which really hurt. It said I’d only got three friends left in the world. I like to think I’m respected by all the people I’ve met in football – and loved by a lot of them.

Lanzhou, the home of my new club, turned out to
be the most polluted town in China, in the heart of a heavy industrial area. A bit like Gateshead used to be, but not as nice.

I didn’t mind that too much, as I spent all my time either at the training ground or the hotel, but it wasn’t much fun for my dad and Jimmy. Still, I hadn’t brought them with me to give them a treat. It was for my sake. I wanted Jimmy for company and me dad to keep an eye on me. If I got out of order, or started drinking or misbehaving, I knew he would sort me out. I take more notice of my dad than of anybody else, even after all these years.

Wes left after a few days, once he’d sorted out the contract and various sponsorship matters. My wages depended on me agreeing to support Gansu Tianma in various ways. The deal was worth roughly £400,000 for the year. Jimmy and me dad stayed on for a week or so longer, just to settle me in.

The manager of the club was thirty-eight, so not far off my own age, and he spoke some English. I liked him. The standard of play was about the level of the Second or Third Division in England, but their technique was good, and they regularly got gates of 25,000. They just needed organising.

I was fit enough and I enjoyed trying to coach some
of the young lads. I like helping people. In games, I make a point of telling people when they have played well, or what they should be doing, even those playing for the other side. What was more difficult was trying to combine my bit of coaching with playing. I found it harder to concentrate on my own game.

I would like to be a coach one day. I must have picked up a lot of useful experience over all those years. I’m sure I would be able to rely on Walter Smith or Terry Venables if I needed help or advice at any time. Even Fergie. I could ring him. And there can’t be many dodges the players get up to that I don’t know about. I’ve tried most of them myself.

Going to China was the biggest challenge of my life, in many ways. I had to get to grips with a new and very foreign language, a new culture, a new lifestyle. But I had gone out there determined to do it, and to learn from it all.

What I began to learn was that I couldn’t escape from myself, even all those thousands of miles away. Stuck in my hotel room all the time, when Wes, Dad and Jimmy had gone home, I started to worry, wondering what I was doing here. I was missing Regan, my family, everyone. And I started drinking again.

The football itself was fine. I played four league games and got two goals and the fans loved me. But of course it wasn’t long before I began to feel unwell, what with all the antidepressant pills and the drinking. I still wasn’t right in the head.

The panic attacks returned, and sleepers didn’t help. I was shaking and becoming paranoid. I rang Shel in tears. She suggested I called the therapist I’d been put in touch with by the Priory. He said hang on till May, which was when I was due to have a break, and he’d see me then. I managed to stay sober for ten days, but I still couldn’t sleep and my breathing was terrible. I felt I just wanted to die.

I talked to the club, and they could see I wasn’t well. They agreed that I should fly home, have a break and get treatment. Before I left, I had eight days on the booze. I knew it would be the last time for a long while that I’d get the chance.

I returned to London and then flew on to Arizona and checked myself into Cottonwood. This time I took it all much more seriously. I told them about everything, including the cocaine.

By the time I came out, the Sars virus had started in China, all their football games were off and the season
was in chaos. Then I had a row with Gansu Tianma about my contract. As far as I am concerned, they still owe me money. What with one thing and another, in the end, I never went back.

It was while I was in Arizona that I started writing out my life chart, confessing everything awful I’d ever done or that had happened to me. And it did make me feel better, getting it all down.

I also admitted this time that I did have an illness, which I had to work on if I was going to get better. I had never properly acknowledged that before. I even found myself praying, something I’d never done.

I stayed the full period in the Arizona clinic. In fact, a few days longer – I was actually there for thirty-three days in all. Yet it cost me less than my previous visit – only £16,000 this time. I got a discount for being a regular.

The reason I went to Arizona again, rather than back to the Priory, was partly because I found Arizona stricter, which I felt I needed. We were put in dormitories, sleeping alongside other people, not in single rooms, so it was a bit tougher, not as luxurious.

But the main reason was that I knew I would be a stranger there. None of the therapists or the experts
or the ordinary workers at Cottonwood had ever heard of Gazza, or read stories about him. They didn’t know beforehand about what sort of person he was.

It meant I was able to tell my life story as if I were telling it to a stranger, someone who knew nothing about me, just like everyone else. I found this easier. It freed me to talk about everything, keeping nothing back. That in turn enabled me to make my chart as complete as it can be.

I rang Shel from Cottonwood and asked if she would take me back now. She said I could come and stay, as long as I was sober and behaved myself. So that’s what I did.

That was one good thing that came out of Arizona – that and my chart. I realise now, as I’m glancing through it, that it seems packed with awful things about me. But that was the main point: to own up to all those awful things, in the hope that I could then put them behind me.

But it might give the impression that my whole life, inside and outside football, has been all bad, which of course it hasn’t. I honestly think I’ve had a brilliant career. I’ve met so many people, earned so much, achieved so much, seen so much.

For me, the best player among my contemporaries, the best I ever played alongside, was Bryan Robson. When he was captain of England, it always felt so good knowing he was there. He could do everything: he worked all over the park and was an inspiration. I admired him so much. I think he was the greatest in the world in his position.

I’ve always been a great admirer of Chris Waddle and Peter Beardsley, and not just because they are friends and former team-mates, but because they both had such natural talent. Beardsley was so clever. He could open up the hardest defence. Waddle was a brilliant person to have in your side. If you wanted a break, to give yourself or the
team a little rest, and also to annoy the opposition, all you had to do was give the ball to Chris. He’d keep it and hold it for five minutes, driving the other side mad.

Gary Lineker was about the best striker I ever played with. You always knew, in every game, he was more than likely to score. Just as good was Alan Shearer. Like Lineker, it was great to have him in front of you, knowing he could always get us a goal. It gave us such confidence, having either of them up front. I probably had more laughs with Alan. In the dressing room, he would shout ‘COME ON BOYS’ and I would shout back ‘COME ON ENGLAND’. It was a sort of daft routine we always had, which made us all laugh.

The greatest footballer of my generation still playing is Roy Keane. He’s getting on now, and has had lots of injuries, but currently he remains the best in his position anywhere. I remember first encountering him when he was at Nottingham Forest. Quite a few people in football had been talking about him, so I gave him a roasting that day, dominating the midfield. Which, of course, he will deny. During that match, to wind him up, I said to him, ‘I thought you were supposed to be the next Paul Gascoigne.’

The most professional was probably Gary Mabbutt,
the perfect pro, an example to us all. Kevin Campbell at Everton was also an excellent professional.

I never played against Johan Cruyff, but he’s probably the footballer I have most admired from afar, along with Pele. As I’ve said, I did play against Maradona, but he wasn’t at the top of his game then.

Of today’s players, I admire Beckham, of course. And not just because he said so many nice things about me in his autobiography. In that book, he also tells a story of me sitting by the pool with him during the preparations for the 1998 World Cup, before I got chucked out, obviously. He recalls me saying to him: ‘Do you know something, David? I love you. You’re a great young player and you’re a great lad. I love playing football with you.’ It clearly made a big impression on him, and gave him a boost. I don’t actually remember that but it sounds like something I would say. I always tried to encourage the younger players, reminding myself of how much it had mattered to me when I had first got in the England squad.

We all now know about his free kicks and passing. You could see that talent from a young age. He doesn’t beat people by dribbling, and his speed is not amazing, but neither was mine. His vision, however, is incredible.

I also admire him for the way he’s handled the press – despite various scandal stories. He’s taken his share of stick and bad publicity, but he’s used the media to his own advantage, which is something I never managed. I was always getting angry with them, or was rude, or belched or farted, which I thought was funny, but they didn’t – especially in Italy. I grew to hate the press, and of course they were the winners. They got their own back.