Gazza: My Story (16 page)

Whatever my commitments with England or the distractions of my new-found fame, my first loyalty at that time was always to Spurs. In my first season with them, 1988–9, we had finished sixth in the old First Division. In all competitions, I made thirty-seven appearances and scored seven goals. I like to think that the Spurs fans had taken to me, perhaps even seeing me as a replacement for their hero Glenn Hoddle, who had left the season before I arrived. In my second season, 1989–90, we shot up to third, which was even better.

The 1990 season, after my return from the World Cup, did not begin so well as far as the league was
concerned, and the club had a lot of problems. However, we did set off on a good run in the Cup.

There was a lot of criticism of all the commercial work I was doing and a story went round that Terry Venables was going to stop me from taking on any more. That wasn’t true, but what was agreed was that I would not involve myself in any commercial or non-club-related activities seventy-two hours before a game. I did nothing in the way of business on Sundays anyway, as that was my day off, the day I liked to go out with my mates, but the seventy-two-hour rule did help me to get a grip on some of the outside stuff and concentrate on my football.

I always got on well with Terry Venables at White Hart Lane. He knew everything that was going on behind the scenes and could handle players without getting nasty and, unusually, without swearing. In fact, I think he’s the only manager I’ve ever known who didn’t swear.

I swore at him once, though, after one game. It pissed down the whole time and we were well beaten. Afterwards, in the dressing room, I was going around moaning at the lads. ‘Too fucking cold for you, was it? Couldn’t stand the rain? Fucking soft southerners …’

I was in a right foul mood, and when Terry told
me off for my behaviour, I retorted: ‘And you can fuck off as well.’ Very quietly, he instructed me to come to his office when I’d got dressed.

I was shitting myself, wondering what he was going to do, so on my way I went to the players’ lounge, collected two pints of lager and took them into Terry’s office, handing him one as a peace offering. I told him I was very sorry. I shouldn’t have spoken to him like that, and I wouldn’t do it again.

‘I could fine you,’ says Venners. ‘And by rights I should fine you, for bringing me beer and not wine. But I’ll let you off this time. Now, get out.’

Gary Lineker, who joined Spurs in 1989, the year after me, was the total professional, and so was Gary Mabbutt. You couldn’t find better players, on or off the pitch. You might think, judging by Lineker’s squeaky-clean image, that he never let his hair down. Now and again he did relax and enjoy himself, and have the odd drink, but even so, he was always the proper professional.

When he first arrived, he wasn’t scoring. I said to Venners, ‘I thought you said he was a goal machine?’

‘Just wait, you’ll see,’ Terry replied. ‘When he starts scoring, he won’t stop.’

And he didn’t. He got his first goal against Norwich in his sixth match – and then three in the next game with Queens Park Rangers. Terry was right: he was a phenomenal scorer. He notched up a total of twenty-six goals in his first season (compared with my seven) and nineteen the next, 1990–1. I matched his tally that year, but most of mine came in Cup games.

I loved playing with Lineker. We worked out a series of signals. When I had the ball, he would nod his head towards our opponents’ goal, as if he were going to run forward for me to lob the ball over to him. He actually meant the opposite. He would appear to start a run, but then stop and come back and I’d play the ball short to him. When he made a spinning gesture with his finger, he was telling me to put it over the top, and he would then spin round and run forward.

Lineker made the mistake of inviting me to his house once, in a very posh Georgian terrace in St John’s Wood. His mistake was letting me know where he lived. When I came up to London for the day from Hertfordshire, I’d leave my car in his front drive and go off into town. Gary would come out to find I’d blocked his car in, sometimes for the whole day, and he’d be really furious when he saw me the next day.

Paul Walsh was another great player, even though he was a short-arse. All the girls loved him, and he loved himself. That’s what we used to say to him in the dressing room when he was combing his long hair, putting all the gel on. He became a good friend of mine and I later played at his testimonial.

Chris Waddle left White Hart Lane for Marseille in 1989, but while he was still at Spurs, he and I were the naughty ones. The hard bastards were Terry Fenwick and Paul Stewart. I mean on the pitch. They knew how to get stuck in. Then there were what I call the daft lads, like Steve Sedgley. Along with me, of course. It was a strange dressing room, throwing together this whole range of personalities, from the very serious and solid and sensible Garys Lineker and Mabbutt to the crazies, like me.

John Moncur came into the daft category, too, which used to worry his dad – especially when Moncur Senior found out that John was going out somewhere with me. I’d often ring his dad and say, ‘Hi, I’m just with John. We’re going off to the City Limits in Loughton for a few rounds of the chicken game.’ He would go mad, and demand to speak to John, so that he could warn him on no account to go out drinking with me.
But John wouldn’t even be with me – I was making it all up. His dad would eventually track John down and then he’d get a telling-off about going out drinking with Gazza.

We did used to go to the City Limits a lot, though. The chicken game was this machine it had which you put money into and tried to catch chicken eggs. According to our rules, whoever lost the game had to make as loud a chicken noise as possible and buy the winner a B52. This was a mixture of Baileys and Grand Marnier. After three hours of playing the chicken game, we’d more often than not be stotting.

Next door to the pub was a playground, right on the road, with lots of traffic flying by. ‘Now let’s go to the arena!’ was the usual rallying cry after we’d been drinking for a while. We’d leave the City Limits and stage our own version of the Olympics in this playground. You had to slide down a slide, or swing on a swing, jump over some bars, then land on your feet in the ‘arena’ and give a big smile to the crowd, while the others gave you marks out of ten.

For some reason, it always ended up with one or other of us taking our clothes off. I suppose footballers do spend a lot of time naked, getting in and out of their
kit, having showers, and so we’re used to seeing each other in the buff. But I never went in for mooning or any of that kind of thing. I don’t like being seen with my clothes off in public. People like John and Steve Sedgley, on the other hand, didn’t seem to think anything of it. Steve once stood on the roundabout near the arena, bollock-naked, pretending to be a traffic policeman and directing the traffic.

John Moncur put up with a lot from me. We went to Portsmouth for an important fifth-round FA Cup tie in February 1991. The night before, I couldn’t sleep, as usual, so I got John up and out of his bed. I’d discovered that the hotel had a squash court, so I begged him: ‘Just play one game with me. Come on John, please. Then I’ll be tired out and I can get back to sleep.’

One game led to another and we played about eleven in two hours. We were both knackered at the end, and aching all over. We shouldn’t have been playing squash at all, of course. The night before a football match you’re supposed to take it easy and rest.

On the coach to Fratton Park I could hardly move, my legs were so sore. I tried to do some press-ups when no one was watching to get them going. John wasn’t actually due to play, but Terry Fenwick broke his leg in
a freak accident, and he was called on to the subs’ bench but didn’t play.

In the first half, I felt terrible, really stiff and sore, and at half-time we were 1–0 down. In the second half, I felt and played better. I got two goals and we eventually won 2–1.

Afterwards, Venners somehow found out that two players had been playing late-night squash on the eve of the game and launched an investigation to find out who they were. It didn’t take him long to come up with my name. I got a telling-off, but I don’t think he was too bothered. He said I was hyperactive and that work-out probably helped me. But he was worried about who the other person was. I don’t think he ever found out.

When Nayim first joined Spurs, in 1989, he didn’t drink at all. When he arrived, he was put up at the Swallow Hotel, just as I had been. I told him I’d look after him. ‘Don’t worry, you’ll be safe with me.’ I took him out and ordered Long Island iced tea for him, explaining that, as its name suggested, it was a type of tea. He had no idea it was a cocktail, containing about five different white spirits, plus a Coke. I got the barman to put an extra Coke in it to disguise the taste of the
alcohol. After five of these, Nayim was staggering, so I took him out and bought him a kebab.

At the players’ Christmas party, at a place in the West End, I managed to spike his drink with spirits, and he was well away. Everyone was worried about him, so I got him into a taxi, promising to take him home. Instead I took him to Gary Lineker’s house and dumped him there, without telling Gary. He had to spend the night there. He was still sleeping it off when Gary got home.

Another Christmas Phil Gray and I had a drinking competition with a young player. Not surprisingly, we won easily and he was soon totally pissed. We put him in a taxi, took him to King’s Cross and made for the first train we saw. We put him in a carriage and took all his clothes off. He woke up, naked, in Cambridge. There was then a call to the Christmas party hotel saying that a lad claiming to be a Spurs player had been found naked in a railway station. Gary Mabbutt had to get some clothes and go and collect him. Venners wasn’t pleased by that incident.

The other players weren’t my only victims. There was a Spurs fan who became a friend and used to come and watch me train all the time and generally follow me around.
He was at training one day when my dad happened to be there. He’d left his motor home in the car park, and someone had put one of those traffic comes we used in training on the roof. I asked my friend if he’d climb up on to the roof and get it down. As soon as he was up there, I got in the motor home and started driving it along the A1, going faster and faster. He was screaming and shouting, ‘Please, please, Gazza, stop! I’m a married man, I’ve got a family! You’re going to kill me!’ He was clearly terrified, so I stopped. I’d only been having a laugh.

That motor home didn’t last as long as I’d thought it would. I later drove it under a gate, misjudging the height, and took the roof off, so I had to buy my dad another one.

After we beat Portsmouth in the fifth round of the FA Cup, we met Notts County. We won that game 2–1, and I scored the winner. And guess who we found ourselves facing in the semi-final? Arsenal. They were top of the league and clear favourites to win everything, possibly the first Double twice.

I’d had hernia trouble for some time but I kept pushing myself on, even though I was often in agony. The club would give me injections before a game, and sometimes even at half-time as well.

I suppose some might say it’s bad that clubs do such things, and that it’s building up worse trouble for you in the future. I don’t know about that. But when it happened to me, I never blamed the club. I wanted them to give me a painkiller or whatever. I was desperate to get back on, to get over injuries. I never objected – because I knew it worked. I did feel better afterwards – and usually played better.

Before we played Norwich, I think it was, I felt hellish in the warm-up, but Venners said, ‘You’ve been picked to play, Paul – get on there, we need you.’ In spite of the injections, I still felt terrible, and I gave away the first goal. The coaching staff realised I was in a bad way so they had an ambulance waiting for me after the game. At the hospital, I was told I had to have an operation for a double hernia, which would keep me out for six weeks.

While I was in hospital with my double hernia, my balls began to grow to twice their normal size. I was astonished. I shouted for the nurse one day. ‘Nurse, nurse, come quick.’ She came running, thinking there was something wrong. ‘Look at these,’ I said.

She held my balls in her hand and said, ‘Yes, they are big, but what’s the matter?’

‘Nothing’s the matter, pet. But don’t you think they’re massive?’

She went off, shaking her head. ‘Ee, Gazza, what are you like?’

I think she might have been a Geordie.

I managed to recover from the operation in four weeks, and was rushed to full fitness in time for the FA Cup semi-final against Arsenal at Wembley. After just five minutes of the match, we were awarded a free kick about thirty yards from their goal. I took the kick. I hit the ball as hard as I could, managed to make it swerve and poor old Dave Seaman got beaten all ends up. I don’t think he saw it till he picked it out of the net.

I then linked with Paul Allen to provide an opening for Lineker, which he didn’t miss. Arsenal pulled a goal back before the interval. Our defence held well in the second half, despite intense Arsenal pressure, and then Lineker grabbed his second. We had done what most people thought was unlikely, if not impossible: we had thumped Arsenal 3–1.

Better still, we were in the FA Cup final;
I
was in the FA Cup final, for the first time in my life. The previous season had finished with the thrill of a World Cup semi-final, and this one was going to end on a high
with a Wembley Cup final. Life couldn’t have been much more exciting.