Gazza: My Story (23 page)

I spoke to the Rangers manager Walter Smith on the phone, and then I met him. ‘Drink that beer,’ he said to me. ‘Don’t talk.’ I thought, this is all right, so I agreed to join them. There was, of course, more to it
than that, and negotiations went on for some time between Rangers and Lazio.

Around this time, my lawyer Mel Stein was charged in relation to some alleged financial scandal in the USA and Len asked me to help out with his bail security (which I did) – about £30,000. Mel was cleared of all charges in the end, but unsurprisingly the strain of the case had a terrible effect on him. He looked on the point of collapse.

In my last week at Lazio, I drove to training on my Harley-Davidson (I had nine Harley-Davidson bikes at one time – I’d learned to ride motorbikes by now) wearing shorts and flip-flops and smoking a big cigar. All the lads burst out laughing. As I knew I was leaving there seemed little point in making an effort, so I just mucked around all week.

On the last day, I arrived half-drunk. I crouched down at the side of the pitch, where Zeman was supervising training. I went down on one knee and asked him, ‘O great coach, have you any tips, please, as I want to be a great coach like you one day.’ I was clutching a Lucozade bottle full of wine. I was killing myself laughing, and fell over. I stayed on the ground, pretending to be asleep. In the end, Boksic had to carry me to my car.

I had several cars, as well as my bikes, in Italy. I pranged one of the cars once, and when the Lazio fans heard it was mine, it was taken apart where I had left it, in the middle of the road, by supporters pinching bits as souvenirs. Roma fans were, of course, not quite as adoring. Some of them spiked my drink once. I don’t know what they put in it, but I began to see polar bears instead of trees. I had to tell the Lazio club doctor about it, in case I was called for a random drugs test.

When I finally left, I gave Johnny and Augusto a Subaru each as a farewell present. They’d been good pals to me all the time I’d been at Lazio. And then it was Arrivederci Roma from me, and from my ‘amico Jimmy Cinquepance’, as he was called in the Italian papers. Jimmy had become well known in Italy, for his gentlemanly, quiet behaviour, of course, and his slim figure.

When I’d first got together with Shel, back in 1991, I’d wanted us to have a baby. I looked upon Bianca and Mason as my children, and I was financially responsible for them, but I wanted my own child, too. But we had so many arguments while we were in Italy – we were always splitting up and getting back together. For about two years, I never mentioned it.

Shel came out at the end of the season for our holiday. We were driving in the car one day before setting off from Rome when she turned to me and said, ‘I’m pregnant.’

My first thought was, oh shit. That’s the last fucking thing I need. Yeah, I know it was horrible. It’s not the way to behave when your girlfriend says she’s pregnant. I know that, don’t tell me. I should have given her a hug.

We went on holiday as planned, first of all in Italy, then to Las Vegas. I was hardly speaking to her. I was just stuffing my face all the time with ice cream and burgers and rubbish. I even suggested an abortion, but she refused to consider it. I was a total bastard, really.

Although I’d once wanted her to have our baby, over the years things had changed. I couldn’t see us stopping the arguments and the continual break-ups, and it didn’t seem right to bring a baby into that situation.

After our holiday, I went up to Scotland and Shel returned to Hertfordshire.

I arrived at Rangers in July 1995. The transfer fee was £4.3 million – almost the same as Lazio had paid for me, so they could hardly complain that I lost them any
money. It was the most Rangers had ever paid for a player. It had been the same when I went to Spurs and to Lazio – they had each broken their transfer records to sign me. I was to receive £15,000 a week, with an increase every season, plus a signing-on fee.

I fell in love with Rangers right from the beginning. Thousands of fans turned up to greet me and watch me in training. I met Sean Connery, who happened to be at the club one day. I shook his hand and thought, I wonder how many boobs his hands have touched?

Rangers had a great team, with sixteen internationals from various countries: Brian Laudrup, Gordan Petric, Mikhailichenko, Mark Hateley. Ally McCoist was great – he took the piss out of me from the word go. Mark Hateley seemed a bit flash, with his big hair and his big Rolex.

I was told when I arrived that the tradition at Rangers was that you had to turn up for training in a suit and tie. You always had to look smart whenever you were on the premises, to maintain the good name of the club. So I went out and bought ten Versace suits – but in all the brightest colours: yellow and red and white. I was following the club rules, but not quite in the way intended. And I got my hair bleached. I can’t remember
why. It must have seemed like a good idea at the time. I suppose I thought I’d have a new image for my new club. Out of my signing-on fee, I bought myself a special BMW for £87,000, and a new Jaguar for my dad.

I also got my teeth done. My top teeth had always been at an angle, sort of slanty, and of course, with all the sweets I’ve eaten in my life, they weren’t in perfect condition, either. I got the whole top row, sixteen of them I think, capped. It went on for weeks, getting them prepared and fitted, and cost me £12,000. At one stage, I had to wear some temporary caps, which were too big and stuck out. When I arrived in the dressing room, all the lads had a good laugh. Ally McCoist said I could now eat an apple through a letterbox. Very quick, was Ally.

Before the season proper began, I scored in a pre-season game against Galatasaray, and then in two other warm-up games. Three goals in four outings wasn’t a bad start. One of these was a friendly at home against Steaua Bucharest. Celebrating my goal, I turned to the fans and pretended to play the flute. The lads had told me that this was what I should do to make myself popular with the Rangers fans. I didn’t know at the time what it meant, and what they didn’t tell me was the kind of
reaction it would spark in Celtic supporters. But there wasn’t too much of a fuss, not that time, since we were at home against a foreign team and the crowd were all Rangers fans. It was later explained to me that this imitation of flute players marching in the Orange parades mocked the Catholic Celtic supporters and was extremely provocative.

I made my competitive debut in the European Cup preliminary round against Anorthosis of Cyprus, a match which we won 1–0. And I got my first competitive goal for Rangers against Morton in the Coca-Cola (League) Cup. In the Scottish Premier Division, we won three of our first four games before we met Celtic away. We beat them 2–0 and I produced my first league goal. I ran about eighty yards from our penalty area to theirs and stroked home a through ball from Ally McCoist. That was what really endeared me to Rangers fans most of all, scoring against Celtic. Suddenly, Rangers kids all over Glasgow were having their hair bleached.

We won ten of our first twelve league matches, but we didn’t do so well in the European Cup. We were up against some tough teams, such as Borussia Dortmund and Juventus. I wanted to do especially well against Juventus. I wasn’t fit for the away leg, which we lost
1–4, but I played in the home game. In that one we were stuffed 4–0.

I got into the habit of having a brandy before I went on the pitch, just to relax me. There was a hip flask with my name on it, and fifteen minutes before kick-off, I took a swig. The club knew about this, but obviously they thought that if I was doing the business it couldn’t be doing me much harm.

We continued to do well in the league. The vital match that would clinch it for us came towards the end of the season, on 28 April, when we met Aberdeen at Ibrox. We were 1–0 down early on, but I beat two men and hammered the ball into the roof of the net to equalise.

At half-time, I felt knackered, and in the second half I was running on pure adrenaline, not energy, but I managed another goal. I could hear Alan McLaren behind me yelling: ‘Come on, Gazza, you can do it, keep going!’ Somehow I found the resources to make it a hat-trick. That was probably my best feeling ever, perhaps an even bigger high than that derby goal for Lazio gave me.

So we won the title, finishing four points ahead of Celtic, and in the Scottish Cup final, we beat Hearts to do the Double. I had scored nineteen goals in my first
season, from a total forty-two appearances in all competitions, which was only five fewer than I had made in three seasons at Lazio.

It was a great beginning to my Rangers career, and I loved every minute of it. I was also voted Player of the Year in Scotland and chosen for the same honour by the press.

I was pissed before the award ceremony was even underway, and I could see Walter Smith shaking his head, knowing what would happen when it was time for me to stand up and receive my trophy. He made the organisers present it to me early, and then sent it on home in a taxi, just in case I lost it.

In my first season at Rangers, when Shel was about five months pregnant, she answered the door at her home in Hertfordshire to a woman who announced that I had raped her. I was up in Scotland at the time and knew nothing about this.

The next day at training, Walter Smith called me over and said two people wanted to see me. The two people were cops, a man and a woman. They told me I had been accused of rape. I was put on a plane, escorted to London and taken to a police station, where I was
informed that I was going to be charged with raping some woman. I was shaking the whole time. I didn’t understand what all this was about, but it slowly began to dawn on me that the police were saying I might very well end up in jail.

The allegation was published in a newspaper and Shel called me all the names under the sun, and rightly so. But when I told her the full story of what had happened, she believed me and stood by me, which was brilliant of her. But would it be believed in a court of law? It could easily just come down to my word against this girl’s.

I honestly couldn’t remember the girl’s name, or what she looked like, but I remembered the night she was talking about. I’d been drinking in Hertfordshire with two of my mates. It was during one of my splits from Shel, and she told me she didn’t want to see me any more. We went to an Indian restaurant, where we met a couple of girls. One of them invited me back to her place. Her friend came too. At her house, the first girl asked me into her bedroom and suggested that I had sex with her. I was a bit scared, mainly about her getting pregnant, but she said, ‘Don’t worry, I’ve got a condom.’ She fitted it on me herself, and then we had sex. And that was it. I never
saw her again. I didn’t call her and she didn’t call me. I knew nothing about her and heard nothing at all of her till she knocked on Shel’s door.

It was terrible waiting for the case to come to court. I became very depressed and started drinking even more than usual, trying to cope with the depression. Then I began to get awful pains in my head. I thought I was going to explode or go mad. I even had a brain scan, as I’d become convinced I was going over the edge, but it didn’t show up anything untoward. I asked the doctor what it would take, how long it would be, before I flipped. What would make me decide to top myself? I could feel it coming on.

We had a barrister all lined up, and I kept on having to give my statement over and over again. I must say that the police were very friendly. I’ve no complaints there. And most of the papers were giving the girl a hammering, discrediting her story. My mam was, of course, constantly in tears and my whole family were extremely worried. It was terrible for them, when they went out and about, having to put up with all the looks and the gossip. It was bad for everyone at Rangers as well, being asked about me all the time. And of course it was horrible for Shel. For her most of all.

Just as I was beginning to think that the worst would happen, that the judge would believe this girl and I would be sent down, her friend, who had been there that night, decided to give evidence on my behalf. She confirmed that we had both been asked back to this house, and that I had been invited into the girl’s bedroom.

So that was that. The case never got to court. I’d told the whole truth, 100 per cent, and thankfully Shel had stood by me, but it was very draining and tiring and worrying. This kind of thing has happened to me about nine times in total. Only one accusation ever went as far as resulting in a police investigation, but nine girls have come forward and said that I slept with them. It’s what happens. You get offered all sorts, and if people are not married, and sometimes even when they are, they take what’s on offer. Footballers are young, and they are human, and many girls will throw themselves at anyone who is famous. I’m sure it’s always happened, but you have probably read more about it in the last ten years because of the huge sums of money girls can make from kiss-and-tell stories – up to £100,000 I’ve been told, if it’s three in a bed, or if you can say you slept with two or more star players. Girls deliberately seek out footballers, no question. But at one time they
would have been content just to boast about their conquests to their mates. Now it’s practically an industry.

So you have to be very, very careful. When you meet a girl you have to do your best to make sure she’s not the sort who is interested in you purely for her own financial gain. If she is, she’ll sell you down the river, squeezing the maximum out of very little, twisting things round, making things up or making things worse. The clubs, of course, hate all this. It tarnishes their good names. And so they don’t like the bad publicity they get if you are seen or reported to have been out on the town living it up when you should have been at home, resting.

I remember that after I’d split up with Gail, my first proper girlfriend, not long after I first came to London with Spurs, I met a girl in the West End one night and arranged to see her again. I said I’d meet her the following Friday at the main door of Harrods. It was the only place I could think of that I knew how to find.