#2Sides: My Autobiography Read online

  The same cycle would repeat itself. It went on like for 18 months! The doctors worked out it was a problem in my lower back – the SI joint, L3 and L4 – and they couldn’t fix it. Between 2009 and 2010 – that was the worst time.

  I couldn’t even go in the garden with my kids. That used to kill me. My boy would say. ‘Dad, can you come in the garden and play football?’

  ‘Oh, lads I can’t. I can’t get out there at the moment.’

  I felt awful. I couldn’t even stand up for longer than a couple of minutes. I just about managed to get out for the school run, then get back to the car and have to take a deep breath. At night I’d wake up, sweating, thinking ‘Fuck me; I’m going to have to retire. I don’t want to go out like this. I don’t want to go out on a sick-note.’

  Some days bed was the only place my back felt comfortable. I’d get up and try to move around in the afternoon. Then, when the kids went to bed, I’d just lie down and watch TV. Most days I’d basically lie down and watch the sports channel, or reality TV.

  There was so much fear and anxiety about being injured. At times I almost wished I had something straightforward like a broken leg. With some injuries you know: if you get a cruciate it’s six months; a broken leg it’s a couple of months. Meniscus is four weeks. You know how long so you’ve got the light at the end of the tunnel. Not having that light ate away at me. Bad back? No one knew what was wrong. Not the top specialist, not even the top physios. I thought: ‘If they don’t know, who else will? How am I ever going to get better?’

  It must seem strange to an outsider. But you have to remember football is still a ‘macho man’ culture. I’d never been injured before, so I’d never had those thoughts going through my head. Looking back I think I was projecting my feelings onto other people. I would have looked at myself and thought ‘Fucking hell, I reckon he can play, he just don’t fancy it this week. We’ve got Everton this week and big Duncan Ferguson’s playing so he just don’t fancy it …’ At West Ham I used to think Paolo di Canio wouldn’t play in certain games. He’d play at home and be a macho man, but I’d think ‘He won’t turn up next week ’cos it’s Everton away.’ Sometimes I was right. Sometimes I was wrong. But that was my mentality: you should be out there no matter what.

  Looking back I can see the whole psychology was weird. I should have been more balanced. Injuries are part of football – everyone knows that. But I felt ashamed; I’d walk into the training ground like a mouse, hugging the walls and doors. I didn’t want anyone to see me; I didn’t want to have contact with anyone. To be honest, I didn’t want to go to the training ground at all. I tried to arrive when the lads had gone out for training so no one would see me. You’re embarrassed. You think: ‘The lads are all having a banter and I’m not out there …’ You don’t feel part of it. You feel lonely. You feel insecure.

  Do the lads think I’m shirking?

  Do they think I don’t want to play anymore?

  Do they think I’ll never get back to what I was?

  So you don’t want to be around them. I’d always been one of the bigger personalities in the changing room: bubbly, up for a laugh. But you become subdued. Even around the physios and sports scientists and coaches. When I wasn’t playing they’d see me around the training ground, and they’d be a bit subdued and I’d be a bit subdued. But as soon as I got back to training, the difference was obvious first time out on the pitch. Suddenly they were loud and lively again: ‘Oh, I can tell you’re back, fucking hell!’ The difference was just immediate. When I went back into training, the lads would be laughing at me. I’d walk in and they’d take the piss and say: ‘Oh fuck, look at him!’ or ‘Rio’s alright. Rio can train today.’

  I didn’t really let on to the doc, or the gaffer or anyone how much pain I was probably in ’cos I just wanted to keep playing. I thought ‘If I don’t play, the manager’s going to go and try and buy someone else.’ That didn’t help me in the long run. I thought I’d find the cure.

  The lads weren’t much help. But to be honest I’m the same. When you’ve got an injury you don’t want to burden anyone else with it and you try and get back as quick as possible. When you’re playing, there’s so much going on, you’re so busy being worried about getting yourself ready for the game – physically, mentally – you’re a little bit selfish. I remember when Louis Saha was at United. He had a lot of injuries, and when I look back, he must have been feeling really shit. You’d see him every day and I remember saying to him ‘What you doing, man? How’s the injury? When you back?’ And he’d go ‘Oh I don’t know, man’ and slope off. When I look back I realise he must have been thinking ‘I don’t even want to see Rio because all he ever fucking does is ask me about my fucking injury.’ You think you’re being concerned and showing an interest, but he’s probably got every member of the squad saying that. Sometimes you just have to leave people to it.

  There’s an old-school idea in English football that you have to play on whatever. A lot of foreign players, if they get injuries, that’s it: they shut down and down tools. We say: ‘Look at them, the flipping pansies, they just play one game, it’s a big game we need them to play and he’s not even going to hurt himself just a little bit to play.’ But invariably these guys go on for a bit longer than us because they take themselves out of the firing line when they get a little niggle and don’t let themselves get exposed to more injuries.

  We’re a bit more stupid; we think we’re ‘Braveheart’. It’s your personal pride. The gaffer says ‘Are you ready to play or not?’ When I can’t actually walk, I’ve had to say: ‘Sorry, boss, I just can’t.’ But you sit there doubting yourself; you think, ‘Did I really say that?’ You know deep down you can’t play but you’re still thinking: ‘But could I? Could I go out there and play? Oh no! I’ve let the manager down!’

  You’re always playing with your own mind. ‘Am I cheating him? Am I cheating myself? Am I cheating the club?’ Really and truly, if you did play you’d be probably letting the club down and you might be out for longer which will let the club down even further.

  Strangely enough, Alex Ferguson was really easy with injuries. He had such a big squad that you being injured sometimes worked in his favour. If someone got injured he could give someone else a game. Unless it was a really massive game and he thought: ‘I need him to play.’ Then he’d show his disappointment. But he’d never push you to play. He’d say ‘Just let me know. Let me know on Friday… or let me know in the morning.’ That way he could make his decision on what to do.

  I was trying to mask the extent of the problem from everybody. Probably the club doctor had an idea. But the amount of tablets I was taking … I wouldn’t tell anyone how bad it really was. If I had my time again I would have just stopped and said ‘I need to find a way to solve this.’ But I didn’t see a way out. I thought: ‘I’ve got to either keep playing like this or retire because this is just too much, and I’m not going to be able to walk when I finish football.’ It was crazy. I had some really depressive moments. You think: am I ever going to play properly again? At top level? Are my kids ever going to be able to watch me play? What the hell’s going on? You don’t ask yourself once every few months or once a week – it’s continuous. When you’re driving into the training ground it’s ‘How many more times will I be doing this?’

  Compounding the problem, you’ve got people in the media saying: ‘Oh he’s gone. His legs have gone … He’s injury prone.’ People in the street stop you and ask ‘When you coming back? Are you all right or what? What’s going on?’ You don’t even want to talk to anyone! Every person walking by is asking you about your injury! Actually I used that later. People doubting me, writing me off; that was my fuel, my fuel to work that extra bit harder to come back.

  The other thing that really bothered me is … I can’t imagine my life without playing football. I can’t imagine giving my place up in the team or letting someone else have an opportunity to prove themselves. I was so scared of not being able to get back in t
he team – of not playing. I was scared of having to give up doing what I do every day and what I love.

  Yet loads of people, hundreds of people … all they can talk about is money! People came up to me and said ‘Oh, it don’t matter ’cos you’re earning loads of money.’ It’s what people write on social media: ‘Don’t worry. What do you care? You’re earning hundreds of grands a week or whatever.’ People think that money is the route to all happiness and that it solves all the problems. But there’s more to life than earning money. OK it’s easy for me to say – I know – but once you get past a certain point with money, the only thing you’re thinking about is what you love. To be stopped from doing something you love, no matter how much money you’ve got … it’s hard to deal with that.

  As it happens, I was thinking about money in a completely different way. I was thinking: if I’m injured, should they even be paying me? I really worried about it. Do I warrant getting paid this money?

  I remember my Dad saying to me ‘Look what you’ve done for the club.’ And friends said: ‘Of course you deserve it. You’ve helped win things. You’ve been a part of winning teams. You’ve not missed a lot of games through injury before. You’ve not cheated anyone. The club knows that. Anyway, it’s part of the game, being injured, and the club understands that.’

  But I couldn’t get on board with that; I was embarrassed. I’d think to myself: the manager must be sitting there thinking ‘Fucking hell, we are paying him all this money and look at him, sitting on his arse.’ Then I’d see the chief executive David Gill, and think: ‘He must be thinking the same thing.’ And I’d think the fans must be thinking the same thing. Going round and round in my head were the thoughts I thought people must be thinking about me. Even though they quite possibly didn’t think any of those things.

  And eventually … well, I got lucky.

  Just when I was getting really depressed, and thinking it was all over, the doctor at the club, Dr McAnally, found a clinic in Milton Keynes called the Blackberry Clinic. They specialise in doing scans so they can see how your back looks when it moves. There’s an injection they give you into a small area where the pain is and they use the scan to watch how your back moves under stress. They found that certain ligaments in my lower back were very weak and that was the reason for all these problems – the groin and hamstring and calf problems too. I’d been compensating for the back weakness by making all the forces going through my body go to the wrong place.

  The cure was surprisingly simple: injections. They injected a sugar formula to stiffen the ligaments. No cortisone, no drugs; just a sugar to strengthen the ligaments that attach the bones together in my spine. It was almost like an immediate ‘Eureka!’ moment. My back suddenly felt secure again: I didn’t feel the instability; I didn’t feel like my back was about to break. So I had a course of injections – six injections over six weeks. The pain was unbelievable. But you know me! Being the man I am, I coped – no problem!

  Actually it hurt like hell. But afterwards I was up and running, and it was the most fantastic feeling. I now appreciate things I used to take for granted – like being properly fit, playing at the highest level, and competing for titles and trophies. In 2010 I played a load of games, and the season after that I made the most appearances by any of our defenders – and we won the league. I still need painkillers occasionally and twice a year I have to have top-up injections. But the nightmare was over almost as suddenly as it began. I came back; I proved I could still play at the highest level; I proved the doubters wrong.

  I felt great again.

  On Racism

  My Mum’s white

  My Dad’s black

  I see things from a white perspective

  And a black perspective

  Just respect each other

  That’s all I want for my kids

  I don’t think it’s a hard thing to ask for

  1. LULLED

  My Mum and Dad’s story would make a film. They’d be walking together and passers-by would spit on Mum because she was walking with a black guy. Other times they’d be stopped by the police. Dad would be treated badly by the police and others on the estate. For being with a white woman. And Mum would get treated badly too. By the police. For being with a black guy.

  It sounds like a story from apartheid South Africa, doesn’t it? But that was London in the 1970s. That’s the kind of shit my parents had to go through to have my brothers and me. Now I’m a Dad and my wife is white. And I don’t want our kids to have to go through the same crap.

  When I was growing up in Peckham there was plenty of racism around but you never knew when you’d run into it, or how toxic it would be, or exactly how to react. My estate was a real mixture of people: Irish, English, African, Caribbean, Turkish. Mostly we all got on well and played together. But there was also an older set of guys we’d play with every now and again who were all white. They were mostly Millwall or Arsenal fans and you’d definitely hear racist comments from them sometimes. One time we were playing and these guys started making monkey noises at us. Ubu babba, Ubu babba … that kind of thing. We were much younger and smaller than them, so it really wasn’t a fight we could physically fight. But we had something in common as well. Football. They were good at football, and so were we. So we’d play against them. Or, to put it another way, we’d play with them. Football was a bringer-together. Football trumped everything else. We might not like these guys sometimes but we’d play together for hours at a time. And while we were playing we’d be knitted together. But you’d hear the odd racist comment, especially if we were winning. So then the question became: what are we going to do about this? Well, all we really could do was say, ‘fuck off.’ It wouldn’t go further. In my mind, I always had the ultimate back-up. If things got proper serious, I could’ve told my Dad and he’d have sorted them all out. But I never did, because I wanted to keep playing football against better players, with these guys. So we kept it in the background and never spoke about it.

  Of course it was different if anyone off the estate ever said anything like that. That was a fight straight away. Looking back, it seemed a weird way to deal with that situation. But when I was younger my first reaction when someone said something racist was always to fight. When I got older, I’d exact revenge in a different way. I’d think: right, I have to win this game now. Or I’ve got to score. I remember going for my first training session at Charlton. One of their kids called me a ‘black bastard’ and we got into a fight immediately. The response of their coach John Cartwright was brilliant. He stepped in, took my side, made the boy apologise and banned him for a few weeks. I hadn’t even signed for Charlton. I was impressed.

  On the estate Mum was magnificent. My next door neighbour called me a ‘black bastard’ and when I knocked on the door for her daughter to come out and play, I heard her say, ‘don’t let that nigger in the door.’ I went back to Mum and said, ‘what’s a nigger?’ I didn’t know. I was only young. Mum went straight round, kicked the door down and dragged the woman out and made her apologise to me.

  Much later, I became aware of racism in professional football. I’d seen that picture of my hero John Barnes contemptuously back-heeling a banana some racist had thrown at him on the pitch. I knew players like Paul Ince, Brendon Batson and Viv Anderson were getting grief. I’d seen stadium racism first-hand too, when I went with a mate to see Millwall play Derby. Derby had four or five black players and they were all playing well. This geezer in front of us was going, ‘those fucking black bastards, send them back to where they’re fucking from.’ Then he turned around and noticed me. There was a policeman standing right next to me. I looked at the policeman and he looked through me like nothing had been said. Then the guy says: ‘not you, mate, just the ones on the pitch.’ I just got up and said to my friend: ‘I’m leaving, man. I can’t deal with this shit.’

  I never heard anything like that at West Ham. There never seemed to be a problem with being black and playing for West Ham. In the 1970s they
had Clyde Best and Ade Coker. Paul Ince had come through there, so had George Parris. West Ham always had a few black players. I felt very comfortable at the club. And by the late 1990s and 2000s things seemed to have improved all over the country. You weren’t hearing racist comments at grounds in England any more. If incidents happened abroad with the national team or the Under 21s, as happened in Spain and Serbia and other places, the FA responded strongly. The media seemed okay on the subject, too. I thought our game, and our FA, were doing well and should be applauded. Organisations like Show Racism The Red Card and Kick It Out seemed to be doing a good job too, and I did events for them. I remember doing a campaign with Thierry Henry and telling people: ‘I’m not seeing racism in the stands,’ and ‘England has done a great job.’

  Then, on 15th October 2011, Manchester United played Liverpool at Anfield. In the sixty-second minute, as Patrice Evra marked Luis Suárez at a corner, they started speaking to each other in Spanish. I was a couple of yards away and didn’t hear a thing. To quote from the later FA report, the conversation went like this:

  Patrice Evra: Fucking hell, why did you kick me?

  Luis Suarez: Because you’re black.

  Patrice Evra: Say it to me again, I’m going to kick you.

  Luis Suarez: I don’t speak to blacks.

  Patrice Evra: OK, now I think I’m going to punch you.

  Luis Suarez: OK, blackie, blackie, blackie.

  It was a Frenchman and a Uruguayan talking in Spanish but the conversation and its aftermath was big news in England for months. After much strife, Suarez was found guilty by the FA of racial abuse, and was fined and banned for eight games. At the two clubs, football tribalism kicked in immediately. At Manchester United we backed Pat, of course. We knew him as a serious, genuine guy who’d made a serious allegation. He’d never lied about anything before, why would he lie now? By contrast Liverpool players and their manager instinctively backed their man, saying Suarez was a great guy. The way Liverpool circled the wagons and later all wore Suarez T-shirts … it left a bad taste. They wanted to show solidarity to their teammate, but they were missing the bigger picture. They got right and wrong mixed up.