Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Footballer who captained England, only man to lead a championship-winning side across three decades; beat addiction and founded a charity.
On the island
Eight records
Uh we've got Earth Wind and Five and Let's Groove, it's the first record ever bought. I did, I I got fifty P in those days and I got Staten Kidney Pie and Chips and ten pence bus fare home. So I didn't get the bus home for a few weeks and I saved up and I walked down Oxo Lane in Dagnum. There's a new record shop that just opened and I bought it's kind of funky too man.
Oh wow, this is for my mother. Like I say, they they completely give up their lives really and they loved every minute of my career. Absolutely loved every minute of it and they gave so much support, really did, so much support and my mother passed away with bone cancer in 2000 which was extremely, extremely painful.
I'm a massive Paul Weller fan, apart from him supporting Chelsea. I got my Sound Effect album signed for my 40th birthday. Thanks Paul. There was a big mod revival in 1978 when I was at school, when I was at Little Boy Lost making up stories. I thought I was the boy about town. And this is The Boy About Town by Jam.
Central line, I'm walking into sunshine, but I joined Arsenal as a professional in 1983. The black guys at the club, Michael Thomas and Dave Rocast, have got me into a new underground kind of movement that was really cool and different, and no one back at school kind of knew. They kind of thought I was a bit cool and a bit different, but I probably won't.
Oh well I I've been shipping around for um football songs. Arsenal were part of my life from seventy nine to two thousand and two and uh that's probably the longest relationship I've ever had with any anything or anybody. So it's the Arsenal's nineteen seventy one squad, the and good old Arsenal out begunners.
Oh, well, you're right. Well, you're very good at your job. You've led me in very well. Yeah, it's a particular record. When I was at the end of my drinking, and I couldn't get this record out of my head, I was so paranoid. There was things come out of the cupboard, to be honest with you.
I've Never Been in Love Before
Oh this is for my darling poppy. Um uh she walked up the aisle uh in two thousand and four uh to this and uh uh share bikeer and uh I've never been in love before.
Always Look on the Bright Side of LifeFavourite
Monty Python always looks on the bright side of life. There is a story behind this, and it's my great it's very up proper now, the chairman, Mr Noel Quinn, sorry, of Sunderland's chairman, so I have to be very respectful here. But we were great buddies, and I think we had more than one or two beers up and down the Olloway Road. He's a really cool guy, but after the one that we lost in 88, the League Cup, I went back to and I stayed in his flat in Enfield and he introduced me to the film Life of Brian, and we must have watched it about three hundred times that evening, and it just makes me smile.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:48When you've been knocked out of the World Cup, what's it like on the journey home?
Horrific, absolutely horrific. I got a lot of criticism in 1988 and I remember coming back into Luton Airport and being chased by a load of, there were three coaches parked of England supporters and they chased me and I legged it… but it was horrific enough that the public was all on my case. But the type of character that I am, we won the league the next year.
Presenter asks
4:49What was [your parents'] story? Where did they come from?
Uh working class, the East End. Yeah, my father he was uh evacuated during the war up to the north east and after the war had finished come back to the east end with a northern accent and uh his family disowned him because of it and threw him out of the house. And uh uh my my grandfather was a very cruel man.
Presenter asks
6:38When was [your ability with the ball] discovered?
Well, I started at six and my father was still playing… I started at six, so I could play for the Under Nines… I knew six. Did you? I knew in internally. I knew that this was for me. I couldn't vocalise it at that point, but inside I knew that that this was for me.
The keepsakes
The book
Bill Wilson
The book of Alcoholics Anonymous … would be the one. Thank you very much. Enough to keep me occupied.
The luxury
What did you expect? Hours and hours. Back to that girl when I was keeping it on my head and trying to do a hundred. Maybe I'll have time to do a thousand, who knows?
Presenter asks
9:20What were you scared of [at school]?
Oh, everything. And fear still plays a big part of my life, but fear, uh, insecure. I I didn't like the way I looked, I didn't like the way I felt. A very insecure boy, uh very sensitive.
Presenter asks
22:25How did you personally deal with the devastation of losing [the Euro 96 semi-final]?
Well, I drunk. I junked for the next six odd weeks. Ending up on the 16th of August was my last drink. There was a big significant change for me in the January of that year, 96. It was the first time in my life that I didn't want to drink and I was finding myself drunk. That was the big shift for me.
Presenter asks
32:14How can this high achieving, talented, sporting hero who has turned his life around be still propelled by a sort of fear?
Well, it I I like to think that I'm not. Motivated by fair today. But fear is still with me. All these feelings don't go away because I just don't suppress them anymore. They're still with me. So fear is a big one.
“I just didn't know how to deal with life outside of football. So I so I drunk.”
“And prison was I got a little bit of spulp, little bit of exercise three times a day. I dropped about seven, eight pound. Muscles coming out of here, eating well, sleeping well, reading a couple of books of an evening, bit of bit of mind, and on my own I loved it when that door shut. It was heaven.”
“I try to live usefully and walk humbly under the grace of God. You know, that's what I live by. So that's it's in a nutshell.”