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Merson Paul. - How Not to Be a Professional Footballer

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HarperSport, 2012. 336 p. ISBN: 0007424965, 0007424973An anecdote-driven narrative of the classic footballers DOs and DO NOTs from the ever-popular Arsenal legend and football pundit Paul Merson, aka The Merse. When it comes to advice on the pitfalls of life as a professional footballer, Paul Merson can pretty much write the manual. In fact, thats exactly what hes done in this hilarious new book which manages to be simultaneously poignant and gloriously funny. Merson was a prodigiously talented footballer in the 80s and 90s, gracing the upper echelons of the game - and the tabloid front pages - with his breathtakingly skills and larger-than-life off-field persona. His much-publicised battles with gambling, drug and alcohol addiction are behind him now, and football fans continue to be drawn to his sharp footballing brain and playful antics on SkySports cult results show Soccer Saturday. The book delights and entertains with a treasure chest of terrific anecdotes from a man who has never lost his love of football and his inimitable joie de vivre through a 25-year association with the Beautiful Game. The DO NOTs include: DO NOT adopt Champagne Charlie Nicholas as your mentor DO NOT share a house with Gazza DO NOT regularly place GBP30,000 bets at the bookies DO NOT get so drunk that you cant remember the 90 minutes of football you just played in DO NOT manage Walsall (at any cost) How Not to be a Professional Footballer is a hugely entertaining, moving and laugh-out-loud funny story.

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HOW NOT TO BE A
PROFESSIONAL
FOOTBALLER

PAUL MERSON
with Matt Allen

Contents One thing before we crack on an apology Youll only hear it from me - photo 1

Contents

One thing before we crack on: an apology. Youll only hear it from me on this one page because Ive read too many life stories and books where people are constantly tripping over themselves to make up for all the bad things theyve done. Page after page after page of it, and after a while it just doesnt ring true.

The thing is, youre going to read a lot of bad things over the following pages, and some of it is pretty shocking. The last thing you need to get through is a million and one apologies as well, so youre only reading the one, but its sincere. For the terrible things Ive done and to some of the people Ive hurt and let down: Im sorry.

Introduction
Last Knockings

Ill tell you how bad it got for me. At my lowest point as a gambler, the night before an away game for Aston Villa, I sat on the edge of my bed in a Bolton hotel room and thought about breaking my own fingers. I was that desperate not to pick up the phone and dial in another bet. At that time in my life Id blown around seven million quid with the bookies and I wanted so badly to stop, but I just couldnt the next punt was always too tempting. Slamming my own fingers in a door or breaking them one by one with a hammer was the only way I knew of ending the cycle. It was insanity really. The walls had started closing in on me.

When I was bang on the cocaine, I sold my Arsenal blazer to a dealer because Id run out of money in the pub and I was desperate to get high. All the lads at Highbury had an official club jacket, tailored, with the team crest emblazoned on the front. It was a badge of honour really, something the directors, coaching staff and players wore with pride. It said to everyone else: Being an Arsenal player is something special. It meant nothing to me, though, not at my most desperate. I was out of pocket and there wasnt a cashpoint around, so I swapped it for one pathetic gram, worth just 50. The next day I told Arsenals gaffer, George Graham, that the blazer had been nicked out of the back of my car. Well, at that stage in my life a made-up story like that seemed more realistic than the truth.

At the peak of my game, I was drinking more lager tops than the fans. I would go out three, four, five nights a week and drink pints and pints and pints, usually until I couldnt drink any more. Some nights I wouldnt go home. Id leave training, go on the lash, fall asleep in the bar or finish my last beer at silly oclock. Before I knew it, I was in a taxi on my way to training, then Id go through the whole cycle all over again. Unless Id been nicked, that is.

That happened once or twice. One night, I remember going into the boozer for a few beers and a game of pool with a mate. We got plastered. While we were playing, some lads kept having a go at us, shouting across the bar and making wisecracks, probably because they recognised me. This mate of mine was a bit of a wild card, I never knew how he was going to react when he was pissed. This time he blew up with a pool cue. A chair was thrown through the window; he smashed up the optics. It all kicked off and there was blood everywhere. The bar looked like a scene from a Chuck Norris film.

We ran home. I was covered in claret, so I chucked my shirt in the washing machine, turned it on and went to bed. That was my drunk logic at work: I thought the problem would magically disappear if I stuck my head under the covers. I even ignored my now ex-wife, Lorraine, who was standing there, staring at me, wondering what the hell was going on as I pretended to be asleep. It wasnt long before the police started banging on the front door. Lorraine let them in, and when they steamed into the bedroom, I made out theyd woken me up.

Ooh, all right officer, I groaned, rubbing my bloodshot eyes. Whats the matter?

The copper wasnt falling for it. Get up, you fucking idiot. Youre under arrest.

I was off the rails, but in those days I could get away with it most of the time. There were no camera phones or random drugs tests and footballers werent followed by the paparazzi 24/7, which was a shame for them because they would have loved me today.

I was an England international and I played for some massive clubs. I made my Arsenal debut in 1986 and retired from playing 20 years later. In the course of my Highbury career I won two League titles (1989, 1991), an FA Cup (1993), a League Cup (1993) and a UEFA Cup Winners Cup (1994). I won the Division One title with Portsmouth in 2003 and got promotion to the Premier-ship with Middlesbrough in 1998. I played in the last FA Cup Final at the old Wembley with Villa. I was capped for England 21 times, scoring three goals. I had a pretty good CV.

Off the pitch I was a nightmare, battling with drinking, drugging and betting addictions. I went into rehab in 1994 for coke, compulsive gambling and boozing. There were newspaper stories of punch-ups and club bans; divorces and huge, huge debts. I was a headline writers dream, a football managers nightmare, but I lived to tell the tale, which as youll learn was a bloody miracle.

Through all of that, playing football was a release for me. My managers knew it, my team-mates knew it and, most of the time, the supporters knew it, too. Wherever I went, whoever I played for or against, the fans were always great to me. Well, maybe not at Spurs, but I got a good reception at most grounds I still do. I think the people behind the goals watching the game looked at me and thought, Hes like us. I lived the life they did. A lot of them liked to drink and have a bet, and some of them might have even taken drugs at one point in their lives. They all thought the same thing about me: He plays football for a living, but hes a normal bloke. They were right, I was a normal bloke and that was my biggest problem. I was just a lad from a council estate who liked a lorryload of pints and a laugh. I didnt know how to live any other way, and I had to learn a lot of hard lessons during my career because drinking and football didnt mix they still dont.

All of my pissed-up messes are here in this book for you to read, so if youre a budding football superstar youll soon know what not to do when you start out as a professional player. Treat this book as a manual on how to avoid ballsing it up, because every chapter here is a lesson. The rest of you will have a bloody good laugh, I hope, while picking up some stories to tell your mates down the boozer. Go ahead, Im not embarrassed about my cock-ups, because the rickets made me the bloke I am today and the truth is, everyone cocks up now and then. My biggest problem was that I cocked up more than most.

Lesson 1
Do Not Go to Stringfellows with Charlie Nicholas

Where Merse lays the first bet, reads his rehab diary and gets a taste of the playboy lifestyle.

It was the beginning of the end: my first blow-out as a big-time gambler. There I was, a 16-year-old kid on the YTS scheme at Arsenal with a cheque for 100 in my hand a whole oner, all mine. That probably sounds like peanuts for a footballer with a top-flight club today, but in 1984 this was a full months pay for me and Id never seen that amount of money in my life, not all at once anyway. Mate, I thought Id hit the Big Time.

It was the last Friday of the month. Id just finished training and done all the usual chores that you have to do when youre a kid at a big football club, like cleaning the baths and toilets at Highbury and sweeping out the dressing-rooms for the first-team game the next day. When that was done, Pat Rice, the youth team coach, came round and gave all the kids a little brown envelope. Our first payslips were inside, and I couldnt wait to draw my wages out. I got changed out of my tracksuit and ran down the road to Barclays Bank in Finsbury Park with my mate, Wes Reid. I swear I was shaking as the girl behind the counter passed over the notes.

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