Gazza: My Story (11 page)

Terry Venables was right. I got my call-up for England not long after I joined Spurs. It was in September 1988, for the game against Denmark. Terry called me across in training to give me the news. At first I thought he meant the England Under-21s. When he made it clear he was talking about the full England squad, I couldn’t take it in. Everyone was shaking my hand and congratulating me.

I checked into the England hotel at Burnham Beeches and manager Bobby Robson made a special announcement welcoming the new members, including me, David Rocastle and Des Walker, and the whole squad clapped.
It sounds a bit schoolboyish, and it is in a way. You go up through the ranks till you achieve your lifetime’s ambition: to get into the top class, with the big lads.

Bobby asked me if I’d brought a white shirt and tie with me. I’d been notified about this in advance, as there was some dinner we had to go to. I said: ‘Yes, I’ve brought one white shirt, but I leave the other white shirt to you.’

In training, I sprinted up and down like an idiot, trying so hard. I was in awe of the senior players, like Bryan Robson. Just being in the same room as him was a thrill. Peter Shilton was winning his 101st cap. I wondered if I could ever get as many as that. Perhaps I’d never get more than one. Or even one. I loved being with Peter Beardsley, because of course I had played with him at Newcastle, and at least he understood my accent.

I knew I wasn’t going to make the starting line-up this time, but I was pleased just to be one of the four subs, though of course I was desperately hoping I’d get on to the pitch. Walking out on to the Wembley turf for the preliminaries was brilliant. It was what I’d dreamed about, ever since I’d become a professional and long before: wearing the England shirt, walking out at Wembley. Tan-tan-tarrah.

Every time someone went down after a tackle and looked as if they might have to come off, I got all nervous. I was concerned that one of our lads might be seriously hurt, but at the same time excited at the thought that I might be sent on and worrying about how I’d perform. But as the game went on, I realised that the chances of me getting on at all, let alone having any time to touch the ball, were fading.

Towards the end, Bobby sent me and Tony Cottee to warm up. I ran up and down the touchline with Tony. ‘Are you excited?’ I said to him. ‘I know I am.’ I don’t think he was really listening.

I finally stepped on to the park about five minutes before the end, replacing Peter Beardsley. By this time we were 1–0 up. Neil Webb had scored. I told the ref not to blow his whistle. Give us a bloody chance, ref. I got only about two touches, but I still felt so happy. I’d done it: I had won an England cap at the age of twenty-one. The crowd had been fantastic. Such as it was. Only 26,000 had turned up, this being a friendly. To most spectators, it probably seemed pretty boring – but to me it was the most exciting game the world had ever seen.

As I came off, I grabbed a handful of the Wembley grass and took it back to the dressing room with me. I
put it in my sponge bag and kept it there for about a week, till it rotted and started smelling and I had to chuck it away. Back at Spurs, when I arrived for training, they all shook my hand again.

I was on the bench for the next England game, against Sweden, and didn’t make it on to the field. This was the match in which Terry Butcher got a bad head injury – there was blood everywhere – and famously played on wearing a massive bandage. When he was rushed off into the dressing room for stitches, Bobby Robson made me go with them. I was mystified as to what they wanted me there for. When Terry was eventually patched up, looking like a mummy with that bandage round his head, desperate to go on again, Bobby turned to me and said, ‘Gazza, this is what it’s all about, playing for England.’

I was in the squad again for the next game, against Saudi Arabia in Riyadh. Everyone who was in the starting line-up was promised a brand-new car from Ford, an XRi Cabriolet. But again I was just one of the subs. I was gutted, missing out on a free car, and really jealous of the players who’d been picked. The wealth in Saudi Arabia was amazing. I’d never seen houses like it before. Everyone seemed to live in a palace, whether they were
royal or not. We were all warned about drinking. If we got caught with alcohol we would really be for it – and not just from Bobby, either.

On the sidelines, I did my warm-up routine for about twenty-five minutes, going through my stretching exercises right in front of Bobby, so that he could hardly see what was happening on the pitch. But still he didn’t send me on. At last, about ten minutes before the end, I got the call to replace Chris Waddle. It was as if the manager had taken a vow that his Geordie sub could be used only in place of another Geordie.

‘Gazza, go on and give us a goal,’ he told me as he pushed me on.

‘Fucking hell,’ I said. ‘You’ve only given us five minutes.’

We played poorly that day. Don’t ask me why. Perhaps it was the heat. Or not being able to have a drink. We were lucky to manage a 1–1 draw, with Tony Adams saving our blushes. When we got back to England, we found that Bobby was being rubbished in the press: ‘For the Love of Allah, Go Now.’ Some of the papers were arguing that if we carried on like this, we wouldn’t have a chance of qualifying for the World Cup, so we might as well have a new manager now. The football
press, of course, are absolutely brilliant at predicting what will happen. They are always spot-on. Or not.

In the qualifying rounds for the 1990 World Cup, we had to play Sweden, Poland and Albania. Albania was awful, so backward and primitive. Our hotel was very basic and the phones were useless. We were allowed to make only one call home and we were all given a set time to do it. Mine was five o’clock in the morning. I was still with Gail at the time, so I rang her in England. Fuck knows what time it was there, but I woke her up. She shouted at me, ‘Why the hell haven’t you rung me before?’ I explained that we were only allowed one phone call. ‘You’re a liar,’ she said, and hung up on me.

Out in Albania, we were followed everywhere by kids begging. We had some little England badges and stuff to give away but the minute we showed them, we were surrounded and practically torn to pieces. There was nothing for it but to throw them all up in the air and run like hell back to the hotel. Looking over our shoulders, it was like a scene from Hitchcock’s
The Birds
with all these kids swooping on the ground trying to grab those trinkets.

Stuck in the hotel, it was so boring. There was nothing to do, no facilities. From my bedroom window,
in a sort of yard down below beside the hotel, I noticed some hens and chickens. While the rest of the lads were at a meeting, I went round their bedrooms and took all their little packets of soap, which was about the only luxury the hotel provided. Back in my bedroom, I amused myself by throwing the soap at the chickens to see how many I could hit. Chris Waddle joined me, and we laid bets on who would hit one. Soon John Barnes came in as well, to see what we were doing, what all the shouting was about, and then some of the others.

In all the commotion, I didn’t see Bobby Robson walk in. Just when I’d scored a really good hit, practically killing a chicken. He stared at me in amazement, then asked what I was doing, which was pretty obvious, really. I said I was trying to hit the chickens with bars of soap.

I hurled a piece of soap out of the window, but missed this time. Bobby gave a funny smile. Then he walked out of the room, shaking his head.

I didn’t get on the pitch in that game, except at half-time, when I took to the field to offer some of my goalkeeping impersonations, but we won 2–0 and I was beginning to feel a real part of the England squad.

In the return game against Albania, in April 1989,
I got to play for about twenty-five minutes. Bobby told me to keep to the right, as Waddle was doing a great job down the left, but in my excitement I immediately forgot his instructions and ran around like a kid in a playground, chasing every ball.

Fortunately, I didn’t do myself any harm, setting up one goal for Waddler – and scoring one myself, with my left foot, after beating two men. It was my first goal for England and it felt fantastic. I ran across to acknowledge the cheers of the crowd. What I really wanted to do was hug me father, but he wasn’t there: he was watching on telly at home. We won that match 5–0. As we came off the pitch, Chris Waddle said to me: ‘That’s it, you’ve cracked it now. Work hard and you’ll be going to the World Cup.’

Bobby Robson didn’t give me that impression, though. He gave me a bollocking afterwards for disobeying his instructions. I told him I thought he was playing me out of position by shoving me on the right. He told me, pretty firmly, in straightforward Geordie, that if and when I played for fucking England again, I’d play where he fucking well told me to play. But even if he didn’t say so, I had a sneaking suspicion he had quite enjoyed my performance.

My debut in the England starting line came the following month, in a friendly in May against Chile at Wembley. When Neil Webb was injured, I got his place in midfield. It hadn’t bothered me, being sub for all those games. I had been injured quite a bit myself, so I wasn’t always available anyway, and I believed my turn would come. As qualification for the World Cup grew closer, I was enjoying an injury-free run and played in most of the games. I remember jumping for joy into the arms of David Seaman, against Poland I think it was. He was just beginning to step into Peter Shilton’s boots, though he and I were both subs that day.

I wasn’t in the starting line-up against Sweden in Stockholm, which depressed me. Bobby made it clear I had to grow up, or I wouldn’t be chosen for the squad going to Italy, if we got there. He played Steve McMahon and Neil Webb in the middle instead. I didn’t get on till twenty minutes or so before the end, but this time I did what I was told to do by Bobby, playing a holding role, doing nothing daft, and we secured a vital 0–0 draw. Bobby put his arm round me at the end and told me I’d done well. He’s never been one to hold grudges.

All the same, I worried, as I always did, that some of my off-the-pitch adventures would bugger up my
England chances. Even some of my on-the-pitch antics, come to that. When Spurs were away to Crystal Palace in the 1989–90 season, before the kick-off, while we were warming up, there were these mascots mucking around, three blokes dressed up as cartoon characters: Postman Pat, Jess the Cat and Yogi Bear.