Gazza: My Story (20 page)

Signore Cragnotti, the club owner, was livid. He’d spent a great deal of money on the club and saw me as the vital element in bringing them success in Italy and in Europe. I’d already upset him once, at the training ground, when he’d made one of his grand entrances along with other officials. I’d gone up to him and said: ‘
Tua figlia, grande tette
.’ Your daughter, big tits. At least, I think that’s what I said. There were some embarrassed giggles from some of the bigwigs, but Signore Cragnotti wasn’t amused. I only discovered later that I’d mixed up the daughters. I’d been thinking of his brother’s daughter, not his. I’d never even met her. Luckily, that incident didn’t make the papers, but the Belchgate scandal went on for weeks. The Italian press hammered me, and used it to criticise me, as proof that I was a yob, as well as overweight, never properly fit, a waste of money and a disgrace to Lazio and Italy, and all that shit. The Lazio fans, though, were brilliant. I never fell
out with them. At the next game, against Torino, I could hear them singing, in English, ‘Gazza, Gazza, give us a belch.’

The big event every season for all Lazio supporters, officials and players is the local derby with Roma. I was very nervous about playing in my first one because I’d already picked up on how much it mattered. All week the fans had been going on about it. On the day there was a crowd of about 75,000, all going mad.

We were 1–0 down when we got a free kick near the penalty area, towards the end of the game. I told Signori to get in the box, and I’d put it on his head. He said he was not much good with his head, so he’d take it and put it on my head. I replied that I wasn’t much good with mine, either. Anyway, he took it, and somehow I managed to get my head to it, by leaning back, and it went in. I fell in a heap, just collapsed. It was about the biggest emotional high of my whole career up to that time. There was such a massive feeling of relief in the entire club that we had drawn this derby game. Afterwards, the president sent me about £10,000 in cash and a crate of Newcastle Brown. God knows where he got that from.

Living with Shel in Italy didn’t really work out. For two months, all we did was argue. Bianca came out for the holidays, but I didn’t really know how to be a father and I was really ratty, shouting at the kids to keep quiet. I was under pressure, but all the same, I was being a horrible dad. One night I put them in the garage because they were keeping me awake and I just couldn’t get a wink of sleep.

I didn’t like Shel going out anywhere, even just out with other mums. She was once late back from seeing some of Mason’s friends’ mothers and I drove off to meet her, in a real temper, hurtling down the autostrada the wrong way on the wrong side of the road so that I would
come upon her heading towards me. It gave her a terrible fright, and it was very stupid and dangerous.

Something was eating me away inside. There were all the problems of settling in, and trying to communicate in a new language, and if I was injured it made me ten times worse. It was, of course, tough for her, as it is for all wives and girlfriends of footballers abroad, cooped up all day, cut off from their own families, not knowing people. But it was mainly my fault. I didn’t allow her enough space.

After about six months, she went home with Mason. I’d got £80,000 for some story about me in Italy from the
News of the World
, so we used that to buy a house back in Hertfordshire for Shel to live in with her kids. She came out to Italy often, and we spent all our holidays together, but without her there full-time I got bored and lonely. So my mates came out: Jimmy and Cyril came from Newcastle, and my mum and dad made regular trips to Rome.

On the field, meanwhile, that first season for Lazio went pretty well. I slowly got my strength back after the long lay-off and picked up only a few minor injuries. The worst was in April 1993, when I was playing for England against Holland at Wembley. I went for a
challenge against Jan Wouters. We collided heavily and I felt my jaw lock. I lay there on the ground, unable to open my mouth. Ian Wright and Paul Ince were laughing, thinking I was putting it on. I didn’t think it was all that serious myself. At half-time, I was asked if I was OK to carry on, and I said yes. The England doc thought it was just bruising.

Lazio were watching the game live on TV, keeping an eye on me. They were never very thrilled when I played for England, especially when I ended up with a bash like this. Lazio were due to fly out to Japan – or it might have been China, I forget – and I wasn’t keen to go on the trip, so I thought I’d stay in London and get a doctor to look at me bruised jaw and sign me off as unfit to fly.

I didn’t actually feel too bad, although it was a bit of a struggle to eat, and I’d been out to the pictures with Shel and had some popcorn which had made my jaw lock again. When I got to the doctor’s for the appointment, fucking hell, there were two people from Lazio, sent over to check that I was telling the truth – and to take me straight back to Italy afterwards.

But the doctor discovered I had a broken cheekbone. I’d been walking around with it for two days,
with no idea it was that bad. So that meant another operation.

When I came round from the op, someone was holding my hand. My eyes were still closed and I thought it was Shel, but when I looked up I saw that it was Gianni Zeqireya, my monster bodyguard, the one I called Johnny. He’d come to take me to China. I said, ‘I’ve got a broken cheekbone. I’m not going nowhere now, Johnny lad.’

The next day, I felt a bit better, so I took Johnny out for a drink. I gave him some very strong beer, pretending it was gnat’s piss, then took him for a Chinese and got him to drink two cans of lager, which I told him was a Chinese soft drink. So I didn’t make it to China with Lazio, but we did have a nice Chinese in Newcastle instead.

When I eventually got back to Lazio, I played in a mask for a few games, like something out of
The
Phantom of the Opera
. It was a bit awkward and sweaty, but it made a good photo. You could use those shots for frightening the bairns.

Despite that injury, and missing a few matches, I made twenty-six appearances for Lazio that first season, and scored four goals. Lazio ended up fifth and got into
the UEFA Cup, their first appearance in Europe for sixteen years. So the club and the supporters were well pleased with what they’d achieved – and with me, as their big investment. All the time they had had to wait seemed to have paid off.

In the summer, I went on holiday with Shel, first in Italy and then to Florida. In the USA, I was eating rubbish, like ice creams and hot dogs, and my weight soared up to fourteen stone, the heaviest I’ve ever been. I had been warned by Dino to stay fit. Five days before I was due to return to Italy, he rang me up and reminded me about it, telling me it was time to start doing an hour’s run every day. I said I was fit, I was fine, though by that time I was rolling out of bed with as many bellies as Jimmy had. But I put my kit on and went for a run. On the way, I saw a cocktail bar. It was very hot, so I thought, bollocks, I’ll start getting fit tomorrow, and went into the bar and had a piña colada. It was still only nine in the morning. The thing is I like sweet things – piña coladas, for example – and once I have one, I can’t stop.

When I got back to Italy and started pre-season training, I got a right bollocking from Zoff. He said he wanted two stones off me in the next month, and if I didn’t manage it, I wouldn’t be in the team.

Most managers have given me a weight to aim for. I’ve been down to 11st 8lbs, but personally I like to be about twelve stone. Having a decent upper-body weight has always helped me to ride tackles, shrug people off. It mattered a lot when I was young, being strong enough to keep my place in the side when other young players, often just as good, couldn’t yet match me in that department. Terry Venables liked me to be 12st 3lbs. With Graham Taylor and England, I was over 12st 7lbs, which he did not like.

When I’m given an ultimatum, I like to go on a water diet, and that usually gets half a stone off. It’s just water and lemon, plus a bit of maple syrup for energy. I throw a bit of cayenne pepper into the water to give it some sort of taste. I drink four litre bottles a day, all day long, for four days. On the fourth day, I’ll have a chicken sandwich. Yeah, I know it’s a mad diet, but that’s what I do. I’ve always gone from one extreme to the other in everything.

During those weeks of trying to get fit and meet Dino Zoff’s target, I also did a lot of running – wearing my trusty black plastic bin-liners, to sweat off the flab, just as I had as a lad.

When the month was up, I went for the weigh-in.
I knew I’d done it, but when they checked the scales, I was one fraction of an ounce still over. I was told I’d failed. I wasn’t in the team for the next match. I went ballistic. But in the end they did play me.

When my dad came out to see me in Italy for the first time, with Jimmy and Cyril, I asked him to bring some English food with him. He brought some tins of beans, some mince pies and guess what? A load of packets of spaghetti. I couldn’t stop laughing when I saw the spaghetti. ‘Dad,’ I said, ‘they have spaghetti here. It’s where it comes from.’ But he said: ‘Son, they won’t make spaghetti Bolognese the way I do.’

We all scoffed the tins of beans and most of the mince pies in the first evening. About three mince pies were left over and I put them in the fridge. A bit later I decided I’d improve their flavour by adding a little bit of shit. I opened the pies, put some in each, then put the tops on again and put them back in the fridge. No one could tell they’d been touched.

The next night, after we’ve all been out drinking late, we come home and they say they’re starving, what is there to eat? I mention that there might be some of those mince pies left. They go to the fridge and get them out, and put them in the microwave to heat up. It did create a bit of
a smell, but they were too drunk to notice. I winked at me dad, warning him not to have any, but Jimmy and Cyril tucked in, scoffing one each, and then started fighting over the last one. When I told them what I’d done, Jimmy rushed to the toilet and was sick. But Cyril said he doesn’t care – it was one of the best mince pies he’d ever had.

I did some awful things to Jimmy when he came to stay. He was lying on his bed once in my villa, bollock-naked, after a night on the tiles. There was a wild cat that used to hang around my garden, and I went out to look for it, tempting it with a burger. When I caught it, I threw it through the open window of Jimmy’s bedroom, just for a laugh, to watch his reaction. It fell on his face, he screamed like buggery, and naturally the cat scratched him. Yeah, it was a bad thing to do, but I was bored. That was the reason.