Bend It Like Bullard Read online

  The game came on and I tried to take it all in. It was so surreal seeing it back so soon after. Luckily, when the ball came to me on the edge of the box, I stuck it in the corner again. Phew.

  Best of all, the boys in the studio then had their say.

  They watched the goal back, paused it, slow motion, the works. ‘What a strike by Bullard,’ someone said.

  Was that me? Yes it was. And it was the best feeling in the world.

  That unbeaten run really set us up for life in the Premier League. For such a young, relatively inexperienced team to make an impression on the toughest league in the world at that time, gave us a huge amount of confidence.

  We relished playing against the best teams in the country. Nobody wanted to miss out on a touch of the ball in a game, never mind miss out on a match itself through injury or suspension. That’s why I got so pissed off with the manager when he rested me for that Chelsea game. And I wasn’t the only one who got the arsehole with him like that.

  One Friday, during the previous season, our full-back Nicky Eaden had just found out he wasn’t playing on the Saturday and he was steaming. He was in the shower in Wigan’s old training ground, moaning away about Paul Jewell, completely forgetting that those showers had windows which opened out on to the corridor – the same corridor that housed the gaffer’s office.

  So Paul had heard Nicky and came into the changing room, but Nicky, who had shampoo and soap all over his face, was completely unaware he was there.

  ‘What does he think he’s doing dropping me? It’s bollocks!’ said Nicky.

  We could all see Paul standing near the doorway of the showers, so someone called out: ‘Why’s that then, Nick?’

  ‘He’s a fucking fat, Scouse bastard!’ said Nicky.

  Suddenly, the gaffer piped up, ‘Is that right then, Nick?’

  ‘Oh, er, is that you Paul?’ said a panicking Nicky, desperately trying to wipe the soap out of his eyes.

  ‘Yeah, it is me.’

  ‘No, no, what I was saying was …’

  ‘Come and see me in my office,’ said Paul as Nicky stuttered and mumbled, while still trying to get the soap out of his eyes. I think Paul took mercy on him, giving him a severe bollocking but nothing more.

  We ended up finishing tenth in our first Premier League campaign, which was two fingers up to all the people who predicted relegation for us, but the season did end on a bizarre note in the Highbury dressing room.

  Of the new recruits that the gaffer had attracted to the club for our first stab at the top flight, right-back Pascal Chimbonda definitely made the biggest impression and he was named in the PFA Premier League Team of the Year.

  Paul Jewell had brought Pascal over from France and really looked after him as he got used to living in England. Several times in the first few months, I took Pascal and our new Senegalese striker Henri Camara out for the night to make them feel welcome.

  We often went out on Kings Street – no, not quite the Chelsea’s King’s Road, but the more glamorous strip in Wigan – where they got to know some of the locals who always looked after us. We also went to Manchester a few times to some of the footballer hangouts there. I even took them to some moody bars, which they loved, but the less said about those, the better.

  Back at Highbury, we’d played Arsenal in their last-ever game at the old ground and we were all in the changing room after a 4-2 defeat – a game I didn’t play in or else it would have been so different, of course.

  Pascal was still in his kit as he handed Paul Jewell a card, which the manager thanked him for and walked out. Polly looked at me with a strange look on his face and whispered: ‘The gaffer thinks it’s a thank you card, but I think it’s a transfer request.’

  Seconds later, Jewell stormed back in and I was thinking Pascal’s head might soon become acquainted with that dressing room door. He marched straight over to Pascal: ‘You fucking prick! After everything I’ve done for you, you hand in a transfer now.’

  He had to be pulled away from Pascal who didn’t seem to understand what all the fuss was about. None of us could believe what he’d done as we all knew that you have to see the manager privately to hand in a transfer request, but Pascal had decided to do things a little differently. Perhaps he’d been badly advised. Really badly advised.

  Pascal was a hell of a player and it was no surprise he wanted to leave as he clearly felt he could play for a bigger club – and he was probably fed up with my repeated attempts to grab his willy in the shower for a laugh. Tottenham eventually signed him on transfer deadline day later that summer, but only after the club had made him sweat.

  My own time at Wigan had come to an end, too, but I left on better terms than Pascal. Fulham had bid £2.5 million for me, which triggered a release clause in my contract. I had to sit out the final two games of the season, including that Highbury game, and that was that.

  The three years at Wigan couldn’t have gone any better, but Fulham gave me the chance to return to my family in London and with my Diane pregnant it was an easy decision to make.

  It was time to move on.

  * * *

  TO TRULY EXPERIENCE PLEASURE, ONE MUST EXPERIENCE PAIN. BLOOMIN’ LOADS OF IT

  * * *

  ‘He who conquers himself is the mightiest warrior.’ Confucius

  Imagine someone slicing your knee open then pouring boiling hot water inside it. Not the most pleasant of thoughts, but that was the feeling of red-hot pain I had to endure at St James’ Park in September 2006. As it happens, because of the injury I suffered that afternoon, my knee was sliced open quite often over the following few years but at least I was out for the count then and, as far as I know, there was no boiling kettle on standby either.

  I was playing for Fulham at Newcastle and everything was perfectly normal. I’d made a decent start at my new club and playing in front of 50,000 was just another buzz in what was turning into an incredible journey for me.

  There was a loose ball to be won in midfield, which was perfectly normal. Scott Parker was running towards that loose ball too, which was also perfectly normal. I thought I could get to it before him. It was one of those millisecond decisions that run through your mind. You don’t really make those calls during a game, it’s almost automatic, intuitive, from the gut. And it happens so fast it’s virtually imperceptible.

  A flash of panic ran through my mind as it suddenly seemed that my body was in the wrong position. There was nothing normal about that. And there was no super slo-mo available for me to adjust my position, this was happening in real time. I stuck my right leg out to try to win the ball, but Parker got there first, nicked it away from me and his momentum carried him straight through on to my leg.

  I took the full brunt of Parker’s challenge off-balance. Time didn’t stand still, as so many people tend to say it does in these situations. If it had, I would have moved out of the way and Parker wouldn’t have got near me. In fact, it was quite the opposite. Time was on fast-forward, like a runaway express train. And the express train was Parker, who crashed straight into my outstretched right leg, folding me in half like some kind of bonkers human origami expert.

  My right knee took Parker’s full body weight due to the awkward position I was in and I fell forwards into a heap.

  Nothing normal about this whatsoever.

  My initial reaction was that my knee felt weird and uncomfortable, but that I wasn’t in too much pain. Okay, maybe I’d got away with it and avoided a serious injury, something I’d managed for my whole career until that point.

  So I pulled my right leg around in front of me to survey the damage.

  ‘Oh shit,’ I thought. ‘This is the one.’

  It’s funny because you spend all your playing days living in fear of a serious, career-threatening injury. Some players may be lucky enough to never experience one, while others, like West Ham’s Dean Ashton, are not so fortunate.

  But when it happens to you, it isn’t a huge, soap opera-style moment of drama. Instead
, it’s just a bit weird. And that’s how I felt as I sat on the famous St James’ Park turf inspecting what used to be my lovely, trusted, perfectly functioning right knee – weird.

  Suddenly, the Fulham physio Jason Palmer was alongside me, talking to me, looking at my knee. I have no idea what he said but I certainly know what he did – this is the knee-slicing, boiling water moment.

  The knobbly thing was dislocated, which is why my initial reaction upon inspecting it was ‘Oh shit’. Not the most thorough medical diagnosis admittedly, but nonetheless an accurate one given what was to unfold for the next eighteen months.

  As I lay on the pitch somewhat bewildered, Jason put my knee back in place with his hands. No general anaesthetic, no local, no nothing. Instead, just pain on a scale I’d never previously encountered.

  That knee, a crucial component of my football career, which had carried me through promotions, a cup final, a few great goals and plenty of ridiculous celebrations, was now a red-hot, burning, boiling, minging mess that I wanted nothing to do with.

  The pain was unbearable and nothing could stop it. Not even the St John Ambulance girl, who came to my assistance with gas and air, but couldn’t get the bloody thing to work.

  In my frustration I grabbed her by the neck and growled: ‘All you’ve got to do is make the gas and air work and you can’t even do that, can you?’

  ‘Alright, alright, I’m trying!’ she screamed back.

  ‘Well fucking hurry up then,’ I said.

  I definitely wasn’t my usual, happy-go-lucky self at this point. I was struggling to see the funny side of this one.

  But my spirits soon lifted when my girlfriend from St John managed to get the gas and air working. ‘Gooooooooood giiiiiiiiiiirl …’ I said as I drifted away with the fairies to escape the throbbing torture in the middle of my leg.

  By this stage, I was surrounded by around half a dozen people, including Jason and more St John Ambulance staff. I didn’t know this at the time, but while I was being treated on the pitch and manoeuvred on to a stretcher, Newcastle’s manager Glenn Roeder was having a real heart-to-heart with Parker, who was absolutely devastated. The pair had their foreheads rested on each other’s as Roeder attempted to convince Scotty that he’d done nothing wrong. When I left the pitch Roeder came over and put his hand on my shoulder, which was a nice touch. Literally.

  He was right about Parker. It could have happened to me, it could have happened to anyone. Our paths have crossed so many times since, on the pitch and also on the golf course as we both play at The Wisley in Woking. Yet we’ve never talked about that incident once. I suppose it’s just easier not to bring it up as it’s too painful for both of us.

  Football’s a game where freak injuries can happen. There was absolutely no malicious intent on Scott’s part and he must have felt awful. Although probably not quite as awful as me, as I was carried off the pitch on a stretcher, in tears, to a standing ovation. I’d always dreamed of leaving a pitch to the sound of 50,000 fans applauding me, but it wasn’t supposed to be quite like this.

  As I lay on a bed in the changing room, the drugs had really kicked in. Imagine what I’m like at the best of times; then imagine me with gas, air, morphine and whatever other powerful shit they pumped into me to ease the shock and pain. I was off my nut.

  ‘Pass me my phone!’ I yelled to anyone who’d listen as medics told me to take it easy.

  ‘Pass me my phone!’

  I was desperate to talk to my parents.

  As I was handed my phone, Kieron Dyer and Peter Beardsley walked into the changing room to see how I was.

  ‘What the fuck are they doing in here?’ I thought in my hazy state. Opposition players and coaches don’t come in to see you unless something serious has happened so maybe this really was a career-threatening one?

  Through the cloud of painkillers, I couldn’t really think straight. And that’s why I rang my old man and told him I was fine. I had no idea what was going on. The drugs were certainly doing their job.

  But he knew it was a bad one as he’d been following the game at home – and he also knew that I was as high as a kite on morphine. My mum, who had feared this moment since I was a kid, was shopping at Bluewater and my dad rang her to come home.

  Bless her, but ever since my first injury while playing for the Bexley District team aged ten, my mum’s been incredibly nervous about my football to the point where she can’t actually watch me play.

  It was a sliding tackle that did for me all those years before. I flew into a challenge and did my ankle ligaments. I came home and my ankle swelled up like a balloon, eventually turning all the colours of the rainbow. And it frightened her – and me.

  The problem was that from then on, she found it very hard to come to my games. Other people, especially family of my team-mates, could never understand it but she just could not put herself through the terror of watching me play out of fear for what might happen to me.

  She had the odd kindred spirit as Frank Lampard’s late mum also suffered from the same anxiety and found it hard to watch him play.

  When Mum came to see me in the Carling Cup final in Cardiff, she spent the whole game sitting in the stadium concourse talking to one of the hot dog sellers. Probably not a bad move on her part, as that afternoon never got better than the warm-up for me.

  Back in Newcastle, I was taken to hospital where my knee was strapped up to secure it in place and I even managed to make it on to the plane home with my team-mates. There was plenty of sympathy flying about for me, but I was still optimistic about making a rapid recovery, which was probably down to a combination of the drugs and my naivety.

  In fact, the morphine was so strong that I repeatedly hallucinated seeing Glenn Roeder, which freaked me out. He was actually at the airport and came to wish me well, but in my drugged-up state, he kept popping into my head and scaring the shit out of me. I learned so much from him while I was at West Ham but, through no fault of his own, his face was just bad news as I always associated him with being stuck in the reserves. Then I finally make it into the Premier League and my career’s flying until I get struck down with a serious injury. And who’s there to greet me? Glenn Roeder, the unfortunate figure of doom in my football career.

  The worst injury I’d suffered previously was a broken toe at Peterborough, which didn’t keep me out for long. Then at Wigan, I’d had that ridiculous streak of consecutive performances. Maybe because of that, I didn’t really understand the severity of my knee injury, but by the following morning it soon became clear.

  Think of the worst night’s sleep you’ve ever had, multiply it by ten and you’re probably still nowhere near how bad mine was that night.

  I never realised how much I must move when I’m asleep – I must hop around almost as much as I do when I’m awake because I hardly slept a wink that night due to waking myself up every five minutes each time I shifted position. Whenever I moved, my knee moved and the pain was intense. It was killing me. It must have been the longest night of my life. It felt like a lifetime.

  When I got up on the Sunday morning, I was all too aware that I was in a fair amount of trouble, but if I could avoid surgery I still had a good chance of playing in a few months.

  That optimism was shattered when I scrambled off the sofa to go to the loo.

  I had no strapping on my knee and, as I stood, on my left foot, peeing, I watched the lower half of my right leg dangling down from my knee. It was swinging gently from side to side and it felt like there couldn’t have been more than a fag paper connecting it to the top half of my leg.

  It was the weirdest, most frightening thing I’d ever seen in my life and I broke down on the spot, crying my eyes out.

  Who the hell was I kidding? Not only did I need surgery, but there was a decent chance I might never play again, given that there aren’t many Premier League footballers who play with the lower half of their right leg hanging off.

  I thought again about how hard I’d worked to get to this
point – the grafting years of laying cable, painting and decorating, playing non-league and running after my dad’s car while he hooted away and I hated every minute of it. Was all that blood and guts going to end like this?

  I was petrified and heartbroken.

  My dad drove over to my place in Cobham where I’d moved after leaving Wigan. I didn’t want him to think I’d completely lost it so as soon as he walked in I told him, ‘Now I know why people do drugs’, referring to my state when I’d spoken to him the day before.

  He smiled and then asked me how the knee was and I broke down again.

  ‘I think this might be it for my career,’ I sobbed to him.

  He tried to talk me out of it. ‘You’ll be back,’ he said in that way of his, which gave me a bit of belief. He’d propped me up with his words since I was a kid and he wasn’t going to stop now. And the state I was in, I was looking for any crumbs of comfort to keep me going.

  The following morning, I went for a scan and the inevitable was confirmed.

  In medical language, surgery was required as I had dislocated my knee and torn my medial collateral ligament, anterior cruciate ligament and posterior cruciate ligament. In plain English language, I was fucked. There are only four main ligaments which make the knee work and I’d wrecked three of them.

  Now, here’s a really weird thing. Three days before the Newcastle game I was playing golf at The Wisley when I saw Jamie Redknapp walk off the course after nine holes. Jamie had a nightmare with injuries his entire career and needed twelve knee operations to keep him going.

  Without really thinking, I said to him: ‘You tart! What are you doing walking off after nine?’ and carried on slagging him off a bit until he explained his knee was swelling up so he couldn’t carry on. Oops.

  Guess who received my first phone call that Monday morning after my scan? That’s right, Jamie Redknapp. I wanted to know all about the knee specialist who’d saved his career when he was just twenty-six and out of options. He told me his man was Richard Steadman – or Steady to his clients – and that he was the best in the business. He’d also helped save the careers of Alan Shearer, Ruud van Nistelrooy and Craig Bellamy. He couldn’t have come more highly recommended.