Bend It Like Bullard Read online

  Naturally, Fabio was never going to be overjoyed with that stuttering performance against Andorra, so he was much happier with the Croatia win, in which Theo Walcott scored a hat-trick. I watched that from the stands in Zagreb and I’ve still got a picture of me with Wayne Bridge and Bents in our England suits at the game.

  And then it was suddenly back to the real world of Fulham and the Premier League.

  If the whole England experience had seemed like a bit of a dream, that was confirmed a month later when Postman Pat named his squad for the next two qualifiers and my name was not included, no matter how hard I looked. That bloody selfish Steven Gerrard had got himself fit again so there was no room for me.

  I don’t think I could really complain about that too much and it was more of the same the following month when twenty-three players were chosen to go over to Berlin for a friendly against Germany but I wasn’t one of them. With one of my grandparents being German that would’ve been lovely, but it wasn’t to be.

  Or was it?

  Three days before the game, I got a call from the lovely woman at the FA to tell me that I was going to fly out to Germany with the squad after all. Turns out that Gerrard had realised how out of order he’d been and had been ruled out of the game with a knock so I was in through the back door.

  I headed back to The Grove to meet up with the boys, not feeling like such a fish out of water this time and the following day we flew to Berlin.

  Germany v England. This was what it was all about. And as it was a friendly, I might have even had a small chance of getting on to the pitch because we were allowed to name eleven substitutes.

  I took my place on the bench and from the very first minute I was absolutely desperate to get on that pitch and play for my country. Every time Capello turned around, I’d do everything I could to catch his eye and make sure he had no choice but to think about me as an option.

  Half time came and went, during which he made two changes, but I remained benched.

  I was getting desperate now and, as the clock kept ticking, I started to perform the most overelaborate stretches anyone can possibly do while seated, in a bid to get the gaffer’s attention. Anyone watching would’ve thought there was something wrong with me.

  Peter Crouch was pissing himself laughing as I waved my arms around and started to put my shin pads on in the most exaggerated way imaginable. I had to let Capello know I was ready to play as I kept thinking that this could be the last time I ever got picked. It’s only a friendly, he had to put me on, surely?

  With thirteen minutes left, he turned round to make a change and I was doing everything but wave my hand in his face and screaming ‘Put me on!’ He nodded to Ashley Young who stripped off and got straight on to that pitch – the pitch I would’ve killed someone to get on at that moment.

  Desperate times call for desperate measures and I considered going up to Capello and asking him for a game – ‘Oi Fabs, I might not get in the squad again – any chance?’ – but I decided against such drastic action. He wouldn’t have liked that and it would certainly have ruled out any chance I might have had of getting another call-up.

  Then, as we went into stoppage time, Capello turned round again to make another change. ‘Please, please, please be me,’ I thought at the exact same moment as Crouch, who I’d been keeping entertained with my ludicrous efforts at getting Capello’s attention, got up, took his tracksuit off and had a two-minute run around on the pitch. Another bloody cap for him then.

  As we made our way back to the dressing room, I was gutted while everyone else around me was buzzing as we’d won the game 2-1.

  I cheered up pretty quickly on the outside as I didn’t want to dampen the mood and, as I started to get changed, the gaffer came up to me and we had our longest conversation yet:

  ‘Jimmy, I’m so sorry. I’ve just been told you haven’t got a cap.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘That’s why I was doing the crazy warming up.’

  ‘I didn’t see,’ he replied. ‘My mind was on the game.’

  ‘No problem,’ I said, although deep down I now felt even more gutted. ‘But next game, put me on, eh?’

  ‘Yes, ahem, yes,’ he coughed and spluttered as he walked off.

  And that was the end of my England career. The next time Capello had a squad to select I was hobbling around in Colorado, trying not to block any more toilets. Out of sight, out of mind and all that.

  To this day, I still wish I had approached him on the touchline and asked him to bring me on during that Germany match. I know it’s not the done thing, but if it had meant I’d got an England cap then it would’ve been well worth it.

  But it wasn’t all in vain as I learned from that experience. A few years later, I was sitting on the bench for Ipswich in a pre-season friendly against Southend, towards the end of my time at Portman Road. I’d been struggling to get into the side and was desperate for a chance to show the manager, Paul Jewell, what I could do. With what had happened with England weighing heavy on my mind, I decided to take matters into my own hands.

  There were fifteen or twenty minutes left when I got up off the bench to talk to our assistant manager Chris Hutchings. ‘Who’s making the subs here?’ I asked him. ‘I need to go on!’

  He looked at me as if I was mad and pointed to the gaffer up in the stands.

  I looked up at him, but decided against running up thirty rows to where he was sitting – it wasn’t like I’d just won Wimbledon. But I must have made something happen, because ten minutes later I was on the pitch, doing my thing.

  I may not have won an England cap, but I played in that Southend friendly – nobody could ever take that away from me.

  At the next Ipswich training session, the gaffer pulled me to one side.

  ‘I can’t believe you asked to come on,’ he said to me.

  ‘Let me tell you a story,’ I replied. And I proceeded to tell him what had happened when I’d been on the bench for England against Germany, how much I regretted not asking Capello to bring me on and how I wasn’t going to let that happen twice.

  Paul listened carefully, staring at me all the while and when I’d finished, he said: ‘You’re mad.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to be rude,’ I explained. ‘I was just showing you how much I wanted to play.’

  He wasn’t having any of it, but it made perfect sense to me. If I was a manager and a player said that to me, I’d put them straight on to the pitch because they were hungry. But then nobody thinks like me.

  Paul definitely didn’t, because the club let me go a few weeks later.

  I had no regrets then, and looking back on my England experience, other than that friendly fiasco, I’ve got to be happy that I was involved with the squad at all. Of course, it would have been amazing to get that cap but it wasn’t to be.

  I was invited back to Wembley for England’s final World Cup 2010 qualifying game against Belarus as the FA had decided to ask everyone involved in the whole campaign to join in with the celebrations as England had made it to South Africa. Except it wasn’t the sort of knees-up that I was used to.

  We had a sit-down meal before the game and a glass of champagne in the dressing room afterwards. In terms of celebrations, I don’t remember it that well, but I’m fairly sure my first birthday party was wilder than that.

  But that’s part of the story with the England team. It lacks that relaxed club atmosphere where most team-mates are comfortable in each other’s company. With England, there’s a lot of awkwardness as, in my experience, most of the players are not that close. It was nowhere near as together as I expected it to be. Apart from pulling on the Three Lions and being bonded together by that shared cause, there was very little in the way of team spirit.

  Having said that, there was one bizarre situation before a team meeting where a few of us were crowded round a laptop watching a funny video. Out of nowhere, someone flicked on some porn. There we were, several England players about to go to an important tactical meeting, watching a
porno like a bunch of teenagers. All of a sudden, Fabio walked in and someone flung the computer on the floor while the rest of us instantly dispersed. We acted like kids, perhaps because Capello made us feel like kids.

  Those little moments of daft rebellion were never enough though, because when you spend a week or two at a time with people whom you’re not that close to, it can be mentally tough. I loved the training, but certainly didn’t enjoy being cooped up in a hotel for days and weeks at a time.

  The most senior England players never get a break from that goldfish-bowl pressure either as there always seems to be a tournament coming round and that means no summer holiday – unless it’s an odd year. So they can go two years straight without a proper, long break, which can’t be good for them, or the national team.

  I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy the England experience because I really did. It was beyond my wildest dreams to be part of the squad and, without a doubt, it was the best moment of my career.

  But I might never have got that England experience at all, had a phone call from Barry Fry been followed up. While I was at Peterborough, he rang me to ask if I had any Irish relatives. I told him I didn’t have any that I was aware of, but I’d look into it. He liked the sound of that and told me that Brian Kerr, who was the Republic of Ireland manager at the time, was struggling for players and would be in touch with me to discuss it.

  Of course, this was Bazza and nothing whatsoever materialised. He never mentioned it again and Brian Kerr sure as hell didn’t phone me. I’m sure if I looked hard enough I might have found some Irish connection somewhere; judging by some of the non-Irishmen who have turned out for them over the years, it can’t be that hard.

  What I did have, however, was a German nan and my agent Andy Evans was keen to exploit that as he was convinced I might be able to play for them.

  ‘Fuck off, Andy,’ I told him. ‘I don’t want to play for Germany.’

  He made sure the story got into the press anyway, as it was in the run-up to the 2006 World Cup, and I was even asked about it in interviews. Unsurprisingly, Jürgen Klinsmann never called me.

  The truth is I would’ve played for any country that wanted me as playing international football was another huge honour. It was first come, first served, and England got there first. Unfortunately, old Postman Pat hadn’t read the full script though, had he?

  * * *

  WHO IS A MAN? HE WHO CAN LAUGH AT HIMSELF AND HIS TEAM-MATES. MOSTLY HIS TEAM-MATES

  * * *

  ‘Seek not the favour of the multitude; it is seldom got by honest and lawful means. But seek the testimony of few; and number not voices, but weigh them.’ Immanuel Kant

  Big Papa Bouba Diop was lying with his head down in the face-hole part of the massage table, getting a good rubdown. And I just couldn’t resist.

  It was the day after a game and the Fulham lads had come in for a warm-down and a stretch and most of us were in the changing rooms. Michael Brown was usually my partner in crime although he never actually did anything himself, he just encouraged me and I always got reeled in. And now he was egging me on to get little Jimmy out and stick him through that hole into Pap’s face. Juvenile? Absolutely. Funny? Bloody hilarious if you were in that dressing room.

  I approached the bench. The massage bench that is. It was going to be far too difficult to manoeuvre myself into that space so I made a spur-of-the-moment decision and put my nuts on top of his head instead.

  He was still mid-massage so I said something like, ‘How does that feel, Pap?’ and the boys started wetting themselves laughing. Pap was the only one not laughing. He was also the only one springing off the massage table and chasing me round the dressing room.

  Now Papa Bouba Diop is a big man. A very big man. So when you place your nuts on a bloke who’s six-feet-five tall and fourteen stone of muscle, you’d better make sure you can run because, if my experience was anything to go by, he will not be happy.

  You’ll notice by the fact I’m writing this book that Pap didn’t actually kill me for doing that. But he came quite close to it, as he spent a couple of days dragging me around by the scruff of my neck. But all in all, he was quite good about it and didn’t take it too seriously, just saying, ‘Not again Jimmy, not again.’

  Not a chance, big man. I know when I’ve got away with one and I got away with one then. The problem was, that I just couldn’t help myself sometimes and I blame my dad because he wanted me to learn my trade at West Ham. I’m not sure he meant that I should be schooled in the art of dressing-room daftness, but that’s exactly what happened.

  When you learn from the old school, players like Razor and Ian Wright, you’re only going to end up a bit of a nutcase yourself. What I did to Pap was exactly the kind of thing that Moncur would’ve done to Razor. And it was also the sort of thing that helped me settle into my new club because, believe it or not, I was missing my Wigan boys.

  After three years of playing with a really close-knit squad who’d enjoyed so much success, I’d built up a lot of friendships with those lads and it was a wrench to leave them. It was obviously fantastic to be back in London close to all my family again, but I’d lived up north for so long that it had started to feel like home for me. It was only when I moved to Cobham that I realised how much I missed Wigan, which is probably not a sentence I ever thought I’d write.

  It was the dressing room more than anything else that I missed because I would never have that kind of close bond with an entire team again. From a football point of view, it had worked out brilliantly for me. I’d joined Wigan in the third tier and left them in the Premier League after a cup final. My career had changed forever there but it was time to move on – I had to be a man about the whole thing as nothing lasts forever.

  Fulham manager Chris Coleman had big plans for me and the team so it seemed like the right move. They were a more established Premier League side and Cookie wanted to take them on to the next level. When we met up with my agent he told me he wanted to give me the licence to play in a free role where I would just go out and make things happen as if I was playing in the school playground. Given the Bouba Diop incident and my abuse of the manager’s hotel room number during that first epic pre-season, I probably took his back-to-school vision a bit too literally.

  First stop that summer was a trip to Devon where we stayed at Woodbury Park, Nigel Mansell’s hotel and golf resort. Myself and big Pap got a little carried away, though, as we continued playing golf back in the hotel and cracked the glass door of the lift in the process.

  But that was nothing compared to our second trip, which was that mini tour of Germany and Austria where we played a couple of friendlies and were allowed to let our hair down now and again, mostly courtesy of Cookie’s room tab.

  One night, me and a few of my new team-mates were sat in our hotel’s canal-side bar, having a drink. It was about 11pm when the manager popped his head round the corner to tell us we needed to be in our rooms by midnight at the latest. Given the fact that it was pre-season, we thought we might be able to stretch that a bit. And when I say a bit, I mean quite a lot because by 2am, we were still there, downing vodka shots and making merry.

  While we were in full flow, Chris and his assistant, Steve Kean, came down the stairs and into the bar. We all froze.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Cookie. ‘We’ll join you.’

  What a legend that man was. In the blink of an eye, it was 4am, we’d had several more shots and goodness knows what else and we were all smashed, obliterated and pie-eyed. Call it what you like, we were definitely very drunk.

  Which probably explains why I thought it was a good idea to nick one of the assistant manager’s flip-flops and throw it into the canal alongside the bar. Quite why he thought it was acceptable to come down to the bar in his flip-flops is another matter, sadly not up for discussion right here.

  Kean went mental with me. ‘Go and get it!’ he ordered.

  ‘You go and get it,’ I replied, which was the best I could do in my
state.

  That carried on for a bit, until Kean got up to have a look at where his flip-flop was in the canal. As he stood there bent over the canal, drunkenly searching for his flip-flop in the dark, I was talking to our goalkeeper, Mark Crossley, discussing how funny it might be were I to rugby tackle Kean straight into the water.

  ‘Go on then,’ said Crossley, egging me on.

  I didn’t need a second invitation.

  I leapt over the long table we’d been sitting at and launched myself full length at our assistant manager, dropping the pair of us straight into the canal.

  Bosh!

  Splash!

  I’d only been at the club for two months and suddenly I was roaring drunk in a German canal with my new assistant manager who was trying to kill me.

  We had a bit of a struggle in the water as Kean started throwing right-handers at me while I was trying to clamber out of the canal. All this time, Cookie and the rest of the lads were looking on and laughing so hard that it was difficult not to join in with them, and I would’ve done were it not for the fact that Kean was all over me like a wild dog.

  I eventually scrambled out of the water, followed by Kean, who then chased me through the park that was next to the canal. That went on for some time, until my new mate Brownie smuggled me away into the safety of his room. By the time I’d dried off and stopped laughing it was morning and I was desperate for a kip.

  A few hours later, I came downstairs in the hotel lift in search of some breakfast. As the doors opened to the lobby, guess who was standing right there, waiting to get in?

  None other than Mr Steven Kean, assistant manager of Fulham FC and my new synchronised swimming partner.

  ‘Hi Steve,’ I smiled. ‘How are you doing?’