Bend It Like Bullard Read online

  The same can be said for Big Dunc, but the challenges he tended not to shirk on the pitch were the ones that involved him dishing out a pasting to someone. But I have to hand it to the big man because if it wasn’t for him, it’s possible the other side of my career may never have taken off as my whole public image changed once that clip aired on Soccer AM.

  It’s funny how often people mention that show to me as if I was one of the presenters or something. The truth is I’ve only been on it three times, yet it’s one of the first things random punters will say to me in the street. But I understand how I somehow became synonymous with the programme and that, without it, I may not have become as well-known.

  Reaching the Premier League with Wigan opened a lot of doors to me as I was on the telly a lot more and I started to get recognised more when I was out and about. I know I’m not David Beckham, but don’t believe anyone who tells you it’s hard to be in the public eye because it’s not. It’s bloody brilliant. I will never tire of people who I’ve never met in my life, recognising me and talking to me about football.

  I’m pretty certain that if I’d stuck to painting and decorating, not many people would have approached me in the street and asked me about that cracking off-white finish I’d done in the top floor flat two streets away.

  I relished the attention then as much as I relish it now. Plus, I get bored very easily so it’s nice to know that people will come and talk to me even if I’m on my own.

  Playing in the top flight meant being asked to do more media interviews and that’s when Soccer AM came along. I think they saw me as a happy-go-lucky kind of bloke, especially when random videos of me started appearing on the internet, backing that up.

  There were a couple that were filmed when I was at Peterborough, including one where I interrupted a website interview with Bradley Allen and Andy Edwards.

  I saw the two of them chatting away to the camera while sat on a bench so I just wandered over to have a look what was going on – then I had to get involved. Within a few seconds, I joined them for the interview and started answering the questions myself. It was one of those ‘dish the dirt’ type features where you have to shop your team-mates, but I wasn’t really up to speed on any of that. So when they asked us who was the smelliest player, I didn’t realise it had to be one of our team-mates so I started banging on about how much Olivier Bernard stank when we played Newcastle in the cup, which was very funny, but probably a little bit unfair on the geezer. He did reek when we played them though, honestly.

  The other clip from Peterborough which went big on the internet was when I was doing an interview about our win at Northampton, but couldn’t keep a straight face. Someone farted at the beginning of the interview which set me off laughing and, before I knew it, I was in crackdown mode and could not recover. Every time I was asked a question by the interviewer, I laughed like David Bentley and we required about a dozen attempts to get past the first question.

  It’s a bit like one of those It’ll Be Alright on the Night clips, except it’s with me, not a professional actor – but people liked it and Soccer AM showed it when they invited me on for the first time.

  I always felt comfortable there from the minute I sat on that sofa. I just had the feeling that I could never mess up when I was on there as it all felt natural, like I was having a bit of a laugh with my mates in front of the cameras.

  That’s not always the way for a lot of footballers and I’ve seen plenty of players freeze on the telly and make right berks of themselves. The funniest one I’ve ever seen was when former West Ham goalkeeper Stephen Bywater was on Goals on Sunday with Chris Kamara and Clare Tomlinson.

  He was trying to describe the swear word someone had called him but knew he wasn’t allowed to use that word on the show so he spelt it out instead and said something like: ‘Yeah, he called me a C-U-N-T!’ What a donut! I laughed so hard at that and poor Kammy had no idea what to do.

  Fortunately, I managed to avoid any moments like that when I was on the box and that’s probably because the Soccer AM guys made me feel so relaxed. I used to go for a drink with them all after the show, too, as I was always open to doing things like that. My attitude was that you never know what these things will end up bringing to your life.

  For one thing, the show brought me a lot closer to the fans than I’d ever been before. It was as if loads of them really felt that they knew me once I’d been on the show for the first time. And the amusing videos they kept showing of me, even when I wasn’t on the sofa, certainly helped my relationship with supporters all over the country. Apart from one.

  I’m no Joey Barton or El-Hadji Diouf so I’d never had a problem with the fans before until the time I was playing for Wigan at Norwich.

  We won a corner and, as I went over to take it, a section of home fans started to get on my back by yelling offensive things like ‘Gypo’ and throwing me loads of wanker signs with their hands. That was all pretty standard abuse so I just yelled ‘Bollocks!’ at them with a smile on my face and they all loved it and showed their appreciation.

  That’s always been my philosophy for dealing with the fans. There’s absolutely no point going all Eric Cantona and getting aggressive with supporters who are winding you up. You’re never going to beat ten thousand people, and getting really wound up about it is just embarrassing yourself. Taking it all with a pinch of salt just seems a lot more sensible and has always worked for me.

  Except that wasn’t good enough for one ginger-bearded Norwich fan who was standing around ten yards from me as I was about to take the corner. He just went psycho-aggressive and started calling me every name under the sun.

  ‘You fucking arsehole, Bullard! You fucking wanker!’

  He looked so angry I honestly thought he might come on to the pitch and chin me, so I hurried up with the corner and got the hell out of there.

  I didn’t really think about the incident again and just got on with my usual post-match routine of showering, changing, speaking to the press if required and then hopping on to the coach and heading home.

  But, as I was about to board the bus, there were a few fans dotted around asking players for autographs, including one very familiar-looking bloke with a ginger beard. I could not believe it. An hour before he wanted to kill me and now he was asking me to sign an autograph for him.

  ‘You’re some kind of prick aren’t you?’ I said to him. ‘I’ve seen you slagging me off when I took the corner!’

  ‘H-how did you know it was me?’ he mumbled, sounding like he was shitting himself.

  I had to laugh. With a mob behind him, he was the hardest, most intimidating bloke I’d ever seen. Now, with one man and his dog, he was no-one.

  But that’s what football fans are like. They’re just normal people who have a drink and get carried away by the atmosphere and passion of a game. I always knew that most of them didn’t mean any harm, mainly because I usually enjoyed such a good relationship with them.

  Once I’d been on Soccer AM the first time, the floodgates opened and more or less anything I did – or had ever done – on or near a football pitch was liable to make it on to the internet and subsequently on to the telly.

  For example, during that Wigan game against Everton – the Duncan Ferguson one – there wasn’t a great deal happening and I was desperate to be involved and force the issue a bit. We were on the attack and there was a bit of a goalmouth scramble as the ball came across. A couple of our players were trying to get on the end of the loose ball, while a few Everton bodies tried to clear it and goalkeeper Richard Wright attempted to pounce on it.

  ‘This looks interesting,’ I thought to myself so I started sprinting towards the penalty area, firmly believing there could be something in this for me. By the time I got into the box at full pelt, there was just a huge pile of players on top of each other with Wright at the bottom of it with his hands on the ball. Nothing doing here whatsoever.

  But I couldn’t stop so I just thought ‘Fuck it’ and carried on
running, leapfrogging over Tim Cahill’s back and diving straight over the pile of players, for absolutely no reason. I then got back up with a little smirk on my face and ran back towards the halfway line.

  To this day I have absolutely no idea why I did it or what the hell I was thinking. It was just one of those spontaneous moments where I was a little bit too keen to be part of the action. Afterwards my team-mates asked me what I was doing and I just shrugged. I watched it back and was thinking, ‘Is that actually me?’

  My brother John, who’s definitely a bit of a wrong ’un by the way, loves that clip, especially the way I just trot back afterwards as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened. And it was one of those moments which loads of fans seem to love, certainly judging by how many of them have asked me about it over the years.

  I suppose the appeal for fans is that they wouldn’t have seen players like David Beckham or Alan Shearer larking around like that during a match, which made me seem a bit more real to them, probably a bit more like them. Just a normal bloke who happened to be a footballer – that’s what people would say to me.

  They certainly would never have seen Beckham or Shearer’s naked antics in the changing room, but that’s exactly what happened to me after someone posted a video online of my Wigan team-mates and I messing around.

  A few of us were bored after training so we decided to recreate a Roman chariot race using the big kit bins. In theory, there were going to be two of us in separate kit bins, having a pretend sword fight. Three of my mates had already been in the bin and had a go, but surprise, surprise, it was my turn that ended up on YouTube.

  When it was my go, I climbed into the bin without a stitch of clothing on bar the Y-fronts which were on my head and a couple of my mates pushed me across the dressing room, but there was no second chariot to meet me, despite me waving my imaginary sword and chanting ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah’. Instead, I just crashed straight into the bench at the opposite end of the changing room.

  And that was it – not something that I would find that interesting, but plenty of others did as the video got something like half a million hits, which is just mind-blowing.

  It’s a shame there was nobody filming on the previous occasion I’d been in that kit bin as that was a true classic that probably would’ve broken the whole internet in one fell swoop.

  Wigan had a kit man called Joe. I think he was about seventy-eight, and we used to love winding him up – but he was old so we had to be careful. Not that we were.

  I decided to hide in the kit bin in the changing room one day, shortly before he was due to come in and pick it up. The boys helped cover me up with a load of laundry and when Joe came in, I leapt up from inside the bin and screamed. Poor Joe nearly popped his clogs on the spot. He absolutely shat himself.

  Better still was the time when Joe flew to Barbados with us for Dave Whelan’s promotion party. Spirits were very high on the flight as you can imagine. We’d just been promoted to the Premier League, we were on our way to a few days of luxury courtesy of the chairman and we were in the mood to celebrate.

  Joe was sitting behind me, snoring away with his mouth wide open, making a right racket. A few of the boys were sitting with me as I started fiddling around with a packet of Maltesers and thinking evil thoughts.

  ‘You wouldn’t do that!’ said one of them.

  Never say things like that to me.

  I took a Malteser and threw it straight into poor Joe’s wide open gob. Time stood still for Joe as he seemed to pause for a few seconds before he opened his eyes and started breathing as fast as he possibly could, making all kinds of noises at the back of his throat, trying to come to terms with the mysterious invasion of the Malteser.

  Everyone on the plane was crying with laughter as Joe eventually calmed down and started breathing normally again. ‘You could’ve killed me!’ he said to me once he’d got his breath back.

  Thinking about it, it was probably just as well that nobody filmed that one or I’d have been done for attempted murder. My problem was that I just couldn’t resist a prank, no matter how daft. It’s a combination of the kid in me, boredom and a need to entertain people.

  Some people used to accuse me of being immature for doing silly things in the pressurised environment of football. They were probably right in some instances as the sort of things I did were really childish, especially when I look back at them. But what people don’t understand is that when you’re there at the time, these stupid things are funny and actually help relieve the pressure sometimes.

  And it wasn’t just me dishing it out – I’d often get done by team-mates, too. It’s been said many times, but a dressing room with a good spirit where players aren’t afraid to take the piss out of each other and lark about, is more likely to produce a successful team than a serious, miserable set-up.

  At Wigan, the spirit was fantastic and there was all sorts of nonsense going on, from naked chariot racing to attempted murder of the kit man, and we were successful on the pitch. There were times during my spell at Hull, where the spirit wasn’t great in the dressing room and there was no unity among the players. Squabbles were common and we didn’t all socialise together on a regular basis. I’m not saying this is a foolproof theory but that disharmony coincided with a pretty lean period on the pitch including a relegation, followed by a struggle in the Championship.

  I suppose it would be the same in any place of work – if you and your workmates get on well, you’ll produce better results whatever you do – even if you’re all messing around, leaving Deep Heat in each other’s pants.

  Okay, you might not do that because your workplace doesn’t necessarily require you to get naked on a regular basis. Thank your lucky stars, because I was left in that vulnerable position every day and once suffered the Deep Heat experience.

  It wasn’t pleasant down below and as soon as I felt the burning sensation on my meat and two veg, I yelled but ripped those pants off in record time. The problem for those boys was they had no idea who they were toying with. When I used to show them the level I was prepared to go to, I never heard from them again.

  Their first mistake was the amateur desire for instant revenge. If someone had pranked them they’d try to get them back immediately, which was the worst possible time to strike as your victim would be most alert to a retaliatory hit.

  I was different. I would wait two or three weeks, by which time whoever I was targeting would have probably forgotten what they’d done to me in the first place.

  Take the Deep-Heat-in-my-underpants example. That was the handiwork of my Fulham team-mate Michael Brown. The last thing he would have imagined when he was putting on his face moisturiser three weeks later, was that I’d filled it with Ralgex. And that’s because he’d forgotten about what he’d done to my pants and his guard was down.

  And what he certainly wasn’t expecting after having to deal with his burning, red-raw face was experiencing even worse in his mouth. That’s because he had no idea that I’d got hold of his toothpaste, squeezed a bit out and filled it with Ralgex before carefully refilling it with a bit of toothpaste at the top. So the second or third time he brushed his teeth, he got a very nasty shock. His mouth was on fire for hours afterwards. He wouldn’t be messing around with my underwear again after that.

  And it wasn’t just me that my team-mates had to deal with. If they thought I was mad, sometimes they’d have to handle my mates, like on one night out with the Wigan boys.

  I was the kind of bloke who’d bring my mates along to almost anything – I drew the line at bringing them out on to the pitch to play with me although I must admit the thought did occur to me more than once. But I’ve turned up at weddings before with mates who clearly weren’t invited and I don’t see a problem with that as long as they behave themselves.

  That’s why it seemed perfectly reasonable to me that if any of my old mates were in town visiting me, they could come out with my team-mates. As long as they behaved themselves.

  And, if b
ehaving involves threatening to kill someone, they did just that.

  We were out in Warrington and there must’ve been at least a dozen of us from the club and my mad mate, who I can’t name for national security reasons, all sat round a table. He’s the sort of character that you think you’ve seen in a film. He is an absolute, out and out wrong ‘un. A complete nutcase. But I’ve known him since we were kids, so what can I do?

  We’d been out for most of the day and our keeper Mike Pollitt had been giving my mate a bit of stick and wound him up a bit – mainly because after a few drinks, he’d had been getting on everyone’s case. Polly’s jibes would’ve been fine if it was the sort of thing that was being said between us team-mates, but not so fine when it’s my mad mate because he wasn’t a footballer, he didn’t understand our relationship and he wasn’t very good at taking any kind of good-natured ribbing like that.

  Actually, he wasn’t very good at being on the receiving end of any kind of piss-taking – even I played it cool in front of him.

  My mad mate said something stupid and, from the other end of the table, Polly piped up with: ‘Shut up you donut!’ which drew a few laughs that definitely didn’t help the situation.

  Clutching a fork tightly, my mad mate informed my team-mates Arjan de Zeeuw, Matt Jackson and Lee McCulloch who were all sitting near him: ‘Sorry lads, I don’t know any of you, but that prick at the end of the table … Polly, are you listening to me?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied the keeper.

  My mad mate walked towards Polly at the other end of this long table, still holding the fork and looking like he meant business.

  ‘Pick a window,’ he ordered Polly once he’d arrived next to him.

  The keeper had a puzzled look on his face – reminiscent of the time when he realised we’d reached the Carling Cup final about five minutes after the rest of us – but pointed to a window on his right anyway.

  ‘That one,’ said Polly.