by Tony Adams
I smoked four of the cigarettes before deciding I’d had enough. I then took the kids out on to a patch of tarmac in the pouring rain and did something I knew how to do: played football with them – using an empty can of Coke. They got tired, the episode passed and I learned more about staying off drink during stressful moments. And about being practical. The following year I took them to Portugal – along with my mum and dad for help. Such common sense didn’t mean, however, that I couldn’t still behave insanely even without the stuff.
At that time, I had two cars, including a nice new Jaguar that had caught my eye, three homes and a boat. There was the old family home in Essex and a new one I bought in Putney, south-west London, to be near to Clare, Ollie and Amber, who were all living in Fulham with Jane. Then there was a flat in Hampstead, which I rented to look cool, thinking it might even impress Jane enough to come back to me. It cost me £27,000 for six months and I never spent one night there.
On top of that was the boat, a speedboat, which I’d noticed in a showroom in Finchley, north London, one day when I decided to drive home from our London Colney training ground through the city rather than round the M25. I thought that it might be fun for the kids, for when we went to stay at my caravan on Mersea Island in Essex.
I picked it up on a trailer one day and decided to take it down to the Thames at Putney Bridge, where I had seen people launching boats by the slipway of a rowing club. I backed the Jag and the trailer on to the slipway and uncoupled it, jumping on as it began to float into the river. As I did so, people asked me if I needed any help.
AA had taught me to ask for help but in those early days my pride was still prevailing. ‘No, I’m fine,’ I lied.
Pretty soon, as I looked back towards the bank, I realised I had left the front door of the car open. It was too late. The current was now taking me upstream. I vainly tried to start the engine. I knew nothing about boats. All I got was a puff of smoke. I had never taken the trouble to find out that an engine needed to be run in before the boat went into the water.
Soon I was being carried past Fulham Football Club, rowers now asking me if I was OK. Of course I was. I daren’t tell them I was getting a bit worried. Fortunately, some reeds in the shallows near Kew intervened and the boat came to rest. There I waited for four hours until the tide turned. There was one paddle in the boat and, with the tide in my favour, I finally managed to get the boat back to Putney Bridge in another couple of hours.
The good news was that the Jag was still there, despite me having left a door open. The bad news was that the water had risen from the river and flooded the car. Finally, lesson learned, I was forced to ask for help and some people kindly helped me load the boat back on to the trailer and get it and the car somewhere out of the way.
It didn’t quite end there. I still needed to learn a further lesson or two. Trying to be the doting dad, I took the kids down to Mersea with the boat and slowly drove car and trailer carrying the thing on to a beach there, with Clare, Oliver and Amber all excited sitting in the boat. The idea was that I would push it gently off the trailer into the sea. The reality was that the car stuck in the sand and I couldn’t budge it. Thankfully, all this was observed by a local farmer and I started waving to him for help. He brought down his tractor and dragged the car out of the soft sand. He was pretty angry with me, as well.
‘What the bloody hell were you thinking?’ he asked. ‘You should be using a slipway. And haven’t you seen the weather forecast? There’s hailstones and high waves coming in. You might have killed yourself out there.’ In fact, it was a good job I hadn’t used the slipway and instead got stuck in the sand. If I had gone to sea, I might have endangered the kids.
There is a passage in the Big Book of AA that says something about God doing for us what we could not do for ourselves . . .
Gradually, I decluttered my life, getting rid of the Hampstead flat and selling the old Essex house. Along with the boat and a second car. And as life became simpler, so football became easier. Sobriety also quickly gave me back the competitive edge that was in danger of dissipating in drink. I was so glad and grateful. I desperately wanted to make up for lost time and win things. And I did.
It helped that Arsène was creating a new approach at the club that was right for a new me. ‘Just go and play,’ was his instruction. He was fortunate that he had inherited George Graham’s back four – Lee Dixon, myself, Steve Bould (with Martin Keown as back-up at centre back) and Nigel Winterburn – just as George Graham had been lucky to inherit a clutch of players from the youth team, such as me, Paul Merson and David Rocastle, who would go on to be full internationals. Meanwhile, we were fortunate that Arsène helped prolong our careers. It was a good deal all round, with Arsenal the winner.
We were, admittedly, sceptical at first of this professorial figure we nicknamed Windows on account of the spectacles he wore, but we soon bought into his then innovative methods as we recognised that they could extend our playing days.
Much has been made of his dietary regime, but we were already eating well and I recall our midfield player Paul Davis bringing in a book on nutrition back in 1986. What Arsène did introduce was the ‘layering’ of food – eating the chicken first then the pasta, in the belief that protein followed by carbohydrate, as opposed to being consumed together, released energy more slowly and therefore was better for a player’s constitution. One thing he couldn’t change, though, was my treat of fish and chips on a Friday night. It held comforting memories for me of eating the good old English dish the night I quit drinking . . .
Arsène was also big on ensuring that players’ bodies were in good condition externally too, and he brought in a man called Philippe Boixel, an osteopath with amazing healing hands who would massage feet, legs and backs. He even realigned my jaw as he thought it was affecting my posture and causing ankle injuries.
Philippe also had a unique method of dealing with some back pain I was suffering. On telling him that my tailbone hurt, he put on some rubber gloves, inserted a finger up my anus and promptly massaged my prostate. I was in agony – the lads outside the room having a good laugh at my expense – but when I left that room I was pain free.
Then there was nutritionist Dr Yann Rougier, who would oversee supplements such as creatine and vitamin B12 and whom Glenn Hoddle, having taken over as England manager from Terry Venables after Euro 96, would also use before the 1998 World Cup in France. Arsène’s other little trick was to provide us with sugar lumps and caffeine tablets as energy boosts at half-time in matches. The sugar was even coated in alcohol, though naturally I had mine without. Otherwise, Arsène was not in favour of the peaks and troughs that sugar could bring and did not want players to use it.
Arsène was certainly the best physiologist I have ever encountered and was a man open to ideas and dialogue with you. All of that, combined with the talent of the existing players and ones he recruited, made Arsenal a renewed force over the rest of my career.
That first full season after I got sober, in 1997/98 – which was also Arsène’s first full campaign – brought another celebrated Arsenal league and cup double, the FA Cup secured with a comfortable 2-0 win over Newcastle United in the final. We had a very fine blend of players, from the solidity of that defence, through a midfield that now had Manu Petit arriving to partner Patrick Vieira, and Nicolas Anelka and Dennis Bergkamp magnificent up front. Chistopher Wreh also weighed in with some important goals and performances.
I got over an ankle injury to lead the side in the final home league match, a goal of mine when I half-volleyed home from Steve Bould’s through-ball against Everton to seal a 4-0 win being a memorable personal highlight. My final pose of arms outstretched in a moment of pleasure and serenity would form the image used when the club decided to put up a statue of me outside the Emirates Stadium nearly 14 years later.
It’s a goal and moment I’m still asked about . . .
When I was a young player at Arsenal, Kenny Sansom would often make a run from left b
ack and demand the ball with a shout of, ‘Stick me in. I’m gone.’ I always had it in my mind that I would like to do that one day. The time arrived at last. ‘Stick me in. I’m gone,’ I shouted to Steve Bould. He did and I was.
The moment was all the more magical because it came via my weaker left foot, on which I had worked hard since the age of 10 or 11. That aftermath of the goal embraced bliss and a oneness with myself that verged on the spiritual.
‘That sums it up,’ the Sky commentator Martin Tyler said in his commentary on the day, and indeed it did.
Afterwards, I had to be a little careful not to get too close to the champagne celebrations, as would happen more times over the next few years. I did get sprayed a little but while I was a bit uncomfortable, I wasn’t going to let it bother me. Nor did I want others not to enjoy the moment. I’ve always wondered about Formula One drivers spraying the bubbly about after a Grand Prix and ask myself what message that sends out about drink-driving.
The euphoria of that title-winning day was up there with that moment not long after quitting drinking, and the physical obsession to drink had been taken from me, when I came to believe that there was a Higher Power in my life – some people choose to call it God – as outlined in the AA programme. It felt like a force looking out for me and which could help me enjoy a sober life. It meant I need never feel alone and while on bad days I may not have been able to recognise it, it was always there. On my good days, its presence is obvious to me.
I am sure it was watching over me that day when I was stressed with my kids in the Caribbean, even if I was preoccupied and anxious. And it would mean in the future that I could tap into it in tough times. Thinking it through, too, why would I take again the very drug that had been destroying my life? Why, if you’ve been burned by fireworks, would you go near them again?
Mostly, my life was a series of enjoyable moments in early recovery. I can remember, for example, feeling an overwhelming sense of gratitude and peace in the October of 1997 when in Rome with England. It came the day before the game when I was at the team hotel reading M. Scott Peck’s self-help book The Road Less Traveled and just had this sense that all was, and would be, well. I went on to have one of my better games for my country as we drew 0-0 with Italy in that backs-to-the-wall game where Paul Ince finished with his bloodied head bandaged.
The result meant that I finally went to a World Cup with England – and we could and should have gone beyond that France 98 last-16 match against Argentina when we drew 2-2 but lost on penalties. We had a young and exciting Michael Owen coming through – though the defender in me always thought the Argentine defender allowed himself to get a bit square on as Michael raced past him to score that wonderful goal, running from almost the halfway line.
David Beckham’s red card for the lightest of retaliations towards Diego Simeone was a turning-point moment, but he was unfortunate and did not deserve the vilification that came his way. It showed the immense character that he has that he went on to achieve so much in the game. That day, as I consoled him in the dressing room afterwards, I knew he would be a big part of England’s future.
Perhaps things would have been different had we had a fit and firing Paul Gascoigne, as he had been at Euro 96, but before the tournament came that notorious episode at the Spanish training camp in La Manga when Glenn left Gazza out of the squad.
I, along with Paul Merson, who was then also not drinking, had tried to get Paul sober enough – by talking to him, filling him with coffee, getting him in the swimming pool – to enable Glenn to pick him, but we were powerless and in retrospect I feel that both England and I, in my last World Cup, were cheated. France would go on to win the tournament they hosted, with Zinedine Zidane pulling the strings for them. Gazza could have been our Zidane. I personally may have been sober but the reach of alcoholism was still besetting English football.
Was I angry with Gazza? More sad for him, really, knowing all about the addiction we share. He has always been a dilemma – how much do you help him, how much do you let him go? Too many have kept him stuck in his illness by enabling his drinking and behaviour, but the anxiety is always what might happen to him if you let his illness play itself out. In the end, you are powerless until somebody decides they truly want help.
The next year – 1998/99 – Arsenal should, in my opinion, have gone on to do a treble, such was the quality of the squad we had then. That group was almost as good as my favourite one of all, that ’91 team of just one league defeat.
In fact, I remember saying to Sir Alex Ferguson in 1999 that it should have been us, rather than his Manchester United, winning the league (in which we were runners-up to them by a point), the FA Cup (in which we lost to them in an epic semi-final) and the Champions League, in which we somehow managed to finish behind Dynamo Kiev and Lens in our group.
Sir Alex’s response? ‘Aye, well,’ he said. ‘We should have done the double in ’98.’
He once, incidentally, called me a Manchester United player in an Arsenal shirt. My response: Sir Alex was an Arsenal manager in charge of Manchester United. Twice he tried to sign me, and both times I considered it but turned him down because I was Arsenal through and through.
The first was in ’91 after we had won the title. It was at an England get-together and Bryan Robson, then United’s captain, spoke to me about it, perhaps having been asked by Sir Alex to have a quiet word in my ear. Tapping up? Yes, of course, and anyone who doesn’t think it goes on in the game informally all the time is being naive. George Graham even once got me to have a quiet word with David Seaman, then at Queens Park Rangers, at an England get-together and David ended up joining us.
At the time, the wages weren’t going to be much better, as they were pretty much on a par at all the big clubs in that era, just before the Premier League started. And, anyway, I was stuck in my drinking and the London life with my mates and family around me. I wouldn’t have had the tools to cope up in Manchester on my own.
The second United approach came in ’96, in the autumn just five weeks after I had stopped drinking and in that period of uncertainty when Arsène was taking over from the sacked Bruce Rioch. I did entertain the idea, I have to admit, given my reservations about a new manager, a Frenchman as well, who knew nothing about English football. I had lost the boss I so respected, George Graham, a year earlier. I was questioning the club’s ambition. We hadn’t won the league since 1991 after all.
I guess Sir Alex might also have wanted me because, as well as feeling he might be strengthening United, he might be weakening Arsenal. The two clubs would become great rivals over the next few years, but then we had many other rivalries – including, of course, our north London neighbours Tottenham, and they were always the ones we wanted to beat. In the 1980s, it was Liverpool, with George Graham forever saying that we were the club that would go up North and take them on. Those were the days when we were so much closer to the fans, in touch with the community, than players are now and so felt it more. We also had big London rivalries, which made it more difficult to win league titles with so many derbies to contend with.
There were personal rivalries as well, such as Roy Keane and Patrick Vieira, though I thought that was more a product of the modern-day media. Paul Davis and Bryan Robson had their battles too, in an earlier era, and some of the confrontations at Old Trafford in the 1980s and early 1990s were much fiercer than in latter days. Whenever we met up for England, we were all fine, even if the United lads always sat together. I particularly got on well with David Beckham.
After the second Old Trafford approach, I met with the ever dignified Ken Friar, the club secretary, and Danny Fiszman, one of the club directors of the old school. Danny was a wonderful man who loved the club with a passion and would sadly die prematurely, from throat cancer, at the age of 66 in 2011. He was a diamond merchant who was generously putting money into the club at the time – around £50 million, I believe. They offered me a contract that more than tripled my wages, from £300,000 a year to
£1 million, and it convinced me that Arsenal were going to be ambitious and competitive.
Their assertion that the club was going to invest in high-quality players to support and blend with Dennis Bergkamp was equally important in stopping me going to United and, besides, at this time I needed some stability in my professional career, with a lot of change going on in my personal life. Naturally, the pull of Arsenal was also always overwhelming.
They were such fine margins that spring of ’99. That FA Cup semi saw Peter Schmeichel’s penalty save from Dennis in the last minute that would have won us the game, before Ryan Giggs’ wonderful solo winning goal, me desperately trying to cover and make the final tackle. Then, on the penultimate weekend in the league, having just before won 3-1 at Tottenham, we went to Leeds and lost to Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink’s late goal. Nelson Vivas made a rare appearance late on as a substitute and made a costly error. Arsène would not have Nelson after that. He hardly played, would go out on loan, and his contract ran down.
That season was also notable for something significant that happened in my private life: my four-month relationship with the model Caprice Bourret.
My old team-mate and friend Ian Wright had retired and had an ITV show late on a Friday night. He invited me on. It was live and I was worried about doing it, but I agreed as I thought it might be interesting – and good for me, having always been so uncomfortable about speaking in public in the past. AA is, after all, a programme of change. And so I did it, and it was good for me. I felt calm and relaxed and able to open up about my former life with drink and new life without it.