by Tony Adams
I was on the show with Ulrika Jonsson, who slipped her phone number on a piece of paper into my pocket. Given that I had never been much of a ladies’ man, since my early history with girls had been a bit rubbish, I was flattered but I had no desire to follow up her interest. I was more interested in Caprice, who was Ian’s sidekick on the show and who made it plain she was attracted to me. I don’t think it was purely physical – and there were plenty who would say I was punching above my weight. I was aware of that, but I think I was then a more attractive person than I had been, more at ease with myself and open to new experiences.
The next day, Caprice’s people phoned my people. Her PA phoned the agent who had arranged the interview for me, Stuart Peters, to pass on Caprice’s number to me as an invitation to ring her. I did and we arranged to have dinner. Not wishing it to become a paparazzi circus, we dined at my house one night, then at hers, then with friends.
I liked her very much. She was an honest and sincere woman. It was all very romantic early on, especially our first kiss, which happened down the Mall, where I’d stopped my Jaguar, in sight of Buckingham Palace. And, I have to say, I felt like a king in the company of this beautiful woman.
When I got home and thought about it, I could not believe this was happening. How does this drunk go from sleeping with prostitutes and cheating on his wife – due to such a lack of self-esteem generated by the illness of addiction – to being with one of the most attractive women on the planet? It came through more than two years of sobriety, of self-awareness and self-confidence. I was discovering myself, reinventing myself.
It was all a lot of fun. I was a single guy, the divorce from my first wife Jane having gone through two years earlier. Naturally, the relationship with Caprice became public knowledge soon after and the tabloids were all over it. And naturally the boys in the dressing room wanted to know all the details. They didn’t get them.
It got a bit more serious after a couple of months and we had one or two weekends away. I got to see a different, human side to her from the public persona of top model and serious businesswoman. We are all human beings and we all get scared, and she was no different. We put attractive people on pedestals because of their looks but they, too, can be insecure and shy.
Those instances of her opening up were rare, however, and as the relationship continued, I didn’t get the feedback from her that I hoped for. I would often make myself vulnerable, in sharing my thoughts and feelings, but did not get that back in return. Too often I would get the showbiz mask – and the showbiz game.
I remember once we went out to the cinema in the West End, then an Indian restaurant in Curzon Street. The photographers were all outside the restaurant waiting for us when we came out. It was not pleasant, though I knew it went with the territory of us both being in the public eye.
I rang up a press guy I knew and he made some enquiries. He suspected that one of Caprice’s people was ringing up the snappers telling them where we would be. They wanted the publicity for her, whether she wanted it or not. That wasn’t my world, even if I wasn’t naive enough to believe that certain celebrities didn’t like all the attention that was also good for their business. I felt used, yes, but put up with a certain amount of it because being with her was worth it for a while.
In the end, though, I knew I would have to end the relationship due to the lack of emotional connection. It felt like an act, that she was playing a game before and after she met me. The honesty and sincerity I saw initially got lost behind the facade. She was successful as a businesswoman at that time and had so much more substance to her, but I never got that when we were dating. I got much more of the show and the face.
All the while, I was going to AA meetings four or five times a week and conversing intimately with like-minded women without being intimate physically with them. I was learning that there was a difference between emotional and physical connection. I wasn’t getting the same connection with Caprice, wasn’t feeling it. I spoke to my therapist James, after which I knew I had to voice my feelings to her face to face and finish things.
And so I went round to her place just off the New King’s Road in Chelsea. It was scary for me. This was how grown-ups do things: with respect and dignity and in person. I had had short relationships in recovery before and had tried to end one this way previously, only for the girl to tell me to ‘go fuck myself’. That was fair enough. I wasn’t responsible for her reaction and I had been clean about it. Then, so immature and uncertain was I at the time, I contacted her three months later to say I thought I had made a mistake. She told me I must be joking.
Memories of all that meant I was nervous when I went to see Caprice, but I had grown up a bit since then. I have to say she looked stunning and I was tempted to say nothing and stay the night, but I knew I had to go through with it.
‘Look, Cap,’ I said. ‘I can’t go on with this. It’s fucking my head up. I’m not getting anything back from you. I need to put my recovery first. It’s more important than any relationship.’
Her reaction surprised me and she suddenly got emotional, saying that she had strong feelings and thought this relationship was the real thing.
It left me confused; it was probably the first time we had been really intimate in the months we had known each other. If she had been like this before, we may have got through it.
Underneath all the confidence she showed as a model and businesswoman, Caprice had a fragility. Warmth too. I did have second thoughts, and there is always regret when a relationship ends, but I knew it was right to move on. Sex can be such a drug, and could have kept me in the relationship, but part of my recovery was to be the master of that and look beyond the physical to the spiritual and emotional as well. This from a bloke who once dumped a girl because the underwear she wore was, to his eyes, too big.
Not that I felt I could explain any of that to team-mates or anyone outside of an AA room. I’m sure it would have made me sound weird – a charge that I came to know would be levelled at me through my recovery down the years. The lads all wanted to know about why I had ended the relationship, such are dressing rooms, but what could I say? That I thought Freddie Ljungberg, next to whom I had the honour of getting changed, had a better arse than Caprice?
I had relaxed, become less earnest and more light-hearted with my team-mates after the seriousness of the first year or two of recovery, but this deeper way of trying to be was important to me. The one person I could talk to freely about all this was Lee Dixon, to whom I got really close. He got it and would share back as well. I couldn’t imagine that happening with, say, Ray Parlour, my old drinking buddy.
I remember one Arsenal game against Spurs around that time, and naturally there was plenty of winding-up going on. Tim Sherwood was next to me and Lee Dixon and said to Dicko – Tim incredulous and shaking his head – ‘Caprice? Him – Caprice?’
Dicko answered Tim back and I could only smile. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘And he bombed her out.’
A few years later, I was asked if I would be interested – for £50,000 – in going on Celebrity Big Brother. I then read in the papers that Caprice was going on the show and rang her up, as we were still civil towards each other. We both agreed that the producers were probably looking for fireworks between us in the ‘house’, and I told her that it was not for me. I was by then making better decisions, and not based on money.
After the break-up, I got back to playing football, ever my haven, though I had it more in perspective these days, as I also had a life that involved going to the theatre, eating out, even going to jazz clubs. And coming home from nights out, and waking up from them, sober.
As an indication of how much my life had changed, in the summer of 1999 this ex-jailbird and drunk was awarded an MBE, and was delighted to go to Buckingham Palace with his mum and dad to receive the medal from the Queen. She asked me if I was managing to get a long enough rest that summer, after the World Cup the previous year. I was impressed with her absorbing the information w
ith which she had been briefed, what with more than a hundred people receiving awards that day.
I did have an enforced rest due to a double hernia operation and the team also underwent a bit of surgery. Steve Bould departed to join Sunderland for his swansong, but we still had the traditional back four of Lee, Martin Keown, myself and Nigel Winterburn, with David Seaman behind us. Then the dream midfield duo of Manu Petit and Patrick Vieira, one who held and one who drove, flanked by the industry of Ray Parlour on the right and the pace of Marc Overmars on the left. Up front was Dennis, with a new partner following the departure of Nicolas Anelka to Real Madrid. In return, we got Davor Suker from them, as well as a younger player who hadn’t quite clicked at Juventus. A lad by the name of Thierry Henry.
It was one of those meant-to-be events. Arsène had desperately tried to hang on to Nicolas, who was a sweet young boy but had his head turned by people supposedly advising him and who frustrated Arsène. Had Nicolas stayed, we might not have got Thierry.
I first came across Thierry in ’98, just before the World Cup, when England played a warm-up tournament in Morocco and he was appearing for France. He was playing wide on the left in the match I watched and looked to me like he didn’t know how to get on the ball often enough. He was quick but raw; nothing special, I thought then. Even though he played a part in France’s World Cup win that year, I don’t think even Arsène knew quite how good Thierry would turn out to be. Signings are often made up of 50 per cent the manager’s knowledge combined with the talent of the player, then 50 per cent luck.
While he was lightning quick – and he could run faster with the ball than I could without it – there were no early indications that Thierry would become an Arsenal great, go on to be the club’s leading goalscorer, surpassing Ian Wright, and be deserving of his own statue. Indeed, 1999/2000 would be a season of transition for us. Alex Manninger began to get more appearances in goal in place of David Seaman. The Brazilian left back Sylvinho and Ukrainian right back Oleg Luzhny also arrived, as Arsène began the process of replacing the ageing back five.
We were never in the title race and would end up 18 points behind Manchester United in 2000, our second place coming as a result of eight wins late in the season. I played 21 league matches, as I nursed my declining body through games, and another 11 in Europe.
Our Champions League campaign started badly and finished sadly. Playing our home games at Wembley, while Highbury was being brought up to standard for that level (and with the Emirates still seven years away from construction), did not really help and we limped in third in our group behind Barcelona and Fiorentina, despite a good 1-1 draw in the Nou Camp that I enjoyed and in which Pep Guardiola played. The Barcelona game at Wembley was notable for one Jose Mourinho, then Bobby Robson’s assistant at Barca, coming into our dressing room and asking for my shirt from our laundry basket as a souvenir, I was told by one of our kit men. Nobody really knew much about him at the time.
Wembley just didn’t feel like home. Highbury was a tight venue, one of the smallest playing surfaces in English football – and I often joked that I signed for Arsenal as I would have less ground to cover. Wembley was open and expansive. I’m sure it was good financially for the club, with crowds of 73,000 doubling the normal home capacity, but there were a lot of neutrals watching and it simply wasn’t the same.
Third place in the group meant that we were put into the UEFA Cup, now the Europa League, and we embarked on a good run, beating Nantes, Deportivo La Coruna, Werder Bremen and Lens to reach the final against Galatasaray in Copenhagen, scene of our European Cup Winners’ Cup final victory over Parma back in 1994, when Alan Smith’s goal won it for us. That was a great defensive display by a team with a lot of injuries and organised well by George Graham.
This one wasn’t an especially memorable game, except for the Turkish side’s talisman, the Romanian Gheorghe Hagi, getting sent off, and we lost 4-1 on penalties after a goalless draw. Thierry missed one – and, in fact, he would never score in the final of a competition, be it World Cup, Euros, Champions League, FA Cup or UEFA Cup. I know it came to bug him. Why exactly did they put up a statue of him at the Emirates? All ribbing aside, I suppose that record 228 goals, two league titles and three FA Cups might have had something to do with it.
It had been a poor period with club and it wasn’t going to get any better with country. On top of that would come an event in my private life that would test my sobriety and my newfound faith to their limits.
3
Loss
Grief is in two parts.
The first is loss.
The second is remaking of life.
ANNE ROIPHE
If not physically, then certainly emotionally, success in football gives you energy, while losing drains you. And so after the UEFA Cup final defeat against Galatasaray, I didn’t feel in the greatest shape. In fact, I felt like I was limping into Euro 2000 in Belgium and Holland with England.
We had struggled in the qualifying group, finishing nine points behind Sweden, with a defeat in Stockholm meaning that Glenn Hoddle had few backing him when he made some remarks about the disabled, suggesting that they might be paying for the sins of a past life, which cost him his job. His sacking was only a matter of time when Prime Minister Tony Blair condemned what he said.
It was a shame, as Glenn had a lot of promise as a coach. A devotee of Arsène and his methods, his 3-5-2 formation was at least an attempt to carry on Terry Venables’ work and make us a more modern side by being more fluid of movement, not playing in straight lines. It was not long after Glenn had found a God of his understanding and I remember having the odd conversation with him about it. He was in that phase of being excited, wanting to share his beliefs, but you have to be careful about these things, as I was with who I talked to about AA. People can wonder what the hell you are on about.
The England job probably came too early for Glenn, who was 38 when appointed, as a more experienced manager might not have ignored a golden rule: stick to footballing matters. As we say in AA, we may have our own opinions on outside issues, but we don’t express them publicly. ‘AA is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organisation or institution; does not wish to engage in any controversy; neither endorses nor opposes any causes,’ our credo says. That works for me if I’m a football coach and going to be asked about anything other than football.
After Kevin Keegan took over, we just squeaked through to the play-offs on goal difference over Poland, but he would prove not to be a long-term solution, despite having a good crop of players at the time.
I played in both play-off games against Scotland, a 2-0 win at Hampden Park when the excellent Paul Scholes – quality and loyalty in one package – scored twice to establish him as a great number 10 in the Peter Beardsley/Teddy Sheringham mould, and the 1-0 defeat at Wembley when Don Hutchison scored for the Scots. I recall little about that game. I tend to blank such defeats from my memory.
I also scored the last goal by an Englishman at the old stadium before it was rebuilt, in the 2-0 win over Ukraine in a warm-up game in May 2000. It was my fifth for England and meant I held a national record for the longest period between international goals. It had been almost 12 years since my fourth, against Saudi Arabia in Riyadh.
Come the tournament, I played only the opening game, against Portugal, which we lost 3-2 from being 2-0 up, before a back injury forced me to watch the rest from the stands. It was a poor campaign, with a 1-0 win over one of the weakest ever Germany sides papering over the cracks under Kevin’s management and then a 2-1 defeat by Romania sending us home early.
The whole thing was a mess from my point of view, right from arriving at the hotel to find the Racing Channel being piped in – Kevin being a horse racing fan – and a group of players too intent on gambling. The day before the Portugal game, I knew we were going to get turned over when, in training, Kieron Dyer was asked to play a floating role against the first-choice defence to replicate Luis Figo’s for Portugal an
d Kieron destroyed us. As a result of that chastening exercise, I asked Kevin and the coaching staff what we were going to do about it in response, to plug the leak that Kieron had exposed, and never got an answer. We never did sort it. It duly came to pass that Figo also took us apart on the day.
It was a relief not to be associated with it all after that, I have to say. It was everything that was wrong with English football, all gung-ho and little technical or tactical expertise. I prolonged my international career after that tournament mainly because Alan Shearer was retiring and I wanted to be captain again, which happened in a 1-1 friendly draw against France, Euro 2000 winners, in Paris in the September. The next month, though, after the 1-0 defeat in a World Cup qualifier in the teeming rain at Wembley against Germany, who were learning lessons of the summer while we weren’t, I knew my time was up, my tally of caps ending at 66. What with Euro 96 and Arsenal playing Champions League there, I held the record for Wembley appearances, having made 59.
It was ironic that my last international game was against the Germans because I would find out some years later that I had Teutonic ancestry. Yes, this archetypal Englishman, who had been through losing on penalties to the Germans in ’96, had a German great-grandmother. It was discovered by a cousin researching our family tree. It turned out that my mother’s side were Scottish and my father’s grandparents had come to England from Freiburg in the early 1900s and been bakers in London. There they had children, including my grandmother, Dad’s mum, who gave birth to Dad in 1933.
Anyway, I wasn’t going to announce any retirement that night of the Germany loss, especially when I got overtaken by events. Kevin decided he was going to resign there and then, and he was not going to be talked out of it by either me or David Davies, the FA chief executive, when we took him into the toilets next to the dressing room for a private conversation. We told him to think about things overnight, not to do anything impulsive, but Kevin was an impulsive man.