It would be nice if nobody gave a shit, but weight and appearance is such a big thing, especially in the TV world, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a bit of personal pride as long as it is healthy for them. People tell me I look in better shape now that when I played cricket. That’s because I started training. I hated training when I was younger, saw it as a chore. Now it’s become part of my everyday routine. It makes me feel better about myself.
I’ve been sucked in by the odd fad diet. When I stopped drinking, I started eating too much chocolate. You can buy one of those big Dairy Milks for a quid in Poundland, and I can get through two in a day. So I recently went on the C9 diet, which basically meant paying £120 for a box with hardly anything in it. There are powders and shakes and tablets, but you’re effectively paying £120 not to eat for nine days. I mainly did it because my missus was on it, so I wasn’t going to get cooked for. I’m not sure I even wanted to lose weight. I was just a bit bored, because I had nothing else on. That’s how my mind works: ‘What have I got on this week? Nothing? Right, I’ll give that daft diet a go…’
CHAPTER 17
THE GAME’S GONE
The way things used to be
I don’t feel sympathy for kids coming through today and the amount of scrutiny they’re under – why would I feel sorry for someone who is embarking on a career as a professional sportsperson? But sport is getting very sterile and a bit boring because it’s ultra-professional, ultra-technical and analysed to within an inch of its life. When I started playing for Lancashire, you finished the season in September, had the winter off, and turned up again the following April. Now, you’re back in the nets in November and training all winter.
After losing my place in the England team in 2001, my management team hatched a plan to send me away for training with the academy. When I went to sign my contract, it said £20 grand on it. I said to John Abrahams, who I knew from Lancashire and who ran the academy, ‘John, it says 20 grand here? Is that right?’ John said, ‘Oh, is that not enough?’ I’d asked to come on the tour, and now they were paying me 20 grand. Happy days… until I found out we were going on a teambuilding exercise at Sandhurst Military Academy.
Team-building exercises aren’t really my thing. Teambuilding exercises at military academies are about as far away from being my thing as you can possibly get. The first morning, we were being drilled in this sports hall, doing press-ups and sit-ups, and a few of the lads, including me, were struggling to keep up. This woman started screaming at one lad, so I piped up and said, ‘He can’t do it. He’s trying. What’s shouting at him going to achieve?’ Then she started shouting at me, so I said, ‘What’s wrong? Why are you shouting at me? Please don’t shout at me.’ Then this bloke popped up and started shouting at me as well. As you’ve probably gathered, I don’t like being shouted at.
All this pointless team-building stuff was followed by two days of survival. The plan was to dump us on the hills with our backpacks and survival kits, and we were supposed to find our way to different checkpoints and solve various puzzles. I was standing on a hill with Keysey, looking at what we had to eat, which turned out to be dried food and wasn’t going to cut it. So I said, ‘Tell you what, I’ll nip to the shop.’ I went to Sainsbury’s, bought some crisps and chocolate bars, stuffed them in our bags and set off.
When I looked at the map, I realised we were just going round in a big circle, so I said, ‘Lads, I’m making a decision here. Let’s stash the bags in the bracken over there and we’ll circle back and pick them up later.’ So we stashed the bags, covered them up, and when we got to the first checkpoint this sergeant or whoever he was started shouting at us.
‘Flintoff! Over here now! Where’s your bag?’
‘Well, I looked at the map, realised we were going in a big circle, and decided we’d stash them and pick them up when we circled back round.’
At this point, he got right in my face, so I could feel his spittle. ‘Flintoff! The bergen is the most important part of a soldier’s equipment!’
‘I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t expect this reaction. I thought I was using my initiative. Why would I carry it if I don’t have to? Seriously, it’s heavy, and we’ve got a lot of walking to do…’
That wound him up even more. He told us to do this task, which involved some barrels and some pieces of wood, was miles easier than he said it was and we finished in a few minutes. Then I said, ‘Is that it? What’s next?’ I couldn’t help myself, but now he was wild. He stormed off, and half an hour later a couple of fellas appeared with a stretcher and a 100-kilogram dummy, which we had to carry for the next two days.
Because I read the map wrong, we ended up leaving the grounds and walking down this high street. People were tutting at us, saying stuff like, ‘No wonder the country’s in the state it’s in, look at the state of these soldiers…’ We got back on track and picked the backpacks up, but by the time we got back to the checkpoint it was dark, so we decided not to put the tents up and sleep under the stars instead. We were all sat around in a circle, emptying the crisps and chocolate onto a rug so that we’re basically having a picnic, and this bloke came out of nowhere and started shouting at us. Again. He was kicking us in the back, standing on our fingers, booting the crisps and chocolate everywhere. Then he set us another challenge, which involved us trying to find a wagon in the dark and being hit over the head while we were doing it. The next day, after manoeuvres, we all had a dinner, and I got so drunk I had to be carried to bed by some soldiers, which was revenge for the 100-kilogram dummy.
In contrast, the academy trip to Australia was a bit of a jolly. The food was shocking, but because we were getting paid, we used to go to nice restaurants every night. I’d say to Keysey, ‘Fancy an Italian? There’s a lovely one in Adelaide.’ And he’d rub his hands together and say, ‘Yeah, Trev, let’s ’ave some of that.’ Then there was the Tuesday Night Club. There’s this famous strip bar in Adelaide called the Crazy Horse, and we went there every Tuesday and got to know the staff very well. We’d all be in there, a bunch of academy lads who hadn’t achieved anything in cricket yet, sipping champagne.
After the Christmas party, one of the blokes who ran the academy said, ‘Lads, there’s this place called the Crazy Horse I’d love to go to, would you like to join me?’ As we were walking up the steps towards the entrance, he turned around and said, ‘Have any of you lads been here before?’ To which we all replied, ‘No, mate, of course not…’ But right on cue, this girl walked out and said to us, ‘Gentlemen! Welcome back. Would you like your usual table? The champagne will be over in a minute…’
Because I was bowling quick, I got called up to play for England, so the lads sent me off with this massive night out. The following morning, I’d not packed my bags, and the manager, who was ex-army, was shouting at me to hurry up. So I thought, ‘Fuck this’, stuffed everything into my bags, slung them over my shoulders and walked out naked. This manager was going absolutely spare.
‘Flintoff! What are you doing?’
‘Going to India, to meet the lads…’
‘Why aren’t you wearing any clothes?’
‘As long as I’m wearing a smile, that’s all that counts…’
I fell in the car, flew to India, and that’s when my England career started to take off.
The human element of sport is waning. When I started playing cricket, it wasn’t very professional, but it was fun. At Old Trafford, there were two dressing rooms, one for the first team and one for the second team, and the second team dressing room doubled as the smoking room. Because Benson & Hedges sponsored the one-day tournament, there would be cartons of fags lying about all over the place. Even players who didn’t smoke smoked. If players weren’t playing, they were in the crowd watching. Or they’d be drinking with fans in the bar, and when the night was over, they’d walk out of Lord’s and catch the Tube home. That was all normal. That’s one of the reasons darts is so successful, because it’s one of the few sports where the
crowd can identify with the players. They look at these big fellas on stage and think, ‘These are just normal lads, who like a pint and a punt in the bookies.’
Cricket has gone the other way. When I started, a team photograph consisted of the team, the coach and the manager. By the time I finished, there were dieticians, shrinks, bag-carriers, social media gurus, someone to pick your nose and scratch your bum. I’m surprised there was a camera lens wide enough to fit us all in. I can vividly remember Alastair Cook turning up for the first time, taking his top off in the dressing room and looking like someone off a Calvin Klein advert. All of a sudden, people were drinking protein shakes after a day’s play, instead of four or five pints. They didn’t drink coffee or tea, they were having electrolyte drinks instead. I used to come off for lunch excited, because I ate what I wanted. I didn’t want pasta and dry chicken, I wanted a curry. Give me a big pile of fish and chips and I’ll play better in the afternoon, because I’ll be happy. Give me pasta and I’ll have the hump.
At the start of my career, I ate everything. Me and Paddy lived near a takeaway place called By the Slice, which served pizza the size of bin lids. We had one of those almost every night, because it was easy. Life with Paddy was lively. We would be chasing nights out here, there and everywhere, go out until whatever time, get up the next morning, train half the day and go back out. That was our week, every week, and we wondered why the training wasn’t having any effect. We’d have had to run a marathon every day to lose any weight.
We didn’t do any housework, we had cleaners in to do that, although a forensics team might have been more appropriate. We didn’t really have a clue about grown-up life. We went to Bodrum, Turkey, on an 18–30 holiday, got sold a dummy by the travel agents, who told us it was packed all year round. When I finally turned up – two days late, because I forgot my passport – there was nobody there. But when you’re that age, everything just seems funny.
But I wouldn’t change a thing, because you’ve got to live life while you’re young. You’re not going to be able to eat pizza every night when you’re 65. There were times during my career when I thought, ‘I should have worked harder, I should have done my homework, I shouldn’t have had that night out, I should have done this and done that.’ I found myself wearing shirts with ‘XXXX’ on the tag. Back then I was too big even for Jacamo.
As a result, I’d turn up for games not knowing how it was going to go. I could nearly handle getting beaten if I’d done everything I could, I couldn’t handle it if I hadn’t. But there’s no point dwelling on it. People want me to regret it, and regret it on my behalf, but I don’t. I loved it, and I think I ended up doing all right on the pitch. I played plenty of games for England, more than I might have done, given the injuries and pain I was playing through.
Whenever I got into a scrape, the first person I thought of was my mum and her embarrassment. But apart from not inviting my mum and dad to Buckingham Palace, the only thing I’d change is every shot I played when I got out. I can never understand it when people say, ‘What would you have done differently?’ It doesn’t make sense to me, because when you make a decision, however that decision looks in hindsight, you thought that was the right decision to make based on your state of mind and circumstances at that time.
Regrets are absurd, because you’re not the same person who made the decision you’re supposed to be regretful about. Also, everything I’ve done has made me the person I am today. I’m not saying I’m perfect and wouldn’t change anything, but it’s all part of the great tapestry of life. What’s the point in sitting around and thinking, ‘I wish I hadn’t gone on that pedalo or got clattered at 10 Downing Street’? Or ‘I wish I’d brought Duncan Fletcher an apple every day’? Seriously, I was pissed trying to get on a boat. Who cares? I didn’t kill anyone, I was just having a bit of a giggle. And it wasn’t the night before a game, it was two nights before a game. And the game was against Canada! I could have done it during the game…
And it was that sort of stuff that got me work after I retired from cricket. Can you imagine Jonny Wilkinson on A League of their Own? I’m not criticising Jonny, he was the perfect professional and I’m sure he’s doing very well for himself, but that’s why I’ve got some of the gigs I have – because I wasn’t the perfect professional. Sometimes you do things that seem ridiculous but turn out for the best. Like that time I punched a wall in the dressing room and had two pins inserted in my hand. I had eight weeks off and got picked for an England tour. It was one of the best things I ever did.
Number 10 was just a bit of fun, and I wouldn’t change a thing about it, because I didn’t want to meet Tony Blair anyway. It was his government that hung us out to dry during the World Cup in Zimbabwe, when we had to forfeit a game because they were worried that Robert Mugabe might turn up and try to shake our hands. When I got hammered, I’d get something in my head and be even more stubborn than normal, so when one of Blair’s aides asked if I’d like to meet him, I decided to sit on a swing in the garden and have a beer with Harmy instead.
As an aside, I was at Number 10 recently and Theresa May did this speech. Her opening gambit was, ‘Against our better judgement, we’ve allowed Freddie Flintoff back.’ I nearly shouted out, ‘Look, Theresa, David Cameron used the same line when I was here last time.’
Afterwards, I bumped into her on the steps and she said, ‘I hope you were all right with that?’
‘No, I was offended actually.’
‘Oh. I am sorry.’
‘Only joking!’
Poor woman is trying to keep the country from falling apart and she’s got some smart alec former cricketer giving her lip. That’s all she needs.
If I was playing cricket now, I think I would have had to conform. It’s not that I didn’t conform, I just liked to do certain things my own way. I like to think I would have still been my own man – if that’s at all compatible with conforming – but it’s a different world now. The kids all come through academies together and are taught to behave, as well as play, in the same way.
Now, everyone is so guarded. Even I have to be guarded. Once I get going, I’m not sure what’s going to come out of my mouth, but I am also very aware that when I speak at functions I have to be careful what I say, because people will be filming on their phones. If I say one word out of place or make a joke about the wrong person, it could be all over the internet the next day.
Women’s sport is a tricky one, a subject that is fraught with danger. Men’s cricket has been going for over a hundred years and is constantly improving, so that it’s probably the best it’s been. The women’s game is a lot newer and not fully professional yet. It would be great if more people were willing to invest in it, especially at grass-roots level, but as it stands the crowds are smaller, the TV viewing figures are smaller, it doesn’t bring in as much sponsorship. The same can be said for women’s football and women’s rugby.
I think we should celebrate women’s cricket for what it is. Forget about the men and what they’re earning. They’re different games, at different stages in their evolution.
Women’s cricket is making great strides, and of course there is so much room for improvement. The women’s game shouldn’t be patronised – someone needs to grab hold of it, give it a shake, and make changes. The alternative is me saying everything is fine, which is tantamount to suggesting that’s all women are capable of.
But it’s a conundrum: improvements can only be made if people are willing to invest in it at grass-roots level, and only when those improvements are made will people watch it in the same numbers as they watch men’s cricket.
I don’t see why an eight-year-old girl shouldn’t start playing with an eight-year-old boy and for them both to come through the ranks together. If she’s good enough, good luck to her; if she’s not, at least she might get better faster. It certainly makes sense to have female batsmen practising against male bowlers. And if the batters improved, then the bowlers would have to get better in order to compete. T
hat might be the only way of finding women bowlers who can send it down at 80mph, instead of 70mph, which is barely medium pace in men’s cricket.
One of the reasons I like Geoffrey Boycott is that he says what he thinks. I know people have got beefs with him and he’s stiffed a lot of people, but he’ll tell me to my face what he says on the telly or the radio. Despite all the waffle, I respect him as a player and a person. He likes to be the centre of it all, but that’s why he’s such a good pundit, because he calls it like he sees it, and sometimes that can be brutal. More importantly, he wants people to do well and he wants England to do well.
When I first started playing for England, he wouldn’t call me by my name. He’d be on commentary and say, in that thick Yorkshire accent of his, ‘Here he is, that big lad from Lancashire. He’s rubbish…’ Because he thought I was crap, he didn’t think I deserved to be called by my name. I only really got to know him through my wife Rachael. Because of her work, she had to go to the cricket every now and again, and one day she didn’t have any internet connection where she was. So she went to the media centre, got chatting to Geoffrey and it was only because of that that he started talking to me. From that day on, he started calling me by my name on telly. I was no longer the big, rubbish lad from Lancashire.
But even when I see him now, he still hammers me. I took the boys to Lord’s and showed them round the media centre. I was randomly opening doors, and we met Bumble and Shane Warne and Brett Lee, before Geoffrey invited us into his commentary box. I said to the kids, ‘This is Geoffrey’, and Geoffrey was off: ‘I like your dad, lads, but I love your mum…’
Do You Know What? Page 15