Do You Know What?

by Andrew Flintoff

  Bit weird…

  ‘Your dad could bowl a bit, but batting? Useless. He were thick! Careless!’

  A few days earlier, I’d shown the boys a clip of Geoffrey hitting a spectator with a bat, so my youngest said, ‘Are you the fella who hit the man with your bat?’ Geoffrey was all flustered – ‘What? What?’ – but I like characters, it’s people like Geoffrey who keep the game interesting.

  You sit and listen to the stories nowadays and think, ‘Come on, you’ve not got a clue lads, not got a clue…’ It’s a different world. Everyone will be sat there on their phones, texting and posting pictures on Instagram. But I blame hair straighteners the most. When I first saw Paul Collingwood straightening his hair in the dressing room, I knew the game was gone. How can you expect someone to play through a bit of pain when they’re worried about split ends? I hung in there for a while, but towards the end of my cricket career, I was looking around the dressing room and thinking, ‘I don’t really know anyone any more, all my mates have gone.’ The culture was different, the language was different, what was and wasn’t acceptable was different.

  I was in the dressing room towards the end of my career and someone walked in with new hair. One day he was half-bald, the next he had this thatch on his head. I was sat there thinking, ‘This is a gift, an open goal, I’m having this’, but nobody else was saying anything. I couldn’t understand it. Eventually I said, ‘All right mate, how’s your hair?’, and my teammate appeared behind me and started making the cutthroat gesture. I felt bad and ended up having a 20-minute discussion about the merits of hair transplants. I was confused. Why was everyone suddenly being so nice to each other?

  CHAPTER 18

  WATERSTONES, NOT WETHERSPOONS

  Battling the booze

  When someone gives up booze, you often hear people say, ‘He’s not the same person any more.’ They’re right, I’m not. When you’re four or five pints in, you are a different person, it alters your personality. I was more fun when I drank, the life and soul of the party. But I was bored of being that person. People tell me I’ve become boring, and it’s true. I’ve had to be quite ruthless, cut ties with people I used to drink with. And because I don’t go to the pub any more, the gym has become my night out. As sad as it might sound, I spend the whole time at the gym laughing with Robbie.

  My mate Paddy – who was my best man and is godfather to my daughter – calls me boring all the time. It’s fine, because he’s bang on. I’m quieter, more introverted. But, jokes aside, Paddy accepts me for who I am. I take it as a weird kind of compliment, because it means I’m finally happy being me. All those years, being the life and soul of the party in pubs and bars across the land, and that person was just a version of myself brought on by alcohol.

  When I started playing cricket, drinking was normal for a county player. I might drink seven, eight, nine pints a day. You’d walk off the field and the 12th man would take an order. You’d have a couple in the dressing room, a couple with the opposition in the bar, a couple with dinner and a couple more after dinner.

  As terrible as it might sound, drinking bolstered my confidence and helped me gain acceptance. At the same time, because I wanted to be seen as different – and whatever I lacked in ability I wanted to make up with bravado – I’d sometimes drink when other people didn’t and not drink when others did. I’d go out, score runs the next day and people would be saying, ‘Bloody hell, how did he do that? He didn’t even sleep last night.’ And I’d be thinking, ‘Actually, I was in bed before you.’ A lot of it was an act, part of the mystique.

  A lot of how I behaved as a cricketer was about maintaining that mystique. During the final Test of the 2005 Ashes series, me and the missus had dinner with Neil Fairbrother and his wife. We drank a few bottles of red and the following morning I decided to turn up to the Oval early. When the Aussies got off the team bus, I was standing outside having a cigarette, bidding them all a cheery good morning. Once I’d finished my fag, I ran upstairs and positioned myself in the corridor, so that they had to pass me again as they made their way to the dressing room. I was standing there saying, ‘Morning, lads! Lovely day!’ and they were looking at me as if I was mad.

  When I went out to warm up, Glenn McGrath and Brett Lee were bowling to the wicketkeeper Adam Gilchrist. So I got a ball out of our bag, wandered over and said, ‘Lads, my boys are all playing football and messing about, do you mind if I join in with you?’ They looked at each other as if to say, ‘What’s this lad on?’ before Glenn said, ‘Yeah, mate, if you like.’ I marked out my run-up, came hurtling in, pinged one through to Gilchrist, he took it above his head, threw the ball back and I said, ‘Cheers, that’ll do me.’ As I was wandering off, Glenn said to me, ‘Mate, do you ever get stiff?’ I replied, ‘Stiff? Never heard of it…’ When I got back to the dressing room, I collapsed in a heap, because I was as stiff as a board. Then I went out and bowled them out.

  A couple of times I did get the dosage wrong, gambled on the weather being bad and woke up in the morning to be greeted by bright sunshine. The night before I scored a hundred against South Africa at Lord’s in 2003, the knock which turned my career around, I was hammered. That was Michael Vaughan’s first game as Test captain, so he was slightly on edge. He was even more on edge after we got an absolute battering over the first few days.

  After day three, Vaughany popped into the hotel bar on his way out for dinner with his missus, saw me and Harmy and said, ‘What are you two doing?’ We said, ‘Having a couple of pints and heading to bed.’ One pint quickly turned into three, and when Vaughany returned at about 1 a.m., me and Harmy were still there. As he was probably within his rights to do, Vaughany tried to give me a bollocking.

  ‘Mate, what are you doing? You’re battered!’

  ‘Don’t worry about me. I bet you I’ll score a hundred tomorrow.’

  ‘You won’t.’

  ‘Okay, let’s put some cash on it.’

  ‘How much?’

  The following morning, I was sat on the window ledge on the balcony, feeling awful. Jimmy Anderson said, ‘You all right?’ To which I replied, ‘Mate, I’m hanging out of my arse. But I’ve got to score some runs, because I’ve had a bet with Vaughany and he knows I was pissed last night. If I don’t, I’m for it.’

  It was a dead game by that stage, but I went out, played some shots and entertained the crowd. I reached my hundred in no time, and when I came off, Vaughany had a big grin on his face. We still lost the game by a landslide, but in his post-match interview, Vaughany said I’d spared some embarrassment for the team and clawed back a bit of respectability, which was nice. The one downside was he didn’t honour the bet.

  That was one time drinking ended well, although a few times it went badly. On an A-team tour of Zimbabwe, we ended up in this rough nightclub in Bulawayo. These rugby lads were having a pyjama party, and when one of them squared up to me in only his pants, I pulled them down and ran off, flicking Vs. He swung a punch, I slipped it – using my very proficient boxing skills – and Steve Harmison, who was dancing on a stool, was taken out instead. Harmy popped up off the floor, swung at this lad, missed, and hit Vaughany flush on the chin. Now Vaughany’s on the deck and the whole thing is like a slapstick comedy. I looked around at the backup, saw Vikram Solanki, Darren Maddy and Chris Read, our little wicketkeeper, and thought, ‘Shit.’

  Suddenly, this rugby team has evacuated the building and a bouncer has tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘You need to take this outside.’ I was thinking, ‘We’ve got nothing to take outside.’ When we got outside, there was this big pit, like something from Braveheart, and this rugby team were lined up on one side and we were lined up on the other. I walked to the middle to discuss an armistice, explained that there had been a terrible misunderstanding, and Harmy came flying over the top, arms and legs swinging, before the police turned up and bundled us into the back of a van.

  But if I hadn’t drunk, I don’t reckon I would have been the player I was. Some people say
I might have been better, but who really knows? Drinking was just part of my personality, as a person and as a cricketer. Maybe it was why I sometimes failed, maybe it was why I sometimes succeeded. It got me into trouble occasionally, but it also did me a lot of favours.

  Drinking meant escaping, getting away from what was going on in my head. I never did drugs, even though they were rife at school. I’ve got an issue with drugs for the obvious reasons, but also because I struggle with the idea of shoving something up my nose which has been chopped up in the jungle and stuffed up someone’s arse for the trip over to England. I might as well go around sniffing arses. And cocaine turns people into complete bellends. I struggle with wittering at the best of times; talking to someone on cocaine could make my head explode.

  Some people take drugs, some people play golf, some people potter around the garden. I liked to drink. That was my hobby, just like chess was my hobby when I was a kid. I still play a bit of chess, although my latest thing is online Scrabble. I scored a 96 the other day, for ‘quiz’, on a triple letter. And did you know ‘zo’ and ‘qin’ were words? I’m really into it at the moment, but I’ll get bored of it soon and stop. That’s what happened with the drink. I got to the point where I thought, ‘This is not doing it for me any more.’

  I looked at all the things I’d been doing that involved drinking and realised I didn’t enjoy any of them. I’d go to a function or dinner to have a drink. I’d play golf to drink on the course. Eventually I realised that drinking was just my way of getting through things. And if the drinking was the only part I liked, why not just sit on my own and drink? And when you start doing that, you’re in serious trouble.

  Drinking started catching up with me the next day. I’d get terrible hangovers that would make my mind feel ten times worse than normal. I used to be good at drinking, but not any more. I’d be getting slaughtered and passing out in bars, or making a dick of myself. I’d be waking up cringing about what I might or might not have done the night before. And as you get older, you get more and more feary. I got fed up of feeling like that, tired of my reputation. People would revel in telling me the stupid things I’d done. There should be a rule against that – whatever happened on a night out while drunk should never be mentioned again. But I’d be sat there in the morning, trying to piece the night before back together again, and someone would pipe up and say, ‘Oooh, what about you last night?’ Shut up! Shut up! Oh, God…

  I’d still have an occasional great night with my mates, but most of the time the drinking was masking the fact I was in a situation I didn’t really want to be in. I’ve got so many happy memories from drinking, but I started to get too many bad ones – or not, if you know what I mean.

  When I finally knocked it on the head a few years back, it was difficult for the first week or so, because it felt like I was left with nothing. But I slowly got used to it. I miss it every now and again, but not enough to want to start again. The best thing about giving up drinking is getting up in the morning and taking the kids to school without a screaming headache. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to shake off the reputation.

  That happens in life, people get labelled for all time for things they did a long time ago, even when they’ve tried very hard to change. When Matthew Syed brought out one of his books, I went to Waterstones at about 9 a.m. before it was open, knocked on the door, and this lad opened up, stuck his head around the door and said, ‘Are you sure you’re in the right place? This is Waterstones, not Wetherspoons…’ Funny bastard.

  From that moment I got involved in the Guinness drinking game in Guernsey, I was in the thick of everything. Drink gave me confidence, opened doors, made me feel welcome. So I’m not one of those people who’s going to start saying, ‘Oh, drinking is terrible, a scourge, destroyed my life, I’m so much better without it.’ I vowed never to be one of those people who takes pride in telling you they no longer drink. You know the type – you’ll be at the bar, ask them what they want and they’ll reply, ‘Oh, I’ve given up.’ So what? Just tell me you want a Coke or a glass of water, stop being so smug and pompous about it. I’ve never heard anyone say, ‘No thanks, I’m a complete dick when I drink. You wouldn’t want to see me drunk, best just get me a lemonade’.

  Life isn’t necessarily better without drink – that’s why people drink! They drink for the same reason they take drugs or drive cars fast, because they get this enormous buzz out of it. For me, drinking was mostly good. It gave me some of my best times and did me a lot of favours. But it evolved into a love–hate relationship. I couldn’t control it any more, I had a problem with it, it became an issue. I’m not some kind of hero for giving drink up, it’s just that I was rubbish at it. What’s heroic about that? Now, I don’t have a relationship with drink at all. I guess you could say that me and the drink are divorced.

  CHAPTER 19

  GOAT KILLER

  The call of the wild

  While my social horizons have broadened since I retired from cricket, one thing I haven’t become is more cultured. It annoys me, culture. Or at least the word does. What is culture? I struggle with it, to be honest. Culture seems to be things that other people tell you that you should like. I don’t like being told what I should watch or read or listen to, I want to make my own mind up.

  I’ve got an artistic streak. I’m quite creative, enjoy colouring in. I like some art, but some of it is just rubbish. I was in an art gallery the other day and there was a blob on a canvas, and a frame on a wall with nothing in it. What’s that all about? I was in a restaurant recently and there was a cow in a tank. That’s not art, that’s a dead cow in a tank. I like reading, but I like reading what I want to read. I’ve read all of Ben Elton’s books, all of Irvine Welsh’s books, and my favourite book of all is To Kill a Mockingbird. I tried to read Harper Lee’s second one, which came out more than 50 years later, but got five pages in and gave up. She should have quit while she was ahead.

  I went to France recently, performed in cabaret with Jamie Redknapp at the Lido for A League of Their Own. I thought, ‘I’m in Paris, I’m not just gonna sit in a restaurant with Jamie all day, I’ll do some exploring.’ So I went for a walk around Notre-Dame Cathedral and was completely blown away, but not by what you’d expect. Don’t get me wrong, the cathedral was nice, but it was the walls of the Seine that I couldn’t get my head around. I just found myself looking at these massive walls for ages, thinking, ‘Why is everyone taking pictures of the cathedral? Look at the walls on this river! They’re massive!’

  I’m convinced that a lot of the time, people don’t see the same things as each other. Someone will say to me, ‘Look at that, it’s brilliant’, and I’ll be thinking, ‘No, it’s not, it’s shit.’ But I’ll be fascinated by things that other people don’t even notice. When I drove from Monaco to Milan, I couldn’t believe the tunnels. I was more amazed by those tunnels than I was by Victoria Falls or the Taj Mahal. I love tunnels, there’s a mystery about them. Them and bridges. How on earth do they do it? They’re talking about digging a tunnel through the Pennines, from Manchester to Sheffield. What a complete waste of time and money. Who needs to get to Sheffield quicker? Who needs to get to Sheffield at all?

  To me, culture is more about different people than buildings or books. And the best thing about doing TV is not the money it brings in, but the life experiences. I basically come up with things I want to do and see if someone wants to pay me to do it. Like going around Britain in a chip van. I wanted to do a travelogue-type show, I liked fish and chips, asked Sky if they thought it was a good idea, and they said yes. Sometimes I’ll come up with an idea, pitch it at a meeting, they’ll give it the thumbs-up, and I’ll walk away almost giggling, because I can’t quite believe it. Pitch youth hostelling with Chris Eubank to enough people and eventually someone will say yes. I guarantee you.

  I met Rob Penn while I was making the fish and chip show. He’s a green crusader, as well as a keen cyclist, so we did a do-gooder show together, which involved us riding
and camping along 1,000 miles of the Amazon, trying to save trees. And a few years ago, I did a series for the Discovery Channel, Freddie Flintoff Goes Wild, which involved me being dropped into the middle of nowhere in various far-flung places and basically seeing if I’d die or not.

  I spent ten days with the Masai in Africa, walking through Tanzania. We flew in, drove for hours and met this bloke Thomas, who was dressed in all his robes. The first day I got there, they tried to teach me to fight with sticks and throw a spear, in case we got attacked by a lion. The plan was to meet up with a wildebeest migration, so we were walking about 20 miles a day, in burning heat, with a big backpack on. Not for the first time I thought, ‘I’m in the wrong job.’

  The elders wanted to have a welcome feast, which they put on in this little hut. They picked out a goat, which was led into the hut, and Thomas said, ‘You’ve got to kill it.’

  ‘I can’t kill a goat. I’m no goat killer. Why would I want to kill a goat?’

  Thomas kept on at me, and eventually I said, ‘Go on then, give me the knife…’

  ‘No, you don’t cut its throat, we want to keep the blood. You’ve got to strangle it.’

  ‘I’m not strangling a goat!’

  ‘Okay, so you’ll have to suffocate it…’

  So I was in this hut, rolling about on the floor with a goat, my hand over its mouth and nostrils, and its bleating was getting more and more subdued. When it finally expired, Thomas and his mates cracked open its belly, stuck their hands in and started lapping up the blood.

  Suddenly Thomas said, ‘You’ve got to have some blood.’

  ‘I don’t want any blood.’