I get to meet some of my heroes. These are people I’m genuinely thrilled to meet. Of course I get nervous because I’m a fan as well. My most nervous time was when I met Roger Federer the day after he’d broken the Wimbledon record for the most number of wins. I actually went in and sat with him and interviewed him for an hour! A whole hour! He loves football, he’s seen me playing and he made me feel at ease. There was good banter between us. He’s so graceful in everything he does. I love the way he carries himself, and there’s a brilliant coldness about the way he plays and wins. The way he’s sustained that over a long period makes me respect him even more. He’s beautiful to watch, and I love that his one-handed backhand is a throwback to an earlier era. I think he saw my feelings of awe – I couldn’t hide it – but he was warm and calm and gracious. And then he goes: ‘If you ever want to come back or if you ever want some … some … um … my tennis shoes or anything like that just let me know.’ And I’m thinking, ‘Shit! This is Roger Federer!’
When I met Will Smith I saw the difference between a star and a superstar. You get 10 minutes with that guy and not a second longer! But he’s warm, and he’s really with you for that 10 minutes. Sometimes we’re scheduled to do a 20-minute interview with someone and I get an hour. I could have sat with Jamie Foxx a whole day. Mickey Rourke’s had an unbelievable life, so to read his story then be able to sit down and speak with him was unbelievable. When I met Usain Bolt after he broke one of his records I asked him what he eats and he goes: ‘Chicken Nuggets. And I love dumplings.’ I was like ‘What?! Really?’ It was just like the people who ask me how I get around London and when I say ‘By tube’ they go ‘What?! Really?’
Meanwhile, we’d called the magazine ‘#5’ because that’s my number, and then that became a brand in its own right. It was an idea I had jointly with New Era. We thought: can this become a brand? The thinking went: we’ve got a logo, now what happens if we put it on something … like a cap? Why caps? They’re simple. No one needs to try one on because one size fits all. And this was the experimental bit: ‘let’s do it purely on social media with no advertising or PR at all.’ This was just about the time everyone was getting into Twitter, early 2011 or so. I happened to see a game on TV when Ray Wilkins was commentating and he kept saying ‘stay on your feet … you gotta stay on your feet … he has to stay on his feet there.’ He must have said that about 25 times! So I made that a hashtag of it. Whenever I saw someone lying down in an airport I’d take a picture, tweet it and put the hashtag on it: #stayonyourfeet. Someone did a slide tackle: #stayonyourfeet. I did it everywhere, and it became a meme.
When we went on tour to Asia I had my first foray into fashion: I had a load of ‘Stay On Your Feet’ T-shirts made. Amazingly, they sold out almost immediately, just through social media. Everywhere we went people were wearing the shirt and shouting in the stadium: ‘stay on your feet, Rio!’ I thought ‘This is mad! It caught on so quick!’ We’d sold so many T-shirts out of nothing so we thought: let’s see if we can do something else through the magazine. We already had 500,000 subscribers and I had 2 million followers on Twitter, and about the same number on Facebook, so … we thought: ‘Let’s go!’
So I started promoting the caps. When I did an interview I’d give the person a cap. Some put them on. Some didn’t. I wouldn’t ask them to do it but I could say ‘Here’s a present …’ Jamie Foxx sat the whole interview with it on. Lewis Hamilton too. Nicole Scherzinger went and bought one! It had just been an experiment, but all of a sudden it was taking off. Every time we bring out a new colour cap it sold out. Next, we tried hoodies – and they sold out too. One time I went to Dubai and Tinie Tempah says to me, ‘Rio, man, where’s my hoodie?’ While I was filming a World Cup preview with Olly Murs for the BBC he goes: ‘Rio, I’m going on holiday with four mates and we all need caps!’
It’s all gone so well that now I’m restructuring the business to do it properly to take things to another level. I’ve got all the big high street shops interested. Buyers from department stores are saying, ‘Rio we want your track suits and your T-shirts!’ But we have to take it carefully and make sure the clothes are good enough before we take that step.
We’re just trying small runs of stuff at the moment to see if there’s an uptake. Of course, there’s a team around me at New Era who manage things day to day. But in terms of ideas, colours and styles I have to be involved.
Is this a new career? Probably not. With the fashion and the magazine and all the rest I’m still just exploring and playing. People give me ideas all the time. ‘Do this,’ or ‘Dude, put money into that,’ but at the end of the day it’s my name and my reputation at stake. So far it’s going well and hopefully it will continue to grow. But if it doesn’t, we’ll move on to something else. The main thing for me is that it’s a good experience, learning about business, media, PR and so many other things. I never had time to go to college – but I’m learning my way.
Paul Scholes
The human sat nav
If Paul Scholes had the showmanship or outgoing personality of a Thierry Henry or a David Beckham there wouldn’t have been a bigger star on the planet. Ask any of the greats in the game. Go to Barcelona and speak to the Xavis and Iniestas. Speak to Patrick Vieira. Speak to Zidane. Or go online and see what all those guys thought. They all say their hardest, most respected opponent in the Premier League was Paul Scholes. He is in everyone’s top three. He was absolutely amazing.
He was always undervalued when it came to things like voting for Player of the Year because he was quiet. But here’s something that tells you how highly thought of he was at Manchester United. He wasn’t the best tackler and in training he used to kick people. But somehow no one ever said anything to him. If anyone else did the kind of things Scholesy did, they’d have been lamped! But everyone liked him and respected him so much he just seemed to get away with it. No one even seemed to mind too much when he got sent off. In one important game away at Inter Milan he got a red card after about ten minutes and you thought, well … that’s not so bad because Scholesy’s got us out of trouble loads of times. It was the same with the manager. He’d give Scholesy a long leash in a way he never did with other people.
That was because Paul Scholes was quite simply the best player who played for Man United. It was just a dream to play alongside him. He was just a great, great player. Everything he did was without fuss. But what he did was unique.
People talk about one of his trademarks: the long switch pass from one side of the pitch to the other. Yeah, there’s a lot of players who can do a version of that. Lots of people can hit the ball from right to left or left to right. But there’s very few who can do that and take two or three defenders out of the game at the same time! Scholesy did that continually. He never played the safe ball on the defender’s safe side. He always played the ball to hurt the defender, taking him out of the game and putting our winger through on goal or into a position to cross unopposed. People talk about Xabi Alonso or Pirlo or Toni Kroos. Yeah, they’re all great passers and everything, and they can play that ball as well. But they play it on the safer side. They don’t play it as often or with such pinpoint accuracy as Scholes. He’s The Human Sat Nav! Scholesy could score 30-yard goals in training that were just ridiculous beyond belief. Just have a look at some of them on YouTube. They’re works of art.
He was always available. Always wanted the ball. No matter what the score was he wasn’t afraid to come and get it. For me as a central defender he always gave me an option to pass the ball to, even if he was under pressure. You just can’t put a price on someone like that. And at the same time he scored so many important goals. He did everything with such great integrity and quietness.
He is the most naturally talented player I’ve seen. You saw that in pre-season when we’d all been away for one month, six weeks or whatever it was. For everyone else it would be normal to take a couple of weeks to get their rhythm going again, to find their range in passing and shooting. Not Scholesy
. He comes and on the first day he is the best player in training. Always. And he hadn’t kicked a ball all summer! He still might be off the pace a bit but his technique and touch was like the day he left for his holidays.
After he retired, he came back and trained with us for a couple of days. We had no idea he was coming back until we saw him on the bus before a game against City. I said ‘What you doing here?’ He said ‘I’m just coming to watch.’ I said ‘Oh, cool.’ In the changing room the manager names the team … and Scholesy’s a sub. Fantastic! Scholesy is back! He hasn’t played for seven or eight months but as soon as he starts training with us again he’s the best player in training again! It was ridiculous. He went straight back into it at his old level.
I remember often running the length of the pitch to celebrate with him after a goal and saying to him ‘This is just a pleasure, man! It’s an honour just to play on the same pitch as you.’ I used to say that to Giggsy as well. And it was. They would both do impossible things and just laugh about it! If that had been me or anyone else, we’d have been screaming and celebrating but he would just trot off like it was completely normal.
People didn’t understand Scholesy. They thought he was bland but he could be one of the most cutting people I’ve met in football. He is not a vindictive person but every now and then he would make little comments or observations about people. Very dry. Very quick-witted. I never thought I’d see him on television, but when he appeared on Sky for the first time near the end of the 2014 season I thought: ‘woah, he could open up on a few people here.’ And he did. He laid into Arsenal, criticised Jack Wilshere, but was also critical of us. We were watching it together and the lads were laughing. What else could we do? It wasn’t anything we didn’t expect. Scholesy’s an honest lad and he said what he thought. We couldn’t complain because he wasn’t wrong. We had to take it on the chin. He was just being honest.
Frankly
Thoughts on a friendship
I owe the Lampards a lot. Frank Lampard Senior, who’d been a great full back for West Ham in the 1970s and 1980s, scouted me for the club. Later the whole family welcomed me and helped me more than I can say. Frank Senior saw me playing for Blackheath District when I was 15 and he asked me to come to West Ham for a training session. I arrived about 45 minutes late because of the traffic and I hated it; I really didn’t fancy going back. But he persisted. He came to see me again and told me the club was planning to invest money and time to find and develop young players and bring them into the first team. And he was true to his word: they made it happen for me. He used to pick me up from my estate – but would always have the doors of his black Mercedes locked when I came to the car. It made me laugh! What I never realised at the time was that Frank Lampard’s son Frank Lampard Junior would become my close friend, teammate … and rival.
Frank Junior – I’ll just call him ‘Frank’ from now to avoid confusion – was different from me in that he went to a private school, was very good academically and lived in a huge, luxurious house in Essex. But those sorts of things never came between us – we immediately hit it off. We were alike in our approach to football: both hugely competitive and deadly serious about improving as players. We were always the last two to come in after training. Harry Redknapp or the youth team coach Tony Carr would shout at us: ‘Come in! Save your energy for the game!’ and we’d hide and carry on playing where he couldn’t see us. It wasn’t exactly that Frank and I were trying out-do each other but there was a healthy rivalry and it was a part of our friendship. If he did some sprinting I’d think I can’t not do that – I can’t have him getting one up on me there! If he stayed outside for half an hour longer practising his passing or shooting, I’d think I should go and do some as well because I don’t want him to get better than me at that. Frank’s one of the hardest working professionals I’ve ever met – always doing extras, always working on his shooting and that’s why, later, he scored so many goals.
We were good mates, but more importantly Frank was my driving force, my best workforce mate. We were both determined to reach the first team and always pushed each other in that direction, and, of course, we ended up playing for England together. But first we were apprentices and we played in the youth and reserves team together, before we broke into the West Ham first team. When he scored his first goal away at Barnsley we did a dance together to celebrate. We talked about it the night before: ‘If you score, Frank, we’ve got to do a little dance.’ It ended up as a really stupid jig. You look back at it now and think: ‘What were we doing?’
It wasn’t all work. We roomed together when we travelled away and Frank was funny! He used to get up in the middle of the night – religiously – and have the longest wee I’ve ever heard in my life! I’m sure it was just to make me laugh. We were always going out to clubs and pubs together. We were so much a double act that if anybody saw one of us without the other they’d go: ‘Where’s Frank?’ or ‘Where’s Rio?’ There was a good group of us in the youth team. Frank was the poster boy and probably the girls’ favourite at that time – but I had the banter, so we made a good partnership. Much later he became a real West End Chelsea boy. But at that time he preferred to stay in Essex.
He and his family really looked after me. Because it was such a long way from Peckham I used to often stay at their house, which was near Romford. When I first went I thought flipping hell! These people are living in sheer luxury. They were so warm and welcoming and generous. Frank’s Mum Pat was an absolutely lovely lady – she was Lamps’s diamond, really, and was brilliant with him. While Frank Senior provided the drive and intensity, she had this lovely soft touch: the encouraging mum you’d love to have. Frank really loved his Mum and looked up to her more than anyone. She made me feel so welcome and always looked after me, cooking unbelievable breakfast fry-ups for us on Sundays. And, well, everyone knows what happened with her: she suddenly fell ill and passed away. It was an absolute tragedy.
Meanwhile, Frank’s Dad was pushing him and always being very strict with him, football-wise. When we played, you’d hear him berating Frank from the sidelines. If Frank had a bad game his father would provoke him: ‘What’s the matter with you? You didn’t want the ball!’ Yet one of the great things about Frank is he never goes into his shell. At the beginning, I think, his career was all about proving to his Dad that he could make it; being Frank’s son was tough, after all. When he was young, Bobby Moore, his Dad’s old teammate, used to pop round to their house for tea. And not only was Frank’s Dad a club legend, his Uncle Harry was the manager (Frank’s Mum’s sister married Harry Redknapp). Frank could never escape being from football aristocracy.
Fortunately, Harry rated both of us. Whenever they needed a couple of youth players team to train with the first team he’d invariably call for me and Frank. Some of the older players used to give Frank a bit of stick for it – and, later, a lot of the fans reckoned he was getting preferential treatment because of his family. For instance the club arranged ‘fan forums’ at a conference centre: they were question and answer sessions with the manager, players and club officials. At one of these events a guy was hammering Frank, saying: ‘He’s not good enough! You’re biased towards him because of who he is. There are better players in the reserves.’ It turned out that the man’s nephew was in the reserve team with Frank, but Harry came to his defence, saying: ‘mark my words, this boy Frank Lampard will play for England, don’t you worry about that!’
And of course he did.
Frank has had a great career and ended up outstripping the football achievements of his Dad. I was always a fan. Frank saw the game clearly and knew when and where to run and pass. He did everything quickly – one touch a lot of the time. But the word that defines him as a player is ‘efficient’: he was never interested in dribbling; pass and move was his game and he had this amazing ability at the edge of the box to shuffle his feet and get a shot off. He would make himself a bit of space and … BANG! That was the product of years and years of hard work.
People argue about whether he or Steven Gerrard was the greater player. Stevie always seemed a bit more natural to me, but in terms of timing, getting in the box and scoring vital goals, there was no comparison with Frank. I always say if I were a manager, I’d take Frank every time: yes Gerrard can win a game on his own, and in his prime he won quite few like that. He won the FA Cup practically single-handed, and the European Cup Final against Milan in 2005. If I was paying to watch, I’d probably pick Gerrard because he’s a bit more explosive and does a greater range of different things in a game. I’d watch him do things in training and in matches and think, fuck me, that’s high-level! He’d hit precise, raking 30- or 40-yard passes like Scholes or Beckham. Or he’d drop a shoulder, beat someone and bang it in the top corner. He was explosive – he could get you out of your seat. Paul Scholes in his heyday is perhaps the only person who gets close to Frank in terms of timing his runs into the box from midfield. But, as I say, if I was a manager, I’d take Frank all day long. He was the coldest finisher in front of goal; he’d guarantee you 20 goals a season and you can’t put a price on that. He’d get two chances in the game, score with one and the other one would be on target. Ridiculous! He broke the Chelsea goal-scoring record … as a midfielder. That says it all.
#2Sides: My Autobiography Page 15