But we didn’t fade. Our heads didn’t go down. We kept going. Ryan Giggs hit the underside of the Italy bar with a brilliant free-kick and then, 20 minutes from the end, John Hartson played me in on Buffon with a clever pass that dissected Cannavaro and Nesta. My pace took me away from them and as Buffon rushed out, I nudged the ball around him. I took one touch, slid the ball into the net and then let the mayhem wash over me.
That was one of the best nights of my career. Not just because I scored the winner and it was the first time Wales had beaten a leading nation in a competitive match for a long while but because we deserved it, too. Probably 90 per cent of the games I won with Wales, our keeper had had a great night. But the victory over Italy wasn’t like that. Giovanni Trapattoni, the Italy manager, said afterwards that they were lucky they only lost 2-1.
I missed the next qualifier, a 2-0 win over Azerbaijan in Baku at the end of November, because of my knee problems. I had just scored the winner against Feyenoord but Sir Bobby knew how much I was struggling and he kept me out. It was billed as a club versus country row but I couldn’t have played. I was in too much pain. After the high of the victory over Italy, Wales fans were not happy.
“I’ve had some unbelievably rude faxes from Wales,” Sir Bobby said at the time. “I understand their frustration but they don’t know the facts and they shouldn’t waste our time. They’re crucifying us for not letting Craig go, but he’s been out for seven months.
“He wasn’t fit at the start of the season, he’s played and had a reaction, and he’s been away for three weeks getting right again. I would have loved Mark Hughes to have Craig available. He played against Feyenoord but he would have told you himself that he couldn’t have played against Azerbaijan.”
Still, we had three victories from three games. It was great to be involved in a national set-up surrounded by optimism at last. The next competitive fixture was in March 2003, at home to Azerbaijan, but by the time it arrived, I was battling with new issues.
My nan had just died suddenly and even though I’d driven down to Cardiff through the night in the immediate aftermath, I’d never had a chance to grieve properly. The games were coming thick and fast. Football doesn’t stop. I didn’t even go to her funeral because my dad thought I would become the centre of attention and it might turn into a bit of a circus.
I was really cut up about my nan. I’d been really close to her. She was a big part of my childhood. Sometimes, a football pitch can be an escape from that sort of grief but sometimes it can be a cruel place, too. Newcastle played Charlton at The Valley soon after she died that March and there was a point in the match where we were leading 2-0 and I ran on to a through ball but was flagged for being offside. The Charlton goalkeeper, Dean Kiely, seemed to think I was going to kick the ball back to him but I left it so I could get back in position.
“I hope your fucking mum dies of cancer,” he blurted out as he ran past.
I’ve heard that kind of stuff from fans before but I had never had it from an opposing player. I had to turn around to make sure he had said it.
“You wait,” I mouthed at him.
My head had totally gone. It was all I was thinking about. I went straight over to him at the final whistle. He wouldn’t even look at me. He tried to get out of my way. John Carver tried to get in between us but I followed him down to the tunnel and he went out of sight.
The following Monday, I read some interviews he’d done in the papers where he was talking about how I was always mouthy and lippy but Shearer was the complete gentleman. I knew what he was doing. He was trying to cover himself in case I told everybody what he had said. Nobody knew what he had said to me at that point but he made an oblique reference to it.
“He’s a fantastic player but he’s not shy and likes to wind people up,” Kiely said in his interviews. “But I’m not going to go home worrying what people call my mum or whatever. Maybe he thrives on that sort of thing but it seems to work both ways because you only have to look back to Newcastle’s Champions League game against Inter Milan when he got himself sent off.
“I truly believe in karma and if you live doing that sort of thing, the other side will eventually get you back. You’ve got both ends of the spectrum at Newcastle. On the one hand there’s Alan Shearer, who is rightly regarded as an ambassador for the game. And then there’s Craig Bellamy.”
Karma? What kind of karma do you get from saying you hope someone’s mum dies of cancer? I got a number for Kiely from Shay Given.
I rang him in front of a few of the boys when we were in the changing rooms at the Newcastle training ground. I switched it to loud speaker so everyone could hear.
He answered. I got straight into it.
“How dare you say that to me about my mum,” I said, “and then try to start covering yourself in case I came out and said something.”
“Look, I apologise,” Kiely said. “I was up all night thinking about it. I can’t believe I said it to you. My auntie died of cancer. I’m in shock I said it to you. All I can do is apologise.”
“Yeah, all right,” I said. I pressed the red button.
Even now, I can’t look at him. Prick. People have him down as this nice guy but what kind of person says that? I was just burying my nan. He wasn’t to know that but it doesn’t change what he said.
So I was ready to unravel when I got down to Cardiff for the week’s build-up to that Azerbaijan game. It was the first proper stay I’d had down there since she died. I went out with Speedo on the Sunday evening. We had earmarked it as our night out before training began in earnest the next day. I drank quite heavily. I started to let it all out, all the grief about my nan. It wasn’t the time or the place but it was the first chance I’d had. We drank on until after midnight and then Speedo said we should get a taxi back to the team hotel at the Vale of Glamorgan.
We were driving through Cardiff city centre on the way back when I saw a crowd of people outside a bar called Jumpin Jaks. I thought there was a place open. I told the cab to stop and opened the door to get out. Speedo told me to get back in but I was gone by then. I wouldn’t listen to him. I went to go in and the bouncers said they were shut.
I wouldn’t hear it, of course. I insisted there were people in there and that it was my right to go in. The bouncers said again that it was shut. I kept arguing. At that point, one of the bouncers grabbed me and threw me down the stairs leading to the bar. I know Cardiff. That happens. In fact, I was lucky I just got pushed.
Speedo saw what was going on and came and got me. He told me to get back in the cab. But by then, there was no chance of me doing that. I was fuming. I wanted an argument. Speedo knew what I was like. He saw there was no way he was going to convince me, so he got back in the cab and left.
I started having a go at the bouncers. One or two kids who were outside the place started slagging me off. I don’t blame them, really. I was acting like an idiot. Anyway, I told one of the kids to fuck off and things looked like they were going to get totally out of hand. At that point, a couple of other lads appeared and said they were staying in my hotel. They said they had a cab waiting and they’d give me a lift.
I’d had enough by then. I’d reached my limit. I didn’t want any more hassle. I felt weary all of a sudden. So I got in their cab. I had never met those lads before and I have never met them again to this day but in the cab on the way back to the hotel, I started crying. I was wailing about what the hell I was doing down there when I should be with my kids and my girlfriend. It was all coming out. Those lads must have wondered what the hell was happening. We arrived back at the hotel and they helped me into reception and said goodbye.
I went back to my room and I got it into my head that I was going back to Newcastle and that I didn’t want to play for Wales on Saturday. I was not in a fit state of mind, my knees weren’t great, I didn’t want to play. I rang Speedo and he told me to meet him in reception. Soon, Mark Hughes and his assistant, Mark Bowen, were there, too. It was 2am by now and they wer
e all trying to convince me to stay.
But I was adamant I was going home. I rang my dad and told him to come and pick me up and take me up to Newcastle. I told him I didn’t want to play for Wales again. It was like a drunk stream of consciousness. Sparky told me to go to bed and sleep on it. He said if I still wanted to go back to Newcastle tomorrow, he would drive me up himself. He knew I’d change my mind in the morning. They all knew what had happened with my nan and they knew the state I was in.
Speedo was begging me. He said I could sleep in his room but I wouldn’t have any of it. My dad arrived and he told me to listen to them. But I refused and in the end, he agreed to take me. So we drove all the way back to Newcastle. I slept most of the way. We got there at dawn. Claire was astonished to see me.
I was still half drunk. I was warbling on about my knee and concentrating on Newcastle, which was what Bobby Robson always used to say I should do. I went to bed for a few hours, woke up about 11am and thought ‘what the hell have I done?’
I rang Bobby Robson and went to see him at the training ground. At first, he was saying ‘you can stay here, son’. But in the end he saw that I was full of remorse and that I was worried about what I’d done.
“You better get your arse back down there then, son,” he said.
I knew I had to go back. I apologised to Sir Bobby and then I rang Sparky and apologised to him, too. He just laughed.
“I knew this was going to happen,” he said. “See you tonight.”
But it wasn’t over. If only it had been that simple. My dad drove me back down to Cardiff and during the journey, the radio news was reporting that the police were looking to question me over an incident that happened outside a nightclub in the early hours of the morning in Cardiff.
I was puzzled as well as concerned. I could remember getting pushed down the stairs but not much else. I knew I hadn’t been in a fight. When I got back to the Vale of Glamorgan, Sparky said the police wanted to speak to me and the next day I went to be interviewed at the police station.
They started asking me how much I earned and stuff like that. I had a solicitor down from London. They said a complaint had been made that I racially abused a young teenager. That was news to me. I denied it. I gave my side of the story and the police guy said to me afterwards that a kid had made a complaint but that he hadn’t been particularly convincing.
“Good luck on Saturday,” he said, as I was leaving.
I thought it was over and done with but in the next couple of days, it was claimed I had called the kid a ‘fucking Paki’. That wasn’t true but the allegations dragged on until the case went to court more than six months later. Newcastle defended me, up to a point. They said I was ‘a rascal, not a racist’. When it came to court, the kid didn’t even turn up but because I had admitted I had sworn, I was convicted of using foul and abusive language and fined £750.
So this time, I suppose it was me who injected the element of farce into the preparation for a Wales game. Thankfully, it didn’t have any lasting effect. There was a brilliant atmosphere at the Millennium again, 70,000 for a game against Azerbaijan. We were 3-0 up at half-time and 4-0 up after an hour. I got a nasty kick on the knee early in the second half but we had already made one substitution and so I had to stay on for as long as possible. It was frustrating because there were goals to be had but I could hardly run, let alone shoot.
By the time I got back to Newcastle I was a bit of a wreck. My tendinitis was bad and now I had a heavy knock, too. I had heavy strapping on for the game against Everton at Goodison Park the following weekend. I was desperate to play in that, too, because we had won nine of our last 12 games in the Premier League and moved up to third place, five points behind Arsenal and three behind Manchester United.
But we lost at Everton, beaten by a header from a young Wayne Rooney and a David Unsworth penalty. The next weekend, we were battered 6-2 by United at St James’ Park and the weekend after that, we lost to Fulham at Craven Cottage. Any faint hope we had had of snatching the title had gone but we went unbeaten in our last four games and held off Chelsea to finish third.
Newcastle were very aware of the fact that I was struggling with knee problems. I thought I needed an operation on both of them. But Wales had crucial matches against Serbia and Montenegro, at the end of August, and Italy at the beginning of September that would decide whether we qualified for the Euros. I knew that if I had knee operations at the end of the Premier League season, I would miss those games. I wanted to play those Wales matches and then go for surgery.
That would mean I would miss most of the 2003-04 Premier League season but it also meant I’d be fit for the Euros in Portugal in the summer of 2004. I was so close to playing in the European Championships and I didn’t know if I’d ever get as good a chance to get Wales to a major tournament again.
It meant I would be putting Newcastle second, which ate away at me, but that was the sacrifice I was prepared to make. Newcastle told me I needed the operation on my knees straight away. I told them I was fine. They knew what the score was, I think. They knew I was looking at the bigger picture.
I went to Malaysia on pre-season tour with Newcastle and played a game against Birmingham City. I was in almighty pain after that game. I couldn’t even sleep. Both patella tendons were killing me. All that was going through my head was that I would have to retire. I just thought maybe I could have one big game against Italy and then play in the Euros and that would be the end for me. I knew I was becoming a shadow of the player I once was.
We lost 1-0 to Serbia and Montenegro in Red Star’s stadium in Belgrade. It was a blow but Serbia were not a danger to us by then. It was all about the Italy game for me. When the Premier League season started, I played in the opening game against Leeds and had little impact. I had bandages around both knees. I was a mess. It was obvious I wasn’t right and, once again, I was in agony after the game.
I needed the operation straight away but I wanted to hold out for another few weeks. We played Partizan Belgrade in the qualifying round of the Champions League and beat them 1-0. I didn’t think they had any chance of beating us back at St James’ Park. I thought we’d be way too strong. So I pulled out of the second leg. We lost the game 1-0 and then went out on penalties. ‘What the fuck have I done?’ I thought.
Wales’ defeat to Serbia and Montenegro was on August 20. The crunch game against Italy was set for September 6 at the San Siro in Milan. I knew that if I had any chance of being even close to my best for the Italy game, I couldn’t play again in the build-up to it. So I missed the second leg against Partizan and the home Premier League games against Manchester United and Birmingham City. We lost them all. By the time the Italy game came around, we were out of the Champions League and bottom of the Premier League.
Freddy Shepherd, understandably, was not particularly happy. He moaned at me about my involvement with Wales. He said it was obvious that I needed an operation and that I could not join up with the national team again until I had played for Newcastle. He said now that we had been eliminated from the Champions League, it was the ideal time to go and get my knees cleaned up.
But I was solely focused on my country. I knew what I was doing was essentially unfair to Newcastle, but I was desperate to play in the Euros. So I tried to appease Newcastle by starting to train again. But the club insisted I couldn’t play for Wales unless I played for Newcastle first and I knew that if I played in the game against Birmingham, I would be in too much pain to play against Italy. My knees had got so bad, I needed more than a week’s recovery time after every match.
Newcastle banned me from playing and got a solicitor to write to the Welsh FA. They warned Wales that if I joined up with them, they would sue the Welsh FA. I joined up anyway and Wales sent me to see an independent surgeon. The surgeon barely looked at me and gave me the okay. Wales said I was fine. Freddy Shepherd was furious. He said I’d never play for Newcastle again. It was a fraught situation.
Once the independent surgeon had
passed me fit, there was not a lot Newcastle could do. I flew to Milan with Wales to prepare for the biggest international match of my career. My knees felt okay. They’d had a decent amount of rest. I knew it would be tough in the San Siro but our confidence was high. We knew how much was riding on it. Even for a player like Ryan Giggs, it was probably the best chance he was ever going to have of playing in a major tournament.
Giggs nearly scored early on but Buffon saved his volley after he had intercepted a poor headed backpass from Panucci. We fought hard in the first half, literally in my case. I got involved in a bit of a shoving match with Buffon after he reacted angrily to a tackle from John Hartson and we both got booked. It meant I’d be suspended for the following Wednesday’s game against Finland in Cardiff.
There was still everything to play for at half-time. They had hit the woodwork a couple of times and we were riding our luck but the prize was still there. But 13 minutes into the second half, Del Piero headed towards goal, Vieri volleyed against the crossbar and Filippo Inzaghi swept the rebound into the open goal. Then the floodgates opened.
Inzaghi scored again with a close-range volley four minutes later and completed an 11-minute hat-trick with a superb turn and finish. Del Piero finished us off with a penalty. It was a bad night. Italy were top of the group now. Yellow cards meant Robbie Savage, Mark Delaney and I would all miss the Finland game. We realised we were probably playing for a place in the play-offs now.
I felt crushed. I had been building everything towards that night, sacrificing everything in the hope that we could get a result against Italy and now we had been beaten out of sight. I didn’t have much impact, either. Not really. I felt like I’d let everybody down in the end.
Italy could only manage a draw against Serbia in Belgrade four days later, which meant that victory for us over Finland the same night would put us back in control of the group. Simon Davies put us ahead very early in front of yet another capacity crowd but we could not hang on. Eleven minutes from time, Mikael Forssell grabbed an equaliser. It was heartbreaking. It was out of our hands.
Craig Bellamy - GoodFella Page 14