Craig Bellamy - GoodFella (27 page)

We had a full week then until our final home game of the season, against Middlesbrough. During that week, there were two Player of the Year parties. It was the worst timing ever. I couldn’t believe it. Everyone was patting each other on the back and saying we were going up. We had too many weak characters and after one of the awards ceremonies, four or five players went out on the lash in the city centre.

Training that week was poor. Even in the warm-up before the Middlesbrough game, I kicked the ball away in disgust twice because everything was just so sloppy. I knew what was going to go down. I knew what was happening. We weren’t ready. We didn’t look like a team with a defiant mentality. We were 3-0 down after 21 minutes and that was the way it stayed. Norwich won 1-0 at Portsmouth and claimed the second automatic promotion spot. We were in the play-offs.

I had another go at the players after the game. I said I knew players had gone out on the lash in the week and now we had all paid for it. We went to Turf Moor to play Burnley in our last game and drew. We didn’t even finish third in the end. Swansea finished above us so we were to play Reading in one semi-final and Swansea were to face Forest in the other.

Out of the four sides in the play-offs, Swansea were the best. No two ways about it. If we had had to play Swansea over two legs, Swansea probably would have been too strong for us. But if we got past Reading and they beat Forest, I thought we had a better chance against them in a one-off game at Wembley. In the heat of a South Wales derby and the tension of a final, I thought we might be able to beat them.

Forest and Swansea drew 0-0 at the City Ground in the first leg of their semi-final. We played Reading the next day at the Madejski Stadium.

My hamstrings felt incredibly tight and after about 15 minutes one of them went. I limped around for a couple of minutes and then I had to come off. It was only a strain but I knew it was probably the end of my involvement in the play-offs. We played well enough in the rest of the match and got a 0-0 draw.

Everybody was tipping us as the favourites to go through now. People were making plans for Cardiff-Swansea at Wembley. Security plans were swinging into action. People were talking about service stations on the M4 being closed on the day of the final because they were so worried about fighting between the rival sets of fans.

Swansea kept their side of the bargain when they beat Forest 3-1 at the Liberty in their second leg. But when I got to the Cardiff City Stadium a couple of hours before our second leg against Reading and saw the lads in the changing rooms, I had a bad feeling about it. We had gone mentally. We weren’t strong enough. We were scared of it. There was a lot of pressure on us in Cardiff in front of our home fans who had come so close in past seasons. It was a game for characters and for people to take responsibility and we didn’t have the mentality to rise to that.

We started well but then we conceded a comedy goal. They say that usually goals are conceded when teams make consecutive errors. Well, this was a quadruple fuck-up. Jlloyd Samuel attempted a long back pass from near the halfway line but it smacked into Kevin McNaughton’s head. It ricocheted towards goal and our keeper, Stephen Bywater, came hurtling out to try and clear it from Shane Long.

But Bywater miskicked the attempted clearance and it cannoned into Long. He reacted instinctively and lobbed the ball towards the empty net from the edge of the area. It looped slowly into the goal. There was less than half an hour gone but it was such a ridiculous goal that it left us totally deflated. They scored again just before half-time and finished things off six minutes from the end. We lost 3-0. The dream of winning promotion was over.

I watched the game from my box at the stadium. It was painful. I had to be a man and go down and congratulate the Reading players afterwards and see everyone. Then I went on a two-day drinking binge to try to escape the pain. It doesn’t make it better. It never has. But it was the only way I could cope with it. I am not a huge drinker but sometimes it can numb the pain. Then it comes back worse.

The fact that Swansea won the play-off final and were promoted added an edge to the disappointment. I wanted them to go up because they are a Welsh side and I admired their style of play. But I was also aware that it was a bitter blow for Cardiff fans who were still reeling from the manner of our defeat against Reading. We were supposed to be the first Welsh side in the Premier League, not Swansea.

I felt like I had let everyone down. I’d played well towards the end of the season and helped to give us a real chance of automatic promotion. But it wasn’t enough. I was out for too long. I came back too late. I tortured myself about whether I should have tried to come back earlier. I analysed everything over and over again and drove myself mad.

I had a miserable summer. I didn’t know where I was going to end up. There wasn’t really any chance of me staying at Cardiff. They would have had to buy me outright from Manchester City and they didn’t have the money either to pay the transfer fee or to pay my wages. Dave Jones was fired and Malky Mackay, the Watford boss, got the job. I had played with Malky at Norwich City. I liked him and admired him. I thought it was a wise choice.

He came round to my house to see me. We had a frank discussion. I told him I felt the club was nowhere near right in things like sports science, nutrition and professionalism. He needed to get all that right. His year was going to be all about gaining his identity as a manager for the club and improving its professionalism. He knew the best he could hope for that season was the play-offs again. I liked his plans and we agreed to keep in touch but I wanted one more shot at the Premier League.

Spurs were interested and so were Liverpool. But it was only interest. Nothing concrete. So I was left with no option but to go back to City. I wasn’t in Mancini’s plans, of course, but I made up my mind to train hard and try and make the most of a bad situation. I had to get into good shape so that when a club did come in for me, I would be ready to go.

At the start of pre-season training, I was told to report with the Elite Development Squad, which is like a mix between the youth team and the reserves. It was also a euphemism for a holding pen for a group of outcasts and rejects.

There were a lot of good kids in the squad and there was also me, Adebayor, Nedum Onuoha, Roque Santa Cruz and Wayne Bridge. Part of me felt a little bit embarrassed, a bit demeaned. I would never treat an established player like that if I was a club manager. I have had 70 caps for my country. I had been a good player for City. And, even after the odd difference I had had with Mancini, to be told I was with the kids disappointed me. I expected it, I suppose, and it was obvious my only real option was to suck it up.

So I trained as hard as I could. I didn’t take any short cuts. I wanted to set a good example to the kids, not degrade them. I remembered when I was a kid at Norwich, the older players who used to come down to train us now and again were pricks. Their attitude was shite. They moaned at you. They wouldn’t try.

I wasn’t going to do that. I wanted to conduct myself better than that. Maybe I was at an age where I was starting to think about more than just myself. I was starting to think about my responsibilities to the game a little bit. I moaned, of course, but that’s normal for me. It wasn’t because I was with the kids.

I played at some of the outposts of football in the north west. I played at Hyde. I played at Altrincham. I played at Stalybridge Celtic. Hardly any fans there. Rubbish changing rooms. Week nights under dim lights. Kids trying to make a name for themselves. I tried my hardest.

I had the option not to play in the games but I wanted to play. I wanted to make sure that whoever was watching, they could see I was showing the right attitude and trying to improve the young players around me. I gained some satisfaction from making the best of a bad situation.

When the season drew a bit closer, some players who had been on tour in the States with the first team filtered back down to us. One of them was the manager’s son, Filippo Mancini. That was really the only time when the situation tested me. But I kept my head down and got on with it.

I had one more year left on my contract at City and as the season approached, they began to negotiate a deal to pay me off. Garry Cook was in charge of that and I think he admired the way I had knuckled down and tried to set an example to the kids. Before the season began, we came to an agreement. It was a very fair settlement.

I think they thought I would go to QPR and I did speak to Neil Warnock, who was the manager there at the time. Stoke offered a really good deal, too. But the interest from Liverpool and Spurs was getting stronger.

On transfer deadline day at the end of August, I was training with Wales in Cardiff in preparation for the home game against Montenegro and both Damien Comolli, Liverpool’s director of football, and the Spurs boss, Harry Redknapp, were ringing me.

Liverpool took the initiative. They sent a helicopter to Cardiff to pick me up and fly me to Merseyside. As soon as we landed in Liverpool, Harry was on the phone telling me not to sign. I told him I would do my medical and see what happened. I wanted a two-year deal and both Spurs and Liverpool agreed to that. I was still undecided.

There was an element of farce about deadline day, as there often seems to be. I was in Liverpool’s MRI scanner at one point when the lady who was operating it turned it off because she said my adviser needed to speak to me.

He said Spurs had matched the deal Liverpool were offering me and had even waived the need for me to do a medical. They had laid on an office and were going to fax the contract to it for me to sign.

It was tough. I thought Tottenham were probably the better team but Liverpool were in my heart. I had unfinished business at Liverpool, too.

It had never really felt right playing under Rafa and I wanted to have better memories of playing for the club I loved.

Kenny Dalglish, one of my great heroes, was in charge now, too. I decided to sign for Liverpool.

As soon as I walked back into Melwood that day, it felt different to the first time. People had a smile on their face. The dictatorship had gone. Everybody was happy to see me. It felt relaxed. It felt right.

27

Speedo

G
ary Speed was a strong character. He was a leader. He was probably the person I admired most. He was someone I tried to copy, someone I tried to emulate. Throughout my career, I looked up to him and I always took it as a great compliment that he, in turn, looked out for me and valued me as a player. Long before he died, at the age of 42, he had become one of my best friends.

He was a mentor to me, someone whose advice I sought, someone I listened to. I was a little in awe of him, too, and I certainly knew not to cross him. I knew that he rarely lost his temper but that if he did, it was best to make sure you were nowhere in his vicinity. And I knew that above all other things, he doted on his two boys, Ed and Tommy.

I was delighted when he took the Wales job in December 2010. I was happy mainly because I knew it was a big deal for him. I love my country but he loved it more. I have never seen a Wales player who loved their country more than him, who had that pure passion and real drive for Wales. It was one of the many things about Speedo that I had used as inspiration. He was the example I followed. That was one of the reasons why I always turned up for friendlies. Because he did it.

I spoke to him on the day he got the job. He said he wanted to come and speak to me. I had been beginning to think it might be time for me to retire from international football. I hadn’t particularly enjoyed playing for John Toshack, who had taken over from Mark Hughes.

Things had regressed under Toshack. There were a couple of good performances, like the 5-2 victory over Slovakia, but generally things were on the slide. We hadn’t even looked like being able to challenge for qualification for a major tournament. The height of Toshack’s ambitions appeared to be making sure we didn’t get too heavily beaten rather than actually trying to win games. We didn’t even try and compete and I found that hard.

But suddenly, we had a great bunch of young players coming through. Really outstanding players like Gareth Bale and Aaron Ramsey and I thought that now a progressive young manager like Speedo had replaced Toshack, maybe it was time for people like me to step away and let him get on with bringing the young players through.

So Speedo and I went out for something to eat in the Canton area of Cardiff. He asked me what my plans were. I told him I was going to retire.

“You talk about Wales,” he said, “and you talk about your love for your country but you won’t be able to help your country if you don’t play.”

I had a few objections. We’d already lost our first couple of qualifying games for Euro 2012. We weren’t going to qualify for that tournament. I wanted the younger kids to be able to come through and be bedded in ready to have a real go at making it to the 2014 World Cup.

“Don’t worry about that,” Speedo said. “I’m talking about now.”

My objections got weaker. Speedo was insistent.

“I need a player like you here now,” he said. “You believe in everything I do. I am going to improve the professionalism, sort out the sports science, get a good staff. Things will get better.”

He asked me about Raymond Verheijen. He asked me about other fitness people I had worked with.

I said I didn’t want to be captain any more. I didn’t want to deal with the media. My knee was giving me so much trouble that I couldn’t commit to playing in every game.

“Don’t be captain then,” he said. “I’ll pick another captain.”

We both wanted a Welsh-born player to be skipper. That’s what we believed in. We wanted someone young and exciting. Someone with a voice who could lead the team for the next decade.

He asked me who I thought and I said Aaron Ramsey. He had a piece of paper with his choice already written down and he passed it to me. It had Rambo’s name on it.

“This will be our set-up,” he said. “It won’t be like it was before. You know how I work. I can’t do this without you. I need a player everyone looks up to, believing in what I do. If everyone sees you responding to what I am telling them, we will get there quicker and you will play in a major championship. Don’t leave like this.”

The argument was over. Speedo had won.

He was incredibly enthusiastic and energised about the task he faced. He started asking me about this physio and that physio and he made it plain he wanted me to have a real influence on how things were going to develop. We sat there for three hours, talking it through, having some wine, dreaming about the future and what might come to pass. I was in. He had talked me into it. I thought ‘fuck it, let’s go and do this’.

I prepared him for Raymond Verheijen. I told him he was a difficult man but that he was worth it. We got Damian Roden in from Manchester City, who was one of the fitness guys I had admired most there. He was on board. Everything pulled together. I thought we could give it a right good go. The Welsh FA, for the first time, were letting a manager have his way. We thought we had an opportunity to get our country to a major championship at last.

We had a friendly against the Republic of Ireland in Dublin at the beginning of February 2011. I wasn’t playing but I went out there to show my face and show that I was buying into it all. We lost 3-0 so I know this might sound daft, but you could see the change in how we played. The mood changed. The staff were professional, too. If the players weren’t allowed to drink, the staff didn’t drink either. They were small things but it’s always the details that are important.

Six weeks later, we played England in a Euro 2012 qualifier at the Millennium Stadium. The build-up felt good. We lost Gareth Bale a couple of days before the match which was a huge blow. We were sure England were going to play 4-4-2 because their manager, Fabio Capello, was renowned for not changing but he played 4-3-3 and it took us completely off guard.

They went 2-0 up inside the first quarter of an hour and by the time we switched things around, it was too late. England were worthy winners but we didn’t feel too downhearted. The game finished 2-0. We didn’t cave in. We fought back, in fact. There was no sense of optimism being dented.

We played in a mini-tournament in Dublin in the summer. We lost to Scotland and beat Northern Ireland. We played Australia at Cardiff in August and lost. We did not play particularly well and it felt like we had gone backwards a bit. It was the first time I saw Speedo getting a little impatient. He dug me out a couple of times, too. He was harder on me. He had a go about me wearing the wrong t-shirt.

“Listen,” he said, “they look up to you. Start leading.”

He was a bit deflated by the Australia defeat. It was the first time the Welsh FA got under his skin. They were talking about staff cuts and he lost his rag a little bit.

But he began to turn things around. In September 2011, we beat a good Montenegro side 2-1 in a Euro 2012 qualifier at Cardiff and we played well. I got a yellow card that ruled me out of the tie against England at Wembley four days later. I could only watch but as I watched, I felt very proud. Wales lost 1-0 but we played brilliantly. It was Speedo’s team now.

For the first time in all my years with Wales, I felt like we had a proper identity. We had a decent spell with Sparky but this was the future. I could see how proud Speedo was after the game. He was disappointed, sure, but you could tell when Speedo was proud because he would jut out his chest and strut around. He had that spring in his step.

Our training camps had become a joy to be involved in. They were so professional. Before, under Toshack, it had felt more amateur when you joined up with Wales. Now it felt like you were with a Premier League club. The sports science was great, the analysis of the opposition was excellent and the leadership from Speedo knitted it all together.

In October, we beat a good Switzerland team 2-0 at the Liberty Stadium with goals from Ramsey and Bale. That lifted us off the bottom of the group. That felt symbolic of the progress we were making. Then we backed that up by going to Bulgaria and winning 1-0 in Sofia with another Bale goal.

I couldn’t wait to play for Wales now. We had become a team. We were not just winning games, we were holding the ball and dominating possession and I could sense Speedo’s pride. He was becoming a manager. I told him to stop talking like a player. I told him he was my manager now.

The next game was a friendly against Norway in Cardiff at the beginning of November. Speedo was quiet. I had a coffee with him down at the St David’s Bay Hotel and I noticed he had a bit of a beard, which was unusual for him. I was having a bad time in my marriage and we spoke about my situation. We talked about his life, too.

His quietness during that week disconcerted me a little bit but I put it down to the fact he was becoming a manager. I thought maybe it was just that he was putting a bit of distance between himself and the players. Everything was evolving fast. We beat Norway. In fact, we battered them. We won 4-1. Bale got one, I got one and Sam Vokes got a couple late on.

Speedo was normal after the game. He seemed proud of the performance and pleased with the way things were going. I had my own personal issues, so the game was a great relief for me. I wished at that time I could just play constantly and not go back to real life. I had a quick chat and a bit of a laugh with him and then I headed off.

I didn’t speak to him for the next couple of weeks. At the end of November, Liverpool had a big game against Manchester City at Anfield. It was the Sky Sunday game. On the Saturday night, I took a sleeping tablet like I do the night before every match to make sure I sleep through. It was a 4pm kick-off so I had a bit of a lie-in. When I got up, I looked at my phone.

I had several missed calls. Two were from Kieron and one was from my adviser. These were people who never called me on the day of a game. Back then, I always wanted to keep my mind entirely focused on the match and they knew that. But my phone kept going off. I began to realise something must be wrong. When Kieron rang for the third or fourth time, I answered.

“Have you heard about Speedo?” he said.

“What?” I said.

“Shay’s rung our agent to say Speedo’s committed suicide,” Kieron said.

“Fuck off,” I said. “No chance.”

“I’ve heard he’s hung himself,” Kieron said.

“Fucking no chance,” I said again. “You know what Twitter and the internet are like. It’s bullshit.”

I got in my car to drive to Anfield. That was the routine on the day of a home match: drive to Anfield, hop on the coach to Melwood, do all the pre-match stuff there.

Then my adviser called me. He was ringing with the same news. He said Speedo had committed suicide. I still didn’t believe it. I couldn’t see it. Not with Speedo. I still thought it was bullshit. I rang Shay Given.

“It’s true, mate,” Shay said.

“I don’t believe it,” I said.

I rang Raymond Verheijen. He didn’t know anything.

I rang someone at the Welsh FA. They didn’t know anything.

Then I got on the coach at Anfield to go to Melwood. Kevin Keen was sitting at the front.

I asked him if he’d heard anything about Speedo.

“What do you mean?” he said.

I went to the back of the coach and rang Suzanne who worked as a PA for both me and Speedo.

I asked her if she had heard anything.

“No, nothing,” she said.

I asked her to find out. I was starting to freak out.

I rang Speedo’s phone then. It started ringing.

‘He’s alive,’ I thought. ‘He’s alive. Thank fuck for that.’

Stupid, wasn’t it. A dead man’s phone can ring, too.

Suzanne rang back. She was hysterical. She told me it was true.

I was on the phone on the coach and all the players were around me.

I couldn’t comprehend it. Speedo was my idol in football. He was everything I tried to become. I spoke to him pretty much once a week for the last 10 years. Then the tears started to fall. I knew it was real then. I just broke down. The other players knew by then. Things get around quickly.

I rang my wife. I told her. She was numb with shock. She was worried about me, too.

I got off the coach at Melwood. Keen told me Kenny Dalglish wanted to see me in his office. I walked up to Kenny’s room. He was with Steve Clarke, his assistant manager.

“Look mate,” Kenny said, “I don’t know what to say or how to say it but I have been told that Speedo committed suicide. He hung himself this morning.”

I started crying. You don’t get prepared for that.

My mind was racing. How the fuck has he done that? Why has he done it? Everything was going well. Everything was going so well. Something’s happened. What’s happened?

“Go home,” Kenny said. “Go back to Cardiff. See your kids. You’re not playing today.”

“I want to play,” I said. “I want to play through it.”

“You can’t play today,” he told me. “You’re not in a fit state of mind. I’m taking the decision. Not you. I don’t care how long you want off or how long it takes. Come back when you’re ready.”

I didn’t want time off. I knew we had Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on the Tuesday in the Carling Cup quarter-final. I needed football to get me through it.

“If I go home now,” I said to Kenny, “I will be even worse. I need to train tomorrow.”

I was still crying as I said it.