How Not to Be a Professional Footballer (eBook free)

Lesson 1
Do Not Go to Stringfellows with Charlie Nicholas
‘Where Merse lays the first bet, reads his rehab diary and gets a taste of the playboy lifestyle.’
It was the beginning of the end: my first blow-out as a big-time gambler. There I was, a 16-year-old kid on the YTS scheme at Arsenal with a cheque for £100 in my hand – a whole oner, all mine. That probably sounds like peanuts for a footballer with a top-flight club today, but in 1984 this was a full month’s pay for me and I’d never seen that amount of money in my life, not all at once anyway. Mate, I thought I’d hit the Big Time.
It was the last Friday of the month. I’d just finished training and done all the usual chores that you have to do when you’re a kid at a big football club, like cleaning the baths and toilets at Highbury and sweeping out the dressing-rooms for the first-team game the next day. When that was done, Pat Rice, the youth team coach, came round and gave all the kids a little brown envelope. Our first payslips were inside, and I couldn’t wait to draw my wages out. I got changed out of my tracksuit and ran down the road to Barclays Bank in Finsbury Park with my mate, Wes Reid. I swear I was shaking as the girl behind the counter passed over the notes.
‘What are you doing now, Wes?’ I asked, as we both counted out the crisp fivers and tenners. I was bouncing around like a little kid.
‘I’m going across the road to William Hill,’ he said. ‘Fancy it?’
That’s where it all went fucking wrong. I’d never been in a bookies before, but I was never one to turn down a bit of mischief. I wish I’d known then what I know now, because Wes’s offer was the moment where it all went pear for me. The next 15 minutes would blow up the rest of my life, like a match to a stick of dynamite.
‘Yeah, why not?’ I said.
It was the wrong answer, and I could have easily said no because it wasn’t like Wes was pushy or anything. In next to no time, I’d blown my whole monthly pay on the horses and my oner was down the toilet. I think I did my money in 15 minutes, I’m not sure. I’d never had a bet in my life before. It’s a right blur when I think about it. I left the shop in a daze. Moments earlier I’d been Billy Big Time, but in a flash I was brassic. All I could think was, ‘What the fuck have I done?’
At first I felt sick about the money, I wanted to cry, and then I realised Mum and Dad would kill me for spunking the cash. As I walked down the high street, I promised myself it would never happen again. I also reckoned I could talk my way out of trouble when Mum started asking all the questions she was definitely going to ask, like:
‘Why are you asking for lunch money when you’ve just been paid?’
‘Why can’t you afford to go out with your mates?’
‘What have you done with that hundred quid Arsenal gave you?’
At that time, Mum was getting £140 from the club for putting me up at home, which was technically digs. She’d want to know why I was mysteriously skint, or not blowing my money on Madness records or Fred Perry jumpers. There was no way I was going to tell her that I’d handed it all to a bookie, she would have gone mental. As I got nearer to Northolt, where we lived, I worked out a fail-safe porkie: I was going to make out I’d been mugged on the train.
Arsenal had given me a travel pass, which meant I could get back to our council-estate house no problem. The only hitch was my face. I looked as fresh as a daisy – there were no bruises or cuts. Mum wasn’t going to believe I’d been given a kicking by some burly blokes, so as I got around the corner from home, I sneaked down a little alleyway and smashed my face against the wall. The stone cut up my skin and grazed my cheeks, and I was bleeding as I ran through our front door, laying it on thick about some big geezers, a fight and the stolen money. They fell for it, what with my face being in a right state, and I was off the hook.
Nobody asked any questions as Dad patched up the scratches and cuts, and the police were never called. Later, Mum gave me the £140 paid to her by Arsenal. I thought I’d been a genius. My quick thinking had led to a proper result, but I couldn’t have guessed that it was the first lie in a million, each one covering up my growing betting habit.[...]

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