Paul Merson - How Not to Be a Professional Footballer

I should have known better, because before I’d made it into the first team regularly, boozing had already got me into trouble. When I was 18, I got done for drink-driving. It was in the summer of 1986, I went to a place called Wheathampstead with a few people and we rounded the night off in the Rose and Crown, a lovely little boozer near my house. After a lorryload of pints, I decided to drive home, pissed out of my face, though I must have crashed into every other car outside the pub as I reversed from my parking spot. I missed the turning for my house, went into the next road and ploughed into a lamppost, which ended up in someone’s garden.

I panicked. I ran back to the Rose and Crown and sat there with my mates like nothing had happened. My plan was to pretend that the car had been stolen. It wasn’t long before the police arrived and a copper was tapping me on the back.

‘Excuse me, Mr Merson,’ he said. ‘Do you know your car has been crashed into a lamppost which is now in some-one’s garden?’

I played dumb. ‘You’re kidding?’

‘Has it been stolen?’ he asked.

I kept cool. It wasn’t hard, I’d been taking plenty of fluids. ‘Well, it must have been,’ I said, ‘because I’ve been here all night.’

The copper seemed to believe me. He offered to take me to the car, which I knew was in a right state, but just as I was leaving the pub a little old lady shouted out to us. She’d been sat there for ages, watching me.

‘He’s just got in here!’ she shouted. ‘He tried to drive his car home!’

That was it, I was done for and the policeman breathalysed me. In the cells an officer told me I’d been three times over the limit.

‘Shit, is that bad?’ I said.

He shrugged. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘But it’s not the worst one we’ve had tonight. We’ve just pulled a guy for being six times over. But he was driving a JCB through St Albans town centre.’

I was banned from driving for 18 months; the club suspended me for two weeks and fined me £350. Like that JCB in St Albans town centre, I was spinning out of control.

George said the same thing to me whenever I got into trouble: ‘Remember who you are. Remember what you are. And remember who you represent.’

That never dropped with me, I never got it. I was just a normal lad. I came from a council estate. My dad was a coal man. My mum worked in a Hoover factory at Hangar Lane. We were normal people and I wanted to live my life as normally as I could. I had the best job in the world, but I still wanted to have a pint with my mates. Along the way, that attitude was my downfall.

The club never really cottoned on that the drinking was starting to become a problem for me. They would never have believed that I was on my way to being a serious alcoholic. I didn’t know either. I thought I was a big hitter in the boozing department and that it was all under control. The first I knew of my alcohol problem was when they told me in the Marchwood rehab centre.

I used to put on weight because of the beer, but the Arsenal coaches never sussed. I’d worked out that when I stood on the club weights and the doc took his measurements, I could literally hold the weight off if I lent at the right angle or nudged the scales in the right way. The lads used to give me grief all the time. They used to point at my love handles and say I was pregnant, and when George walked past me in the dressing-room I’d suck my tummy in to hide the bulge. I could never have worn the silly skin-tight shirts they wear now, my gut was that bad.

People outside the club would see me drinking, and George would get letters of complaint, but I used to brush them aside when he read them out to me.

‘Paul Merson was in so and so bar in Islington,’ he’d read, sitting behind his desk, waving the letters around. ‘He was drunk and a disgrace to Arsenal Football Club.’

I’d make out they were from Tottenham fans. Then, when I got a letter banging on about how I’d been spotted drunk in town when I’d really been away with the club on a winter break, I was made up. I knew from then on I had proof that there were liars making stuff up about me. I blamed them for every letter to the club after that, even though most of them were telling the truth.

I wasn’t the only one causing aggro, my team-mates were having a right old go, too. In 1989, the year we won the title, I bought a fancy, new, one-bedroom house in Sandridge, near St Albans. It was lovely, fitted with brand-new furniture. I loved it, I was proud of my new home.

Tony Adams was one of my first guests, but he outstayed his welcome. In April 1989 we played Man United away, drew 1–1 and Tone got two goals, one for us and a blinding own goal for them. He fancied a drink afterwards, like he always did in those days, but time was running out as the coach crawled back to London at a snail’s pace and we knew the pubs would be kicking out soon. That wasn’t going to stop him, though.

‘We’re not going to get back till nearly 11, Merse,’ he said. ‘Can I stay at yours and we’ll have a few?’

I was up for it. I never needed an excuse for a drink, but at that stage in the campaign, we’d been under a hell of a lot of pressure. We’d started the season on fire, and even though we weren’t a worldy side (nowhere near as good as the team that won the title in 1991), at one stage we were top of the First Division by 15 points. Then it all went pear. We’d drawn too many matches against the likes of QPR, Millwall and Charlton. Shaky defeats at Forest and Coventry had put massive dents in our championship hopes. After leading the title race for the first half of the season our form had dropped big-time and Liverpool were hot on our heels. That night I wanted to let off steam.

I knew I could get a lock-in at the Rose and Crown. I called up my missus and asked her to make up our fancy brand-new sofa bed for Tone when we got back. Once the team coach pulled up at the training ground, we got into Tone’s car and drove to the pub.

We finished our last pint at four in the morning. Tone gave me a lift back to the house and nearly killed us twice, before parking in the street at some stupid angle. I crept inside, not wanting to wake Lorraine, put Tone to bed and crashed out. When I woke up later, Lorraine was standing over me with a copy of the Daily Mirror in her hand.

‘Look at what they’ve done to him!’ she said, showing me the back page.

Some smart-arse editor had drawn comedy donkey ears on a photo of Tone. Underneath was the headline, ‘Eeyore Adams’. And all because he’d scored an own goal. He’d got one for us too, but that didn’t seem to matter.

‘What a nightmare,’ I said.

‘Are you going to tell him?’

‘Bollocks am I, let him find out when he’s filling up at the petrol station.’

I could hear Tone getting his stuff together downstairs. Then he shouted out to us, ‘See you later, Merse! Thanks for letting me stay, Lorraine!’

When I heard the front door go, I knew we were off the hook. Lorraine got up to sort the sofa bed out so we could watch the telly, and I got up to make a cup of tea. Then Lorraine started shouting. ‘He’s pissed the bed!’

I looked over to see her pointing at a wet patch on our brand-new furniture. I was furious. I grabbed the paper and chased down the street after Tone as he pulled away in his car.

‘You donkey, Adams!’ I shouted. ‘You’re a fucking donkey!’

Lesson 3

Do Not Cross Gorgeous George

‘Because hell hath no fury like a gaffer scorned.’

After Tone’s bed-wetting incident and the 1–1 draw with Man United, Arsenal started to fly again. We beat Ever-ton, Newcastle and Boro and spanked Norwich 5–0. The only moody result was a 2–1 away defeat at Derby County which allowed Liverpool to leapfrog us in the League with one game to go. Along the way, I got us some important goals. There was an equaliser in a 2–2 draw against Wimbledon in the last home game of the season which kept us in the chase for the League, but my favourite was a strike against Everton in the 3–1 win at Goodison Park. I got on to the end of a long ball over the top and banged it home. When it flew past their keeper, Neville Southall, I ran up to the Arsenal fans, hanging on to the cage that separated the terraces from the pitch.