Nigel Mansell - Mansell - My Autobiography

But I remember one occasion not long after I moved my family to Clearwater in Florida which highlighted the differences in attitude to the sport across the Atlantic. I was at a children’s party with my son Leo and during the course of the festivities I broke my toe. Naturally, I went to have it X-rayed at the local hospital, where the doctor on duty said that he needed to ask me a few questions for hospital records. He produced a clipboard and began scribbling.

‘Name?’

‘Nigel Mansell,’ I replied.

‘Occupation?’

When I told him that I was a race car driver there was not a glimmer of recognition. Because I had spent most of my time in the past few years in countries where Formula 1 has a huge following, I had forgotten what it was like not to be recognised. It was nice in those early days in Florida to be able to take the children out for a hamburger without someone approaching me for an autograph or to have their photograph taken. I could spend time with my family and enjoy being completely normal. Alas, this didn’t continue for long.

In the summer of 1994, I came back to England to look at Woodbury Park, the golf course I had bought near Exeter. I took the family down to Exmouth and in the evening we sat on the beach eating fish and chips. Several people walked past and I heard one of them say, ‘Blimey, that bloke looks just like Nigel Mansell,’ thinking of course that it couldn’t be me as I must be in America. I love moments like that.

Six months earlier, around Christmas time, I had come back to London to attend several awards dinners to celebrate my IndyCar title. I went out for a meal with my friends Mark and Iona Griffiths after which, as it was a lovely night, we decided to have a stroll around the centre of London. It was about two o’clock in the morning and cars were pulling over and complete strangers rushing up to congratulate me on my IndyCar Championship. Later, I came across four really drunk guys staggering down the street who, having obviously had a real Saturday night drinking session, didn’t realise they were shouting rather than talking. They were pulling my leg and I was having a laugh with them – the cameraderie was just fantastic. I thought to myself: ‘You couldn’t do this at 2 am in America, Nigel.’

I am interested in people and I take the trouble to talk to them. Fame is something to be enjoyed at times and endured at others. As many young stars of sport and pop music have learned, fame can ruin your life and destroy your privacy. But it can also enhance your life, as I have found through my relationship with the fans. To get a feeling of warmth and respect from total strangers is a unique experience. But you must always be responsible and conduct yourself with dignity.

Being famous has its down sides too. If you make yourself accessible to the fans, there is always the threat of an attack, of the kind suffered by Monica Seles, the tennis star, who was stabbed in the back as she sat in her chair on court between games. Her fear of a repeat attack has kept her out of the game for a long time, but it’s good to see her making a comeback. The incident sent shock waves reverberating throughout the professional sporting world. We realised that when we are surrounded by hundreds of people jostling to get closer, we are vulnerable. It worries any athlete in any sport. I don’t know what motivates someone to make an attack on a sports star. The public must appreciate that sportsmen are not politically motivated, they are simply dedicated to being the supreme athlete at their discipline. There is absolutely no justification for attacking someone who seeks perfection in their sport.

What happened to Seles was distressing to every sportsman and woman in the world. ‘If a star can be attacked in such a way …,’ we all thought to ourselves, ‘it could happen to me as well’ and that was very worrying.

I always have people covering my back and I think that anyone who is reasonably famous takes precautions at times, because in this day and age it’s wise to do so. But I’m privileged to say that over the years with all the fans I’ve met I’ve not once had any major problem. I wish I could say the same about the press.

My relationship with the press over the years has mostly been amicable and positive. I am an open person, I speak my mind and I take people as I find them. Consequently, with real professional journalists I have no problems. As I have already mentioned, I am a racer and I create excitement and this translates into good copy for the newspapers and magazines. Certainly over the years I have generated my fair share of dramatic headlines. But what never ceases to amaze me is the number of so-called experts in any sport who have never actually competed in that sport and who haven’t got a clue as to what they are talking about. I have suffered at the hands of journalists who are unable to comprehend, much less swallow the scale of what I have achieved in motor racing. This is because years ago when I was working my way up to the top, the same people said that I would never make it and now their arrogance will not allow them to accept that they were wrong. There is a small group of journalists in the specialist press who pursue negative angles whenever they write about me and who have tried for many years to make me look bad.

When I got to the top, several of them actually came up to me to apologise for what they had written, because their editors were putting pressure on them to get an interview with me. I accepted their apologies and we sat down to talk. They fulfilled the wishes of their editors by publishing the required interviews and then the following week went back to rubbishing me. I have no respect for anyone who can behave like this.

Years ago, as I climbed the greasy pole, the things these people wrote in their magazines had an influence on my life. Now when they go to work on me, they make themselves look pathetic. You cannot argue with the history books, which reflect achievements whatever the sport. These people are annoyed because they are jealous of success.

I believe that sportsmen who have achieved a great deal and who have created history should be given the benefit of the doubt. They shouldn’t have to put up with silly criticism. If it’s objective or if they’ve done something wrong then there’s no problem with that because they can learn from it. But to criticise for the sake of it is ridiculous.

Most famous people suffer to some degree at the hands of the press. I am relieved to say that I have not encountered the mauling or the total invasion of privacy suffered by some sportsmen, like Paul Gascoigne or Ian Botham. I have had my share of problems, but I have also had pleasure in working with some real pros.

As a professional sportsman I have a major responsibility towards the public and I think that the press have got to stand up and be as responsible because by reporting some of the things they do, they’re not helping anyone. There’s a lot of cheap journalism out there. The hacks forget how they earn their money and forget their obligations.

There are a few incredibly unethical people in journalism who are only interested in helping their bank balance and if motor racing gets undermined as a result, they’ll move on to another sport or personality and start making things up about them. They’ll concoct some sensational headline because they think it’s clever and it will sell papers, regardless of how much trouble it causes everybody and how little evidence there is on which to base a story. They then go out and try to get a story to substantiate the headline. They’re not interested in telling the news as it actually is. There is a great phrase among some newspaper editors: ‘Don’t let the truth get in the way of a great story.’ I think that says it all.