Craig Bellamy on... that golf club, John Arne Riise and what really happened in Portugal
Craig Bellamy on... that golf club, John Arne Riise and what really happened in Portugal
In the first fascinating extract from his autobiography,
Bellamy tells how Liverpool's infamous Algarve trip descended into chaos
Tee hee: Bellamy's gof-themed goal celebration against Barcelona after his Riise bust-up
Getty
Craig Bellamy’s autobiography, GoodFella, lays bare one of the most notorious incidents in recent English football history. In
February 2007, Liverpool travelled to Portugal for a five-day training
camp to prepare for their Champions League second round tie against
Barcelona. On the last night on the Algarve, Liverpool
boss Rafa Benitez allowed the players out for a meal but it was
disrupted by an argument between Craig Bellamy and John Arne Riise,
whose nickname was Ginge...
Ginge was a nice enough lad.
He
was a bit of a child. He was insanely competitive. If there was a
competition to see who could ping a shot against the crossbar, he was
always mad keen to win it.
People used to make a joke of it and say: ‘I bet Ginge could do that’.
That night at Vale do Lobo, I was sitting with Steve Finnan, who was my room-mate, Sami Hyypia and Ginge.
I told Ginge he had to sing a song. I might have said it a couple of times. He said he didn’t want to do it.
I
mentioned it again and he snapped. He got s****y about it. He got up
and started shouting. “Listen,” he yelled, “I’m not singing and I’ve had
enough of you banging on about it.”
Sami told me to ignore him
and Ginge left fairly soon afterwards. But as the evening wore on and I
had more to drink, it started eating away at me.
At that time, the
way I was, I didn’t know how to control my emotions if someone
disrespected me in front of the rest of the players.
I am one of the worst people on drink. It doesn’t agree with me.
After a while, I told Finnan we were going.
I told him I wanted to sort it out with Ginge.
“I’m not having that,” I said to Finny.
“What are you on about?” he said.
“That ginger f****** p****, he ain’t speaking to me like that,” I said.
Finny told me to ignore him. He told me to forget it and go to bed.
“I’m not ignoring him,” I said. “I’m going to go to his room.”
Finny told me to calm down.
“No, let’s go to our room,” he said.
He was trying to humour me, like a warder with a madman.
We did go back to our room but I still couldn’t let it go.
We had a shared lounge with bedrooms that were upstairs.
Our golf clubs were in the lounge. I’d got one out as I was stewing over what Ginge had done.
It was an eight iron.
I started taking a few practice swings with it.
“Let’s go and see him now,” I said. "I just whacked him across the backside ... if I’d taken a proper swing, I would have hit the ceiling with my backlift"
Action
I just wanted to wind Ginge up a bit.
He had tried it on with me once or twice in training. He had given me a little nudge in the back.
I’d just look at him and think ‘F*** off, Ginge.’
So we got round to his room and I knocked on the door. There was no answer.
So I tried the door and it was open. I let myself in and turned the light on.
Ginge was in bed.
He was facing away from me and covering his eyes with his hands because the lights had been switched on.
I just whacked him across the backside with the club.
You couldn’t really call it a swing. It was just a thwack, really.
If I’d taken a proper swing, I would have hit the ceiling with my backlift.
Finny, by the way, was hiding behind the door at that point.
Ginge panicked.
He curled up in a ball with a blanket.
“You ever speak to me like that in front of people again,” I told him, “I will wrap this round your head.”
“Listen, I didn’t mean it like that,” he said.
“Yes you f****** did,” I barked at him.
“No, no, I didn’t,” he insisted.
“Yes,
you did,” I told him again. “That’s a couple of times you’ve pulled
that f****** stunt on me and it won’t be happening any more.”
I was warming to my theme now, like people who have had too much to drink usually do.
I threatened him a few times.
“And if you’ve got a problem with any of this, come and see me in my room tomorrow,” I told him. “Don’t go moaning about it.”
I look back at what I did now and I cringe.
It was pathetic. It was stupidity of the highest level. It was drunken, bullying behaviour.
Eventually, I left.
As Finny and I were going back to our room, the coach pulled up outside and all the players poured off it.
They bumped into us in the corridor and, not knowing anything of what had just gone on, piled into our lounge.
It had been a big night. Nobody even noticed the golf club in my hand. Or if they did, they didn’t mention it.
So the night out continued.
The lounge got wrecked basically.
Sofas
were turned upside down, lampshades got knocked off lamps, somebody
even chucked a plate at one stage and it split someone’s head open.
By the time I went to bed, that room was not a pretty sight.
The next thing I knew, Finnan was knocking on my door.
“The
Gaffer and Pako are downstairs,” he said. ‘Oh, s**t’, I thought. ‘There
are a whole number of reasons why they might be here’.
I went downstairs. It was not a pretty picture.
Rafa and his assistant, Pako Ayesteran, were sitting on a sofa that they must have had to pull upright themselves.
Rafa - the most ordered, controlling man I knew - surrounded by utter chaos, by a scene that screamed out loss of control.
There were plates and lampshades everywhere.
Rafa looked at me and told me to put some shoes on before I cut my feet on some debris.
“John Arne Riise has just come to my room to say you attacked him with a golf club,” Rafa said.
“I wouldn’t say I attacked him, exactly,” I said.
I gave him my version. I was already full of remorse.
Rafa looked bemused. It turned out he had had quite a night himself.
A little while later, Dudek appeared with grazes down the side of his face.
“What the f*** happened to Jerzy?” I asked. Save me: Dudek was bailed out (literally) by boss Benitez
After I had left the previous night, things had got out of hand.
Jerzy had refused to leave the bar and the police were called and he had ended up in the cells. Rafa had to go and bail him out.
I actually felt relieved.
‘That’s miles worse than my one,’ I thought as I stared over at Jerzy. ‘That might save me.’
That delusion didn’t last long... Click here for Bellamy on the day Shearer vowed to knock him out Click here for the day Liverpool fan Bellamy agreed to join Everton GRAB YOUR COPYCraig Bellamy: GoodFella,
written and adapted by Oliver Holt, RRP £18,99, is published on Monday,
June 3. Mirror readers can buy it for the discounted price of £15.99
from
mirrorcollection.co.uk
or by calling 0845 143 0001.
Craig Bellamy is donating all his proceeds to the Craig Bellamy Foundation - visit
www.craigbellamyfoundation.org
for details.
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