Keith Gillespie exclusive: I blew all my money betting, and won't be last footballer to do it
Keith Gillespie exclusive: I blew all my money betting, and won't be last footballer to do it
As his book How Not To Be A Football Millionaire heads for
the shelves, the ex-Man United winger opens up about his gambling
addiction
Slippery slope: Gillespie tells Oliver Holt how he lost £7m in career earnings
Photopress Belfast
Keith Gillespie’s house is lost in the middle of a sprawling modern
estate on the outskirts of the Northern Irish seaside town of Bangor.
He is sitting on a sofa in the front room, dressed in a grey track suit.
The furnishings are spartan.
The place is bare. A couple of plastic golf trophies sit on a table.
A window looks out on to the crescent of anonymous houses outside.
It
is not the typical home of a man who played out much of his career in
the Premier League during the wage explosion of the late 1990s and
beyond.
Not the norm for a winger who appeared for Manchester
United, Newcastle, Blackburn, Leicester and Sheffield United in the top
division.
Not quite where you would expect a man who earned north of £7million in the course of his career to have ended up.
His startling, revelatory new autobiography is called How Not To Be A Football Millionaire - and there’s a good reason why.
In 15 years at the top of a game that pays its best players lavishly, Gillespie blew the cash on gambling.
A couple of people he thought were friends cost him money, too. Their unscrupulousness persuaded him into bad investments.
He was not alone in entering those schemes. Other players predict an avalanche of football bankruptcies in the years ahead.
The vast majority of Gillespie’s money, though, was invested at the bookmakers.
He started his career at a time when many still regarded betting as a relatively harmless pastime.
At United, when the players still trained at The Cliff, he acted as a runner for Sir Alex Ferguson.
Ferguson
would give Gillespie his football coupon and his stake and send him
down the road to the local bookmaker to place his bet for him.
When the bet came in, Ferguson would give him a hefty tip. Gillespie insists Ferguson bears no responsibility for his habit.
It was only when he moved to Newcastle and discovered the ease of placing his bets over the phone that things got serious.
Gillespie,
who was declared bankrupt three years ago, never had treatment for his
addiction but insists he has now kicked the habit.
He knows, though, that the game is still in the grip of it.
He only has to look at the news and talk to his friends in the game to realise that.
Not so long ago, it was Matthew Etherington who was admitting to losing £1.5m at the bookies.
In the summer, Andros Townsend was banned for four months after confessing to betting on football.
And the head of the players' union, Gordon Taylor, became embroiled in controversy about his gambling habits.
Rumours
have been rife for some time about massive sums of money being wagered
by one leading Premier League player in particular.
And Gillespie
is sure that there will be at least three players in every Premier
League club dressing room who are gambling ‘excessively’.
“The same conditions that were there when I first started earning big money are still there now,” he said.
“You
finish training and in the afternoon you go home and, if you’re not
married, you’re probably going home to an empty house or a hotel room.
“You’re bored and you’ve got time on your hands, and a lot of money to play with.
“In
the old days, when you were physically going to a bookmaker’s shop, you
could only lose what was in your pocket. Now, with internet accounts
and telephone accounts, it is a lot easier to lose a lot more money a
lot faster. The next Ryan Giggs: Gillespie in his Manchester United days
Getty
“There has been plenty of publicity about players with
gambling problems but I guarantee you that there are a lot more out
there who have not been named yet.”
Etherington revealed he once lost £22,000 in the course of a coach journey home from an away game.
Gillespie can beat that. Quite comfortably.
On
October 29, 1995 - a day Gillespie refers to as Black Friday in How Not
To Be A Football Millionaire - he lost £47,000 in one afternoon's
betting on horse racing.
He had just discovered telephone betting and the next day, desperately chasing his losses, he blew another £15,000.
A year’s wages down the drain in less than 48 hours.
“I
am not the first footballer this has happened to and I won’t be the
last,” said Gillespie, who also lost hundreds of thousands of pounds in
bad investments.
“Gambling has become more and more prominent in the game. It has become more of an issue.
“But it is not an issue for me any more. I have three children now and I am aware of my responsibilities.
“I have probably grown up later in life than most people do but now I want to provide for my kids financially.
“If
I thought it was going to be an issue for me again, I would seek help.
But now if I have a bet, it’s usually on golf and it’s not very much. I
don’t have very much.
“I regret the fact that I lost all that money but it’s the kind of character I am, always looking for a buzz.
“It was part of the life I led as a professional footballer and I wouldn’t change that. I lived out my dream.”
Gillespie is 38 years old now.
He
has just retired after closing out his career playing
semi-professionally for Longford Town in the League of Ireland's First
Division.
He is a bright, articulate man who would like to get into media work. He has seen both sides of the game, after all.
“For
most of your career,” Gillespie said, as he drove through Bangor last
week, heading down to the marina with a kid’s car seat nestling in the
back, “you think it’s never going to end. It can be hard when it does.”
Gillespie on... Fergie
Keith Gillespie trusted Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson implicitly.
That
trust extended to the fact that Gillespie let Ferguson negotiate his
deal when he moved from Old Trafford to Newcastle in 1995.
Ferguson
repaid his faith, helping to secure Gillespie a bumper pay deal for the
move to St James’s Park which was part of the move that took Andy Cole
to the Reds.
“Before he started the negotiations,” Gillespie said,
“he spoke to my mum and explained the situation. She knew he would look
after me.
“I trusted him totally and have nothing but respect and admiration for him and everything he has achieved.”
Gillespie on... Alan Shearer
Keith Gillespie had a topsy-turvy relationship with Newcastle legend Alan Shearer during their time together at St James’ Park.
Gillespie and Shearer were pals who would play cards on the team bus and enjoy nights out together.
But
their friendship descended into violence after a row at a Dublin bar
during a Newcastle team bonding session in February 1998.
Shearer was England captain at the time and the full details of the argument have never been released before. Mag-nificent: At Newcastle with Les Ferdinand and Alan Shearer
PA
Gillespie smiles when he talks about the boozy exchange that
ended with him in hospital, and insists that he and Shearer have always
been friends.
“There was never a problem between us before the incident and there was never a problem after it,” Gillespie said.
“I enjoyed his company, actually. He had a dry sense of humour. And he’s a legend in Newcastle. His record speaks for itself.”
Gillespie on... being accused of rape
Keith
Gillespie’s account of Leicester City’s ill-fated trip to La Manga in
2004 is a brutal expose of football and the world around it.
Gillespie paints a picture of how an unruly night at the Spanish resort was distorted by a tissue of lies and exaggerations.
He and teammates Paul Dickov and Frank Sinclair were unjustly accused of rape, and later totally exonerated.
“It
is something that has left deep scars with me,” Gillespie said. “It was
a very difficult time for me and the other players involved.”
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