THE CHANGES DICK MADE at Zenit and the structure he laid down were bearing fruit. We were winning more and more silverware. For instance, the European Super Cup, on 29 August 2008, in the Stade Louis II in Monaco. This was unique, as since the mighty Soviet Union had fallen to pieces not a single Russian club had achieved that.
And who did we beat? Manchester United! Yup, the very same Red Devils who’d won the Champions League a few months earlier. The Big United, so to say, with hot shots like Edwin van der Sar, Wayne Rooney, Rio Ferdinand, Patrice Evra, Carlos Tévez, Paul Scholes and Nani. And they were all playing against us, as Alex Ferguson refused to look upon the confrontation as a summer night’s friendly. Served him right. Anyone who treats a European cup as a minor prize is a nutcase.
For Fergie there was even more at stake. Given the fact that he had won the trophy already in 1983 and 1991, this would be his third time as manager – and that would make him the first one ever! Hence the extremely strong line-up he put on the pitch that day.
Ferguson’s opponent in the other corner, Little General Advocaat, wanted to win the damn thing too. Dick wants to win everything, even a game of Monopoly. More to the point, he knew he would be judged by the amount of prizes he would win with Zenit – prizes and nothing else. The Russian Super Cup, which we’d grabbed before the eyes of Lokomotiv Moscow a few weeks earlier, was one of those goblets.
It wasn’t an easy clash, the one with Man Utd. From the very first second the Mancunians were on the attack. But we held our ground, despite big chances from Rooney and Tévez. And after a while the game started to tilt in our favour. Exactly as Dick wanted. From then on, it was a matter of waiting – waiting for the first Zenit goal.
And soon it was there. And a second one too. First was a header by Pavel Pogrebnyak, in the 45th minute of the game, and then an individual masterpiece from Danny, the little Portuguese dribbler we’d bought from Dynamo Moscow only four days ago.
Dick saw that the game and the cup were ours, so he sat back, relaxed, as if he was watching, er, a football match on TV. Eventually United managed to make it 2–1 – with a goal by defender Nemanja Vidic – but it was too late for them. Zenit won the Super Cup.
Zenit was ready to dominate, like Manchester United, AC Milan, Real Madrid and Barcelona had done before. Zenit was at the gates of Europe. Nobody could ignore us any more.
I didn’t play that night. That bloody Achilles tendon was still bothering me. There was a ‘floating’ piece of bone in my ankle, or so the doctors had told me. Anyway, Dick didn’t want to take any risks. He only used players that were 100 per cent fit. I couldn’t blame him for that, but I was extremely pissed off. It hurt – in more than one way.
But, as the mighty Johan Cruyff once said: every disadvantage has its advantage. Being off the chalk board meant that I didn’t have to prepare for the game, so I could leave the Riviera Marriott Hotel La Porte de Monaco and go into town.
I, Fernando Ricksen from Little Chicago, was in Monte Carlo, a diamond’s throw away from the most famous nightclub in the world, Jimmy’z, on the Avenue Princesse Grace, where a cheap bottle of wine costs you 600 euros and where only the extremely rich and famous come to party. I’d heard so many stories about the place ... and now I was here. This was a once in a lifetime experience.
So I went, together with my Belgian buddy Nicolas Lombaerts, who we had bought from AA Gent the previous year. He was injured too. Worse than me even: he was on crutches. He said he didn’t feel like dancing anyway. And as ‘kruk’ in Dutch means both ‘crutch’ and ‘stool’, for him it was just a matter of changing one kruk for the other.
I joined him at the bar. And not for an overpriced Fanta this time. I was on the sauce again. The injection I’d had in the summer of 2006 wasn’t working any more. I had found out one day in Valencia when I had ordered a virgin sangria and, by mistake, the waiter had supplied me with a real one.
After two gulps of the fruity stuff, it was like a funfair inside my head. Alcohol! I got scared. I thought about the consequences it would have for my body. I was going to be as sick as a dog, for sure, because Manuel from Fawlty Towers had made a bloody mistake! Que?
So I waited for the inevitable to happen. But it didn’t. No red spots, no puking. After ten minutes nothing had happened, and I felt great. The vaccination wasn’t working any more! What a wonderful day!
I could hit the booze again – and, boy, had I missed it! Despite all the problems I’d had with the poison, I couldn’t wait to have it back in my veins again.
So, back to the bar at Jimmy’z, where the two of us had found a good spot ... It’ll take a big boy to drag me away from here, I said to myself. And we started drinking, Nicolas and me. Non-stop. Until the lights went off. Inside me, that is, not inside Jimmy’z.
A few minutes later – or so I thought – my first thought was for Nicolas. After all, he was on crutches. What if he fell flat on his face? Fernando would be to blame, for sure. So I had to get him out of the place as fast as possible.
Outside, I asked for a taxi. Twice, probably, as by then I was seeing double. The cab arrived faster than expected, I opened the door, threw Nicolas inside, and shouted, ‘See ya at breakfast!’
Yes, I stayed. This was Jimmy’z, people! I knew I would regret it later if I left then. So bye bye Nicolas, watch those crutches! And back into Jimmy’z I went. Back to the supermodels and, er, the drinks.
My first mistake of the night. The second came shortly afterwards, as I downed a glass of strong wine as if it was water. Combined with the heat, this was an absolute killer. I blacked out.
You stupid fucker, Ricksen! Get out of this place now!
Seconds later, I was on the doorstep of Jimmy’z, enjoying the fresh Mediterranean sea breeze. Enough of this stupid drinking, I wanted to get to my bed in the Marriott – and I wanted to get there fast.
Just one problem. Where exactly was the bloody bed? I was too drunk to remember the way back to the hotel. And there were no cabs at that time of night. I could have asked the bouncers or any passer-by where the hotel was, but I was too dumb to think about that.
Now I did something extremely stupid: I started to walk. After all, the hotel was nearby, wasn’t it? But did I have to turn left or right? Right, I said to myself.
Wrong.
After an hour of fruitless wandering, I still hadn’t found the Marriott. Nor any other hotel. Nor anything, for that matter!
I was out in the sticks. All I could see was a petrol station, and it was closed. I decided to sit there and wait. The people from the petrol station would open the place within an hour, for sure. And they could help me. The stupidest thing to do would be to walk any further, in this mountainous environment. That would only make my situation a lot worse. As if that was possible!
It wouldn’t be too good for my ankle either. I’d already fallen a few times – and my clothes were ripped. What a mess!
Sitting near the petrol station, I fought to stay awake – a fight that I lost. I fell asleep on the tarmac, my last thought being: let’s hope Nicolas got home safely.
So there I was, fast asleep, near an abandoned petrol station, in ripped clothes and with red wine stains all over my white shirt. I’ve had better moments, I can assure you.
Eventually two cops woke me up and asked me what I was doing there. Hmmm, good question. One I couldn’t answer. Dick! What would he say if the coppers took me to the police station, a few hours before the most important game in Zenit’s club history? Dick would freak out. He didn’t know I was out and he didn’t know I was drinking again.
I don’t know how or in which language exactly, but I managed to convince the policemen of the fact that I wasn’t a tramp, rather I was a lost football player who needed to get to his bed in the Marriott Hotel.
And that is exactly where they took me, in their police car. It was the highlight of the evening. And I don’t think Dick ever found out.
Still, I was a bit worried when I entered the hotel that morning in my Worzel Gummidge outfit, as I bumped into the four UEFA officials who had been in Monaco to guide us. I walked as straight as possible to the elevator, hoping they wouldn’t say anything to my manager.
It was eight in the morning. Breakfast was served at nine ... Not even a cold shower could freshen me up. I was sick as a parrot and pissed as a dog – or the other way around – and my eyes were as red as the tomatoes in the breakfast buffet. Through half-shut lids, I could see Dick’s angry face. But I decided to ignore it.
To convince everybody I was feeling fine, I took an extra cheese roll and a nice glass of milk, and kept smiling. Say cheese!
After breakfast I immediately went back to my room. I crashed out and slept for the rest of the day, until I had to go to the stadium and watch the game.
Later that night, things went downhill again – at, er, Jimmy’z ...
This time we were there with the entire squad. Some rich Russians had hired the club, and once again money was no object. They’d even flown in some of Russia’s most famous DJs. But I couldn’t keep my head up. I was still knackered from the previous night. So I left the place at two. By taxi, this time.
A few days later, in Saint Petersburg, I got drunk again. And the day after. And the day after ... you guessed it. But it was worse than in Scotland. I wasn’t drinking because I liked it. I was drinking because I needed it. I had become a full-blown alcoholic.
One of the reasons for hitting the bottle was the fact that I was hardly playing. At times I wasn’t even included in the squad. For the first time in my entire career I was left out of the team structure. I had to channel the anger that came with it – and I did it with alcohol.
At that point, my life was in turmoil. Everything collided: my injury, the fact that I wasn’t part of the team any more, my imminent divorce from Graciela ... I simply couldn’t handle it. Sometimes I stayed at home, deliberately, so that I wouldn’t drink anything. But it didn’t work. I couldn’t relax at all. On the contrary, within minutes I was totally stressed out. That’s because I realised what a mess I’d made of my life – and that of others. Those thoughts led to a headache, which I had to kill with booze.
Alcohol turned out to be my only medicine. The pain in my head would disappear and I would have fun again. But by this stage I wasn’t sitting on my own sofa, I was in the Arena Club. Just to inform you.
In the Arena there were still people around me who gave me the impression that they admired me. As if I were king. I was the centre of attention – always. And it was a fantastic feeling. Every night people wanted to enter the Arena with me. At first I said no, as I still had to play the odd game of football. But after a while, that barrier had gone. So I said yes. Always.
Who cared that Zenit had a match coming up? I certainly didn’t! I always joined friends on a trip downtown. And if nobody asked me I would invite them! They always said yes, as I was constantly waving my credit card around. And thanks to me they visited places they would never see otherwise, with their normal wage packets. I knew every bouncer in Saint Petersburg, so nobody ever had to queue up.
On nights like that, I spent thousands of pounds. And this went on for weeks, if not months. Now, looking back, I think how incredibly stupid it was. But back then, I simply didn’t recognise the value of money. Thanks to my salary, I was living in a bubble.
Money was also the root of my downfall. I sometimes think that if I hadn’t had all that cash, things might have been better. But who knows?
Due to the fact that I now had one ouch after the other, I very rarely played a game. In 2008 I made eight appearances, most of them as a substitute. In 2009, zero. Zilch. And I still made truckloads of money.
It made me depressed. So I took the next step into hell. In order to feel better I now turned to drugs. Booze on its own didn’t do the trick any more.
Drugs were they only way I could get sober again. Well, sort of ...
I wasn’t new to dope. Back in my younger days, I’d seen a lot of kids doing it in the street. In the bars and clubs of Alkmaar, the stuff was available too. I did pop the occasional pill in those days, but never during the season. Only when I didn’t have to play. I was too scared to get caught.
Back in Heerlerheide it was easy getting a few pills. Everybody knew where to get them and it was a pretty druggy neighbourhood. In Saint Petersburg I didn’t have to search for them either. There was just one big difference from my drugs consumption in the past: this time I was swallowing pills during the season as well.
Now, talk about taking risks ... I took a huge shot in the dark here. But I didn’t care. It was now my way of surviving. And it wasn’t just pills. Because of the shit I was in, I started shoving Charlie up my nose too. Yup, cocaine. Complimentary stuff from some Russian gangsters I’d befriended.
I was going more and more off the rails. Not that I snorted the stuff every day. Sometimes my nose was coke-free for weeks! I only used it when I needed it, although I admit that during my last months in Russia I needed it a lot. But I still didn’t see myself as an addict.
I did like the stuff though. And so did my hangers-on. People say the guys around me were taking advantage of me. I saw it the other way around: I was taking advantage of them. I was buying fun and attention off them.
Suicide wasn’t an option. Are you kidding me? My life was in pieces, but thanks to the coke and the booze and the cash and the girls I still had a hell of a time. I was having heaps of fun. And when I felt sad, say after another useless training session, I just went to bed. When I was asleep everything was fine. After I woke up, late afternoon, reality would kick in. But then I would take a drink – and soon I’d feel like a million dollars again.
Not an ideal lifestyle for a professional footballer, I can hear you say ...
In the meantime I had befriended Maja, Macha, Anna and Viktoria, four gorgeous strippers from club Maximus. I even gave them the key to my apartment, which, as you may remember, happened to be situated right around the corner from the strip joint. It gave them the opportunity to drop in, even when I wasn’t at home. It was for practical reasons: they lived in the outskirts which are hardly reachable in the middle of the night. In order to let ships through on the river Neva, all bridges are up by then. If you really have to get back to your place, you have to take the ring road. Additional driving time: three hours. So, it was better for the girls to stay at my place and wait for the bridges to come down.
Needless to say they came quite often. Especially in the morning, after they’d finished work. In the end, they moved in. By then I didn’t even see them as pole dancers. They were, well, my friends. Not girlfriends though, as I was still married to Graciela. I didn’t have a relationship with any of the dancers – or any other Russian girl, for that matter.
Still, I loved to have them around. Top girls they were – and nutters too. They were crazy! What sane girl wants to be a pole dancer? That was probably why we all got along so well. I was a nutcase too!
In between lodging, they did a bit of shopping for me, cleaned the apartment and prepared food. They accompanied me when I had to buy a new phone card, or do something at the bank. They were my perfect personal assistants.
Obviously they disappeared when Graciela dropped by.
Did I ever have sex with those goddesses? Of course! Picture this: the strip club closes, the dancers come home full of adrenaline, they see me sleeping, jump into bed with me and ... Would you say no in that situation? Would you send them away? I bet you wouldn’t!
Still, they weren’t around just for sex. I had other girls for that. Girls I picked up at the clubs in Saint Petersburg. No, they weren’t hookers. I don’t do hookers. Apart from that one time in South Africa, I’ve never paid for sex. I could get the best women for free. A thousand euros for an hour, those Russian prostitutes cost. I preferred to spend that on champagne, to tell you the truth. Besides, sex with a whore isn’t fun. A working girl only keeps an eye on her watch. I detest that. I like the whole process of chatting up, having a laugh et cetera.
That’s why things worked out so well with the Maximus girls. We did a lot of things together, apart from having sex. On their nights off, I sometimes took them out to a restaurant. Oh, I loved the dirty looks some of the players’ wives gave us when they saw us entering Loge.
I preferred to take my girls there, because I knew a few of my colleagues’ partners would be there too. The faces they pulled when they saw me entering the place with not one, not two, not three, but four drop-dead gorgeous women ...
The players who were there with their partners showed signs of disapproval too. In reality, I think they envied me.
I loved it. Other people loved it too. Like a Dutch friend who came to visit me one day. As he arrived quite late, I took him straight from Pulkovo Airport to the Arena Club. I hadn’t told him about my lodgers yet. Some things are best kept secret, at least for a while.
As Russian vodka is stronger than the stuff we have back home, the liquid KO’d him quite fast, so I had to drag him home and pour him into bed.
The next morning I got up early because I had to go to training. As a hardened boozer, I didn’t feel like a wreck at all. I could handle the alcohol better than Arshavin, who, as you may remember, fell over the ball on my very first training session in Russia. I wasn’t like that. Fighting Spirit in the bar, Fighting Spirit on the pitch.
After the training session I switched on my mobile and saw that I had ten missed calls! All made by my legless friend back home. Something was wrong! I called him immediately.
He sounded upset. ‘Fernando, please ...’
‘Yes?’
‘Please, tell me ... which brothel am I in?’
‘Brothel? What do you mean?’
‘Which brothel did you dump me in, Fernando? It’s full of chicks wearing nothing but G-strings. What did you do? Get me out of here!’
‘Oh ... That’s my home, actually. And those girls are my friends Maja, Macha, Anna and Viktoria. Don’t panic, they won’t do you any harm!’
As I entered my house, a bit later, I saw him sitting on my sofa. To his left were Macha and Anna, and to his right were Maja and Viktoria. He looked as if he ruled the place. The new Tsar of Saint Petersburg.
Each girl knew the city like the back of her hand and this meant that, thanks to them, I ended up in places the average foreigner never would. So on a night in August ...
Yes, this is the beginning of yet another tale.
Normally I never left the centre of Saint Petersburg. Way too dangerous! What if I went home with a girl, only to be confronted by an armed hubby? Try to escape, in a situation like that? Try to survive, more like!
I didn’t want to take that risk. So, unlike in Glasgow, I always took my girl back to my own den. I also told my mates where I would be that night. Safety first. For that reason I had my personal cab driver too. He would wait all night until I staggered out of a club.
But, for once, on a beautiful summer night, I changed my pattern and decided to have a look outside the centre. So when my flatmates asked me, giggling, if I wanted to go ‘somewhere nice’, I said yes. I trusted the girls like my own wallet. No, more than that!
Off we went, in one of their cars, towards the Gulf of Finland. And it was then that I started to have doubts. It was getting darker and darker, the roads were getting worse and worse, and I didn’t like the idea any more. I felt, sort of, scared. I didn’t know where I was, didn’t know what to expect.
I imagined myself being tied up, the culmination of a project the girls had been working on for months. Think about that scene in Reservoir Dogs ...
Why oh why had I agreed to this? Why had I put myself into this vulnerable position? You dickhead! And why hadn’t I told anybody that we were heading out of the city? What if they were going to shoot me? Would they ever find my body in this remote part of the country?
I couldn’t get these nasty thoughts out of my mind. Started sweating. Outside, it was pitch black. Nobody would be able to trace me here. I thought about the one million ransom they would ask for me. This had happened to foreigners before. How the fuck was I going to get out of this car?
I took a close look at the girls’ faces. No signs of stress. They were still in a really good mood, as they always were. It was time to pop the question.
‘Where are we going to?’
They didn’t answer. Instead, I saw index fingers being pressed firmly against lovely lips. ‘No.’ And, ‘Don’t worry, it’s gonna be all right.’ And, ‘You’ll be amazed.’
When we finally stopped we’d almost reached the Finnish border. In front of us was a huge mansion bathed in floodlights. Inside, the music was so loud that we could hear it from outside.
This was the girls’ surprise. I had been taken to one of Russia’s most exclusive nightclubs as a VIP. It was their way of saying thank you for all those months of love and care.
Now, wasn’t that sweet of them? Yes, it was. Still, I swore to myself that I would never put myself into a situation like that again.
Adventures like that made my life a rollercoaster. Things were never predictable with me. I loved the excitement, the tension and, in hindsight, the danger.
Completely at odds with my professional life. Since the summer of 2008, when the boys won the European Super Cup, I’d been training for nothing. My main rivals on the right wing, Anyukov and Denisov, were fitter than me. I had great difficulties with the situation, as any footballer would. Since 26 October 2008 in Siberia – Tom Tomsk away, always difficult – I hadn’t played a single match.
Still, I had a contract so I had to show up at the training sessions. And I did – I was still a professional, you know. And I did what Dick told me to do, whether I agreed with it or not. It wasn’t like what happened at Fortuna once, many years ago, when Richard Sneekes refused to go on the pitch in injury time. Manager Chris Dekker wanted to use him as a last-minute substitute, but Sneekes told him to fuck off and said that the 90 minutes had gone already.
I was astounded. How could a player say a thing like that to his manager? I would never have done that, no matter how humiliating a manager’s decision was.
Sometimes Dick totally forgot about me when I was doing my warm-up during the game. But it wasn’t out of disrespect; it was because he was so focused on the match itself. I could have waved like a windmill and he still wouldn’t have noticed me.
This didn’t happen when we played Amkar Perm, somewhere in the Urals. After twenty minutes of stretching and running, I was told to go on. It was ridiculous, as the clock in the stadium had stopped already. There were only a few seconds left. So, it would basically take the rhythm out of the game. I thought it was an insult to an experienced footballer of 32 years of age. C’mon, is this what you took me with you for? Two five-hour flights and a night in a dodgy hotel for this? Why don’t you use a youngster instead?
Cor Pot left, immediately after winning the UEFA Cup. He was made head coach of the Dutch national youth team and, according to him, it was time to be his own boss again. It was an emotional moment for me, as Cor and I had become close friends. But it was an offer he couldn’t refuse, he told me. Still, it was sad. Bye, Cor, lover of beautiful buildings and even more beautiful women! Old scamp, I still remember you showing me your phone with a pic of your latest catch – usually a blonde.
I wasn’t surprised that he was so popular among the female population of Saint Petersburg. Well groomed men are real babe magnets over there. Just ask, er, me!