‘SO, LOOKING BACK, DON’T you regret the fact that, thanks to your wildness and stupidity, your career hasn’t been as successful as it could have been?’
That’s what people keep asking me. It’s a difficult question to answer. What if I had been, let’s say, a Mark van Bommel? Dunno. Maybe. I’ve played twelve games for the national team. Could’ve been more. Could’ve been less.
My problem has always been that I needed an outlet. Otherwise I would start to think and think and, eventually, tense up. Completely. I needed to let steam off – a lot. Without that outlet I wouldn’t have been of any use to a manager
Family man Mark lived purely for his sport. I needed distraction to play at the highest level. But I agree, I’ve overdone it a bit, with the booze, the drugs, the girls. It was my way of dealing with the situation. After a night of partying, my head would be empty again. Otherwise I would have thought about the previous match non-stop and it would’ve driven me insane.
Yes, I burned a Mount Everest of money, but at least I had a good time doing it.
Still, there is one thing that I wish I hadn’t done. I shouldn’t have done coke during my last months in Russia. That scarred me for life. Look at my CV and you’ll notice there’s a year missing: the 2009/10 season – the season in which I didn’t play a single match. I’ve always said that I lost interest in football in that period, that I wasn’t motivated because I didn’t like the game any more, but that was a lie. I was suspended, after snorting cocaine, two weeks before the Europa League play-off match against Nacional Madeira, on 20 August 2009.
I wasn’t even anxious when they checked me that night on the Portuguese flower island. The toot had been two weeks ago, so fat chance they’d find any traces of it in my urine. I even grinned as I pissed. I wasn’t thinking about a possible worst-case scenario. No, I was happy. Happy that I was finally back with the squad again, on a European trip. Never expected that from Dick’s successor Davydov. After all, my last European match had been nine months ago, an away game against BATE Borisov. Against Real Madrid and Juventus I had been persona non grata.
I looked upon my presence in Madeira as a small ray of sunshine in the Cold War between Davydov and me, as the possible beginning of something new. Why else did he take me with him?
That was then. Three days later we had our argument at the bottom of the stairs in the hotel. Followed by that phone call from our doctor.
After a few fruitless attempts he finally caught me on the phone. He didn’t waste any time: ‘You’ve tested positive.’ UEFA had found traces of cocaine in my urine and that was the end of the line for me. I was suspended for a full year.
I was completely blown away. Not being allowed to play football was more difficult than my battle with the bottle. Football was my life. From the tender age of four, all I did was kick a ball. As a kid I always came home after dark, due to an agreement with my parents. As long as the streetlights were off, I was allowed to stay out. I was that passionate about football. And all those years later it was taken away from me. I was devastated.
Yes, it was my own fault. I shouldn’t have taken the damn stuff. Apart from being an athlete, I was a role model for kids, so it was a very bad thing to do. I want to say to everybody who is reading this: don’t do coke! Don’t do hard drugs. They’re poison and they’ll ruin you, even if you don’t notice it. They’ll destroy your life, your career, everything.
Nonetheless I didn’t agree with the penalty. I mean, I hadn’t taken the drug to perform better on the pitch. It was recreational. I wasn’t a cyclist in the Tour de France, preparing to climb Mont Ventoux. I was an off-duty football player with personal problems. A little bit of understanding, please!
The suspension made me suicidal. Not that I’ve ever climbed to the top of a bridge, ready to jump, but it was close. To distract myself I opened that pub in Alkmaar, but we all know how that ended.
The fact that I’m still here is purely thanks to Veronika. She dragged me out of my misery – and I am so grateful for that. She really is my guardian angel. She supported me day and night, when running away would’ve been the easiest option. Once again, Veronika, thank you very, very much! I love you.
And I can assure you it was tough for her too! I had become completely lethargic. I’d lie on the sofa watching a movie without really noticing I was watching a movie, if you catch my drift. My mind was miles away.
‘Nobody knows you when you’re down and out’, is the title of an old blues song. Not true, not in my case. People kept calling me, dropping by to ask if I needed anything. But I couldn’t accept their help. I didn’t want to bother them. It was my misery and I had to deal with it myself. That’s what I thought. I didn’t realise that due to that attitude I was starting to lose them.
Only much later, when I was working with the Fortuna youth team, did the sun start to shine again. And in order to keep the dark clouds away once and for all, I asked for professional help, just as I had done four years earlier when I visited the Sporting Chance Clinic.
I joined Alcoholics Anonymous, in Amsterdam, and this time I didn’t have any doubts. I was just a bit scared that I wouldn’t be ‘Anonymous’ for long, being the former football hero that I was. But there was no need to worry. In the Lucas Church in Osdorp, life didn’t rotate around Fernando Ricksen. Every single person was there for himself. Why should they care about other people’s problems?
So once again I had to talk about my demons, all three of them this time: drink, drugs and depression. The meetings were soothing and made me drink a lot less. At a certain point, I no longer had alcohol in the house. I was on my way back. I was ready to enjoy life again.
Still, the battle rages on. You can’t just be an ex-alcoholic overnight. You have to keep fighting the temptation. It’s a short-time strategy. You can only say to yourself: I’m not having a drink today. You can’t plan the rest of the week, let alone the rest of the year! That’s useless.
Drugs I don’t take at all any more. That is the only good thing that came out of the suspension. Women? Been there, done that, lost the T-shirt. I have Veronika and that is enough. My womanising days are over; for that reason you won’t see me in bars or clubs. It was fun, but it’s all in the past now. Besides, gold-diggers aren’t interested in me now that I’m on normal wages!
Drink-wise, I still enjoy the occasional glass of wine at dinner. Well, nobody’s perfect. But I am so strong nowadays that I can stop after one or two glasses. And I’ve never been plastered. I don’t want to be. No, not quite true. Deep down inside I would love to drink myself silly, but at least I now know that I shouldn’t. One day I hope to be totally clean. That is my next challenge. Being off booze completely would be as much a highlight as, for instance, the 2004/05 season, in which we won everything, with Rangers. The season that I ended up being best player in the league.
I feel privileged that I’ve played with some of the best footballers in the world. In the Dutch national team I had Van der Sar, Frank de Boer, Stam, Sneijder, Van der Vaart, Robben, Kluivert, Seedorf, Van Nistelrooy and Van Bommel around me. At AZ I played with Van Galen, Moens and Huiberts. My fellow Rangers were, among others, Caniggia, Flo, Amoruso, Ferguson, Ronald de Boer, Van Bronckhorst and Moore. In Saint Petersburg there were Arshavin, Malafeev, Anyukov, Danny, Denisov and Tymoshchuk.
Not difficult to pick and choose an All Star Team from these names, is it?
And if you ask them about Fernando Ricksen, they will all say he’s a nutcase, a total psycho, but he never let us down and always did his best to win the match. Some will even tell you I’m a sweet guy.
At RKSV Minor – what’s in a name? – the modest amateur club where I started playing after my professional days were over, they’ve only seen the nice side of me. Okay, I still didn’t want to lose, but I didn’t kick anybody off the field any more. (Minor were trained by a certain Pedro Ricksen, for the record.)
Pedro had warned me: people are going to provoke you. Like they had been doing to him for years, being the brother of ‘that alcoholic’. More than once Pedro gave in and whacked one of those creepy opponents, and received a red card as a result.
So, I had to ensure something like that wasn’t going to happen during my stint with RKSV Minor. But it didn’t mean I was going to tolerate a kick on my shin, oh no! You can have the pleasure of writing on Twitter or Facebook that you hurt Fernando Ricksen, but don’t think I won’t kick you back!
I’ve had my fair share of provocation, especially in Scotland. I broke my nose so often that I don’t have a septum now. Try to squeeze it, it feels like a rubber duck! And I lost more teeth than you’ve seen in the movie Jaws – thanks to Craig Brewster, the battering ram of Dundee United. He once planted his elbow in my mouth, after which I spat out both of my front teeth. Continued to play, of course. Hey, it was my teeth, not my leg!
‘Is it nice being Fernando Ricksen?’ That’s another thing people sometimes ask me. Depends on your perception of ‘nice’, is my standard answer. If you like an extreme life with very high highs and very low lows then yes, it was great fun to be me. But it was heavy at times, very heavy. That’s why you can only handle it if you’re blessed with the right spirit.
A Fighting Spirit.
Sure, I could blame a lot of people for the lows in my life. I could blame Graciela, for forbidding me to keep in touch with my family. I could blame various managers, for not letting me play. I could blame my friends, for giving me cocaine. But that wouldn’t be fair. I am the only one to blame. I messed things up so much. It was me, and only me!
I am not proud of it. I know lots of you love to hear (and read, otherwise you wouldn’t be on this page!) about my stupid past, but I sincerely regret parts of it. I have hurt people – loads of them. So, no, I’m not pleased with a lot of things that happened.
But at the same time, it has been a fruitful period with lots of trophies and titles. And look at me now! Look at what I’ve gathered, apart from all that silverware. I have a lovely wife, a beautiful daughter, a caring family, supportive friends and loyal supporters from Sittard to Glasgow.
So, back to what that psychologist at the Sporting Chance Clinic in Hampshire asked me: ‘What is it exactly that you have achieved in your life?’
I now know the answer. All of the above, sir!