Full Time: The Secret Life of Tony Cascarino

We are not permitted to choose the frame of our destiny. But what we put into it is ours.

On the night before I left for Paris, I packed a medium-sized sports bag with enough clothes for a week and retreated to the bedroom with my passport and a new colour for my hair. Paul Shinners, the former team mate at Gillingham who had once doctored his age, was playing on my mind. What, I wondered, if I was to pull the same stunt at Marseilles? What if I was to arrive there tomorrow and deliberately mislead them about my age? There was no way I could tell them I was almost thirty-two! Thirty-two was the fucking knacker’s yard for a striker! No one ever went to Europe at the age of thirty-two! But what if I could knock a year off my life and be ‘just’ thirty-one again? Marseilles would certainly be more inclined to offer me a longer contract; and I needed a longer contract – I was worried they would offer me a few months on trial or a short-term deal. So I opened my passport and with the deftest of squiggles, changed the handwritten ‘2’ in the year of my birth (1962) to a ‘3’, then retreated to the bathroom with the L’Oréal to dye the grey from my hair. Call it dishonest if you will, but I prefer to think of it as desperation. There had been no other offers since the end of the World Cup. It was Marseilles or nothing. I had to make this work.

On 20 May 1993, six days before they beat AC Milan 1–0 to become the first French club ever to win the European Cup, Olympique Marseilles travelled north to Valenciennes for their penultimate game of the season. It was a huge game for both teams: Valenciennes were seventeenth in the division and desperately needed a win to stave off relegation, and Marseilles were pushing for their fifth consecutive title, but couldn’t push too hard and risk injuries before their rendezvous with Milan. Valenciennes, a once proud steel town of high unemployment, isn’t the most glamorous setting for football, but a capacity crowd packed the Nungesser stadium to watch their heroes do battle with the best team in France.

After forty-five minutes, as the teams returned to the dressing rooms at the end of a tense, scrappy first half, there wasn’t much to get excited about in the stands: Allen Boksic had opened the scoring for the champions; Christophe Robert had limped off injured for Valenciennes. Marseilles led 1–0 and it seemed just another goal, just another injury and just another Friday night in the French premier league. But then, after fifteen minutes, the teams failed to reappear. Rumours began to circulate about a problem in the Valenciennes dressing room. ‘Was Boksic offside?’ ‘He didn’t appear to be.’ The referee had been summoned and was sorting it out. When the game eventually resumed and Marseilles held on to win 1–0, the focus immediately began to shift towards the big game on Wednesday. But the problem in the Valenciennes dressing room had not been resolved. In fact, at that very moment, as the legions of cheery OM supporters returned to their cars, the problem had just stepped from the showers and was about to leave the dressing room.

‘They wanted to buy us off,’ Jacques Glassmann, the Valenciennes defender, announced to reporters waiting outside. ‘I was offered FF200,000 if I didn’t try too hard, and I’m not the only one: approaches were also made to Jorge Burruchaga and Christophe Robert.’

The ‘they’, it later transpired, was the OM managing director Jean-Pierres Bernes, who, acting on instructions from Bernard Tapie, had asked one of his players, Jean-Jacques Eydelie, to offer bribes to Glassmann, Burruchaga and Robert to withdraw from the Valenciennes team on the day of the game. The French Football League announced an immediate inquiry and a criminal investigation was also launched, as attention turned to the seemingly innocuous tackle that had seen Robert limp off before half-time. The Valenciennes midfielder refuted the allegations until he was arrested, four weeks later, when he decided to recant. On the night before the game, he had sent his wife to the Marseilles team hotel to collect a package, which they had subsequently buried in a garden. The package had contained FF250,000.

A year after the inquiry was launched, the league announced that Marseilles were to be stripped of their title, demoted to the second division for two seasons and prohibited from buying new players. A week later, I was contacted at the World Cup by Denis Roach. Were it not for Jacques Glassmann, that phone call would never have happened. His honesty was the reason I was heading for Marseilles, which is kind of frightening when you think about the impact it had on my life. I would never have met Virginia. We would never have had Maeva. What would I be doing now? Where would I be living? How would my career have ended?

The meeting with Tapie was scheduled for four o’clock. I was met at Heathrow airport by Peter Baines, a solicitor who worked with Denis Roach and after a brief discussion on the agenda for the day, we caught a midday flight to Paris and a cab to the seventh arrondissement. I began to feel nervous as the city’s famous landmarks loomed into view. Traffic was chaotic but after a tedious crawl we eventually arrived at the gates of a palatial residence on the rue des Saintes-Peres, where our identity was checked before we were escorted inside to a waiting room. The president didn’t keep us long before gracing us with his presence.

Shorter and stockier than I expected, he dressed like a film star and gazed at you with eyes that searched for weakness like spotlights. Before sitting down to business, we were led on a guided tour of the house and as he marched from lavishly furnished room to lavishly furnished room, explaining the various periods and features, there wasn’t a hint of his problems with the authorities or the fact that the house was about to be repossessed. The ultimate showman, Tapie was a master of illusion, where all that glittered was most certainly gold, but not necessarily his gold. The tour ended in an enormous office where we sat down to talk football as coffee was served.

He began grilling me on the goals I’d scored and seemed particularly curious as to what kind of player I was, which seemed a bit odd. Didn’t he know what he was getting? Shouldn’t he have been briefed on my weaknesses and strengths?

‘Well,’ I began slowly and deliberately, mindful of how poor his English was, ‘I suppose I’m a bit . . .’

But he couldn’t wait, and immediately delivered his verdict on some of the other British players who had played in France. ‘[Chris] Waddle: Yess! [Mark] Hateley: Nonnnn! [Trevor] Steven: Hmmm – ça va! Hoddle: YESSS! Cascarino? Je ne sais pas encore?’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘I played with Glenn at Chelsea last season but to be honest I’m more like Hateley as a player . . . but with a lot more ability.’

As soon as he started laughing, I realized that I’d been had. He knew exactly what he was getting and was only taking the piss.

Taking advantage of the levity, I took a deep breath and passed him a sheet of paper with my contractual demands.

Two-year contract

£4000 per week

£65,000 signing-on fee

£65,000 if the club was promoted

Goal-scoring bonus

£1,500 house allowance

Moving expenses from England

The use of a car

Twelve return air fares per season

After a cursory glance, he said, ‘No problem,’ and dropped the sheet of paper disdainfully on to the floor. Shit! I thought, I should have asked for more. He seemed more interested in talking about football, and was on his feet now, with his hand over his crotch, hoisting up his testicles and insisting that you had to have balls to play for Marseilles.

‘Je suis Irish,’ I enthused, unsure whether to emphasize the point by giving my own nuts a squeeze.

On the subject of my bonus, he promised to pay me £15,000 if I scored twenty league goals in the season and an extra £500 for every goal above that – on condition that if I didn’t meet the target, I would pay the £15,000 to him.

In Marseilles, legend has it that when the city was founded by Greeks from Phocaea in 600 BC, the first building to be raised was the Stade Velodrome. A day after meeting Tapie, as the flight from Paris looped over the city on its final approach to the airport at Marignane, I scanned the myriad buildings for the mythical football stadium that was to become my new home. It was a glorious morning and from the moment I inhaled my first breath of Provence, I had a feeling we were going to get on.

Jean-Louis Levreau, the club’s mild-mannered vice-president, was waiting to meet me in the arrivals hall. After posing for a couple of photographs for the local papers, we drove straight to the OM offices on avenue du Prado, where my contract was typed, scrutinized and signed. With just over a week to go before the opening game of the season, a friendly had been arranged with a local team, Endoume, for the following evening and despite vigorous protestation that I wasn’t near fit enough, Levreau was adamant I make an appearance. ‘Just play for twenty minutes,’ he insisted. ‘There’ll be a lot of supporters at the game and they’ll be anxious to take a look at you.’ Suppressing a smile and the urge to admit that this was precisely what was bothering me, I agreed to give it a go.

I felt extremely self-conscious and vulnerable when introduced to the team. Walking into any new dressing room is never an easy experience but when you’ve come from a different country and don’t speak a word of the language, it can be positively harrowing. During the warm-up, I miscontrolled a pass from Marcel Dib and was mortified when the ball spun off my foot and smacked me in the face. Dib started laughing. Brilliant, I thought. He must think I’m a great player. But I’d calmed down by the start of the game and gave a reasonable account of myself for the forty-five minutes I played. That a few of my team mates spoke English helped break the ice. Jean-Phillipe Durand reminded me we had met once before on opposing sides in an international in Dublin. Fabien Barthez, now of Manchester United, the youngest ever goalkeeper to win the European Cup, still had a bit of hair in those days and seemed a real live wire. Bernard Cassoni and Jean-Marc Ferreri were both very friendly and Michel de Wolf, the veteran Belgian international, spoke excellent English and became an instant soulmate.

We trained twice a day, every day, for the next week. Sarah arrived with the kids and some extra clothes after a couple of days to check out some schools and apartments and seemed genuinely impressed. We stayed in a lovely room at my temporary home at the Concorde Palm Beach Hotel on the seafront until the day before our opening league game, when she returned to London to make arrangements for a permanent stay.

A crowd of almost 30,000 flocked to the Stade Velodrome for the visit of Le Mans. It was my first real experience of the legendary OM supporters, who were organized in different groups around the ground. There were ‘the Yankees’, ‘the Winners,’ ‘the Dodgers’ and ‘the Fanatics’, but by far the most fervent were ‘the Ultras’, who sat behind the south-facing goal, popping firecrackers and waving scarves that proudly proclaimed they were ‘Fier d’être Marseillais’ (proud to be from Marseilles). Like most of the groups, the Ultras had a leader, who distinguished himself by never wearing a shirt. On freezing winter nights in places like Guingamp and Amiens, you’d find him directing the chants bare-chested, with his hand-held microphone – the ultra Ultra.

Although Marc Bourier was officially the team manager, Tapie did all the talking before the game and toured the dressing room slapping us on the back and lunging at us with grunts and hoisted testicles. ‘The demotion to the second division,’ he announced, ‘was a crushing blow for everyone in Marseilles, but it was also an opportunity to “montrer les couilles” (to show we had balls).’ But when the game kicked off we had the worst possible start and conceded a goal after just two minutes.

Urged forward by chants of ‘Allez OM’, for the next twenty minutes we battled for an equalizer until Marc Libbra was felled in the box and awarded a penalty. As Jean-Marc Ferreri, the team’s designated penalty kicker, walked towards the ball and scooped it into his hands, I’m not sure what came over me but suddenly I was standing beside him. ‘This is mine,’ I said, seizing the ball from his hands. I walked forward and placed it on the spot.

‘Oh yeah? What if you miss? Thought about that? Take a look at that bloke with no shirt behind the goal. Listen to those headbangers he’s winding up! They make the mob from the Shed look like sheep. You’ll be crucified if you miss.’

‘What do you mean, you don’t care? For fuck’s sake, Cass, what are you saying? Look, you’re taking this “proud to be Marseillais” bollocks too far. You’ll be grabbing your nuts next! Dipping croissants in your coffee! Kissing your team mates before training! Saying ooh la fucking la! You’re not Marseillais! You’re from St Paul’s Cray remember? You’re the boy who pissed in his pants, the big clumsy bastard who used to hide at Celtic and Chelsea! Have you forgotten Neville Southall and the groans of the crowd?’

‘No, I’m serious, it’s shit or bust from now on. I’m going to think like a selfish bastard; I’m going to shoot every time I get a sniff at goal; I’m going to think and play uniquely for myself. I’m going to show them back in England. I’m going to shove it up their arse!’

I smashed it by the keeper into the back of the net. A week later, we travelled to Brittany for our second game of the season at St Brieuc. It was a tough, physical encounter that looked set to end in stalemate until six minutes to go, when we were awarded another penalty. Unopposed on this occasion, I smashed it by the keeper again for my second goal of the season. Our third game was away to Nancy and after fifteen minutes, I put us in front with a screaming volley that found the top corner of the net from twenty-five yards. Growing in confidence with every game, I made it four from four with the winner against Ales and five from five to earn a draw at Guingamp.

Our sixth game of the season was a friendly at home to Juventus. Tapie was like a lunatic in the dressing room. The game was being transmitted live on Eurosport and because Juventus were Juventus and Marseilles were an ageing, makeshift, second-division team, he was afraid we were going to get tanked. I wasn’t. I wasn’t afraid of anything. Sent out to face the German international Jurgen Kohler, I ran him ragged and scored both goals in our 2–0 win. Kohler shook my hand when the game was over. Four months earlier, we had played against each other in a friendly international in Hamburg. ‘You’re not the same guy I played last time,’ he smiled, as we walked towards the tunnel. How right he was. I was fitter, faster and stronger. I was three quarters of a stone lighter. I was confident. I believed. I was fier d’être Marseillais.

On the Saturday after the Juventus game I scored a hat-trick in a 5–0 demolition of Dunkirk at home. Two days later we were due to travel to Athens to play Olympiakos in the first leg of the UEFA Cup and despite our handsome win in the Dunkirk game, Tapie gave strict instructions that there was to be no going out. ‘I’ve got contacts in every nightclub in the city,’ he warned. ‘The moment you walk through the door, I’ll hear about it.’ Of that there was no doubt. Olympiakos was a huge game for Marseilles, marking as it did the return to the European stage for the first time since their historic triumph in Munich. As we ran out to warm up, I was approached by a Greek official, who asked about my plans for the following season and whether I’d be interested in coming to Athens. Tapie saw us talking and pulled me the moment I returned to the dressing room.

‘Nothing – he’s just a reporter,’ I replied, not wanting him to think I was courting a move. He said nothing, but it was obvious he didn’t believe me and suspected I’d been offered a bribe. For the first time since joining the club, I failed to find the target and missed a couple of decent chances, fuelling Tapie’s suspicions that I’d been bought. Despite our 2–1 win, he went berserk in the dressing room.

‘Salaud! Pute! Combien tu l’as vendu?’ He was rubbing his thumb against his index finger, making the sign of money.

‘Whaat!’ I exploded. ‘That’s a bit fucking rich coming from you! Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! You’re fucking mad.’

But though things got quite heated for a while, relations soon returned to normal.

Three days before the return leg in Marseilles, we were ordered to the team hotel on Sunday afternoon after training. Tapie had summoned his personal physician from Paris, and after dinner we lined up in one of the rooms and rolled up our sleeves for a ‘booster’ injection. I hadn’t a clue what exactly the boost was and didn’t feel inclined to ask. Most of the players were having them and it seemed easier to join the herd than cause a fuss. The boosters weren’t the only injections at the club. Before games we were offered shots – twenty tiny pinpricks, injected into the lower back by what looked like a stapling gun. Never having seen it in any dressing room in England, I asked one of the physios what it was and if it was legal. ‘Of course it’s legal,’ he replied. And then he smiled. ‘And anyway, our doctor does all of the tests at the club.’ I decided to give it a go and maybe the effect was purely psychological but it definitely made a difference: I felt sharper, more energetic, hungrier for the ball. One night, aware my lower back was starting to look like a dart board, I declined the injection before a game. Noting my reservations, Tapie brushed me aside, pulled up his shirt and blasted himself in the back.

The return leg against Olympiakos was transmitted live on TF1 and in front of our biggest crowd of the season, I scored twice and played exceptionally well in our 3–0 win. As a mark of appreciation, the leaders of the various supporters’ clubs started wearing shirts I’d worn at other clubs – Celtic, Villa and Chelsea – to the games. The Ultras named me ‘Tony Goal’ and started waving Irish tricolours. People were stopping me on the streets to shake my hand and sending over drinks and picking up the tab for my meals in restaurants. The support was overwhelming. By the first week of November I had won my bet with Tapie and scored my twentieth league goal – and would score sixteen more (eleven in the league) before the end of the season. A year after my career had touched rock bottom in England, I was a star at the biggest club in France. I had finally turned it round, finally achieved my potential, finally delivered a perfect season. Well, almost perfect . . .

Chapter Thirteen

Destiny (Part 1): Fier d’être Marseillais