Ricksen / De Vries / Ferguson Fighting Spirit

The Autobiography of Fernando Ricksen
1. Auflage 2014
ISBN: 978-0-85790-812-4
Verlag: Arena Sport
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 256 Seiten

Fernando Ricksen was a fighter. As a footballer, Ricksen carved out a fearsome reputation for Rangers, Zenit St Petersburg and Holland. Throughout his time at Ibrox, his aggressive approach won him hero status among the Rangers fans, and off the field he was just as dynamic a force, finding himself on the front page as often as in the sports section. After leaving the club in 2006 and signing for Zenit St Petersburg, he went on to defeat his former teammates in the final of the 2008 UEFA Cup and established as wild a reputation in Russia as he had in Glasgow. Ricksen was diagnosed with motor neurone disease in 2013, and here his extraordinary life story is chronicled, along with his 6 year battle with the disease. Fighting Spirit details his wild experiences both on and off the field, in a rollercoaster journey of football, alcohol, drugs, sex, violence and corruption.

Fernando Ricksen was born in Hoensbroek in1976 and played professional football for Fortuna Sittard, AZ Alkmaar, Rangers and Zenit St Petersburg as well as gaining international honours for the Netherlands. He worked as a freelance journalist for Panorama, ELF Voetbal, Helden Magazine, Life After Football, Men's Health, Quote and the Dutch Soccer Federation (KNVB) among many other publications. He died in September 2019.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Ricksen, Fernando

De Vries, Vincent

Ferguson, Barry

Leseproben

ONE

LITTLE CHICAGO

‘SO, TELL ME, WHAT is it exactly that you have achieved in your life?’

Now that was a question I hadn’t seen coming. I almost choked on my glass of water when the psychologist at the Sporting Chance Clinic asked me this, and not because it was water.

Didn’t this man read newspapers? Didn’t this man watch TV? Didn’t this man follow football?

Okay, a few days ago I had been on the rampage – again. This time, on a flight to Johannesburg. I couldn’t deny it. But, hey, I was Fernando Ricksen, highly successful professional football player. Twelve caps for the Netherlands. Loaded. Capable of bedding any woman I wanted. Winner of seven – did you get that, shrink? – seven major trophies with Glasgow Rangers. Voted Best Player of the Scottish Premier League – by my colleagues. Best Player, meaning just as much a hero as Paul Gascoigne, Mark Hateley, Brian Laudrup, Ally McCoist and Henrik Larsson.

How about that?

And this man was asking me what I had achieved?

I was the captain of Glasgow Rangers, one of the best and biggest football teams in the whole of Britain. Only the real big shots in football will ever have the privilege of wearing the captain’s band in a team like Rangers. Big shots like, well, me.

This guy is nuts, I told myself. Asking me what I had achieved, the sheer idiocy of the question. No respect whatsoever. It was a joke!

At that very moment I knew it: this whole Tony Adams clinic wasn’t for me. What the heck was I doing here? Had I really come to the place voluntarily? I remembered having had doubts beforehand. I’d been right!

But, being the confident person I thought I was, I explained to him that loads of people were envious of me. Okay, minor detail: Paul Le Guen, Rangers’ new manager, had just kicked me out of the squad for ‘indecent behaviour’, which in this case meant running through an aeroplane on a flight to a training camp in South Africa – stark naked and pissed as a parrot.

Nevertheless, stadiums full of people would love to swap places with me. In their eyes I had a career to die for. They, in other words, simply admired me for all I had achieved.

And I wasn’t exaggerating.

‘Oh?’ the psych said, leaning backwards and folding his hands behind his neck. He had a completely different opinion. My self-image sucked. Big time.

I offered him a question mark.

‘Yes,’ he said. The word sounded as if it came straight out of a ventilator. Then the volume knob was turned to the left. He started whispering. ‘Listen. Your club doesn’t want you any more. Your wife wants to leave you. Basically your life has gone down the drain. Completely.’

Those words had an enormous impact on me. I listened in silence. Because, deep down, I knew he was right. Of course he was right. As a football player I had made it – no doubt about it. Even a blind man could see that. But as a human being? Not quite.

I had to face it: I had been drunk and disorderly for years now. I had kicked my way through life like a football hooligan with an insatiable thirst. Thanks to that, my life was in tatters. It was just as the guy with the pencil who was sitting in front of me said. I knew it, but I’d never wanted to show it to anyone. Scared shitless to lose all the respect I had gained over the years.

I know it sounds odd, but I was glad that on that sunny morning in Hampshire in July 2006 the doctor came to this verdict. More important: I was happy that he shared it with me. I felt relief, more than anything else. Finally someone had the guts to stick a needle into the balloon. Or, in this case, a sharp pencil. I felt liberated. Free. As if a huge weight was falling off my shoulders. This really was what I needed.

I decided to stay. Motivated at last. As I said earlier, I had come to the clinic voluntarily, but at the time I didn’t think much of it, to tell the truth. The clinic’s big boss Peter Kay had advised me to seek help here, but I genuinely thought I didn’t need any. I believed I was doing all right. Well, that’s what it’s like when you live in your own fantasy world. How wrong I was ... I did need help, and I needed it fast.

So, as I was sitting there, regarding the natural beauty of Forest Mere, Liphook, I realised that this could be the chance to leave Never Never Land, with all its destructive seductions, for good and start facing reality. There was no time to lose, otherwise I would lose more than time alone, meaning my beloved Graciela and my just as beloved Rangers.

There and then I took the decision that would change my life. I was ready to fight myself. ‘Deal,’ I said to the psych, while stretching out my arm. He shook my hand.

Here, on this beautiful estate, I would be reborn. Just as Kay hoped, when he advised me to check in to the clinic.

‘For the next few weeks I’m gonna do exactly what you tell me,’ I said to the doctor.

He smiled, and nodded. ‘Good to hear that, son.’ He told me I wouldn’t regret my decision. To start with, I wasn’t the first addicted sports hero here. There had been truckloads of them before me. And each of them had walked out of the clinic as a better person. Cured, sane.

I could follow in their footsteps, the psychologist said. And he was right, or so it seemed. After a few difficulties in the beginning, I was more than happy to leave the clinic as a reborn man. A lot less egotistical than when I had arrived only four weeks earlier.

Little did we know ...

I mean, the feeling I had was one of total euphoria. It just wouldn’t last. I didn’t know there were more terrible things lined up for me, over the horizon, and things would get worse. Much worse.

It must have puzzled a few that, of all people, I ended up in rehab, battling booze and reshaping my mental self. Several eyebrows must have been raised in Hoensbroek, the quiet town in the Dutch province of Limburg where I was born on 27 July 1976, with the name of Fernando Jacob Hubertina Henrika Ricksen (I was named after the hit single by Swedish pop group ABBA, who happened to be my mother’s favourite band). Everyone in and around Eikstraat, or Oak Street as you would say in English, knew me as a quiet and even polite child.

In nursery I never caused any trouble. I was shy and well behaved. Every time the headmaster of Saint Paulus – Limburg is a predominantly Catholic region, hence my four Christian names – called my mother to tell her one of her kids had been a bit of a naughty boy, she knew who he meant straight away.

It was always Pedro, my younger brother. Never Fernando. And, indeed, Pedro was a bit of a mean bastard. Always pushing his luck, always trying to get away with things, always looking for trouble. Totally unlike me.

I was a good boy. And that didn’t change when I went to primary school. Every single year I ended up with good results. Strange to say it now, but I think I was a perfect child.

Pedro, who is only three years younger than me, was completely different. A whirlwind. Always on the rampage. If my mother wanted to visit friends or relatives and mentioned that she would be bringing Pedro with her, the visit would be cancelled. Nobody wanted Pedro in their house. Quite understandably, I have to confess.

Pedro loved the negative effect he had on people. He thought it was cool to be the bad boy. And boy, was he bad! Even towards me. I remember playing with my brand new Commodore 64, which I’d received from Santa. My friends and I were gathered around the computer and the television screen having heaps of fun, until Pedro pulled the plug. Just because he felt like it.

I don’t know if you remember the Commodore 64, but you needed tapes to upload the games. Needless to say Pedro cut those on more than one occasion, the sneaky bastard.

He didn’t give a toss whether my stuff was brand new or not. In those days, a Game Boy was the coolest thing a boy could have. It allowed you to play games wherever you were. And I was so damn proud of mine! Still, it didn’t take Pedro long to destroy it. I still remember where it happened: in the car, on our way to the Piccolo camping site in Domaso near Lake Como, our annual holiday spot. He simply broke it – and with that he broke my heart too. God, without my beloved Game Boy, the drive to Italy took an eternity.

As if driving to the campsite wasn’t boring enough, being the experienced truck driver he was, Dad never felt the need to stop along the way. We just drove straight to Italy, without any nice and cosy intermissions. Fourteen hours in an old Ford Taunus (which was like the Ford Cortina in the UK) without air con, it felt like a barbecue in hell – but without any sausages. Between Limburg and Italy we had one, maybe two, brief stops, but that was it. Daddy Huub, who was in fact my stepfather but we always called him Dad, wanted to reach the campsite as fast as possible. Not least because the whole family was waiting there already. Personally, I never got it. I mean, we stayed there for six bloody weeks, so what was the rush?

At times, I had to beg to stop for a pee.

‘Not yet,’ Dad always said.

By the time my bladder was ready to explode, he would give in and pull over. But not, like normal people do, in a parking area. He’d just stop on the hard shoulder! There, with all the motorway traffic speeding past, I had to go. And I had to go fast, Dad said. With the pee still dripping from my willy I had to jump in the car again, as the driver said we had no time to lose.

No time to lose! The old Ford was so heavily loaded that we barely made it on to the motorway again. It was...