Sol Campbell

by Simon Astaire

  ‘Once it left my head, I knew it was a goal,’ he says. ‘It hit a sweet spot. Even if the goalkeeper had been standing there, he wouldn’t have saved it. I knew that the ball was heading straight into the net.’ The goal gave Arsenal some breathing space but not for long. ‘Samuel Eto’o turned me. He spun round and hit a shot against the post. He judged the spin right, and there was no way I could take him out. That’s how quick football is. He didn’t do it again. I learned. I had taken in the speed of his movement. I’m able to do that with strikers.

  ‘Larsson coming on in the second half changed things even more. He’s a fine player,’ says Sol. But still, Arsenal had their chances. Freddie Ljungberg was denied by a superb save from Valdes and Henry had an opportunity but once again was denied by the goalkeeper. And then the two late Barcelona goals meant it was game over.

  ‘We nearly won the game. Although we had ten men it didn’t really matter; it was incredible how hard we fought. By the end we’d had enough opportunities to put the game to bed. You can’t afford to waste chances against a side like Barcelona.’ Sol was brave in the post-match interviews but felt pain. The disappointment was overwhelming. He knew he would never play in a match of such magnitude again. He still didn’t tell anyone he was leaving the club. What was the point? The mood in the dressing room and around the camp was already downcast. He wasn’t going to add to the low. These were his team-mates; his friends.

  When he left the Stade de France, he felt once again very alone. How defeat accentuates solitude. As the coach drove through the Paris streets, he never properly saw anything. Not unlike his mind at the time. No-one really understands what I’ve been through, the struggle to get back to this point. He lets out a sigh of submission. No-one hears it.

  He thinks of his time as a young boy. He needed to regain that joy of playing football again, when he played for hours against the wall, and played with his mates inside the cage, a concrete area enclosed by a wired fence twenty feet high, where you had to learn to control the ball in that space or else you lost it, and spent your time chasing after it.

  As the bus turned into Place de la Concorde he thought ahead about how difficult it would be to find a new club, the right club. He looked at his team-mates, heads down, slumped in their seats. They had become his friends on the field. Men who had learned to trust and respect each other. These same men had never lost their hunger and had always given a hundred per cent; now he would probably lose touch with many. At his most vulnerable time he was losing part of his family. He felt a flicker of worry. He saw the reflection of his face in the coach window. He was surprised to see his feelings showing. He was usually good at hiding that; one of the best. And then he thought of the goal he’d just scored. He was still good, still had it in him. And he felt better, and thought more positively, during a difficult end to the evening.

  Juventus were interested. Yes, that sounds good. He had been told the negotiations were well underway. He’d be going to Turin soon to meet them. Turin? He knew little of the city but he had heard it was small and comfortable for a stranger.

  He glanced at Robert Pires sitting a couple of rows ahead. Poor Robert, he had so looked forward to the game and yet he was the one to be sacrificed after the sending off. He remembered the look Robert had given him back in the dressing room at Highbury, the evening he left the ground and fled to Brussels. It now seemed such a long time ago. He convinced himself that he was a different person. He had changed and was now better. And yet he hadn’t had any therapy after his return. The club did not offer, or suggest that he needed, some professional help. Wenger had never taken him aside and offered him any fatherly advice. ‘That was not his style,’ Sol says, as before. It was still a time when depression or any other form of mental illness, even in a club the size of Arsenal, was not acknowledged or fully understood. It is only now that players are beginning to talk freely about it, and clubs are much more aware of it now.

  Those so unfortunate as to be suffering from clinical depression were seen as weak. In those days, there were seen to be two basic sides to the personality: the happy and the sad, the light and the dark. But if that’s the case, have suicides in football been a tragic mistake, like a shot fired by someone so innocent that he’s unaware of such a thing as a safety catch? When it happens, how could anyone know that he did not intend to kill himself? Things are better now, but much of the football world is still stuck in the dark ages. If you are slightly different, you are still looked upon as an oddity.

  Much of what was happening to Sol in those days resembled a cloud that, like the moment itself, soon changes and passes, and is never to be repeated again.

  • • •

  When they got back to the hotel, there was food for the players and entourage. Sol was hungry, so he stayed to eat but he didn’t want to talk. Ever since he was a kid, he was not the best company after losing a match, and it was the same that day. The dinner was full of polite, formal half-conversation, interspersed with the spasmodic rumble of thunder from the outside, threatening to break the warm weather. He ate quickly and excused himself from the table. He wanted to get to his room and pack for the flight home, which was set to depart later that same evening. He left the room with the hum of debate on what went wrong; the post-mortem on a dead match.

  He shared the elevator up to his room with what looked like an affluent Arsenal fan. He looked like the sort of man who gets what he wants. There was a long silence until the elevator stopped on the fourth floor. Neither one moved. It was a mistake. The elevator doors closed and the fan gave a smile, as if to say he always pressed the wrong number.

  Finally he broke the silence: ‘Great goal, Sol.’

  Sol mumbled a thank you. How he would change everything, even his majestic goal, just to have the European Cup in his hands.

  ‘You know, we may have lost tonight but you did yourself and us good. I know what you’ve been through.’

  They shook hands as the elevator stopped on the third floor. Just as the fan was getting out he said, ‘It’s an honour to have met you, Sol.’

  As the elevator doors were closing, Sol heard the fan’s resolution, said loudly enough that it probably woke up the whole hotel. ‘We’ll win it next year, no problem.’

  The words pulsed in his head. Sol wanted to shout back, ‘Not with me you won’t!’ but of course, he didn’t. Instead, he looked up and watched the numbers of the floors as the elevator climbed slowly upwards.

  Sol with mother Wilhelmina and father Sewell.

  Sol with friends at one of his birthday parties.

  Gunners striking gold. Sol celebrates with Ashley Cole as Arsenal clinch the 2002 Premiership title at Old Trafford after a 1-0 win against Manchester United.

  England

  ‘When I put on the England shirt, I had a collection of thoughts. It was like going into battle, fighting for your team, your country.’

  Sol

  Passers-by stare and wonder how someone could be so lucky. But it can soon be forgotten, your name remembered by the few when only years before it would be difficult to walk down the street without a greeting or discreet nudge from one friend to another.

  He had 73 England caps; the only player to have represented his country in six consecutive international tournaments. He was named in the official team of the tournament in both the 1998 and 2002 World Cups, and the 2004 European Championship. Aged 23 years and 248 days, he became the youngest England captain after Bobby Moore. He played under five England managers – Terry Venables, Glenn Hoddle, Kevin Keegan, Sven-Goran Eriksson and Steve McClaren – and scored England’s opening goal in the 2002 World Cup in Japan. He had goals disallowed against Argentina in France ’98 and against Portugal in Euro 2004, which would have changed his country’s football history.

  Sol Campbell’s international career, virtually more than any other English footballer, encapsulates the expression ‘Life is one long “if only”…’ If those goals had been given, how life would have changed. In the way we
all regard him. How we would remember him. Our hero? The man whose goals led us to glory? One of our best, most consistent international defenders, rather than a career that attracted enthusiastic interest for a short while, but has since been ignored or largely forgotten as new players have emerged.

  Everything new is something old forgotten.

  • • •

  On 9 November 1996, Sol was picked by England for his first World Cup qualifier. He had made his international debut six months earlier against Hungary in a friendly. But against Georgia in Tiblisi, the second game of the qualification group, he would be starting for England for the first time. There would be no team sheet pinned to the wall like at school. He would be told while sitting in a team meeting. The full squad at long tables, watching the projector as the management went over the previous game; and then, without warning, the projector showing the team for the next game.

  ‘At first I wasn’t sure and then looked again.’ Sol’s name came into focus. ‘Shit!’ It was like someone creeping up from behind and bursting a paper bag right behind his ears. ‘It was!’

  He sat motionless. He didn’t want anyone to notice how excited he was. His international future seemed all of a sudden, in an instant, to open up, with the realisation that he could really be part of the England setup. Even become a regular, a first pick.

  He starts to go through in his mind the stretches and exercises he will need to do before going to bed. A mini-workout planned in seconds! Manager Glenn Hoddle continues to go through tactics. He listens but his mind is now elsewhere. I need a good night’s sleep. If I get to bed by nine, I’ll be asleep by ten and up by seven. I must conserve all my energy. Pace myself. Before going to sleep that night he prays the next day is good, and that he plays to the best of his ability. I don’t want to let anyone down.

  The next morning, he was at once wide-awake. In fact, he didn’t so much as wake up, as sit up. ‘Enjoy today,’ he said out loud.

  His mind speeds through his preparation until kick-off. Again, he repeats he doesn’t want to let anyone down. He doesn’t. England win 2-0. ‘I made a good account of myself. I was nervous but confident. It was a nice and easy debut. It’s always difficult playing away from home (it doesn’t matter who you play) and to win was very satisfying.’

  • • •

  How suddenly life can change. England were defeated by Italy at Wembley three months later, on 12 February 1997. Zola scored in the ninth minute to win the game by a single goal. Sol learned a lesson that night in dealing with the press. It was only his fourth game, still just twenty-three and looking to become a regular in the heart of the defence. In international football, there is no room for sentiment; after the game, Sol and goalkeeper Ian Walker were blamed for the goal. ‘I was naïve. I discussed openly with the press that it might have been my fault. Afterwards, I’d see captions in different magazines, blaming Walker and me for the loss. “Blame these two if we don’t qualify,” I glimpsed in one of the papers. You can imagine how I felt after seeing that.’

  The reaction derailed any further admissions. He and the goalkeeper were being made scapegoats. He was learning that playing for England was different to playing for your club. The media inspection was more intense. He didn’t mind, as long as they were fair. He noticed other players were guarded. ‘I wouldn’t be hiding, but I certainly wanted to protect myself in the future,’ Sol says.

  • • •

  Italy 0 England 0, 1998 World Cup qualifier Group 2, Stadio Olimpico, Rome, 11 October 1997

  Italy: Peruzzi, Nesta, Maldini (Benarrivo 32), Albertini, Cannavaro, Costacurta, Di Livio, Baggio, Vieri, Zola (Del Piero 63), Inzaghi (Chiesa 46). Sent off: Di Livio (77).

  England: Seaman, Campbell, Le Saux, Ince, Adams, Southgate, Beckham, Gascoigne (Butt 89), Wright, Sheringham, Batty.

  Attendance: 81,200. Referee: Mario Van Der Ende.

  In a belligerent backs-to-the-wall performance, England get the draw they need to ensure their passage to the World Cup finals in France. The enduring image from the match is the bandaged bloodied head of Paul Ince after an elbow from Albertini resulted in several minutes off the pitch with the England man receiving stitches. The sending off of Di Livio with fifteen minutes remaining after a foul on Campbell is the final nail in the coffin for the beleaguered Italians.

  After the Wembley defeat to Italy, England won their next three matches in the group. It would come down to their last qualifying game to see who got automatic qualification to the World Cup in France the following year. England had to go to the Italian capital needing just a point to qualify. Not so easy. No team had won a point there in fifteen attempts. It was a time when Italy were making the beautiful game even more beautiful: their glorious blue shirts, their players looking like silver screen stars, and Serie A probably the best league in the world. ‘I just love the football mentality of the Italians. It’s the reverse there [to England]. Defenders, midfielders and goalkeepers get the respect and adulation that here is only reserved for strikers. They are the stars.’ So here is this young man from Newham, about to play against a team and country he respected, against legends such as Paolo Maldini who he admired, knowing millions of people back home would be watching. ‘It was the ultimate!’

  The England coach was escorted through the local traffic by police bikes and flashing lights to the north of the city. The streets were alive, with fans banging on the roofs of their Fiats, Vespas weaving through traffic like horses in blinkers; the Italians all gestures and gesticulations, a cacophony of sound. National colours hanging with pride from every conceivable vantage point showing that the Romans are resolute; this will be their day. England are in town. We beat them at Wembley, they are saying, now to the slaughter in Rome without a single lion needed. These times it is left to Cannavaro, Maldini, Zola and Vieri to slay the opposition.

  Sol knew he would be playing on the Saturday. Any doubt he may have had was dispelled as soon as the pattern of play was worked on at the training ground, a few days before. He woke up nervous on the morning of the match. ‘Not a bad thing as it focuses the mind,’ he says. He sat towards the back of the coach. Three-quarters of the way down. He didn’t want to be too near the front. That’s where the management sits. Huge crowds were building along the route from the city to the stadium. Delays were occurring on every block.

  ‘Get out of the middle of the road!’ Fans are singing and dancing as the coach rolls by, crossing from the side of the street to get a closer look. There is a big match in Rome today. Sol watches the entertainment going on. The Carabinieri give orders for fans to disperse but they are slow in moving on. The Italian fans gaze up at the coach while the England supporters, on seeing their heroes, start a one-note chant.

  ‘I remember, as we reached the stadium, I felt the butterflies inside my stomach begin to become a little more intense. I was excited. In the back of my mind, I was thinking I want to play the best game of my life. In a matter of hours, we could qualify for the World Cup.’

  Paul Ince sat a few rows ahead in the coach. Sol looks at the player as he is talking to another team-mate. He thinks it was Ian Wright but he’s not sure. He watches Ince’s gesticulations. He had played in Italy, for Inter Milan. He had played for the best teams. He had experience. We will need that today, thinks Sol. More than ever. ‘I think anyone would want Ince in their team because of his desire and his skill. He knew his position and he was an incredible tackler. He was not just a force. His anger motivated everyone around him.’

  They get off the coach in silence, each player with their own thoughts and desires. Sol’s mind is racing. He could not think quickly enough. He needed to calm down. On the outside, he looks assured for someone so young, but inside his heart is beating with an excitement, the will to win, a determination. The stadium is a block of concrete; grey and sullen, contrary to the player’s mood of anticipation and excitement. It is pretty soulless on the inside too. ‘There is no finesse about most of the international stadiums around the world,’ sa
ys Sol, ‘they tend to be very bland.’

  Sol puts his bag down. Some of the players go to the massage room. Sol wants to get out and see the pitch as soon as possible, impatient like a schoolboy. It is something he does and will always do before a match. The stadium is virtually empty but the tension is still evident. There are England supporters around but the Italian fans, as is the norm in this country, tend to stroll in with minutes to go before kick-off.

  He walks from one end of the pitch to the other. It is not only the players who are your opposition; it can also be the turf. He bends up and down like a bird feeling its texture, at first slowly and then shifting his hand along with greater pace and with concentration. He sees how long the grass is; it’s different in every stadium. In some it’s cut short, in others left long. The Italians liked their football to be a little slow, so the grass would be longer. By the time he walked from one box to the other, he knew it was a good pitch with no wet patches or particularly bad areas. That’s good, he thinks, and now he is ready to pull on his England shirt and reap the rewards.

  Back in the dressing room, he decides what studs to wear. He always liked longer studs, especially as a defender. His movement and style of play suited the longer length unless it was bone dry and then he would use moulds. He hardly ever wore just moulds, maybe only for pre-season friendlies. Towards the latter part of his career he would wear both, multi-studs (moulds and studs). He was one of the first footballers to do that. But today the longer studs will do. He gets down to business. He tightens his laces loop by loop, twice, and finishes off in a short bow, muttering, ‘Okay, okay! Let’s get out there.’