Tony Adams
‘I have an illness. I’ve accepted that.’
Paul Merson
Tony Adams’ two books, addicted and now Sober, make it
abundantly clear that his struggles with alcoholism have impacted greatly on
his life and relationships with other people.
Astonishingly, Addicted was published in 1999 while Adams
was still Arsenal and England captain. Addicted, like its sequel, Sober was a
brutally honest account of his life as a recovering alcoholic. “I walk the walk
today. I’m fully recovered but still go to regular meetings and three, four
prisons a year, passing the message on to the newcomer that help is out there.”
Sober, published in 2018, covers the last five years of Adams's
playing career and his attempts at football management. Like Addicted, Sober is
written with the help of writer Ian
Ridley. Ridley is an excellent writer. How much of the book Adams wrote would
be interesting to know, but his voice comes from the pages. Ridley himself is a
recovering alcoholic. In a 2017 interview Ridley explains how he first met Adams.
“I knew Tony of course, with him playing for Arsenal and
England and me a national paper football correspondent, but he had little
liking for the press. We met properly, introduced by Paul Merson, when Tony got
sober in August 1996. I had been sober from my alcoholism for about eight years
by that time. With Addicted, he wanted to get across to people who might have a
drink problem that there was a solution and help available. I recall a
wonderful moment when it was nominated for the William Hill Sports Book of the
Year award in 1998. It didn’t win, but at the award ceremony, a waiter came up
to me with a glass of mineral water and said: “I’m sorry your book didn’t win,
Mr Ridley, but if it’s any consolation, I read this book a couple of months
ago, realised I had a problem, went to AA, and I’ve been sober ever since. The
hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I rang Tony. “That’s why we wrote it,”
he said. “Not to win awards but to help people.”[1]
When asked by the interviewer so why the sequel?. Ridley replied,
“Tony wanted to do Sober 20 years on to show that it is possible to have a
great life without the booze. He also wanted to tell people what happened after
Arsenal. There is plenty of new material, including Sporting Chance and Tony’s
times as Portsmouth coach when they won the FA Cup. He also talks about his
experiences in Azerbaijan and China, when he suffered a heart attack in the
former and virtually a nervous breakdown in the latter.”
The book, unsurprisingly, is dominated by the language of AA
and recovery. Adams is proud of his long struggle to found Sporting Chance, a
charity dedicated to helping athletes and women with addictions. In a Guardian
interview, he describes reaching rock bottom and needing help: “I needed a lot
of pain. Alcohol gave me a good hiding; prison, intensive care, pissing myself,
shitting myself, still not giving up. Do you know what I mean? Sleeping with
people I didn’t want to sleep with. I have to remind myself at the end of my
drinking, I did not want to live, but I didn’t know how to kill myself. I was
at a ‘jumping off point’, as we call it. I got there, and only then could I ask
for help.”[2]
Adams's life in management was not as successful as his
playing career. As one reviewer recounts, Adams “ took various courses and
coaching badges before trying his hand at management with Wycombe. After
resigning there, he returned to education before joining Portsmouth as Harry
Redknapp’s assistant during their high-spending days, including an FA Cup victory.
He ultimately became manager after Harry left but appears never to have had
much chance due to budget cuts before asking to be fired to save himself from
resigning. From here, Adams's career took an odd, international turn. After
briefly coaching in Azerbaijan, he stepped into a general
manager/consultant-type role in building a small Azerbaijani team from the
ground up. This was followed by a connection with a Chinese football investor
as Adams took on a general consulting role for Jiang Lizhang, who owned a club
in China and purchased Granada in Spain.”[3]
The book will appeal to a wide audience outside of football.
For Arsenal fans. It contains Adam’s insight about his footballing journey. The
latest publication includes a new chapter on Adams's relationship with the
former Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger. Both books cover this relationship. Adams
has enormous respect and fondness for Wenger; however, their relationship blew
hot and cold. Perhaps the new book's most controversial aspect is Adams
questioning Arsene Wenger's coaching.
Adams also criticised Wenger for staying too long at Arsenal:
“He probably had an addiction. He couldn’t let go at the end – he’s a typical
addict. He’s completely obsessed with the game every single minute. It maybe
cost him relationships, and I think it cost him his job and inability to let
go. It’s been bloody depressing for the last 10 years. What is to blame?
“Recruitment. It’s been very poor. You get players two ways: academy or buy
them in. We haven’t had the money to buy them through the transition, and I
don’t think we have had the network, to be honest; 17 backroom staff gone, six
scouts gone, Stevie Morrow [head of youth scouting] gone, probably the best
academy scout in the country sacked. To bring players through agents it might
be the way the game is going, but not how I would build. “The whole club had
different values. It was smaller. It’s a different game. It’s a business now.
That level of connection within the club, a disconnect with the fans, is a real
issue in the game.”
Perhaps if I were being super critical, I would say that the
book does not go into the deep connection between sports such as football and
the huge rise of gambling, drug taking and alcoholism in society. Paul Merson’s
recent documentary was a damaging indictment of the Gambling Industry’s profit-making
out of human misery.[4]
As Adams states, “Of the 30% of patients who come to the clinic with an
addiction, 70% have a problem with gambling. “Addictions within football, we’re
talking gambling,” The Premier League, it’s a bit of an epidemic to be honest.”
Sober could have used the numerous academic articles that have looked into the
connection between Sports and alchoholism.
In his paper, Carwyn Jones argues “ that football plays a
questionable role in promoting two potentially problematic activities, namely
drinking alcohol and gambling. Gambling and alcohol companies sponsor clubs and
competitions and pay to advertise their products at the stadium and during
television coverage. Consequently, millions of fans, including children, are
exposed to the marketing of these restricted products. The latter are exposed
despite regulations prohibiting such advertising and promotion in other
contexts. The promotion of these activities to children and adults increases
levels of consumption, which in turn increases the number of problem drinkers
and gamblers in society. High-profile footballers play a further role in
normalising drinking and gambling. They are role models whose actions influence
others. Their excessive drinking and gambling activities provide poor examples
for football fans, young and old.”[5]
Sober is an excellent companion book to Addicted. Like Addicted,
it is a brutally honest appraisal of Tony Adams's addiction and mental health
struggles. In achieving sobriety, he has become an inspiration to other recovering
addicts and alcoholics.
References
1.
Alcoholism and recovery: A case study of
a former professional footballer
Carwyn JonesView
all authors and affiliations Volume 49, Issue 3-4
https://doi.org/10.1177/1012690213516618
2.
FOOTBALL, ALCOHOL AND GAMBLING: AN UNHOLY TRINITY?
CARWYN JONES- Vol. 51, 2 – 2015 Pag. 5–19
3.
Chapter 7 - The interrelationship between
alcoholism, depression, and anxiety Richard Tindle , Farah Ghafar, Eid Abo
Hamza Ahmed A. Moustafa The Nature of Depression-An Updated Review 2021, Pages
111-133
[1]
www.sportsjournalists.co.uk/books-and-reviews/ridleys-20-year-journey-with-tony-adams/
[2]www.theguardian.com/football/2020/jan/31/tony-adams-alcohol-gave-me-good-hiding-i-needed-pain-sporting-chance-arsenal
[3]
allsportsbooks.reviews/category/soccer/page/5/
[4]
Hooked: Addiction and the Long Road to Recovery- by Paul Merson- Headline Book
Publishing – September 16 2021-atrumpetofsedition.org/its-up-for-grabs-now/
[5]
Football, Alcohol and Gambling: An
unholy trinity? KINANTHROPOLOGICA Vol. 51, 2 – 2015
