He's just started a weekly column with the Irish Times. I really hope it works out, a giant of a man.
A born fighter who needed to be reborn
Tom Humphries
05/03/2005
Paul McGrath is currently battling on two fronts. He tells Tom Humphries about his drinking problem and his battle against it, and his kids and his love for them.
He drank. When the grounds emptied, when the cheering stopped, when the boots were hung up, that was the thing that people remembered. He drank. They called him a god, they called him 'Ooh-aah', they called him a sad case. He drank. He drank when other people stopped drinking. He drank until drink wiped out everything else. He drank.
He wasn't the only one. They all drank. You knew that. Norman Whiteside and Robbo and Kevin Moran. You could imagine it. Big Jack's lads on the loose in happier days. In Limerick. In the Blackthorn. In triumph. In defeat. They drank too.
You could imagine that also. Paul McGrath drank for different reasons, though. To erase. To obliterate. To self-destruct. He really, really drank.
The man who really drank sits in a café in Dún Laoghaire and wraps his massive hands around a cup of hot coffee. Outside the sleet is being scurried along the harbour and the trees are being bent in the wind. He's done a little walking on the treadmill. This afternoon he'll go back and do some weights. Tonight he'll meet a friend for a bit of dinner.
His life has unfolded itself so far in three acts. Growing up in foster homes and orphanages. Living in front of a million eyes as a professional footballer. And now this third act, where he is on the stage alone. Being Paul McGrath.
Jesus. The loneliness of the long distance drinker. You can't imagine that. A few weeks ago Chelsea were on the television. On one of those pay channels which he hasn't got in the flat. His love affair with Chelsea precedes his relationship with either drink or professional soccer.
He wanted to go and watch Chelsea on the television. He called a friend in Ballybrack, wondering if he was up for it. Drew a blank. So he thought about it and thought about it. Finally, he stayed in. Alone.
"The game was being shown in a pub. I knew I wasn't going to go and drink, but I had this thing in my head. I'd walk in get a water, sit down and people would be looking at me thinking, 'Jaysus, that's sad. Look at him, over there on his own'."
His life is like that. Punctuated by panic attacks and dark places which prod him to worse places. Sometimes, he does gigs down the country and on the way back he'll feel the need to get a cup of coffee and the prospect of it will just play on his mind for miles and miles of road. He'll be driving and thinking that he'll stop at the next town and, just when he's going to pull over, he'll lose the nerve and drive on. So it goes 'till he begins thinking that no, he won't stop, why should he with so much road behind him now.
"Or maybe I'll stop at a garage. Nip in and out. I don't know why it is. I just want a cup of coffee, but I build something into my own mind. I don't worry so much about everyone else normally, I actually like meeting people, but I want a cup of coffee and I'm thinking people will be looking at me feeling sorry for me. Maybe it's just ego, but it makes me panic. Walking in for a coffee gets to be a big agony. "
He is aware of the warm place he has in the national bosom. Beloved. People would pay higher taxes if it meant seeing him well and happy and better. He knows it. He feels it. People are good. They walk up to him in pubs and they clap him on the back and they say, 'fair play, Paul'.
Even though they'll be the worse for wear, they'll dander up and they'll say 'sorry Paul, do ya mind me askin', are ya takin' a drink these days, cos if y' are I'd like to buy you one, if you're not, well, fair play to ya bud, fair play to ya'. And they'll look him in the eye. He drank. It's the thing they know. He doesn't mind.
When football finished he woke up one morning and found that the sun hadn't risen and that there was nobody to look after him. He'd had his three millionth knee operation and now it was all over. He had nowhere to go and no calls to take. They might as well have hung one of those sappy posters over his bed. This is the first day of the rest of your life.
"You wake up and you say, 'well who's looking after me now. When do the cheques arrive?' Suddenly you are earning nothing and you are doing nothing. Yeah, it's a shock."
It was vaguely familiar, this place called The Real World. For two decades at airports he'd handed his passport and his bags to somebody and walked away whistling, looking at the shops, watching for when the other guys ambled towards the gate. At hotels the bagman or an official miraculously had all their tickets and their bags would materialise in their rooms, and meal-times were decided on.
Suddenly, there were luggage carousels and check-in desks and hotel registrations and this huge chunk of his life still left to live.
"You say, 'well, what the hell can I do now? What was I doing before this? I don't want to go back to putting slates on people's roofs'. It can be very tough to adjust."
And the adulation. Everyone pretends they don't need it. Everyone gets carried a way a little by it. Cold turkey is hard for everyone.
"I love people coming up to me and talking to me. That's always been a bonus for me. Other lads say it's a price to be paid, but I think it's great. Jesus, somebody comes up and asks for your autograph, I think they are very brave. When you finish in football and it all goes quiet I think a lot of lads actually miss it."
Fewer people looked for autographs. There was no ooh-aah chants trailing him. Lots of people, though, had lots of ideas about what he should do. Well, not lots of ideas. Mainly the same idea. "People would say, 'why don't you describe a match on TV? You could go and you'd get paid for it'."
And he would nod. He had a phobia. Still has. At one stage it was so bad he was almost physically frightened even of tape recorders. A hack would bear down on him wearing one of those expressions, I've got a tape recorder and I'm going to us it baby, and Paul McGrath would panic. People kept suggesting TV, though. He has the face for it and the voice and, when it isn't frozen, the brain. He kept nodding. 'Yeah. TV'.
"After a while you start to think maybe it is back to slating or to security work for you. Only so many people can talk on TV. Some of the lads are so keen they're in the studio before they have their boots off at the end of their careers. You have this sense that people expect you to do something. I'm myself, but people expect you to be Paul McGrath."
So he dabbled. He dodged the panic attacks as best he could. Sometimes he'd have a drink or two to help the dodging. People would see him on TV. See, they'd say, you're dead relaxed.
"I'd made myself relaxed. I've done TV sober as a judge, though, and it hasn't been as bad as I'd feared, but again I'd let it build up in my brain. I wouldn't go into a studio too often because I'd be up for nights worrying about it."
Panic. He did a couple of RTÉ games with Johnny Giles. He remembers the producer's voice in his earpiece. Paul, take the goals. The video was running. Grand. Grand. Stay cool. He took the first goal. Ah. Relaxed back into the chair after the slo-mo. The tape was still running though. Now the voice was in his ear again. Paul, what about the other goal. Paul you've got the other goal, Paul, Paul. And the tape is running on. He is frozen. Couldn't catch up with the action even if he wanted to. He sits there and sweats in the dead air.
Another evening he felt the panic lying in wait for him around the next corner. The game finished. Commercials. Waiting and panicking. After the break Bill O'Herlihy was coming to him to ask about Kevin Campbell. He realised there was nothing on earth he could say about Kevin Campbell. Nothing that sounded right. Nothing that a TV company would pay him for saying. Nothing. So, he turned to Johnny Giles. 'Sorry Johnny, what can I say about Kevin Campbell?' Giles saw the sheer panic in those eyes.
"So Johnny leaned over and said, 'why don't you just say that since he came back from Turkey he's looking very lean, he's playing well and he's very fit - it's obviously done him good'." Thanks Johnny.
A minute later O'Herlihy makes the throw. Paul McGrath catches. "Well Bill, since Kevin has come back from Turkey, he's looking really fit and he's shed a few pounds. He's playing well and obviously it's done him some good." Bill nods. Looks to Giles.
"I'd have to agree with what Paul has just said there, Bill. He looks magnificent."
