http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2011/nov/09/dominic-matteo-gambling-interview-autobiography
Autobiographies can serve many purposes: a lucrative bookend to a
career, a plea for understanding, a convening of anecdotes to furnish an
after-dinner routine, the means for catharsis and a warning to others
who suffer similar misfortunes. For Dominic Matteo, the former Leeds United
captain, motivation for In My Defence came from a desire to learn the
uncomfortable lessons his career provided and the opportunity to caution
Premier League footballers about the temptations that seduced him."I
found it tough," he says. "I've been quite hard on myself because I've
made a few mistakes in my career and that made it very emotional, the
thought that there were things I could have done better. Most of my
friends and family know I enjoy a drink but the gambling side, and
especially the extent of it, was not known and has come as a shock to
them."Having reluctantly left Leeds after their relegation from
the Premier League in 2004 following the financial meltdown he addresses
with bewilderment and a deal of disgust, the former Liverpool player
found himself commuting to play for Blackburn Rovers. The hours spent in
the back of a chauffeured car during a twice-daily cross-Pennine
journey quickly became consumed by a new hobby, horse racing, and he
used the time to mug up on the Racing Post and place bets.The
ease and anonymity new technology afforded him were a huge attraction.
"You used to have to walk into the bookies to get your bet on and in a
place like Leeds everyone would soon know if you started putting big
money on. But with telephone accounts and text betting you can do it
privately. No one's the wiser. There's no prying eyes and bookmakers
guard your secrecy. With drinking or womanising, you'd be in the papers
but betting is one of the few vices footballers can have without it
getting around."What began as a hobby soon developed into
something more than just a distraction to while away time in the back of
the car. Matteo took up racehorse ownership with his team-mate Garry
Flitcroft and began rushing to race meetings by helicopter after
training sessions."I gambled stupid amounts," he says. "One day I
lost £100,000 on an evens-priced favourite and luckily won it back on
another evens-priced horse a few hours later. All in all I lost seven
figures by the time I packed it in but it was only the birth of my
daughter Luisa that made me think: this is ridiculous and has to stop. I
was gambling away her inheritance. Fortunately we got some money back
when we sold the horses to offset the losses but it sobered me up to
think how much I'd wasted."I'm really embarrassed about it now.
But I put it in the book because I hope it will prevent others making
the same mistake. Huge wages and loads of free time are a dangerous
combination for footballers and gambling hooks you in. Believe me there
are far more players betting big and losing big than you would think. It
doesn't matter how much money you start with, there are always
consequences. I lost a million but it could have been a lot worse. I
hope that by saying I did manage to stop before it got totally out of
hand, it can help other people to do the same before it puts them in the
bin."Matteo's personal profligacy mirrors the spendthrift
approach of the club he joined from Liverpool in the summer of 2000. He
joined Leeds United when he was told that the signing of Christian Ziege
meant the regular left-back slot he had worked so hard for was no
longer his and Matteo's memories of the four seasons he spent at Elland
Road swing from triumph to disaster.Eleven years ago this week
Matteo scored a near-post header against Milan at San Siro to put Leeds
through to the second group stage of the Champions League, a goal so
cherished by the club's fans that the song coined to commemorate it is
still regularly aired. "We had a crazy year," he says of Leeds's run to
the semi-finals, "a brilliant adventure. We believed in ourselves and
played in a very carefree style. We had such formidable spirit and
strong characters."He particularly enjoyed the opportunity to
settle into one role after years as a utility player and flourished in a
centre-half partnership with Rio Ferdinand. "He was very easy to play
with," Matteo says. "A good talker who organises well. He had so much
class and he was always covering my back as I was his."The
following season Leeds led the Premier League on New Year's Day but the
warning signs that the club's recruitment policy was out of kilter were
already apparent to Matteo who, along with Mark Viduka, was invited into
the club's offices to be asked if they would agree to be leased to a
finance company to fund the purchase of Ferdinand.Later on, after
Seth Johnson and Robbie Fowler had been bought to augment the squad,
Matteo recalls thinking that the club's reluctance to part with any
players before buying new ones was storing up trouble."Because
things were going well," he says, "David [O'Leary] and Peter [Ridsdale]
must have thought we had to keep the momentum going by improving the
team. But no one was leaving. The policy was keep everyone happy so
players nowhere near the first team were well-paid and some young
reserves who would never have made it even complained that they were
only on £6,000 a week."Fergie doesn't care about keeping players
who are not in his plans happy. He moves them on. At Leeds it was 'let's
not rock the boat'. There should have been some big decisions made,
someone saying: 'We don't need him, him and him, we'll get rid of them
and then we'll bring another player in.'"The fall was
swift and difficult for Matteo, by then the club captain, and he was
ostracised by his team-mates for suggesting they defer their wages as
the financial crisis hit its nadir despite mass player sales in January
2004. After the club's relegation in May he felt a responsibility to
help the club return to the Premier League but the new owners, the
consortium led by Gerald Krasner, pleaded with him to leave. "I tried to
stay," he says. "I offered to take a pay cut but the chairman said he
had to get me off the wage bill. I think I could have done more for the
club than some of those they couldn't shift. They made the wrong
decision."He moved on to Blackburn and then to Stoke, where the
obligations he felt as captain of a side involved in a successful
promotion push inspired a masochistic disregard for his body. Playing on
with two broken bones in his foot, he regularly asked for injections to
numb the pain but had to take the field in a boot a size and a half too
big to accommodate the swelling incurred during the match. "My foot
looked like the Elephant Man's," he says. "And my team-mates would turn
away when I took my sock off but I thought it was worth it."Since
retirement he has had surgery on his back to replace two discs with
metal ones and realign four more. "I'm really struggling with my body at
this point in my life," he says. "And it is obviously because I played
games when I shouldn't have. I don't blame anyone. It was always my
decision because I didn't want to give up my place in the side. Look at
the squads we had at Liverpool and Leeds. If I decided to do the
sensible thing and not play I might have had to spend months trying to
get back into the team."I would tell kids to think long-term and
stay away from injections but if I had my career again I know I'd end up
doing the same thing. I always wanted to play."Even if Matteo
ruefully admits that he would not have heeded that particular lesson, he
hopes the others in his engaging autobiography do not fall on deaf
ears.
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PETE CASS (1962 - 2011) Rest In Peace Mate
