Speaker 1: You are listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair.
Speaker 2: My brother Michael Elias, is a writer and director of movies,
Speaker 2: tells me that when even a world famous actor comes
Speaker 2: onto a set, no one on the crew bats an eye.
Speaker 2: The only exception as if the visitor is an athlete.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's because everyone thinks, if pressed, they could act,
Speaker 2: or sing or dance, but never run a race, ski
Speaker 2: down hill or kick a ball into a net. When
Speaker 2: Gary Lineker, one of the great footballers of our time,
Speaker 2: walks into the River Cafe, everyone stops what they're doing,
Speaker 2: and some months ago I stopped what I was doing
Speaker 2: after reading his brave defense of refugees landing in Britain
Speaker 2: and his pleas for empathy compassion for people in peril.
Speaker 2: Gary is never silenced on issues he feels strongly about.
Speaker 2: This sense of justice runs deep. He's one of the
Speaker 2: very few footballers never to have received a red or
Speaker 2: yellow cat, consistent with who he is, principled, respectful and fair.
Speaker 2: We're also both in the world of podcasts, although there
Speaker 2: is no comparison when his company, Goldhanger, has eighteen million
Speaker 2: Gary and I also share the world of food and
Speaker 2: This is not the first time a footballer has stepped
Speaker 2: on my turf. There's nothing Beckham loves more than cooking.
Speaker 2: Ian Wright has his own food brand. Look at Gary's
Speaker 2: Instagram and you'll see as many photographs of what he's
Speaker 2: cooking as the goals he's analyzing. On Match of the Day,
Speaker 2: Gary has been in the kitchen with Joseph Travelli making
Speaker 2: potato yaki with tomato sauce. So the nyaki, what do
Speaker 2: you love about it?
Speaker 3: I love yoki. I think it's quite versatile as well.
Speaker 3: You can kind of make it crispy and bake it
Speaker 3: and stuff as well. But it just works with tomatoes,
Speaker 3: thank you, doesn't it. I think I always always go
Speaker 3: to tomatoes with yaki.
Speaker 2: It just was perfect because I was in actually last
Speaker 2: week and I was taken to this quite fancy restaurant
Speaker 2: and I never do this. I never changed something. But
Speaker 2: they had potato and yaki with asparagus and for shoot, punchetta,
Speaker 2: and it was quite quite complicated, and I just said,
Speaker 2: do you mind if I have it with tomato, and
Speaker 2: it was so much better. I saw the other ones
Speaker 2: and there was something we do it, but we do
Speaker 2: it with other we.
Speaker 1: Do it with you can do, but it's never as
Speaker 1: good as it.
Speaker 3: I mean, there's something about yeah, Italian tomatoes as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, do you cook a lot of Italian? Do you
Speaker 2: go for Italian food?
Speaker 1: I cook a yeah, I do a lot of Italian food.
Speaker 1: Everyone just done.
Speaker 3: They I suppose it's it's kind of one of the
Speaker 3: great cuisines. But I love cooking Indian as well, and
Speaker 3: as well as kind of British basics and stuff. So yeah,
Speaker 3: a variety of different things, but I would say to
Speaker 3: cook probably Italian and Indiana my favorite too.
Speaker 2: Have you been to India?
Speaker 1: No, It's on my bucket list actually.
Speaker 2: And so let's go back to growing up, because you
Speaker 2: were born and.
Speaker 1: I was born in Lesti, and what was the food
Speaker 1: culture like there.
Speaker 3: Well, my dad was a market trader and he's a fruitter,
Speaker 3: so he'd sell fruit. So he worked hard, get a
Speaker 3: you know, three four in the morning, go to the
Speaker 3: wholesale market by the fruit, sell it all day.
Speaker 2: But what do you sell?
Speaker 3: It was an outdoor market, the biggest outdoor market in
Speaker 3: Europe at the time, and in Europe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really well really fron Yeah, well exactly.
Speaker 3: There were also fish traders there was a fish you know,
Speaker 3: a fish mumbry kind of thing, and there was there
Speaker 3: was a meat place. So at the end of the
Speaker 3: week he'd always kind of give them a big basket
Speaker 3: fruit and then they give him like a nice piece
Speaker 3: of meat or a haliburt. Used to he loved halibur
Speaker 3: And so we'd get like that kind of thing and
Speaker 3: eat on a on a Friday and a Saturday, would
Speaker 3: eat kind of really amazing stuff because they used to
Speaker 3: do these swamp things. So yeah, so I kind of
Speaker 3: grew up with food in that sense. Didn't go out
Speaker 3: very often but occasionally.
Speaker 2: It wasn't a wholesale market was it didn't get distributed
Speaker 2: to the rest of written.
Speaker 3: You're talking about this mart Bester market. Leicester's now famous
Speaker 3: for its football team, having won the Premier League. Obviously,
Speaker 3: in fact, people suddenly started saying Leicester.
Speaker 1: Properly, how do you say it properly? Well, Leicester?
Speaker 3: It was all Leicester, particularly in America and stuff. It
Speaker 3: was always and suddenly people saying the name because you
Speaker 3: always now because Leicester won the league with the biggest
Speaker 3: sporting miracle ever, everyone knows how.
Speaker 1: To say it.
Speaker 2: Does your family still live there?
Speaker 1: The only distant family.
Speaker 3: Now my my mom and dad passed away eight seven,
Speaker 3: eight years ago now, so so I don't go back
Speaker 3: there as much, apart from the occasional time to watch
Speaker 3: watch Leicester play if I'm not working.
Speaker 2: Which so have you had the ingredients of fruit and
Speaker 2: vegetables and fish meat, but I didn't cook.
Speaker 1: A good cook.
Speaker 2: Tell me about her. What was her background? Where did
Speaker 2: she come from?
Speaker 3: She actually born in a place called Sherringham which is
Speaker 3: in Norfolk on the coaster, and moved to Leicester when
Speaker 3: she was I think it was about ten ten or eleven,
Speaker 3: and she was a hairdresser.
Speaker 2: Be comes mom was a hairdresser.
Speaker 1: Really, Yeah, there you go. She must be a football
Speaker 1: thing maybe before.
Speaker 2: That's a lot of data. Yeah, you can then come
Speaker 2: to a conclusion that two footballers had bombs were addressing.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But she was a good cook, love cooking.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so she work all day and then as well.
Speaker 3: When I was young, and then she kind of stopped hairdressing.
Speaker 1: And my dad used to have a card school.
Speaker 3: The card school a girl called Kaluki playing cards as
Speaker 3: he was a gambler, and they used to have like
Speaker 3: five or six guys in that used to come to
Speaker 3: our house, either on a Sunday sometimes on a Monday,
Speaker 3: but they'd start at like six o'clock in the evening,
Speaker 3: and my mom would cook for everyone every night, and
Speaker 3: she could get a little pound and out of the
Speaker 3: pot every time they had a it was a kids
Speaker 3: he going on all night.
Speaker 1: But I'd go to bed, you know, because I'd have school.
Speaker 3: On Monday morning, and then i'd wake up in the
Speaker 3: morning get ready for school. They're still playing, like, yeah, eight, nine,
Speaker 3: ten o'clock in the morning. Sometimes they'd go unbroken for
Speaker 3: thirty six hours. Yeah, honestly, and my mom would constantly
Speaker 3: be supplying food all through the night, and yeah, amazing.
Speaker 2: You know my dad. I grew up in upstate New
Speaker 2: York in a small town, and my father played poker.
Speaker 2: Every Thursday night.
Speaker 1: They played poker as well sometimes.
Speaker 2: And every Friday morning I'd come to go before I
Speaker 2: went to school, there would be a note saying, dear Ruthie,
Speaker 2: I won last night. Here's five dollars, Ruthie, I won
Speaker 2: last night. He went every week and they'd always be
Speaker 2: like five dollars or ten dollars, and then it was
Speaker 2: his funeral. I went to his you know, when he died.
Speaker 2: I went to his funeral and it was like a
Speaker 2: kind of quaker'sh funeral. Everybody spoke and this man got
Speaker 2: up and he said, you know, fred Elias was one
Speaker 2: of the greatest guys they ever knew. But he never
Speaker 2: won a game of poker.
Speaker 1: That was really sweet.
Speaker 2: You know. He did that every Friday. That's not my dad,
Speaker 2: but every day. So what would she cook? What did
Speaker 2: your mom cook for you? What were her dishes like?
Speaker 2: Do you remember?
Speaker 3: Like most mothers, she'd cook a good spaghetti, bilonnaise, really
Speaker 3: good with fish because we get a lot of fish
Speaker 3: from the from the market.
Speaker 1: She'd do a really good roast as well.
Speaker 2: My kind either all of them, you know. Douse your
Speaker 2: father ever cook?
Speaker 1: I can't remember him cooking.
Speaker 2: And did you ever go in the kitchen? Did you
Speaker 2: ever know?
Speaker 3: I wish I had. And I think that's the one
Speaker 3: thing we fail our kids on. I think that should
Speaker 3: be an absolute must learn at school. I mean they
Speaker 3: used to offer it all the time that you still
Speaker 3: can do a bit of cooking at school. But it's
Speaker 3: a it's a life scale, it's a life you can
Speaker 3: be really passionate about it, you know, rather than making
Speaker 3: kids that are not very good at maths. Yes, you've
Speaker 3: got to get your basic numbers and stuff, and reading
Speaker 3: is really important, I think.
Speaker 1: But the next thing after those two for me has
Speaker 1: to be like cooking.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: That's what's one thing we all do forever is eat.
Speaker 2: The River Cafe is excited and June eighth we're opening
Speaker 2: the River Cafe Cafe. Come for a morning Briochian cappuccino,
Speaker 2: a plate of seasonal antipasity on the terrace, or an
Speaker 2: ice cream or a peratibo in the sun. We can't
Speaker 2: wait to open and we cannot wait to welcome you.
Speaker 2: You came from this home in Leicester with your mother cooking,
Speaker 2: your father playing cards, your badly dinners. Tell us about
Speaker 2: the football when you when sport came into your life.
Speaker 3: Well, I came into my life way before I can
Speaker 3: remember from you know, from pretty much that's where I wore.
Speaker 3: It wasn't a specific days. Doesn't work like that in football.
Speaker 1: Now, you know. I grew up playing in the garden
Speaker 1: my brother.
Speaker 3: We just kicked up all around all the time, obviously
Speaker 3: reasonably good at even at nine ten eleven, I was
Speaker 3: playing and scoring like loads of goals.
Speaker 1: So I just went from there and I was spotted
Speaker 1: by Leicester when I was about twelve. It's funny.
Speaker 3: My dad's market store was a family of generational business,
Speaker 3: so the big grandfather my grandfather and his father before that.
Speaker 3: So yeah, my granddad used to come and watchers play
Speaker 3: football everywhere. We were quite a well known family in
Speaker 3: Leicester because of the market store. And my granddad was
Speaker 3: watching me play one Sunday morning and the guy called
Speaker 3: racial was there was Leicester City's chief scout and he
Speaker 3: my granddad knew everyone, knew everyone. He said, oh, who
Speaker 3: you watching? He said, I'm watching a little center forward
Speaker 3: up there. I was tiny in those days, and he went, oh,
Speaker 3: that's my grandson.
Speaker 1: And they took me on.
Speaker 3: I trained two three nights a week at Leicester and
Speaker 3: then saturdays as well for four or five years, and
Speaker 3: then I got taken on.
Speaker 2: When did you leave the comfort of home?
Speaker 1: Not until I was twenty four. It was funny.
Speaker 3: When I first joined Leicester, I joined as an apprentice
Speaker 3: and I was paid sixteen pounds a week, but they
Speaker 3: bought an extra five in an envelope for my mom
Speaker 3: because because loads of the kids there that came were
Speaker 3: in digs, so the food was provided for them. So
Speaker 3: they said, well, because you know, you don't get the
Speaker 3: luxury of getting free food or slipping a fiver for
Speaker 3: your mom. So I'd always give it to my mum,
Speaker 3: but she'd never take it a bit like you.
Speaker 1: You sh'd always give it me back. She's I don't
Speaker 1: want you, I don't want your money. So I was on.
Speaker 3: Twenty one quid a week, not sixteen quid a week,
Speaker 3: which is a bonus.
Speaker 2: So you were at home, so you had protection around
Speaker 2: you in terms of your comfort of home. But what
Speaker 2: about protection for being suddenly when you found fame. I'll
Speaker 2: just say that I once this is I think I
Speaker 2: might have told this before, but one of my programs
Speaker 2: I always remember was Michael Parkinson interviewing David Beckham and
Speaker 2: George Best, and George Best was, you know. They were
Speaker 2: on the sofa together and when he asked Beckham a question,
Speaker 2: Beckham said, you know, I'm in the presence of one
Speaker 2: of the great heroes of my life. I think, really
Speaker 2: I don't want to talk. You should just talk to him,
Speaker 2: you know. And what they did discuss was the you know,
Speaker 2: the difference between now and then. You know. The Best said,
Speaker 2: he just came from a simple life in the home
Speaker 2: and suddenly he was thrust in this world without press
Speaker 2: agents or managers or PR people or you know that
Speaker 2: there was there was very little around you. Did you
Speaker 2: feel the same.
Speaker 3: Way George bestall came from Northern Ireland to Manchester United
Speaker 3: at a very young age, so it's a little bit
Speaker 3: different when you've got it suddenly you are on your own.
Speaker 3: Whereas I kind of played for my hometown club for
Speaker 3: the first eight years of my career, so.
Speaker 1: I was with parents, my brother, you know, we had
Speaker 1: family all around.
Speaker 3: All my friends were still there, and I think that
Speaker 3: helped me, even though I was a kind of slightly
Speaker 3: late developer in terms of global kind of fame and
Speaker 3: that sort of stuff. So I didn't really start making
Speaker 3: my mark until I was in my twenties. Whereas, you know,
Speaker 3: people like Best and even David Becker, well he was
Speaker 3: there were young superstars really, you know, people like Wayne Rooney,
Speaker 3: Mike Loewen, lots of players, and I was kind of
Speaker 3: more gradual, and I think that helped me prepare for
Speaker 3: that for a fame, but also be moving away from
Speaker 3: home and all that sort of stuff. So I did
Speaker 3: it at slightly older age than most of them do.
Speaker 3: And I think that was actually hugely beneficial for me.
Speaker 3: So it didn't feel like a massive massive change when
Speaker 3: I shifted a little bit.
Speaker 2: And what was it like when you were twenty four?
Speaker 2: Where did you go? There?
Speaker 1: Went to Everton. It was a big It was a
Speaker 1: big step because you're leaving your hometown club. And I
Speaker 1: loved Leicster. It was my team.
Speaker 3: I'd supported them since I was a little kid. I'd
Speaker 3: done well, I'd scored lots of goals there. But but
Speaker 3: to trying to get build my career, I needed to
Speaker 3: go to a kind of bigger club.
Speaker 2: At the time, they take care of you.
Speaker 1: Oh they were great. It was a great place. I
Speaker 1: was only there for a year, but.
Speaker 2: You had an apartment by yourself.
Speaker 3: I was with my then first wife. We didn't get
Speaker 3: more until the next year. But yeah, so we went
Speaker 3: up together.
Speaker 1: Did Okay, she's a good cup. Michelle's a good cup. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I didn't cook down, No, I didn't cook until eight
Speaker 1: years ago.
Speaker 2: Did you Did you have a sense of of health
Speaker 2: and food and sport? Were you guided about the kind
Speaker 2: of foods that would be better for you to perform?
Speaker 1: Not as much as we should have been.
Speaker 3: I think nowadays that's it's one of the great changes
Speaker 3: in football is the nutrition.
Speaker 1: Side of things. I think it's a gradual change.
Speaker 3: I think an understanding of what feeds the body, and
Speaker 3: more professional outlets to more money coming into the game
Speaker 3: so they could afford you know, clubs. Now, the staff
Speaker 3: around football clubs, they are extraordinary. When I played, you'd
Speaker 3: get you'd have a coach, a manager, a coach, maybe
Speaker 3: another one other coach, goalkeeping coach. Possibly you'll have a
Speaker 3: physio and they some clubs have a doctor and that
Speaker 3: was about it.
Speaker 1: Now there's there's.
Speaker 3: There're probably are five people just do a nutrition alone.
Speaker 3: They'll have cooks every day cooking them food after training.
Speaker 3: In all those kinds of things. It's changed dramatically. When
Speaker 3: I was like, what you're doing for lunch, Well we're
Speaker 3: going down the pub for.
Speaker 2: A pint and a pie before a game?
Speaker 3: Yeah, well no, not before a game, after train enough,
Speaker 3: although all those some players, maybe some players maybe.
Speaker 2: Do you know what what what would be I mean
Speaker 2: for you as an athlete if you knew we had
Speaker 2: a game, what would you have for breakfast? And what
Speaker 2: would you have a lunch?
Speaker 1: Well, you wouldn't have lunch and breakfast.
Speaker 3: Probably a few playing at three o'clock, so you probably
Speaker 3: basically have like a brunch at eleven o'clock or stuff.
Speaker 3: I don't actually know what they do pretty much now
Speaker 3: because it used to be what you said, right, you
Speaker 3: need some carbs and you for the energy and stuff
Speaker 3: like that. But I think most of their diets is
Speaker 3: very healthy. If you look at football as they're all
Speaker 3: ripped now, like you know, all these abs everywhere. When
Speaker 3: I first started playing, we were told, whatever you do,
Speaker 3: don't don't do any upper body weight work because you're
Speaker 3: completely you know, you'll be all stiff and warding on
Speaker 3: the pitch and you won't be as agile, absolute poppy,
Speaker 3: complete nonsense. So you never saw players particularly kind of
Speaker 3: ripped and muscular in my day that you do now,
Speaker 3: because that's that was the thinking.
Speaker 2: I rarely talk about alcohol, you know, because this is
Speaker 2: mostly about food. But I was wondering about how do
Speaker 2: you combine discipline with pleasure because we've seen people like
Speaker 2: George Best. How do you combine being a twenty four
Speaker 2: year old with being somebody wanted to party, wanted to socialize,
Speaker 2: very handsome, with being they are and how do you
Speaker 2: combine that figure with pleasure.
Speaker 1: I wasn't there.
Speaker 3: I was never a big drinker. I didn't drink, I
Speaker 3: didn't go down. I wasn't one of those that went
Speaker 3: down the pub after training, unlike some. So I kind
Speaker 3: of looked after myself. I was very driven, very motivated,
Speaker 3: very ambitious to do better. So I tried to give
Speaker 3: myself the best chance. Yes, I'd like to night out
Speaker 3: with it with the best of them, but it's like
Speaker 3: most players, the vast.
Speaker 1: Majority of players understood that.
Speaker 3: Even then, you know that it's not really a great
Speaker 3: combination drinking loads of bikes and then playing in a
Speaker 3: couple of days time I hadn't manager called John Wallace,
Speaker 3: so I was so terrified of that. He kind of
Speaker 3: stopped me doing any of that nonsense.
Speaker 2: What about when you went to Barcelona?
Speaker 1: Also? It was fabulous.
Speaker 3: It was a great experience, a wonderful place to live.
Speaker 2: Was it the first experience in a foreign city or
Speaker 2: had I'd.
Speaker 1: Been on holidays?
Speaker 3: I've been lots of holidays, but it was the first
Speaker 3: time i'd ever You know, I didn't really contemplate going
Speaker 3: to live abroad, but then the opportunity came.
Speaker 1: You go by yourself or got married just before we went.
Speaker 3: So I played the World Cup in eighty six in Mexico,
Speaker 3: came back, got married, went on honeymoon, went straight to
Speaker 3: Barcelona from.
Speaker 2: There, and so the two of you had an apartment there.
Speaker 3: We had a yeah, we actually the first four months
Speaker 3: we thought we thought, yeah, this is it, superstardom and
Speaker 3: stuff that, you know, We'll go up and they'll put
Speaker 3: us in a like a luxurious hotel, penthouse suite and
Speaker 3: all that stuff. And we actually got there and we
Speaker 3: checked in this hotel which was a four star hotel,
Speaker 3: and we were given our room key, and we had
Speaker 3: like we had an entire world with us, like loads
Speaker 3: of cases and stuff like that. And we went in
Speaker 3: and we got in the room that is actually smaller
Speaker 3: than this room we're in there, fairly private, nice room,
Speaker 3: but it was a nice room.
Speaker 1: But so we got in this room. We didn't know enough.
Speaker 3: I had to buy the room. I had to pay
Speaker 3: for the room next door to put our cases in.
Speaker 3: And Mark Hughes was a player at Manchester United that
Speaker 3: side well that time, he'd just been bought and he
Speaker 3: came and arrived at the same time and me and
Speaker 3: arrived in the same day and he came down and
Speaker 3: knocked on my door and he said, I'm just checking
Speaker 3: your rooms as shit as mine. And it was like
Speaker 3: this really brown, dank, dark place. And we ended up
Speaker 3: in there for four months, did you Yeah? But eventually
Speaker 3: we got in a nice villa and we had three
Speaker 3: amazing years.
Speaker 2: And it was three years. How did that affect your
Speaker 2: food and eating?
Speaker 1: And I mean, I love the food there?
Speaker 2: Why did you love?
Speaker 1: I loved the fresh fish that was always available.
Speaker 3: I mean it's obviously you know, you're living in a
Speaker 3: port there, and some great restaurants. I loved tapas. I
Speaker 3: love pie here the beach. I mean we had an
Speaker 3: amazing lifestyle.
Speaker 1: We get up.
Speaker 3: I'd get up in the morning about nine something, go
Speaker 3: to the ground. We'd train for you know, a couple
Speaker 3: of hours. By lunchtime you had done, I'd come home.
Speaker 3: We're jumping the car, go to the beach club Castela Fells.
Speaker 1: We'd have like a seafood and a play here on
Speaker 1: the beach.
Speaker 3: We'd leave about five, get home about six o'clock, have
Speaker 3: a yester for two or three hours, and then go
Speaker 3: out for dinner, which you couldn't get in a restaurant
Speaker 3: ten eleven, twelve o'clock at night, because if you went
Speaker 3: to a restaurant in Barcelona back then, it's changed a bit.
Speaker 3: Now it's still late, but nothing like as nate as
Speaker 3: it used to be. If you went to a restaurant
Speaker 3: before ten o'clock, they'd either be empty or closed. But
Speaker 3: actually they what they do is they break up their sleep,
Speaker 3: so you then go home at one two o'clock in
Speaker 3: the morning, sleep for five six hours and then.
Speaker 2: It's totally different. It was.
Speaker 1: It was totally different, but it was.
Speaker 3: It didn't take a long getting used to it really does.
Speaker 2: Did you have kids at the time?
Speaker 1: No, even better, it's good.
Speaker 2: We gave party in London. We invited the mayor of Barcelona.
Speaker 2: He was in town and he said, I can't come
Speaker 2: for the party. I'll come a little bit later. And
Speaker 2: so he didn't show up by you know, eleven o'clock,
Speaker 2: and so we thought, okay, it's not going and went
Speaker 2: to bed. At two point thirty in the morning, the
Speaker 2: doorbell rang and he was like, expecting the party, I'm here.
Speaker 2: I ran downstairs. So they just left. You know, it's
Speaker 2: a party just ended. It's a totally.
Speaker 3: Different it's like living on with on a different time. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and it's only an hour different.
Speaker 2: But did you do it? What a game night then?
Speaker 2: So when you were when you were well.
Speaker 3: Sometimes the games sometimes you play kickoff will be like
Speaker 3: nine o'clock at night quite often, you know. And Sundays
Speaker 3: you used play at five o'clock. That was that was
Speaker 3: kind of their Saturday at three, So they often play
Speaker 3: on Sundays at five.
Speaker 2: Why does football games start at three? Is there a reason?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, lunch?
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I suppose. I don't know. That's a good question.
Speaker 1: I don't know who came up with three o'clock. I'm
Speaker 1: going to find out.
Speaker 2: Can you find out? Because I come past Chelsea every
Speaker 2: time I work on a Saturday or whatever. You know,
Speaker 2: you could just always know that between Fulham playing or
Speaker 2: Chelsea playing, then it's always three o'clock.
Speaker 3: Well genuine it is, unless they're on TV then they'll
Speaker 3: move the schedule. But yeah, I don't know why the
Speaker 3: three o'clock came start. Probably before darkness. Maybe they wanted
Speaker 3: to play early enough before they had really good floodlights
Speaker 3: and stuff. Although in the winter it's still dark before,
Speaker 3: so I don't know how that works. But I need
Speaker 3: to find out why do we kick off at three o'clock.
Speaker 1: There'll be a reason.
Speaker 2: Maybe, Okay, the audience. You talk about the exhilaration of
Speaker 2: an audience, what happens when you score a goal?
Speaker 3: Scoring a goal is it is the one thing that
Speaker 3: I probably miss about that feeling. It's like it's really
Speaker 3: hard to describe. It's like just an explosion of different
Speaker 3: emotions of joy, of relief, of happiness and stuff. And
Speaker 3: the reason it's I think it's so special and the
Speaker 3: reason that football is supposed so special is that the
Speaker 3: value of a goal is so so important because you know,
Speaker 3: you can you know in America, I go, for example,
Speaker 3: and they used to used to go but you you know,
Speaker 3: you're only you can have a game that there there's
Speaker 3: no goals or there's only one goal. And I said, yes,
Speaker 3: but that that is the magic of football because it
Speaker 3: is so important.
Speaker 1: So you have a moment. And it's the same for
Speaker 1: fans watching when their seam scores.
Speaker 3: You know, it's like it's amazing because you know how
Speaker 3: significant a goal can be. So when you're the person
Speaker 3: that's actually scoring that goal, it's like it's like cheering
Speaker 3: for your team, except it's you that's doing it, and
Speaker 3: there's nothing like it, and other conversations with that, and
Speaker 3: Cheerer and Michael Owen proper goal scorers and and funny enough,
Speaker 3: I suppose to Andy Cole the other day we were
Speaker 3: talking about the same things that there's nothing, nothing in life,
Speaker 3: not even eating at the River caf. I'm really sorry, however, wonderfully,
Speaker 3: how wonderfully always.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but we might you know, fix that we're going
Speaker 2: to get you there. I feel I'm definitely but you
Speaker 2: know what, I always when I watch football, and I
Speaker 2: do watch football, I do watch it that I remember
Speaker 2: thinking that it is the only time you see men
Speaker 2: showing so much affection to each other physical tagging and kissing.
Speaker 2: There are all these guys and they're publicly like in
Speaker 2: each other's arms and that kind.
Speaker 1: Of very metrosexual. Well it just but it was beautiful.
Speaker 2: But what about the other side of that, when you're missical,
Speaker 2: when you don't do you feel the hostel?
Speaker 1: It's rubbish, It's it's a horrible is.
Speaker 2: The downside of that?
Speaker 1: There is?
Speaker 3: Well, that's it, and that's why scory makes that's why
Speaker 3: when you do do it, because it's it's obviously the
Speaker 3: most important thing, and there are days where you will
Speaker 3: be rubbish, but it's how you deal with that. I
Speaker 3: was always looking. I didn't get too carried away when
Speaker 3: things were going well. It's kind of how I am.
Speaker 3: I've got very kind of stable demeanor and stuff, and
Speaker 3: I don't get over excited when things are going well.
Speaker 1: But I didn't get down when they weren't.
Speaker 3: And I think you're either like that you're on So
Speaker 3: I didn't pressure and that kind of thing didn't really
Speaker 3: worry me at all.
Speaker 2: If you like listening to Ruthie's Table for would you
Speaker 2: please make sure to rape and review the podcast on
Speaker 2: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get
Speaker 2: your podcasts. Thank you. What we're seeing now is also
Speaker 2: a kind of true unity in terms of the politics
Speaker 2: of sport. You know, I experienced it in the Mexican Olympics,
Speaker 2: which because I'm quite old, the nineteen sixty eight when
Speaker 2: they did the plat power and you saw a sport
Speaker 2: becoming politicized. And we've seen it in America with you know,
Speaker 2: racism on the field. Do you feel that that did
Speaker 2: you have Do you think that also, like food has
Speaker 2: become more more now that.
Speaker 3: I think it has, and I think there are a
Speaker 3: variety of reasons for that. I think that you know,
Speaker 3: you go back to this happened once to twice in
Speaker 3: the Olympics, didn't it happen you know, in Germany way back?
Speaker 3: But I think it's I think it's more the fact
Speaker 3: that players now, in whatever sport have you know, big
Speaker 3: players have big platforms, social media.
Speaker 1: I think that's made a huge difference.
Speaker 3: Pretty much all sport now is televised, whereas that certainly
Speaker 3: wasn't the case. So I think yes, and I'm actually
Speaker 3: really proud of a lot of our plays young, you
Speaker 3: know people Marcus Rashford's you know, I mean, it's come
Speaker 3: to a footballer to insist that kids get fed at school,
Speaker 3: which seems a bit but amazing what he did. You know,
Speaker 3: we've seen, you know, lots of players standing up against racism,
Speaker 3: you know, Jordan Henderson got all the captions together during
Speaker 3: the COVID thing and did you know, and they've become
Speaker 3: really public. Now I understand why some don't want to
Speaker 3: do that because I think you've you've got to be
Speaker 3: prepared for criticism if you do that, because people say,
Speaker 3: stick to football. It's you know all this nonsense, so
Speaker 3: you've got to be kind of strong of mind and
Speaker 3: be able to take flat and thick skinned. But I've
Speaker 3: really been proud of our young footballers. I think, you know,
Speaker 3: you take this young the England squad. Now you know,
Speaker 3: they're kind of just a lovely bunch of characters and
Speaker 3: they've brought a really good feeling back to our game.
Speaker 2: You should also be proud of yourself because you've taken
Speaker 2: stance that, as I said in the introduction, that are
Speaker 2: bold and brave. We could talk about the experience your
Speaker 2: head most recently or other ones that you feel that
Speaker 2: you had to take a stand.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just something that is, you know, a couple
Speaker 3: of issues. You know, people say you should stay out
Speaker 3: of politics and stuff. I don't really see them necessarily.
Speaker 3: Is just political issues. I think the humanitarian issues that
Speaker 3: I take a stand for and I always well, I
Speaker 3: have done, and I think I've changed as a person as.
Speaker 1: I've got older.
Speaker 3: I think when I was young, I was cold, I
Speaker 3: was driven nothing, I never thought about things like that.
Speaker 1: What changed for me really was social media because I
Speaker 1: got involved. You know, I got onto Twitter and I
Speaker 1: quite enjoyed it and I grew a big.
Speaker 2: Following, like nine million.
Speaker 1: Just under that. I mean, it's a lot of people.
Speaker 3: So I mean, if you've got a platform like that,
Speaker 3: you know, I just think what a waste it will
Speaker 3: be not to use it for what I think. That
Speaker 3: not everyone will agree, obviously, I understand that what I
Speaker 3: think is to use it as a power for good.
Speaker 3: And you know, I've always felt quite strongly about you know,
Speaker 3: human beings not being kind enough to each other everywhere,
Speaker 3: you know, particularly this kind of tribality that we have,
Speaker 3: and you know, it's them and us, and they're foreigners
Speaker 3: and they're come in here, and it's like we need
Speaker 3: people coming from all different parts of the world. And
Speaker 3: how you know, put yourself in a situation where it
Speaker 3: say it was London and suddenly we were being you know,
Speaker 3: bomb like they are perhaps now in Gaza or something
Speaker 3: that kind of situation, And imagine you had to try
Speaker 3: somehow to flee home, and you jumped in a kind
Speaker 3: of very risky boat and you travel around half the
Speaker 3: world and eventually arrive at country and nobody wants you.
Speaker 1: No country can have everybody, you can't.
Speaker 3: You know, you have to have a various way you know,
Speaker 3: but have some safe ruts and stuff. But it's just
Speaker 3: the lack of empathy that I find hard to believe
Speaker 3: for people that have Imagine what how desperate things have
Speaker 3: got to be to you know, jump in a dingy
Speaker 3: that risk your life and your life of your children
Speaker 3: to seek kind of sanctuary somewhere and then not to
Speaker 3: be well received. And it's I just I find it
Speaker 3: hard to understand. And I think it's incomprehensible that you
Speaker 3: I understand people some people don't have any empathy at
Speaker 3: all for anyone. I would have been ashamed of myself
Speaker 3: if I if I didn't didn't at least take a
Speaker 3: stance about something that I felt quite strongly about.
Speaker 2: And what was that like for you? What did you?
Speaker 2: How did you find your you know, your fellow athletes
Speaker 2: and you had people who really supported you?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, joined there was one, you know, when I
Speaker 3: responded to somebody's tweet that was having a pop at me,
Speaker 3: and I, you know, just talked about something and then
Speaker 3: it kind of escalated a little bit and then it
Speaker 3: was really done by the Daily Mail because they're front page,
Speaker 3: that took what I said completely out of context. And then,
Speaker 3: you know, we do have a tendency to for some
Speaker 3: inexplicable and worry about the Daily Mail. So it kind
Speaker 3: of led from there and it inspired a little bit
Speaker 3: out of control.
Speaker 1: But the support I had from my my I.
Speaker 3: Call them teammates because once a football are always a footballer.
Speaker 3: But it was actually one of the most emotional things
Speaker 3: that I just found it.
Speaker 1: It was incredible.
Speaker 3: I shed a tear in the back of a black
Speaker 3: taxi when Ian Right and Alan Shearer supported me, and
Speaker 3: then everyone followed to you know, you know you've got mates,
Speaker 3: and you know you like mates, and you have the
Speaker 3: banter and stuff, and even a couple of days before
Speaker 3: it happened, we have a little group chat with Ian
Speaker 3: Right Alan Sheer and I said to them, I said,
Speaker 3: I've got a feeling that might take me off the
Speaker 3: show and Ian Wright said, oh, if they do that,
Speaker 3: there's no way I'm doing the show.
Speaker 1: And I think it's one.
Speaker 3: Thing saying that, but then actually to follow that through
Speaker 3: and you learn then that you know they are real mates,
Speaker 3: you know, and you learn a little bit about what
Speaker 3: they think about you. And I think that for me
Speaker 3: was one of the most amazing things that I've gone
Speaker 3: through in my life. The support side of it. The
Speaker 3: other side, I could definitely live without. Having twenty odd
Speaker 3: journeys outside my front door for about five six days
Speaker 3: was weird.
Speaker 2: But you have taken refugees into your home, you have
Speaker 2: spoken out. You are a person that gives comfort to
Speaker 2: so many people. So I suppose my last question to you,
Speaker 2: and thank you so much for being here, is that
Speaker 2: if you do go to food for comfort, if you
Speaker 2: need comfort and you need something to eat, is there
Speaker 2: a food that you would go to where that kind
Speaker 2: of comfort.
Speaker 1: It depends on which time of year it is, But
Speaker 1: let's say it's winter.
Speaker 2: Cottage pie, Ah, cottage pie, debscribe a cottage pie. There
Speaker 2: might be people in California who don't say.
Speaker 1: I'm terribly sorry.
Speaker 3: Well, there's two types of pie, one called cottage pie,
Speaker 3: one called the shepherd's pie.
Speaker 1: One is lamb mints and one is beef mints.
Speaker 3: Shepherd's pie is obviously Lamb's mints because the shepherd. So
Speaker 3: if ever you get confused, that's the way to remember
Speaker 3: around it. Coottash pies with minced beef. I don't know
Speaker 3: why I've always liked it. My mum used to do it.
Speaker 3: It's one of the reasons probably, And it's one of
Speaker 3: the things I wanted to learn to cook, and then
Speaker 3: I cook it a lot. But it's basically mince and mash,
Speaker 3: typically a bit of Worcester sauce that you put in it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and it's like with a layer of mashed potato and
Speaker 3: top a bit of cheesy, crispy top. I mean, I
Speaker 3: love cooking, and it's great because my boys come around.
Speaker 3: They like my cooking and they come around. It keeps
Speaker 3: them coming around their adults now obviously, but you know, Dad,
Speaker 3: are you in tonight bit of dinner?
Speaker 2: All right?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm going to do it. Yeah, so fine, but yeah.
Speaker 2: Well we're going to get you to come and spend
Speaker 2: a day in the River Cafe or maybe more than
Speaker 2: a day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, where do you think I'm expensive much? Sixteen for my.
Speaker 2: Mom play that game of cards. Thank you very much. Absolutely,
Speaker 2: Thank you, Joan.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Ruthie's table for in partnership
Speaker 1: with Montclair