Free Craig Bellamy - GoodFella by Craig Bellamy Page B

Cardiff but had never played for Cardiff and there were one or two who tried to take me to task because I had left the city to play for Norwich.
    I was only a kid and I said something back. Suddenly, there were two or three blokes coming at me and swinging punches. Simon Haworth dragged me into a taxi but I was very close to getting into trouble. It was my first away trip with Wales and it made me realise how careful you have to be, even with your national team. I thought because we were all Welsh, we would all get on but it wasn’t like that. It caught me by surprise.
    The next day, we travelled to Tunis. When we arrived at the hotel in Tunis, it was a shocker. Gary Speed said it wasn’t good enough. Bobby Gould agreed and we were moved to another place. It wasn’t the ideal start. Everything seemed to be done on a shoestring with Wales. There was a lot of penny-pinching. Rows like that were not uncommon.
    Tunisia had been in England’s group in the 1998 World Cup that was beginning a few days later and they thought British opposition like us would provide them with the perfect test. But I’m afraid we weren’t much of a challenge for them. We had one or two players who weren’t in good shape. They hadn’t ended the season well for their clubs and then they had neglected their fitness before they joined up for international duty.
    Those summer games can be difficult. They can be treated as an afterthought. Ryan Giggs and Mark Hughes weren’t there, but there were a few of the younger players who knew we had Italy in the first qualifier for Euro 2000 at the start of the next season and wanted to put themselves in the frame for that. They were hungry to do well – but they were in the minority.
    The game kicked off at 3pm in Tunis, so you can imagine the heat. Tunisia gave us a hiding. We played one up front with Harts, who was out of shape and was suffering so much in the heat he could barely move. To make matters worse, we played in this garish green Lotto kit that has never been seen since. I don’t even know where it came from. It was a little bit too small for Harts. None of us looked good in it but he looked worse.
    It was a grim afternoon. We were beaten comfortably. Harts and Dean Saunders were substituted midway through the second half and then I got subbed in the last ten minutes.
    On the bench, Saunders started moaning about Gould. “What’s he doing, bringing us off? We were the best players,” he said.
    Saunders was like that. He liked to start the ball rolling and then sit back. He never said anything to Gould’s face. Deano was always the one at the back of the bus, moaning and chipping away. Gary Speed was the opposite. He would always do it in the open. I loved Speedo for moments like that. He wouldn’t bitch. He said his bit – and he was correct – and then he went quiet. I knew the people who I admired and why.
    To be fair to Saunders, a lot of players were unhappy with Bobby Gould before that anyway. After the game, Speedo went ballistic. He said we were a pub team, we were a disorganised rabble who hadn’t got a clue what we were doing. He turned on Gould, too. He told him he had set us back years, that we had been a decent team and now we couldn’t even give sides like Tunisia a game. Gould was reeling. He said Tunisia were a decent team but Speedo went into one. He said England would batter Tunisia and that we should all be ashamed.
    I sat there in the dressing room with my head down. I was only 18 and this kind of stuff was new to me in football. ‘This is going to be a tough, tough living,’ I thought to myself. Then the black comedy started again. Gould looked at Chris Coleman.
    “There are too many players in this dressing room who think they are better than they are,” he said.
    “What are you looking at me for, Bob?” Chris Coleman said.
    “I don’t mean you,” Gould said. “I just mean in general.”
    The balloon went up again then. All the players were annoyed now