The Battle Goes on For Paul McGrath

[ROBBO]

I t may be coincidental but his dry period came when he was focused on writing the book and then was kept busy on the media circuit. He really needs to be doing something that gives him very little idle time, i know when i'm bored i eat and stack on weight and losing it is a trial, not in the same category i know but he does seem to be lost.

[petegoldring]

So sad to read. Paul Mcgrath is one of the finest footballers ever to pull on the shirt in my lifetime. Never forget him running 50 yards to make a fair tackle on Cantona and still being able to kick him 6 feet in the air!!

Absolute legend. No matter what happens he will always be the best centreback, perhaps footballer, I have ever seen in a Villa shirt - I hope he can overcome and be happy.

[JD]

It is so sad. The guy is only a few years older than me and I used to stand in The Holte and be in awe of his ability. To think that I am still very fit and he is going through such a traumatic time really hits the heart strings with me. A better defender I will never see in my lifetime.
Please Paul, sort yourself out and get better.   

[Lucky Eddie]

The staff in the restaurant were really god with him in fairness

correct

[eamonn]

Interview with Paul on Irish radio the other day:

http://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2010/1009/mcgrathp_av.html

[Salsa Party Animal]

if every one know he had a problem with drink, they shouldn't give him free drinks.

[Martyn Smith]

Every story I've heard about Paul McG tells to me of a man suffering from chronically low self-esteem. This is not the same as self-confidence which can go up and down in days according to how life's treating you. It's much more deep set than that and is all about your overall self-image.

[Ger Regan]

Every story I've heard about Paul McG tells to me of a man suffering from chronically low self-esteem. This is not the same as self-confidence which can go up and down in days according to how life's treating you. It's much more deep set than that and is all about your overall self-image.

That's the crux of it I think, until he sorts out that issue it's going to be very difficult for him to give up drink.

[TimTheVillain]

He should be involved in football, day to day, that would give him something to get his mind right.

[mcgrath_85]

I found this rather upsetting to read.

Thanks nonetheless for posting this though Dave.

[Legion]

The battle continues

I'm just wasting away at the moment and it's not a good place to be'
His battles with his demons, from which he seeks refuge in alcohol, are well-documented and now a new documentary on Paul McGrath's life reveals the unhappy childhood that produced the tortured man

'Suddenly I was accepted. It was like a lightning bolt going off,' says McGrath

Paul McGrath is about to be snapped for the photographs on these pages when, all of a sudden, he literally runs out of the picture. It's nothing to worry about with him though. Instead, he's worrying about someone else. There's a particularly steep patch of grass nearby and a woman is having a bit of trouble pushing another elderly lady in a wheelchair up it. McGrath rushes over to stop her from toppling over. Chivalry personified, he makes sure both are okay before getting back to the business at hand. Afterwards, the younger woman goes into the local hotel in Arklow to ask staff if McGrath is still around so she can thank him again. When informed he has left, she politely enquires what he was doing there and how he was doing.

It's an exchange that confirms a lot of expectations – and, perhaps, clichés – about McGrath. When his name is mentioned, you usually hear some variation of the refrain "lovely lad, but a lot of demons". And, straight off, here he was displaying the kind of decency that means people continue to retain this genuine concern for him. No matter how often he slips, many know what he's really like.

It's why he's not in prison at the moment. Back in April, another night lost to alcohol almost cost him a lot more. An inebriated McGrath struck a neighbour who offered him a lift. Conscious of his situation, however, the individual refused to press charges for assault. "The man has problems. He did not know what he was doing."

In light of recent media coverage, someone close to McGrath contacted the Sunday Tribune ahead of an interview about the new documentary and DVD Paul McGrath – My Life & Football. There was a plea for tact as to how questions are phrased. When such requests are usually made, it's to protect the interviewee's vanity. With McGrath though, it's to protect him from himself. Given the recent controversy, there was a fear any questions that increase his anxiety will – again – cause him to reach for the bottle to battle his nerves.

Such warnings, however, mean that you also expect someone fragile and almost under siege. Instead, you meet a McGrath that appears at ease, genuinely interested in how you got here and grateful for it. When offered a flick-through of the photos taken, he chuckles "ah you had a good subject, good-looking fella". He also insists, "I'm in great form at the minute and obviously with the documentary coming out that's a big thing for me".

McGrath admits elsewhere, however, that "most people would look at me with the suit on and be thinking: 'he's not doing too bad'" when, underneath, he's already accepted another regression is around the corner. As a line in the documentary revealed, McGrath has been in and out of rehab "13 or 14 times".

He understands if people are losing patience. But there's a reason many aren't. A few choice lines from the DVD and his autobiography help explain the roots – if not quite the complexities – of why he continues to use alcohol as a crutch.

Growing up in the Bird's Nest orphanage: "Generally you were made to feel odd and unloved. There was a routine comment made in moments of temper that you were 'only here because nobody else wants you'... You were constantly being put down, kept in your place as you saw it. You were made to feel small."

McGrath grew up without any of the comfort or consolation that breeds confidence. As the veteran journalist Peter Byrne says on the DVD, "Paul was accustomed to a climate of subordination by the time he emerged from the institution at 16 and, added to that of course, he was black. The combination of those two things meant he didn't impose himself as perhaps others would have done."

Given that background, his former boss Graham Taylor acknowledged: "It's alright saying to someone they shouldn't be doing this but I think I'd be drinking too if I'd been through what Paul's been through."

And McGrath explained exactly why. "I needed something to subdue the [negative] voice in my head... so drink was quite a discovery. I felt something profound happen... I began to feel invincible."

The new documentary does a fine job of condensing the content of the best-selling purge that was his biography Back from the Brink. It also updates his story. Many of those interviewed, such as Jack Charlton and Kevin Moran, speak with hope, but also blunt honesty. That, on an underlying level, he's still essentially in denial about his problems.

That comes across to a certain extent when he speaks in Arklow. When alcohol is mentioned, it is usually accompanied by a chuckle. It's almost as if he's trying to show he's now so conscious of the problem that he can make light of it, but doesn't quite convince.

When he talks about the demands of the modern game: "The diets are much better and I wouldn't say they're allowed drink as much as we did!"

When he talks about how Alex Ferguson forced himself and Norman Whiteside out of Manchester United: "We matured a little bit [after we left] and then regressed a bit after football."

Most poignant, however, is perhaps a line he says off-hand and in jest before the interview properly starts. When it's mentioned to McGrath that this summer was the 20th anniversary of Italia '90 he laughs and says: "Yeah, I think they had a do for it. I obviously wasn't invited."

Over the interview, McGrath does talk about the great days as well as football in general enthusiastically and at length. Even those stories, however, reveal a little more of the doubts that constantly cause him to regress. The documentary shows a lot of footage from Ireland's most iconic matches and he's asked how he feels when he watches them.

"I look at the mistakes I made on the day sometimes."

With anyone else you'd wave it away as the perfectionism of a former pro. With McGrath, though, it is hard to escape the assumption that it's something else. His circumstances, after all, even affected how he celebrated his favourite day in an Irish shirt, the 1-0 victory over Italy in USA '94. McGrath sat alone on the team coach while the rest of the squad got off to greet the fans at an FAI party.

"I did feel detached because I had my instructions about what I was allowed to do. But I was sitting on the coach looking out and all the Irish people were dancing all over the place and I really just sat there."

On that day, Ireland were facing one of the most famous defences in the history of football. Yet it was McGrath that gave a master-class in defending. Some of the Italians respected him for it. Others didn't.

"[Franco] Baresi was a hero of mine so, obviously, I was walking over to shake hands but he didn't really want to be connected with us. [Paolo] Maldini, I thought, was such a gentleman. He was picking me off the ground, saying "good header". That's a sportsman. I would have thought Baresi was similar but he was having none of it, strolling down the tunnel with steam coming out of his ears. It was disappointing because I've always thought even when you lose you've got to show some kind of sportsmanship. There's a graciousness and it's what kids need to see."

McGrath illustrates it himself when talking about the infamous 0-0 draw with Egypt during the 1990 World Cup.

"I thought they deserved credit. They way they defended, the No 4 [Hany Ramzy] was unbelievable. You see a defender having a magnificent game and you wish it was you. I went up to him and said 'unbelievable, great game' but people don't think you should do that just because of who they were."

Ireland would overcome that to meet Romania in the second round. But McGrath wouldn't be participating in the penalty shoot-out.

"I don't think Jack asked me. I just wasn't going to take a penalty. Definitely was not going to take a penalty. That's when I would have remembered there was a crowd. I wouldn't have had that on my shoulders. I bottled it really... I've missed penalties before and I knew I wasn't going to be one of the ones."

Throughout all his comments, there's a sense McGrath never quite realised how good he was. That's what Moran argues on the documentary. And McGrath is always very quick to deflect any kind of compliment. Commonly seen as one of Irish football's four "immortals" along with his "good friend" Roy Keane, Johnny Giles and Liam Brady, an old line from the latter is put to him.

Brady told this newspaper a few years ago that "I was good and I knew I was good... had the whole thing mapped out in my head. I'd be in the first team at Arsenal when I was 18 and then I'd play for Ireland."

McGrath's eyes widen when asked if he ever felt the same.

"Well I suppose I knew I could play. But I looked at the Irish team and it had four of the best centre-halves in Europe. I thought I wouldn't get a game because how are you going to say to Mark Lawrenson or Kevin Moran or Mick McCarthy 'I'm taking you out to put Paul McGrath in'. So I had all those kind of negative things going on in my mind that I won't be getting a chance."

Nevertheless, McGrath realised he had enough talent as a youth to earn respect in school. "The change was unbelievable. I was no longer 'nigger', I was Paul... suddenly I was accepted. It was like a lightning bolt going off."

The pitch would provide an escape throughout his career. Many of Ireland's Italia '90 squad have said the only drawback to the event was the boredom over six long weeks. Not McGrath.

"I loved every minute of it. I was off the drinking and actually put everything into it. I just went in thinking 'I am on form, I am on form'. Now I didn't play up to standard as I did in training, but that was as fit as I'd been playing football ever. It was brilliant."

Given the difficult readjustment even the most settled pros endure when they retire, that emptiness is undoubtedly a factor in McGrath's issues. Part of the problem has been filling his days. "I feel like I'm doing nothing now," he says sadly on the DVD. "I'm just wasting away at the moment and it's not a good place to be. And part of the reason I'm wasting away is obviously because I've got one or two things hanging over my head."

Doing the documentary has at least kept him on track. "I'm looking forward to trying to do as much as I can with that and I'm hoping people enjoy it. I do like having banter with people.

"I'd love to be able to give something back because I don't think I give enough back now. I go down to Wexford, close the gates and keep myself to myself. I'm very much a loner. But then it's lovely when I get out and do meet people. It would be lovely to give something back to some club.

"Even if it's just training the kids for one night or helping out in any way. Hopefully that's on the cards in the future."

This weekend he'll be kept company by his son and new granddaughter. The epiphany at one of his most recent spells at rehab, however, was that he has a "social phobia" as well as an alcohol addiction. In an odd way then, does the goodwill of so many people actually have an adverse affect?

"I do love the attention. It depends where I am though. I love talking to people one-on-one or if somebody stops you in a shopping centre and just has a little chat with you. I love all that sort of stuff but I find it hard to accept the praise if it's coming in a certain way.

"Like, if I get to 60 and someone's standing on a podium ready to give me whatever accolade, I'd hate walking up the steps to collect a prize or anything like that.

"I'd rather shake someone's hand on the street."

October 17, 2010

[KevinGage]

Hope he gets something out of this latest project, aside from just a payday obv.

There is a danger of overkill though, I think most of us have heard more about Paul's problems at this stage than we have those in our own extended family.

I prefer to dwell on his career, and performances like this

A 60% fit Paul McGrath up against an Italian side containing the bulk of the legendary AC Milan squad who'd hammered Barcelona 4-0 in the EC final a few weeks earlier. And Baggio.

And McGrath was the best player on the pitch.

[BC54 VFC]

Thanks for posting that, KG, watching it has brought tears to my eyes.

[eamonn]

He needs to keep busy but he's not a reliable person - even the stuff with loose enough commitments, the odd bit of punditry for RTE, a director of football or some equally (un)important role invented for him at Waterford United etc. always ends in a farce when he's too drunk to turn up.
 
Dying a lonely man still haunted by demons seems to have been his obituary-in-waiting for a long time. I doubt if doing this DVD will change much for the better, more likely it will be something like becoming a grandad recently. As clichéd as it sounds I think everyone just hopes he'll permanently find some peace of mind one day.

[Martyn Smith]

My abiding memory of Paul McG was his sheer unerring ability to be in the right place at the right time. I pointed this out to my dad; he said that in 40 years of going down the Villa he'd never known a player who *read* the game as well as he did.