I’d go shopping in my Ferrari... until the crash!
The money footballers earn can be a shock to the system. So when I got money, I wanted to indulge myself and my friends.
In the late 1990s, Gucci made a watch with a big ‘G’ emblazoned on it, I loved it. It cost £900 and it felt amazing to be able to afford that.
A few months later I bought three of my best friends the ‘G’ watch for Christmas.
I never tired of being able to give things to people. I took 20 of us to Barbados once and 15 to Dubai, all in business class. I was in a position to do that and it gave me a lot of pleasure, so why not?
There is no better feeling than seeing people, who are usually at the back of the plane, finally getting on the beds in business class. Things like that give me such a buzz.
People called me the ‘King of Bling’ later in my career, but that’s OK. I wouldn’t change that. I would have still bought my expensive watches. My childhood had been poor and I wanted to catch up. Why couldn’t I enjoy myself? Why couldn’t I treat myself?
I HAD two big dreams when I was a kid. One was playing for england. The other was owning a Ferrari.
I’d achieved the first one so when I got back from the 2002 World Cup, I treated myself to a new car.
I went to a fancy dealership in Newcastle, ordered a bright red Ferrari F360 Modena and paid £120k. It was an incredible thrill.
It was a symbol of youth and wealth, of power and arrival.
I drove it everywhere. I drove to training in it. I drove it down to the Quayside when going out clubbing. I went to the shops in it. I laugh now about how conspicuous I must hav have been, but I didn’t think about tha that then.
Im I must have stuck out like a sore thu thumb driving around. In a goldfish bow bowl like Newcastle, they saw that car coming and thought: ‘ here’s Kie Kieron Dyer.’
Th There were some things about the Fer Ferrari that I didn’t enjoy. There was no comfort. You were so low down that you felt every bump and I nearly lost the back end a c couple of times when I was going round corners. There was so much power in it and so much acceleration that it was ill- suited to city driving.
It was absolutely pointless having it in Newcastle really, certainly from a practical point of view. But I didn’t really do practical back then.
But who thinks with common sense when you are a 23-year- old behind the wheel of your first Ferrari? It had raw power, so who cares if it was a bumpy ride. It was rapid: that was the main thing.
I had been in a nightclub for a few hours when my mate Curtis asked if I’d take him out for a couple of circuits of the city in the Ferrari. It was around 1am by that stage, but like a moron, I said I would.
Curtis was buzzing about being in the car, so I wanted to give him a decent spin.
It was tricky to get speed up in the city because the streets are tight with lots of bends, but the acceleration still pinned him back in his seat with that V8 engine roaring away. What a goon I must have looked.
Soon enough, I came flying around a corner and the back end got away from me and started spinning. It seemed to be spinning for an eternity and I waited for the inevitable. I braced myself and then smashed into the barriers.
It kept spinning and smashing everything in its path. All the airbags popped before the Ferrari came to a halt.
The bridge we’d crashed on was right in the centre of Newcastle’s nightlife area and loads of people were on the scene quickly.
Some recognised me straight away and urged me to flee the scene. ‘Run, run,’ they were saying, I think they assumed I was drunk, because they said they’d take the rap for me. That’s how loyal Geordies are: they would do anything for their team.
The repairs cost about £45,000 and I had to suck it up. I got rid of that car as soon as it was fixed.
Adapted from OLD TOO SOON, SMART TOO LATE: MY STORY by Kieron Dyer with Oliver Holt, published on February 22 by Headline at £20. To order a copy for £16 (offer valid to 21/2/18; P&P free), visit www.mailshop.co.uk/ books or call 0844 571 0640.