ILLNESS DIDN’T DIM SPIRIT
Fun-loving maverick with glint in his eye brought joy to everyone he met
THE throaty, angry blast of a V8 engine can evoke all sorts of emotions in a man.
When it catches you completely by surprise as you step out on to a busy road – and this thunderous din is way too close for comfort – let’s just say it doesn’t half help to focus the mind.
Granted, my suit trousers may not have forgiven Fernando Ricksen just as readily as I was inclined to.
But then again, this was a man against whom it was difficult, ultimately impossible, to hold a grudge. Even when it transpires he’s swerving towards you from behind the wheel of a gleaming super-car, with eyes all lit up in delight.
If memory serves it was a brand new red Ferrari he was hurling across the street. But the precise make and model of Ricksen’s pride and joy isn’t really what sticks in the mind.
Rather it was the sight of him in tears of laughter as he tore off down Edmiston Drive, which will always stand the test of time. This was no ordinary human being who had just revved the living daylights out of me. This was a mischievous Peter Pan of a man – and one with a passion for life which infected all of those fortunate enough to cross his path.
If there was fun to be had from any moment, in any situation, then Fernando Ricksen would grab it with both hands.
Perhaps it was this unquenchable zest which helped him to defy medical science for as long as he did in his battle against the monstrous illness which yesterday finally extinguished his light.
For six years, motor neurone disease tried to get the better of him. Mercilessly it clawed away at his muscles, depriving him of speech before debilitating his entire body. But it could never rob him of that will to keep going and to squeeze every last moment from a life well and truly lived.
That he eventually succumbed, aged just 43, is a travesty of unspeakable scale. He leaves behind wife Veronika and daughter Isabella, but not without enriching both of their lives with the qualities which made him unique.
To put it in more simple terms, Fernando Ricksen the man was a constant joy to be around.
Thinking back, it said everything about his character that he spotted the fun in planting his foot on the accelerator that day outside Ibrox and pretending to wipe out one of his many tabloid critics.
It should not be forgotten, there were some difficult, testing periods throughout his six years at Rangers when he attracted the withering end of the pen.
Like when he was hooked by manager Dick Advocaat after just 21 minutes of his first ever Old Firm derby – in a match which Rangers would lose 6-2. There were plenty who suspected he might never recover from the ignominy of the experience.
With hindsight, that he did that so emphatically and with such glittering success – lifting two league titles, two Scottish Cups and three League Cups – was a telling indication of the size of the heart beating inside.
Of course, quite naturally, there were always going to be blips along the way. A kung-fu kick at Pittodrie. The fireworks aimed at the house of Celtic rival Alan Thompson. That boozy night on the town with Katie Price. The infamous inciwing dent on a flight to South Africa which ended his Rangers career under Paul Le Guen.
He was routinely hammered in the red tops for all of it.
And yet never once did he display any signs of feeling hard done to. He’d much rather find a way to laugh about it, as he did that day in his rear-view mirror, before stopping to turn and offer a polite wave.
If this was his way an apology, it was neither offered nor taken with sincerity.
No, Fernando Ricksen did not take life seriously until life itself threatened to walk out on him. It was only then that he clung on to it with the same serious determination which defined him as a sportsman.
Shortly after that career defining bust-up with Le Guen, Ricksen left Glasgow for Russia, where he was taken in once more under Advocaat’s fatherly at Zenit St Petersburg. Advocaat both loved him and despaired over him in equal measure, often at the same time.
Two years later, in August 2008, we shared another chance encounter, although this time the surroundings were considerably more glitzy.
I was in Monte Carlo to report on the annual Champions League draw. Ricksen was there too as part of Zenit’s squad for a UEFA Super Cup Final against Manchester United.
Work done for the evening, I unexpectedly bumped into former Rangers full-back Arthur Numan, who was sipping a beer outside the bustling Sass Cafe as I made my way back to the hotel.
“You won’t believe who is in there at the bar,” he said, before gesturing that I go inside to see with my own eyes. And there he was. Slightly more heavily tattooed than I recalled but with the same, unmistakable glint in his eyes. He heaved me clean up off the floor in a crushing bear hug before explaining that, although injured and unable to play the following night, he had still pocketed a hefty cash bonus just for being there.
In other words, an opportunity for free fun in one of the world’s most expensive playgrounds had just presented itself to him. As ever, he was not about to let it escape him. Nor me for that matter.
A few beers later, six or seven of us ended up at the eye-wateringly exorbitant Jimmy’z nightclub – and very regrettably just in time for my round. Immediately rendered potless after coughing up €250 on five beers and two vodka and
Red Bulls, I decided to politely call it a night.
Typically, kind to a fault, Ricksen refused to entertain it.
He would sneak back into the Zenit hotel about breakfast time later that morning, darting to the lifts to avoid Sgt Major Advocaat, who had been patrolling the lobby on the lookout since around dawn.
It was with obvious delight that he recounted this close scrape at the stadium the following night from behind a pair of dark shades. And even then his mischievous twinkle still gave him away.
That’s the way I choose to remember Fernando Ricksen. A man who represented the very embodiment of life.
Such a special spirit can never be taken away.