ROONEY’S THE ONLY CHARACTER LEFT — TODAY’S PLAYERS ARE SO BLAND
AN ITALIAN coffee shop in Chelsea is a long way from a cramped house in Plaistow, where Sol Campbell grew up the 12th and last child of Jamaican immigrants.
The former England defender cuts a sophisticated figure as he sips his drink and spoons up the froth, wearing a pink shirt, grey trousers, light blue summer jacket and brown buckled shoes. His tan leather document case is from Smythson, the smart stationers whose ‘creative consultant’ is David Cameron’s wife, Samantha.
It is an appropriate choice. For Campbell is an active Conservative. Next month, he will speak at the Tory conference in Manchester, as well as go to Downing Street to present his ideas for the improvement of the capital. He put himself up for selection as London mayor. He missed out but would consider running again.
If that itinerary — plus his appearance in country gear in the pages of Shooting Gazette and a personal fortune so immense that he put one of his houses on the market for £25million last year — marks him out as a self-made man of the establishment, it is by no means the full story.
Aged 40, there is still an outsider’s fire in him. He rages against the FA, accusing them of being 100 years out of date in not appointing black staff to the England team. He is still kicking his way to the top.
‘People said, “Why do you want to be mayor? You come from football”. But sport is about character. It is about understanding how a team works, about pushing the team. I also wanted to do it because of where I am from as a human being. That’s what London people want: thinking outside the box, new ideas.
‘People say a cricketer from a certain background can cross over into politics. Football? No. But you do get footballers who are intelligent, maybe not in the sense of the best schooling, but guys who are really switched on. I wanted to break that mould and I nearly did.’
Campbell has been breaking moulds for years. He pulled himself up by his own endeavour to make a lucrative career in football when most of his eight brothers went into security or driving jobs.
He then, infamously, moved on a free transfer from Tottenham to Arsenal, leaving those who idolised their captain angry at his perceived treachery. He won 73 caps for England as an imposing centre half. He was a model team-mate, yet something of a loner, and attracted racist and homophobic abuse from the terrace hate mobs.
‘My values are in my DNA and were shaped by my environment,’ he says. ‘Growing up, you had to look after things, to make them last. You had to fight to succeed. There were no safety nets and that builds character.
‘My parents worked hard. My mother, Wilhelmina, was a very strong woman. She had to be with 12 kids. She would do anything for the family. She was a light, the glue in the family. I’m used to having strong women around me. My mother was. My wife is. I like their strong mentality.’
He is married to Fiona Barratt- Campbell, heiress to the Barratt Homes empire, and he works with her on their interior design business. His life now is a world away from the one into which he, Sulzeer Jeremiah Campbell, was born.
‘You have to build bridges for people to come from deprived areas to come into central London,’ he says of his ideas to improve the capital. ‘It is scary for them. I want to bring in some new ideas to London, which is why I am going to see the policy unit at No 10.
‘It is a tough fight for a Conservative to win in London. It is 70/75 per cent Labour. You need a big character to go across that. A bit like Boris — but in a different way.
‘I got close to being ready for selection. I was really getting into it. I started doing my studying. I got my team together. That showed me how naked I was in the beginning. But once I started to get the right information, I started to pick it up very quickly.
‘I am thinking about “innovation hubs” in, say, Tottenham or Plaistow or Acton or Stockwell — areas that need that platform. People could produce a new app or programme or learn how to run a restaurant. They are doing it in Toronto and Paris. I want to do more research in that field.
‘Another idea is a Danish housing scheme. They use it for students but it could be tweaked for London. People who are being priced out of the market could buy a house at a low price but not be allowed to sell it for that much more.
‘It was a shame I couldn’t get another couple of months at it, to get through the committee stage and the members, and on to the hustings. A lot of people wanted me to stand. In London people know me as a character.’
Judging by my hour-and-a-half in his presence, he is recognised by everyone. A woman driving a ‘Chelsea Tractor’ tells him she wishes he was on a dating website. ‘I don’t think my wife would like that,’ he replies. A chef shouts hello out of an upstairs window of the Coopers Arms. As we sit outside the coffee house, passers-by talk football with him.
But what of his chances of getting the Spurs vote 14 years after he left the club in acrimony? Has time healed? ‘Some of the fans have moved on but they have not totally forgotten. If I was coaching in America for 20 years, maybe they would.
‘I am 41 this year and people who were perhaps five at the time I went to Arsenal, or were not even born, feel strongly about it. Who is perpetuating this? It is incredible. People have a mental block. The anger never goes away.’ Campbell is close to finishing his UEFA Pro Licence coaching badges. Only a 3,000-word essay on his recent trip to Ajax and a short presentation await. He is open to offers for managerial jobs, but one call he is not expecting is from the FA.
He contacted them before Gary Neville was appointed to Roy Hodgson’s coaching staff three years ago. He did not hear back. Then, last year while giving a 20-minute speech in Parliament on diversity in front of grandees, including some of the FA hierarchy, he asked them at least to ring him. He says they never did.
‘I have played amazing for my country but at the moment the regime at the FA is not working for me,’ he says. ‘I went to Holland and at that time Patrick Kluivert — a black man — was assistant manager to Louis van Gaal. It’s all about inclusion.
‘The FA should be a beacon with a diverse group of coaches. There are a lot of England players from the black community who have done well. That history should count for something. There should be black people somewhere — trainer,
coach, physio, doctor, somebody in the media. I am not talking about the Under 21s or lower down but the first team. They could change it like that.’ He clicks his fingers.
‘The FA are 100 years out of date. I tried to change it. I didn’t get anywhere. I am Sol Campbell.
‘Maybe it was a personal thing with me; not because of colour. I would say it how it is. But you need strong characters. You need friction, in an intelligent way. Football is hard and you need people who make tough decisions.
‘Roy Hodgson is a Steady Eddie. He does what it says on the tin. But sometimes it’s nice to have something that’s not on the tin. But the FA can’t handle someone with character. Look at Brian Clough.’
Campbell, who has previously said there was a reluctance to make him England captain on the grounds of his colour, is barely any more impressed with the race situation at club level. ‘There are 92 clubs and there has never been more than a handful of black managers at any time,’ he says. ‘Way less than 10 per cent. It is the same pool of people being handed jobs all the time. You never know, they might find a gem if they just thought laterally.’ Campbell, a veteran of Spurs, Arsenal, Portsmouth, and briefly Notts County and Newcastle United, remains passionately interested in football. He would welcome doing more TV work but thinks that after a couple of years as a pundit he would want to take over as presenter. ‘That’s the sort of person I am.’
He bemoans the lack of characters in the modern game. ‘There used to be so many of them: Paul Ince, Gazza, Tony Adams, etc. And the foreign players, like Cantona. You need those characters but they are going. Wayne Rooney is one but he will retire in four or five years. John Terry will retire sooner. Frank Lampard has gone. Stevie G has gone. There’s a different type of player coming through. They are good but they are bland.’
Why? ‘Street football has gone in this country. I used to jump the school gates to play. Now the gates are 10 feet high. There are no rough-and-ready players who are gentlemen at the same time, who stand up for what they desire. I looked at football as a hobby, as a sport I loved. Now people go into it to earn money, not the other way round.’
Arsenal have not won the league for 11 years, since Campbell’s day. He puts the wait down to two principal reasons: the constraints put on spending by the cost of building the Emirates, which he says the club should have explained more vocally, and Arsene Wenger’s change of emphasis. ‘He went to a youth-based, almost Ajaxstyle, scenario. He persisted with that for a long time but it did not work out. Now with the stadium finished and the shackles gone he has found a balance between experience and youth. He has money to spend and that’s good for Arsene and Arsenal.
‘To win the Premier League, if they don’t buy any more players, they really need everybody fit. They had two centre halves out against Liverpool a couple of weeks ago — and that’s not a luxury they can afford.
‘Gabriel (Paulista) and Calum Chambers came in, but they need a run of games. Without that it is difficult to get into a stride. It’s not good for your confidence or the team’s. Occasional games don’t allow a defender to iron out problems.’
Petr Cech, the former Chelsea goalkeeper who made his own switch across London in a £10million deal this summer, was impressive against Liverpool, but Campbell fears that Arsenal need to spend more.
‘There was talk of Karim Benzema coming,’ he says. ‘And really if they want to win the Premier League, Arsenal need to push the boat out to get those special players who will make a difference. You can’t make one big signing. Everybody does that, and you never move on.
‘In the middle they need experienced players. They needn’t be especially big. Patrick Vieira was big but Gilberto was not massive, and he did a wonderful job.
‘Francis Coquelin has done very well. But there are times when he is not in the position I want him to be in. Perhaps he also needs to learn that he is being tested every game, regardless of whether it’s an FA Cup tie against a third division team or in the Premier League. You have to do the same things. But where do you find a Patrick? Or a Petit?’
Campbell grew up supporting no club. He took an interest in Manchester United because they had a smattering of black players but that was it. So he can study Spurs’ form as an objective observer, free of rancour.
As a master of the defensive arts he is particularly intrigued by Harry Kane’s progress — or more particularly how last year’s rising star is being restrained. ‘Defenders have been studying his game,’ he says. ‘That is what you do if you are a proper defender.
‘I always did: what does he do when he gets into a certain position, what is his favourite movement, how does he put a defender in a certain position, when does he accelerate, where does he not like going? He’s a marked man now, but the club’s biggest problem is that they only recently spent £100m and did not get it right.
‘That brings a lag, with big contracts and players you can’t get your money back on. That’s what is going on at Spurs. It will take time to sort out.’
That concludes the state-of-the-nation address by Mr Sol Campbell, former successful footballer, burgeoning businessman, aspirant Conservative politician, possible future manager and outspoken anti-racism advocate.