HISTORY ON THURSDAYS WITH COLLYBRIGHT
The
Story of Ian Wright
After a long day at
work, I decided to take a rest from surfing after the psychological-affecting
traffic in Lagos. I stumbled over a beautiful story I feel I should share with
you guys, as it touched me deeply.
On 23rd of
September, 1991, Arsenal signed Ian Wright for £2.5m. It was a lot of money in
those days, well if I'm not exaggerate I can say as huge in value as the
current record fee of Cristiano Ronaldo, Mbappe, Neymar and the likes. And of course for that fee, there
were loads of expectations from you both from the club side and the fan side.
And within the period of even years, Ian proved himself worth every penny
lavished on him. It wasn’t just his 185 goals, then a club record, or the
trophies they helped win. It was the way he played the game: his passion, his
exuberance, his commitment, his charisma. Thierry Henry, who would eventually
supplant Ian as Arsenal’s all-time top scorer, said ‘I fell in love with Arsenal because of Ian Wright.’
But Ian would not
have been a professional footballer, let alone an Arsenal legend, had it not
been for one man. As a boy of eight or nine, young Ian had been both troubled
and trouble. He’d do anything to avoid going home, because home was where the
hate was. His mother told him she wished she’d had him aborted, his father had
walked out several years before, and his stepfather ‘wasn’t a nice fella. He
didn’t like me at all. He was a rough-voiced, rough-talking guy, a real bully:
big-built, raving, hard-gambling, weed-smoking, very strong man.’
Starved of
affection and attention at home, Ian would act up at school. It was Turnham
Primary School in Brockley, south-east London, and he was often disruptive and
hyperactive: not a bad kid, not a mean kid, but one bubbling with rage at
things he could scarcely understand, let alone articulate. When his teachers
couldn’t control him, which was often, they would send him to the PE teacher
Sydney Pigden.
Syd was himself no
stranger to trauma. His wife had died not long before, they had lost their only
son in infancy, and both his own parents had died when he was 15. While serving
in the RAF during World War Two (he’d flown Spitfires, Hurricanes and Typhoons
and had taken part in the Victory flypast over Buckingham Palace after the
war’s end), he and a friend had tossed a coin to see who would take a new
aircraft up for familiarisation. Syd had lost. The plane had malfunctioned in
mid-air, and his friend had been killed.
Still a competitive
footballer in his forties, Syd was a firm believer in the power of sport to
improve lives. ‘At first I was afraid of him,’ Ian said, ‘but he soon became my
mentor and a massive influence. He was hard but fair, and he taught me how to
channel my energy into something more positive. When I had what he used to call
the ‘heebee-geebees’, full-on rage like a little Tarzan or something, he’d sit
me down, he’d talk to me, explain to me how to communicate. He taught me how to
read and write properly. He turned me into a monitor so I would go around with
the school register, I would be the milk monitor guy, I would take messages to
the teachers.
‘He
was the first dominant male figure in my life who had time for me and cared for
me. If I wasn’t good in class he would tell me that I wouldn’t be allowed to
play football on a Saturday, and that was quite an incentive. All I wanted to
do was dribble round everyone and score goals, but he taught me the importance
of passing and being less selfish with the ball. And he had a similar message
in terms of my school work. I couldn’t just be loud and talk over teachers
because it wasn’t fair on them, or the other kids. He taught me the importance
of working as a team. He believed in me and never gave up. It was like a chain
reaction and others started to believe in me too. I improved in class and
teachers and other adults started to respond better to me.’
It’s the holy grail
of teaching, isn’t it? Not exam results or league tables, but to be the one who
actually makes a difference to a child’s life, who helps them achieve their
potential or saves them from disaster. When the endless paperwork swamps you
and the terrible pay gets you down, that’s the light in the darkness: the one
who knows that without you they wouldn’t be what they are.
From afar, Syd
watched with pride at what that troubled young man became: not just an Arsenal
player but an England one too. He saw how Ian would stroke the ball into the
net rather than blast it, just as he’d taught him all those years before in
Brockley: look for the space, make it beautiful. He heard the fans with their
chant – ‘Ian Wright-Wright-Wright’ – and smiled at the way Ian shone in the
light of their adoration.
After Ian retired,
a TV company made a documentary of his life called ‘Nothing To Something’.
Unknown to him, they contacted Syd and asked him to appear. It would be a
surprise, to say the least. Ian and Syd hadn’t seen each other in almost 25
years: more than that, Ian had been told by an old school-friend that Syd had
died.
The footage starts
with Ian in the empty stands at Highbury, looking out over the pitch where he’d
scored so many of those 185 goals. While he’s lost in reverie, Syd comes up the
stairs behind him. Ian half-turns, gives a bland smile, turns back again – and
then does the most classic double take, the smile replaced by sheer astonishment
as he whips his head round to look at Syd properly.
‘Hello, Ian,’ Syd says. ‘Long time no see.’
Ian Wright,
motormouth, the man with an answer for everything, is totally speechless. He
stares for a moment and then takes off his flat cloth cap, so instinctively
that he’s probably not even aware he’s doing it.
‘Mr. Pigden,’ he blurts. Not Syd, or
Sydney, or some kind of nickname. Mr. Pigden, just as he had called him at
school. Proper respect.
Syd holds his hand
out. Ian looks at him, and at the camera, and at Syd again. ‘Someone said you was dead,’ Ian says, and
the emotion cracks his voice into zigzags.
Syd laughs. ‘As you can see I’m very much alive, and I’m
so glad you’ve done so well for yourself.’
Ian doesn’t reply.
He can’t reply, because now he has the cap over his face and he’s sobbing hard.
He turns and hugs Syd, and because Syd’s standing a row or two above him, Ian
buries his head in his old teacher’s chest, just as though he were a child
again. They hug, and then they disentangle, and they look at each other with
such tenderness and love that the camera feels almost intrusive.
‘Uncontrollable
crying because of how happy I was to see him,’
Ian said afterwards. ‘That was when I
realised how much of an effect he had on my life.’
They never lost
touch again. When Ian saw the scrapbooks of the Victory flypast, Syd told him
it had been the second proudest moment of his life. The proudest? Ian’s England
debut against Cameroon.
Syd Pigden died
last December aged 95. He spent his final years in an old people’s home down
near Ladywell, where Ian was a regular visitor. Towards the end the dementia
had set in for good, but perhaps in a moment of lucidity he would have seen ‘A
Life In Football’, the autobiography of the boy whose life he’d turned around,
and opened the front cover to read the dedication inside.
‘For my teacher, Mr. Sydney Pigden.’
Written
By Boris Starling
Source: Mccollybright.blogspot.com.ng
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