6 The Times Magazine
The Leicester-born former footballer, 61, scored 48 goals for England
and won the Golden Boot at the 1986 World Cup in Mexico before
moving into broadcasting. He is now in his 22nd season presenting
BBC1’s Match of the Day. Twice divorced, he has four grown-up sons
from his first marriage and lives alone in south London.
Puberty came late for me, which was a bit embarrassing in the
showers. I was still tiny when I made my debut for Leicester
City and only had a growth spurt when I was 17 or 18. I did
loads of work to strengthen my legs but the accepted wisdom
in the late Seventies was that increasing upper-body strength
made you immobile, which we now know is complete nonsense,
as is eating a large steak directly before a game.
I’m not one of those players who looks back and says, “It was better
in my day.” The way we understand the body and nutrition
has improved dramatically, as have the training facilities, the
footballs, the pitches and the stadiums. I’d love to be playing
now. Would I have kept Harry Kane out of the England team?
I think our records would be very similar. He’s a better all-round
footballer but I was quicker than he is. And it’s easier for him to
score more goals for England against weaker teams since the
break-up of the Soviet Union and the former Yugoslavia.
There’s nothing good about getting old. I’m 61 now, which feels
like a big number. I have a few more aches and pains, I have to
train harder four times a week to maintain my weight and I’ve
gone completely grey, but at least I can say my life experience
has made me a little more sagacious.
I’ve weighed myself every day since 1989. I’ve done it ever since
Terry Venables advised me to at Barcelona. It means if I see
myself starting to slip up, I can cut back on my food a bit. I like
to be between 12st 10lb and 13st, but a couple of months ago I
went up to 13st 4lb and thought, “I don’t want to be that heavy,”
so I’m back down to just under 13st. I’m pretty disciplined.
I still get fashion advice from my ex-wife. I’ve never been
particularly flamboyant or edgy. I’ve always been kind of safe,
but luckily my second wife, Danielle Bux, is very stylish and
even now she guides me. I definitely like another opinion and
she’ll do that for me. I’m getting better, although maybe I’ll
look back in 20 years and think, “No, I wasn’t.”
It’s easy to get married, but it’s very difficult to get divorced.
Lawyers make it difficult. Both my ex-wives are good people
and we worked it out in the end, but it wasn’t easy. The second
time round, we got an online divorce. That’s the way to do it.
I’m happy being single now. It’s nice to be unanswerable in a
slightly selfish way and I’m not actively seeking a partner right
now. I had two wonderful marriages and now I’m single and
I’m in a good place, but that might change. I might need
someone to change my nappies. Who knows?
The thought of going on a dating app makes me grimace. I know
there’s a celebrity one called Raya, but I’ve never been on it and
I never would. Dating is hard enough work anyway. I just can’t
imagine doing it. I don’t know how people manage it. It’s
definitely not for me.
The only time women come up to me these days is to say, “Ooooh,
my granny loves you.” That’s about as good as it gets.
People ask me, “Why don’t you go into politics?” But I couldn’t
think of anything worse than being in the House of Commons.
I’m interested in politics, but under no circumstances would I
ever consider being a politician. I have no intention of walking
round saying nice things and not really meaning them. I’m
happy to have an influence with the platform I have, and
people can choose to agree or disagree.
Racism in the game isn’t as bad now as it was when I was playing,
when people threw bananas on the pitch and there were
monkey chants. There’s still a degree of xenophobia, but I think
progress is very gradually being made and within dressing
rooms the game is wonderfully harmonious. You’ve got people
in every team from different ethnicities, different colours,
different countries all across the board, behaving absolutely
as one. The players are way more progressive than the fans.
I rarely lose my temper, but I do get a bit of road rage every now
and then, although I’ve never stuck my fingers up at anyone.
I tend to do the opposite. If somebody’s having a go at me,
I’ll just smile benignly as I think that irritates them way more.
Recently I pulled out on somebody and he started going beep,
beep, beep, beep, then I stopped at the lights next to him and
he started ranting, “You bast... Oh, Gary, hi. You all right, mate?
Sorry about that.”
If I were writing my own obituary it’d say, “He was good in the box,
then he was good on the box and now he’s in a box.” nThe Lineker Edit is available from January 26 at Vision Express (visionexpress.co.uk)INTERVIEW Nick McGrath PORTRAIT Robert Wilson
What I’ve learnt
Gary Lineker