Ray Parlour: Paul Merson, betting and my FA Cup Final injury that made punters fortunes in Romford and Liverpool
Arsenal legend’s brilliant book lifts the lid on gambling during his playing career
RAY PARLOUR admits gambling played a huge part in his Arsenal career — after being shown the ropes by his old pal Paul Merson.
Footballers were allowed to bet back when Parlour first came through at Highbury, and players were not slow to enjoy a flutter on anything they could.
And in his brilliant autobiography, The Romford Pele, being serialised by The Sun the former England star lifts the lid on life learning from the old pros — and how he helped make a fortune for punters in Liverpool and Essex.
As a young footballer trying to find my way in the early 1990s, what better guides than Paul Merson and Tony Adams showing me the ropes?”
When I got to the Arsenal first team, I roomed with Merse for a year. I got on really well with him, as I still do now.
He was my first room-partner and we had some fun. It was brilliant, gambling every day. As soon as we got to the room Merse would find a dog race, on Channel 4, or even teletext in the old days.
He would ask me, ‘Who do you fancy here?’ ‘Number four.’ ‘Why do you say that?’ ‘I don’t know. You just asked me, so I just picked a number.’
He would get on the phone and have a bet. A few dogs we chose might win but usually by dinner time we had lost all our money.
Merse was a great character and being with him was both hilarious and a nightmare. I ended up getting a gambling account. I gambled anyway. I had that in me from going to the dog track as a young kid, playing fruit machines.
Merse was perfect for you if you liked a gamble.
On 29 January 1992 I made my full debut for Arsenal against Liverpool. My second start came a few weeks after the game at Anfield, in a match at Wimbledon. George Graham told me I would be playing in an attacking role, just behind Ian Wright, as a sort of number 10.
In those days it wasn’t illegal to have a bet on yourself, and I was priced at 33/1 to score the first goal. I phoned my brother up.
‘Jim, put us a bet on, and you need to come to the game, get yourself down there.’
Jimmy came along with my dad. I scored in the 37th second of the game. Nigel Winterburn took a free kick, Wrighty was in the clear and crossed for me to beat their keeper. I remember running around in celebration and saying, ‘I won £330!’
I doubled my wages back then. We won 3–1 and I made my way to the players’ lounge after the game to find my family.
‘You’ll never believe it,’ they said. ‘We missed the train and were late getting to the ground. When we got in we asked someone the score and they said Arsenal were 2–0 up already. We asked who scored. The young kid Parlour up front.’
And they hadn’t had a chance to put a bet on. They were fuming.
They did have a bet on me at the 2003 FA Cup Final. My brother Jimmy was coming to the game and he got the Racing Post that morning.
On the back of the paper the headline was ‘Massage Parlour’, which referred to the chances of me getting treatment during the 90 minutes. The odds were 7/2.
My brother rang me and said, ‘Have you seen the papers today? You are 7/2 to get injured!’
‘Leave off, Jimmy. It’s the cup final . . .’
Still, I phoned my bookie and asked what price I was to get treatment, just to find out what was going on.
My weakness was genuine. I had seven stitches in my ankle and if I got caught it would have been painful – any player would have gone down.
But I didn’t think any more of it. I turned my phone off. That was that. I thought: I won’t call my brother back because I know what he’s like.
In the meantime he has told everybody, all his mates, about this bet. Francis Jeffers, who was next to me on the coach, told half of Liverpool. I don’t realise this at the time.
We kick off, I was on the end of a few tackles, no problem. It got to the eightieth minute and I collided with someone, caught my stitches, and went down. The referee more or less said play on, but I was still lying on the floor.
The ref came over later and asked if I wanted treatment. As [club physio] Gary Lewin ran on, all my family leapt up. ‘Get in there!’ My mum and dad had put £20 on it. They don’t even gamble.
Later on the Arsenal chef said to me, quizzically, ‘When you got injured all your family jumped up and celebrated.’
Apparently Romford made a lot of money, and it wasn’t bad going in Liverpool either.
Extracted from THE ROMFORD PELE: It’s Only Ray Parlour’s Autobiography, published by Century on 5 May 2016 at £16.99 copyright Ray Parlour 2016
