Kenny Sansom: Arsenal ace’s rise and fall from footballing hero to homeless alcoholic
The former England international's problems began to get serious in 2013 when he was living on a park bench
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FORMER Arsenal idol Kenny Sansom's fall from grace started in 2013 when he was discovered to be a homeless wino who sleeps on a PARK BENCH.
The skint-former Arsenal hero revealed in a shocking interview with The Sun how he loves drinking.
Sansom, 54 — kept scaring his family in 2013 by disappearing to live rough — and told The Sun of his hell as he briefly sought refuge at his sister’s home.
Sansom, who in his 1980s heyday earned £1,200 a week and lived in a £1million mansion, confessed at the time: “I’ve been living homeless for ten days.
“That’s because I’ve got no money, I’m a drunk, I’m feeling not very well and I’m a gambler. I’ve been living on the street.”
With just a pay-as-you-go phone, a travel card and a paltry £20 cash to his name — plus the T-shirt and shorts he was wearing — he added: “It’s not good living on a bench.”
Hours later he went AWOL again — sending his shattered older sister Mary, 61, into a fresh panic.
Mary said of the legendary defender: “He’s breaking my heart. I wish he would just tell us where he is.”
Divorced Sansom — who was getting through SEVEN bottles of Mateus Rose a day — told how the Professional Footballers’ Association had repeatedly tried in vain to help him.
But the former player — who played for England at the 1982 and 1986 World Cups — admitted after blowing a fortune on gambling and booze: “I’m just a drunk. I drink as much as I can get.
“I’m in a bad way. Arsenal are trying to help me, but I’ve got to try and help myself.”
The fallen star, who has been in and out of rehab for years, told how his behaviour has led to a run-in with cops, which had left him “p****d off”.
But he stressed: “I haven’t been arrested. They said, ‘Where do you want to go?’ They just took me to somewhere, but I can’t remember.”
While he did get a pension of £1,200 a month — tiny compared to today’s Premier League players — he said half goes to his ex-wife Elaine.
Sansom’s worried sister Mary said: “He has lost everything.
"He used to live in a £1million house and now he doesn’t even have a chair to sit on. He just gambled and drank it all away.”
She told how her brother had nearly sold most of his caps — and was so desperate for cash he pawned a platinum ring worth £900 for just £60.
Mary claimed he got so depressed he tried to kill himself by drinking an entire bottle of Night Nurse and gulping down a pack of sleeping tablets.
Miraculously he woke up feeling fine.
Sansom’s stay with her ended in June of that year when he made himself scarce after he was found slumped unconscious on a green in Chislehurst, Kent — leading to an ambulance being called.
The previous day the former soccer hero’s niece Charlotte had been forced to call cops to escort him out of a betting shop.
Her famous uncle had turned up there drunk demanding winnings — and wet himself.
When staff asked him to go home and change his clothes he became angry and abusive.
That was the last straw for his sister’s chauffeur husband Claude — who demanded Mary kick him out.
Even though she now wanted him to return, the ex-footballer told The Sun: “They are getting upset with me because I’m being a pest.”
Sansom told in his 2008 biography — To Cap It All... My Story — how even at the height of his soccer career he was becoming gripped by the twin demons of alcohol and gambling.
He was in the bookies nearly every day — and most afternoons were spent in the pub boozing and playing snooker with team-mates.
His love of white wine earned him the nickname “Mr Chablis”.
Rise and fall of footie ace
1975 - Makes professional debut at Crystal Palace aged 16.
1976 - Plays his first game for England against Wales.
1980 - Arsenal give Palace £1million plus star player Clive Allen to
sign Sansom, 21.
1980-88 - Plays 394 times for Arsenal. Is England’s left-back in two
World Cups.
1988 - England’s second most-capped full-back ever plays the last of
his 86 internationals.
1988-1994 - Plays for Newcastle, QPR, Coventry, Everton, Brentford and
Watford. Retires.
2011 - Speaks publicly for the first time about his battles with
alcoholism and gambling.
2013 - Admitted to hospital after collapsing close to Arsenal’s
Emirates Stadium.
2014 - Says he has turned his back on alcohol after getting job as scaffolder.
2015 - Spends night in cells for his drunken antics
2015 - Spotted in south London park swigging wine on a bench
2016 - Says will not stop drinking but will keep it under control
2016 - Admits in shocking interview that he will not stop drinking because he loves it.
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