Football legend David James: ‘I had difficult moments at every club, not just Liverpool’

David James was born in August 1970 in Welwyn Garden City. He began his career as a professional footballer with Watford, making his senior debut in 1989. He signed for Liverpool in 1992, where he remained for seven years, earning an FA Cup runners-up medal in 1996. Following spells with Aston Villa, West Ham and Manchester City, he signed for Portsmouth, where he finally got his hands on an FA Cup winners’ medal in 2008.

James is fifth on the list of all-time Premier League appearances and played for England 53 times. Since retiring, David James has worked as a football pundit, along with more surprising TV appearances as a contestant on Strictly Come Dancing, Celebrity Mastermind (specialist subject: US pop artist Roy Lichtenstein) and Taskmaster.

Speaking to Big Issue for his Letter to My Younger Self, David James recalls how it all kicked off.

I left school at 15 and was going into a YTS at Watford. So at 16, I was living in digs and this was my first full-time employment. There was also an opportunity to go into athletics doing the high jump – and the desire to break the English high-jump record was equal to my desire to play football. But the YTS scheme offered free food and athletics was amateur, so I would have had to work and pay for my own food. That’s why football won. I still didn’t feel like I was on the path to playing professional football.

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I’d come from Welwyn Garden City. It was one of the new towns in England and there wasn’t a great deal of culture going on. The cinema was knocked down for a new Sainsbury’s. But I was into hip-hop and sport – because I loved competing. And I also liked a bit of art – I loved doodling and drawing.

I was totally confused. I had no direction. So although I love stories where people say, ‘Oh, he was kicking the ball in the cot,’ and it is like they were destined to have a career. I didn’t have that. Playing football as a teenager was a short-term fix, not a career path. I was living in the moment. So if I told my younger self how my career would go, it wouldn’t make sense to him. Because there was never that desire for a career.

When I saw Bruce Grobbelaar playing for Liverpool it changed the way I looked at goalkeeping. I was a Luton Town supporter. They were the first team I ever went to watch and when Liverpool came to Kenilworth Road, Grobbelaar came out and caught a cross on the penalty spot. He was completely different and he was entertaining. His athleticism was something I could try to mimic.

I went to China with Watford when I was 16. That was like a different world. I had some amazing experiences. We never went on holiday abroad when I was growing up. I’d only done a day trip to Calais with school when I was about 10. So to get exposed to that, from knowing nothing, you realise the world is bigger than just Watford or Welwyn Garden City.

I broke my finger when I was a teenager and started smoking. From then, I smoked for 15 years. So, although I wouldn’t want to say too much to my younger self, I’d tell him ‘don’t get in the car’ – because it all started when I got in a car and went to this nightclub. I’ve got nothing against nightclubs, my lovefor music took me there, but looking back, there was a need to be an athlete. Before that I never used to drink or smoke. It’s not that I had a drinking problem, but these things are not conducive to being in the best physical and mental state in a career that requires that all the time. So I could have done better.

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There were exciting moments at Liverpool but we didn’t win enough. So there was a lot of disappointment. We were in a new era where technology and TV companies were making the Premier League not just a change of name but a change of entertainment, globally. The global support now grew from that time. Before, fans around the world would only see the FA Cup, so we were part of that transition from an English football system to a football entertainment business – with all the trappings that come with it.

I was asked to model for Armani [in 1995] and I like the idea of doing new stuff. It didn’t feel like an amazing opportunity, just the chance to do something different because I’d never done modelling before. So I did it. Same with Taskmaster, and Strictly Come Dancing, and same with The 1% Club, The Chase and Mastermind. I like the challenge. I like competition.

I stopped smoking, I stopped drinking, I trained properly and I became a better player after I went to Aston Villa. I got back into the England scene at 30. So I got 53 caps for England, and 52 were when I was in my 30s. That’s completely the wrong way round. It goes back to being a 16-year-old and what if he could have continued being an athlete. There was a large chunk of my career where I was doing what everyone else was doing in football – I was going out, I was drinking, I was smoking. But when I started being a professional athlete again, it made me think, what if I’d been that way from the beginning rather than having years of not-so-professionalism?

I’d only left Liverpool at 29 because I thought my career might end at 32. It was always about the next contract – because bad form or injuries could always happen. Even when I left Bournemouth when I was 42, I wanted to squeeze a couple more years of playing out. So I played in Iceland and India. 

I didn’t go to Portsmouth to win trophies. I was 36 and thought I could help them avoid relegation. I phoned Sol Campbell before signing and said, are you taking this seriously? When he said they were, I thought I wouldn’t mind playing behind him. The camaraderie in the dressing room was fantastic. And Harry Redknapp knew how to get the best out of me. Everything went our way, and we ended up winning the FA Cup in 2008. Winning at Old Trafford [in the Quarter Final] took a bit of luck – goal line clearances, a sending off and a penalty for us to win. But that’s the beauty of the cup.

One of my fondest memories after winning the trophy at Wembley, was going to Southsea Common the following day where there were 200,000 locals celebrating with us. To have that kind of love for a football club in your community is special. Most clubs do great things in their community that don’t get recognised – unfortunately a player doing three press ups is more social media friendly than a whole team turning up at a community centre or food bank.

Playing in the World Cup at 39 – making my debut in that tournament – was really special. But there were a lot of big games. And I remember them all. My debut for Watford, although we lost 2-1 to Millwall. My debut for England, even though we won 2-0, I was pretty rubbish and was quite disappointed at the end. I also had a really good time playing in Iceland, where I played my 1,000th game, for IBV. We won 1 0 vs Fylkir. Then playing in India on a different continent.

I never wanted to play in charity matches after I finished playing. Not because I didn’t want to support charities, I just didn’t want celebrities trying to score goals against me. They didn’t earn the right. But then Mo Farah scored against me at QPR in the Grenfell game and I realised there was no point getting hung up about it. We are all here for a reason. So I’m excited there will be 78,000 people watching Soccer Aid at Old Trafford.

In the 90s, having a sports psychologist was frowned upon in footballing circles. The competition within a club meant you might open the door for another goalkeeper or new signing if the manager didn’t think you had the mental capacity to deal with things. But it helped me out. It wasn’t about how I played football but how I fared as a human being. I know it’s cliche, but sharing is caring. I spent a lot of time sort of dealing with difficult things by myself, ignoring other people, thinking I could get through it.

My younger self didn’t know how to have relationships. So I had to learn how to do it. No, I’m not going to divulge why.

I never had a problem with anything other than handling my own obsessions. I’m quite obsessive. There were stories about me playing PlayStation, saying I was addicted. I wasn’t addicted to PlayStation. I had an obsession. Then I got called up for an England squad and the game I’d been playing religiously for weeks, I never played again. I found later in life how to control my obsessions. I could notice patterns of behaviour and drag myself back into a comfortable space. Art is one of my nice places to go. I still paint when I need to. The other day I was looking at the empty easel and decided to paint Einstein. I did political stuff during Covid because I was watching a lot of the news. Donald Trump is going to get painted again soon. Maybe not this week, though. I’ll make America wait again…

We don’t appreciate when we are playing football that we are just borrowing space. Only 11 people start the game. And when you’re not there, someone else plays in your position. As much as you can have a career in football, you’re only borrowing that space.

I had difficult moments at every club, not just Liverpool. I know I could have done things better. But telling my younger self what he could have done better would have changed my life – and I don’t think I’d want that. I’m quite happy having done the good things and the bad things to get me into this position in the first place

David James is goalkeeper coach for England at Soccer Aid at Old Trafford on 15 June.

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