Tony Adams
Desert Island Discs
BBC
4.3 • 14.3K Ratings
🗓️ 27 June 2010
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Kirsty Young's castaway is the footballer Tony Adams.
He's one of the few people who know at first hand the pressures and joys of captaining the England team. And, after signing as a schoolboy for Arsenal, he is the only man ever to have led a championship winning team across three decades.
The drama and successes of his life have been as remarkable off the pitch as on it. He found sporting glory despite being an alcoholic and even served time in prison for drink-driving. But his journey of recovery has been a remarkable one. He went back to studying, developed a love of literature and the arts and put his own money into a charity to support other sports men and women recovering from addiction. It's a transformation that his former team-mates have described as 'heroic'. Now, he is heading to Azerbaijan to become a manager, he is planning, he says, to build the Tony Adams team.
Record: Monty Python's Always Look on the Bright Side of Life Book: The book of Alcoholics Anonymous Luxury: Football.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Kirstie Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Disks from BBC Radio 4. |
| 0:06.0 | For rights reasons, the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast. |
| 0:10.0 | For more information about the program, please visit BBC.co.uk. |
| 0:17.0 | Radio 4. My castaway this week is the footballer Tony Adams. He's one of just a very few who know it firsthand the pressures and joys of captaining the England team and as a club player he's the only man ever to have led a championship winning side across three decades. |
| 0:49.0 | Now as a coach he's about to head off on a new journey to Azerbaijan where he plans to spend a decade |
| 0:54.8 | creating he says the Tony Adams site. He has lived a life of two halves. |
| 1:00.1 | Sorry about that. True. His sporting success is legendary, but so too was his addiction to the booze. |
| 1:06.0 | He even spent time in prison for drink driving. |
| 1:09.0 | Yet his journey of recovery is as remarkable as anything he ever managed on the pitch. |
| 1:13.4 | Aside from developing a love of literature, the arts and education, |
| 1:17.0 | he's poured his own cash into a pioneering charity that helps fellow sports |
| 1:21.0 | men and women recover from addiction. It's a transformation |
| 1:24.7 | that former teammates have described as heroic. He says of himself I'm a |
| 1:30.1 | completely different guy. The old Tony Adams had a lot of good stuff in him as well, but I wouldn't |
| 1:35.1 | go anywhere near him if he'd had a drink. He used to be full of self-loathing, but I quite like myself |
| 1:40.1 | today. So much in there, but let's start of course with the World Cup, |
| 1:44.1 | Tony Adams. Millions of people tuning in. I'm guessing you're among them. |
| 1:47.2 | Are you watching most of the matches? It's good to be here and thank you for that. |
| 1:50.9 | That was lovely. Yeah, I'm catching bits and pieces it's fun I sit there |
| 1:55.1 | and watch it with the kids and it's very entertaining. The big world cup question of course |
| 2:00.2 | that all of us are pondering on right now is are you for or against the |
| 2:04.2 | vuvousila should it be there or not be there I've not noticed it I did speak to |
... |
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