Paul Vaessen joined Arsenal’s youth ranks in 1977 as a 15-year-old apprentice. A switch from midfield to the forward line appeared to accelerate his progress to the first team, as he made his first team début at the tender age of 16.
A few years later, there was, of course, that goal. A late, decisive goal in Turin that took Arsenal to a European final. Paul headed in at the far post from a divine Rix cross, and Juventus’ legendary goalkeeper Dino Zoff raged. At the centre of a moment of ecstatic drama and triumph, 18-year-old Paul was the hero. However, Paul played no part when Arsenal lost the ensuing 1980 Cup Winners’ Cup Final on penalties.
Sadly, despite his swift ascent, he made only 41 appearances for Arsenal’s first team and scored 9 goals, as injury forced his retirement from the game at 20 years old. That is an age when a top prospect’s senior career should be beginning to flourish. For Paul, it was over almost before it had begun.
One might say that these are meagre pickings from which to fashion a football biography. That may be so. However, ‘Stuck in a Moment’ may be the most engaging, unforgettable and heart breaking football biography you will ever read.
It may also be the greatest Arsenal book ever written.
Moreover, if it has been, and continues to be, read by the key decision-makers within football, this book may hold an additional importance for the game – and the club – we love. It’s depiction of the vulnerability and loss felt by those discarded by football is visceral and unblinking. If we care about these young lives, the lessons provided by this book should be our guide.
A BOOK IN TIME
When Stewart Taylor began writing ‘Stuck in a Moment’, Paul Vaessen had been dead for around 8 years. As we closed in on the 2010s, Paul’s death in Bristol in 2001 was not breaking news, but many were shockingly unaware.
As is told in the book, Paul’s post-retirement obscurity to the football world – even to ardent Arsenal supporters – was so complete that, in researching the book, Stewart was repeatedly the bearer of bad news. If not all of those that had witnessed Paul’s life and career up-close had heard of his passing, it’s safe to say that Paul had drifted far from the game. The book informs us that the death notice published in a local newspaper did not mention that Paul had been a footballer. It did, however, mention that he was a drug addict. That, it appears, had become the more salient fact.
After all, Paul did not stack up the illustrious career statistics and wealth of shared memories that an Arsenal legend amasses over numerous seasons of elite service. Was Paul’s career too brief and inconsequential to revisit? Stewart tackles this head-on:
“No. Paul was not one of the most significant footballers of all time. He doesn’t even make it onto the list of ‘Untimely Deaths’ in the Official Arsenal Miscellany, nor is there mention of him under ‘RIP Gunners Who Died Young’ in the Official Arsenal Encyclopedia.” (p.xvi)
It is also worth noting that, at the time of Paul’s death, Arsenal were in the midst of a period of tremendous success. In 2001, we were sandwiched between the two League and FA Cup doubles of 1998 and 2002 – indeed, Paul died 10 days before Arsenal began their double-winning 2001-2002 campaign. That team – with Vieira, Bergkamp, Henry, et al – held our attention in the tightest of grips.
More generally, across the period from Paul’s death to the release of the book (that is, 13 years from 2001 to 2014), Arsenal won 2 League titles and 4 FA Cups. So, if the desire to look back in nostalgia tends to be inversely related to one’s current degree of success, then relatively few in the Arsenal community were, at that time, harking back to yesteryear.
Moreover, it’s doubtful that many of those with an appetite for revelling in the club’s history would have eschewed the glories of the Chapman era, Mee’s double winners and Anfield 1989 to instead relive the relative underperformance of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Though Paul’s time at Arsenal is punctuated with a flurry of cup finals (not only our rendezvous with Valencia in Brussels, but also, famously, 3 FA Cup Finals in a row), the 1979 FA Cup Final was the sole triumph. Across those seasons, our league performance was solid rather than outstanding, with an average finishing position slightly better than 5th.
All in all, it’s fair to say that the Vaessen years fell into a less-than-golden era for the club. In the market for footballing nostalgia, how can a goal in the semi-final of an ultimately fruitless European campaign compete with silverware galore?
Unsurprisingly, then, there was no great clamour to tell this story. Rival publishing houses were not frantically commissioning biographies to cash-in on the colossal Vaessen memorial market. There was no plethora of book launches scheduled to coincide with the unveiling of an Emirates statue. The matchday traders near Arsenal tube station felt no need to stock-up on bootleg Hero-of-Turin t-shirts. It appeared that this was a story that did not need to be told.
Though Stewart swam against this riptide of apathy about Paul’s story, he had his doubts:
“I do admit, however, that I let this general uneasiness about the project get the better of me at the start and that I consequently packed it all in after little more than a few weeks. I found, though, that in the ensuing weeks, Paul Vaessen nagged at me relentlessly. I didn’t realise how deeply, in such a short amount of time, I’d got involved. Once put off, I am usually put off for good. But Paul had got under my skin and I began to feel that I’d let him, his family and the countless others like him, down, that I’d been dissuaded too easily.” (p.xvi)
Thankfully, Stewart not only persisted with the project, he immersed himself in the task. It appears that he put his whole self – his writing craft, his compassion, his struggle to understand Paul, and the struggles Stewart had encountered in his own life – into the telling of the story.
HOW THE STORY IS TOLD
Pages | 304 |
Dimensions | 23 x 2.8 x 14.8 cm |
Publisher | GCR Books |
The book is written in an imaginative style, from which three recurring themes emerge: poetry, voices and parallels. Poetic leanings are expressed through some relatively elaborate literary devices (such as a mythological framing of Arsenal’s trip to Turin, and the same match being redrawn as a film script), and a generous sprinkling of song lyrics and other quotes from popular culture; the voices are those that know most about Paul’s life and career; and the parallels are principally between Paul and his dad, between Paul and his brother, and between Paul and the author.
Poetry
Stewart sets the story to background music from the title onwards. After all, this is the ‘… Ballad of Paul Vaessen’, and ‘Stuck in a Moment’ is a reference to a U2 song. While researching the book, the author sought out music that Paul had listened to, and we are told that Paul performed air guitar to Thin Lizzy in the Arsenal changing rooms. Perhaps most idiosyncratically, each chapter takes its heading from a fitting song title, e.g. ‘Teenage Kicks’ by The Undertones and ‘Heroin’ by The Velvet Underground.
More than a stylistic flourish, this helps to set the scope of the story beyond the touchlines of a football pitch. Grounding the story in popular culture outside of football encourages the reader to broaden their purview from Arsenal’s Paul Vaessen to South Bermondsey’s Paul Vaessen – to Maureen’s boy, Paul. While this is a football story, it’s pushed and pulled by forces and frailties that can affect any of us. The reader’s sadness at Paul’s turmoil and loss does not emanate from his Arsenal career statistics. It comes from our understanding of the man, his hopes, his faults and, importantly, his family.
Voices
The family is well-represented among the wealth and diversity of voices heard in the book. These voices speak with authenticity and authority. They weren’t inside Paul’s head, of course. Everyone is ultimately an enigma – and Paul was, perhaps, more enigmatic than most – but we hear from those that were there. Their voices take us inside the family home, the neighbourhood and the changing rooms. They help us to witness the highs, the lows and the aftermath.
To some extent, the book reads like a collaboration between Stewart and the Vaessen family. The author’s interviews with Paul’s family – his dad, Leon, his brother, Lee and especially his mum, Maureen – show a commitment to tell the whole and unvarnished truth. Or, perhaps, through their openness, the family show that they share Stewart’s desire to understand what happened, and why. How could Paul transform from a charismatic Arsenal starlet to the diminished figure he became by the time of his early death? His loved ones may long be haunted by the need to understand why Paul was taken from them – first, piece-by-piece and then, finally, completely.
The book hears from an extensive cast that shared Paul’s life inside Arsenal. We hear from: Paul’s teammates in the youth team, such as Gus Ceasar, Brian McDermott and Paul Davis; those he played with in the first team, such as Liam Brady, John Hollins, Pat Jennings, Graham Rix, Kenny Sansom, Frank Stapleton and Alan Sunderland; and other Arsenal staff that bore witness to the club’s management of Paul’s career, such as Terry Neill, Don Howe, Fred Street and Ken Friar.
The names listed here are only a sample of more than 60 interviews carried out to research the book. Stewart explained the importance of these voices for his telling of Paul’s story::
“It was only in speaking to so many people that I felt I could justify writing this book. In fact, they painted such a vivid picture of Paul that I decided the best way to tell his story was primarily through their words. They knew him best and there was simply no reason for much elaboration or literary intervention from me. I have therefore kept my interference to a minimum and can't really therefore take credit for anything more than being an editor.” (p.xxi)
Stewart’s role here is, of course, far more than an editor of interview transcriptions – as can be seen in the thoughtful, insightful and, often, poignant parallels he draws between Paul’s experiences, strengths, weaknesses, achievements and limitations, and those of Paul’s dad, his brother and the author himself.
Parallels
Given the nature and nurture connections between Paul and his close family members, comparisons with his dad and brother are compelling means to help us understand the drivers of Paul’s talent, decisions and fate. Moreover, as Paul’s dad had been a footballer at a good level, parallels can be drawn between lives that differently navigated the football world.
However, it’s the parallels that the author draws between Paul and himself that are most striking. Stewart is a character in this book. To some extent, Paul’s story is told through the unfolding journey of the author’s research. Along that journey, there are points where Paul’s story echoes Stewart’s own.
As these connections relate less to strengths and achievements, and more to weaknesses and limitations, Stewart’s willingness to disclose these aspects of himself and his life – including struggles with mental ill health – helps us to understand why he chose to embark on this unlikely journey and doggedly continued his 5-year hunt for a footballer who retired at 20.
In Stewart’s admirable openness and honesty, which is matched by Paul’s family and friends, we see an absolute commitment to tell a difficult story with its complexities intact, rather than artificially resolved for the reader’s convenience. Though some inner truths of Paul’s life are darkly elusive, and some passages are drenched in insurmountable sadness, it’s a privilege to accompany Stewart in his unforgettable pursuit of Paul Vaessen.
MEET THE AUTHOR
The book's author, Stewart Taylor, generously agreed to answer my questions about his history of writing, the lengthy research and writing process for 'Stuck...', the book itself and the lessons from Paul's story.
Highbury Librarian: How did your life as a writer begin? You mention contributions to The Gooner. Was that your first published work?
Stewart Taylor: Growing up, I didn’t really read that much. Books were boring and hard work as far as I was concerned. My dad tried introducing me to the likes of Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn and Long John Silver, but I was only interested in the likes of Frank Stapleton, Liam Brady and David O’Leary, and it wasn’t until I came across Pat Jennings’ autobiography during a rare visit to the local library, that I really discovered books.
After Pat Jennings, I went through the rest of what the library had to offer, including ‘Trevor Brooking – An Autobiography’ and ‘Best – An Intimate Biography’ by Michael Parkinson (which was quite an eye-opener).
I especially loved the two volumes of autobiography - ‘This One’s On Me’ and ‘It’s A Funny Old Life’ – by Jimmy Greaves which my dad bought me. Despite being an Arsenal fan, he has always insisted that Greaves was the best in the business. I couldn’t believe it when I discovered that this aging, balding man on TV at Saturday lunchtimes had once been the greatest striker English football has ever produced (and still is, by the way, Sir Harry).
In the late ‘80s, I started buying The Gooner, and I really wanted to contribute, to see something of mine in print. As I was more into art than writing at the time, I decided to have a go at drawing a cartoon strip and I chose to do it about Arsenal’s real life cartoon midfielder, John Jensen.
Having seen his wonderful goal in Denmark’s surprise Euro ‘92 final win over Germany, I remember being quite excited about him coming to Arsenal but when the ’92-’93 season kicked-off, it was pretty clear that we’d all been deceived and that the goal we’d seen in that final in Gothenburg was not something he did on a regular basis. But JJ did everything in his power to do it again and prove it was no fluke. His attempts to score – usually thunderbolts from outside the area – became a bit of a running-joke, and it kind of elevated him to cult status, the perfect subject for a cartoon strip.
‘I’ll Be There When Jenson Scores’ was therefore born and just before Christmas 1994, I asked JJ to sign one of my drawings in the Finsbury Park Gunners Shop (although Steve Morrow had to explain it to him!). But it must have inspired him because in the next game, on New Year’s Eve against QPR, he scored a beauty at the North Bank end – a curler that Brady, Platini and Zico would have been proud of.
An example of the 'I'll be there when John Jensen scores' cartoon strip (which was published in Arsenal fanzine, The Gooner, in October 1994)
It proved to be one of the rare highlights of that awful 1994-95 campaign during which Merse was addicted, Nayim was jammy and George was sacked. His goal put an end to my cartoon strip, although, looking back, I suppose it could have continued as ‘I Was There When Jensen Scored’ but really, the magic had gone.
I tried my hand at writing next when an opportunity arose to submit contributions for a book - ‘Arsenal – Memories and Marble Halls’ (David Sims) - in 2000, and I got a real buzz when I came across my story about JJ and his goal quest inside the book. I had actually wanted to be a journalist or a commentator as a kid, but I soon ruled it out on the realisation that the only games I’d be interested in were Arsenal ones.
It was quite a while until I wrote again – 2007 – when I submitted a speculative ‘Perfect Ten’ article to Andy Exley, the editor of the now-defunct official Arsenal Magazine. He liked it and included it in the next issue (the only disappointment being that my name was spelt incorrectly as ‘Stuart’, rather than ‘Stewart’!). I sent in several more ‘Perfect Tens’ after that and became a regular contributor until ill-health intervened.
The Official Arsenal Magazine was published from 2002 to 2018
When I was better, the magazine had shut down, so I wrote a few bits and pieces for The Gooner and Backpass magazine. It was at that time that I decided to try something bigger, more challenging, like a book.
HL: Writing a book can be a daunting prospect. What drove you to book authorship?
ST: It’s difficult to explain really, but it was just something I’d always wanted to do, an ambition of mine. I’ve always had this maddening obsessive drive, a restlessness, if you like, a need to always be working on something, creating something, and I felt that writing a book would be ideal, something I could work on for a long time. And the only thing I could really write about in any length was not so much football, but Arsenal. I suppose the articles for The Gooner, and the Arsenal and Backpass magazines were like a practice ground for writing a book.
Even as a kid, just as I would always try and turn a conversation to the subject of football or Arsenal (the only thing I could really carry a conversation about), in English lessons I would try to sneak football into my schoolwork, whether it be a critique of Shakespeare’s ‘Julius Caesar’ or an essay about the significance of J D Salinger’s, ‘The Catcher in the Rye’.
For my English O-Level mock exam, for example, we had to write an essay about a historic event from our position as a witness. Although I didn’t know much about it – or about history in general – I decided to write about the Munich air disaster, the first thing that came to mind, which turned into a disaster of its own as it was completely, factually inaccurate and I had included players such as George Best who would have been just twelve-years-old at the time.
The other thing I was finding was that reading somebody else’s work was beginning to ‘not feel enough,’ that I wanted to write my own stuff, just as I liked making my own stuff, something I inherited from my dad. In 1981, for instance, when my dad took me to my first ever match, at Wembley to see my local club, Bishop’s Stortford FC, win the FA Trophy, I decided that, rather than buy a flag from the club shop, I’d make my own using an old bed sheet and some blue felt-tip pens.
By the time the Stortford team (which happened to include ex-Arsenal forward, John Radford) were parading the cup around the pitch, I was too embarrassed to wave mine, fearing it would look crap amidst the sea of shiny polyester ones in the air all around me. I just loved creating, especially writing, and even liked writing essays to some extent. But I have to be honest and say that it was actually the research that I enjoyed most, still do.
Writing has never really been something that has flowed naturally from me. I am pretty methodical in approach and put things (sentences, passages, chapters) together like a jigsaw puzzle. Lord knows how all these fiction writers pump out half-a-dozen – albeit, usually formulaic – novels each year. I like something I can really delve into, investigate, take my time over and perfect.
And I prefer non-fiction, especially reading about people and their lives and experiences, so I thought a biography would be a good place to start. To be honest, I think when you are writing biographies, ‘flowing’ writing is difficult to achieve anyway because, in contrast to writing novels for example, you are forever stopping to look up statistics, league tables, match facts, articles etc and it’s pretty difficult to build up any momentum.
As to a subject, there was only one, one individual’s story, that I passionately wanted to write about and inform people about, and that was Paul Vaessen.
HL: Why choose to tell Paul’s story?
ST: To be honest, maybe because of some of my own experiences, I felt a kind of connection with Paul and – although he was no angel, to say the least – I felt sympathetic towards him. I guess his story just struck a chord with me and sometimes that sort of thing just happens.
It was when I came across an article I’d kept on the last page of my 1984-85 scrapbook, that I considered the idea of writing Paul’s life story. The headline from the article appearing in my dad’s Daily Mirror on Friday 8th March 1985, stated simply, ‘VAESSEN STABBED’ and I wanted to know more.
I was determined to tell Paul’s story and shine a light on what had happened to him. It was a labour of love and the project basically became a quest to bring Paul back again for a while and give him some of the attention he was due.
Paul is the type of character I tend to be drawn to, individuals whose stories have substance, depth and complexity, the kind of people who have been through the mire, had to negotiate tough challenges during their lives and have come out the other side, or sadly not in Paul’s case.
I believe these individuals are more interesting to read and write about and have a lot more to say than, perhaps, those whose careers have been pretty untroubled. Although I read just about any football biography or autobiography I can get my hands on, Arsenal ones particularly, it is those by the likes of Tony Adams and Paul Merson which I have tended to get more out of in terms of interest and inspiration.
Of course, these individuals have unfortunately had more demons, more problems to contend with compared to, for instance, Alan Smith. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy his book, though. It’s just that to me it wasn’t as ‘deep’ or involved as, say, ‘Addicted’, ‘Sober’, ‘Rock Bottom’ or ‘Hooked’. To put it another way, I won’t be rushing out to Waterstone’s when ‘My Perfect Life and Career’ by Sir Harry Kane is published.
Tony Adams's 'Addicted' & 'Sober' and Paul Merson's 'Rock Bottom' & 'Hooked' told the life stories of Arsenal greats with successes highlighted alongside challenges and weakness
Tony and Paul have been fortunate in that they have been able to pull through, which tragically wasn’t the case for the likes of German goalkeeper, Robert Enke, Justin Fashanu, and Gary Speed, for example.
Paul’s story, for me, fell into that category; the euphoria of that winning goal in Turin in April 1980; the injury when playing for the reserves at WHL in February 1981; the hard road back; being driven to tears by the barracking he received from the Arsenal fans when he got back into the first team, clearly not the player he had once been; the scrapheap at the age of 21; the depression, drugs and anonymity, the premature ending. For me, just because his career wasn’t as long or successful as, say, Gary Speed’s, it doesn’t mean what happened to Paul should be swept under the carpet and forgotten.
A few individuals I spoke to for the book were surprised when I told them who I wanted to talk to them about. I was told to steer clear by some and asked, “Who’s going to want to read a book about Paul Vaessen?” by others, which only made me even more determined than ever to see the project through for Paul and his family.
Paul’s death in his Bristol flat in August 2001 was the result of an overdose of prescription drugs. Although he seemed to be getting back on his feet, there are those who have questioned whether the overdose, was in fact, intentional. Paul had, on occasion, told those close to him of his assertion that he wouldn’t make his fortieth birthday. He was right, found unresponsive in his shower in Bristol on 8th August 2001, at the age of thirty-nine.
In the end, his death attracted little attention and it just didn’t seem right. The guy was – as I say in the book – seduced and abandoned by the football dream and never really knew what to do with the rest of his life when he retired, a problem which footballers still face to this day.
HL: In the book, you mention ‘A Life Too Short: The Tragedy of Robert Enke’ by Ronald Reng (2011) as an influence. How did that book, which was released during your work on Paul’s story, inspire you and affect your approach to ‘Stuck…’?
ST: At the time Ronald Reng’s book came to my attention, I had lost momentum and a bit of interest in doing mine. Working on it had become obsessive (as things tend to do with me) to the exclusion of just about everything else. It was beginning to take over my life, bringing on depression and affecting everyone. Also, I had been working on it for so long, I had lost all perception, and couldn’t tell if it was any good or not.
I took a break for a few months and felt like a weight had been lifted off of my shoulders. I went back to reading and one day came across Reng’s biography of Robert Enke, who, I have to admit, I’d never heard of. But that didn’t really matter so I bought it, started reading it and couldn’t put it down. As Robert suffered from depression, I felt I had found another kindred spirit and admired the fact that Robert’s family and close friend, Reng, wanted to put his story out there.
'A Life Too Short: The Tragedy of Robert Enke' by Ronald Reng tells the story of a Bundesliga goalkeeper's struggles with depression, which culminated with his suicide aged 32.
It was of course a very sad story but it was brilliantly and empathetically written and left its mark on me, to the extent that I wrote to the author to say how much the book had affected me. When I mentioned to him about Paul Vaessen, he wished me good luck with it and that gave me a bit of a boost.
I realised that I would be letting Paul and his family down if I didn’t soldier on and complete it.
HL: While researching the book, you worked closely with Paul’s immediate family. How did you gain their – apparently utmost – confidence?
ST: I was basically very lucky in being able to get in touch with the journalist, Jamie Jackson, who had co-authored, with Kevin Mitchell, an article about Paul in 2002. When I started the book, it had been four or five years since the article appeared but Jamie still had all his contact numbers and I was able to get in touch with Paul’s mum, Maureen, and dad, Leon.
Maureen and her partner, Ernie, met me in South Bermondsey and I set out my plan. I was nervous about how Maureen was going to take it. I felt that she would either be totally against it, perhaps wary of what may be discovered, or all for it.
I think I was able to convey my passion and determination that Paul’s story be told and luckily Maureen was of the same mind. She wanted it done, “warts and all,” in order to bring him back for a while and that his story be held up as a cautionary tale to others.
I then met Paul’s dad, Leon (‘Big Lee’) and his partner Viv at his home in South London, then Paul’s younger brother, ‘Little Lee,’ and they were happy to be involved. I ended up getting pretty close to them, Maureen in particular, but I was always careful and on the look-out for anything she may not want to revisit.
They were all very friendly, welcoming and really generous with their time. I felt for them, for Maureen in particular and all the things she’d been through. She was still standing proud, though. She is such a lovely woman and I am sad that we have since lost contact.
HL: You were also able to speak to a host of Arsenal players and staff of Paul’s era. How did you manage to achieve such enviable access?
ST: My first port of call was Andy Exley who, as previously mentioned, was the editor of the Arsenal magazine, and he very kindly put an appeal in the match-day programme for me which brought responses from some of Paul’s old schoolmates. As I spoke to them, I asked them to pass on the word to others and so on.
Kevin Whitcher did the same for me in The Gooner, which again produced a few leads. Andy then also put me in touch with one of his writers, Jem Maidment, who he thought had a few useful contacts and lived out my way. By coincidence, Jem actually happened to live in the same town as me; Ampthill in Bedfordshire. We met up at the local and Jem helped get the ball rolling by putting me in touch with Paul’s former manager, the sadly departed, Terry Neill, who I then met in the press centre at the Emirates Stadium.
I did feel a bit apprehensive and wondered whether Terry would be happy to revisit such a sad situation, but I needn’t have worried. Terry was very open and honest and was obviously affected by what had happened to Paul. But he was also adamant, though, that Arsenal had done all they could for Paul, even providing him with the opportunity to learn other trades to take up post-football.
Talking to a few of Paul’s peers, though, it was pretty clear that the vocational training undertaken by the apprentices once a week at North London Polytechnic along Holloway Road was not always taken seriously by the apprentices, a few of whom chose to swap the classroom in favour of a round of golf at South Herts Golf Club!
Paul studied carpentry, as did Robert Johnson, who was a London cabbie at the time I spoke to him and he admitted he had regrets about not having taken the training more seriously:
“In hindsight maybe I could have been a carpenter after football but...I thought I’d be a professional footballer all my life...[that] when I come out of playing football, I’ll be a coach. We all thought that...” (p.74).
Each time I spoke to one of Paul’s former teammates, I would ask them for any contacts they may have and so on. Graham Rix put me in touch with a few, including Sammy Nelson and Alan Sunderland, and I emailed clubs such as Tottenham and Reading in order to get hold of Pat Jennings and Brian McDermott respectively. I also contacted the PFA to ask to speak to, and get the backing of, chief executive, Gordon Taylor, as well as Paul Davis who was coaching there at the time. I found Gary Lewin through the FA and even tracked down Fred Street who was in private practice.
Most were more than happy to talk and I was, for example, on the phone to Frank Stapleton, who will always be one of my favourites, for over an hour as we spoke about Paul and Arsenal in the late seventies and eighties. He also spoke of his great regret that he, like Liam a year before, had felt they had no other option than to leave Arsenal (described by Terry Neill in his autobiography as “a tragedy of monumental proportions for the club” (Revelations of a Football Manager, 1985; p.117)).
I thought it was a bit of a shame that the Arsenal supporters at the time didn’t know that Frank had never wanted to leave Arsenal but had grown disillusioned at the way the club were mucking him about over contract talks and didn’t seem to want him to stay badly enough.
I did find that after a while, you tended to lose sight of who you were talking to, that it could have been someone at the bus-stop or in the pub. They say you shouldn’t ‘meet’ your heroes but it couldn’t have been further from the truth.
HL: Was this the first time that you had met and talked to Arsenal players and staff? In the book, you mention being nervous when you first met Tony Adams. What was it like to meet such major figures in the recent history of the club?
ST: After I’d met with Terry Neill, the first player I spoke to was an Arsenal legend.
As he was working at Arsenal at the time, I had a go at guessing his email address and sent a speculative email through to him, not really thinking for a minute he would get back to me. But to my astonishment, I got home from work one evening only for my wife to inform me that a man called Liam Brady had called to speak to me!
I say astonished because, as Head of Youth Development at the club at the time, I was expecting him to be too busy to come back to someone he’d never heard of, just an aspiring author yet to be taken on by a publisher. I do think, though, the fact that I was able to say I’d done some writing for Arsenal must have helped.
I had sent the email more in hope than expectation but when it came to calling Liam back, I had to ask everyone at home to leave the room (they were making me more nervous!) and psyche myself up. But as the interview progressed, the nerves fell away a bit.
It was definitely, however, one of the interviews I got most nervy about, as were my chats with the likes of Pat Jennings and David O’Leary. Having become a supporter towards the end of the seventies, these people were members of the ‘first’ Arsenal side I supported and idolised, the first players to go up on my bedroom walls, the first faces I hoped to stick in my Panini sticker album. We have, of course, had much more successful sides since then, but I think you always have a soft spot for those who were there in the beginning.
After a while, I felt more comfortable during the interviews as everybody seemed down-to-earth and pretty ‘normal,’ but like Charlie George who used to get so nervous before games he would throw-up, the pre-chat nerves never went away. I loved talking to Perry Groves who I first met at Kenny Sansom’s book launch for ‘To Cap It All’ in May 2008 and a few months later we met up for a drink. He makes you feel as though you are his best mate.
As for Tony Adams, that was the big one and I was flattered that he was happy to get involved. We met at the luxurious Baku Restaurant in Sloane Street, SW1, as Tony was at that time involved with Azerbaijani Premier League side, Gabala FC. Even though I’d dressed formally for the occasion, to say I felt out of place is an under-statement!
But again, Tony was so open and friendly, I felt able to try my luck and see if he’d be willing to write the foreword for the book. I was really honoured that he was happy to do so.
I was even on the end of one of Tony’s legendary challenges! We were sat at a pretty low coffee table and he had to practically step over me to go over to speak to someone at the bar. In doing so, he crunched me one on my knee. I guess he didn’t notice because he carried on his way and didn’t even get a yellow card. It being 2013, there was no VAR to check it!
HL: Were some Arsenal people reluctant to talk about what is, in many ways, a difficult story?
ST: I must admit that I was a little apprehensive about approaching Arsenal because there were those – including Paul – who felt let down by the club. But looking back, I’m not sure there was much more Arsenal could have done for Paul.
In terms of his injury and recuperation, I don’t really see what else Arsenal could have done. His cruciate ligaments, medial ligaments and cartilage were all badly damaged and the prognosis wasn’t all that good. A return to playing was possible but it was doubtful whether it would be to the same standard.
And that’s how it turned out. Paul was determined to get back into the side and in September 1981 he was up front in the starting line-up as Arsenal beat Panathinaikos in the first leg of their UEFA Cup first round match in Greece. But you could already tell he had lost something, a bit of pace and the ability to turn. He tired quickly and was replaced by Raphael Meade who proceeded to score a spectacular goal with his first touch.
Paul’s next involvement was as a sub for the League Cup win against Sheffield United at Highbury that season and he lined up alongside Hawley four days later in another poor game against Coventry City, but it was in the next game at the beginning of November 1981 against Winterslag, that it all came apart.
It was during that match Paul couldn’t do anything right and the Arsenal supporters let him know it. Paul was barracked to the point of tears and it was for this reason, more than any other, that Paul hated Arsenal for a long time after his enforced retirement in 1983.
There was still, however, this lingering feeling that Arsenal were somehow culpable and responsible for the way Paul nosedived after his career ended, even though they had tried to prepare the apprentices for life after football, although that came a lot sooner than Paul anticipated, but for a long time he resented Arsenal and football in general. That’s why I thought there may be a reluctance to talk from the likes of Terry Neill and Ken Friar, but that wasn’t the case, although you sensed Terry felt some guilt about what had happened.
Of the fifty-or-so people I spoke to, there was only three individuals who didn’t want to be involved; one who didn’t get on with Paul, one who questioned my motivation for writing the book, one who felt I was stirring things up and one who felt that sleeping dogs should be left to lie. It did make me think hard about things but Paul’s family wanted to carry on.
Maureen was upset that nobody ever really spoke about Paul much, as if he was a taboo subject, one of football’s “dirty little secrets”, as the author Jon Spurling described it. But Maureen wasn’t ashamed of Paul and was happy that he’d been brought back to life and that the story be used as a cautionary tale to others. Overall, though, I was pretty fortunate with the amount of co-operation and support I received.
HL: What do we learn about Arsenal – and English football – from the stories of Paul, Tommy Caton (who tragically died at 30 years old, shortly after his retirement from football), Warwick Bean and Richie Powling (who both had their Arsenal careers curtailed far too soon, but found purpose in their lives after their playing days)?
ST: In short, I think these stories illustrate that different people respond to adversity in different ways, that when your dreams are over, you face a sink-or-swim moment. Warwick and Richie managed to stay afloat but Paul and others eventually went under.
I think it goes to illustrate how precarious football careers – like life itself – are and that in one sense we are all walking a tightrope every day and that there’s a fine line between staying on or falling off. I think it also emphasises the importance of having back-up plans, of not putting all of your eggs in one basket, something which we could all learn from, I guess.
In football, the young kids are seduced and in many cases, abandoned. They are totally, one-hundred percent all in, focussed on football and nothing else. The support provided by Terry Neill in the 1970s and 1980s with regards to providing his apprentices with lifestyle, etiquette and vocational training, has obviously been taken up a level or two since then, but I would think it is still pretty difficult for these football-mad kids to think of anything long-term.
Back in Paul’s day, if you didn’t become a coach, a cabbie, a pundit or a publican, you were stuck. Salaries back then were also a pittance and ex-pros had to find work, something which seems pretty unimaginable in these money-polluted days.
It seems that more and more footballers are coming forward to tell their stories about how much they miss the dressing-room banter and camaraderie, the buzz of match-day, the anticipation of the next match, of having targets, objectives and goals. Paul was not the only one to turn to drugs and alcohol to replace the thrills and highs of being a professional footballer. I think that was the problem with Paul, that after his career came to an end – and particularly because it came prematurely – he had no purpose in life and just drifted from one thing to another, pretty-much lost.
His brother, ‘Little Lee’, told me how Paul had been planning to do talks at clubs to warn them of the post-football pitfalls you can so easily fall into. Experiencing a moment like he did in Turin that night in April 1980, must have made his descent feel even worse. It was a further height to fall from.
HL: From the book title to chapter headings and quoted song lyrics, music is a consistent stylistic theme. Why is music so prominent in your telling of Paul’s story?
ST: I think music can be very evocative, emotional and sometimes they say exactly what we’ve been trying to say but unable to find the right words. There are always songs we find we can relate to, that sound as if they’ve been written for you or with you in mind, that you can relate to. Songs sometimes tell stories, known as ballads, and these are often sad, so I felt that was applicable to Paul.
I’m a big U2 fan – a consequence of my 1980s Charlie Nicholas adoration days – and listening to their 2000 album, ‘All That You Can’t Leave Behind’ one day, I thought I’d found the perfect title for the book: ‘Stuck in a Moment You Can’t get Out Of’.
Because that was Paul. He was stuck in that moment when he rose to convert Graham Rix’s looping cross from the left to head past Dino Zoff in Turin. It was downhill from that point and it effectively became the yardstick by which he would measure/asses the rest of his life. When he wasn’t doing so well towards the end, he still loved nothing more than a kick-about with kids in the park and talking about that glorious moment against the Italian giants to anybody willing to listen.
I think from the 1980s especially, football and music (especially Indie music) have been bed-fellows and having got a title, and knowing that music was very important to Paul, I decided to make it a theme of the book. ‘Stuck in a Moment You Can’t get Out Of’ was written about INXS front-man, Michael Hutchence, by Bono in which he is attempting to dissuade Hutchence from suicide, which is how things tragically ended.
As Maureen told me, there were times when she wondered whether the overdose (of prescription drugs) which resulted in Paul’s death in Bristol in August 2001, was accidental or intentional, which I think added to the poignancy of the song title.
HL: You tell Paul’s story partly through a telling of your own experiences researching the book. This serves to make you – alongside Paul, his family and the supporting cast – a character in the book. Why did you choose this approach? Did getting to know Paul help you to better understand yourself?
ST: I just wanted my book to be different, basically, so I chose a different approach, the controversial but, in my opinion, brilliant approach taken by Edmund Morris in his 1999 ‘memoir’ of Ronald Reagan, ‘Dutch’.
Although so different in many aspects, I saw Paul as a kindred spirit of sorts, particularly with regards to the depression we have both suffered from. One of things I discovered from my time in hospital in the past was that you desperately want to help the other patients in there with you, and in this sense, just as Bono wished he could have that one last conversation with Michael Hutchence, there was an element in there of me wishing I had been around to ‘save’ Paul. Despite his fallibilities and the path he followed into crime and addiction, I felt an empathy towards him.
If I learnt anything more about myself writing this book, that really came during my time in hospital when I discovered I wasn’t alone and that our ‘community’ is effectively one huge self-help group in which I would include Paul and myself as members.
As the author found the former President of the United States of America an illusive subject, 'Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan' by Edmund Morris uses a faux historical narrator to lead the reader through the innate mysteries of the man and his life story
HL: The notion of junctions is briefly discussed in the book as a way of understanding those choices that, once made, greatly affect the course a life takes. Given all that you know of the man, his talents and, perhaps, his limitations, how do you reflect on the ways in which Paul navigated the junctions he encountered in his life?
ST: Looking back, it’s pretty clear, I think, that at these various junctions, Paul made bad decisions. But, I think this is understandable because his choices were no doubt warped by a sense of victimhood and bitterness.
There were times when Paul rallied, though, such as when his son, Jamie, was born and when he became a Christian, but it seems he was never able to sustain any kind of recovery.
One of the people I interviewed for the book was the journalist, Ron Hughes, who met Paul and Maureen towards the end of 1985, Paul having recovered from a near-fatal stabbing in East Street Market off the Old Kent Road earlier in the year. Rob wrote an article – ‘The Giddy Fall From Highbury to Heroin’ – in the Sunday Times which attracted invites from some minor football clubs offering Paul the chance to ease back into playing again. He also, via Rob, got offers of help from surgeons. But none of these opportunities were taken up, even when Rob personally drove him, for example, to Clapton FC who had offered to help Paul and take him in.
Rob told me, “We spoke an awful lot on the phone...there was never a lack of will with him but what there was, was a lack of willpower...He was ashamed of what he was doing [drugs]. At the same time...he couldn’t break the cycle.” (p.239).
HL: Knowing the key facts of Paul’s life and career, one might think that his descent and early death is the improbable part of story. However, there are aspects of his pre-injury life – such as drug use, criminality and a suicide attempt – that might lead one to ascribe a degree of inevitability to the turns his later life would take. So, given that such self-destructive tendencies appeared to make his life consistently precarious, one might ask: Were his early, truly exceptional successes more improbable than what came later?
ST: I think there was an inevitability about Paul’s fate, that however long his career had been, Paul would have ended up taking the path he did, that he would have had to face the challenge of living without football.
As the financial rewards back then were miniscule in comparison to today, footballers generally had to find another source of income after their careers came to an end. Paul took odd jobs here and there but none of them lasted. As his younger brother Lee explained, “because he couldn’t do the thing he wanted to do anymore… he didn’t want to do anything else. He just wanted to play football.” (p.227). He just couldn’t cope with life without football and he turned, therefore, to the other thing he knew that could replace the highs he had experienced as a footballer, and that was drugs.
I think the fact that he had momentarily tasted glory and the end of his career was so premature, it only acted to make the contrast between what he’d had and the humdrum life and normality he now had to return to even more stark and, subsequently, his search for a replacement for those highs even more desperate. Paul once told Richie Powling that if he hadn’t been a footballer, he would have been a junkie, as if that was his only alternative option, and of course, that’s how things turned out.
He didn’t want to do anything, be a postman, work on a building site or even as a football coach. There were offers to do the latter, but Paul couldn’t contemplate the idea of teaching youngsters how to do something he couldn’t do any longer. No other job could possibly match what he’d had as a footballer, so he turned to the only other thing he knew of that may at least get him near, which was drugs.
Paul had worked tirelessly to get to where he did in football and to those who saw him play as a youngster, there was never any doubt he’d make the big time and that he deserved his place in the spotlight, however fleeting that turned out to be.
HL: People have used stories such as Paul’s to illustrate the foolishness of the assertion that football is more important than matters of life and death. However, I wonder whether Paul’s story shows that it’s not quite as simple as that. Does his post-retirement descent reflect that dreams of a life in football can mean altogether too much?
ST: I used to love Bill Shankly’s quote, but as time has gone by and we’ve witnessed Heysel, Bradford, Hillsborough etc, I have changed my opinion.
Football has always provided me, as it does for all of us, a sense of identity, of belonging, of purpose and escapism. Highbury in particular, was somewhere I could go and be somebody else. It gave me something to look forward to, to get me through the week. And it has always stuck with me, been there for me and helped get me through some tough times.
But more important things have come along now and when all is said and done – and despite the fact it can be addictive, an obsession – football really is just a game. It is more vital for some more than others but at best, I’d say it is the most important of the unimportant things. However, when you look at Paul’s case, football was so, so important that it played a major role in his death.
I think youngsters should continue to be warned about the pitfalls, reminded of the reality that only a very few make it big and that you shouldn’t take things for granted, put all of your eggs in one basket. That you should always have a Plan B for the future, for if you don’t make it as a professional footballer, as pointless and unnecessary as it may seem at the time.
HL: For you, is Paul’s mum, Maureen, ultimately the hero of this story?
ST: Without a doubt, Maureen is the hero of the book, but that’s not to forget what Paul’s dad and brother went through too.
Maureen has had such an incredible amount to deal with; the breaking up of her family; her split from her husband; both of her sons on heroin at the same time; being threatened by drug dealers at her own front door; being talked about on the estate where she lived; losing Paul; losing her partner, Ernie a few years ago. But to her absolute credit, she is still standing.
I took Maureen to Emirates Stadium for the launch of Kenny Sansom’s autobiography in May 2008 where she got to meet Kenny and reminisce about the times when Kenny would come round to her place for parties and have everybody in stitches with his impersonations. She also had a chat with Terry Venables who had written the foreword for Kenny’s book. He was unaware that Paul had passed away, which sort of said it all, really.
Her family means the absolute world to her and she visits Paul most weeks where he is in Albin & Sons memorial garden in Culling Road, SE16. Maureen took me there on the first day we met which meant a lot to me. We became very close and my only regret is that we have lost touch.
I understand she has unfortunately suffered further misfortune since the book was completed, not only with the loss of Ernie, but, very sadly, with the loss of Leon too, ‘Big Lee’ passing away in April this year after a long illness.
Leon was naturally more reserved than Maureen but was nonetheless happy that Paul was going to be back in the limelight for a while at least and that some good may come of it. Despite facing his own problems, I couldn’t have written the book without the contribution of Paul’s brother, ‘Little Lee’.
The family couldn’t have been more welcoming or accommodating and I can only hope that I did them, and Paul, justice.
THREE QUOTES
Here are some highlights from the book as chosen by the author, a fellow Arsenal writer - in this case, Library Legend Amy Lawrence - and me.
1. The author's choice
“’He took it so badly,’ [Paul’s brother] Lee continues. ‘He was suicidal. He was on the edge, very, very close to pulling the plug. I remember the day he packed up, the day the doctors told him he couldn’t play anymore. He came home and just sat on the edge of the sofa and cried his eyes out. He said, “What am I going to do now, Lee? What the f—k am I going to do now?”” (p.201)
Stewart Taylor: "I have selected this quote because I feel it conveys rather achingly the desperation of Paul’s situation, the crux of the problem footballers face in terms of occupying themselves in their post-football lives, the contrast between the euphoria football can bring and, at the other end of the scale, the sense of desolation and hopelessness when it’s over. It’s a situation in which every player will one day find themselves. Of course, the impact must be greater when you’ve reached the top – even just, like Paul, fleetingly – and retirement comes a lot earlier than expected.
You hear it more and more these days, the tales of those seduced by the football dream, who, like Paul, woke up to the catastrophic reality of reality. The dilemma still exists today, that even though clubs do more these days to prepare their youngsters for post-football life, you cannot stop a dreamer from dreaming. After all, if you don’t have a dream, how are you going to make a dream come true?
In the end, nothing could have prepared Paul for the nightmare of ‘normal’ life. Paul felt he was invincible. He’d dedicated his life almost one-hundred-percent to football, invested everything in it and now it was gone and he had no back-up plans. Why would he need back-up plans? Quite simply, to help fill time and the huge void in front of him. And the only thing he found which could replicate the highs/heights of success were those he got from drugs.
The quote I have selected illustrates the harsh realities of football, how fragile it can be, that you’re only one late tackle away from the end. And the way in which the Arsenal fans turned on Paul, of course, seriously exacerbated his problems and haunted him for many years to come. The late Terry Neill summed it up nicely when he said, ‘In football, you’re a hero one day, a bum the next.’ Although a wonderful, wonderful moment in Turin, perhaps, with hindsight, it would have been easier on Paul had he stayed on the bench that night."
2. The Library Legend's choice
"'When I think of Paul Vaessen,' [Terry] Neill tells me, 'my first thought is tragedy. Then guilt, a huge amount of regret and guilt. Absolutely. Obviously it was a tragedy with his injury, his knee and you immediately think could I have done more, should I have done more and the answer is always 'yes'. It's always going to be a 'yes', unless you're telling lies... I'm very sorry to hear Paul felt he had a gripe against the Arsenal. I'd be very surprised if he had a genuine gripe with regards his injury or his treatment as Arsenal have always been absolutely magnificent on the medical side.' What was lacking was the after-care for a twenty-one-year-old who had just lost his dream, his livelihood, and who now had to return, physically and psychologically wounded and unprepared, to humdrum society and find something else a lot less stimulating to do. 'But how long do you go on?'' continues Neill. 'How much can you do for an individual?... When Paul left Arsenal in the summer of 1983, I had immediate concerns here. We'd just lost two semi-finals. I was under pressure, I was fighting for my life as well and I had other players here to be concerned about... But at the same time the first thing you feel is an immense guilt because you'd like to help anybody, whether you've known them, whether you've been pals, whatever they've been, just fellow human beings.'" (p.163)"
Amy Lawerence: "This is a deeply personal and emotive book, and this section reflects how complex the relationship between sporting values and human values can be. Certainly there was far less thought and care about the psychological damage of a young person leaving sport, and mental health in general, when Paul was playing. Society was far more repressed in general, and even within dressing rooms people kept their innermost feelings or fears to themselves. We are more switched on nowadays, but even so a modern day manager would find it hard to have time for every individual's circumstances within the bigger picture pressure of the game and the attention and scrutiny and problems that need constant attention. This section highlights how Paul's situation was able to drift, and the damage deepened."
3. The Librarian's choice
"I was on the trail of Paul Vaessen for quite a while. He has been in my head every day for the past five years. He became something of an obsession and it’s not surprising, therefore, that he featured in many of my dreams during that time. One in particular sticks in my mind. I dreamt one night – it was in January 2013 that Paul’s spirit paid me a visit. He was standing outside my window, looking in, watching over me, keeping an eye on what I was doing, what I was writing. He was silent and I like to think that had he been uncomfortable about what I was doing, he would have said something. But he seemed content. I tried calling out to him a couple of times but barely made a sound. Then he was gone. And that’s the closest I ever got to Paul. Time to move on. Rest in peace, Paul." (p.xxi)
Me: "This quote helps us to understand the strength of Stewart’s commitment to Paul’s story. More than anything else, the book is testament to this author’s extraordinary pursuit of a short, elusive life. This pursuit is characterised by uncommon and wholly admirable openness: the openness of the author to find echoes of Paul’s struggles in himself; the openness of the family to share their Paul, even though joyful recollections are mixed with unbearable pain."
AFTERWORD
Needless to say, I recommend ‘Stuck in a Moment: The Ballad of Paul Vaessen’ most highly. It’s a lesser-told football story. It’s an important Arsenal story. It’s a compelling human story that shows us how youthful vibrancy and exhilarating talent can be accompanied by darkness and fragility. Perhaps most important, though, is how this story is told. The towering achievements of this book are built around Stewart’s commitments to truth, emotional honesty and compassion for a family’s love for a cherished son and brother. Here, a joyous and brutal story is beautifully told. It’s a masterpiece.
Huge thanks are owed to Stewart Taylor. During the preparation of this feature article, he and I have been in regular correspondence, and it’s become pleasingly common to receive a lengthy, thoughtfully-written email from Stewart. As is shown in the ‘Meet the Author’ section, his highly reflective responses to my questions demonstrated an openness to revisit Paul’s story, the writing process and the resulting book. To explore this with Stewart has been a pleasure and a privilege.
To finish, I’d like to thank not only Amy Lawrence for selecting the ‘Library legend’ quote and Jem Maidment for kindly contacting Stewart on my behalf, but also you – the reader – for taking the time to make it through this challengingly long read. I hope you found some points of interest along the way and, moreover, that you feel suitably encouraged to read – or, perhaps, re-read – this coruscating, empathetic, captivating, innovative, heart-wrenching, wonderful book.
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