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'A FEW of us not going to Euro 2000 got together and decided to hit Ayia Napa in Cyprus for a holiday. There was me and fellow footballers Frank Lampard, Michael Duberry, Jonathan Woodgate, Kieron Dyer, Jody Morris, Jason Euell and quite a few other mates. I love Napa for the vibe, it played my kind of music.
Just like most kids of our age, we watched the England v Germany game in a bar. It was a lively night — we were dancing around like mad things when England won 1–0. Later we fell out of a bar at about 7am and sat outside near the main road with these two birds. We were having burgers and kebabs, like you do after a big session. We told the birds that if they wanted to stay out with us they had to down a bottle of Bud. One did it but the other one couldn’t. We said that as a forfeit she had to go into the middle of the road and stop the traffic any way she could for 20 seconds. With cars going past to the left and right of her she started stripping and got her t*** out. The traffic stopped all right and all the geezers were going, ‘Yeahhhh!’
We all headed down to the beach with a load of beers, alcopops and WKDs. We told the birds they had to down another bottle if they wanted to stay with us … again the first one does it and the other one can’t. But I’m not going into what the forfeit was that time. Use your imagination.
On the same holiday came a notorious episode of a few birds and a videotape which, all these years later, is still used as a stick to beat me, Frank and Kieron with. I had sex with one girl, which was taped with her consent, and that was it. OK, I’ve played up to the camera a bit, but she knew it was on and it didn’t bother her. It was not one of those tiny cameras you can get these days. It was a bloody huge thing, you couldn’t miss it. My performance was on the same tape as a recording of Kieron and Frank with a couple of birds, but it wasn’t all at the same time. I didn’t even know about what they had done, it was not all one big orgy, as was reported.
Somehow, the camera got nicked. About two weeks later I got a call from a newspaper about a video of me shagging a bird. I could have fainted. The video was wrong, yet to me it was harmless, just part of growing up. The truth is some women will do anything to crack on with footballers and, let’s be fair, which young players would pass up the opportunity to take them up on some of their offers? Some birds will buy you drinks all night, strip for you, get shagged with other people in the room and do all sorts of tricks. It was highly embarrassing.
It’s not the best thing when pictures of you having sex are published in the papers. Even though it was harmless, it was just young lads on holiday having fun…’
