In spite of this, and after a December trial that lasted two weeks, I was found guilty at St Albans Crown Court on the day before Christmas Eve 2004, and sentenced to eight years in prison.
I was sent to Wandsworth nick. In case you didn’t know, it’s the largest prison in the UK. They’ve had a lot of cricketers in there — for match fixing — not to mention Oscar Wilde, Ronnie Kray and Julian Assange but, surprisingly, I was Wandsworth’s first Premier League footballer. Things went all right for me in the nick — everyone likes talking about football in prison, even the governor — and I made a lot of friends in Wandsworth. There’s all sorts in the nick, not just criminals. Some of those blokes I’d trust more than I’ll ever trust any copper again. It’s one reason why today I’m involved with the Kenward Trust, which assists the resettlement of offenders.
Certainly things went better for me than they did for poor Mrs Fehmiu, who lost the sight in one eye. Three months after the trial she killed herself. I, on the other hand, spent my first year in Wandsworth doing a correspondence course in sports management because I knew eventually that I was going to be cleared.
Eighteen months after I went inside, Karen’s husband died of cancer. But frankly I had no idea that his dying would take quite so long. That’s a pretty fucked-up place to find yourself in, psychologically; hoping that some poor bloke whose wife you’ve been shagging will die so that you can get out of prison, but that’s pretty much how I was feeling at the time. Straight away she contacted the police to explain that on the afternoon of the rape she’d been with me. But the police said the case was closed and told her to go away.
So she took her story to the Daily Telegraph, who started to campaign for my release. Almost immediately they discovered that Inspector Twistleton, who had led the inquiry into Mrs Fehmiu’s rape, was facing sixty-five disciplinary charges including an assault on a black police officer. It soon became clear that not only was Twistleton a racist — in view of some of the words he’d used in my cell, this was no surprise to me — he was also a member of the National Front. Incredibly, the condom used in the rape was now ‘found’ by someone in Willesden Police Station and even after eighteen months there was enough DNA there to clear me of any involvement.
Three judges at the Court of Appeal quashed my conviction and I was released from the cells at the Royal Courts of Justice the same day. Subsequently eight newspapers paid libel damages to me totalling almost a million pounds. The police were also ordered to pay half a million pounds in damages for false imprisonment, although on appeal these were reduced to one hundred grand because I had chosen to omit telling the police that Karen could have provided me with an alibi. Not that the money was important. The damage was done. My playing career was over and even without knowing about Karen my wife had divorced me.
On my release I decided I needed to get away from England. For a while I went to live with my grandparents in Germany, and then I went to study at the Johan Cruyff Institute in Barcelona, which opened in 2002. I’d done a BA in Modern Languages at Birmingham University so I spoke a bit of Spanish, and in Barcelona — my favourite European city — I did a one-year course in Sports Management and then an eight-month postgrad in Football Management. In 2010 I obtained my UEFA certificates and accepted a trainee coaching role with Pep Guardiola at FC Barca. In 2011, I became the first team trainee coach at Bayern Munich and worked with Jupp Heynckes, who was an old friend of my dad. He was part of the West German squad in 1974 although, like Dad, Jupp was injured and spent most of the tournament on the bench.
I’ve thought about poor Mrs Fehmiu a lot, however; the only time I ever saw her was in court and I felt her pain. A couple of years ago I got involved with another charity called Rape Crisis; I help to fund a Rape Crisis Centre in Camden, because the way I see it I was a victim of Mrs Fehmiu’s rapist too. Of her rapist, of the newspapers, and of the Metropolitan Police.
I try not to be bitter about what happened. I tell myself that to some extent it was my own fault. And yet I still feel a sense of grievance. I know I should get over it and put it all behind me and perhaps, in time, I will. Of course it’s one thing giving good advice to others in such matters, it’s something else when you try to take that advice yourself. But here’s one truth I have learned that I try to pass on to all my players: when the worst has already happened, nothing can hurt you. That’s as true on the football pitch as it is in life. Because there is always a next time.
I am not a philosopher of football like João Zarco, you understand. To me, managing a football team is just common sense with a scarf on.
8
The next day I went back to Silvertown Dock and took another look at the hole with Colin Evans and João Zarco. It was cold and the sky above the stadium was a dispiriting shade of January grey. The rain and the police had gone but not the picket of reporters, who’d already gone to town on Drenno’s death and the Sicilian message that had surely been sent to Viktor Sokolnikov. Fortunately I hadn’t had to tell him about it because he’d read the story online and told me he thought the idea of such messages to be preposterous.
‘Where I come from, if you want a man dead you don’t warn him by sending him a message,’ he’d said. ‘And certainly not one as theatrical as this. It’s like something from the pages of a book by Mario Puzo. I appreciate you calling, Scott, and your concern for my reputation. But don’t worry about me. I can assure you, I am very well protected.’
This was true; Sokolnikov never moved without at least four bodyguards. One of them was a former Russian boxer, covered in tats, who looked like Vinnie Jones’ ugly big brother.
Now, Zarco stared into the hole and shook his head.
‘Football,’ he said. ‘It’s tribal, of course. And this kind of thing is what tribes do, isn’t it? It took billions of years for man to evolve from being a beast and a savage, but it only takes ninety minutes on a Saturday afternoon for all of that to come undone.’ He looked at Colin. ‘Can you fix this little divot, Colin? Before the Newcastle match?’
‘It won’t be easy,’ said Colin, ‘but I can fix it, yes. It takes seven to ten days for a new pitch or a bit of turf to bed in. But what about the police, boss? I reckon I could get myself into trouble here. This is a crime scene, isn’t it? Suppose that bloody Inspector Neville finds that I’ve filled in his hole? Suppose he comes back here this morning?’
Zarco pulled a face. Sometimes his face was as rubbery as a comedian’s.
‘To look at the hole again?’ he said. ‘It’s just a bloody hole in the ground, isn’t it? Besides, it’s not his hole, it’s our hole. And it doesn’t belong in the middle of a football pitch.’
‘Listen to him,’ I told Colin. ‘He sounds just like Bernard Cribbins.’
Colin knew I’d made a joke although he didn’t understand it. I make a lot of jokes like that, which nobody understands. That’s what happens when you get older. Zarco didn’t understand it either, but then he was Portuguese.