Les Crang
'There are a lot of young kids out there who are doing drugs and feel they have lost all hope,' he said in 1994. 'I know, because I have lived through the same thing. I'm telling my story to show there is a way out.' Paul Vaessen, News of the World, 1994.
Paul Vaessen’s retirement meant an unimaginable transformation for a 21-year-old. It meant not having the adulation from 40,000 players (actually, by the early 1980s, 18,000 was more common, and with Peter Nicholas in midfield I know why). It meant not having something to get up for. It meant no money. In the 1980s, players were relatively moderately paid, one journalist saying that a footballer of Vaessen's standing in the 1980s would have earned around £150 a week. In that era, the power belonged to the club and not the player.
Vaessen, in an interview with the News of the World, said of his being let go of by Arsenal ‘I was just 21, and, when the doors of Highbury shut behind me, I had no idea what to do....I was on the scrap heap.’
In many ways, the way players were treated was not uncommon at Arsenal or other English clubs. A famous instance of Arsenal’s lack of consideration to former players is the Eddie Hapgood case. Hapgood was Arsenal’s 1930s captain and the club’s most-capped player at one time. He’s even on the Emirates Wall of Heroes around the Stadium. Arsenal fail to mention a story Brian Glanville recites - ‘In 1969 there appeared a book called `Arsenal from the Heart' by Bob Wall, who had crawled his way up from being Chapman's office boy to chief executive. The book alleged that, at the end of the War, Hapgood and the former right-half and future Gunners' Manager "Gentleman" Jack Crayston had demanded benefit payments, been refused and had appealed unsuccessfully to the Football League. Then, when Arsenal, in better financial shape, had offered them the money, they had turned it down.
‘Wall should have smelled a rat immediately. Such benefit payments, some £750 for each five years of service, were purely optional and at the clubs' discretion. As luck had it, I was then due to go down to Weymouth in South West England to interview Eddie for a television programme I was making for the BBC series, `One Pair Of Eyes'. He was then in charge of a hostel for apprentices of the Atomic Agency. When I told him this tale he was horrified, and produced a folder of correspondence with Arsenal. Having lost his last managerial job at little Bath City, he had written to Arsenal asking for help, as he had never had a benefit. They sent him £30!’
It’s a rather sad indictment of the club.
The Times reported ‘between the age of 19 and 21, Vaessen was operated on three times, unsuccessfully, for a damaged cruciate ligament. Arthritis, the doctors told him, had already set in, and he knew that arthritis had crippled his father's career as a professional at Millwall.’
After leaving the club Vaessen worked as a builder and as a postman. Whilst working in the post office, one ex-colleague commented ‘I listened to the game on Radio London in a pub called the White Hart (great name, eh?). The reception was terrible and I don’t think I knew who scored the goal until about two in the morning, but that was a good night-shift in the post office at the KEB. Ten years later, Vaessen was working with us. No wonder he was pissed off.’
Vaessen had tried marijuana when he was 13 years old, and during his injury lay-off, one article states ‘The pain wasn't, however, physical or emotional, and when a friend offered Vaessen some marijuana to relieve his suffering he accepted.’
Don Howe, assistant coach at the time, suspected something, saying in an interview 'To be honest, I don't know why. I don't think anybody knew. It's typical, but the players knew more about the boy than we did, how he was outside the game.' Arsenal physio, Gary Lewin, a youth-team goalkeeper at the time and friend of Vaessen’s during his playing-time, said 'My memory of him was that he was quite outward-going, but with professional footballers sometimes you don't really know what's going on with them. They can be like that to cover up any problems they might have in the football world. At that age you don't really get to know people well.'
Having tried marijuana, and with his career ended, Vaessen started going around with friends who introduced to him the world of heroin. Within eighteen months of leaving Arsenal, Vaessen had lost what money he had, his wife, his son and even his parents, who saw their son regularly 'drugged up to the eyeballs' on his £125 per day habit. To feed his habit, Paul resorted to a life of crime - shoplifting, mugging and theft. In 1985, on the Old Kent Road Vaessen was stabbed six times while trying to score heroin. The Guardian (22/10/94) explained what happened.
‘Vaessen was stabbed three times in a London street, the victim of a drug feud. Apparently, he had been the go-between handing a ‘friend's’ £200 to a dealer who took the money and never came back with the goods. "I was a fool," Vaessen told me. "I thought the smack would cheer me up, but nothing is worse than being hooked on heroin."’ Rushed to Guys Hospital, Vaessen needed 40 pints of blood while his heart stopped twice after. It was a lucky escape.
While at Guys, Vaessen meet Lewin, who was training to be a physio there after his own career had ended through injury. Lewin said ‘I bumped into him on the ward, funnily enough. Then I lost track of him... I didn't like to ask too much.' After four days, Paul left hospital when he should have been there for months, recuperating. The desire for drugs was that strong. His mother said a few months later ‘He's physically fit again, but it worries me to death that he can't find his level and his meaning in life. He never cared for nothing more than his football.’ It seemed his new care was only his habit for drugs.
After such a near-death experience, Paul tried to pull his life around, going to detox for seven weeks in Bexleyheath. Afterwards, he moved to Andover, meeting Sally Tinkler, who already had a young daughter. After living together for a year, they moved to Farnborough to be near her family. Paul found work as a paint-sprayer, had a son (called Jack) and found Jesus. Vaessen then planned to follow in Gary Lewin’s footsteps and become a physiotherapist.
Unfortunately, the plan fell through, while Paul’s knee also meant he had to quit working. As his life disintegrated, he reverted to his old habit of drugs. His relationship with Sally and the children also disintegrated, with Paul’s step-daughter having to ring her grandmother saying, 'Daddy is slumped over the banister with a needle in his arm.' The girl’s grandmother went round to the house and took the children away.
Finally, Paul was evicted from the house, living briefly in Bristol before returning to Farnborough with his drug habit following close behind. In 1998, Vaessen was arrested for stealing ladies’ tights from Asda. Police found him in the toilet, talking to himself. Having hit out at the arresting officer when he fell on his bad leg, he was charged with assault.
At the trial, Vaessen's solicitor, Andrew Purkiss, told Aldershot magistrates, 'This is a very tragic case. Twenty years ago, my client was on top of the world with everything to look forward to. But, at 21, he was told by doctors he would be crippled if he played professional football again. His whole life was turned upside down and he was totally desperate. In those days there was no counselling or after-playing help and he was told by Arsenal, "Goodbye and good luck".'
Vaessen was sentenced to 90 days, and then lived with his brother in Bristol. On 8th August, 2001, Paul was found dead by a friend, Jason Murphy. He was aged just 39. The Coroner, the Bristol Observer noted, said that the autopsy had ‘revealed high levels of drugs in Mr Vaessen's blood.’ Don Howe said on learning of his passing 'There are so many things out there that can alter a footballer's career. What they need is one little bit of help. The clubs have to be very aware of that.'
Tony Adams, a man with his own inner demons said after Vaessen’s passing, 'It's very sad but that is the illness of addiction for you. This is what can happen and people should realise just how serious it is. When it goes wrong for them, footballers can get forgotten and feel very isolated so they don't know where to turn. Some can use drugs or drink. I hope the kind of work I'm doing with my charity (The Sporting Chance Clinic) will mean that people like Paul Vaessen will know where to turn in the future.'
For me, Vaessen’s passing is sad on many levels. In one way, it’s that he’s rarely remembered by the club (wouldn’t it be nice if he was on the Emirates wall?). Also, it’s that sad and nice Vaessen loved Arsenal, even after retiring and on drugs. Teenagers would have a kick around with him saying ‘his eyes used to light up when he talked about Arsenal’. It’s also sad the way he was treated by the fans themselves, especially in the Winterslag game. Years later he remained philosophical about the Highbury crowd, saying in an interview with Jon Spurling, ‘Some blokes are born to play football. I’m not simply referring to their talent - I’m also talking about mental toughness. As you can see (at this he lifted his shaking hands - a sure sign of drug addiction) I’ve never been the strongest of people. It was very strange the thing with the crowd.
