6 things we've learned so far from Craig Bellamy's autobiography

The Welsh player recalls that infamous golf club incident and his problems with Alan Shearer.

CRAIG BELLAMY’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY, GoodFella, is currently being serialised in the Daily Mirror, and there are more than a few interesting revelations emerging already.

Below are six of the most interesting assertions made by Bellamy in the publication.

1. Himself and ‘Ginge’ don’t always get along

Bellamy recalled the famous time when he attacked John Arne Riise with a golf club – an incident he claimed was exaggerated.

“He was facing away from me and covering his eyes with his hands because the lights had been switched on.

“I just whacked him across the backside with the club.

“You couldn’t really call it a swing. It was just a thwack, really.”

2. His relationship with Riise is positively healthy in comparison to the one with Alan Shearer

“I’ve seen his bite.

“His ‘Big, hard Al’ act wasn’t for me.

“I have seen younger boys than me put him in his place on the team coach.

“I watched him digging out Lomana LuaLua once, and when LuaLua told him to go to the back of the coach and say it to his face, Al didn’t fancy that much.”

3. David Moyes put him off signing for Everton

They tried to imagine certain scenarios and dictate how I would react.
“If I ask you to move to the right in the 60th minute, I don’t want you shaking your head” or “If you have got something to say, do not speak to anyone else about it, come and see me.”

They went on and on.

I thought ‘Where are we going with this?’

It was a completely different individual to the guy I was speaking to a month ago.

4. Kenny Dalglish helped get him through Gary Speed’s death

“If I go home now,” I said to Kenny, “I will be even worse. I need to train tomorrow.”

I was still crying as I said it.

Kenny has seen too much grief. He knew how to deal with mine.

“Go home, Bellers,” he said.

I didn’t sleep that night.

5. He had a strained relationship with Robinho and thought he wasn’t trying hard enough in training

“You always talk,” Robinho said. “It should be the manager who talks, not you.”

“If I’ve got something to say, I’ll f****** say it,” I said.

“Okay,” Robinho said, trying to bring the conversation to an end, “don’t talk to me again.”

“What are you on about?” I said. “You mean talk to you as in talking to you at all or talk to you after the game?”

“No, no, we are finished,” he said.

6. He had big communication problems with Roberto Mancini

“OK, then, you have been away for two weeks,” he said. “Now you can go home for the rest of the season. Go on.”

“What are you on about?” I said.

“Well, you don’t want to train,” he said.

“It’s not that I don’t want to train,” I told him. “I know my knee. I know it will react tomorrow if I train again. And if it doesn’t, my hamstrings will.”