Do You Know What? by Andrew Flintoff

Author:Andrew Flintoff
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Blink Publishing
Published: 2018-10-17T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 13

CHIPS, BEANS AND LAMBORGHINIS

The simple things

I like to think I still have working-class values, but I can’t really claim to be working-class if I’ve got a Ferrari out the front and a Lamborghini in the garage. And when you’re not born into privilege, there is a guilt attached to having money. I get embarrassed turning up to certain places in the Ferrari, especially if I go back to Preston to see some old mates. Or I’ll worry about old mates coming round my house. But I’m not really sure what I’m meant to do. It’s strange, because half of me worries that people will think I’m flash, but the other half of me likes driving a nice car and living in a nice house. It confuses me a little bit. Even writing this is difficult. I don’t want to come across as one of those dicks always going on about how humble they are. At the same time, I don’t want to come across as enjoying my wealth too much. I feel like I can’t win.

I’m happy in my own little world, with people I feel at home with. And I’m at my most comfortable with the lads I used to go drinking with at the social club. To them, I’m not a cricketer or a person off the telly, I’m just a lad they knew as a kid who’s done all right. Apart from Robbie Savage, who I speak to almost every day, I don’t knock around with anybody from the entertainment world, because I haven’t really got anything in common with them. I’ve got my mates in Preston, Paddy, Steve – who drives me up and down the country and who I spend a ridiculous amount of time with. I’ve got Keysey and Harmy from the cricket, but I don’t have a bank of cricketing pals from around the world.

I had a close group of friends at Lancashire, but when you retire from sport, your world just stops, while their lives carry on as before. Someone else takes your place in the team and suddenly he’s getting all the invites to teammates’ weddings and birthday parties. I moved to Dubai, and then to Surrey, because I wanted to escape that life. Everything had been turned upside down, I had no idea what I wanted to do. That meant losing contact with a lot of people. Then when I started doing the TV stuff, some people thought I’d dumped them, and was spending all my time hanging out with celebrities instead. What they didn’t understand was that I stopped being around them or phoning them up because they reminded me of what I still desperately wanted. I felt bad for a while, but then I thought, ‘Hang on a minute, why did nobody phone me? I’m the one who’s retired because of a knackered knee at the age of thirty-one, I need a bit of a hug. And I’ve only stopped playing cricket, I’m not dead.’

I bump into

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