S ometimes the detail of a single life story can stop half a nation in its tracks. I had the radio on in the kitchen in the background while I was working to a tight deadline.
As soon as Wright started to talk about his childhood, though, I gave up all hope of finishing what I was writing and gave the broadcast my fullest attention. I texted Lisa, my wife, and my daughters to tell them to stop what they were doing and turn it on.
By the end, I was crying nearly as much as Wright was. What were the stories that Wright told to produce this reaction? There were three, in particular. The first was a raw memory from when he was 11 years old and was waiting for his estranged father to bring him some money so he could buy a pair of decent trousers to go on a community trip to the seaside the following day.
On this occasion, Wright recalled sitting alone and anxious at the entrance to the block of flats in Brockley, south London, where he lived, from 9. Then there was the recollection of the domestic violence suffered by his mother at the hands of his stepfather, a pain that was triggered, as it was always triggered for him, by the first bars of the Ike and Tina Turner song River Deep — Mountain High, one of his chosen discs, a record that always caused his mother to break down.
I saw what he did to her. And then there was the third story. In among all of that reinhabited pain, there was a recollection of the first small window of redemption or escape. In later life the pair had lost touch — Wright thought his teacher had died — until they were reunited in a TV documentary.
A video of that surprise reunion, in which Wright, the famous footballer and pundit, is transformed once again by the sight of his teacher into that seven-year-old boy, received millions of internet views. Mr Pigden had been one of the veteran pilots chosen for a Battle of Britain flypast of Buckingham Palace.
Among those who also heard that episode were editors at Scholastic, who soon afterwards contacted Wright to see if there was a book he could write for pre-teens who might be growing up facing similar issues to him. Through a football podcast Wright had become friends with the poet and writer Musa Okwonga, and they talked about Okwonga maybe helping Wright to construct that book.
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Build a side from across eras By Tony Mogan. But I was getting all this adulation after being starved of love when I was a child. So I lost focus. Move them out of your life, and focus back on what got you where you are. If I could go back and tell my year-old self what was going to happen to him, the thing that would really blow his mind would be when I told him he was going to play for England. Get out my face. Do me a favour mate and just piss off. My younger self would be really happy about being a dad.
When I started going out with his mum, I knew I wanted to treat him like my son. He is my son. Because all I wanted was for Shaun to have a better upbringing in respects of having a stepdad than I did. My younger self would not believe that I would end up being a regular on Match of the Day. The holy grail of TV programmes.
Playing football and speaking about football are two of the best things you can do. Going on unarguably the greatest football show in England, in the world, being a regular person on it, it really is the kind of stuff you never think about. Because remember I was still struggling to read and write properly from the ages of six to eight, and then I was in secondary school, not paying as much attention as I should, always behind.
To go from that to talking on Match of the Day …. I still get nervous before I go on. As soon as I hear that theme music it takes me to a place.
And the scrutiny that comes with that. He knew me when I was very raw and rough and ready and lost. And he was the one person in my whole life who made me feel like he cared.
He saw something in me that no one else saw, no one. I remember saying to him, am I professional, am I professional now? He remembers things long gone — the orange flowery wallpaper, where the TV stood, the Z-bed he shared with his brother Maurice. Most of all, he remembers the day his stepdad tried to strangle his mum.
It made me feel so helpless. His mother was not just a victim, but became an abuser. And then there were the Saturday nights when Ian would get excited to hear the Match of the Day theme tune. Just because he could. Not many years later, Match of the Day viewers would bear witness to the consequences of that abuse.
The scared, anxious boy became, in part, an angry if successful footballer.
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