Gary Lineker: The Private Battles Behind a Public Life

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1:39And Gary Lineker relishing the service. That one was a gift, but he was there. Superbly dubbed. Lineker! The chances today are all ending up in the back of the net. Lineker! And Gary Lineker has pounced and now the England supporters are making themselves heard. Gary's coming home.

2:16This is so exciting. So first of all, I just want to let you know, Gary Lineker, man of the people. He's here. He's got a taxi. Forget the man of the people. He's not at all. Look, he's giving a tip. Man of the people, I take that back. Hello, you. Get up, get up. Get up. Gary. It's you. I know. I know I am. Gary. I'm not that thin now. I'm so excited. Come on, Gary.

2:55I'm quite excited. Can you tell? You seem a little bit excited. It's just that I've known you forever. Yeah. But I don't know you. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, it's a public eye thing, isn't it? Yeah. That we have met occasionally over the years. We've done various shows together. And we saw each other at the NTAs last year, which was brilliant. But it's an honour to have you here. I think for somebody to still be relevant in the public eye after such a long and illustrious career is worth celebrating. Well, thank you. And well done. Likewise. Still here. We're still here. Still going. Still punch you.

3:35So I'd like to talk to you first off because you've got this new show on ITV. And I was a bit like, you know, how many ideas can there be for TV? How unique can it be? Oh, my God. I got Presenter's Envy. Did you? It's so good. It's a lot of fun. So tell us a bit about it. It's on ITV. It's on ITV. It'll be coming in September, early September, I think. What day? What time? Saturdays and Sundays for four weeks. Primetime, of course. Obviously. This is Gary Lineker. Come on. We don't do anything but primetime, are we? And you don't have to do anything except for enjoy it. I'm so jealous. That's very true.

4:18It's a bit, it's watching people mostly have fun, but also face their fears and all sorts of different challenges. So it's basically, we've got 10 celebrities and these 10 big yellow boxes, a bit like telephone boxes, but you can't see out of them. So they wheeled these trucks around, these boxes around the country, and the celebrities inside the box don't know when the box opens, where they are, what they're about to face, and it could be anything. And I don't want to give obviously too much away to people because part of the surprise is mostly the fun of the show. But some of the challenges are, you know, the i360 at Bright, for example, we managed to get one of them on top of that in the sky.

5:06And they walk out and it's like, wow, what have I got to do? And there's also a challenge after that. So, you know, they come out of the boxes in front of a botlins crowd and all sorts of, I won't tell all of them, but they really went for it. I mean, this is the kind of show you have to throw yourself into, I think, as a celebrity. Definitely. They are having to take themselves out of their comfort zones. And they're usually used to public arenas, but this is next level what you put them through. Well, some of them. Some of them are actually just a bit of fun or some of them are actually a little bit thoughtful.

5:46They've got to work themselves through something. So it's not all horrible, but there's always a degree of the fear of the unknown as they step out of the box. I had a lot of it was something totally different. I hadn't really done anything like that before. I've obviously hosted shows outside of football, but but something like this was sort of gamey reality show. Yeah, it was different. I mean, you've done lots. And it's it's a huge it's on such a huge scale. and you are having to think out of the box. Indeed. Very good. Boom. Do you want me to write for you? You could do it. I mean, there are a million puns, right?

6:31You should do a lot of presenting. You should try presenting. Have a go at that. I mean, you've had such a varied career because this is, you're in your 60s now and you are presenting like a mega, entertainment TV programme. That's so inspiring for other people, I think, as we age, to see you living your best life. It's still possible. Yeah. As pensioners, we can still soldier on. I'd like to talk to you as well about Goal Hangout. Am I right in saying that you set up that business like 12 years ago? About that. It was originally a sports production business with my partner, Tony Pastor, who I always stayed in touch with.

7:15We used to work together at the BBC a long time ago. And then he was headhunted by ITV to run football there, to be head of football. So he did that for many years, but we all stayed in touch. And then we met one day and talked about doing something together. He'd already started on his own doing this production company, but we joined, we made lots of sports docs. We did, you know, Rooney, Kevin Peterson, Anthony Joshua, did three with him. You did three documentaries with Anthony Joshua? With Anthony Joshua, yeah. Did you? Yeah, about 11 years ago, 10 years ago, yeah. When he was making his name.

7:52So we did a few of those and then we discovered podcasts. I did a podcast because we thought, what is this podcast? Shall we do one? And we're going, yeah, maybe. So we thought we'd do something. I did something with Danny Baker called Behind Closed Doors, like footballer meets football fan. and Danny's you know really funny he's so funny and he did okay and we thought we got a book deal and it was very early days of podcasting we thought there might be something in this and then we'd always done sport though and then Tony was in a bookshop and he was he's a big World War II aficionado and he was looking for a book on World War II and he called me he said the top four books four of the books in the top ten are about World War II I went oh great because I'm not really fussed about World War II but so I said oh great and he said so I thought I'd look for a podcast and I can't find one I went oh that's a shame and he went shall we do one I went what on World War II I said we've only ever done sport and in the end we did we did with Al Murray the comedian who's a massive World War II aficionado and his friend James Holland and it proved really quite popular it's a niche subject but it does really well We have a World War II festival every year now.

9:12Yeah, for that podcast, yeah. And then from there... And in terms of kids... We went from James Holland to Tom Holland. At school? Yeah. As well as so interesting. Sorry, James Holland to Tom Holland. So James Holland said Tom, his brother, wants to do one on all history, and then it took a while to get his partner. And in the end, he said, well, historian, mate. So who do you want to be with when you're in the pub? He went, well, Dominic Sunbrook. So you could say the rest is history, but you know I've used that one a few times before. But the rest is such a brilliant precursor to anything. In the end, it is.

9:44And it's quite interesting because we ummed and ahmed about whether to use it. Again. Again. Because the rest is history is obvious because it's actually a phrase. Whereas after that, the next one we did was politics. And there were only about four of us in the office back then. And we were arguing, should we do it? The rest is politics because it doesn't really make sense. but can we build a brand? And we went with the brand idea and proved to be good, yeah. I mean, it really works, and you know that they're all from the same stable. You know what you're going to get. You've built something you can trust.

10:20I hope so. Yeah, it's really, really good. No, I'm really proud of what we've built out of nowhere, but it didn't come about by accident, but it wasn't a preconceived plan to build this podcast empire. What's up your sleeve for the rest is? Up my sleeve. Well, we've been looking for a while at things like food and how you can do food because obviously food is very visual. But having said that, the podcast world now, as we can see here, everything is now filming. It is incredible. It's like a TV show. And we've obviously gone down that route as well. So food's impossible. And we're looking at one about power.

11:00And also true crime is a possibility. but there's nothing absolutely immediate at present but there's a couple trying, we're doing a few tryouts and things like that. I like going clubbing so if you could do the rest is raving, that would be great. The rest is raving. Whoop, whoop. It's just been me and a club. Yeah, just do that. I'm having a really good time. I'm going to be all right for about three episodes. Thanks, Gary. After that, I think you might run out of something to talk about. I won't be talking I'm just going to be dancing in great telly I think it's not only is it a good brand but it's also been such a massive success I mean it was something like 371 % like increase as a business it's been incredible it's just been nuts right I mean you were talking about four of you in the office how many are you now I think we're closing in on 100 but it's lovely I go in the office and it's just such a really young people.

12:06We're employing young people. They're enjoying it. Really diverse, super intelligent young people who are really enjoying their job. And that gives us so much satisfaction. It's great. It's lovely to be around young people. It helps. It does. It definitely does. Keep you young. Gary, you've got four boys. Yeah, I know. Michelle and you had four beautiful boys. How do they keep you grounded? quite easily by taking the piss out of me yeah that's what I mean like what do they do oh I don't know they they don't appreciate my dad jokes they've ripped me for that I love dad jokes it's almost like it's compulsive I'm not actually telling the jokes but it will always be like a ridiculous pun there will be one before the end of the I'd like to talk in fact about you and Michelle you had your boys and i know that george um when he was quite young he got was it leukemia yeah yeah yeah very young and he was very very poorly yeah but you were at the height of your football career and you know a dad and with michelle like how did you cope with that well we both coped with it differently um michelle's more spiritual than i am i'm kind of atheist i don't believe in any of that so um so we dealt with it in a in different ways was that difficult um not really no because it was equally difficult for both of us so um i mean he was about six years only six weeks old six weeks old and he had he had this so vulnerable it's not it's just he had this little bump on his head and we thought it's a bit odd but it was it wasn't just a bump it was like really hard so we thought i would take him in to see get it checked and they looked at it they said oh it looks like this kind of um skin condition that um we'll take a take a little biopsy and we'll report back in about 10 days so so we went we went home blah blah blah 10 days goes on he's now got lots of the bumps all over his head he's like a bit head was a bit like a golf ball um and it was really weird so we were obviously worried so we went back to the and there were two doctors in there and and they said well first thing it does look like it's this skin condition it's come back as so we thought so that's a relief like so and then I said well I said I said you say that but you know he's the last two three days he really does appear quite unwell and his glands are up a little bit under his arms and feel that i could feel that and his groins and and they they said oh okay so they went let's have a look so they took his his little outfit off and he took his nappy off and they've started feeling around and i'll never forget it they just i mean they just looked at each other and they went mr and mrs liniker i'm i'm really sorry but this this does appear to be something much more serious.

15:14It was like, what do you mean? So I said, well, we need to do some tests, obviously, but this does look like leukemia. So I've gone. I mean, yeah, it was just like being whacked. And then she said, I knew leukemia was a blood cancer, but I didn't know anything else, really, at that point in my life. So I said, well, what does that mean? And he said, well, we need to do some tests. The first thing, he's clearly very unwell. We need to get him within an hour in Great Ormond Street where he spent the next seven months. And it was so, it was hard. And also being in the public high made it some time, you know, most of the time in life, it's really good to be in the public.

16:08Everyone's lovely and we're lucky. have we're blessed lives and it's amazing but this man i mean i we were in there i was in there most of the night and i only made a couple of calls to family and terry venables who was the tottenham manager because you were playing for tottenham so terry said right he i said michelle's going to stay with him because there's just room for her i'm going to go home and then i'm going to he said he said i'm gonna pick you up in the morning i'll take you to the hospital um and i said thank you and terry came and i opened the curtains and there were hordes of paparazzi and tell it and it's like so i'm dealing with what i've you know this absolute terrifying news um and but we he took me to the hospital and then for about three weeks i i was there all day with Michelle and then I'd go home later at night she'd stay um there were ups and downs um they they were incredibly honest doctors as they are matter of fact and they the next morning when the test came through said right we know it's acute myeloid leukemia um blah blah blah and they said under these circumstances we would give him a between a 10 and 20 chance a survival making it and that is like it's hard to describe that emotion because most of it was just fear fear you know you just go and I used to have these recurring dreams of like carrying a white coffin little tiny white coffins but even though we were told at least twice that he might not make it through the night but he did and he kind of, whatever was thrown at him, he got through.

18:04But the other parents weren't as lucky as us next to us in the ward. Yes, I mean, when you experienced that as well. When you left the hospital and you knew he was through the worst, how did that change? Because I think an experience like that, of coming that close to losing someone you love or supporting someone trying to help you through something, it changes your whole life, right? It has to. Yeah. It has to. It's obviously your imminent life because you have to work around things. And also, as we know, the most important thing with cancer is to get the patient into remission. And they got George into remission quickly.

18:46That was important. But then you have to have other courses of chemo. And then it's a question of once the cancer's not there, it's whether it comes back. Yes. And, you know, even when you leave hospital, which we're seven months and in all clear, but at the same time, we do know there's a serious chance that it could come back. So they say five years for cure, five years post-treatment for cure. But, you know, we had four sons in the end. And if any of the other three had a cold or anything like that, you wouldn't think anything of it. But when George was like, oh, he's got a cold. Is it? is it like a spot on his face like a little spot because of his head thing you go and you never really relax on it but um but we were one of the lucky ones a lot of the parents did they didn't and what however ill he was he just clung on to a little bit of hope and that i think got us through it in in in different ways i i was always more comfortable and it helped me i found to talk about it.

19:55Michelle couldn't talk about it. So, you know, we dealt with things in our different ways or bit together. What's one thing you'd love to be able to say you've done? Well, Monzo's sponsoring Begin Again to help us win back some time so we could do more of what we love, like finally doing that thing. I want to know what that thing was for you. Let's have a look. Who have we got? Hi Davina, I'm turning 50 next May so I've written a list of 50 things to do before I'm 50 to push myself out of my comfort zone and be a bit braver. One of them is learning to skateboard. I've always thought skateboarders were so cool and no one in my family thinks I can do it.

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21:20So our energy is free to say yes to more things in life. Join the Begin Again Say Yes Club. I'll pop a link in the description. Monzo Current Accounts are for UK residents aged 16 plus. T's and C's apply. Ultra Running Shoes are all about space. The space to go further. To feel better. To do something you never thought possible. And this space starts with UltraFit. Unlike traditional running shoes, UltraFit gives toes more room to move naturally, so every step is strong, balanced, and comfortable. Whatever you're lacing up for, stay out there with Ultra. Shop now at ultrarunning.com. That's A-L-T-R-A running dot com.

22:05Chevy is called the heartbeat of America for a reason. With SUVs made to move with your rhythm. The versatile Equinox tackles your entire day. The spacious Traverse fits your crew and your whole weekend. And tracks bring style with value you can count on. All infused with tech that has your back. So your drive always hits the right chord. Chevrolet. Together, let's drive. Parenting. There's a little bit that I have met you and talked to you. We've talked about being parents and I know what a great dad you are and how plugged in you are. But I know that your parents were amazing. Can you just talk to me a bit about the influence that your parents had on you when you were a kid?

22:55Because you are a lot of your mum. I am a lot of your mum. But your dad's work ethic, he was a grafter, but also he sacrificed a lot for you, right? Oh, very much so. I'm definitely more my mum's personality because she's always quite calm. Whereas my dad's a bit more fiery. And he's a market trader and a card player and a drinker. And he lived life to the max, but he worked his socks off. And they used to go and watch me play all the time. And my brother, Wayne. How old were you when you started knowing that you loved football? Well, it's a little bit different to now because you didn't really play any kind of competitive football until you were about under 11.

23:45So it would have been 9, 10, around that age. By the time I was probably 12, 13, people were going, I was scoring ridiculous amounts of goals. But your dad saw it before then, didn't he? Well, he did, but because, I mean, we moved out of the city to a place called Kirby Muxlow, just outside the city centre. And I passed the 11 plus and it meant that I would go to, I only had one choice of school because of where we were about, where we just moved to. Yeah. And that was a rugby playing school. And my dad said, no, you know, he said that happened to me. He said, that's not happening to you. so they had you kicked a ball about with your dad could he see that you had a thing he must have done it was one of the last conversations we ever had he died about about 10 years ago and one of the last conversations we had was we were talking about my career and I went you know you did all these things because he moved house for me And I went to live with my grandparents for eight months, which was great because, boy, could she make a cake.

25:01So anyway, so they moved and I lived with my grandparents just so I could go and play for a football in school. And I had this conversation with him almost on his deathbed. And I said, you know, to do that, you must have saw something. He went, I always knew. I went, well, why didn't you ever tell me? He said, well, no, you've got to keep grounded and all this. But, I mean, I didn't know. I didn't know until I was well into my career that I, you know. But he always, you know, he was the only person on the planet that backed me to win the golden boot in 1986. I think he got about 16 to 1 or something.

25:41So there you go. Dad knew. Oh, my God. Dad knew. That's amazing. While we're on that, I just want to say you were the highest goal scorer until this World Cup. Oh, no. What was the... It's terrible, isn't it? You know, Gary, that is, well, first off, well done. For lasting that long. Yes. It's a record I had for a long time. It is incredible. Anyway, and well done, Harry Kane. But you were really lovely about him at that moment. Quite rightly so, because he's not only a wonderful footballer and a brilliant, brilliant goalscorer and hugely talented, but, you know, he's sound, isn't he? He's a really good bloke.

26:25You can tell. You can tell. I mean, do you know I've never met him? No, seriously. No, I've met lots of people. God, if we'd have met that, we'd have made that happen. And we've flown in. Eden, Eden, yes. We've flown in a thousand miles from Munich to be here with you tonight. Let's make that show. I'd love to look. This is your life. This is your life, yeah. I love that bloody show. Let's do that again. Eamon. Yeah. Yeah. God, we're showing our age. I always thought a bit, because I never fancied that this is your life, so they don't tell you, but my agent was under strict instructions if they ever asked that.

26:56Yeah, no, never. You imagine someone turning up that you don't like? Yes! What are you doing here? Yeah, I know. That must have happened sometimes. Oh, it absolutely must have happened. Because they obviously genuinely surprise you. God, there's so much heart. There's not enough time in my life to talk to you. But what I want to get under the skin of with you, Gary, is that all the emotions and the you've had a lot of loss in your life you're gifted enormous things through your talent and your playing and your presenting and your business and everything but you also leave big things and move on so in terms of beginning again these are the things these are these are the reasons why people stay stuck somewhere they don't like some of them are not enjoying because they love the people they love the office they're going you're just like nope leaving gone gone next thing yeah it's it's it's i admire it no choice with football right so because i mean you can stay in football which i did in a different way but you can't continue to be a footballer because you know you you come to a certain age where you can't function as well but what's that feel like i think i was i'm not going to say lucky because it was i didn't enjoy because I was injured for almost the last two years that I played or didn't play.

28:23I was in Japan. And I only played a handful of games there. And I spent pretty much the last year of football trying to get myself fit in rehab. And it was gruelling and it was boring. And I was without the buzz of a game at the end of the week. And it just got me to the stage where I thought, I'm ready to do something else. And you know you've got to because there's a lot of life after football. You can't just quit. I mean, the players now earn significant amounts of money that they probably could. You couldn't have done, even though I was well paid relatively in my day, it doesn't compare with the modern day.

29:02So, you know, there's a lot of life. So I was already planning on going into the media side of things because I looked at things like tennis and golf and other cricket. and the people that ran the shows were all former players, you know, David Gower in cricket, Sue Barker in tennis, pretty much all of them in golf were former players. So I thought if I could get into the media, but not only as a pundit, which was just starting to be quite a big thing, I thought if I could possibly present as well, it might give me some form of longevity. And you had a chat with some of the presenters, didn't you, to kind of say what, you know, what's your question?

29:44Well, I was keen to learn. And even when I was a player, I used to sit with the camera crews or the radio people or some of the journalists, see how they did their columns and open. So I was quite curious. I was always curious. You've always been like that. I think, yeah, I've definitely always been curious about all sorts of things. Sometimes not for the better. And so you end up realizing, well, OK, I can make this jump from football to not just being a pundit, but actually being a host on a sports program. I quickly do just want to talk about what it's like. So you'd been in Japan, but when you left the UK, because there is something I don't understand, how much you would grieve leaving a group of people that you've been with through thick and thin, through all those letdowns and triumphs.

30:38The only thing about football is that that does change all the time. It's always transient, right? Always. You know, you move clubs. Some players have a long career at one club and I suppose that would apply more to them. But even then, you look at a squad now of a team, a big team now, and compare it with six years' time, there won't be many left. There'll be, you know, there won't be, there'll be kind of probably a handful of players that are still there. So it's something you get used to. You get, you get suddenly, suddenly you find a new mate and then he's gone. Yeah. And sometimes you stay in touch and with others you just don't.

31:20So in a funny kind of way, it's like prepping you for all the change that you have in your life anyway. It's like, oh, change. I've changed living where I live. I've changed where my family all live. we all move well I've played you know I've played for a few different clubs in two different countries aside from here as well so I think it probably it wasn't part of the plan thinking well this will prepare me for life obviously but I think it does I think it does a little bit you know you're suddenly in an environment you're in a different country and you've got to get on you've got to learn the language you've got to you know live the culture which was quite easy in Barcelona and Japan as well I would say Barcelona I love Barcelona what a city I love Basso.

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33:18And this space starts with Ultra Fit. Unlike traditional running shoes, Ultra Fit gives toes more room to move naturally, so every step is strong, balanced, and comfortable. Whatever you're lacing up for, stay out there with Ultra. Shop now at ultrarunning.com. That's A-L-T-R-A running dot com.

33:41Chevy is called the heartbeat of America for a reason. With SUVs made to move with your rhythm. The versatile Equinox tackles your entire day. the spacious traverse fits your crew and your whole weekend and tracks bring style with value you can count on all infused with tech that has your back so your drive always hits the right chord chevrolet together let's drive how did you go from japan to tv well i'd already started planning to do things and and i think it's i get a lot of i'm sure you do a lot of people say how do i get into the media world how do i do it and i've got how do you get into sports reporting i said well you know just watch as much as you can write things practice when you can maybe try and get into some charity radio hospital radio local radio school stuff anything that you can do and maybe you'll get your chance or you can score 40-odd goals for England.