Gary Lineker

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0:58We'll see you next time. at washablesofas.com. Authors are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply. Hey, it's Amanda from Soul Sessions with Amanda Rieger-Green. Discover Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, a perfect destination to unplug and enjoy the season. The rolling hills and quiet countryside offer a peaceful escape, while the vibrant city and rich culture provide so much to explore. Wonder through the boutique shops in Lancaster, enjoy a glass of local wine or a cozy cup of coffee, and catch a live show at the American Music Theater. You can also dive into the authentic Amish culture by visiting markets and sampling the homemade treats.

1:43How delightful. Lancaster County offers the perfect balance of cozy and adventurous, ensuring a memorable escape. If you're planning a fall getaway, Start at discoverlancaster.com forward slash soul sessions.

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3:16When Gary Lineker, one of the great footballers of our time, walks into the River Cafe, everyone stops what they're doing. And some months ago, I stopped what I was doing after reading his brave defense of refugees landing in Britain and his pleas for empathy, compassion, for people in peril. Gary is never silenced on issues he feels strongly about. This sense of justice runs deep. He's one of the very few footballers never to have received a red or yellow card, consistent with who he is, principled, respectful, and fair. We're also both in the world of podcasts, although there's no comparison when his company, Goalhanger, has 18 million.

4:00Gary and I also share the world of food. And this is not the first time a footballer has stepped on my turf. There's nothing Beckham loves more than cooking. Ian Wright has his own food brand. Look at Gary's Instagram and you'll see as many photographs of what he's cooking as the goals he's analysing on Match of the Day. Gary's been in the kitchen with Joseph Trevelli making potato gnocchi with tomato sauce. So the gnocchi, what do you love about it? I love gnocchi. I think it's quite versatile as well. You can kind of make it crispy and bake it and stuff as well, but it just works with tomatoes, doesn't it?

4:39I think you always go to tomatoes with gnocchi. It just was perfect. Because I was in Milan actually last week and I was taken to this quite fancy restaurant. I never do this. I never change something. But they had potato gnocchi with asparagus and prosciutto pancetta and it was quite complicated. And I just said, do you mind if I have it with tomato? And it was so much better. I saw the other ones and there was something. We do it, but we do it with others. We do it with peas. We do sometimes, yeah. You can do, but it's never as good as it. I mean, there's something about Italian tomatoes as well.

5:16Do you cook a lot of Italian? Do you go for Italian food? I cook a lot of Italian food. Everyone does, don't they, I suppose. It's kind of one of the great cuisines. But I love cooking Indian as well, as well as kind of British basics and stuff. So, yeah, a variety of different things. But I would say to cook, probably Italian and Indian are my favorite too. Have you been to India? No, it's on my bucket list actually. Okay. And so let's go back to growing up because you were born in? I was born in Lestia. And what was the food culture like there? Well, funnily enough, my dad was a market trader and he's a fruiter.

5:54So he'd sell fruit. So he worked hard, get up three, four in the morning, go to the wholesale market, buy the fruit, sell it all day. Where would he sell it? It was an outdoor market. The biggest outdoor market in Europe at the time. In Europe? Yeah, it's a really well-known market. So competing with Italy, France. Yeah, well, exactly. There were also fish traders. There was a fishmongery kind of thing, and there was a meat place. So at the end of the week, he'd always kind of give them a big basket of fruit, and then they'd give him like a nice piece of meat or a halibut. He loved halibut. So we'd get that kind of thing and eat on a Friday, and a Saturday we'd eat kind of really amazing stuff because they used to do these swap things.

6:37Yeah, so I kind of grew up with food in that sense. Didn't go out very often, but occasionally. So it wasn't a wholesale market? It didn't get distributed to the rest of Britain? No, no, this is a market. Leicester market, yeah. That's impressive. Leicester's now famous for its football team, having won the Premier League, obviously. In fact, people suddenly started saying Leicester properly. How do you say it properly? Well, Leicester. What did they say before? Oh, it was all Leicester, particularly in America and stuff. And suddenly people were saying their name problem, because you always hear Leicester and all this stuff.

7:10But now, because Leicester won the league with the biggest sporting miracle ever, everyone knows how to say it. Does your family still live there? Only distant family now. My mum and dad passed away seven or eight years ago now. So I don't go back there as much, apart from the occasional time to watch Lester play if I'm not working. So have you had the ingredients of fruit and vegetables and fish and good meat? Yeah, but I didn't cook. My mum cooked. I was going to just say, who did the cooking? My mum was a good cook. Tell me about her. What was her background? Where did she come from? She was actually born in a place called Sheringham, which is in Norfolk, on the coast there, and moved to Lester when she was, I think, about 10, 10 or 11.

7:55and she was a hairdresser. Beckham's mom was a hairdresser. Really? Yeah. There you go, you see. Must be a football thing. Maybe. Two people. That's a lot of data. We can then come to a conclusion that two footballers had moms who were hairdressers. Yeah. But she was a good cook. Love cooking. Yeah. So would she work all day? Well, only when I was young. and then she kind of stopped hairdressing. My dad used to have a card school. He had a card school. A game called Kaluki. Okay. Playing cards. He was a gambler and they used to have like five or six guys that used to come to our house either on a Sunday, sometimes on a Monday.

8:39But they'd start at like six o 'clock in the evening and my mum would cook for everyone every night and she could get a little pound out of the pot every time they had a kitty going, on all night but I'd go to bed you know because I'd have school on Monday morning and then I'd wake up in the morning get ready for school they're still playing like eight nine ten o 'clock in the morning sometimes they'd go unbroken for 36 hours yeah honestly and my mum would constantly be supplying food all through the night and yeah amazing you know my dad I grew up in upstate New York in a small town and my father played poker every Thursday night they played poker as well sometimes yeah and every friday morning i'd come go before i went to school there would be a note saying dear ruthie i won last night here's five dollars ruthie i won last night he won every week and they'd always be like five dollars or ten dollars and then it was his funeral i went to his you know when he died i went to his funeral and it was like a kind of quakerish funeral everybody spoke and this man got up and he said you know fred elias was one of the greatest guys i ever knew but he never won a game of poker

9:49that was really sweet he did that every Friday I thought my dad won every game so what would she cook what did your mom cook for you what were her dishes that you remember like most mothers she'd cook a good spaghetti bolognese really good with fish because we get a lot of fish from the market she'd do a really good roast as well what kind beef or lamb all of them did your father ever cook? I can't remember him cooking and did you ever go in the kitchen? no I wish I had and I think that's the one thing we fail our kids on I think that should be an absolute must learn at school they used to offer it all the time you still can do a bit of cooking at school but it's a life skill it's a life skill and you can be really passionate about it rather than making Speaking of kids that are not very good at maths, learn maths.

10:46Yes, you've got to learn your basic numbers and stuff. And reading is really important, I think. But the next thing after those two, for me, has to be, like, cooking. You know, that's one thing we all do forever is eat.

11:05The River Cafe is excited. On June 8th, we're opening the River Cafe Cafe. Come for a morning brioche and cappuccino, a plate of seasonal antipasti on the terrace, or an ice cream or aperitivo in the sun. We can't wait to open and we cannot wait to welcome you.

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12:53Plan your weekend trip at DiscoverLancaster.com forward slash soul sessions. You came from this home in Leicester with your mother cooking, your father playing cards, your family dinners. Tell us about the football, when sport came into your life. Well, it came into my life way before I can remember, from pretty much when I walked. It wasn't a specific day, it doesn't work like that in football. I grew up playing in the garden, my brother would just kick a ball around all the time. Obviously reasonably good, even at 9, 10, 11 I was playing and scoring loads of goals. So it just went from there, and I was spotted by Leicester when I was about 12.

13:34It's funny, my dad's market store was a family generational business. Your grandfather had it as well. My grandfather and his father before that. So, yeah, my granddad used to come and watch us play football everywhere. We were quite a well-known family in Leicester because of the market store. And my granddad was watching me play one Sunday morning. And the guy called Ray Shaw was there. He was Leicester City's chief scout. And my granddad knew him there. Everyone knew everyone. He said, oh, who are you watching? He said, oh, I'm watching a little centre forward up there. I was tiny in those days.

14:08And he went, oh, that's my grandson. And they took me on. I trained two, three nights a week at Leicester and then Saturdays as well for four or five years. And then I got taken on. When did you leave the comfort of home? Not until I was 24. Good. It was funny, when I first joined Leicester, I joined as an apprentice and I was paid£16 a week. but they put an extra fiver in an envelope for my mum because loads of the kids there that came were in digs, so the food was provided for them. So they said, well, because you don't get the luxury of getting free food or slipping a fiver for your mum, so I always gave it to my mum, but she'd never take it.

14:53A bit like you, Ruth, she'd always give it to me back. She'd say, I don't want your money. I was on 21 quid a week, not 16 quid a week, which was a bonus. So you were at home, so you had protection around you in terms of your comfort of home. Yeah. But what about protection for being suddenly, you know, when you found fame? I'll just say that I once, this is, I think I might have told this before, but one of my programs I always remember was Michael Parkinson interviewing David Beckham and George Best. And George Best was, you know, they were on the sofa together. and when he asked Beckham a question, Beckham said, you know, I'm in the presence of one of the great heroes of my life.

15:34I think really I don't want to talk. You should just talk to him. And what they did discuss was the difference between now and then. And Bess said he just came from a simple life in the home and suddenly he was thrust in this world without press agents or managers or PR people or, you know, that there was very little around you. Did you feel the same way? George Bestall came from Northern Ireland to Manchester United at a very young age, so it's a little bit different when you've got to suddenly you are on your own, whereas I kind of played for my hometown club for the first eight years of my career, so I was with my parents, my brother, you know, we had family all around, all my friends were still there.

16:18And I think that helped me, even though I was a kind of slightly late developer in terms of global kind of fame and that sort of stuff. So I didn't really start making my mark until I was in my 20s, whereas, you know, people like Best and even David Beckham. How old was he? How old were they? Well, he was, no, they were young superstars, really. You know, people like Wayne Rooney, Michael Owen, lots of players. And I was kind of more gradual. And I think that helped me prepare for that, for A, fame, but also B, moving away from home and all that sort of stuff. So I did it at a slightly older age than most of them do.

16:52And I think that was actually hugely beneficial for me. So it didn't feel like a massive, massive change when I shifted a little bit. And what was it like when you were 24? Where did you go then? I went to Everton. It was a big step because you should leave in your hometown club. And I loved Leicester. It was my team. I'd supported them since I was a little kid. I'd done well. I'd scored lots of goals there. But to try to build my career, I needed to go to a kind of bigger club at the time. Did they take care of you? Oh, they were great. It was a great place. I was only there for a year. You had an apartment by yourself?

17:28I was with my then first wife. We didn't get married until the next year, but, yeah, so we went up together. Did she cook? Did you cook then? She cooked, yeah, she was okay. She's a good cook. Michelle's a good cook, yeah. I didn't cook then, no. I didn't cook until eight years ago. Did you have a sense of health and food and sport? Were you guided about the kind of foods that would be better for you to perform? Not as much as we should have been. I think nowadays that's one of the great changes in football is the nutrition side of things. How did that happen? I think it's a gradual change. I think an understanding of what feeds the body and more professional outlets to it, more money coming into the game.

18:11so they could afford, you know, clubs now, the staff around football clubs, they're extraordinary. When I played, you'd have a coach, a manager, a coach, maybe one other coach, goalkeeping coach possibly. You'll have a physio and some clubs will have a doctor and that was about it. Now, they probably have five people just doing nutrition alone. They'll have cooks every day, cooking them food after training. In all those kind of things, it's changed dramatically. When I was, it was like, what are you doing for lunch? Well, we're going down the pub for a pint and a pie. Before a game? Yeah, well, no, not before a game, after training.

18:49Although some players may be, some players may be. Do you know what would be, I mean, for you as an athlete, if you knew we had a game, what would you have for breakfast and what would you have for lunch? Well, you wouldn't have lunch and breakfast probably if you were playing at 3 o 'clock. So you'd probably basically have like a brunch at 11 o 'clock or something. I don't actually know what they do pretty much now because it used to be what you said, right, you need some carbs in you for the energy and stuff like that. But I think most of their diets are very healthy. If you look at footballers, they're all ripped now, like, you know, all these abs everywhere.

19:23When I first started playing, we were told, whatever you do, don't do any upper body weight work because you're completely, you know, you'll be all stiff and wooden on the pitch and you won't be as agile. Absolute poppycock, complete nonsense. so you never saw players particularly kind of ripped and muscular in my day that you do now because that's that was the thinking i rarely talk about alcohol you know because this is mostly about food but i was wondering about how do you combine discipline with pleasure because we've seen people like george best how do you combine being a 24 year old with being somebody wanted to party wanted to socialize very handsome with being there you are and how do you combine that rigor with pleasure i i wasn't i was never a big drinker i didn't drink i didn't go down i wasn't one of those that went down the pub after training unlike some so i kind of looked after myself i was very driven very motivated very ambitious to do better, so I tried to give myself the best chance.

20:30Yes, I like to night out with the best of them, but it's like most players, the vast majority of players, understood that even then, that it's not really a great combination, drinking loads of pints and then playing in a couple of days' time. I had a manager called Jot Wallace who I was so terrified of that he kind of stopped me doing any of that nonsense. And what about when you went to Barcelona? Barcelona was fabulous. It was a great experience, a wonderful place to live. Was it the first experience in a foreign city? I'd been on holidays. I'd been on lots of holidays. But it was the first time I'd ever, you know...

21:05I didn't really contemplate going to live abroad, but then the opportunity came. Did you go by yourself? Got married just before we went. So I played the World Cup in 1986 in Mexico, came back, got married, went on honeymoon, went straight to Barcelona from there and so the two of you had an apartment there we had an apartment, yeah actually the first four months we thought, I thought, yeah this is it superstardom and stuff we'll go up and they'll put us in a a luxurious hotel penthouse suite and all that stuff and we actually got there and we checked in this hotel which was a four star hotel and we were given our room key and we had like we had an entire world with us It's like loads of cases and stuff like that.

21:52And we went in and we got in the room that is actually smaller than this room we're in now. We're in quite a small room. Which is fairly private dining room at the River Cafe. It's a nice room. So we got in this room. We didn't have enough room. I had to pay for the room next door to put the cases in. And Mark Hughes was a player. Manchester United did play at that time. Well, at that time he'd just been bought. And he came and arrived at the same time with me. And he arrived on the same day. And he came down and knocked on my door and he said, I'm just checking your room's as shit as mine. And it was like this really brown, dank, dark place.

22:30And we ended up in there for four months. Did you? Yeah. But eventually we got in a nice villa and we had three amazing years. Three years. Three years. How did that affect your food and eating and experience? I mean, I love the food there. What did you love about it? I loved the fresh fish that was always available. I mean, obviously, you know, you're living in a port there. And some great restaurants. I love tapas. I love paella on the beach. I mean, we had an amazing lifestyle. We'd get up in the morning about nine-something, go to the ground. We'd train for, you know, a couple of hours. By lunchtime, you were done.

23:10I'd come home. We'd jump in the car, go to the beach club at Castelda Fells. We'd have like a seafood and a pie here on the beach. We'd leave about five, get home about six o 'clock, have a siesta for two or three hours, and then go out for dinner, which you couldn't get in a restaurant. 10, 11, 12 o 'clock at night. Because if you went to a restaurant in Barcelona back then, and it's changed a bit now, it's still late, but nothing like as late as it used to be. If you went to a restaurant before 10 o 'clock, they'd either be empty or closed. Yeah. but actually what they do is they break up their sleep, so you then go home at 1, 2 o 'clock in the morning and sleep for five, six hours.

23:55It's totally different. It was totally different, but it didn't take a lot of getting used to, to be honest. It didn't take a lot. No, it didn't. It really didn't. Did you have kids at the time? No. Even better. It wouldn't have been as good, that's for sure. We once had, Richard and I once gave a party in London. We invited the mayor of Barcelona. he was in town and he said i can't come for the pipe i'll come a little bit later and so he didn't show up by you know 11 o 'clock and so he thought okay he's not going went to bed at 2 30 in the morning the doorbell rang and he was like expecting the party i'm here but i ran downstairs oh they just left you know it's a party just ended it's a totally different but i don't know how they work it's like living on with um on a different time zone yeah and it's only an hour different but how did you play did you do what a game night then so when you were when you were well sometimes the games sometimes you play kickoff will be like nine o 'clock at night oh that's quite often you know and then sundays you used to play at five o 'clock that was the that was kind of their saturday at three right so they'd often play on sundays at five and stuff why do football games start at three is there a reason here yeah um i don't know after lunch well Yeah, I suppose.

25:13I don't know. That's a good question. I don't know why. Who came up with 3 o 'clock? Yeah, who came up with 3 o 'clock? I'm going to find out, Ruthie. I'm going to find out. Will you find out? I'm going to find out. Because I come past Chelsea every time I work on a Saturday or whatever. You know, you could just always know that between Fulham playing or Chelsea playing that it's always 3 o 'clock. Well, genuine it is, unless they're on TV. Then they'll move the schedule. But, yeah, I don't know why the 3 o 'clock came to start. Probably before darkness, maybe. Maybe they wanted to play early enough before they had really good floodlights and stuff.

25:43Although in the winter it's still dark before, so I don't know how that works. I need to find out. I've never even thought about why do we kick off at 3 o 'clock. There'll be a reason. Maybe. The audience, you talk about the exhilaration of an audience. What happens when you score a goal? Scoring a goal is the one thing that I miss about that feeling. It's really hard to describe. It's like just an explosion of different emotions, of joy, of relief, of happiness and stuff. And the reason I think it's so special and the reason that football is so special is that the value of a goal is so important because, you know, in America I go, for example, and they used to go, but, you know, you can have a game that says there's no goals or there's only one goal.

26:42And I said, yes, but that is the magic of football because it is so important. So you have a moment, and it's the same for fans watching. When they're seeing scores, you know, it's like, it's amazing because you know how significant a goal can be. So when you're the person that's actually scoring that goal, it's like cheering for your team, except it's you that's doing it. And there's nothing like it. And I've had conversations with Alan Shearer and Michael Owen, proper goal scorers, and funny enough, I spoke to Andy Cole the other day, and we were talking about the same things, that there's nothing, nothing in life.

27:19Not even eating at the River Cafe. I'm really sorry. However wonderful it always is. Wait, wait, wait. Yeah, but we might fix that. We're going to get you there. That feeling. That feeling. Oh, my God. But you know what I always thought when I watch football, and I do watch football, is that I do watch it, that I remember thinking that it is the only time you see men showing so much affection to each other, physical affection. Hugging and kissing. There are all these guys, and they're publicly, like, in each other's arms in that kind of incredible emotion. We're very metrosexual, as footballers.

27:52That's probably one. Well, it just, but it was beautiful. But what about the other side of that, when you miss a goal, when you don't support? Do you feel the hostilities account? I wouldn't know, Lucy. Oh, I see. It's rubbish. It's horrible. Because that is the downside of that, isn't it? Well, that's it. And that's why scoring makes it. That's why when you do do it, because it's obviously the most important thing. And there are days where you will be rubbish. But it's how you deal with that. And I was always lucky. I didn't get too carried away when things were going well. It's kind of how I am.