THE JAY BOTHROYD INTERVIEW
Fri Apr 03, 2020 7:35 am
My love for Cardiff City, that nightmare moment and the 'clown' manager I proved wrong
Friday 3rd April 2020
Cardiff City legend Bothroyd speaks exclusively to WalesOnline about his schooling at Arsenal, the racial abuse he suffered in Italy, 10 years since his England cap and why he will always be a Bluebirds fan
Jay Bothroyd gets home from his weekly shop in Hokkaido, an island at the north tip of Japan, and picks up the phone to speak to WalesOnline.
He is alone in his residence, his wife, Stella, and two-year-old baby are back in London due to the travel restrictions owing to the coronavirus outbreak.
Football is on hold there, as it is everywhere else, so it gives Bothroyd time to sit down and reflect upon a remarkable career which, after 537 games and 163 goals, is showing no signs of slowing down.
We jump right back to the start, his upbringing in North London. His mum, Leslie, was a part-time cleaner in a school and his dad, John, worked for British Telecom and they were determined to keep him grounded in an area of London which, Bothroyd says, was riddled with temptation.
"They raised me and did the best for me that they could," he says. "I grew up in a rough area in North London called Archway, in between Finsbury Park, Tottenham, Harringay, that sort of area.
"You get a mix of all the badness that happens in the north part of London.
"I always had the ball at my feet, so I wasn't embroiled in all that. I knew what I wanted to do.
He was picked up by Arsenal at 10 years old and rocketed through the academy system as one of the standout players.
Bothroyd, while still a teenager, was training regularly with a squad which would in a few years' time be known as 'The Invincibles'.
He speaks highly of how those Arsenal legends treated him. He name checks Martin Keown, Tony Adams, Lee Dixon and David Seaman as those who welcomed him. He remembers how funny Ray Parlour was and how nice Thierry Henry and Freddie Ljungberg were.
The only one he didn't take to was Nigel Winterburn. "He was a dry character," he says, "old fashioned, didn't really like him."
He was convinced he was going to make it with the Gunners after winning the FA Youth Cup and remembers a conversation with Arsene Wenger which cemented those ambitions firmly in his head.
"I remember he said, 'Next year I want to start involving you in some of the cup games'," Bothroyd recalls.
"I was training with the first-team squad every day almost, I was the first one to do that."
Jay Bothroyd, in action for Arsenal during the FA Youth Cup final second leg against Coventry City
Bothroyd had the world at his feet but, after being substituted in the Premier League Youth Cup final, he threw his shirt at youth coach Don Howe on the substitutes bench and was subsequently sold to Coventry City for just £1m as an 18-year-old.
He admits he harbours some regrets over that moment and cites his bad attitude at the time.
"I have regrets about throwing my shirt, but it's stuff I've got to live with," he says.
Despite three relatively successful seasons personally at Coventry, Bothroyd's assessment of the club is withering.
"Once Gordon Strachan left Coventry, everything went to pot," he says. "It was a crap club.
"Every year it just got worse and worse and worse. Changing managers every five minutes, the club went into liquidation and asked me to take a pay cut and I said no, I asked them to let me leave for free and that's how I ended up going to Italy."
Italy and the harrowing tales of racist abuse
So, to Perugia then. Bothroyd subscribes to the view that, back then in 2003, Serie A was the best league in the world.
He is one of a select group of Englishmen to go and ply their trade in the Italian top flight and was recruited after one of the coaches saw him playing in the Youth Cup final with Arsenal a few years before.
His eyes were widened by how hard they trained and how far ahead they were in terms of fitness and nutrition.
But it is a harrowing tale of the egregious racist abuse he was subjected to which will always stamp a heavy blot on his time there.
"When I first came across it, it was weird," he recalls.
"I remember, we played Inter Milan away and the manager called me and a few of the other black players into his office and said, 'Listen, guys, I'm just marking your cards, when we go to Inter Milan, the fans are probably going to racially abuse you.'
"I didn't really understand it. Because at the time they had Adriano, they had (Obafemi) Martins, they had Ivan Cordoba, all black players themselves.
"So why were they racially abusing us when they had black players themselves?!
"Those people are disgusting people," he seethes. "Ignorant and narrow-minded."
Dundee's defender David Mackay (R) fights for the ball Perugia's forward Jay Bothroyd (L) back in 2003
It is in Italy, though, where he met his wife Stella.
Bothroyd was friends with Al-Saadi Gaddafi, a Perugia team-mate and third son of former Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi, and it was through his Canadian masseuse he met Stella.
He was whisked off to Milan with the masseuse on what he was told was a shopping trip, but he ended up at a party one Monday night and that was that.
Stella is from Verona in northern Italy and it is there where Bothroyd encountered another gut-wrenching moment when he saw Nazi symbols emblazoned on the walls of the streets there.
It was all too unsettling and, understandably, he sought a loan move to Blackburn Rovers in his second season before heading back to London with Charlton permanently.
After one season he was on the move again, this time to Wolves, but, following a successful first season, it all changed when Mick McCarthy took the reins.
"He started trying to annoy me," Bothroyd remembers. "He took my squad number off me, made me train with (fitness coach) Tony Daley by myself.
"He was trying to force me out the door, making me do double sessions, he's calling me at night telling me to come in and do bike rides through a forest, giving me some sh*t bike going through terrain.
"He told me not to drive my car, don't wear my cap, treating me like a kid. He was like a headmaster."
The Dave Jones phone call and best decision of his life
It is why Bothroyd describes a phone call from Dave Jones as the biggest blessing of his career.
"One morning I was going to training, driving up the motorway, and I get a phone call and it's a private number and he's like, 'Hi there, this is Dave Jones'.
"I was like, 'Dave Jones? Who is Dave? I don't know Dave Jones.'
"And he said: 'Dave Jones, Cardiff City manager.'
"'Oh, Sorry!' I said. He asked where I was and I said I was on my way to training. He said he had been given permission to talk to me.
"He told me to turn my car around and get myself down to Cardiff.
"So, right there and then, I literally got off at the next exit and drove down to Cardiff. I didn't end up going back to my house for three weeks! I just stayed at The Vale.
"The terrible situation I had at Wolves turned into one of the best decisions of my life."
Not just for him, but for Cardiff fans. He scored 12 goals in that first season, hitting the ground running, with the Bluebirds finishing just outside the play-off spots.
Jay Bothroyd hit the ground running at Cardiff City
He waxes lyrical about that first season. He felt a tangible difference both on the pitch and the friendship and camaraderie he experienced off it, a world away from those dark times at Wolves.
"Coming from Mick McCarthy's football, get it up to the front man or put it in the channels, it was a blessing and it was the best decision I ever made," he says.
"We would go out for dinner with the wives, drinks with the boys, if we won the game we would go out and celebrate.
"Dave Jones said as long as we performed we could do what we wanted. If we didn't perform he would come down on you like a tonne of bricks.
"But the boys knew that and didn't take the p**s."
After narrowly missing out on the play-offs in his first season, City went one better the next year, finishing fourth in the Championship and reaching the fifth round of the FA Cup, too.
They navigated past Leicester City in the play-off semi-final and had a shot at glory against Blackpool in the final. There was a buzz swirling around the Welsh capital
It is then, though, Bothroyd's bubble burst and what he describes as the most unfortunate moment of his career.
He hobbled off after aggravating a grade one calf tear just 15 minutes into the match and City went on to lose, agonisingly, 3-2.
"Dave Jones wasn't happy with me," he recalls. "We had a big argument afterwards.
"He was saying, 'You could have had this painkilling injection!'
"And I was just saying, 'No'. I went to have a scan and the doctor told me it was a really bad injury.
"Me and Dave Jones have a great relationship, I still speak to him now.
"I was just frustrated, he was frustrated. It was just, all-round, a really unfortunate day for us."
Friday 3rd April 2020
Cardiff City legend Bothroyd speaks exclusively to WalesOnline about his schooling at Arsenal, the racial abuse he suffered in Italy, 10 years since his England cap and why he will always be a Bluebirds fan
Jay Bothroyd gets home from his weekly shop in Hokkaido, an island at the north tip of Japan, and picks up the phone to speak to WalesOnline.
He is alone in his residence, his wife, Stella, and two-year-old baby are back in London due to the travel restrictions owing to the coronavirus outbreak.
Football is on hold there, as it is everywhere else, so it gives Bothroyd time to sit down and reflect upon a remarkable career which, after 537 games and 163 goals, is showing no signs of slowing down.
We jump right back to the start, his upbringing in North London. His mum, Leslie, was a part-time cleaner in a school and his dad, John, worked for British Telecom and they were determined to keep him grounded in an area of London which, Bothroyd says, was riddled with temptation.
"They raised me and did the best for me that they could," he says. "I grew up in a rough area in North London called Archway, in between Finsbury Park, Tottenham, Harringay, that sort of area.
"You get a mix of all the badness that happens in the north part of London.
"I always had the ball at my feet, so I wasn't embroiled in all that. I knew what I wanted to do.
He was picked up by Arsenal at 10 years old and rocketed through the academy system as one of the standout players.
Bothroyd, while still a teenager, was training regularly with a squad which would in a few years' time be known as 'The Invincibles'.
He speaks highly of how those Arsenal legends treated him. He name checks Martin Keown, Tony Adams, Lee Dixon and David Seaman as those who welcomed him. He remembers how funny Ray Parlour was and how nice Thierry Henry and Freddie Ljungberg were.
The only one he didn't take to was Nigel Winterburn. "He was a dry character," he says, "old fashioned, didn't really like him."
He was convinced he was going to make it with the Gunners after winning the FA Youth Cup and remembers a conversation with Arsene Wenger which cemented those ambitions firmly in his head.
"I remember he said, 'Next year I want to start involving you in some of the cup games'," Bothroyd recalls.
"I was training with the first-team squad every day almost, I was the first one to do that."
Jay Bothroyd, in action for Arsenal during the FA Youth Cup final second leg against Coventry City
Bothroyd had the world at his feet but, after being substituted in the Premier League Youth Cup final, he threw his shirt at youth coach Don Howe on the substitutes bench and was subsequently sold to Coventry City for just £1m as an 18-year-old.
He admits he harbours some regrets over that moment and cites his bad attitude at the time.
"I have regrets about throwing my shirt, but it's stuff I've got to live with," he says.
Despite three relatively successful seasons personally at Coventry, Bothroyd's assessment of the club is withering.
"Once Gordon Strachan left Coventry, everything went to pot," he says. "It was a crap club.
"Every year it just got worse and worse and worse. Changing managers every five minutes, the club went into liquidation and asked me to take a pay cut and I said no, I asked them to let me leave for free and that's how I ended up going to Italy."
Italy and the harrowing tales of racist abuse
So, to Perugia then. Bothroyd subscribes to the view that, back then in 2003, Serie A was the best league in the world.
He is one of a select group of Englishmen to go and ply their trade in the Italian top flight and was recruited after one of the coaches saw him playing in the Youth Cup final with Arsenal a few years before.
His eyes were widened by how hard they trained and how far ahead they were in terms of fitness and nutrition.
But it is a harrowing tale of the egregious racist abuse he was subjected to which will always stamp a heavy blot on his time there.
"When I first came across it, it was weird," he recalls.
"I remember, we played Inter Milan away and the manager called me and a few of the other black players into his office and said, 'Listen, guys, I'm just marking your cards, when we go to Inter Milan, the fans are probably going to racially abuse you.'
"I didn't really understand it. Because at the time they had Adriano, they had (Obafemi) Martins, they had Ivan Cordoba, all black players themselves.
"So why were they racially abusing us when they had black players themselves?!
"Those people are disgusting people," he seethes. "Ignorant and narrow-minded."
Dundee's defender David Mackay (R) fights for the ball Perugia's forward Jay Bothroyd (L) back in 2003
It is in Italy, though, where he met his wife Stella.
Bothroyd was friends with Al-Saadi Gaddafi, a Perugia team-mate and third son of former Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi, and it was through his Canadian masseuse he met Stella.
He was whisked off to Milan with the masseuse on what he was told was a shopping trip, but he ended up at a party one Monday night and that was that.
Stella is from Verona in northern Italy and it is there where Bothroyd encountered another gut-wrenching moment when he saw Nazi symbols emblazoned on the walls of the streets there.
It was all too unsettling and, understandably, he sought a loan move to Blackburn Rovers in his second season before heading back to London with Charlton permanently.
After one season he was on the move again, this time to Wolves, but, following a successful first season, it all changed when Mick McCarthy took the reins.
"He started trying to annoy me," Bothroyd remembers. "He took my squad number off me, made me train with (fitness coach) Tony Daley by myself.
"He was trying to force me out the door, making me do double sessions, he's calling me at night telling me to come in and do bike rides through a forest, giving me some sh*t bike going through terrain.
"He told me not to drive my car, don't wear my cap, treating me like a kid. He was like a headmaster."
The Dave Jones phone call and best decision of his life
It is why Bothroyd describes a phone call from Dave Jones as the biggest blessing of his career.
"One morning I was going to training, driving up the motorway, and I get a phone call and it's a private number and he's like, 'Hi there, this is Dave Jones'.
"I was like, 'Dave Jones? Who is Dave? I don't know Dave Jones.'
"And he said: 'Dave Jones, Cardiff City manager.'
"'Oh, Sorry!' I said. He asked where I was and I said I was on my way to training. He said he had been given permission to talk to me.
"He told me to turn my car around and get myself down to Cardiff.
"So, right there and then, I literally got off at the next exit and drove down to Cardiff. I didn't end up going back to my house for three weeks! I just stayed at The Vale.
"The terrible situation I had at Wolves turned into one of the best decisions of my life."
Not just for him, but for Cardiff fans. He scored 12 goals in that first season, hitting the ground running, with the Bluebirds finishing just outside the play-off spots.
Jay Bothroyd hit the ground running at Cardiff City
He waxes lyrical about that first season. He felt a tangible difference both on the pitch and the friendship and camaraderie he experienced off it, a world away from those dark times at Wolves.
"Coming from Mick McCarthy's football, get it up to the front man or put it in the channels, it was a blessing and it was the best decision I ever made," he says.
"We would go out for dinner with the wives, drinks with the boys, if we won the game we would go out and celebrate.
"Dave Jones said as long as we performed we could do what we wanted. If we didn't perform he would come down on you like a tonne of bricks.
"But the boys knew that and didn't take the p**s."
After narrowly missing out on the play-offs in his first season, City went one better the next year, finishing fourth in the Championship and reaching the fifth round of the FA Cup, too.
They navigated past Leicester City in the play-off semi-final and had a shot at glory against Blackpool in the final. There was a buzz swirling around the Welsh capital
It is then, though, Bothroyd's bubble burst and what he describes as the most unfortunate moment of his career.
He hobbled off after aggravating a grade one calf tear just 15 minutes into the match and City went on to lose, agonisingly, 3-2.
"Dave Jones wasn't happy with me," he recalls. "We had a big argument afterwards.
"He was saying, 'You could have had this painkilling injection!'
"And I was just saying, 'No'. I went to have a scan and the doctor told me it was a really bad injury.
"Me and Dave Jones have a great relationship, I still speak to him now.
"I was just frustrated, he was frustrated. It was just, all-round, a really unfortunate day for us."
Re: THE JAY BOTHROYD INTERVIEW
Fri Apr 03, 2020 8:06 am
Great player for us, but the players did not take the piss 
I must have missed that
I must have missed that
Re: THE JAY BOTHROYD INTERVIEW
Fri Apr 03, 2020 8:14 am
fred keenor wrote:Great player for us, but the players did not take the piss
I must have missed that
Loved JB. Unplayable at times.
I heard that he used to keep his headphones on before a game when Jones was giving his Orr match team talk
Re: THE JAY BOTHROYD INTERVIEW
Fri Apr 03, 2020 9:21 am
We did not lose to stoke in playoffs that season.
Glen Williams with factual error #201
Glen Williams with factual error #201
Re: THE JAY BOTHROYD INTERVIEW
Fri Apr 03, 2020 7:05 pm
A Jay B interview in The Guardian 2018
https://www.theguardian.com/football/20 ... r-in-japan
....and from The Telegraph, also 2018...
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/20 ... ap-wonder/
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Jay Bothroyd: ‘I’m happy. I’ve scored more goals than Gary Lineker in Japan’
The former England striker’s career has taken him from Islington to Italy, Wales and now Japan where he is a positive role model of a footballer with epilepsy
Will Unwin
Fri 13 Apr 2018 15.21 BST Last modified on Fri 13 Apr 2018 22.00 BST
As Jay Bothroyd settles into his 18th season as a professional he has already achieved everything he set out to do as a child chasing a ball around the playground. Now, however, he wants to create history in Japan. The striker plays for Hokkaido Consadole Sapporo in the country where he has spent the past three years of his career and has started brightly this season with two goals in his opening five league games.
It looked as if Bothroyd was heading away from top-level football when he left England in 2014 for the Thai club Muangthong United but the low standard he found there prompted the former Cardiff striker to force his way out, moving to the J-League 2 side Júbilo Iwata. Bothroyd became a favourite with the club as he propelled them back up to the top flight, something which helped him to settle easily into Japanese life.
“I always look back, not that I’ve got any plans on finishing soon, but when I do retire from football I can look back at my career and say that when I decided I wanted to be a professional footballer in the playground when I was an infant I would have said: ‘I wanted to play in the Premier League, I want to play for my country and I want to earn a lot of money’ and I’ve done all three of those. I’ve achieved all my goals and I want to keep achieving as much as I can for as long as I can.”
Bothroyd, 35, is still looking to better himself and finally lift a trophy, something he has not done since being part of the Arsenal team which won the FA Youth Cup in 2000. Triumph in Japan would increase his cult status in Sapporo and send Bothroyd down in history, a personal milestone for which he is striving. “I would like to be the first English person to win some silverware in Japan, that would be a big achievement for me. I am happy, I’m the highest‑scoring British person in the J-League ever and Gary Lineker was here, so that’s an achievement. I just want to keep trying to be the best I can be, work hard, keep myself in shape and enjoy each day.”
Back home not many have taken notice of Bothroyd’s achievements abroad but he recently made headlines in England for blacking out in a training session. “I’ve got epilepsy, I haven’t got it really badly but I do have epilepsy and it’s something I’ve had since I was young, so it’s just one of those things you learn to live with.
“That was the first time I’ve actually had a seizure in football on the pitch, it had never happened to me before. The reason it did happen is because I forgot to take my medication for a couple of days and it caught up with me. I’ve got to take medication each day, I don’t see it as a disease, I see it as a condition and I embrace it. When that happened to me, loads of people contacted me and sent letters to say they didn’t realise you could be a sportsperson, achieve your goals with the condition. People were saying they were going to let their kids play football again, so I’ve helped influence people in a positive light.”
Milan captain Paolo Maldini tackles Bothroyd during Peruga and Milan’s Italian Serie A match at Perugia’ s Renato Curi stadium in September 2003. Photograph: Pietro Crocchioni/EPA
Asia is not Bothroyd’s first foreign adventure. He spent two years at the Italian club Perugia from the age of 20, fulfilling an ambition cultivated every weekend watching Football Italia on the sofa with his father growing up in Islington, north London.
One of his team-mates in Serie A was Colonel Gaddafi’s son Saadi, a man who became a friend of Bothroyd’s during their time at the club. Gaddafi failed a drug test while with the club and would feature only once. In recent years he has faced a number of accusations including murder, drug use, misappropriating properties through force and armed intimidation when he led the Libyan Football Federation. After football he became a special forces commander and was under United Nations sanctions after commanding units to repress the revolution in his homeland brutally and is being held in prison awaiting trial for the murder and torture of a former footballer.
“I never experienced that side of Saadi,” says Bothroyd. “Maybe he does what he does in his country but when he was in Italy I never experienced the treachery that his father and brothers did. He loved football. When his people and his security were around him, he was always polite and respectful to everyone. When I saw all the stuff come out about him and his family, it was shocking to me.”
Japanese football is on the up and the fans will be confident of progression from a World Cup group comprising Poland, Senegal and Colombia in June. Bothroyd has seen the improvements of the domestic league since his arrival, not to mention the growing influence of Japanese players in Europe.
“You’ve got to look around the leagues, there are a lot of Japanese players in Italy, in England there are a couple, in Germany there’s a lot, there’s a lot of Japanese players everywhere. Japanese football is a good level, the place they do lack a little bit is physicality but technically they’re very good, there are a lot of very good footballers here, the standard is high. Look at the Club World Cup: Kashima Antlers played against Real Madrid and [Cristiano] Ronaldo scored the winning goal in the last few minutes of extra time, so that shows you the standard, it’s not a walk in the park here and it’s very competitive. I expect and hope Japan do well in the World Cup.”
Bothroyd’s own international career consists of 18 minutes in a 2-1 friendly defeat by France in November 2010. As now, the striker was going against popular theory by earning his senior England call when playing in the Championship for Cardiff City, becoming the club’s first England international. There is no sense of regret with Bothroyd, who had to brush off the disappointment of never representing his country again.
“I got my England call-up which was great. People can say ‘one cap wonder’ but at the end of the day there aren’t many people who can say they got one cap, so I’m proud of it. I was unfortunate. Stuart Pearce came to watch me at training at the time and I was meant to go to another squad but I got injured, so it just didn’t go my way. But that’s life.”
Lineker’s time in Japan in the early 1990s was quickly forgotten by those who witnessed it but now Bothroyd has the chance to be remembered in the country he has made his home. He does not care that he could not compete with Lineker at international level. Bothroyd knows there are a number of different ways to make history.
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Exclusive interview: Jay Bothroyd on being a cult hero in Japan, the 'one-cap wonder' tag and jet-setting with Gaddafi's son
Charlie Eccleshare
26 MARCH 2018 • 11:31AM
As England line up against Italy on Tuesday night, there will - as usual - be no representative from outside the Premier League. Players who move abroad tend to be viewed with suspicion, as exiles who could not quite cut it.
Take Jay Bothroyd. The stripped-down view is of a striker whose England career was over before it began and who failed to live up to his early potential. The more rounded version involves a rich and varied career that has taken in training-pitch scuffles at Arsenal, partying with Colonel Gaddafi’s son in Monte Carlo, becoming a cult hero in Japan and a totem for epilepsy sufferers in sport.
No wonder Bothroyd, now 35, holds little truck with his detractors. “These people on the internet calling me a 'one-cap wonder' and saying I didn’t deserve it, at end of the day they’re the failures," he says. "I achieved all my goals and am still achieving new ones."
Bothroyd's latest stopping point is J-League side Hokkaido Consadole Sapporo where he has scored 12 goals in 18 matches since joining from Jubilo Iwata last July. He has captained the side, who regularly draw crowds of over 30,000, but for Bothroyd the move has been about a cultural, as well as footballing, education.
Not that the transition has been entirely straightforward. Bothroyd must still communicate via a translator, and is 5,500 miles from his wife, Stella, an Italian he met while playing with Perugia and who gave birth to their son, Zar, last August.
He admits to being baffled by Japan's adherence to rules - “In England if you’re short a penny for something the guy will say ‘whatever’ - in Japan, you won’t be allowed to buy it” - although there is no shortage of assistance from the locals.
"You can get food from vending machines on the street here,” explains Bothroyd, a long-standing Vegan whose pre-match meals are more likely to revolve around tofu and mushrooms than the one-time British staple of chicken and chips. “I once said that I really liked vending machine corn soup so from then on when people come to the training ground they bring me some. I’ve got loads of them stacked up in my cupboard!”
Bothroyd is evangelical in his enthusiasm for the J-League - "Ignorant people just say he’s in a s--- league in Japan, but that’s really not the case" - but it is still a far cry from his days growing up as a teenager in Archway.
Many of his friends at Holloway Boys School were involved in drugs and crime, but Bothroyd found a way out at his local club Arsenal.
With Arsene Wenger’s reign only just beginning, he established himself as the star striker of an all-conquering youth team alongside players such as Ashley Cole, Jermaine Pennant and Steve Sidwell.
“We won the FA Youth Cup in 2000 and all my team-mates then are still my friends now," Bothroyd says. "We have a WhatsApp group and meet up every year. We were very fortunate to play total football under Arsene Wenger. We are all technical footballers - I’m 6ft 3in but I didn’t learn how to head the ball until I left Arsenal.
“But there was an edge as well. We had fights every day - arguments, fisticuffs. The first team players as well - Tony Adams, Patrick Vieira, Thierry Henry. They were having physical confrontations every day. You wanted to win and then people start taking the piss, doing nutmegs, so you get upset.
"That's why it makes me sad for me to see Wenger in this current situation and people aggressively insulting him. Players get into comfort zone and I think that’s what’s happened unfortunately."
Bothroyd never made it into the Arsenal first team despite winning the FA Youth Cup in 2000
Bothroyd never made it into the Arsenal first team despite winning the FA Youth Cup in 2000 CREDIT: GETTY IMAGES
During the 1999-2000 campaign when Bothroyd inspired Arsenal to the FA Youth Cup, Wenger told the 17-year-old he was planning on promoting him to the first team the following season. It never happened: after being substituted in the Premier League’s academy play-off final, Bothroyd threw his shirt towards youth team coach Don Howe. He was swiftly sold to Coventry.
Bothroyd admits that was a "mistake" but it did not stop him developing an unwanted reputation for being, in one manager's words, "high maintenance". It took an apparently unlikely move to Serie A club Perugia in 2003 to instil some much-needed discipline.
“Before, I always thought you’d muck about in training but in Italy, it was like a religion”, Bothroyd recalls. "Initially I found it really difficult to cope. I didn’t speak Italian, and I remember my first month’s phone bill was €7,000 (£6,119) because I was calling home the entire time. But my loved ones told me I needed to stick it out, and once I made some friends, I started enjoying it. It was the best thing I did."
One of those friends was Al-Saadi Gaddafi, an attacking midfielder and the son of Libya’s notorious dictator who was signed by Perugia's eccentric owner Luciano Gaucci. Al-Saadi has since been extradited to Libya on murder charges during his country's bloody civil war, but back then he was viewed as a harmless playboy, rich enough to pay for Bothroyd's honeymoon to Los Angeles and Hawaii.
Al-Saadi Gaddafi was signed by Perugia in 2003, but has since been extradited back to Libya on murder charges
Al-Saadi Gaddafi was signed by Perugia in 2003, but has since been extradited back to Libya on murder charges
“I just didn’t see that in him," he says. "I didn’t see any violence, didn’t see him disrespect his staff or speak down to anyone. He was softly spoken, generous - maybe too generous.
“One time during an international break he took the whole team on private jets to Monte Carlo, rented the top two floors of the Hermitage Hotel [where rooms can cost more than £500] and paid for every single player to have their own room.
“I haven’t spoken to Saadi for about six years and never met his dad, but he would always have armed guards with him at training. It’s very sad that people have been killed and injured by his family. I’m sorry for that, I was shocked when I read about it.”
Bothroyd’s year in Italy was soured by being subjected to horrendous racist abuse by Inter Milan supporters, but it was ultimately a transformative experience.
He returned to England and had productive spells at clubs including Charlton, Wolves and Cardiff, where his form earned him a call-up to the national side in 2010 and a reunion with Wenger, with England training at Arsenal’s London Colney base.
Bothroyd’s voice trembles a little at the memory. “When I saw him he put his arm around me and said ‘I’m so happy for you, you’ve really done well, you’ve turned things around. I'm proud of you.' That really meant a lot.
“He always said ‘never be afraid to make mistakes’. Even when you didn’t play well, he always pointed out the good things you did."
Bothroyd acquitted himself well in his one England appearance - a 2-1 home defeat by France - but he was never recalled. He moved abroad again four years later, this time to Thailand and then to Japan after being disappointed at the standard of Thai football.
He is now as happy and settled as he has ever been, with Japan becoming a home from home. The point was underlined when Bothroyd - who has suffered from epilepsy since he was 17 - suffered a seizure during a training session last November.
"I was amazed by how much people contacted me about it. Lots of people have been sending me messages and saying ‘your story’s great’ and even offering me ambassadorial roles at foundations. So I’m glad I can be a positive role model for people that have this condition."
It is another twist in Bothroyd's peripatetic career, but what is striking, listening to him speak, is how content he sounds. So are there any regrets?
“For my ability, I have underachieved," he says. “There were Premier League forwards half as good as me. I could have played regularly for Arsenal and won more England caps if I hadn't wasted time not being focused on football like I should have been.
“But I've played in the Premier League, Serie A, for England, earned a lot of money. Could I have had a better career? Yeah of course I could. But a more varied career? I don't know about that."
https://www.theguardian.com/football/20 ... r-in-japan
....and from The Telegraph, also 2018...
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/20 ... ap-wonder/
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Jay Bothroyd: ‘I’m happy. I’ve scored more goals than Gary Lineker in Japan’
The former England striker’s career has taken him from Islington to Italy, Wales and now Japan where he is a positive role model of a footballer with epilepsy
Will Unwin
Fri 13 Apr 2018 15.21 BST Last modified on Fri 13 Apr 2018 22.00 BST
As Jay Bothroyd settles into his 18th season as a professional he has already achieved everything he set out to do as a child chasing a ball around the playground. Now, however, he wants to create history in Japan. The striker plays for Hokkaido Consadole Sapporo in the country where he has spent the past three years of his career and has started brightly this season with two goals in his opening five league games.
It looked as if Bothroyd was heading away from top-level football when he left England in 2014 for the Thai club Muangthong United but the low standard he found there prompted the former Cardiff striker to force his way out, moving to the J-League 2 side Júbilo Iwata. Bothroyd became a favourite with the club as he propelled them back up to the top flight, something which helped him to settle easily into Japanese life.
“I always look back, not that I’ve got any plans on finishing soon, but when I do retire from football I can look back at my career and say that when I decided I wanted to be a professional footballer in the playground when I was an infant I would have said: ‘I wanted to play in the Premier League, I want to play for my country and I want to earn a lot of money’ and I’ve done all three of those. I’ve achieved all my goals and I want to keep achieving as much as I can for as long as I can.”
Bothroyd, 35, is still looking to better himself and finally lift a trophy, something he has not done since being part of the Arsenal team which won the FA Youth Cup in 2000. Triumph in Japan would increase his cult status in Sapporo and send Bothroyd down in history, a personal milestone for which he is striving. “I would like to be the first English person to win some silverware in Japan, that would be a big achievement for me. I am happy, I’m the highest‑scoring British person in the J-League ever and Gary Lineker was here, so that’s an achievement. I just want to keep trying to be the best I can be, work hard, keep myself in shape and enjoy each day.”
Back home not many have taken notice of Bothroyd’s achievements abroad but he recently made headlines in England for blacking out in a training session. “I’ve got epilepsy, I haven’t got it really badly but I do have epilepsy and it’s something I’ve had since I was young, so it’s just one of those things you learn to live with.
“That was the first time I’ve actually had a seizure in football on the pitch, it had never happened to me before. The reason it did happen is because I forgot to take my medication for a couple of days and it caught up with me. I’ve got to take medication each day, I don’t see it as a disease, I see it as a condition and I embrace it. When that happened to me, loads of people contacted me and sent letters to say they didn’t realise you could be a sportsperson, achieve your goals with the condition. People were saying they were going to let their kids play football again, so I’ve helped influence people in a positive light.”
Milan captain Paolo Maldini tackles Bothroyd during Peruga and Milan’s Italian Serie A match at Perugia’ s Renato Curi stadium in September 2003. Photograph: Pietro Crocchioni/EPA
Asia is not Bothroyd’s first foreign adventure. He spent two years at the Italian club Perugia from the age of 20, fulfilling an ambition cultivated every weekend watching Football Italia on the sofa with his father growing up in Islington, north London.
One of his team-mates in Serie A was Colonel Gaddafi’s son Saadi, a man who became a friend of Bothroyd’s during their time at the club. Gaddafi failed a drug test while with the club and would feature only once. In recent years he has faced a number of accusations including murder, drug use, misappropriating properties through force and armed intimidation when he led the Libyan Football Federation. After football he became a special forces commander and was under United Nations sanctions after commanding units to repress the revolution in his homeland brutally and is being held in prison awaiting trial for the murder and torture of a former footballer.
“I never experienced that side of Saadi,” says Bothroyd. “Maybe he does what he does in his country but when he was in Italy I never experienced the treachery that his father and brothers did. He loved football. When his people and his security were around him, he was always polite and respectful to everyone. When I saw all the stuff come out about him and his family, it was shocking to me.”
Japanese football is on the up and the fans will be confident of progression from a World Cup group comprising Poland, Senegal and Colombia in June. Bothroyd has seen the improvements of the domestic league since his arrival, not to mention the growing influence of Japanese players in Europe.
“You’ve got to look around the leagues, there are a lot of Japanese players in Italy, in England there are a couple, in Germany there’s a lot, there’s a lot of Japanese players everywhere. Japanese football is a good level, the place they do lack a little bit is physicality but technically they’re very good, there are a lot of very good footballers here, the standard is high. Look at the Club World Cup: Kashima Antlers played against Real Madrid and [Cristiano] Ronaldo scored the winning goal in the last few minutes of extra time, so that shows you the standard, it’s not a walk in the park here and it’s very competitive. I expect and hope Japan do well in the World Cup.”
Bothroyd’s own international career consists of 18 minutes in a 2-1 friendly defeat by France in November 2010. As now, the striker was going against popular theory by earning his senior England call when playing in the Championship for Cardiff City, becoming the club’s first England international. There is no sense of regret with Bothroyd, who had to brush off the disappointment of never representing his country again.
“I got my England call-up which was great. People can say ‘one cap wonder’ but at the end of the day there aren’t many people who can say they got one cap, so I’m proud of it. I was unfortunate. Stuart Pearce came to watch me at training at the time and I was meant to go to another squad but I got injured, so it just didn’t go my way. But that’s life.”
Lineker’s time in Japan in the early 1990s was quickly forgotten by those who witnessed it but now Bothroyd has the chance to be remembered in the country he has made his home. He does not care that he could not compete with Lineker at international level. Bothroyd knows there are a number of different ways to make history.
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Exclusive interview: Jay Bothroyd on being a cult hero in Japan, the 'one-cap wonder' tag and jet-setting with Gaddafi's son
Charlie Eccleshare
26 MARCH 2018 • 11:31AM
As England line up against Italy on Tuesday night, there will - as usual - be no representative from outside the Premier League. Players who move abroad tend to be viewed with suspicion, as exiles who could not quite cut it.
Take Jay Bothroyd. The stripped-down view is of a striker whose England career was over before it began and who failed to live up to his early potential. The more rounded version involves a rich and varied career that has taken in training-pitch scuffles at Arsenal, partying with Colonel Gaddafi’s son in Monte Carlo, becoming a cult hero in Japan and a totem for epilepsy sufferers in sport.
No wonder Bothroyd, now 35, holds little truck with his detractors. “These people on the internet calling me a 'one-cap wonder' and saying I didn’t deserve it, at end of the day they’re the failures," he says. "I achieved all my goals and am still achieving new ones."
Bothroyd's latest stopping point is J-League side Hokkaido Consadole Sapporo where he has scored 12 goals in 18 matches since joining from Jubilo Iwata last July. He has captained the side, who regularly draw crowds of over 30,000, but for Bothroyd the move has been about a cultural, as well as footballing, education.
Not that the transition has been entirely straightforward. Bothroyd must still communicate via a translator, and is 5,500 miles from his wife, Stella, an Italian he met while playing with Perugia and who gave birth to their son, Zar, last August.
He admits to being baffled by Japan's adherence to rules - “In England if you’re short a penny for something the guy will say ‘whatever’ - in Japan, you won’t be allowed to buy it” - although there is no shortage of assistance from the locals.
"You can get food from vending machines on the street here,” explains Bothroyd, a long-standing Vegan whose pre-match meals are more likely to revolve around tofu and mushrooms than the one-time British staple of chicken and chips. “I once said that I really liked vending machine corn soup so from then on when people come to the training ground they bring me some. I’ve got loads of them stacked up in my cupboard!”
Bothroyd is evangelical in his enthusiasm for the J-League - "Ignorant people just say he’s in a s--- league in Japan, but that’s really not the case" - but it is still a far cry from his days growing up as a teenager in Archway.
Many of his friends at Holloway Boys School were involved in drugs and crime, but Bothroyd found a way out at his local club Arsenal.
With Arsene Wenger’s reign only just beginning, he established himself as the star striker of an all-conquering youth team alongside players such as Ashley Cole, Jermaine Pennant and Steve Sidwell.
“We won the FA Youth Cup in 2000 and all my team-mates then are still my friends now," Bothroyd says. "We have a WhatsApp group and meet up every year. We were very fortunate to play total football under Arsene Wenger. We are all technical footballers - I’m 6ft 3in but I didn’t learn how to head the ball until I left Arsenal.
“But there was an edge as well. We had fights every day - arguments, fisticuffs. The first team players as well - Tony Adams, Patrick Vieira, Thierry Henry. They were having physical confrontations every day. You wanted to win and then people start taking the piss, doing nutmegs, so you get upset.
"That's why it makes me sad for me to see Wenger in this current situation and people aggressively insulting him. Players get into comfort zone and I think that’s what’s happened unfortunately."
Bothroyd never made it into the Arsenal first team despite winning the FA Youth Cup in 2000
Bothroyd never made it into the Arsenal first team despite winning the FA Youth Cup in 2000 CREDIT: GETTY IMAGES
During the 1999-2000 campaign when Bothroyd inspired Arsenal to the FA Youth Cup, Wenger told the 17-year-old he was planning on promoting him to the first team the following season. It never happened: after being substituted in the Premier League’s academy play-off final, Bothroyd threw his shirt towards youth team coach Don Howe. He was swiftly sold to Coventry.
Bothroyd admits that was a "mistake" but it did not stop him developing an unwanted reputation for being, in one manager's words, "high maintenance". It took an apparently unlikely move to Serie A club Perugia in 2003 to instil some much-needed discipline.
“Before, I always thought you’d muck about in training but in Italy, it was like a religion”, Bothroyd recalls. "Initially I found it really difficult to cope. I didn’t speak Italian, and I remember my first month’s phone bill was €7,000 (£6,119) because I was calling home the entire time. But my loved ones told me I needed to stick it out, and once I made some friends, I started enjoying it. It was the best thing I did."
One of those friends was Al-Saadi Gaddafi, an attacking midfielder and the son of Libya’s notorious dictator who was signed by Perugia's eccentric owner Luciano Gaucci. Al-Saadi has since been extradited to Libya on murder charges during his country's bloody civil war, but back then he was viewed as a harmless playboy, rich enough to pay for Bothroyd's honeymoon to Los Angeles and Hawaii.
Al-Saadi Gaddafi was signed by Perugia in 2003, but has since been extradited back to Libya on murder charges
Al-Saadi Gaddafi was signed by Perugia in 2003, but has since been extradited back to Libya on murder charges
“I just didn’t see that in him," he says. "I didn’t see any violence, didn’t see him disrespect his staff or speak down to anyone. He was softly spoken, generous - maybe too generous.
“One time during an international break he took the whole team on private jets to Monte Carlo, rented the top two floors of the Hermitage Hotel [where rooms can cost more than £500] and paid for every single player to have their own room.
“I haven’t spoken to Saadi for about six years and never met his dad, but he would always have armed guards with him at training. It’s very sad that people have been killed and injured by his family. I’m sorry for that, I was shocked when I read about it.”
Bothroyd’s year in Italy was soured by being subjected to horrendous racist abuse by Inter Milan supporters, but it was ultimately a transformative experience.
He returned to England and had productive spells at clubs including Charlton, Wolves and Cardiff, where his form earned him a call-up to the national side in 2010 and a reunion with Wenger, with England training at Arsenal’s London Colney base.
Bothroyd’s voice trembles a little at the memory. “When I saw him he put his arm around me and said ‘I’m so happy for you, you’ve really done well, you’ve turned things around. I'm proud of you.' That really meant a lot.
“He always said ‘never be afraid to make mistakes’. Even when you didn’t play well, he always pointed out the good things you did."
Bothroyd acquitted himself well in his one England appearance - a 2-1 home defeat by France - but he was never recalled. He moved abroad again four years later, this time to Thailand and then to Japan after being disappointed at the standard of Thai football.
He is now as happy and settled as he has ever been, with Japan becoming a home from home. The point was underlined when Bothroyd - who has suffered from epilepsy since he was 17 - suffered a seizure during a training session last November.
"I was amazed by how much people contacted me about it. Lots of people have been sending me messages and saying ‘your story’s great’ and even offering me ambassadorial roles at foundations. So I’m glad I can be a positive role model for people that have this condition."
It is another twist in Bothroyd's peripatetic career, but what is striking, listening to him speak, is how content he sounds. So are there any regrets?
“For my ability, I have underachieved," he says. “There were Premier League forwards half as good as me. I could have played regularly for Arsenal and won more England caps if I hadn't wasted time not being focused on football like I should have been.
“But I've played in the Premier League, Serie A, for England, earned a lot of money. Could I have had a better career? Yeah of course I could. But a more varied career? I don't know about that."