463: Gary Mabbutt, Tottenham Hotspur, Merlin’s Premier League 95 Sticker Collection

Today Richard Allinson takes a look at a man who won major trophies and overcame adversity but perhaps doesn’t get the credit he deserves. In a career full of highlights it’s arguable his best performance came on a rank sand-based AstroTurf pitch where, with his team trailing 3-0 at half time, his second half hat-trick and Brazilian ball skills in an unorthodox central midfield role secured one of the greatest comeback victories in football history. Ok, this might have been in an episode of 1990s CBBC classic ‘The Queen’s Nose’ but this surely was enough to shortlist him for the Aston Villa job last month. Over to Rich for more of his heroics.

Gary Mabbutt had a great football career, of that there can be little doubt. Between 1979 and 1998 he played 131 games for Bristol Rovers and 619 for Tottenham Hotspur scoring 37 times in the process. He earned 16 international caps in an era of excellent English centre backs, won the UEFA Cup, the FA Cup, shared a Charity Shield and was awarded an MBE for services to football in 1994. This doesn’t tell half the story of the man though, so here we go with a post about a footballer that doesn’t have a massive amount to do with his time on the pitch. 

With that said, let’s start with a football match, Spurs v Wimbledon on 25th November 1993 to be precise. Shockingly for a game involving a Wimbledon side in the nineties, John Fashanu was competing for a high ball when he smashed an elbow into a defender’s face. It is an incident so infamous that when you type ‘Fashanu’ into YouTube the first result is ‘Fashanu Mabbutt elbow’. It is also an incident that is so bad that no video footage of it is returned. The Wimbledon man’s challenge resulted in Mabbutt sustaining a fractured skull and almost losing his eye. He had to undergo surgery for two hours to put his eye socket back together and additionally, Mabbutt’s cheekbone was broken in three places and fractured in a further four which all resulted in him having a metal plate inserted in his face. His recovery kept him out of the game for three months, and even when he did return he had to sport a fancy little face mask for a while. Fashanu, meanwhile, didn’t even get booked.

Moving away from the football pitch, Mabbutt is a type 1 diabetic, having been diagnosed at the age of 17 whilst playing for Bristol Rovers. Both during and after his playing days, Mabbutt has continually raised awareness about diabetes. He has acted as a role model to scores of children with the condition, and even once appeared on Blue Peter where he injected an orange with insulin to illustrate the effect the condition had on his daily life. The reality of living with diabetes was writ large for Mabbutt in 2013 when he almost had his left leg amputated, owing to a complication from his condition. As he was about to go under the knife, Mabbutt turned to the surgeon and said “please have a good day at the office.” Not exactly the rousing captain’s speech the Spurs dressing room became accustomed to over the years, but you can’t fault the sentiment. Thankfully, the surgeon put in a man of the match performance and his leg was saved. The issues with Mabbutt’s diabetes weren’t to end there though. In 2018, whilst on holiday in Kruger National Park, he had his foot eaten by a rat to the extent that one of his toes was bitten to the bone. The condition had left him with diabetic neuropathy which means he has little-to-no feeling in his feet and he only realised that he had been used as an all you can eat buffet when he woke up the next day. As Gary put it himself “Unfortunately the rat had had a nice meal and I hadn't been able to feel it.”

Post retirement, and before Covid-19 brought the world to it’s knees, Mabbutt busied himself visiting dementia workshops for the Sporting Memories foundation but this had to stop as the restrictions on our daily lives came in. However, our man wasn’t going to let a global pandemic succeed where John Fashanu and Roland Rat had failed. During the Covid-19 lockdowns, Mabbutt has made over 3,000 telephone calls to elderly and vulnerable Spurs fans. Quite how many of these were to provide reassurances that José Mourinho wasn’t lining up a move for Marouane Fellaini is unknown, but it is a remarkable achievement and every credit should be given to Gary for his work in supporting his club and community. Summing up the calls, Mabbutt said “After what has been a challenging year for so many, being able to bring a small sense of joy to our fans has been incredibly worthwhile.” Fair play.

Just a couple of other things to note on big Gaz before I go. He is an honorary Master of Science, an honorary Doctor of Health and an honorary Doctor of Law. He also served as an ambassador for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, and worked with the Deloitte Street Child World Cup through training and encouraging street children and ex-street children in football. He also worked for street children's rights in Durban. These three things really make the South African rat that ate his foot look like a bit of an ungrateful prick. And just to finish, he is a Global Club Ambassador for Spurs and the FA, an Ambassador for the Prince's Trust and  Honorary Vice-President of Diabetes UK. He also has a Coventry City fanzine named after him called Gary Mabbutt’s Knee, a title which pays tribute to his own goal in the 1987 FA Cup final. So all the big achievements.  

So Gary Mabbutt then. To me he is an icon of nineties football who always flies under the radar when considering the stand out players of the decade but his physical presence and ability can’t be questioned. During his playing days he was also regarded as one of the game’s gentlemen, and it has to be said that it seems like he is a bloody good bloke.