449: David Ginola, Tottenham Hotspur, Merlin’s Premier League 98 Official Sticker Collection

Today Richard Allinson takes a look at a man it’s always been hard to keep your eye off. Confident, skilful and with hair that L’Oreal thought was worth making him their first male model today’s subject won hearts on and off the pitch during the 1990s. He was criminally underused at international level but, unlike Matt Le Tissier, thankfully seems to have managed to steer clear of spamming the internet with questionable memes about the Covid-19 vaccine. Over to Rich.

Fans of football nostalgia stay with me, because what I’m about to say is leading somewhere. Over the last couple of years, the Coronavirus lockdowns have led me to getting into I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here. I’m not especially proud of this, but I have been rather surprised at how entertaining I find watching a bunch of people that I previously didn’t know existed having to put up with Ant and Dec for a few weeks. 

As I knew that I was inevitably going to be tuning in again this year, I was pleased when I saw that David Ginola was lined up to be on the show. I was hoping to hear all about his time at Newcastle United as part of Kevin Keegan’s 0-0-10 formation, but at the time of writing we are still waiting for this particular campfire story. However, a couple of episodes in, David was packed off to be tickled by some cockroaches when, in a potential nod to the Geordie tradition of not wearing a shirt in winter, he proceeded to take his top off. There was no requirement for him to do so, he just did it unprompted. This got me thinking about his football career, more specifically, his time at Aston Villa. 

Ginola arrived in England in 1995 when Newcastle United paid £2.5m to Paris Saint-Germain for his services, and research (a quick check on Google Images) shows that this was a man not yet versed in taking his shirt off for no reason. His time on Tyneside was an exciting one as he formed part of the Magpies team which pushed Manchester United so close in the title race (if only they hadn’t gone to Middlesbrough and got something…) but after 75 games, seven goals and a failed bid from Barcelona he was on his way to Tottenham Hotspur. Ginola’s  arrival in North London saw him having the obligatory “sit in the stands holding up a replica shirt” photo, except the curious thing about David is that he decided not to wear anything on his upper half whilst the picture was being taken. This begs the question, what was he wearing when he turned up to White Hart Lane that summer’s day? Either, he turned up wearing a replica Spurs shirt with his own name and number on the back and had to take it off for the photo; he was wearing no shirt at all; or he turned up in something entirely different and took his top off to have his photo taken. Regardless, it is a bit weird. 

That aside, once he’d got dressed and got onto the pitch for Spurs his time there was a fruitful one. He played 124 games, scored 22 goals, won the 1998/99 League Cup, was awarded the 1999 PFA Player’s Player of the Year and Football Writers Association Footballer of the Year Awards, and in 2008 he was inducted into the Tottenham Hotspur Hall of Fame. It was then, a bit of a surprise that in 2000 Spurs accepted a £3m bid from Aston Villa and before long he was packing his suitcases (presumably containing very few shirts) and heading for Birmingham. 

Given that he was 33 years old and struggling for fitness, it was perhaps unsurprising that he wasn’t performing as consistently for Villa as he had done at Newcastle and Spurs. This lack of form led to his manager, John Gregory, calling Ginola “overweight”, saying that he was “carrying a bit of timber” and comparing him to Mr Blobby. Stories at the time reported that David was so incensed by this that he seriously considered taking legal action against Gregory and Villa for his comments, with Cherie Blair being briefed in her capacity as a Barrister on Ginola’s behalf. I can only assume that this is because Tony was such a huge Newcastle United fan.

Outside of the legal case, Ginola also had a response of a different kind for his manager. Manchester City rocked up to Villa Park in December 2000, and although they were struggling in the league, took a 1-0 lead. Ginola got Villa back into the game by supplying a cross for future Homes Under The Hammer star Dion Dublin to head home the equaliser, and David celebrated by patting his belly in response to his boss’s comments. Villa were to fall 2-1 behind before Ginola, clearly out to prove a point, was to bring them level again with a volley from outside the box. Cue pandemonium and David taking his shirt off to reveal a particularly less than flabby torso in what was a non-so-subtle two fingers up to his manager. Gregory seemingly didn’t see it like that, when after the game he said: "His goal wasn't an answer to me, he just wanted to show off his nice slim figure afterwards. He looked alright. He asked me 'Who is this Mr Blobby?' I don't think he knew what I was on about.” When asked if he had any comment after the match, Ginola simply said “No - I am too fat.” All in all, the Frenchman played 41 times for Villa between 2000-2002, scoring seven goals and more importantly than anything that he had done before, has done since, and will ever do in the future, won the 2001 Intertoto Cup. He left the club in 2002 and turned out for five games with Everton before retiring at the age of 35. Nothing really notable happened during his time with the Toffees and no reports of him taking his shirt off whilst on Merseyside can be located unfortunately. 

So David Ginola then. He was a maverick, mercurial player at times and especially in his Newcastle and Tottenham days. He undoubtedly goes down as a nineties footballing legend and it is good to see him doing so well after his heart attack in 2016. His life after football in general is an interesting one which I don’t have enough room to go into here, but let’s hope he kept his shirt on for at least some of it.