Long before Tony Cascarino was a Republic of Ireland international playing in successive World Cups, he was a promising youngster balancing life on the training ground with that on building sites and hairdressing salons.
Cascarino’s career would see him take in stints at Chelsea and Marseille, but at the age of 18 he was drifting away from the game.
But a host of chance encounters, lucky breaks and one crunching tackle would go on to change his life forever.
Tony Cascarino on his big break
Cascarino was 19 years old when he was given the chance to sign for Gillingham in 1982, with the forward admitting that he had thought he’d missed his chance to play professionally.
“Definitely,” he admits to FourFourTwo. “I’d even stopped playing for a football club for three years. From 16 to 18 I was working both as a hairdresser and also with my dad on building sites. I worked all day every Saturday, and then I’d play football on the Sunday for teams that I wasn’t even registered for.
“A local friend of my dad’s at non-league Crockenhill eventually said I should trial for them. I went as a centre-half, did OK, and the manager said I could train with them. One match, our striker had broken his leg and the manager asked if I could do a job up top. I gave it a go and scored a hat-trick away at Erith & Belvedere in the Kent league.”
The circumstances of his move to Gillingham were also a case of the now 63-year-old making the most of an unlikely opportunity.
“Our sponge man at Crockenhill was the brother-in-law of Keith Peacock, then manager of Gillingham,” Cascarino continues. “Keith agreed to come and watch me play against Chatham Town in the Medway. I didn’t play great, but he asked me to come on trial for Gillingham reserves against the first team.
I took the money out of the bank and laid it out on the carpet floor of my mum and dad’s house. I was just so proud of what I had achieved
“I went there with my boots in a plastic bag, literally off the building site. I laugh now because the centre-half at Gillingham at the time was Steve Bruce. There was one incident that made Keith think there was something there. It was a cross that came in from the right. Me and Brucie went up for it, and I clattered him and got my head on it – the keeper made a great save. That was enough for Keith to offer me a one-year contract, just to see.
“Six weeks after that, I signed a three-year deal. I’d gotten into the first team, and after three or four weeks of a lot of hard training, I was a completely different player. I was athletic, I could get around the pitch, I had a good leap. I’d gone from £100 a week to £205 and also got paid a £6,000 signing-on fee. I took the money out of the bank and laid it out on the carpet floor of my mum and dad’s house. I was just so proud of what I had achieved.”
Cascarino would then score on his home debut, netting the final goal in a thrashing of Wimbledon, another occasion when the future Ireland star took advantage of a late change of circumstances.
“It’s a funny story actually,” he recalls. “For that game against Wimbledon, I was down as the 13th man – in those days it was only 11 players plus one sub, so I wasn’t meant to play. The meeting time at the stadium was 1.45pm, for a 3pm kick-off. I arrived at the station at 12.15pm and thought, ‘I’m not even playing today.’ There was a Wimpy nearby, a 100-yard walk. I sat down and thought, ‘I’ll have a double Wimpy and chips.’ When I’d finished, there was still 20 minutes to burn before I even needed to start to move, so I had a knickerbocker glory too.
“When I got to the stadium, I found out that one of the team had gotten ill overnight, so I had to be the substitute with all of this food in my stomach. And of course, after 15 minutes, a lad called Dean White gets a bad injury and is stretchered off. On I came, and I played well. We won 6-1 and I got my first goal. Maybe modern players should look into that diet more.”