None of you people who lead ordinary, run-of-the-mill, dreary, worthless existences could possibly imagine what it’s like to live in the goldfish bowl – in fact, the thing I live in is more than that…it’s like an aquarium big enough to house those really, really big tortoises that can swim. That’s what it’s like to be me.
When Frank Lampard isn’t playing football, I’m relaxing and chilling out at home playing the really, really brilliant new Frank Lampard’s Fifa 07 Soccer Football game – I also spend a lot of my spare time in the games room playing snooker, pool, but not billiards, because that only has like, a couple of balls on the table and is dead boring.
The other day, I had the lads round and we had a game of ‘killer’ pool. We all stuck up ten grand just to make it interesting. Sadly, it all kicked off when the boy Essien beat the Russky lad – now me being a bit handy, I had to step in and sort it out. I told them that if they wanted to have it, they should go outside for a ‘straightener’ like that time at school when I clobbered Hodgkinson after he told matron that it was me who set fire to the latin master’s copy of Homer.
At the end of the day when all’s said and done, no-one, not even me knows what it’s like to be me. No-one understands what it’s like to run out in front of all those yelling, screaming people – and after I’ve finished on the catwalk, I have to rush off and play a football match.
In the club, I’m known as the guv’nor. Well actually, that’s Paul Ince’s nickname, so Incey, if you’re reading this, I don’t mean no disrespect by that or nothing, innit – respec’. Anyway, Frank Lampard is known as a bit of a hard man – everyone knows that I take no prisoners. To illustrate this point, there was this incident during training not so long ago – one of the youth team players kicked a ball and it landed on my brand new Lamborghini which was parked near the ground.
Now, I like to think of myself as a reasonable human being in normal circumstances, but this 15-year-old had just crossed the line. I don’t care if he apologized and told me that he’d clean my car and pay for damages – that’s not the point. So I grabbed him by the collar and gave him a right telling off, before dumping him to the ground. The world of soccer is full of stories such as this – it’s a hard game played by even harder men. I am one of those men. (Can we lose the bit about Incey at the top – he might get the hump, ta).
A lot of people in the media – who I really, really hate by the way – think that footballers have become alienated from the real fans. What those people in the so-called media seem to forget is that up until four years ago I too wasn’t famous, I was an ordinary man-in-the-street who would enjoy his Sunday lunchtime pint and a stroll to the shops to buy (insert something of minor value here – cheers).
But of course, now I’m a member of “Soccer’s A-List elite “ (Heat Magazine) and it’s hard for Frank Lampard to go about his daily business – for instance, nowadays I couldn’t even walk down the road without being hounded by reporters (who I also loathe with a vengeance). Anyway, for more of my thoughts, read my weekly column in The Sun, and of course, don’t forget Let’s Be Frank is showing daily on Chelsea TV, and I have a new website, www.frankylampard.com.
As told To Matt Owen
