Wee man asleep in car so have Newcastle Spurs on radio. Early goal and Spurs are 1 up. Then he says Spurs are in trouble at 2-0 down. All very confusing. I think Newcastle are ine up. He hasn’t corrected himslef yet.
Now another goal and it’s 2 zip to Newcastle apparently.
Was that rte? Newstalk fellas said it was 2 nil at 1-0.
Ger Canning after inventing a new 3rd level education centre in Limerick.
Des Cahill said that West Ham were two up away to Brighton earlier.
Not a mistake so much earlier from Cahill but a lack of information provided.
‘And some story in the snooker this morning. John Higgins, a veteran of the Crucible, hit three century breaks in his match!! [a pause] Let’s go to Newry for an update’.
No mentor of the score in the snooker match which of course was 8-0 to the match thrower.
Dylan Mcgrath playing half back for Galway according to Mike Finnerty
Justin Treacy on the RTE sports news at the moment.
The man can’t speak.
Not a sports broadcaster. But the fella reading the teams out pre match said Hannon was from Ahane and Hayes was from Kilmona Pallaskenry.
Whatever about misreading Adare as Ahane. Some stones to not know how to say Kildimo. You’d swear Kyle was new 
They even renamed it Kyledimo to make it easier for the national media
One from last weekend and John Kenny commentating on Roscommon and Cork.
John gave a general overview of each team’s performance in the group stage.
‘Of course Roscommon opened with that memorable, nerve racking one point win over Dublin’.
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
According to Des/Dessie, Augustin Rodin is trained by Aidan O’Rourke
The gift that keeps on giving - Sunday Sport.
Not an individual error, more of a general one.
I was driving back from down the country earlier and wanted to catch up on the GAA - county finals etc.
Marie Crowe and Des Cahill went through results from around the country a few times but not once did they mention the Donegal County final which I didn’t know was on until I watched the sports news on the RTE News at 6.
More than likely because TG4 were showing it as the deferred game and the Sunday Sport crew it was live.
Des was very exercised about this article yesterday
Today at 01:30
Tony Cascarino with his son Michael in 1989
What’s so special about Tony Cascarino? That’s a good question. The short answer, I guess, is that I absolutely love him. Here’s the long answer.
The month is November, 1999. It’s the eve of his final game for Ireland against Turkey and we’re having coffee at the Kervansaray Termal Hotel in Bursa. “This may seem an odd question,” he says, “but what do you know about me?”
The month is November, 1999. It’s the eve of his final game for Ireland against Turkey and we’re having coffee at the Kervansaray Termal Hotel in Bursa. “This may seem an odd question,” he says, “but what do you know about me?”
“I know you’re a good player, but not a great player,” I laugh.
“No, I’m serious. What do you know about me?”
“I know you’re 37 years old and Ireland’s most capped player. I know you’re a goal shy of the all-time scoring record. I know you’ve played in two World Cups and for Aston Villa, Celtic, Chelsea and Marseilles. I know you named your first son Michael after your Irish grandfather and your other son Teddy after Teddy Sheringham.
“I think you’re possibly divorced but I’m not sure, and that you may have remarried a French girl but I’m not sure about that either. I know you’re well-liked by your peers and by the media.
“A typical streetwise cockney, I’d say, one of the good guys.”
He smiles and reaches for his coffee. “I’ve been thinking of writing a book,” he says. “What do you think?”
“There’s a lot of them about,” I reply. “It depends on what you’ve got to say and why you want to say it.”
“How do mean?”
“The bookshops are heaving with ex-footballers’ tales. If you’re thinking of it in terms of a pension, forget it. Publishers are the only people making money from books these days, unless your name is Alex Ferguson or you’re married to a Spice Girl.”
“No, it wouldn’t be for the money,” he says. “And I’m not interested in talking about the games I’ve played or the goals I’ve scored or the wankers I’ve met in dressing rooms. I’m not interested in hurting anyone but myself.”
“And why would you want to hurt yourself?”
“Because I’ve made mistakes and hurt my two boys. Because a lot of things have happened that they don’t know or understand. Because there’s more to football than the 90 minutes of a game and more to the people who play it than a five in the ratings. Because after 18 years of being cheered and jeered and analysed, I would like people to know who I am.”
I tell him to order another coffee while I step out of the room and call a woman I know in the book trade. He seems anxious when I return.
“Well, what did she say?”
“Would you like her exact words?
“Go on.”
“She said, ‘No disrespect, but he’s not exactly David Beckham.’”
“Did she really?”
“Well, no, not exactly, but that was the gist of it.”
And it’s still the gist of it. What’s so special about Tony Cascarino?
He is not David Beckham.
Nothing keeps me awake more at night than the fear of what happens next. A recent conversation I had with Jack Charlton is a source of recurring bad dreams.
‘Ah, Cassy, don’t tell me you’re still turning up,’ he smiled, when we met in the lobby of a Dublin hotel on the eve of an international. ‘What are you going to do after football?’
‘I don’t know yet, Jack,’ I replied.
‘What do you mean, you don’t know! You’ve been doing the same thing for eighteen years — you must have some ideas.’
‘No, Jack, I’m not sure.’
‘What about taking your coaching badge?’
‘Well … yeah … but I’m not sure I want to go down the football road, Jack.’
‘You’ve got to do something. It’s the only thing you know.’
‘Yeah, but not everyone wants to do what you did, Jack.’
‘Why not? Tell me what, then?’
‘Well, at the moment I’ve invested some money in a house in Tahiti and I’m trying to get that off the ground.’
‘A house! Tahiti! That’s not going to keep you going for more than a few months, is it? What are you going to do in the long term?’
‘I don’t know, Jack. Everything you’re saying makes perfect sense but at the moment I just don’t know.’
‘Full Time:
The Secret Life of Tony Cascarino’
Paul Kimmage: I’ve been thinking about something you said when I called last week: “What’s your angle?”
Tony Cascarino (laughs): I didn’t mean it in a bad way.
PK: But I took it in a bad way. I thought, ‘I’ve known Cas since 1990 and it’s the first time he’s ever doubted me.’
TC: No, I was trying to second guess you basically: ‘He must be curious about something.’ Because it’s not that long since the last time we spoke.
PK: Five years.
TC: Is it?
PK: And nine since our last big interview.
TC: Oh! Right, well, you know it would never bother me; my immediate thought was, ‘Does he want to talk about Ireland and the internationals?’ Because that’s the weird thing — I don’t ever get asked about it over here. The only conversations I have about Ireland these days is on Today FM with Matt Cooper, and he asks about Evan Ferguson, which is sad.
PK: You watched the game on Friday.
TC: Yeah.
PK: And?
TC: Oh gawd. Well, it wasn’t so much the game as the inevitability of how it panned out; every time there’s a game we have to win, we’re more likely to lose. Okay, so we beat Gibraltar 4-0, but I don’t imagine anyone in Ireland had much interest. Why would they?
And I know you like Stephen Kenny, but we’re going nowhere. What he’s been trying to do — the idea that you can outplay teams with players who have better technical ability than yours — is flawed. His idea is flawed. You can’t ask Championship players — some of them — to outplay the best teams in Europe.
PK: Did you watch the Holland or France games?
TC: I saw a bit of the France game.
PK: Because another side of it is that the expectations are ridiculous.
TC: Yes, I would agree with that, but you’re going to play enough top teams to get a result against one of them, and we haven’t. And we’re always out of groups before the qualifying ends — we had three games to go and we couldn’t qualify. Unfortunately, it reminds me of that period when I first came into the team and we got beat by Denmark 4-1 at Lansdowne Road and the ground was half-empty. And I know the crowds are still decent but …
PK: Have you met Kenny?
TC: No, and I’d feel a bit … It would probably be a hard conversation: ‘Stephen, you have to start thinking outside the box. You can’t think this is the only way to play.’
PK: You’d say that?
TC: Yeah, but I’d feel a bit awkward, because I’ve never been a manager, and I always feel I owe them an explanation, and he might say ‘Well, why don’t you go into management if you know so much?’ Do you know what I mean?
PK: Yes, but I want you to stop.
TC: Why?
PK: Because you’ve triggered something else I want to talk about — a conversation you had once with Jack Charlton about what you were going to do after football. “I don’t know, Jack,” you replied. And here you are at 61 and you’ve made a pretty good life for yourself.
TC: No, I’d say a very good life for myself. I feel like I’m the luckiest man in the world with regards to my job, because I love football and the more I’ve done in the media the more I’ve enjoyed it. And I still do today. I still get up at ten to four every Saturday and Sunday morning.
PK: That’s where I’m going: “This is the Weekend Sports Breakfast with Natalie Sawyer and Tony Cascarino on talkSPORT — world-beating big match build-up and industrial strength opinion.”
TC: Laughs.
PK: You’re up at ten to four!
TC: Yeah.
PK: Talk me through it.
TC: Well, I sleep on the settee on Friday and Saturday because I don’t want to disturb Jo [wife]. So I get up, wash, drive to Orpington station, and get picked up by the producer — a cab in and a train home. But not on Sunday. I drive in on Sunday because you can park in London on the Sunday for free, and there’s always plenty of spaces.
PK: Where’s the studio?
TC: Near London Bridge. I like to get there early and read the papers, because we do a paper review. And I’m lucky, because Natalie Sawyer is good and I really enjoy working with her.
PK: Here’s how she started on Sunday: “Good morning and welcome along. I’m Natalie Sawyer and alongside me today as always is the former Republic of Ireland striker, Tony Cascarino.” And here’s how you started: “GOOD MORNING!”
TC: Laughs.
PK: It was 6.0 in the morning but you sounded as happy as a lark.
TC: Yeah, well, I talked about this with Jo and we decided that if I was going to do it, I was going to do it like a pro. Because one thing I’ve learned about punditry is don’t be lazy — you’ll get away with it for a while but you’ll get found out. So I work hard at it and watch loads of games, but it means the weekends are basically a write-off for us. And people might go, ‘Yeah, you’re on at six but you’re done at nine,’ but sometimes I wake up at a quarter past two and I’m looking at the clock.
PK: Is that anxiety? Do you still get nervous going on?
TC: Emm … I often picture myself listening to me, ‘Is he talking crap?’ So I try to prepare.
PK: You started with rugby on Sunday.
TC: Yeah, and it’s weird, because rugby was a game I never got into at all, but I’m watching more of the Ireland rugby team than the Ireland football team.
PK: Here’s your take on the game: “I love sport. I’ve always loved sport. And I love sport at the highest level, and that’s what that was last night. If you wanted to show someone how good rugby can be, that would be it.”
TC: Yeah, a great game, but tough to take. I thought they’d win it. I thought they’d win the tournament. Have I told you I’ve met Andy Farrell?
PK: When was that?
TC: It would have been … When did he go to Ireland? Because he went as an assistant first … was it in 2017? We were living in Hitchin at the time and he was living in Harpenden, and there’s a David Lloyds gym in Luton and he came up to me. “Read your book,” he said. “Loved it.” So we started chatting away. I used to feel sorry for the running machine — he’d be battering it, really going quick — and I got to know him without being friends. He asked me about Ireland and places to live in Dublin, and when I see his team playing now — their enthusiasm — the flair.
PK: How long have you been doing the breakfast show?
TC: Since 2018.
PK: You clearly enjoy it.
TC: Yeah, but I go to bed absolutely bolloxed on Sunday night. Jo looks at me and I’m like the snake in The Jungle Book — my eyes are rolling in my head. I don’t want to talk … just gone, completely. And there are mornings when I get up at 4.0 and think, ‘What the f**k am I doing? I’m 61.’
PK: Are there?
TC: Yeah, but it’s short lived. My least favourite word in the dictionary is retirement.
PK: Really?
TC: Yeah.
PK: How much of that is having to work, as against wanting to work?
TC: Well, of course it is. I’ve had two divorces and they’ve been hugely expensive. Ray Parlour’s is the divorce everyone mentions, and I don’t know his exact number, but if I was to add it all up … the settlements … the legal fees … I’ve probably ‘done’ more than Ray. So could I stop tomorrow? No. But I don’t want to stop, and we’re doing okay.
My daughter, Maeva, is five years old. When she throws her arms around me and calls me “Papa”, it is easily the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. She was born in Nice in August 1995 at a time when I was married to another woman, living in another place and leading a deceitful double life. A day old when I sneaked away and saw her for the first time, she was aware of me for the first year of her life as the father who slept with her mother but never stayed the night.
L’Ecole Maternelle de Notre Dame is a ten-minute drive from the apartment. We take the lift to the ground floor and skip quickly through the rain to the car, where our warm breath soon mists the windscreen.
“On peut rien voir,” Maeva protests, as we join the queue on avenue de la Garenne.
“I know, Mimi,” I reply. “I’ve switched on the fan to clear it.”
“Ca marche pas, papa.”
“It will clear in a moment, Mimi. Sit back and put on your seat belt.”
“D’accord.”
D’accord is French for OK. Maeva knows d’accord is French for OK and knows the English for pretty much everything she says but refuses to converse with me in anything but French …
“Papa, j’ai oublie de me laver mes dents.”
“That’s not very good, is it? You’ll have teeth like bombed houses. Do you want some music on?”
“Oui.”
“What would you like?”
“Ehh … Joe Dassin.”
“Joe Dassin! What, no English music! How about some Lisa Stansfield? How about a good old Rochdale girl?”
“J’aime pas English.”
“OK, we’ll play some froggy stuff, then.”
‘Full Time:
The Secret Life of Tony Cascarino’
PK: There was a moment on the show a couple of weeks ago where you played a Drake song.
TC: Yeah.
PK: Natalie asked you about it and you said: “This takes me back to 2015 when Rocco was born. I remember him sitting on the floor and he’d start moving to this.”
TC: Hotline Bling.
PK: That was the song?
TC: Yeah.
PK: You were 53 when Rocco was born.
TC: Yeah.
PK: He’s your fifth son.
TC: Yeah.
PK: And you’re father to six kids.
TC: Seven.
PK: I’ve got Michael (34), Teddy (32), Maeva (28), William (22), Josh (16) and Rocco (8).
TC: And I’ve adopted Angel [Jo’s 24-year-old daughter]. She’s Angel Cascarino now.
PK: Okay, here’s another song. The month is October 1999 and you’re playing ‘Salut les Amoureux’ to Maeva as you drive her to school.
TC: Stop, you’re making me feel nostalgic.
PK: Eight months later, on June 4 2000, you return to England with her mother, Virginie Masson, and get married for the second time. Here’s a quote from Full Time: “We’ve come through a lot these last few years and there were times when I wasn’t quite sure we’d make it. How could it be otherwise when the foundation was two years of lies? Yesterday we started with a new sheet of paper and this morning, despite a somewhat muzzy head, I feel ‘bien dans ma peau’ and know we will succeed.”
TC: Hmmm.
PK: And that’s where Full Time end s — with this great sense of hope and optimism for the future. But eight years later you’ve another book in your head — Fool Time — because you’re headed for your second divorce.
TC: Yeah.
PK: What happened? Because I met you that summer — August 2008 — in Portugal on holiday and you seemed to be getting on great together.
TC: Right, okay, I need to say something before we start because I’m in no way innocent in all of this, and I’ve a lot to answer, but the honest truth is that there was something deep or dark about Virginia that I could never work out. She had always run away from things in her life … her family. She was brought up in Nancy, had moved to Epinal, gone to Nice, her mum had gone to Tahiti. So there was always problems, she was always running, I’m not trying to put it all on this but …
PK: Sure.
TC: We came back to England. William was born a year later, then Josh in 2006 and it was probably a year later when things started to slip. I was working for The Times and for Talksport — the midweek show from four to seven — and I’d get a call every evening on the way home: “Can you stop and get a bottle wine?” Fine. I like a glass of wine myself but then it was more than a bottle, and by the end of 2007 there were issues.
PK: Did you speak to her about it?
TC: Yes, but it was awkward, complicated, because there was other stuff. She had a car — a Mini — but was getting taxis everywhere and hadn’t driven it for six months. A letter arrived — a renewal for the insurance — so I said, “What do you want to do with the car?” She went ballistic: “You’re pressurising me! You’re making me drive!” I said, “It’s £600! What’s the point of renewing the insurance if you’re not driving.” But she went apeshit, called me everything, and I couldn’t get my head around it. It was such an overreaction. There were other arguments — issues with the house we had built in Tahiti and the money she was spending on clothes. I was playing poker, staying out and doing anything to avoid having to deal with it, but it was falling apart.
PK: What happened after Portugal?
TC: She left for Tahiti for two weeks to sort a problem with the house. She was flying back via Los Angeles and was meant to be home on … I think it was the sixth of October. She called me:
“I’m staying in LA for a week.”
“What?”
“I’m staying in LA for another week.”
“You can’t stay another week. I’ve got people helping me with the kids.”
“I’m staying another week.”
PK: And did she?
TC: Yeah. I picked her up at Heathrow. She was with her mother. They jumped into the back of the car and — this is hilarious — started talking to each other in French and completely ignored me. I thought, ‘Am I the fking chauffeur? What the fk is going on?’ Then we got back to the house and it all kicked off. Ballistic. But that wasn’t the final straw. I was being paid to play a poker tournament in the Caribbean and had to leave two days later. I flew out and started the tournament and got a call from Mastercard about some payments on my card in Paris. I called Virginia:
“Where are you?”
“I’m in Paris with the kids.”
“What are you doing in Paris?”
“I wanted to see my dad.”
“Have you spent ¤18,000 on the card?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
And that was it. I knew there was no way back from that.
PK: Here’s a report from The Sun two months later, December 18 2008: “Ireland soccer hero Tony Cascarino has been arrested for allegedly beating up his wife. The ex-Celtic and Marseille star is also said to have threatened to kill his estranged wife Virginie. He left their marital home in London earlier this year but was arrested after returning last Saturday afternoon. His French wife called the cops after a heated row erupted.”
TC: It never happened. I didn’t touch her. The charges were dropped six weeks later.
PK: So what did happen?
TC: Well, I came back from the Caribbean, and every discussion we had for a month was an argument. She had spent a fortune in Paris — three grand on a coat — but didn’t see the problem. I was trying to control her, she said. Her mother had moved in with us. They were sleeping in the same room. I would drop the kids to school and stay out for as long as possible. It was a horrible time. One afternoon I came home and we had an argument — something trivial that became heated. She called the police. I said “What are you doing?” But I knew what she was doing — she had been to see a solicitor two days earlier. I ran outside and asked my neighbour to come in. Then I called my sister. The police arrived and she told them I had attacked her. My sister said, “Virginia, you’re wearing make up and an all-white suit. There isn’t a mark on you!” But I was taken to Bromley police station.
PK: How did it turn so bad so quickly?
TC: I’ve thought about that a lot. I remember my solicitor saying one day: “I get an email from Mrs Cascarino and everything she said yesterday doesn’t matter, and everything she says today is new.” The problem changed from day to day. That’s how she rolled.
PK: When did you divorce?
TC: We sent the papers on the 1st of April 2009 — April Fools’ Day — and the marriage was dissolved six weeks later. Then she left for Nice with the kids and we had ten years of court cases.
PK: It was complicated?
TC: Well, I agreed to let her go to France so long as I could see the children. So I bought her an apartment in Nice, the kids were sorted in schools and they would come and stay with me a couple of times a year. Then, in 2014, she decided she was going to Tahiti because her mum was there, so I stopped the payments and there was absolute carnage. I said, “I’m not paying you until you come back to France.” But she refused and we went to court. My lawyers argued that under the terms of the settlement she was meant to live in mainland France. Tahiti was the other side of the world. How would I see the kids? Her lawyers argued that it was a French colony. The judge ruled for me and awarded me costs, but she never paid. I had won the battle but lost the war.
PK: What do you mean?
TC: The judge disagreed that she could live in Tahiti and awarded me costs — the hearing alone cost four and a half grand. And I could keep the €21,000 she was due in maintenance until she returned to France. But she wouldn’t come back.
PK: What about the kids in all this?
TC: Horrific. It became a circle of lies: “Dad doesn’t care about us. He’s refusing to give us money.” She wouldn’t let Josh talk to me — I didn’t speak to him for nine years. Then Maeva turned on me: “We need the money, dad. We need this to survive.”
PK: She’s sending you messages?
TC: No, she’s telling me this on the phone.
PK: What about William?
TC: William was the traitor. She told him she couldn’t look at him because he reminded her of me and it really affected him. He got into a bad fight in school and went to hospital. I asked him to come and live with me, but Virginie wouldn’t have it and sent him to Normandy to live with his grandad. But at least I got to see him.
PK: At what stage did you find out Virginie was ill?
TC: The summer of ’21. We were in court again – a ZOOM call with the judge, my solicitor and her representative — and I could see she wasn’t well. I remember thinking, ‘Why the hell are you doing this?’ Every month for about five years she would send something I had to challenge, or was told by my solicitor to challenge. I must have spent about three hundred grand on legal fees. Then, a month later, there was another ZOOM call but she didn’t turn up. The judge said: “Well, if Mrs Cascarino isn’t here, I’ll make a decision without her.” He didn’t know, obviously, there was a bigger problem.
PK: Did you know?
TC: I knew she had cancer but not how bad it was. Maeva called William in France and told him he needed to come back: “Don’t be afraid when you see mum,” she said, “because you won’t recognise her.” Four months later — February ’22 — she had a heart attack and lapsed into a coma. She was brain dead. William and Maeva had to switch off the machine. They’re still haunted by it.
PK: Are you?
TC: That’s a difficult one. It was so bad for so long between us that I used to think, ‘It’s hard to believe we ever cared for each other.’ But we did, so it’s sad.
PK: You didn’t go to the funeral?
TC: I would not have been welcome.
It is difficult to know what ex-Ireland professionals are coming to these days when Tony Cascarino takes to the elderflower juice as he lays bare his soul on the latest chapters in his eventful and colourful life. Alongside his delicate refreshment, served mid-morning in a London restaurant last week, is a copy of Cascarino’s seminal book ‘Full Time: The Secret Life of Tony Cascarino’, in which he laid bare his soul on his difficult family life and the dying of the light as a footballer.
“I’m very proud of that, but I think I have another book that blows it out of the water,” Cascarino says. Quite a claim …
Enter Joanna, the new woman in his life. Jo helped out at the card school — or “spill” — which her brother-in-law ran in south-east London over a snooker hall, where Cascarino pursued the great passion of his life, poker. He had known Jo for years as a friend and after the split from Virginie, they had spent what would otherwise have been a lonely Christmas together in each other’s company and they hit it off …
Tony and Jo talk about marriage, or joke about it most of the time. “People say to me ‘I don’t gamble.’ And I say to them ‘You do. You get married. It is the biggest gamble you do, bar none.’ It’s a coin flip, whether it goes right or wrong, statistically, and I work on stats all the time. If it goes wrong it will cost you a fortune, at every level, for every person. My lifestyle didn’t help. I thought ‘if I carry on like this, it is going to be another sad story.’”
Paul Rowan, The Sunday Times, June 7 2015
PK: Talk to me about marriage?
TC: Well, marriage was something I was really naive … daft … stupid … whatever word you want to use. I looked at it as … well, not a big deal.
PK: How old were you when you married Sarah?
TC: 26.
PK: So not young.
TC: No, but I took it as ‘the next move’ if you like.
PK: What you do?
TC: Yeah, not knowing that it’s the biggest decision you’ll ever make, or having someone to say, ‘This is a really big call. Are you sure about this?’
PK: And you were 37 when you married Virginie?
TC: Yeah.
PK: Are you saying you didn’t take that seriously either?
TC: No, the second time it was more, ‘Yeah, the feelings are there. It’s right.’ But if I sit back and look at it now, I should have been more sensible. My sister has been married for 45 years, and they’ve had some ups and downs but they stuck at it …
PK: They loved each other?
TC: Yeah, and I’m not saying I didn’t love Sarah or Virginie, but we were a bad match. I think you have to take a considered decision on marriage, which I now do. I mean, why did me and Jo take 11 years to get married?
PK: That was the next question.
TC: Right.
PK: But start with how you met.
TC: I knew Jo maybe five years before we got together. Her sister, Tracy, was married to a mate of mine, Bob, who ran a ‘spill’ in Bexley. So I used to see her there from time to time and then when things blew up with Virginie, and I was living on my own, Bob asked if I wanted to go out one night. I said, “Jo ain’t coming, is she?” He said, “Do you want me to ask?” I said, “Yeah.”
PK: This is when?
TC: New Year’s Eve, 2008.
PK: So a few weeks after Virginie called the cops?
TC: Yeah.
PK: How did you feel about starting another relationship?
TC: I don’t know … I remember meeting her mum and dad for the first time and wondering how I’d be introduced: ‘This is Cas. He’s been divorced twice and has five kids.’ But they were great. Proper old school. I remember going to their house one time at Christmas and picking up a card her father had given to her mother and there was nothing on it — no message. I said, “Tom? You’ve not written anything in the card.” He said, “Well, I’ve only got one wife so she knows who it’s from.”
PK: (laughs)
TC: I laughed and thought, ‘He’s got a point, really.’ So it felt quite easy with them. And it felt the same with Jo. We used to laugh. She’d say: “Well, I know why you’ve had two wives.” I’d say, “Well, I know why you’ve never married.” (laughs) So it just kind of … developed, we were never in any rush.
PK: You were six years together when Rocco was born.
TC: Yeah.
PK: How did it feel becoming a father again at 53?
TC: Initially I was dreading it, but only because of my age, you know, just the thoughts of being an ‘old dad.’ And obviously Jo is quite a bit younger than me (15 years), but she was the one that moulded it all. She’s very good at dealing with problems.
PK: Because there was still a lot of turmoil with Virginie.
TC: Yeah, but it wasn’t a normal divorce where, ‘I’ve got to take the kids for the weekend.’ Michael and Teddy had grown up; the kids were in f**king Tahiti! So there wasn’t that …
PK: Baggage?
TC: Well, there was baggage, but the only trauma was in Tahiti which was a long way away, so it felt very different.
PK: Sure.
TC: But we went through a hell of a lot around that time. Jo was rushed into hospital ten days after Rocco was born. She was haemorrhaging — coughing blood — and they had to put her in an induced coma. Then my mum was seriously ill and I was diagnosed with a brain tumour, so for a while it felt like …
PK: How did that effect you?
TC: Well it was benign, so my first reaction was that it’s the best tumour you can get.
PK: There’s still a fear of the unknown?
TC: Yeah, but we’d sort of been there with Jo. I just kept thinking about Rocco, and how he would grow up. He became our main focus.
PK: Then you got married.
TC: Yeah, in Mauritius, on Flic-en-Flac beach in November 2019 — just me, Jo and Rocco.
We moved to Keston a week before Christmas and then Jo’s mother died, so for a while it was just one thing after another. I remember thinking, ‘please 2020 be a good year’ — then the pandemic hit.
PK: (laughs)
TC: But I was determined to … I read the Jordan Peterson book [12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos] during the lockdown and found it intriguing.
PK: What put that in your hand?
TC: Jo got it for me. I was in a real muddle with my life. There was something eating away at me, at everything that had gone wrong. I hadn’t been divorced twice because I’d told the truth all the time. I would have to change. To be more honest. And the only way that could happen was if I cleared everything with Jo — all of the bad things I’d done.
PK: Your father died in January 2022.
TC: Yeah, a month before Virginie.
PK: When did you see Josh again?
TC: This summer.
PK: How did it happen?
TC: Maeva got in touch. She’s been looking after Josh since her mother died, and sent me an email in February. I’ll read some of it for you because I think it explains a lot [he picks up his phone].
Dear Dad, I hope you are doing well. I am extremely sorry for not reaching out to you since mum passed away. It was hard finding the words. I wanted to send you an email when mum was ill, but I was afraid that you wouldn’t reply to me, especially with what happened with the court case that I strongly discussed with mum, but there was no stopping her. She was very sad inside and lonely inside, which explained all the hate she had. Sadly, there would never have been a happy ending in her life but I wished I could have helped her more. Throughout all these years I have been very unfair with you. I hope you will be able to forgive me one day. I know this email won’t make everything how it was between us, but I want you to know that I have never hated you, and always loved and cherished the moments we had when I was small and growing up. You have always been someone that I looked up to, but never admitted to anyone.
Take care, Mimi.
PK: That’s extraordinary.
TC: Yeah. It made me feel a lot better.
PK: What happened with Josh?
TC: We started talking on the phone and I told him I wanted to see him. He was going to France in July to see William, so I got them to take the Eurostar and met them at St Pancras. He looked like his mum … cool … polite … said he was happy to see me. We went across the road and had breakfast together, then I brought him back to meet all the family. It was great. We had a really nice time.
PK: How many of your kids have read Full Time?
TC: Michael and Teddy have definitely read it … I’m pretty sure Maeva hasn’t … Not sure about Wills … Josh wouldn’t have and I obviously haven’t given it to Rocco yet. He’s still coming to terms with the fact that I’ve been married before (laughs): “What do you mean you have other kids?” He thinks everyone that comes into the house is his brother or sister.
PK: (laughs)
TC: ‘Hi Rocco. I’m your brother.’
‘Oh … do you play PlayStation?’
It’s funny.
PK: Okay, last question. There was a documentary on Sky Arts the other night about Katharine Hepburn. They showed a clip from a film she did with Spencer Tracy and a question he asks: “How do you feel about being you?”
TC: You’re asking me that?
PK: Yeah.
TC: It’s a great question … emmm … I’m not sure Jo would agree with this, because she thinks I don’t laugh as much as I used to, but I feel the best version of me is now. I just wish I could have been like this years ago.
PK: That’s what Hepburn said; “I feel pretty good about it.”
TC: Yeah, and I do. But getting old is strange, isn’t it? I had a great friend who died recently, Steve Wishart, and it hit me really hard. I think of him every day. He used to call me every Sunday after the radio show — he was a really great support to me — so it’s a tough one. But I’m fine. I’m fine.
PK: You’re 61 now. What about your own mortality?
TC: Well, Jo is always pushing me to look the best I can, and to be the best I can, and would totally disagree that you should let yourself age (laughs). But you know what it’s like; some mornings you wake up and think ‘f**king hell!’
The majority of that never happened I would suggest.
A good read that. Not sure what you’d make of Cas. Full Time is an excellent read, but its hard to like him. I wouldnt say like Farmer that the majority of it never happened, but you’d suspect he’s an extremely unreliable narrator when it comes to his ex wives anyway.
The bits with his daughter hit hard. Dads and Daughters.
Cascariko strikes me as a complete chancer.
Apparently in Windsor Park in 1993, Charlton summoned him to come on a good bit prior to McLoughlin’s goal.
Cascarino asked him to wait as he had left his jersey in the dressing room!
‘You fucking idiot’ said Charlton.
How does that story make him a chancer?
