Football Stories (C4)

A FOOTBALL match lasts only 90 minutes but players provide the public with hours of endless pleasure off the pitch. You've only to think of all the recent speculation about Beckham's poorly foot and Sven's love tangle to see that.

At 22, Tony Adams became Arsenal's youngest captain. On the evidence offered in this documentary, he was in no position to enjoy the honour as he was drunk much of the time.

You may think that there's only one thing worse than a drunk and that's a former drunk who insists of telling you about his addiction at length. But Adams's on-camera confessions were compelling stuff, prompted by the desire to alert the public to the charity he's launched to help other sportsmen with similar problems.

For Adams, talking about his drunken years is obviously part of the treatment a recovering alcoholic like him needs to go through. For the rest of us, it's a worthwhile lesson in the dangers of dealing - or, in his case, not dealing - with success.

Adams took his soccer seriously, timing his drinking bouts so he was sober at matches. Several times he miscalculated and wasn't sober. Even over the limit, he managed to be named man of the match on one occasion.

His idea of bonding with the team was taking them down the pub and getting drunk. Some went home to their wives while others "stayed all night and ended up in the gutter with me".

The morning after a drinking binge, players put bin bags under their track suits to try to sweat out the alcohol, leaving coaches none the wiser about their drinking.

When he married Jane - whom he met, not surprisingly, when she was working behind a bar - he drank heavily from breakfast time. He can only recall his wedding day by watching the video.

He finally admitted he had a drink problem to another player who'd been down the same path, Paul Merson. He took Adams to Alcoholics Anonymous after he owned up to both the other team members and the press.

Now Adams wants to help others. He used to play hard and drink hard, these days he's happiest watching his son play football. "I don't regret the past. I feel I've come to the place I am today because of it," he said.