IN MAY 1994, I was glued to the TV in the living room. Manchester United were playing Chelsea in the FA Cup final and I was a bag of nerves. It was scoreless when Gavin Peacock conjured a dipping left-footed strike that rattled Peter Schmeichel’s crossbar before bouncing to safety. ‘Peacock’, I thought to myself, ‘is going to destroy everything’.
That season, United lost home and away to Chelsea. Both games ended 1-0 and Peacock scored the winner in each. He was a menace. But I always admired him. He was small but brave and always got amongst the goals. He had an intelligence and an immense work ethic too. And, most importantly, he scored match-winning goals against United on two separate occasions. By my logic at the time (I was nearly eight), he had to be pretty useful.
His name, along with many others, always stayed with me. When he retired, I watched him provide insightful football analysis on the BBC. And then, in 2008, he never returned after covering the European Championship. He seemed to vanish.
I was working across radio and TV in Ireland, mainly covering football, when I came across a newspaper article. It detailed how Peacock was moving to Calgary, Canada to study for a Masters in Divinity and begin a new life dedicated to Christ. I was stunned but made a mental note of the story and filed it away to be used in the future.
By 2012, I was in Canada and hosting a nightly soccer TV show for Fox Sports that was beamed all around North America. An interview opportunity cropped up in Calgary. Davor Suker, another boyhood idol, was promoting his soccer school in the city. My producers asked if there was any other story I could cover while I was there. And I instantly remembered Gavin Peacock.
I tried for days to track him down. But he didn’t want to be found. Time was running out when some poor guy mistakenly gave me Peacock’s home number and I finally spoke to one of my childhood heroes. But it wasn’t the most pleasant of introductory conversations. He was prickly and refused to be interviewed, citing how previous newspaper articles had painted him in an unfair light. But I knew if he agreed to speak to me on-camera that it would be great and could genuinely prove inspiring for a lot of people around the continent. After a couple of days of badgering him, he finally relented.
When the feature was broadcast, Peacock was inundated with messages of support. He sent me a lovely note and we kept in touch. But we’d cross paths again.
In 2013, I was in Manchester for a meeting with the BBC. We chatted about a variety of ideas and I mentioned the in-depth feature I had done with Peacock in Canada. Their attention was piqued. They asked if I could do something similar with Peacock the next time he was in the UK. I was floored. The BBC. This was big-time. This was another boyhood dream.
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Later that summer, I flew to London and caught the tube to Stamford Bridge. I met my cameraman, Martin, and a little while later, Peacock arrived. We were escorted into the stadium and spent the next 45 minutes strolling across the turf, chatting about God, Jose and Roman’s empire while Martin filmed our every move. Afterwards, we all said our goodbyes and while I was on the train, I asked myself ‘Did all that really happen?’
The feature remained on the shelf while the BBC decided the best time to screen it. In late December, 5 Live dedicated a segment of the show to Gavin and played audio excerpts from the original documentary that aired in North America. Afterwards, commenting on the piece in studio, was Jonathan Northcroft of The Sunday Times – a writer I read voraciously every weekend growing up. It was all very cool.
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And then, in early January 2014, Football Focus broadcast the feature with Peacock. In my career, I’ve been fortunate enough to meet famous people and cover major events but, and this isn’t supposed to sound disingenuous, I’m usually quite immune to that warm and tingly feeling.
But that night, staring at the screen, watching myself quiz Gavin Peacock on various topics on the BBC, I thought of May 1994 and watching that Cup final. And I wondered what my seven year-old self would think of how it’s all played out since.
