Fabrice Muamba: I'm Still Standing Read online

  Somehow those English words came out of my mouth. I didn’t know where from. I must’ve picked them up at school and not even noticed.

  “Give me the ball,” I repeated. I was put through and I had a shot on goal from about 20 yards out. It flew past the keeper’s right hand and went in.

  Everybody jumped on me and we collapsed in a heap. There were only a few minutes left but I’d managed to score the equaliser and that changed everything in an instant. All these guys respected me now.

  The next day when I walked through the school gates, people wanted to know me. That African boy could play after all. All of a sudden I had loads of new friends, loads of guys keeping an eye out for me. It was the start of me opening up and becoming more confident. Everything started from there.

  #####

  “What is happening? Tell me he’s not dead! Tell me he’s not dead!” Shauna is screaming down the phone to Warwick.

  “Let me ring you back in one minute,” he replies, still trying to absorb what he has seen, still trying to pretend he isn’t fearing the worst.

  He has no clue what he wants to say, he just knows he needs to act, to do his best – the same as everyone else.

  On the pitch I throw my new heroes a real problem.

  I’m doing something called ‘agonal breathing’. No, I’d never heard of it either. After a cardiac arrest you can carry on breathing for a short while without any heartbeat as your body continues to try and operate as normal before your oxygen meter hits zero. It’s the caveman in all of us. Keep fighting, keep living, keep going until all the odds are so far stacked against you and the oxygen runs out. My body’s reaction to what is happening is hardly helping though because it causes a tiny delay in my diagnosis, making it harder for those bent over me to work out what has happened.

  But then, all of a sudden, it dawns on them.

  Dr Tobin and Dr Mughal look up, my limp body underneath them, and exchange a look – a look that says: ‘Is this happening? Are we going to have to start CPR in front of 36,000 people? Are we going to have to use a defibrillator on a Premier League footballer?’

  Yes guys, I’m afraid you are.

  That look lasts a fraction of a second before they start the task of saving my life. They are slick.

  Dr Mughal starts chest compressions, while Dr Tobin begins mouth-to-mouth – the first real person he has ever performed it on. What an honour. This is the guy I see on a day-to-day basis at our Euxton training ground.

  We laugh, we joke, we mess around.

  And now he’s trying to save my life.

  At the same time, Spurs’ head physio, Geoff Scott, and Peter’s X9 colleagues have poured onto the field while Mitch begins to sort the oxygen out.

  Peter rummages through his oxygen bag and hands Dr Tobin a size four oropharyngeal airway, a small plastic tube which he shoves into my mouth to stop my tongue from blocking my airway.

  The plastic is tough but necessary, its hardened edges scraping at my throat.

  Dr Tobin doesn’t ask for this piece of equipment and Peter doesn’t offer it up. It simply appears, as if these two strangers have done this kind of thing together a million times before. There is some serious medical experience going on right here.

  And this has all happened within 67 seconds of me collapsing.

  These guys are slick.

  #####

  Halfway through Year 8, with my English skills getting better by the minute, I had another one of those life turning points when a kid called Rashid Kamara turned up at our school.

  We clicked and connected from the moment we met. He was also from Africa – Sierra Leone – and he could play football. In fact, he was a serious player. He could also relate to me as an African in the UK and we became instant mates. We never left each other’s side. If someone said “where are those two African boys?” everyone else would say “oh, you mean Fab and Rashid?” Sometimes in life you just meet a person you know you will get on with forever and that was what me and Rashid were like.

  Unlike me, Rashid was very streetwise and he showed me the way things in London worked. He took me here and there, he protected me at times and we also grew as mates. There was nothing we wouldn’t do for each other.

  But if there was one area where Rash couldn’t help out it was with mum. It’s not as if I could just land at Heathrow and forget all about her. No son should treat his mother that way. But I was told by dad that she was in good hands so I tried to relax and just prayed that she was fine. Months flew by without me speaking to her. When we did finally speak, she mentioned that she had had to sell her house and move away. It was quite difficult for us both.

  The situation at home had taken a turn for the worse after I left. Mum needed to keep a lower profile than ever so she moved even further out of Kinshasa. That was tough to handle. I was in London thousands of miles away and unable to help her in any way. I spent nights crying in my room, pretending to be doing my maths homework while lying on my bed, tears running down my cheeks. She was a very bubbly person but to hear her in that state of mind was really difficult.

  After landing in London I didn’t speak to her for so long but I suppose it was the way it had to be for all our sakes at the time. I was trying to adjust to a new life, which takes a lot of time and energy. Plus, we wanted to keep mum safe as well.

  At the same time, dad was in a new relationship with my step-mum, Gertrude. When I first met her I couldn’t really get my head around what was happening. She was already holding a baby, my brother Daniel, so I thought that was a bit weird but I just got on with it. I soon realised she was my dad’s new wife. It was all a bit difficult.

  I thought when I arrived in London that mum would follow us one day and we would all be a family again. So to see dad with someone else was yet another change I had to get used to.

  Of course, I have absolutely nothing against Gertrude. There are no hard feelings at all because she welcomed me into her house. She was having to get used to me as well as the other way around. My mum is Christine and always will be. I love her like a son should love his mum but Gertrude has always been a wonderful step-mum to me and I have huge amounts of love and respect for her. She took me into her family like her own son and I will always be thankful and grateful for that.

  But at the time it was just so different for me. I now had a new mum and a baby brother. Later on they would add Rachel and Ariel so I’m now an older brother to three people following an only childhood – I never saw that coming.

  At least school was getting much easier by this time and my friendship with Rashid continued to grow by the day. We were just two young kids having a great time playing football, chasing girls, learning how the world works – the usual stuff really.

  By the time we got to Year 9, Rashid was training at Arsenal because he was showing some tidy skills by then. Arsenal sounded like fun and I begged him for months and months to see if he could get me along with him. Just once. Just to see what it was all about. I pecked him so much until he finally told his coach, Steve Leonard, that he had a friend called Fabrice who could also play a bit.

  Rashid managed to persuade Steve to come and watch us when we were playing for the school team. Arsenal had let some young players go so he had a chance to watch five minutes of one of our games and after taking a look he invited me down to Arsenal’s Hale End training base, about five minutes from my house.

  We were late for training that first night and Steve was waiting at the gate to let us know. It wasn’t the best of starts. He told us to go and wait in the changing room. It felt like my first day at school again.

  I was just sat there in a smelly pair of red shorts and a blue t-shirt with white socks and my Fila boots. There’s this tall boy with shorts that aren’t long enough surrounded by Arsenal’s youngsters, all in their official training kit, nice boots and looking together and sharp.

  They could tell straight away that I was different and a few started ribbing me a bit. I didn’t mind that and my expe
rience at school had taught me that I could take anything. I wasn’t intimidated; I just wanted to be like them. They just made me more determined.

  The first session was taken by Arsenal legend Steve Bould and I kept coming back every Tuesday and Thursday. There was no real plan at the time, I wasn’t even an official trialist and it wasn’t as if a club like Arsenal just let anyone through the front door, so I was pleased that Rashid helped get me in. At the end of the season it looked as if I wouldn’t be getting a chance to earn a proper trial and Steve broke the news to me. I’d been at the club for about six weeks but had never really proved myself or done anything to show them how much I wanted to become a footballer. I hadn’t been lazy but I hadn’t been brilliant either.

  “Go away, enjoy your summer, come back at the start of next pre-season and I’ll try and get you on at Leyton Orient or somewhere else,” Steve said.

  “But I want to play at Arsenal,” I responded.

  “Fab, I’m not sure that’s going to happen.”

  I was upset and down during that time but I still needed to concentrate on my schoolwork and I just prayed with dad who told me to be thankful for having had the opportunity in the first place.

  When we started back for pre-season I was the first one there. I was knocking on the door 90 minutes before anyone else arrived. If Steve wanted me there, and wanted to try and help me, then I felt I had to show how much I wanted it as well.

  We trained on that first day and as the session came to an end Steve walked over and said “the boss is coming down tomorrow,” meaning Liam Brady, the Arsenal head of youth development. “If ever you had a chance to impress him then this is it. Put yourself out tomorrow and show him what you’ve got – you never know.”

  An inter-club game had been organised so Liam could take a look at some other youngsters trying to make it. He had no idea who I was. By the end of the 90 minutes he knew exactly who I was. I took Steve’s advice to heart and played better than ever. I ran, chased, tackled and did everything to try and make Liam notice me. I played like my life depended on it.

  When I was growing up in the Congo, it might surprise you to hear that I wasn’t a rough tackler, in fact a lot of the time I was so scared on the pitch. I was just a nice kid who wanted to stay out of trouble. I used to get thrown off the ball really easily, pushed about and put in my place. When I was nine, I would be playing against 14-year-olds and African kids grow up very fast. Wow, it used to hurt.

  That changed when I got to England. Something just clicked inside me. I wanted to win every 50/50, I wanted to prove my worth. Maybe I was trying to be the tough African kid or maybe I just wanted to be like the guys back in Congo who always used to show me who was going to run the show that day. It was never me that’s for sure. So all this was inside me, helping me to prove a point in my trial.

  After a while, Liam turned to Steve on the sidelines and it was clear I’d been spotted.

  “I’ve been told Wimbledon have heard about him, they are interested and will try and sign him,” Liam said. “He is a strong boy and he tries hard. Get him on an official six-week trial so we can have a proper look at him.”

  Steve came around and we had to sit in the front room for three hours waiting for dad to come home from work. I was so nervous because it all rested on what dad said.

  He was worried about my schoolwork but I convinced him that I could fit everything in. Steve promised dad that my education would come first, just as it should, and that worked. Dad signed the trial form and I was in. That sealed my place at Arsenal for the short-term.

  Now I was desperate to show that I should be kept on for longer. The door to a different universe had just been opened. It was all pretty cool.

  #####

  “Suzanne I need a bag packed – and quickly,” Warwick tells his wife. He’s heading to London. There will be no comedy club, no laughing tonight.

  He rings Shauna back and tells her everything will be okay, to get on a train as soon as she can and that he will have a car waiting for her at Euston by the time she gets to London.

  He doesn’t tell her that he already thinks I’m dead.

  You can’t blame him for that – almost everyone else who is aware of what is happening thinks the same.

  #5

  Making It Count

  AS I lie here, covered in hands and mouths and equipment, everything that needs to be happening is happening. You would think it would be organised chaos and that one man would assume control and try to get a grip on this madness. But, in fact, the opposite is going on.

  The men trying to save my life are simply getting on with it; Dr Tobin is looking after his mini-department, Dr Mughal is doing the same, as are Mitch and Geoff.

  All these men can think about is me. Their entire worlds have become this heap of bone and muscle lying in front of them. All of a sudden a pair of scissors cut and tear open my shirt before Peter sticks the automated external defibrillator (AED) pads onto my chest, making sure he doesn’t touch the super-sticky adhesive along the way.

  Let me repeat that. Automated external defibrillator pads are attached to my chest.

  How did this happen? How come I’m dying on an early spring evening? What is going on?

  The crunch moment arrives as the AED pads on the LifePak 1000 machine try and detect whether I can be brought back or not. I need something called a “shockable rhythm”.

  If I’ve got a shockable rhythm then that means there is still enough electrical activity in my heart to give me half a chance. Only the pads can analyse and detect it. Those battling to save me are helpless. As the dampness from the pitch begins to seep through the knees of their trousers, they await the good news.

  Or the bad.

  Whatever hope I’ve got will become crystal clear just moments from now. Above the silence of the crowd and the quiet efficiency of the men surrounding me, my fate becomes apparent.

  “Place pads onto patient’s bare chest,” the defibrillator machine splutters out.

  This is it. Long seconds pass by.

  “Analysing now... stand clear... push shock button.”

  Finally some good news. The pads have found enough juice left in my heart to think it’s worth giving me some serious voltage.

  The shock button, the size of a 10p piece, glows orange as Geoff, the Spurs physio, prepares to get to work.

  “Stand clear, oxygen away,” he shouts, scanning up and down my body to check nobody is still in contact with me before he hits the go button.

  WHAM!

  I receive a massive burst of electrical power – the first of 15 I will take before reaching hospital. I’ve now been collapsed on the floor for just two minutes and 21 seconds.

  Despite taking the hit, nothing happens.

  Nick Osborne from the London Ambulance Service rushes onto the field, taps Peter on the shoulder and says: “We’ve made our ambulance ready for you mate, take it wherever you want to go.”

  X9 have their own ambulance at the ground but Nick has seen the need for speed and has already prepared a London Ambulance Service vehicle that can leave at any time.

  “He’s going to the Chest,” Peter replies. ‘If he goes anywhere but the Chest he won’t walk out,’ is what he is also thinking. Now is not the time to say that out loud though.

  North Middlesex University Hospital is closer to White Hart Lane, less than two miles away actually, but Peter knows I need the specialist help the London Chest Hospital can provide. It has something called a ‘cath lab’ which is a mini-operating theatre full of all the equipment and knowledge needed to bring me back. What time I lose in going the extra distance will be made up by the extra expertise I receive once I’m there. Everyone is thinking ahead, thinking about what’s needed to move me along the chain.

  CPR is continued before the defibrillator is put to good use again, delivering shock number two.

  WHAM!

  This time there are signs I could be back. For a split-second I have three or four heartbeats b
efore, once again, I slip under.

  #####

  During that six-week trial, my game improved. I was determined not to give Arsenal a reason to get rid of me. I was given my chance and I had to repay them.

  As well as getting better I also began to feel more comfortable in my surroundings and I realised that my dedication was far better than anyone already in the academy. They had what I wanted to have and I was so hungry, so desperate to impress. I was like a maniac and worked until I could barely stand up. Steve made it clear that I had just six weeks to show I was good enough.

  Eventually my hard work paid off and I was picked for a game against Spurs. The rivalry between the youth teams is the same as the senior sides – everyone wanted to beat them. I started the match and played well. I began in midfield and crunched a few of their players and showed my strength and ability. I ended up moving back into defence for the second half and enjoyed that too – I was playing well and showing that I could handle myself in more than one position.

  Liam was there and you always knew that if Liam was at a game then there was something behind it and that you had better perform at your best.

  I felt as good as those in the academy by now. I was no longer an outsider. They knew who I was and they knew I could play. My commitment was ridiculous – nothing was going to stop me now. Steve and Arsenal had given me this opportunity and I owed it to myself, but also to them, not to waste it.

  At the end of the trial, Liam organised a meeting at Hale End and I had to take dad with me. I was so nervous about what was going to happen and the signs weren’t good.

  Before I went in, Rashid left Liam’s office and he wasn’t smiling. It was clear that he hadn’t managed to get in. I thought that was the end for me right there. Rash was twice as good as I was but Liam had decided his chance was over. That made me even more nervous. We went into the office, near the canteen, and Liam was very straight and honest.

  Fortunately – unbelievably – it was good news.

  “We let your son go first of all but we’ve had another look and he’s made a huge improvement,” Liam said.