Andrew Flintoff Is Barney Rubbled At Cricket World Cup
ANDREW Flintoff is “troubled” at the cricket World Cup. Or, given his ‘Freddie’ Flintoff nickname, Andrew Flintoff is Barney Rubbled.
“I feel ashamed and I’ve let a lot of people down – the team, the management, the public and my family and friends back home,” says one of England’s leading pedalo enthusiasts in the Sun.
Flintoff is pictured looking glum. He is also pictured knocking back a bottle of larger in the Shed bar, Perth, on the day England lost the Ashes.
Does he have a drink problem? Can Flintoff tell us, perhaps, about his demons, how he battles drink and how rehab is the only course left open to him?
“Sometimes I have the capacity to go a bit further than I should,” says he. “It’s something I’m aware of and I’m now saying it won’t happen again.”
But what if it does? Will Flintoff go into therapy and write about his dark days and darker nights in thrall of booze? Will flintoff’s next autobiography feature his greatest Test, how alcohol bowled him over?
“Possibly a drink is a release from the pressure – but I don’t want to go down that road,” says Flintoff. He adds: “But I don’t want to have to drink to release the pressure.”
A drink can work wonders. Indeed, Flintoff’s grandma Elsie, 80, tells the Sun: “If they can’t have a binge now and again, it is a poor do.”
But the Sun’s resident doctor says there’s “every sign” Flintoff’s losing his judgment and self control” – “what’s more worrying, from a medical view, is drinking to drown sorrows – as his latest bender suggests.”
Does it? To the untrained eye Flitnoff’s commandeering of a pedalo at 4am and setting sail on the Caribbean Sea suggests a man looking to put the tin lid on a boozy evening out with the lads. Are we now to view the boat trip as a cry for help? Was Flintoff trying to drown his sorrows, if not his greater self?
And can you drown in lager?
Picture: The Spine
Posted: 20th, March 2007 | In: Back pages Comments (2) | TrackBack | Permalink
