![Micah Richards](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/football/2024/07/13/TELEMMGLPICT000382306647_17208913351580_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqBIDiyUcnXwpVYMdr2vr1IXWShQClSAcMIa9275HKPRo.jpeg?imwidth=680)
Micah Richards: Agents took me to strip clubs when I was 14 – they’d do anything to seal a deal
The man known as ‘Big Meeks’ talks Gary Lineker, the highs and lows of being a teen sensation and why the Three Lions can win Euro 2024
![Micah Richards](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/football/2024/07/13/TELEMMGLPICT000382306647_17208913351580_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqBIDiyUcnXwpVYMdr2vr1IXWShQClSAcMIa9275HKPRo.jpeg?imwidth=680)
“Excuse me, I’m losing my voice,” coughs Micah Richards. “I was shouting and screaming so hard for England in the semi-finals, because that was soooo tense until the final goal…” The 36-year-old former Manchester City and England defender wipes his forehead in pantomimed relief and then explodes into one of the whooping-big bursts of laughter that have made him such a loveable football pundit – appearing regularly as a pundit on the BBC and Sky Sports.
Over the past four years, Match of the Day viewers have been charmed by his bantering bromance with the show’s 63-year-old anchorman, Gary Lineker (with whom he and Alan Shearer also co-host the hit podcast The Rest is Football). “Do you think people still remember you as a footballer?” he teased Lineker last year, scoring himself a fist bump on the show from Shearer. “Do you get free bus rides yet?”
![Micah celebrates England's victory over Switzerland in the BBC Studio, alongside Gary Lineker, Rio Ferdiand and Frank Lampard](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/football/2024/07/13/TELEMMGLPICT000384693188_17208914794400_trans_NvBQzQNjv4Bq6J1VCSibhITQGpI9rLH5-_LuYoOvC49S8jXzwXR5oSQ.jpeg?imwidth=350)
Often, having slipped past the defences of senior broadcasters with cheeky cheer, Richards asks his co-hosts emotionally penetrating questions about their experiences on and off the pitch: “Tell me what was going through your mind when you took that penalty? Because you always give it this, ‘I’m Gary Lineker, I’m cold as ice’, but what were you really thinking…?”
Talking via video link from his home office, relaxed in a hoodie and chunky black specs, Richards is bubbling over with thoughts on England’s looming Euros final against Spain. “The Spanish side are the best team, no question,” he says. “But that doesn’t always matter. England has some better players. And I believe in us. Something in me has felt that building over the past couple of days. I’ve started to think we can just get it over the line because the guys do seem to be learning from the mistakes they’ve been making. So, I genuinely believe we can do it.”
Richards believes England fans are not giving Gareth Southgate enough credit for getting the squad to this point. The England manager has been lambasted for his selections, “messy” midfield choices and late substitutions. But the stats now back him as the most consistently successful England manager of all time, bar World Cup winner Sir Alf Ramsey. His England team have won seven tournament knockout games in just six years under his tenure. Before his arrival, the Three Lions had won six knockout games in half a century.
“As analysts, we’re all picking the bones out of what’s been going wrong for England. And they were playing rubbish at the start of the tournament.” says Richards. “But people aren’t talking enough about how Southgate brought this group together and how he has allowed them to be confident, express themselves, show personality, show leadership.” He says this is what was missing when he played for his country.
Back in 2006, Richards became the youngest defender to be called up to the England squad aged just 18. He won 13 caps for England between 2006 and 2012 and played in the Great Britain football team at the 2012 Olympics. He reflects with pride on the opportunity to play with “some of the top stars of a golden generation. Lampard, Ferdinand and Gerrard…” he shakes his head like an awed kid. “People said it was a bad camp. It wasn’t bad. But it wasn’t a camp where you could express yourself and I feel that Southgate has trusted his players to do that, to be themselves on the pitch. It’s paying off. We wouldn’t be in the final without him.”
![Micah Richards](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/football/2024/07/13/TELEMMGLPICT000385369012_17208912047780_trans_NvBQzQNjv4Bqxb5dtL_ELTE6B8DtWJJotEgS7S-ukhk48w-_KmtyACY.jpeg?imwidth=350)
His empathy for the “huge pressure” that England players are under means he was “reluctant to criticise them too much at the beginning of the tournament” although he was present when Lineker, who clearly felt no such restraint, branded the England vs Denmark game “s--t” on The Rest is Football podcast. He’d like to remind all the armchair critics that no amount of training can prepare you for the spine-tingling awareness that “just one slip and you let your entire nation down”. Although he says that he “never felt too much pressure myself, which sounds ridiculous. But I was just 18 and nobody expected me to be the best player on the pitch. So it was more excitement for me, excitement to go out there and show everyone what I could do.”
Richards says he’s always had this “upbeat spirit, I’m a positive guy”. Born in 1988 in Birmingham and raised in Leeds he’s the son of an electrician father and social worker mother who were born in St Kitts and Nevis. They had eight children between them and Richards recalls hectic Sundays with huge family meals at home and hours spent kicking a ball at the park.
“I was dribbling past people at the age of three or four,” he says. “I remember my dad taking me to a game he was playing in Manchester and I just whipped that ball into the top corner. I was four or five and they were like: how can you kick the ball that hard at that age?” He started out playing for the Leeds United youth squad as a striker – “banging in goals left right and centre” - but was released when he was nine. Was his confidence dented by the rejection at such a tender age? “No,” he grins. “It was strange because my personality was just… different. It takes something drastic to throw me off and I didn’t take it personally. I mean, I would love to tell you I went home and cried. That I wrote on my wall: THIS WILL NEVER HAPPEN TO ME AGAIN. But none of that happened. I just backed my ability. I thought: I’ll get there anyway. I saw the set back as a hurdle in the road and I was right.”
Richards bounced from Leeds to Oldham Athletic. “And before you know it Man City was after me. I was 14. Can you imagine?!” Although he bursts into another hearty laugh at this point, Richards is soon shuddering at the memory of being a vulnerable kid at the mercy of predatory sports agents.
“It’s an actual fact that I was that young – 14 or 15 – and agents were taking me to strip clubs. That was just the norm back then,” he shakes his head. “They took advantage of kids who didn’t have a stable environment. They would do anything to get a deal over the line, to sign a contract that will make them millions, and you’re just a kid. You don’t know anything about that world. You trust them because they’ve got X or Y client who has gone on to do great things. It’s only when you get a bit older, you look back and think: that’s grooming, that’s not right at all.”
Richards has spoken often about the importance of his father’s quiet, nurturing support of his sporting skills. Didn’t his parents look out for him at this point? “They were always working,” he shrugs. Richards made his way up through the ranks of Manchester City’s Youth and Reserve teams and despite initially struggling to get a YTS contract, he signed his first professional contract with the club in 2005, aged 17.
He got the call to join England the following year. “I was in the barbers when Steve McClaren called and there was so much going on at that time. Before my first England training session, the Man City kit man put the wrong boots in my bag so I had to borrow a pair from Steven Gerrard. Luckily that first session was just amazing – the quality was so much higher that I felt I was playing better. I did ask Steven if I could keep those boots, but he said no!”
![Micah became England's youngest-ever defender when he started against the Netherlands in 2006, aged 18](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/football/2024/07/13/TELEMMGLPICT000005932811_17208917457880_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqjPAKgJRxicfimPcewMJ7fBa306WnPHVE_UdBq2uCdwc.jpeg?imwidth=350)
By that point, Richards was in a position to buy his own boots. He’s frank about the dizzying impact of making so much money as a teenager. “You go from £80 a week on the YTS to £500 a week and you’re like: ooh, adult money. Then it’s £5k and £50k… you make sure your family have what they need first but then you’ve still got extra money you can just have fun with. You have no perspective.” The first time he got a pay cheque for £250,000 for one month he went straight from the training ground to buy himself an F430 Ferrari although he already owned a Range Rover and an Aston Martin.
Richards – who admits to an ongoing weakness for watches and keeps over 40 in a safe at Coutts – says the naturally competitive nature of footballers inevitably fed into the spending culture. “You’re always keeping up with the Joneses,” he says. Were there any particular players he wanted to keep up with? “There were loads,” he chuckles. “But I won’t incriminate them by naming them.You’re in training and somebody younger than you gets a Mercedes, a Lamborghini. You think: hang on, I’m on more money than him, I should have one of those too.”
I’d read he once spent just shy of $100,000 on a bottle of champagne, is that true? “Oh yeah,” he nods. “I know some people read the headlines about that [my spending] and think it’s boasting. But I share those stories to educate people. Not many people know what it feels like to be that young and have all that money. I don’t regret having fun between the ages of 18-24. At that age you’re in party mode. I took all my friends on holiday. We flew business class. Los Angeles, Las Vegas. We went to nice restaurants. We had great champagne moments. I don’t think there is anything wrong with young footballers having fun, just don’t end your career with regrets and an empty bank account. I eventually learned you probably only need one bottle not ten…”
By 2007, Richards was making headlines as a “bad lad”. Man City and England bosses warned him to quit the wild nightlife and ditch the hangers-on. He’s shed this image now, although he will always be remembered for dropping the F bomb in his first-ever post-match TV interview with the BBC’s Garth Crooks in 2006 after he’d scored an equaliser against Aston Villa.
“I know, that is always going to come up,” shrugs Richards. “But I was 17 and I’d just scored. It was such a great feeling, all your emotions come out and you just can’t control that. I tried to style it out after I realised what I’d done. But then I went and did it again in another interview!”
![Richards made 245 appearances for Manchester City, winning the Premier League and FA Cup in the process](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/football/2024/07/13/TELEMMGLPICT000036009712_17208921955160_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqENh0amqpuv8Z5e8_LKlob08FchWZRD3tSYOiRwPjWDo.jpeg?imwidth=350)
His bulky, battling style of play earned him the nickname ‘Big Meeks’. But as a series of injuries caused Richards’ career to slow and stall, he found it harder to express himself. He left Manchester City in 2015 to try and get more play time and rediscover his form at a new club and was signed by Aston Villa. But he didn’t make a single appearance in the club’s 2017-18 season and announced his retirement in 2019, aged 31. “I broke myself,” he says today, with a shrug. “My knee, my back…” Richards has had multiple operations on his knee, leaving him with little cartilage, and towards the end of his career, was having his knee drained of fluid every three weeks.
Towards the end he was struggling with his mental health and regrets that “back in the day men didn’t express themselves how they wanted to, did they? In the dressing room nobody knew when I was feeling low. I was probably the best I’ve ever been in terms of keeping morale up. But I was struggling at home and even certain members of my family didn’t know. You can be too proud to show it. If you’ve been the breadwinner since you were 17, it’s very hard to admit that you are on the verge of being depressed.”
He credits his best friend with “being a good listener at that time, because I could talk to him. He got me out of that cycle, because I didn’t know where I was going”. Although he doesn’t discuss his personal life, he also became a father at the age of 30. Today he talks about being a “very quiet” parent spectator at his son’s games, although they do have a pitch in the back garden “just with little goals and we play with my mates. Jamie Redknapp came over the other day…”
Broadcasting has been Richards’ salvation. “I go into it with the same enthusiasm that I went onto the pitch,” he says. “I love it. I want it to be fun.” He’s conscious that his big personality is a draw, but is careful not to let that overtake his analysis. “TV is a cut throat business. Just like football. You can get dropped like that. But I think that if I can educate a viewer about a body position, a formation and still get them smiling then I have done my job.”
![After retiring, broadcasting became a second career for Richards](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/football/2024/07/13/TELEMMGLPICT000329308023_17208919964570_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqA7N2CxnJWnYI3tCbVBgu9T0aesusvN1TE7a0ddd_esI.jpeg?imwidth=350)
He believes that the freewheeling nature of the The Rest is Football has helped Lineker learn to trust him more in the tighter TV format. Lineker’s had a lot of stick in recent years for expressing his political views on social media. Does Richards think it gets to him? “I think Gary is one of those people who can just block it out,” he says. “We’re all human beings, so it must get annoying if people are constantly nagging at you. But Gary is so ice cold in terms of being able to just understand it, deal with it and put it to one side. He has been so smooth throughout this tournament.”
Richards also takes a moment to praise BBC commentator Mark Chapman for his sensitive acknowledgement of the shocking murder of the wife and two daughters of their 5Live colleague John Hunt. “I was so moved that Chapman found the right time and tone to acknowledge that, because it was heartbreaking. Absolutely heartbreaking.” Carol Hunt, 61, Hannah Hunt, 28, and Louise Hunt, 25, died at their home in Bushey, Hertfordshire, on Tuesday evening – the police have charged Louise Hunt’s ex boyfriend, 26-year-old Kyle Clifford.
That tragic incident brings us on to the issue of domestic violence. This year, charities Women’s Aid and House 337 have partnered on a new campaign, No More Years of Hurt, seeking to highlight how violence against women is at an all-time high while funding for women’s services is at an all-time low. Past research by Lancaster University found a 38 per cent rise in domestic abuse when England lose at a major tournament.
“It’s staggering to even think of that,” says Richards. “Football is supposed to bring people together. To think that it causes violence against women is sickening. Sad.” He closes his eyes and shakes his head. “It makes me feel so uncomfortable that you even have to ask me about that. I feel sorry for you, as a woman having to think about that. If men could be more open and honest about these situations then we would not be having this conversation and it’s not a great place to be. I know people talk about how people can be different if they’ve been drinking. But there is just no excuse. None at all. I feel like we need to be strong on that. We should always forgive but never forget. More needs to be done, because it’s not right.”
Richards has long campaigned to raise awareness of racism in football. He doesn’t want to get too deeply into the topic today although he has spoken before about receiving abuse on social media, and closed his Twitter account in 2012 having endured three months of direct racist attacks on the platform. “I am always cautious talking about race,” he says. “Because people will just say ‘Oh, that’s Micah being woke again’. I’ve made a good documentary [Tackling Racism (2021)] about it. I will always do my best to be the voice for people who can’t speak about it but I don’t want the subject to overshadow a big game.”
But it’s relevant isn’t it? Saka has put in a dazzling performance for England during this tournament, but received a shocking level of racist abuse online after missing a penalty in 2021. Isn’t it the case that a minority of racists will see players like Saka as “English” when they’re winning, but “Black” when they’re not? “Yeah,” nods Richards. “And that is a shame. Saka has shown such resilience to come back from missing that penalty. We can all talk about Bellingham and his bicycle kick and he’s the player with the most exciting potential on the squad. But in terms of consistent performance – getting the ball, giving an assist – Saka is the one we can rely on. If Saka misses a penalty on Sunday I’m not even going to look at social media. If a person of colour misses then I will delete all social media for a week because I can’t stomach it. We should all be together.”
Does Richards think it might come down to penalties against Spain? “If it does then we’ve got that as a strength in the game no,” he says. “Southgate gave the team the confidence to score five with such ease and confidence against Switzerland. That’s something we can take into the final.” And if we win, how will Richards be celebrating? “I might have to buy champagne for the lads,” he says. Not a $100,000 bottle? Richards cracks up. “No. Probably something more sensibly priced!”
Coverage of England vs Spain begins at 18.30 on BBC1 and iPlayer