ROCK BOTTOM: He was the Seventies poster boy... now Hudson is forced to live in a £9-a-week 'prison'



Alan Hudson is talking about the day a couple of years ago that he nearly got his first tattoo. It was going to be an image of a butterfly on his wrist, a tribute to the book he relates to now even more than he did then.



‘Papillon,’ he says. ‘It’s French for butterfly, you know? I haven’t had it anywhere near as bad as that poor fella, but his book keeps me going sometimes.’



It’s the story of Henri Charriere’s efforts to escape the prison island he was dumped on for a crime he did not commit. The old paperback is one of the few things Hudson owns these days. That and a laptop, a notebook, a few clothes and a medal for winning the 1971 European Cup Winners’ Cup with Chelsea.

'Rock bottom': Alan Hudson's life has sadly become a considerable struggle

‘I guess you’d call this rock bottom,’ he says.



He runs his hands through what’s left of his grey hair. The long brown locks, sideburns and tailored suits of the Seventies are gone. ‘My gear,’ he points to his jeans and jumper, ‘mostly came from a charity shop’.



Hudson has been living in a hostel for homeless people in Notting Hill Gate since the middle of June. His hope is that the council will give him a flat, but that might take six weeks. It might take longer.

His nights are usually spent lying awake in his single bed, waiting to get up and go somewhere for the day, quite often a pub. Sometimes he catches up with old friends or does some writing. He loves to write. But mostly he’s just ‘killing time until I’m sorted again’.

'Killing time': Hudson says he often passes his days in the pub until he's 'sorted again'

‘I just need to get back on my feet,’ he says. ‘I’m not sure how, though.’ His crutches are leaning against the table; a 62-year-old man considered one of the most elegant midfielders of his time can’t walk more than a few paces without them, not since he was run over on the Mile End Road one December afternoon in 1997.



He’s lucky to be alive and he’s lucky his legs weren’t amputated during the 59 days he spent in a coma. But he doesn’t always see it that way.



‘Papillon was an innocent man and I was an innocent man crossing the road,’ he says. He’s rubbing the little medal between his thumb and forefinger, as he often does over the course of five hours in a central London pub. Constantly hanging from his neck, it’s the last token of his old life.



‘I didn’t deserve the thing that happened,’ he says. ‘Now look at me, in a hostel that’s like a prison.'

Far cry: He was once an elegant footballer when at his peak Swollen: Hudson's legs make life difficult for him on a daily basis

It's midday in a pub across the road from Green Park. Hudson has been awake since 3am and he looks tired as he sips a vodka and orange.



‘I forgot to take my sleeping tablets,’ he says. ‘I was never much of a sleeper. Even when I played I couldn’t sleep the night before a game - not nervous, just excited.



‘When I had a nightclub in Stoke I’d get by on just a few hours. I’d be up all night and still not sleep in the day.’



He’s in good spirits, reminiscing about his best days, those years between 1968 and 1985 when he played for Chelsea, Arsenal, Stoke and twice for England; when he was considered one of the game’s great mavericks. He played against Best, Pele, Beckenbauer and Cruyff.



‘I did alright against them and all,’ he says.



Sir Alf Ramsey once described Hudson as ‘the best young English player I’ve seen’; Bill Shankly felt compelled after a game between Stoke and Liverpool in the Seventies to enter the dressing room to tell Hudson that his performance was one of the finest he had ever witnessed.



Big fans: Sir Alf Ramsey and Bill Shankly are both said to have rated Hudson highly



Diehards of the King’s Road still rave about the way Hudson tore apart Real Madrid in the 1971 Cup Winners’ Cup final - Chelsea’s first European trophy - and in Stoke they talk about 1975, when he took them to within four points of the Division One title.



Some folk in Staffordshire continue to curse the day a storm blew the roof off the Victoria Ground and Hudson was sold to Arsenal to fund repairs. ‘It was a different time financially,’ Hudson says. He’ll say it again later.



But football was only ever half the story.



‘You had the Swinging Sixties and all that so you had these characters in the game,’ Hudson says.



‘They had more flair on and off the pitch than now - and our girlfriends were better looking.’



He starts laughing. His debut, as a 17-year-old for Chelsea, the club two minutes from his childhood home on Upcerne Road, came after Peter Osgood, Charlie Cook, Tommy Baldwin and Johnny Boyle were caught drunk the day before a game.



‘Getting caught is the problem,’ he says. ‘It was a different culture then. We would go out for a drink and you wouldn’t have camera phones. God, imagine what would they have caught George doing?’



He’s talking about George Best. ‘I think he saw something of himself in me so we always got on well when we saw each other.

Disability: But the benefits on which Hudson so strongly relies could be taken from him

‘He was one in a million, as a player and a man. I remember going with Peter Osgood to Slack Alice, George’s club up in Manchester. He was telling us about the time he was in there with Marjorie Wallace, the Miss World bird.



‘She was at the club to meet him but she had brought a chaperone. George is thinking to himself,



“How do I deal with this?” So he pinches her coat when she’s not looking and when she contacts him about it later, he says: “You can come and get it back, but leave your mate at home”. It worked. The guy was priceless.’



Hudson is laughing again.



‘Being a footballer then you moved in some funny circles,’ he says. ‘I used to drink pink champagne and knew people like Elton John and Keith Moon. Real stars.



‘Keith told me one time about Steve McQueen, when they were neighbours in Malibu. Keith was having a party one night so McQueen takes out a gun and shoots out a light on Keith’s driveway because of the noise. Brilliant.



‘McQueen was in Papillon when they turned it into a film. Small world, isn’t it?’

'Funny circles': At his peak, Hudson would socialise with Elton John and Keith Moon among others



Hudson has rolled up his trousers to prove a point about his right leg. It’s deep purple from ankle to knee and swollen.



‘The left gave me problems in the past, but the right one is a real b*****d now,’ he says. He’s talking about the three incidents that put his life on a downward curve.



‘I did the left ankle down a hole,’ he says. It was in 1970 and he was playing for Chelsea against West Brom.



‘My foot went down the biggest hole you’ve seen and I ripped all the ligaments.’



It caused him to miss the 1970 FA Cup final, which Chelsea won, and also the World Cup in Mexico that year.



‘It killed me for years,’ he says. ‘That’s when I probably started drinking too much.



‘I only mention it because it was one of those times when everything was going well for me and then bang.’



He’s now looking at his right leg. He didn’t see the car coming that sunny afternoon as he walked home in 1997.



Similar characters? George Best saw some of himself in Hudson, the latter believes

‘I was just stepping on the pavement on the Mile End Road and it hit me from behind. I got knocked into a tree.’



A day before this interview, Hudson revisited the crash site for the first time since the incident.



‘Life seemed pretty good at the time. I’d had some problems, drink and whatever, but I’d just written a book and my second wife and I were buying a house. I was doing all right.



‘But then, again, it goes bang. So much of what has gone wrong for me came from that crash.



‘I was in hospital 59 days, 70-odd operations, and when I got out my wife left. I don’t think she fancied pushing me round in a wheelchair. I still need physio. I had all these operations, a colostomy, all that stuff.



‘It’s hard to say I’ve been lucky, but in a sense I am lucky to be alive, even to have legs.



Huge respect: Johan Cruyff is the best Hudson has played against

‘When I was in the operating theatre, blood coming out of everywhere, they thought I’d lose my legs. But as it happened they had these things called C-clamps that were made for stopping blood loss. They had been left there by a medical rep a few weeks before. Saved my legs - otherwise they’d have had to amputate them.’



He got a pay out in the region of £160,000 and invested it in a property in Cyprus.



0‘I remember one beautiful evening in Cyprus seven or eight years ago I was reading Papillon and this butterfly flies in and lands next to me. What are the chances? I felt happy.’



The Cypriot market crashed and Hudson lost the majority of the money.

Hudson is trying to make sense of it all.



‘I don’t know exactly how I got to this point,’ he says. He’s rubbing the medal again.



‘I’ve had two divorces and that cost a fortune and I lost the money I had tied up in the nightclub in Stoke. I guess I made some wrong choices and had some bad luck. It wasn’t gambling.



‘I never earned a fortune. The most I had was £500 a week at Stoke. That was good money, but I’ve always needed a mortgage. When it went wrong with the property in Cyprus it cleaned me out.’



He had been living with one of his three sons in Stoke until recently, but his son has his own problems so Hudson moved out. He’s been in the hostel ever since.



It’s less than a four-minute walk from Notting Hill Gate station, down Pembridge Gardens with its oak trees and Georgian Terraces. It’s a nice street lined with expensive cars. But there are six steps out front with no handrail. For Hudson, it’s a ‘prison’.



‘I can’t complain too much about it because it’s only £9 a week, but it’s tough,’ he says. ‘When I got there, I was given all these rules. I can’t bring anyone back, not even my son.



The best ever? Lionel Messi is the best Hudson has ever seen

‘You wouldn’t want to bring anyone back. It’s a small room. It has a toilet that I can’t really sit on because of my legs, a shower and a single bed. It feels like a prison sometimes. It can take me five minutes to get up and down them and I have to because I can’t stay in there all day.’



Usually that means trips to the pub. Hudson isn’t sure if he’s dependant on alcohol or not, but he has a drink most days.



‘I need a drink and a sleeping tablet if I’m going to get any sleep,’ he says.



His income amounts to a £100-a-week disability benefit and the £300 he gets each month in pension.



The latest battle is over his freedom pass, as he was told last month he no longer meets the disability criteria.



‘Rubbish,’ he says. ‘I can barely walk. I’ve sent them a letter and we’ll see what happens.’



He attempts to stand up from his seat so he can show his letter but he wobbles badly.



‘In a way it’s good because it gives me something to focus on, but you look at me on these crutches and tell me I’m fine,’ he says.



‘I represented this country and they are treating me like some kind of number.’



'World class': But Hudson believes England haven't had a player as good since

Hudson still watches football when he can, but he doesn’t always like what he sees.



‘I’m not one of these old guys who says it was all better in my day. I look at Lionel Messi and think he’s the best ever.



‘Cruyff was the best I played (against). The problem in this country is everyone is afraid of the ball, except Jack Wilshere. He could be special. Wayne Rooney isn’t great - he’s fat and bald. I don’t think we have had a world class player since Gazza. And yet look at the money they earn - wish we’d had it like that.



‘Nowadays the players have all their talent coached out of them. Charles Hughes, that fool at the FA, ruined it for this country back when he started talking about long ball.

'Fat and bald': Hudson doesn't rate Wayne Rooney, but believes Jack Wilshere is 'special'



‘I was working for a magazine once and they wanted me to interview Matt Le Tissier. He told me he was training for England one day and a ball was going out of play and he couldn’t reach it. The coach says, “Why didn’t you chase it?” He said, “I’m not chasing a ball I know I can’t get. Why waste my energy?” ‘The coach said, “The English fans want to see you chase it”. Rubbish. Too much coaching. Terry Neil tried to coach Liam Brady. What could anyone teach Liam Brady? Tony Waddington was wonderful for me at Stoke - he trusted me to go and play.’



Hudson spends much of his time writing now. He’s just written and self-published an autobiography, From The Playing Fields To The Killing Fields. It’s raw but insightful, entertaining and occasionally disconcerting. ‘I’m not the type to hold back,’ he says.



‘Writing is good for me. I have so much time to kill. That’s what my life is at the moment, I’m killing time.’



He resents that Chelsea and his other former clubs have not helped him out with a fundraiser.



‘I was brought up 200 yards from Stamford Bridge, probably their most local player, but they don’t seem to care. They didn’t care when I was in hospital - of the thousands of cards I got I had nothing from Chelsea.

Too much coaching? Matt Le Tissier is one of England's natural talents to be given poor advice, Hudson says

‘They will pipe up when I die and make tributes, but what good will it be then? How many chances do they all give Gazza?



‘I’m not going to go begging as I still have my pride, but I’ve been given nothing.’



An alternative claim, made by several connected to Chelsea, is that the club tried to help him, Ken Bates giving him work as a matchday host. But it’s suggested by some that patience wore thin with his drinking.



In the meantime, Hudson has his dreams. ‘I’ve tried writing to people like Brian McDermott when he was at Reading, trying to get some scouting work.



‘I have something to offer, but it’s hard, you know? I was the one who told Frank Lampard Snr to get young Frank to Chelsea, not Leeds. I know football - certainly more than Joe Kinnear and that lot.’



Hudson takes a deep breath and gets up to leave. He’s been talking for five hours. ‘I just want some money again, I want to travel. But it’s a process. It starts with me getting a flat and I have this business about the freedom pass to focus on. I’m going to give them hell.

