The Players

	As Eileen puther hands to his head and asked him what he wanted, Ray said,

He’s a punter, a poker player and one of the lads. He loves a scoop, a prank and going to the dogs. He’s an Essex boy, a racehorse owner and one of the best-known old-school English players in the Premiership today.

He’s got the patter of the very best rails bookie. He won the league title with Arsenal three times, the FA Cup three times (where he scored one of the most blistering goals the competition’s final has ever seen) and wore the white of England ten times. You might say the Romford Pele, Ray ‘Raymondo’ Parlour, was a bit of an Edger’s fave. You’d be absolutely right.

Ray’s team since 2004, of course, is Middlesbrough, sponsored by punting superpower 888. No surprises then, when Ray agrees to meet us at the televised 888 UK Poker Open. Not in some second-rate celebrity qualifier either, but for the first round of the real deal, with $1 million up for grabs to the eventual winner – against hardened pros with mirror shades, beer guts and frightening focus. Not that Ray seems remotely worried.

‘Awright, mate!’ he grins. ‘And before you get any funny ideas, you know I’m injured, right, and Steve McClaren knows all about this?!’

We do. Ray had an operation a couple of weeks before the poker tournament to repair damaged knee cartilage. After the op he felt fine; the next day the anaesthetic wore off and he was in agony. That slowly subsided and now the prognosis for the strawberry blond-locked 32-year-old is a return to training some time early in the New Year. In the meantime, there’s poker…

Shuffle up and deal

‘Yeah well as you know,’ starts Raymondo in trademark hundred-miles-an-hour spiel, ‘I’ve always been into a bit of gambling, and this poker thing has really taken off lately. I’ve been interested in it over the past four or five years, but I haven’t played that many live games, so I’m really looking forward to today’s tournament. I’ve watched a lot of it on telly and seen the internet bit. It’s the bluffing business I love so much; the idea that the best hand doesn’t always win.’

So apart from the internet, then, where did he get his live poker experience? Lagered-up at the back of the Arsenal bus with old-school types like Tony Adams, surely?

‘Well, you’d be surprised, mate,’ laughs Ray, swerving the question as if it were a static defender in front of goal. ‘To be honest, you don’t see much gambling on the coach these days. Most of the players are watching DVDs, not playing cards. But I enjoy cards, I have done all my life.

‘For me, it’s not so much about the money,’ adds senior Boro pro Raymondo. ‘I play for enjoyment as much as for anything else. Poker really helps take your mind off things if you’re stuck in a hotel waiting for a big game. Put it this way, I don’t think I’ll be going home with a million dollars, but I certainly don’t want to be taking a bath early doors. I’ll only have a real go early on if my cards are decent. As time goes on, I’ll take a few risks. This is my biggest tournament ever, so I want to stick around and enjoy it.’

Cheeky chappie

There are probably more bar-room stories about Romford Ray than there are chips in a casino. In a modern game that needs – as Big Ron always loved to say – ‘big personalities’, Ray has always been up there with the best.

It was Ray, allegedly, who christened Arsene Wenger ‘Clouseau’ when the Frenchman first arrived at Highbury. One oft-repeated anecdote tells how, before one Arsenal game, Wenger had to excuse himself to go to the toilet just as the players were heading down the tunnel. Immediately afterwards a security alert was raised and the team was sent back down the tunnel to the dressing room. Wenger soon reappeared, surprised to find the lads hanging about, and asked what was going on. Before anyone else could answer, Ray, affecting his best Peter Sellers impression, intoned: ‘There is a burm.’ Now utterly confused, Wenger replied, perfectly: ‘A burm?’ As the team erupted into paroxysms of laughter, Parlour managed: ‘Yes, a burm’, before joining in the hilarity. When the laughter had subsided Wenger said simply, ‘Raymond… I do believe you are having a joke with me.’

‘Professor’ Wenger, as you might expect, knew how to take a joke. Even more importantly, he saw the value of developing Parlour as a key midfielder when many commentators were expecting him to make way for Johnny Foreigner. Instead, it was Paul Merson who was bid au revoir and Ray who matured as a player and pro. He boozed less, avoided incidents like the alleged punch-up with a Hong Kong taxi driver and started lifting trophies.

Gotta have faith

On the England stage, under Glen Hoddle, however, it was an altogether different story. Hoddle insisted that a selection of players receive a visit from Eileen Drewery, the infamous faith healer. Most players were happy to go along with the boss and listen to 20 minutes of hocus-pocus from an old bat. Not Raymondo, though. As Eileen closed her eyes, put her hands to his head and asked him what he wanted, Ray answered ‘a short back and sides’.

That’s among the funniest football quotes ever, we suggest to him…

‘It might seem funny to you,’ laughs Ray nervously, ‘but it wasn’t for me at the time! It probably cost me the World Cup. Yeah, it really happened, it’s not some urban myth, but I only meant it as a bit of fun. But it bloody cost me…’

For a lad from Romford who played at Arsenal for an astonishing 15 years, and lived his social life in the capital, a move to the wilds of north-east England might have once appeared as daunting as it was improbable. Not these days, however. Nights at Chinawhite – where he infamously emptied a bottle of beer down topless model Alicia Douvall’s back the night Arsenal won the 2002 Double – have been replaced with a love of the outdoors. Well, horse racing and dogs are in the outdoors, aren’t they?

Thrill of the chase

‘Course!’ agrees Ray. ‘You know, I never really knew much about living up north before I moved to the Riverside. But the club is great and there are plenty of horse racing tracks about, as well as the dogs, where I went the other week. I used to have a couple of dogs who ran down south at Walthamstow and Romford. The dogs is a great night. Top!

‘I’m a big racing fan, as everyone knows,’ he continues. ‘I did have a couple of horses, but only one at the moment, Swahili Dancer, who should be running again soon. He loves soft ground and so will be in action when the weather changes a bit. He runs over the hurdles, and is trained by Mickey Hammond – a big Arsenal fan – and hopefully we’ll see him in the winner’s enclosure. I love racing, and there’s a lot of it in the north east.’

Next, we turn to Ray’s tips for the Premiership: Chelsea to win (‘even if Arsenal never managed a back-toback’), Tottenham as an each-way, Portsmouth and West Brom to possibly go down. In the World Cup, he fancies England because of the strength of their midfield, but also reckons they’ll need ‘a fair share of luck, like anyone else’. Luck, for the record, is a word never far from his lips. ‘Everyone needs it, no matter how talented,’ he reckons. But will he have it in today’s poker game?

As the TV studio lights kick in and the cards are dealt, Ray knuckles down on the green felt to the waft of a distant – but achievable – million greenbacks. His first round match is long and hardfought. It moves slowly, then gathers pace as eventually Raymondo reaches the final pairing against an anonymous but deadly pro in shades. Ray’s got a pair of Kings; the other guy has Queens. He’s pushed all-in and the flop comes down – blank, blank… Queen. Damn. And with no further help it’s goodbye to Romford Ray, for today at least.

‘An excellent and ultimately unlucky performance,’ sums up the TV commentator. ‘And if he keeps playing like that until his injury clears up, he won’t have to worry about his choice of career after football.’

‘Ooh-arr, Ray Par-lour!’ as the North Bank used to chant…