Classic Arsenal Players - Part 17 - Paul Vaesson
ONE NIGHT IN TURIN
THERE WERE JUST seconds remaining. Arsenal were facing a heartbreaking exit from the European Cup Winners Cup at the semi final stage. Juventus, having secured a 1-1 draw in the first leg at Highbury, were comfortably hanging on to the goalless result they needed to reach the final.
Sitting on the bench was teenager Paul Vaesson. The 18 year old had only made fleeting appearances since his debut 18 months earlier and had scored just three goals. But sometimes these occasions throw up an unexpected hero and this was to be Vaesson's moment in the spotlight.
'Go on and knock one in for us', was Don Howe's final words as Vaesson was sent into the fray. And just seconds later that's exactly what he did.
Graham Rix weaved his way down the left and when he chipped the ball to the far post there was the young substitute to head past the great Dino Zoff. It was his first touch.
But unfortunately this wonderful moment would be the peak of Vaesson's all too brief career and ultimately his tragically short life.
Paul Leon Vaesson was born on 16 October 1961 in Gillingham, Kent. He was from a footballing family as his father, Leon, had played for Millwall and Gillingham.
Vaesson, a well built centre forward who was good in the air, joined Arsenal as an apprentice in 1977, signing on as a professional the following year.
Vaesson made his first team debut against Lokomotiv Leipzig in the UEFA Cup on 27 September 1978, three weeks before his 17th birthday, and later that season he made his first league start away at Chelsea on 14 May 1979.
Although understudy to Frank Stapleton and Alan Sunderland, Vaesson was given more opportunities in the following 1979/80 season and he scored his first goals for the club, a brace against Brighton and Hove Albion, in the League Cup on 13 November 1979.
Vaesson then scored his first league goal in the North London derby away at Tottenham Hotspur on 7 April 1980 but it would be his next goal that would thrust the teenager into the limelight.
Away in Turin in the second leg of the semi final of the European Cup Winners Cup against Juventus, Arsenal were seconds away from elimination. Desperate for a goal, manager Terry Neill turned to the 18 year old Vaesson but he could not have imagined what the next few minutes would bring.
After the elation of that goal, Vaesson was expected to push on and become the natural successor to Stapleton, who would leave for Old Trafford a year later, but after that amazing night in Turin he would only make another 24 appearances in his professional career.
A serious knee injury against Spurs which required three operations saw him play just seven times in the following 1980/81 season, scoring twice, while in 1981/82 he made a further 13 appearances, scoring twice more. And that was it.
With the Highbury crowd beginning to get on his back, culminating in the chants of 'Vaesson off' in a UEFA Cup match against Belgium part-timers Winterslag on 3 November 1981, the 20 year old sought solace in drugs.
Having started smoking marijuana when he was just 13, Vaesson had already began on a slippery slope that would ultimately lead to his untimely death.
Once his playing career had ended in the summer of 1982 before he had even turned 21, having made just 41 senior appearances, scoring nine goals, Vaesson needed something to numb the pain and moved from cocaine, to heroin and benzo-diazapan.
Vaesson took work on building sites, as a taxi driver and a postman but with a drug habit costing £125 per day he was forced to rob vans and mug people in the street. He appeared in court on numerous occasions, mostly for non-payment of fines, although he somehow always avoided a jail sentence.
In 1985 Vaesson was nearly killed in a side street off The Old Kent Road when a drug deal went wrong and he was stabbed six times from his armpit to his chest.
In intensive care for four days, Vaesson lost 40 pints of blood and stopped breathing twice on the operating table. He should have stayed in hospital for months but instead discharged himself after a few weeks so he could go back on the streets searching for drugs.
When his wife left him, taking with her their young son, Jamie, Vaesson moved back in with his parents. But he outstayed his welcome there and after one too many drug related incidents he found himself living on the streets.
In May 1993 with his life a mess, Vaesson admitted himself into a detox clinic in Bexleyheath and it seemed as though he was finally turning his life around.
Moving to Andover, Vaesson began a new relationship where he had another son, Jack, and the family settled in Farnborough.
Having been reunited with former Arsenal teammate Gary Lewin, then the club's physiotherapist, Vaesson had planned to follow in his footsteps and go to college but the pain from his old knee injury forced him to give up work and he again turned to drugs.
With his relationship in turmoil, Vaesson was evicted from the family home following an incident where he was found by his young step-daughter slumped on the stairs with a needle in his arm, so he moved to Bristol where he lived on and off with his brother, Leon.
As Vaesson's depression worsened in the late 1990s he was charged with assaulting a policeman after stealing woman's tights from a supermarket in Farnborough in 1998.
He was sentenced to 90 days in prison but bailed on the condition he lived with his brother, although the conviction was later overturned on appeal.
After one final row with his partner on the night of the Millennium, Vaesson moved permanently to Bristol and that was where this sorry story ends. On 8 August 2001 he was found dead in his flat by friend Jason Murphy. He was just 39 years old.
A verdict of accidental death was recorded after a high level of drugs was found in his bloodstream, a very sad end to a very sad story.
Vaesson was reaching the end of his career when I first started coming to Highbury and I only saw him play seven times in the 1981/82 season. By then the injuries had caught up with him and he looked shot of all confidence.
I was at the Winterslag game when the crowd were shouting for him to be taken off and it was a very sad to see. He did briefly come back in early 1982 with goals against Leeds United and Wolves, but that was to be his swansong.
I was at what turned out to be his last ever professional match against Swansea City on 27 March 1982, a 2-0 defeat in which he was substituted, again looking a pale shadow of the young player who had burst onto the scene so spectacularly less than two years earlier.
I believe he later played a bit of non league football with Fisher Athletic but in the end he became another 1980s footballer who succumbed to his demons.
In many ways he was a victim of his time. Had he been playing these days there is a good chance he would have been able to seek the help he needed from the Tony Adams' Sporting Chance charity.
But back in the 1980s these places did not exist and poor Vaesson was forced into a life of addiction and depression with no way out.
While many kids still dream of becoming a professional footballer it is stories like this that prove it is not always the glamorous lifestyle it is portrayed to be.
Paul Leon Vaesson 1961 - 2001 (RIP)
Coming up next time I look back on the career of another young striker who came through the Arsenal ranks but thankfully has a rather more happy story; Kevin Campbell. Look out for that coming soon.
THERE WERE JUST seconds remaining. Arsenal were facing a heartbreaking exit from the European Cup Winners Cup at the semi final stage. Juventus, having secured a 1-1 draw in the first leg at Highbury, were comfortably hanging on to the goalless result they needed to reach the final.
Sitting on the bench was teenager Paul Vaesson. The 18 year old had only made fleeting appearances since his debut 18 months earlier and had scored just three goals. But sometimes these occasions throw up an unexpected hero and this was to be Vaesson's moment in the spotlight.
Graham Rix weaved his way down the left and when he chipped the ball to the far post there was the young substitute to head past the great Dino Zoff. It was his first touch.
But unfortunately this wonderful moment would be the peak of Vaesson's all too brief career and ultimately his tragically short life.
Paul Leon Vaesson was born on 16 October 1961 in Gillingham, Kent. He was from a footballing family as his father, Leon, had played for Millwall and Gillingham.
Vaesson, a well built centre forward who was good in the air, joined Arsenal as an apprentice in 1977, signing on as a professional the following year.
Vaesson made his first team debut against Lokomotiv Leipzig in the UEFA Cup on 27 September 1978, three weeks before his 17th birthday, and later that season he made his first league start away at Chelsea on 14 May 1979.
Vaesson then scored his first league goal in the North London derby away at Tottenham Hotspur on 7 April 1980 but it would be his next goal that would thrust the teenager into the limelight.
Away in Turin in the second leg of the semi final of the European Cup Winners Cup against Juventus, Arsenal were seconds away from elimination. Desperate for a goal, manager Terry Neill turned to the 18 year old Vaesson but he could not have imagined what the next few minutes would bring.
After the elation of that goal, Vaesson was expected to push on and become the natural successor to Stapleton, who would leave for Old Trafford a year later, but after that amazing night in Turin he would only make another 24 appearances in his professional career.
A serious knee injury against Spurs which required three operations saw him play just seven times in the following 1980/81 season, scoring twice, while in 1981/82 he made a further 13 appearances, scoring twice more. And that was it.
With the Highbury crowd beginning to get on his back, culminating in the chants of 'Vaesson off' in a UEFA Cup match against Belgium part-timers Winterslag on 3 November 1981, the 20 year old sought solace in drugs.
Having started smoking marijuana when he was just 13, Vaesson had already began on a slippery slope that would ultimately lead to his untimely death.
Vaesson took work on building sites, as a taxi driver and a postman but with a drug habit costing £125 per day he was forced to rob vans and mug people in the street. He appeared in court on numerous occasions, mostly for non-payment of fines, although he somehow always avoided a jail sentence.
In 1985 Vaesson was nearly killed in a side street off The Old Kent Road when a drug deal went wrong and he was stabbed six times from his armpit to his chest.
In intensive care for four days, Vaesson lost 40 pints of blood and stopped breathing twice on the operating table. He should have stayed in hospital for months but instead discharged himself after a few weeks so he could go back on the streets searching for drugs.
When his wife left him, taking with her their young son, Jamie, Vaesson moved back in with his parents. But he outstayed his welcome there and after one too many drug related incidents he found himself living on the streets.
In May 1993 with his life a mess, Vaesson admitted himself into a detox clinic in Bexleyheath and it seemed as though he was finally turning his life around.
Moving to Andover, Vaesson began a new relationship where he had another son, Jack, and the family settled in Farnborough.
Having been reunited with former Arsenal teammate Gary Lewin, then the club's physiotherapist, Vaesson had planned to follow in his footsteps and go to college but the pain from his old knee injury forced him to give up work and he again turned to drugs.
With his relationship in turmoil, Vaesson was evicted from the family home following an incident where he was found by his young step-daughter slumped on the stairs with a needle in his arm, so he moved to Bristol where he lived on and off with his brother, Leon.
He was sentenced to 90 days in prison but bailed on the condition he lived with his brother, although the conviction was later overturned on appeal.
After one final row with his partner on the night of the Millennium, Vaesson moved permanently to Bristol and that was where this sorry story ends. On 8 August 2001 he was found dead in his flat by friend Jason Murphy. He was just 39 years old.
A verdict of accidental death was recorded after a high level of drugs was found in his bloodstream, a very sad end to a very sad story.
Vaesson was reaching the end of his career when I first started coming to Highbury and I only saw him play seven times in the 1981/82 season. By then the injuries had caught up with him and he looked shot of all confidence.
I was at the Winterslag game when the crowd were shouting for him to be taken off and it was a very sad to see. He did briefly come back in early 1982 with goals against Leeds United and Wolves, but that was to be his swansong.
I was at what turned out to be his last ever professional match against Swansea City on 27 March 1982, a 2-0 defeat in which he was substituted, again looking a pale shadow of the young player who had burst onto the scene so spectacularly less than two years earlier.
In many ways he was a victim of his time. Had he been playing these days there is a good chance he would have been able to seek the help he needed from the Tony Adams' Sporting Chance charity.
But back in the 1980s these places did not exist and poor Vaesson was forced into a life of addiction and depression with no way out.
While many kids still dream of becoming a professional footballer it is stories like this that prove it is not always the glamorous lifestyle it is portrayed to be.
Paul Leon Vaesson 1961 - 2001 (RIP)
Coming up next time I look back on the career of another young striker who came through the Arsenal ranks but thankfully has a rather more happy story; Kevin Campbell. Look out for that coming soon.
Comments
Post a Comment