From the cans of Carling in a devastated Wembley dressing-room to the final pint of Guinness in an Essex boozer, Tony Adams went on a 44-day bender after Euro 96 that still shapes his life today. It was the bender to end all of his benders. Adams had drunk for 12 years, and only in the final six months did he want to stop. He didn’t drink during the Euros but when Gareth Southgate missed his penalty, the final stretch of Adams’ descent into darkness began before the journey back into the light.
It's a remarkable story of Football Coming Home, and home truths coming into football. It’s all examined in Adams’ new book “1996” published on Tuesday (April 14). It charts the whole year and particularly chronicles events from England bowing out of Euro 96 on June 26 to 5pm August 16, when Adams just said no to the offer of another pint. He’d hit rock bottom. He joined Alcoholics Anonymous and has been clean since.
