GARY LINEKER HAS ASKED ME TO MEET HIM AT HIS HOUSE IN BARNES AT 2.30PM. It’s a miserable wet day in London, so I give myself time and arrive just before 2pm. As I turn into the narrow lane that loops round to his address, who should I see trying to squeeze past my car in a black Mini? His eyes slide towards me, then quickly back to the road. Gary Lineker! Where the hell are you going? I glance in my rear-view mirror to see his indicator blinking before he accelerates into a speedy getaway. I stop and check my phone. Sure enough, he’s crying off. “Could you do tomorrow?” he’s messaged. But I just saw you, I protest. Thirty seconds pass. He replies that he’s turning back. A couple minutes more and he’s home again, “So all good.” I pass the Mini again as I climb the porch steps and press the bell.
Lineker is in a black tracksuit and a little agitated. This is not the TV Lineker of Match of the Day, with his polish and cheeky grin. But then Lineker is entitled to have a scatty home version like the rest of us. He offers excuses – his plans changed; he got the wrong day; he was popping to the shops. He lives in a huge-roomed Edwardian house, once packed with four thudding sons, a second wife and stepdaughter, but empty now. Even the dog is out. But there’s a fire on in the kitchen and he makes tea. He’s not usually in the car, he says. There are only 450km on the clock and he’s had it a year. He walks – always walks – to the village. Takes the train or the tube in town. But it’s blowy out, and he had a huge pile of dry cleaning, still sitting on the back seat. As he places the mug beside me, I realise he’s embarrassed about the car. He’s an avowed environmentalist who retweets the Green MP Caroline Lucas and on at least one occasion defended Just Stop Oil. So Gary Lineker does not want to seem hypocritical?
Because, yes, there is also a “controversial” Lineker, who gets into scuffles online and whose pronouncements nearly cost him his BBC
