Paul James holds out his woolly pink hat and the person within the swimsuit drops three cash into its depths earlier than disappearing inside Embankment Station.
A boy in a vampire costume hurries previous and pulls a mock-scary face on the first Welshman to play at a World Cup since 1958. One other man shoots off to purchase him a espresso from the close by Starbucks.
Many others catch the attention of the person smiling at them from beneath the chequered blanket solely to snap their heads again and march on.
Paul James – a former titan of Canadian soccer – is now dwelling on the streets of London
Many extra hurry previous with out as a lot as a look in direction of the person who shared a world pitch with Glenn Hoddle and Gary Lineker and marked France’s Michel Platini in Mexico in 1986.
James is one in every of Wales’s – and Canada’s – most embellished footballers. He was born in Cardiff and grew up on his mother and father’ farm earlier than the household moved to Toronto in 1980.
Six years later he began all three of Canada’s group video games at their solely World Cup earlier than Qatar. In 1984, he misplaced on penalties to Brazil within the quarter-finals on the Olympics.
He performed 47 instances for his nation. As a coach, he helped Canada girls’s U20s to a CONCACAF title and led their male counterparts to the World Cup.
His face hangs on the ‘wall of fame’ at Whitchurch Excessive College, the Cardiff state faculty famed for churning out worldwide athletes, alongside the likes of Tour de France winner Geraint Thomas, former Lions captain Sam Warburton and Wales captain Gareth Bale.
And whereas Bale led Wales into their first World Cup since 1958 and Canada launched into their first since 1986, James is on the streets of London.
He’s been unemployed for the final 13 years and with no everlasting house for six. He returned to the UK from Canada simply earlier than the pandemic, indignant at his therapy throughout the pond. James believes, with fury and unshakeable resolve, that he confronted discrimination in Canada for his historic use of crack cocaine.
Till a couple of months in the past, when he discovered shelter at a hostel close to Holborn, in a room just lately additionally occupied by two mice, he slept on scraps of cardboard at Charing Cross or Westminster Cathedral. Earlier than that, he was on the bitter streets in Toronto.
We meet outdoors Embankment, one of many locations across the capital the place James usually sits and awaits the kindness of others. Typically there, generally at Piccadilly or the Strand. He doesn’t name it begging – he calls it fundraising.
The previous worldwide appeared for Canada in all of their group video games at Mexico 1986
‘If you wish to know what the look of utter contempt and disgust appears to be like like, do that,’ James tells The Mail on Sunday. ‘However if you wish to see moments of wonderful kindness and humanity, do that as nicely.’
What’s it he raises funds for? ‘To be unbiased,’ he says. ‘To regain a semblance of normality. To capable of put on my very own garments and sneakers and never second-hand ones. To not must fundraise to buy my very own gadgets.
‘To regain independence from the metaphorical jail condemned as an harmless for 13 misplaced years, not by the UK to whom I really feel indebted, however Canada as a nation. To seek out and rekindle the fervour, enthusiasm, and positivity I as soon as had. And, on high of every thing, to seek out an avenue to attach with individuals.’
James usually provides his e-mail deal with to those that cease to speak, asks them to Google his identify. Few, he says, ever e-mail him. He hopes this may change that.
He watched the World Cup on the tv in his hostel room. He sat on the sting of his mattress on the fifth flooring as Harry Kane lined up his first penalty towards France.
When Olivier Giroud made it 2-1 to France, he left the hostel and walked by the empty streets in direction of the sounds from the native pubs. He heard cheers ring towards the evening sky as England gained their second penalty. He stepped inside to the screams of despair as Kane missed it.
‘England have been higher on the day,’ says James. ‘Kane lacking the second penalty was not the place the sport was misplaced. It was within the two targets conceded.
‘Failure to stress the ball on the primary and a failure to cease the standard of the cross on the second in tandem with England’s centre-backs watching the ball dropping Giroud. Each have been unavoidable errors.’
James is a passionate speaker, with a magnetic, manic high quality about him. One second he quotes Shakespeare or Jordan Peterson or Bruce Lee or Steven Bartlett off Dragons Den.
The following, he leaps off the bench to reenact the paranoid terror that follows smoking crack cocaine or scurries forwards and backwards to exhibit how Bale’s lack of urgent held Wales again on the World Cup.
‘Wales confirmed the combating spirit I’m so happy with. Realistically, although, they have been out of their depth.’
He’d hoped England and Wales would put on the One Love armbands in protest to the therapy of the LGBT neighborhood in Qatar. ‘By means of sport you’ll be able to obtain social change, however you need to f*****g demand it, proper?’
James, a former team-mate of Justin Fashanu, felt disgust on the FIFA president Gianni Infantino’s ‘bigoted, obscene’ speech earlier than the event by which he declared ‘In the present day, I really feel disabled. In the present day, I really feel homosexual.’ Infantino, says James, appeared ‘extra Machiavelli than Cicero’.
So, how did this occur. How did this Cardiff-born footballer, a embellished World Cup worldwide, an Olympian, a profitable coach a profitable coach, a revered pundit, columnist and three-time inductee into the Canada Soccer corridor of fame, with a BA from Wilfrid Laurier and a soccer MBA from the College of Liverpool find yourself on the streets of London?
James says Rob Web page paid the value of a World Cup exit for enjoying Gareth Bale in Qatar
He praised England for his or her efficiency towards France however says the decisive moments got here once they conceded
For James, a easy strand runs by his outstanding life: the stigma endured for utilizing crack cocaine.
He smoked cocaine for the primary time in 1998 and for the following decade developed, as James urges everybody to explain it, a substance use subject.
Not every single day, generally weeks or months in between. ‘I couldn’t join with anybody, to seek out an intimate accomplice in my life. Substance, and overwork, changed that.’
James had a six-year relationship with Ashley Kelly who he describes as an ‘extraordinary particular person’. ‘I cherished her to bits however may provide her nothing,’ he admits.
The stigma, he says, envelopes how society views medication, even so far as the language.
‘I don’t assume it’s best to name anybody a drug addict, a crack addict, a junkie,’ says James. ‘The phrases conjure up irrationality and a sequence of labels which view these uncovered as: prison, scary, irrational, unreliable, to be averted, diseased, loser, soiled, lazy, scum, non-employable. Are you able to see how disgusting that language is?
‘How do you ever get better from being labelled a homeless crack addict? You don’t.’
James is for certain he misplaced his job as head soccer coach at York College in Toronto, the place he led their males’s aspect to a nationwide championship, as a result of discrimination towards his drug use. When he provided to resign in 2009 as his psychological situation and drug use worsened, he believes York had an obligation of care to supply him assist. He says York requested him to formalise his resignation. James claims he beforehand opened as much as colleagues that he wanted time away and went to rehab. He says he was compelled to resign. York deny the accusations.
He tried to take York to the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal however was unsuccessful as he’d not complained throughout the yr deadline. James argues his psychological well being and substance points made that unimaginable.
He took his combat to the Canada Supreme Court docket in 2016 however, once more, was unsuccessful. He’s since been on ‘at the very least a dozen’ starvation strikes in his pursuit of justice. He desires discrimination over drug use enshrined in regulation.
‘There’s by no means been a struggle on medication,’ says James. ‘How are you going to have a struggle on inanimate issues? There’s solely ever been a struggle on individuals. And it’s these most susceptible who are suffering most from the devastation of the stigma: social exclusion, marginalized, poverty.
The previous Canada worldwide stated he questioned the streets when Kane missed his penalty
‘In the event you arrive on the scene from wealth, energy, Hollywood stardust or if you’re endowed with political cache, you may have the perfect likelihood of avoiding such a disaster.’
We sit in Victoria Embankment Gardens and James appears to be like down at an image from the World Cup in Mexico in 1986. There he’s, in a white Canada shirt, pink shorts and white socks, protruding his leg to comb the ball away from the smaller opponent making an attempt to protect it from him: France’s No.10, Michel Platini.
Canada misplaced all their group video games however gave account of themselves. This yr in Qatar was their first World Cup since.
‘What we achieved at that World Cup was phenomenal, once I consider how good we weren’t,’ he says. ‘We carried out miracles to maintain the rating strains so predictable.’
Within the build-up to the event, James began in Canada’s warm-up sport towards England in British Colombia. Hoddle and Lineker each featured for Bobby Robson’s males with Mark Hateley scoring the one objective in a 1-0 win.
James scored towards Costa Rica on Canada’s option to successful the CONCACAF Championship and securing qualification for Mexico.
He fractured his toe a couple of months earlier than however performed on with an outsized boot to permit for the additional padding, so large it flew off throughout video games.
After the France defeat in Mexico, he swapped shirts with defender Maxime Bossis. He hopes his sister nonetheless has it.
He’s not seen her or his household in 4 years. His mom handed away in June however James solely discovered two months later. He hopes this interview may assist him reconnect along with his father.
James’s nationwide workforce taking part in days ended after he was embroiled in a bribery scandal throughout a event in Singapore, simply months after the World Cup. 4 Canada gamers accepted money to affect outcomes of video games.
Forward of the semi-final, they requested James to affix them. He agreed and was given $10,000. He later returned the money and testified towards the 4 in courtroom.
Requested the way it feels wanting on the photos of him and Platini in spite of everything these years, he replies: ‘It’s combined. The satisfaction in realizing you have been a part of one thing particular however then, in your later life to be intentionally handled with such distain and shame for a profoundly human situation, it’s unacceptable.’
James has reached out to former team-mates and colleagues since transferring again to the UK. On our first assembly, James says the denims he wears have been donated by Chris Ramsey, the QPR technical director who was England’s under-20s coach on the time James led their Canadian counterparts.
One shivering evening sleeping in Victoria, his former team-mate Paul Peschisolido, husband of West Ham vice-chair Karen Brady, took him a blanket and a few meals. Peschisolido just lately introduced him some new trainers and a coat for James’s 59th birthday.
He says Gianni Infantino’s controversial speech on the eve of the World Cup was ‘bigoted’
James has picked up bits of labor, like sweeping the roads on Oxford Road earlier than a knee damage made it unimaginable to proceed.
James carries round most of his belongings in a black sports activities bag, his blankets, his garments, his small iPad with a damaged display screen.
He used to personal a smartphone however it was stolen out of his sleeping bag whereas he slept at Charing Cross. Somebody stole his sneakers when he slept on the streets of Toronto.
Web page ought to have realised that you simply can’t carry gamers on the high stage and will have acted decisively with Bale
It has taken a very long time for James to comply with the interview. We meet 4 instances over the previous few months, for a couple of hours at a time, and change quite a few emails that he usually sends from a public library close to King’s Cross.
At varied factors he pulls his consent. He doesn’t know if he can open himself as much as anymore ridicule however, ultimately, he believes it might probably assist, not simply him however others.
After his hours of fundraising, James will stroll again to the hostel. He donates a portion of his assortment to the opposite homeless individuals he passes on the best way. For this interview, his solely request was that The Mail on Sunday make a donation to London homeless charities.
After the France defeat in Mexico, he swapped shirts with defender Maxime Bossis (pictured)
Paul Peschisolido – a former team-mate of James’ – purchased him a blanket upon seeing him in Victoria station
James doesn’t need you to really feel sorry for him. He’d somewhat you are feeling indignant. However, greater than something, he hopes it makes you assume, makes you take into account how society treats its most susceptible and the way a embellished World Cup footballer ended up right here.
‘My soccer profession was every thing,’ he says. ‘I shouldn’t have misplaced a day’s work. If I used to be to finish my life tomorrow, which I gained’t, individuals would perceive. As a result of it’s been a f*****g brutality.’
All that is solely a part of the story. Our conversations, he says, barely scratch the floor. There’s a whole lot of emails he’s despatched to the likes of Infantino and Justin Trudeau, the Prime Minister of Canada.
There’s the tons of authorized paperwork, some 200-pages lengthy, despatched to the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario and to Canada’s Supreme Court docket. There’s the web site he began referred to as ‘Confronting the Stigma of Drug Dependancy’. There’s his 2012 e-book memoir entitled Cracked Open.
Solely then, he says, will anybody actually perceive the depths of the discrimination and the anger. Solely then, will they perceive why he’ll by no means cease combating.
He has despatched emails to the likes of Justin Trudeau and Gianni Infantino explaining his story
