James made more than 200 appearances for Liverpool in the 1990s.
As with numerous cases within English football in the 2000s and 2010s, the wealth and lifestyle that comes with the top-tier has often shown to be fleeting and certainly not the ‘be all and end all’. Without suitable advice or planning, plenty of players from yesteryear struggled with their immense funds and, in a variety of examples, have seen poor investments, gambling or other vices, or simply baseless opulence with no plan B, spurn all their wealth.
While it is refreshing to see a number of former pros make the smoother transitions into coaching, punditry, or just nurse outside interests, those negative connotations are still valuable building blocks to learn from. Former Premier League, England goalkeeper and occasional Sky Sports pundit, David James attests to this.
Hertfordshire-born David James emerged in the late 1980s through Watford’s academy, and played with the Hornets until 1992, when Liverpool picked up the FA Youth Cup winner for a cool £1.25 million.
On Merseyside, James went on to make 277 all-competition appearances – winning the League Cup in 1995 along the way. In his career, James was an aggressive and imposing shot-stopper, who was known for his excellent saving ability and long throws, as well as his professionalism, leadership, and ability to organise his defence. However, he also came under fire in the media for his perceived poor decision-making and distribution with his feet, although he was able to improve upon this aspect of his game as his career progressed.
His career continued in the top division upon leaving Liverpool, due in part to the acquisition of Brad Friedel. He played a plethora of games across the ranks of Aston Villa, West Ham, and Manchester City, before his second-most synonymous spell – on the south coast with Portsmouth. Here, under Harry Redknapp, the newly-monied Pompey fielded a star-studded lineup that included the likes of Nwankwo Kanu, Sulley Muntari, Lassana Diarra, and Sol Campbell among others as they clinched the FA Cup trophy in 2008.
This was James’ second senior honour, and added nicely to the steadily growing number of caps with the Three Lions (he’d achieve an eventual 53 after his debut in 1997). However, the fates of Portsmouth and James were quite similar after this, as money troubles blighted both.
David James’ Liverpool Career Statistics
Appearances
277
Clean Sheets
104
Trophies
1
Bankruptcy Ruling in 2014
James had sell some of his most prized belongings
David James for Portsmouth
As James’ career as a reputable keeper started to slow down with age, a series of unfortunate events saw the player’s wealth ebb away. Where, in contrast, Portsmouth had their financial issues with ridiculous expenditure and underwhelming terms following the FA Cup victory, James was fairly less self-inflicted.
In 2014, while he was player-manager at Indian Super League side Kerala Blasters, he was declared bankrupt. Despite earning an estimated £20 million from his career, as well as owning several properties and having a lucrative contract modeling for Armani, James’ debts had built up since his divorce from his wife, Tanya, in 2005.
James was forced to auction off a lot of memorabilia he had amassed over the years. Utilising the sports auctioneer company Hilco, the former goalkeeper sold over 100 signed shirts as well as shorts and balls. An England shirt the player wore in the Three Lions’ 1-0 World Cup win over Argentina in 2002 fetched £672. A Liverpool goalkeeper’s jersey worn during the Reds’ 1995-96 season sold for more than £160 while a Portsmouth No.1 top that James wore in 2008 went for £480.
While, as said, not as culpable as a football club going into administration, James still took responsibility for his bankruptcy. Talking about his, at times, conflicted lifestyle between excess wealth and logic in 2022 he said:
“There’s the famous old saying that money can’t buy you happiness. But there is the reality that if you haven’t got any of it then it is tough. If you’re competitive, keeping up with the Joneses… you see someone with a nice watch on, you’re thinking ‘next time I buy a watch, I’m going to get a better one’.
“I was sat in the Portsmouth changing room and one of the lads walked past with the latest pair of jeans on which probably cost £400. I reasoned, we all do this, we all go out and buy the best clothes, we wake up in the morning, get dressed, go to work with our best clothes on, put our training kit on, train, come back, get dressed, go home.
“So these best clothes were literally only for going from home to training and back. I thought ‘what am I competing against here?’ So I went completely the other way. Then the bankruptcy came in. Even though I could spend money, I was always helping other people. It was ‘I’ve got a bit more, I can do this’. When you haven’t got any money, you can’t help other people. And that was more problematic than me being able to get something.”
In what is a pleasant end to this article, David James has managed to secure himself with consistent punditry work on Sky Sports, as well as a number of appearances on the celebrity circuit in both television and events, like UK-based game shows and Soccer Aid.
