Former England national team goalkeeper David James has revealed that a drunken night out led to his move from Liverpool to Aston Villa.
James arrived at the Reds in 1992 from Watford and played for the club for several seasons, making 214 appearances in the process. The highlight of his time at Anfield was winning the League Cup in 1995.
He was unhappy at being back-up to American Brad Friedel and after a night of drinking he began negotiating with then Villa owner Doug Ellis.
James said: “I went out on a race day with a couple of Liverpool players. It was fine, a day off, we had a few drinks. One of them went, ‘Doug Ellis is next door’. ‘Doug who?’.’Aston Villa owner’.
“Few more drinks. Come on, let’s go say hello to Doug. So we went and sat down next to him and said, ‘How you doing?’. Doug’s gone, ‘It’s not good, we’ve lost the best goalkeeper in the Premier League – Bosnich, going to Manchester United’.
“I said, ‘Second best’. He’s gone, ‘Who’s the best then?’. [James scoffs] I’m drunk so I’ve gone [points to himself].
“Apparently that conversation was enough for Doug to put a bid in for me. So Villa came in.”And my opinion was, as much as I loved Liverpool, I didn’t want to be a number two. And more importantly, I didn’t want to hang around for a year to get Bosman ruling. I just wanted to play.
“Villa came in. I said yes straightaway. The contract negotiations were interesting, they didn’t offer me as much as I wanted. But I was like, ‘It doesn’t matter, I just want to play’.”
During a thirteen year career for England between 1997 and 2010, James made 53 appearances for the Three Lions.
