October 29 – Forgetful Ferdinand | On This Football Day

October 29 – Forgetful Ferdinand

WE’VE all been guilty of forgetting things once in a while, a friend’s birthday here, a wedding anniversary there, or even who you are and where you have been for the past six years (allegedly), but not many memory lapses can have been as costly as the one Rio ‘Memory like a sieve’ Ferdinand had in the autumn of 2003.

After a couple of hours of running around cones and wearing different coloured bibs at Manchester United’s Carrington training ground on September 23, the UK Sport drugs testing team turned up to randomly test some of the players.

Rio’s name was one of those selected but rather than have the test, Ferdinand had a shower and apparently forgot all about it. He left the training ground and was later photographed shopping in Manchester. Doh!

He did take and pass a test the following day but he was already in hot water for missing the first one and the FA begin to investigate. It was on this day that they formally charged Rio with misconduct, for a breach of rule E26, which refers to “the failure or refusal by a player to submit to drug testing as required by a competent official”.

Before the authorities could get around to charging him the FA decided he shouldn’t be selected for the England squad to face Turkey in a Euro 2004 qualifier. Rio’s England team mates were incensed at the decision and came over all Spartacus-like to show their solidarity with their comrade.

Led by ‘Red’ Gary Neville the players threatened to go on strike unless Rio was reinstated, and a stale mate emerged with the FA insisting they would not back down.

Eventually, Red Nev proved he was no Arthur Scargill and the players backed down and flew to Turkey for the match.

Meanwhile, Ferdinand denies the misconduct charge and attends a personal hearing at Bolton’s Reebok Stadium in December. He is found guilty and given a whopping eight month ban and fined £50,000. “I’m absolutely devastated at this verdict,” he told the Sun newspaper.

“The main thing keeping me going has been the possibility of playing again this season. This verdict has taken that hope away from me. I won’t feel happy until I’m back in competitive football. At the end of the day I am a footballer and I want to play football for a living.”

He lost an appeal and the ban stood meaning he missed out on Euro 2004 entirely and finally returned to the pitch in September 2004.

After alienating the authorities with his lax approach to drug tests and alienating most of his England team mates with his frankly hilarious World Cup Wind-Ups programme (you’ve been merked!), here is Rio offending the gay community when he appeared on the Chris Moyles show on Radio One in 2006.

We’ll be back tomorrow, but if you can’t wait until then, click here to see another drug-related story from this day in football history.