| Football is in Gavin Peacock´s blood. His father, Keith, played over 500 games for Charlton Athletic. Gavin become a professional footballer straight from school.
He has played for Queen´s Park Rangers, Gillingham, Bournemouth, Newcastle United and Chelsea as well as England at under 19 level including a tour of Brazil. Even his wedding to Amanda had to be fitted around football. He played for Bournemouth on the Saturday, married Amanda on the Sunday and reported back for training on the Monday morning!
|
|
| From Bournemouth, Gavin was transferred to Newcastle United. In his first season, Newcastle narrowly avoided relegation to the third division but the following they turned the corner. Gavin´s career really took off in 1993. Newcastle United gained promotion to the Carling Premiership, he played for the Barclays League against the Italian League (Series B) and was chosen as man of the match. He was then transferred to Chelsea for over one million. The icing on the cake was the birth of his first child, Jake.
He scored 14 goals for Chelsea in his first season, several of them significant ones. Chelsea was the only team to beat champions Manchester United twice – both matches were 1-0 and Gavin scored both times. Chelsea reached the Cup Final that year (1993-94) for the first time in 27 years. Gavin scored the only goal in the quarter-final and both goals in the semi-final to get them to the Cup Final. Chelsea lost the Cup Final 4-0 to Manchester United with Gavin´s shot rebounding from the bar with the score 0-0. Had it gone in, who knows what might have happened! The following season Gavin experienced European competition as Chelsea progressed to the semi-final of the European Cup Winners Cup before losing 4-3 to Zaragoza. Gavin´s interest in Christianity started through his mum. "When she started going to church I went along a few times to see what it was all about. I had always believed in God, that he was up there somewhere, but there was never anything personal about it. Then I started going regularly and then made a commitment to Christ."
Gavin is as ambitious as ever in his football but sees differences in his attitude now that he is a Christian. "Before I was a Christian if I'd had a bad game or if the team had lost I'd be down and depressed about it for a long time because football was at the centre of my life - the main thing. Now that God is the centre of my life I've got a better perspective and whereas I'm still disappointed when we lose and I want to win and play well, I know that's not everything.
Football is considered a macho sport and people might think you're soft or whatever for being a Christian and maybe they're going to look at you critically for that. So you've got to be strong and say ´No, this is what I believe´. Sometimes it makes you more of a man to stand up and say that you do believe in Jesus Christ."
Gavin feels that football is as much a part of God's plan for his life as any other part. "I think that being a Christian in sport - in football - you're there to set an example by the way you live and by what you stand for, for other people to look at. Come three o'clock on a Saturday afternoon, I'm there giving 110% but afterwards I've got a perspective on it that I hadn't before because I know what life's really all about. The game demands aggression at times and if that's the case, I´ll go in for a tackle or whatever, but wouldn't go in to hurt an opponent because that would be wrong. I think I carry my faith through my whole life, both on and off the field."
from the Sports New Testament "Go For It!" Europäische Sportunion (ECSU), Kölner Str. 23a, D-57610 Altenkirchen
|
|
|
