Gareth Bale: Real Madrid star will keep his feet firmly on the
ground
Gareth Bale's
life will never be the same again
From
this moment on, he will be known as the 100m euro man. When he arrives in Madrid
he will be accompanied to the Bernabeu by police outriders, pursuing paparazzi
and passionate fans - the 11th galactico in the white number 11 shirt. His every appearance will bring with it a weight of
expectation.
He will be feted and vilified, his life will come under the microscope like
never before. But none of whatever triumph, disaster, heartache and adulation he
faces in Madrid will be allowed to go to his head
That is because Bale does not fit the stereotype of the world's most expensive
footballer. He does not drink alcohol, he is scared of spiders and he visits his
mum in south Wales when he gets time off. The boy from north Cardiff has never
found it hard to stay grounded
Those closest to him describe him as beguilingly modest, polite and normal. His
girlfriend, Emma Rhys-Jones, is his childhood sweetheart and most of his closest
friends are from his schooldays. In public, he is understated, wary of saying
anything that might be deemed boastful. No-one, it seems, has a bad word to say
about him
That is not to say that Bale does not have a mischievous side. In the
dressing room, he is the life and soul of the party, dishing out the banter and
repartee. But when the subject turns to football, his friends talk of his pure
love of the game above all else.
As a
young boy in south Wales, he would drag his father Frank off the sofa when he
got back from work and across to the park for yet another kick-around.
"Literally, from the age of three, all I thought about was football," he once
said. "I never wanted to do anything else and when people said, 'what will you
do if you don't make it as a footballer?' I couldn't answer because I'd never
thought of doing anything else."
