Emmanuel Eboue: I called the Queen ‘mummy’ and offered to quit football to look after her corgis
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In the second part of an exclusive interview with Ladbrokes: Fanzone, former Arsenal defender Emmanuel Eboue recalls meeting the Queen at Buckingham Palace and being booed by Gunners fans at Wigan.
Click on the link for part one in which he talked about the current squad and his thoughts on next season.
I called the Queen ‘mummy’ and offered to quit football to look after her dogs
My team-mates know me very well, and so before we’d even got to Buckingham Palace to meet the Queen, I was being told ‘Emmanuel, you have to stop.’ I said ‘stop what? I hadn’t done anything and yet everyone was telling me to stop. They knew I was probably going to do something.
“Where we are going…the palace, we are going to see the Queen.”
Everyone was telling me, because they knew something was going to happen. Even David Dein. He came to me and just said: “Please, Emmanuel, please, stop.”
So we get to the palace and we had to wait inside a different room before the Queen came to see us. That wasn’t a problem. And then I saw Thierry Henry, Jens Lehmann and Dennis Bergkamp all talking, and I knew they were talking about me. After a few minutes, I saw the Queen’s dogs – the corgis – and they came straight over to me.
Me being me, I was stroking them and joking around with them – and again, my team-mates say to me: “You’ve got to stop this Emmanuel – please!”
“The dogs came to me! I have to show them that I love them!”
So I was playing with them, and a few minutes later the Queen walked in. She came and spoke to each one of us. I just thought ‘today is going to be a funny day’, and so when she came to me, I could already see my team-mates looking at me. I just said to the Queen: “Hi, mummy!”
That’s what I said! ‘Hi mummy!’ I asked how she was, she laughed and said she was OK.
“And you, my son?”, she said. She was talking to me!
I told her I wanted to stop playing football, to which she asked why.
“I want to look after your corgis. I want to wash them, go out with them, play with them, I want to stop playing football.”
She was laughing a lot, and so were my team-mates. I just wanted to make her happy. My team-mates afterwards said I was a legend for doing that, for making the Queen laugh.
My kids still talk to me about it today. “Dad, we saw the pictures of you with the King and the Queen!”
I was angry with Wenger for bringing me off in that Wigan game
Of course, I can remember the game against Wigan very well where I was booed by my own supporters. I still have a tape of the game and I still watch it today. I have my own academy out here in the Ivory Coast, and so sometimes I watch that game with them to show the boys just how difficult it can be in Europe and in the Premier League. I prepare them for what to expect if they aren’t performing to the best of their ability. These fans have paid a lot of money to come and see us play, and so when you’re not performing well, they’re going to boo you. It doesn’t mean they don’t love you.
I want to be honest, though. That year, I wanted to leave the club. I’d been injured for a month and that Wigan game was my first game back in the first team. When I made my return, Arsene Wenger asked if I was ready to play, and I told him I wanted to start on the bench.
He brought me on in the first half and the fans were so happy to see me back on the pitch. They were chanting my name. “We love Eboue-boue, we love Eboue-boue…” I can remember it so well!
It wasn’t just me on that day, though. They weren’t just booing me – it was the whole team. We played badly. It just felt like every time I got the ball I gave it away. I can remember one moment where I tried to play the ball back to our goalkeeper, someone took the ball off me and Wigan nearly scored. Straight away, the fans were booing me.
It wasn’t everyone; it was just a small section, but I could hear everything they were saying.
Of course, I was very, very angry on that day. When Arsene Wenger brought me off with a couple of minutes to go, I was so angry with him, first of all, but secondly the fans. They cheered me coming off the pitch, and it hurt because I loved them and the team, so much. When they booed me on that day, that was in front of my friends and family.
I was so disappointed with the fans on that day. I went straight down into the dressing room and I got in my car and left the stadium. I was very, very down. That day was probably the worst of my career at Arsenal. It was a bad day for everyone, so why me? Why boo me? You know, it was really difficult to deal with.
These fans were like family to me. When they needed me, I was there for them. I gave my best for the club every single time I put on the shirt, so I don’t know why things happened the way they did on that day.
When I went home, I felt that I didn’t want to return to training. But I received messages from people like Thierry Henry, Cesc Fabregas and Kolo Toure, all trying to make me feel better. And when I decided to return to training, I was so happy to see fans outside waiting for me, singing my name. It made me forget about everything that had happened in the previous game. They apologised on behalf of the fans who booed me, and that moment gave me the confidence to go out and give my best for the club again.
