Andy Scores! Vol 1 - Part 2/2: California, Here He Comes

Andy Chapman, In His Own Words: From the East End to America

You can read Part 1 here…

Andy Chapman, in his own words:

We were playing one day, and a guy [Derek Lawther] came up to me and asked to have a word with me. “Do you want to come and play in Los Angeles? I’ll give you £100 a week plus an apartment.” You have to understand that my dad was making maybe £15 a week at that time. I’d done an essay when I was 12 saying I wanted to be a professional footballer and my goal was to make £100 a week, which seemed like a huge amount of money. £100 a week was unthinkable. That essay always stayed in my memory...I still have it. Suddenly, when the guy said, “£100 a week,” I said, “Yeah, I’m coming.” I went home on the train to see my mom and dad, and I said, “I’m going to America.” They asked, “When?” and I said, “In three days.” I left on April 6, 1978. I went off, and they were obviously worried, but at 18 at that time, you felt like you were a man. 

When I landed in America, culturally, it was so different. In America, you weren’t getting out of school till you’re 21, which was the weirdest concept I could imagine, because we never had the opportunity for university, college, or further education. That wasn’t an option for us, where we came from. There was talk of Arsenal holding up my release. As it turned out, I owned [my contract], and they had to pay ME off some money, which is how I got the money for that first condo I bought. 

My goal was to make enough money [during that first summer in America] to pay a deposit to buy mum and dad a house, because I saved every penny. I sent home $3,000 in $100 bills one at a time. I sent it home each week to my parents. When I was making something like seven times what my dad made, it was just natural that you send the money home. 

I thought I’d come back in September and continue my career at Arsenal. I was a changed person when I came back from America. I’d seen things I’d never dreamed existed. I always tell people the way it hit me was that one day we’d gone on a road trip: I had breakfast in New York, because we woke up from playing a game there, and I had breakfast at the airport. The plane stopped in St. Louis, and I had lunch there. And that night we landed in Los Angeles, and I had dinner there. Now, a boy from the East End of London doing that...is unheard of. I was always thankful for that, and I always have been.