Ian Wright has revealed a near-miss with drug testing officials following a match against West Bromwich Albion after smoking marijuana less than 24 hours prior.
Wright, then 21, was plying his trade with Crystal Palace, and said he was “paralysed” with fear when drug testers entered the change room following his side’s 4-1 victory.
“I’d been smoking weed since I was about 17, not in a smoke-myself-into-uselessness type of way and I wasn’t worried about becoming an addict,” Wright writes in his new book, “A Life in Football: My Autobiography,” as serialised by News Corp in the United Kingdom.
“I’d been around weed smokers from a very early age, and recently it had become something of an end-of-the-week ritual. It didn’t even dawn on me that I was doing anything wrong.
“We beat West Brom 4-1 that Saturday, the whole team came into the dressing room still excited and then the drug testers arrived.
“It’s the first time I’d ever seen them and I panicked inside — I’ve been smoking cannabis, less than 24 hours earlier, and if that test comes back positive that’s it. It is literally all over for me.
“I’m practically paralysed while trying to act unconcerned. The guy says: ‘Drug test, No. 9.’ Mark Bright. I’m sure he’s going to call my number next, No. 10. He calls, ‘Drug test, No. 11.’ Phil Barber. I sit down — more or less collapse — and think, ‘Somebody’s looking out for me, now I know it!'”
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Wright recalls his instant regret at the very thought of what might have been if he was caught.
“What hit me the most is how much I would have been letting people from my area down,” Wright wrote.
“If I had got caught on that drugs test it would have been beyond them, they just wouldn’t have understood it: ‘What?! You got into Crystal Palace and you didn’t stop smoking weed?’
“From that day to this I never smoked a spliff again.”
Wright left Crystal Palace in 1991 to join Arsenal for a club record £2.5 million fee, scoring 185 times in 285 appearances for the Gunners.
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