Linvoy Primus: Transformed is not your typical footballer’s autobiography.
But not any player has been warned by a referee who was a fellow Christian
not to kick Laurent Robert because the devil was trying to get him sent off.
The book, which is published tomorrow, is the story of the popular Portsmouth
defender’s life and career, which were transformed when he became a
Christian in 2001. The effects of the player’s newfound faith stretch beyond
pre-match prayer meetings and charity work, to visions, faith healing and
even speaking in tongues.
“I know some people are going to think some of it is pretty far out,” Primus
said. “And I have said to the guys that some of the things they are going to
read I have never spoken about, but that I can only tell what has happened,
from the heart. That convinces the guys, although they back off a little
bit. Yes, some of it is a bit out there, but I have met other people who
make my experiences seem normal.”
The dressing-rooms of a football club, populated as they tend to be by
world-class mickey-takers, were not, as Primus admits, the easiest place to
issue a declaration of faith. “To tell the other players was a major thing
for me,” he said. “I waited until it came out in the local paper after I had
given an interview and then there was no way back. At first, it was: ‘Well,
how are you going to tackle someone? What happens if someone’s going through
on goal and you have to bring them down?’ I said that I would have to deal
with that situation when it happened.
“I told them that I wasn’t saying I was perfect in any way just because I had
just made a decision to follow the Lord. I was still going to make mistakes,
and I did. But then some of them would say, ‘You’re not a bad person, so why
do you have to go to church?’ But I think there is now a respect there
because it hasn’t been a two-minute wonder. If I had come out and said I was
a believer and then a few months down the line, you’d see me falling out of
a nightclub and doing all sorts of stuff, they would say, ‘You’re saying one
thing but doing another.’ But it has been consistent and they see that it is
a real thing for me.
“I don’t try to preach, which I would never do, but if I am asked a question
then I will reply. I’m not trying to convert anyone. There are people I know
who have a church background and I ask them when they’re coming back. They
smile and say, ‘In time, in time.’ But that’s as far as it goes.”
Primus discovered that he was not the only practising Christian in football –
Matt Messias, now retired, was the referee who warned him against Satan’s
red card – and the pre-match prayer group of players and staff that Primus
instituted in the Fratton Park laundry-room attracts a congregation in
double figures.
“When we first started to pray, we said it wasn’t about winning a specific
game,” he said. “It was about giving God back the talent he has given you to
enable you to play well. If everyone was doing their best, there was a
satisfaction, whatever the result turned out to be. People realised that we
weren’t going in there as a prematch superstition or ritual, but we were
praying to recognise that God had done so much for us and given us that
talent and we were going to use that talent for Him.”
Primus has, however, asked the Almighty for specific things on occasion. He
believes that a knee injury was healed by prayer and he once asked God to
keep Portsmouth in the top flight.
“The profile of the Premier League is high and I thought to myself, ‘This is
one of the biggest stages that I can keep God’s name on and I want to be the
one to do it.’ So I asked Him to do that. But if He didn’t want me there, it
was up to Him. We shouldn’t have been safe that season, so to have that
prayer answered took my faith to another level.”
Primus grew up in a supportive and traditionally Christian family in Forest
Gate in the East End of London, but the church played no part in his early
life. He admits to mild flirtations with alcohol and cannabis as a teenager
and most of his career, as described in the book, is a tale of footballing
and financial insecurity after he is released by Charlton Athletic, moves to
Barnet and struggles to establish himself at Reading and then Portsmouth.
“I would have a good game and then a bad game – and the good game was never
good enough,” he said. “Someone you thought of as a teammate was trying to
get your job. When I was growing up, things were around, I wanted to try
them and I didn’t have enough people warning me. I’m glad I didn’t enjoy it
because I’ve seen friends since that I knew then and their lives are not
where they would like to be and they are definitely not where I’d like to
be.”
It was during his early days at Portsmouth that Primus, through his wife,
Trish, met the Christian group that transformed his life off and on the
field. Before that, he describes himself as “a typical footballer with
built-in selfishness”. Now he uses his status as a Premier League player to
spread the word and do charity work in communities such as the Paulsgrove
Estate to the north of Portsmouth.
“The world of football itself is about self,” he said. “At the end of every
season, when you want a contract, or if you want to play on Saturday, it
could be you or a friend you’ve known for years for one position. It’s
dog-eat-dog. It brings rewards, it’s a great life. You can have the nice car
and the nice house. But you find it doesn’t bring the happiness that TV
suggests it does.
“You find there’s something missing. You see guys doing what they want with
their money, and that’s up to them. Fair play to them if they want to buy
one car after another, if they think that is how they will find happiness,
but I think they can chase and chase and it won’t make them happy.”
Primus makes no claims to having led a blameless life since becoming a
Christian and his honesty in the book stretches to an admission that he has
not always maintained the correct balance between his football and charity
commitments and his family obligations. “Last year, I was doing so much that
it was putting a strain on our relationship,” he said. “You get so focused
on what you have to do to stay at the top as a player, and that’s what I was
doing with the charity. I was running at it and I didn’t realise how much it
was taking away my time from my family.”
He agrees that a knee operation that prevented him climbing Mount Sinai for
charity this summer – he has previously walked large stretches of the Great
Wall of China – could be a sign from above to ease off. It has also kept him
out of the Portsmouth team this season and there will come a time when he is
no longer a player.
He intends to spend more time giving young people better direction, especially
in view of the problems of inner-city youth. “I believe I will be involved
some way, perhaps through my charity, Faith and Football, in going back to
London and into the areas where I grew up,” he said. “Not every kid is going
to listen, but there might be one who would want to change and it’s
something I would be comfortable with because I almost went down that path.
“Perhaps if I hadn’t been a footballer, I still could have gone into schools
and talked to children, but being a footballer gives you that higher profile
and makes it easier to get into places to talk. At the moment, my life
outside the game is running parallel with football, but when football tails
away, that other life will continue. I’m comfortable helping and encouraging
kids, but there is no format, no box that it is going to fit in. There is
going to be a lot of freedom as to how it will work and that is an exciting
thing.”
Linvoy Primus: Transformed by Linvoy Primus, with Peter Jeffs. Published by
Legendary Publishing, £18.99. ISBN No 9780952676027. Available online at legendarypublishing.co.uk
