Football Star Kenny Sansom Speaks About How Alcohol Nearly Killed Him

Kenny Sansom reaches for his cup and takes a sip of tea. ‘It’s cold now,’ he chuckles. It’s still full, too.

Because, for around an hour, the former Arsenal, Crystal Palace and England defender has been busy, flicking through the archives of an extraordinary life that has jolted between darkness and limelight.

Now aged 64, there is plenty that remains etched into Sansom’s mind. ‘There are certain things I’ll never forget,’ he says.

There is plenty he might wish to erase. And plenty he can’t remember at all.

Lost among the fog of Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome, a brain disorder similar to dementia, are memories old and new. Sansom can’t recall much of yesterday. Or the miracle that led him here today.

It was in front of supporters every Saturday that Sansom rose to football’s greatest stage. Then, many skirmishes in his long battle with alcohol and gambling and homelessness and depression unfolded in the glare of public, too. What has never been told before, however, is his incredible story of recovery.

A moving tale of defiance that began in April 2020, when Sansom was attacked while in a ‘vulnerable’ state. And left fighting for his life.