Frank Lampard: WAGs, the World Cup and life as a millionaire bachelor
He's got an IQ of 150, minimal WAG baggage and the eloquence to put talk-radio DJs in their place. With his friend John Terry in disgrace and other colleagues mired in sleaze and controversy, is the Premier League's Player Of The Decade the man who can save the face of English football?
'Nobody expects a footballer to have any kind of an IQ, which is a bit of an unfair stereotype,' said Frank Lampard, who scored 150 in an IQ test last year - high enough for Mensa
When the England players are trying to win the World Cup this summer, Frank Lampard wants their women to stay away.
'I don't want the distraction,' he says.
Who can blame him? His friend John Terry was sacked as England captain after having a fling with the former girlfriend of another squad member. Lampard is very clear that to have any chance of winning in South Africa, the players will have to put their love lives on hold.
'Listen, if I'm chosen to go, then the World Cup is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. If you say that for those four to six weeks I have got to be away from my girlfriend, then I'll take it. I don't want the women staying somewhere round the corner, so I'm thinking, "Does she want me there today? I want to rest today, I don't really want to go out and see her, but the other players are going, so should I?"'
Lampard could one day be captain, so it is just as well that he agrees with Fabio Capello's ban on the players seeing their wives and girlfriends - or WAGs - during the tournament.
'It is definitely, definitely a good thing. If I'm honest, I felt this at the last World Cup.'
That was when the WAGs became infamous. His then partner Elen Rives was among them, which may explain why he is so forthright now. 'If we progress to the next stage and we are there for six weeks, the manager has mentioned there might be a day when wives or girlfriends and kids could come. Maybe if we get to the quarter finals and there's a week or so to the next game. That might be the way forward. If it was me in charge, that's what I would do.'
After seven years with Rives, the mother of his two daughters, Frank has been seen in public with One Show presenter Christine Bleakley. But when I ask, he says he is not seeing anyone: 'I'm still a single man.'
'You have to say we've got a chance. Especially with the way we're playing now': Frank on whether England can win the World Cup
Lampard is taller than you might think, and has a way of walking on the soles of his feet with slightly hunched shoulders as if he's going up to head a corner, but when he puts on a silver Armani suit for the photographs there is a grace and power that brings to mind the young Sean Connery.
Out of the suit he looks more like an ordinary Premier League footballer. But he's not, for a reason that becomes obvious when he opens his mouth. Footballers don't say much. It is rare to hear a player talk as openly as Lampard is in the mood for today, about stuff that matters to him: the World Cup, his struggle to cope with the death of his mum and, er, his anger at the way players are branded as stupid. Whoops.
'Nobody expects a footballer to have any kind of an IQ,' he says, 'which is a bit of an unfair stereotype.'
Lampard has an IQ high enough for Mensa. Not that he knew it before the Chelsea players were tested last year. 'They brought it in because a few of the guys had head injuries, and the doctors wanted to test them before and after to see if there were any effects,' he says. 'I done it and I didn't think much of it, really, but the doctor seemed to think I was quite good.'
People thought he was thick because of his Essex accent; but Lampard was educated at the expensive Brentwood School, so saying 'I done it', as he does on a couple of occasions, suggests someone who grew up hiding his intelligence. Until the tests blew his cover.
'My score was 150 or something. I didn't even know what the scales were at that time.'
Did the other players take the mickey?
'No, I got a bit of respect, actually. A lot of people joke, but they don't want to be stuck at the bottom of the list.'
Still, he feels the need to play down his cleverness.
'I was quite surprised. I was always pretty good at school, but a lot of it was memorising, maybe cheating off your mates, stuff that gets you through.'
He says that, but if you ask about exam results his recall is instant.
'I got an A star, three As, five Bs and a C in my GCSEs.'
One was in Latin.
'I didn't want to be the rebel who was bottom of the class, so I worked hard. They wanted me to stay on for A-Levels but football came calling - that was my real love.' Otherwise, he thought about being a lawyer. 'It was probably through watching LA Law. The glamour of it.'
'It is definitely, definitely a good thing. If I'm honest, I felt this at the last World Cup': Frank agrees with Fabio Capello's ban on the players seeing their wives and girlfriends during the World Cup
The suits?
'Yeah. The suits.'
His dad was a West Ham defender also called Frank Lampard. Did he have problems when everybody else's dad must have been, well, posh?
'There was jealousy, but my dad's career was coming to an end by then. Football wasn't such a huge deal as it is now.'
And it is a really huge deal. At Christmas, Lampard was named the Premier League Player Of The Decade. He is at the heart of the Chelsea side, and he hopes to play the same role for England at the World Cup.
Is he afraid to go? There were concerns about team security at the tournament even before the gun attack on the Togo team at the African Cup of Nations in January, so does he share those fears?
'From afar, yes. I just hope and presume that everything is being done to make sure there is no issue.' If the team's safety could not be guaranteed, would he still go? England's cricketers have had to face that sort of decision in the past.
'I can't see that England would ever put us in that position. It would be incredible if they did.'
The question everybody asks, of course, is this: can England win the World Cup at last?
'That's a frustrating question. We answered it, probably naively, before (the last tournament) saying, "Yes we can." Then, when you fail, that quote comes back at you. We have the ability, but there's so many other things along the way. There's injuries, there's form, there's luck. There's big teams, you're playing against the best, so you'd be a fool to say we're gonna win it.'
'When you break it down we're all normal boys, growing up, 20 years of age or something with the same insecurities as everyone else': Frank on the England team
Still, he adds: 'You have to say we've got a chance. Especially with the way we're playing now. We've come on a million miles in the last two years. We're not the finished article, but we had to get ourselves off the floor. We're all very honest about that. We were very underachieving. Now in a short space of time we've picked ourselves up. There's a way to go, but fair play to the group, because we done it.'
He's also confident that new captain Rio Ferdinand is a wise choice.
'The England captain has to be someone vocal in the squad, and Rio has always been like that. The controversy of the changeover is unfortunate, but now it's happened Rio deserves a great crack.'
Under the previous manager, Steve McLaren, England and Lampard faced fierce booing.
'England can be, in my personal experience, the best moments of your career - the adulation if you're playing well, scoring goals in a big tournament. At the same time, the downside of it, which I have known, can be among the worst and most difficult moments. You are so under the microscope. People are ready to have a pop at you, and that's not easy to take.
'When you break it down we're all normal boys, growing up, 20 years of age or something with the same insecurities as everyone else. To find yourself unable to put a foot right on the pitch is difficult. You have to be strong to get through that.'
Some are stronger than others, he says.
'I don't think Wayne Rooney would be affected if you booed him, that's just how he is, but others go under. They really suffer with it. I think I'm somewhere in the middle... now. I've become tougher as I've got older. When you go on the pitch and you give the ball away and get the boos, it is a difficult moment. The first time, I was angry. When they boo you the 20th time, by then you've come to terms with it.
'I'm still a single man,' said Frank, who has been romantically linked to Christine Bleakley
'Anyway, if people see you get your head down and try to battle through it, the tide always turns. The English public are pretty honest in that way. Maybe they do jump in and criticise too early, which I think we're probably all at fault for, but if they see that desire to make it right then they'll come back with you.'
The squad has been transformed by Capello.
'He's a strong disciplinarian, on and off the pitch,' says Lampard. 'He gives us that strong mind. We just needed a bit of direction. Someone to say: "Be at dinner on time, wear the right clothes and when you go on the pitch, carry that attitude over."
'When Greece won the Euros they were not the best team. They were the best organised. Once you lose the emphasis on organisation and it becomes all over the place, for me, that's the beginning of disaster.'
Lampard knows his generation of England players has not done as well as was anticipated.
'There are expectations, I get that. The one thing that does grate is... I can take being booed for not performing on the pitch, but it is the whole thing about footballers with money. That really does get to me.'
He has got to be joking, surely? Lampard is reportedly on a contract worth £39 million over five years, or £150,000 a week.
'I could have got a lot more money for going abroad,' he says. 'I am ambitious, I work very hard every day to be a good footballer, and I'll hold my hands up and say when it comes to a new contract, I want the best. That's the way I am.'
One reason he didn't go abroad was the way Chelsea fans supported him when his mother Pat died, two years ago this April.
'Their support has been amazing. My family all wanted me to stay. Now I know I made the right decision. I'm a London boy. I'm close to my family and friends. Why would I move?'
He still points to the sky when he scores, as his tribute to Pat, who died of pneumonia. They were very close.
'I was shell-shocked when it happened. That will never completely go.'
He was called to her bedside, urgently, while preparing for a game.
'I didn't play. I rushed over to the hospital. She asked me what I was doing there. I didn't want to scare her. She obviously knew that if I'd turned up in a Chelsea outfit something was wrong. I said, "No, I just wanted to make sure you're OK." She was conscious for about another half-hour after that, and then they took her to intensive care, and then they put her out so they could do some work on her, and then she was in a coma for about ten days. We thought she was getting better. She died. I lost my mum and my best friend at the same time. She was everything to me and my sisters. She was there for every moment. If you can paint a picture of how a mother should be, that's how she was. We all lost that, in a really sudden way.'
The first few months after that were 'just terrible. Disgusting. I can't even explain the shock and feelings that you have. The complete hollowness.'
But it was long after the funeral that life got even tougher for Lampard.
'People stop treating you differently. If you're moody or if you're down or your family are ringing you and everyone's in a very bad way, which is how it was and still is now sometimes, then nobody really takes much notice of that,' he says. 'Of course they don't: it's not their life. I've had a difficult time in the last year and a half because of that. There are moments when you can forget about it for a few hours, then it hits you.'
The experience has changed him, he says.
Frank with ex-partner Elen Rives in 2007. They have two children together
'I have become more forthright in my decisions. I'm quite a thinker and a worrier, but now I think, "Whatever happens can never be as bad as where I was." Before every game, I have a little moment thinking about her. It's like a prayer, basically. Not like the Lord's Prayer, there's no "Amen", it's just my own little prayer to my mum, saying, "Give me strength and look after the family."'
Lampard started visiting church when she died. 'Every day, basically. That was hoping for a miracle. I just went to spend time in there. Sit there for half an hour. I know it sounds stupid, but I don't even really know how to pray. I just sort of speak to my mum in my head. I still go fairly regularly. I certainly believe in God. I don't think I would be able to handle it anywhere near as easily if I didn't.'
Grief hurt his relationship with Elen, he says.
'It certainly didn't help. I became a little bit moody, and I was probably slightly ruthless in the period afterwards. I had a little period of six months or a year of just saying, if anything annoyed me, "F*** it." You know, like if you have a row indoors or something. I have to hold my hands up to that. I was sort of an angry man for a while. Out of respect for Elen, I don't want to say too much more. I can certainly take the blame, if that's the right word, for this period I had.'
They split up last year, but have homes near each other in west London and share custody of Luna, four, and Isla, two.
'I have them three days and nights a week. I love doing the basics: picking them up from school, taking them for an ice cream... one's pulling me over here and the other over there. I'm a proper single dad. They terrorise me a little bit, because there is a motherly instinct that I probably lack, but it's very refreshing. I do have a nanny who helps me at home and she's a godsend, the best, but I like to do everything. My kids are very clingy with me, as they are with their mother.'
He hoped the family would be together forever.
'I didn't have kids so we could split up down the line,' he says. 'I had the dream everyone else has. That disappoints me, still.'
Do his daughters remember their Nan?
'Luna does. I take her to the cemetery, and I've got pictures all over the house of my mum. I talk to her about it. My youngest doesn't but she says "Nanny" when she looks at the pictures.'
'I had to fight my corner. I didn't want to do that, it was an impulse thing': Frank on his phone call to the radio station LBC
Superstar footballers never talk like this. People who don't like Lampard accuse him of being a moaner, full of self-pity when he has just about as good a life as it is possible to get, but it is obvious that the death of Pat has allowed him to see just a little beyond the bling that so often blinds young players.
'Too much is made of the money thing,' he insists. 'So many of the lads are just normal, good lads, you know? When you hear, "Oh I hate that Frank Lampard"... I'm sure, if the person who is saying that walked in the pub and had a beer with me they'd say, "He's not a bad fella."' Mostly people see players swaggering about as if they are gods, though, don't they? 'There may be players, myself included, who have not helped themselves at times.'
His most infamous moment came in 2001, the day after 9/11, when he and other Chelsea players were thrown out of a hotel near Heathrow for rowdy, drunken behaviour in front of grieving American tourists. It is unimaginable that he would do such a thing now. But his absurd wealth must surely taint every potential relationship with the rest of us?
'Yeah, I think so. That might be one answer to why football has turned, in perception. A player has to come to terms with that.'
He must still know people for whom a lack of money is a real issue?
'To be fair, I've just got a very few friends, who I have known since school, or from where I grew up. They're the ones I hang out with. If I go to Romford market and people stop me, I try to give them time. I remember being a young fan, idolising all the players. I remember which ones used to come and smile and pat me on the head and go, "Hello son." And I remember all the ones who just ignored me.'
So he does his best to stop.
'After that, what can I do? If people think badly of me, what does it matter? My kids are what matter.'
He made that point forcibly, live on air, last year, with an astonishing phone call to the radio station LBC. The presenter had repeated newspaper accusations that Lampard was using his house like a bachelor-pad and neglecting his daughters.
'I had to fight my corner. I didn't want to do that, it was an impulse thing. I just pulled up in the car at the ground, sat and spoke to the guy on the phone. I was shaking while I was speaking. It was like when you are at school and you get called into the headmaster's office. I just didn't want to swear. I wanted to say, "Listen, this is how it is." I would do anything for my kids, and he was trying to say that I had let everything go. The whole bachelor pad thing.'
It's not true, then?
'I still have a lot of my mates round, because my mates are the same ones I have always had. My kids love them and they'll call them uncles as they get older, it's that sort of relationship, and he just made it look so bad. I was just giving an honest argument. I gave him five minutes of fame, that's the only downside.'
He fantasises about taking time out of football when he has finished playing.
'I want to get my coaching badges, but whether I want to do another ten or 15 years in the same routine, I'm not sure. I'd like to travel. I was an Essex boy who thought Harrods was the other side of the world.'
So, a gap year then?
'Yeah.'
But then Lampard, son of Romford, gives a wide, rogue-ish smile.
'I wouldn't go backpacking,' he says. 'It's not really me.'
