TRAGEDY SPURS ON DIDIER DROGBA

IN his mind, Didier Drogba is still walking slowly across the pitch at the Stade Felix Houphouet-Boigny, over the running track and then towards the wall.

That wall. That gate. Those supporters.

The memory haunts him. Not constantly, maybe, but enough for the sights and screams of that horrific day to demand action.

March 29, 2009. The day 19 Ivory Coast supporters lost their lives, fighting for breath when all they wanted to do was follow their team and show loyalty to their heroes.

Heroes like Drogba, a man who transcends government, politics, the judiciary in his homeland.

A rare symbol of success from an impoverished nation. That's why there is an inherent sense of guilt eight months after the horror.

Drogba and his team-mates played on against Malawi, he scored twice, 90 minutes passed. And then the realisation of what had happened.

A collapsed gate inside the stadium, people buried under a stampede as they bundled their way in to see the World Cup qualifier, bodies piling up on ramshackle terraces. Those images will never leave him.

That wall. That gate. Those supporters.

"Now I play for the people who came to see us and never came back," is Drogba's considered take on those traumatic events.

This is a different Drogba to the one who pulls on a Chelsea shirt and who has made an art form of terrorising quaking defenders.

He speaks so softly, with care and compassion, that it's almost impossible to accept here is a man whose abuse of a Norwegian referee earned him a UEFA ban and the disgust of virtually everybody outside of Stamford Bridge.

This is the caring and compassionate side, shrugging off his reputation as a dark, moody character.

Yet sit down with him, flick through a variety of topics and Drogba deals with them with intelligence and insight. He wants to talk about his son Issac, recently signed to play in Chelsea's academy alongside Michael Ballack's boy.

"He's a striker, just like his dad," he grins, explaining that this mini-Didi will one day adopt the same powerful physique as his musclebound dad.

"The trouble with his game is that he doesn't want to run."

Exactly like his dad, then?

"Hey! You said that - not me!"

He relaxes again, sitting back in his chair and flashing a smile. Then there are the quieter moments, the flashbacks of that day in Abidjan when 60,000 people turned up to watch their World Cup qualifier against Malawi.

There was such excitement, such tension as Ivory Coast supporters prepared to celebrate qualification for the African Cup of Nations.

The team was full of exuberance and so were the fans, eager to salute the stars such as Drogba, Kolo Toure and Salomon Kalou, as the team started the journey to the World Cup in South Africa with a qualifier at home.

Everyone wanted to watch it, piling through gateways, pushing for a place on the overworked terraces.

That wall. That gate. Those supporters.

"They say that 19 people died, but I think it was more," Drogba admits.

"There were so many people coming to the game because it had been a long time since they had seen us since we qualified for the African Cup of Nations.

"There was a lot of excitement, a lot of people and it was a World Cup qualifier. People were pushing to get in, there was a big gate and it collapsed under the pressure.

"There were some steps below and people just fell down, buried under all the bodies on top of them.

"People from outside the stadium watching it on television had been calling their friends to tell them what was happening," he added.

"They said there were bodies, but we kept playing. We didn't know, we knew nothing. We knew nothing of the deaths. Nothing. Often in the Ivory Coast people collapse on the terraces, but they get taken to the medicine room to recover. This was something different. Terrible."

Drogba visited a makeshift morgue the next day, comforting relatives as the true extent of the disaster began to emerge. The country was in shock, trying to come to terms with the chaos and confusion when it should have been about celebration.

"It's the reason we have to do well at the World Cup, it's what the supporters wanted.

"We can't bring the kids back, but we'd like to bring their parents a little joy.

"The Ivory Coast is a country that has had a lot of crises, but it's trying to get back on its feet.

"We feel there is a lot of potential there, but it needs to be safe before it reaches its targets."

Drogba is helping, playing his part. He has plans, ambitious plans, to build the Didier Drogba Hospital to care for kids back in the Ivory Coast.

It is to be built in Abidjan, a short drive away from the stadium where so many people lost their lives.

That wall. That gate. Those supporters.

He's organising a glitzy charity ball at the Dorchester Hotel in London later this month in order to raise funds for the project. He is determined to make his Foundation a success, working tirelessly to raise the £2.5m needed to help build the hospital.

There will be 150-200 beds over two floors, catering for young kids and adults, cared for by some of the country's best doctors. Drogba bought the land with the money he received from a new sponsorship deal with Pepsi.

Roman Abramovich also helped, waiving the fee Chelsea would normally have picked up from Drogba's image rights deal. This is where he comes to life again, face thrust forward and speaking with such enthusiasm about this enormous undertaking.

"So much has happened in my country - the war, so many orphans and so many sick children.

"It is difficult because the medicines are expensive, they do not have the money to pay for them and that's where the idea started.

EMERGENCY TREATMENT - Medics tend to victims of the tragedy

"One kid I met had leukaemia and we sent him to Switzerland for the best treatment. We hope he survives. That's my motivation."

So much has happened to Drogba in the past year, professionally and personally. He has coped with the death of his grandmother, forming a unique bond with Abramovich after Chelsea's owner laid on a private jet for Drogba to visit her.

It's those special moments that have convinced Drogba to end his flirtations with other clubs and commit his future to Chelsea.

"My grandmother was a very important person to me and Roman recognized that. He put on a plane for me. It was just after the Champions League final and it was very, very nice gesture.

"It's those things that make a difference. I can say now that after five years of being at Chelsea, that this is the last stop for me. It is a good achievement to be at a club like this for that length of time."

Drogba has been programmed this way, overcoming rejection on the football field to become, in the words of his manager Carlo Ancelotti, the best striker in Europe.

"I would never believe I have made it in any walk of life," he adds.

"You can never think you are the best, there's always someone better than you so you have to keep driving yourself.

"I love that feeling. This life is a privilege, it's a passion. To wake up and know you've got training, doing something you love is a privilege.

"I get there and see my friends, then we can laugh, share a joke about whatever we are wearing." He has had to work hard, especially in England. Drogba claims he is misunderstood, a complex character with a chequered history.

Even now he searches for the right words, often in French first, before finally landing on the appropriate phrase. He loves London life, the culture, living in Cobham.

There is life beyond football, with plans to travel the world when he eventually finishes his career.

He wants to experience different lifestyles, something different to the hotel-match-hotel routine that dominates the life of a top class professional.

"I love to travel and I won't sit still when I've finished," he insists.

"I want to see different cultures, a different way of life. In some countries people often have only one way of thinking, but English people are more open."

He contemplates a coaching career for a moment, considering his options at the end of a largely successful playing career.

"I'd like Chelsea, but who knows?" he adds, before he's reminded he will be in a queue behind Frank Lampard and John Terry. "Of course, of course, I forgot," he adds, smiling again as he searches for another option. "In that case, I will coach the Ivory Coast!"For £24million Chelsea got more than they bargained for, with his reputation for goals matched by the controversy. Drogba has done much to alter the public's perception after five years in English football.

There are regrets, inevitably. A propensity for theatrics - albeit in the past - is one, jabbing his finger towards ref Tom Henning Ovrebo in last season's Champions League semi against Barcelona is another.

"It's hard to change perception because once people have decided, then that's usually it.

"In the beginning it got to me. People didn't realise I was learning a new language, I wasn't used to the country. Now I try to do everything I can to please the supporters."

He has come through some testing times, a soft target for opposition fans and managers.

Rafa Benitez waded in before last season's Champions League quarter-final, claiming Drogba is too quick to take a tumble

"There have been a lot of misunderstandings, but now that I understand the expectations I can give people what they want.

"I read Rafa Benitez's comments because they were so big at the time. He tried to find a way to make us lose our concentration. What he said was poor, very poor, but he is still a great manager."

Drogba responded, scoring twice in the dramatic 3-2 win at Stamford Bridge and sliding to his knees in front of Benitez.

It marked another chapter in Drogba's remarkable career.

"It was a great moment, but there is so much more to life," he added. "I'm older, a bit wiser and I realise that there is so many other things I can do. There is more to offer. I just to want to do my own little bit."

He's doing it and yet it's always with the same sentiment.

That wall. That gate. For those supporters.

www.thedidierdrogbafoundation.com

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