Cheering
for Viva!’s ‘Loud-Mouthed’
Vegetarian!
Gladiators’ athlete and star of Viva!’s schools’ video
Food for Life, Emmil Watson, flexes his muscles for Viva!Life readers.
Tony Wardle reports
“Carrot Power!” The amplified words echoed around the cavernous hall of the National Exhibition Centre and grabbed the ears of ten million or more TV viewers. No one was left in any doubt that the muscle-rippling Gladiators athlete who shouted it was a veggie. Emmil Watson had won the hearts of his audience with his extrovert vegetarian sound bites and his bone-crushing, teeth-gritting, determined performance. But luck wasn’t on his side that day.
It was pure chance that he had even applied for Gladiators. His girlfriend Arwen stuck a form in front of him and he signed it and a trial was offered within the month. He had less than four weeks to build up his stamina. Emmil did it by running – lots of running, up hill and down, then up again. Peasha his dog ran by his side and he knew if he was going fast enough by her ears – when they were standing out straight in the wind, that was about right.
The trials were held on four sites and Emmil’s was Bournemouth where a quarter of the 22,500 applicants were tested to near destruction. After chin ups, push ups, sit ups and nearly throwing up, he was pitted against a huge army PI in a ‘pugilstick’ contest. The aim is to whack each other with a padded staff – and stay upright.
Unfortunately Emmil’s helmet was too big and the first, brutal whack came down on top of it, slammed it over his eyes and nearly knocked him unconscious in a starburst of lights – Emmil swears it was butterflies he saw. For about ten seconds he was subjected to an onslaught of thumps from the stick but held on.
Emmil,
Tina Landini and nutritionist Dr Chris Fenn during the filming of the Food
for Life videoSo, next day it was on to LWT’s studios in London for more trials but with a leg devoid of all power. After being crunched and crushed in the Gauntlet game, where the aim is to smash your way past four men the size of mountains, Emmil threw out a veggie challenge:
“I’m proud of being a veggie and told anyone who would listen. A couple of the Glads came up to me and more or less said I should keep quiet because the image of the programme was all about machismo and vegetarianism wasn’t part of that. So I issued a challenge that I’d take on three meat eaters, one after another, in the Pyramid game and beat them.”
For the uninitiated, the game involves climbing a huge, plastic covered foam pyramid constructed in a series of steps. The aim is to beat your challenger to the top but standing between you and victory are the man mountains – Hunter, Rhino, Saracen, Wolf et al – who’s aim is to stop you. Gammy leg and all, Emmil took them on, beat the first two challengers and drew with the third. There were no more jibes and he became known as ‘the veggie man’ – and just as importantly, he made it through the selection process.
Then came the notification – he had a show. With only one day’s notice he had no time to organise the 300 supporters every athlete is allowed – it was just Emmil and his mum. But Emmil is not the shy and retiring kind so he took the microphone from presenter John Fashanu and appealed directly to the audience: “Some of the kids I’d been talking to in the trials had come along with a banner for me but essentially I had no supporters. I appealed to the audience and invited them to get behind me. I had some 5,000 people shouting for the ‘loud-mouthed veggie’.
Emmil
and Food for Life co-presenter Tina LandiniEmmil is now 26, Reading-based and has been veggie since he was 11. “My mum’s from Jamaica my dad’s from Trinidad and West Indians are very traditional in their eating habits. Sunday is chicken and rice – other days there’s salt fish and akee, pig’s tail soup, lamb and beef stew. One Sunday I was looking at the dinner and I couldn’t see the meat, just a headless chicken on the plate. That was enough for me – I couldn’t eat meat any longer.”
The decision was absolute and Emmil hasn’t touched meat since but it wasn’t an easy choice for an 11-year-old to make. “I was brought up in a strong macho culture where it’s believed you need to eat meat to grow into a man. I used to take quite a bit of stick from other lads and there were a lot of fights. I always used to win so eventually my strength wasn’t questioned.”
Emmil is a perfectionist and if he’s going to do something it has to be done properly, whole heartedly – and that character trait showed at an early age:
“I never trusted anyone where food was concerned – cooks would say they didn’t fry chicken or fish in the same oil as the chips but I never believed them. So, when I went out in a gang with other lads I always took my own food with me. I love animals and I hated the thought of anything from an animal, even a trace, being given to me as food. I wouldn’t eat food from the same pans that had been used to cook meat.”
Working on the basis that people tell you what they think you want to hear, the young Emmil quickly learned subterfuge: “I’d say to a caf8E owner that I really liked the taste of chicken on my chips and ask him if he fried both in the same oil. The temptation would be to say ‘yes’ so if the answer was ‘no’, I knew it was safe to order.”
So, the ‘loud-mouthed veggie’ stood in front of his Gladiators’ audience and prepared to do battle. He knew he was going to win and had already found a garage to buy the huge four-trak vehicle which was the winner’s prize. He got through to the final game – the Eliminator – on equal points but then came the Bungee, a three-dimensional rubber spider’s web. Emmil became entangled and lost a shoe and everyone hesitated, waiting for the game to be restarted. It didn’t happen. So he surged on in stockinged feet and drew ahead. When he reached the balance beam, his socks wouldn’t grip on the polished wood. Once, twice, three times he slipped back down the steep incline and his opponent drew level.
They reached the Travelator together – a walkway speeding towards them and inclined at 45 degrees – known as ‘the killer’. Emmil dug deep into his veggie reserves and pounded up the incline only to be brought to a halt by his sock snagging in the moving mechanism. It was the end and although all the Gladiators shook his hand and said how unfair it was, the decision stood. Emmil took himself, his limping leg and what felt like a rapidly developing case of flu home to bed.
The rest was short-lived as a ‘phone call disturbed his sleep asking him to participate in an international Gladiators against Australia the next day. Dosed to the eyebrows with aspirin he took part and through sheer determination he came close but victory was never really a prospect. Emmil’s gritty performance prompted the bad boy of Gladiators, Wolf, to grab the mike and appeal directly to the audience for applause for one of the pluckiest performers he had ever seen. That pleased Emmil – it was an accolade for vegetarianism.
So what now? “I want to give as much support as I can to Viva! It’s work with kids that will change the future and I’ll go anywhere, do anything I can to help that!” After competing in just about every known sport, and having run his own property investment business, Emmil is now looking for a career in TV – and few doubt he’s got what it takes to succeed. And will there be any more Gladiators?
“I really hope so – but next time I’ll shout my Viva! veggie views even louder, even more proudly.”