No Nonsense Page 13
Steven took my observations in good heart, pointedly leaving a copy of the first of his two autobiographies outside my room. My initial meeting with Frank, in a lift, was awkward, but he softened once I explained the context of my comments. I had always admired his work ethic as a strangely underrated player, and was aware of his reputation as a smart political operator, so there was no point in being unnecessarily antagonistic.
Urban myth, of course, is resistant to the reality that he accepted my explanation at face value. I am meant to have made a point of sitting as close as possible to him during my first team meal. He is supposed to have responded by rising, and moving to the end of the table. Sorry to spoil a popular story, but my rumoured response – ‘Don’t worry, Frank, I wasn’t going to eat your dinner, you fat cunt’ – is fantasy.
To be perfectly honest, I didn’t hang around long enough to discover the truth of the theory that the England squad was too riven by cliques to be functional. The lads were fine, at the glib level at which we all operate, but the principal pre-match training session was a disappointment because it limited my opportunity to make a favourable impression.
The team was preordained. We concentrated on shadow play and walk-throughs, preceded by a brief possession session and topped off by shooting practice. I felt like I was just another body, a human mannequin. A 13-year-old kid could have coped comfortably with what was asked of me.
Andres Iniesta, who scored the only goal of the game, a volley following Rio Ferdinand’s misdirected clearance, invested huge significance in the night I won my only England cap. He identified Spain’s victory as the moment they grasped the scale of their potential. He would score the winning goal in the World Cup final little more than three years later, alongside nine other players who appeared at Old Trafford.
I played the final 17 minutes as substitute for Lampard, against a side with the world at its feet. That’s not a great sample size, but I will go to my grave knowing I could cope at that level. There is more time on the ball, and I possess the necessary tactical acumen to respond to the additional subtleties of the international game.
The major factors complicating representative football at the highest level are the lack of familiarity between teammates, the political power of the clubs, and the incompetence of the FA. Why rebuild Wembley? When the team toured the country, fans responded because they felt like a truly national team, rather than the property of suburbanites in the M25 corridor. It worked again, on a smaller scale, before Euro 2016.
I knew I wasn’t going to dislodge Gerrard or Lampard, but could do a job if called upon. Self-awareness is essential in professional sport, and whenever I have gone into overload, in testing situations, I have coped really well. To be brutally honest, too many of the players in England’s so-called golden generation had character flaws.
They actually formed the ‘me’ generation. Germany won the last World Cup because they had a collective, rather than an individual ethos. No one prepared better. Each player, every unit within the team, knew their job, and the job of those around them. They were ruthless, calculating, single-minded. They didn’t concentrate on silly little dances when they scored; they got on with it.
I know my comments about the book club went down badly, but I was making a serious point about motivation. I wasn’t blind to the benefits of a more substantial international career but, for too many players, representing their country was purely a selfish act. Playing for England meant manipulating a move, getting a new contract, securing a new endorsement deal. It didn’t mean serving a higher cause, reaching and rewarding a bigger audience.
When you watch the All Blacks you know the shirt is not a PR product. It is symbolic, sacred, the manifestation of pride in a small, isolated nation. I love the story of former captain Sean Fitzpatrick chinning a young player who absent-mindedly allowed his shirt to fall on to the dressing-room floor. That signalled the importance of respect, and higher standards.
I am a huge admirer of the intensity of rugby league. It is a game built on the bedrock of close-knit communities. I would much prefer the earthiness and competitiveness of a Super League Grand Final, or the quality of an NRL game in Australia, to the corporate indulgence of a Champions League final.
Ask the hard question: do we really want to be successful in international football? I’m not sure we do, because we play at it. England teams are the equivalent of the socialite who is seen at the best parties in a smart suit, looking presentable and acting as if he owns the place. He’s a familiar figure, but the people who matter quickly forget his name.
You’ve got to be a horrible bastard to be a winner. I say that knowing, full well, that some nugget will wrongly assume the worst and observe that I am a horrible bastard and a loser, since it was no one’s fault but my own that I never played for England again.
I waited three weeks, until City’s next home game, a 1-0 defeat to Wigan, to celebrate my cap with my cousin Josh and our girlfriends. We were drunk in Liverpool city centre in the early hours, fancied something to eat, and directed our taxi driver to the nearest McDonald’s drive-through on the way home. Things spiralled out of control quickly when he refused.
The girls got out, while we argued for a refund on the £30 fare, paid up front. The driver locked Josh and me in the back, sped off, and called a ‘Yellow One alert’, a scramble code to alert other drivers he was in trouble. Fearful we were about to be beaten up, Josh smashed the driver’s Perspex safety screen and ripped out his radio cord.
We had no option but to run, pursued by other drivers, a couple of whom were wielding baseball bats. I was recognised, and when the police made their inevitable visit I refused to reveal my companion’s identity. They duly charged me with criminal damage. Since I was on bail, the FA called to confirm I was ineligible for consideration for impending European Championship qualifiers against Israel and Andorra.
I was acquitted 14 months later, when Josh told the court of his involvement, but that was that, as far as England was concerned. I was resentful the FA declined to offer me the benefit of the doubt, but knew the game was up when Fabio Capello, McClaren’s successor, praised my form, but essentially dismissed me as an accident waiting to happen.
He had a point.
CHAPTER TEN
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
There are bad ideas, brain-fades and flashes of genius, such as asking me to conduct a post-match interview when my emotions are exploding like popcorn kernels in boiling oil. You do not need to be a behavioural scientist to work out that frustration and candour are a dangerous combination.
Anger is an authentic emotion, and only becomes an issue when it mutates into rage. My preoccupation, following a 1-1 draw against a primitive Watford team in my penultimate match of the 2006/07 season, was to prevent resentment spilling over into something infinitely more destructive. The last thing I needed was Paul Tyrrell, Manchester City’s press officer, pleading with me to do media chores.
Paul is a good guy, a pal to this day, but those in his role tend to be marginalised as far as players are concerned. He had no idea of the reasons for my irritation. It had been a terrible game, which confirmed my fears about the consequences of Stuart Pearce’s loss of control. Our recruitment had been poor, standards had been allowed to slip, and I felt my career was starting to suffer.
I still had hopes of returning to the England squad at that stage. Players in better teams, who couldn’t match my influence at club level, were once again ahead of me in the queue. I was wasting my time. I fronted up to the media because I thought being open and honest would shock the club back into life. I was leading scorer that season with seven goals, for heaven’s sake. Ridiculous.
I knew the routine. A few gentle half-volleys, so the press guys have at least got something in their notebooks to regurgitate, always precede more probing questions. The second stage of the interview gave me the chance to say what I saw. I reckoned that, at the very worst, it would act as my calling card. Not quite a come-and-get-
me plea, beloved of Fleet Street veterans, but a subtle wink at potential suitors.
‘I can’t get away from the fact we are buying stopgaps who have not cut it at the highest level. We are bringing in average players on top money and they are not producing. We have to sign quality players, not ones who have scored six goals in six games in the Pontins League or in Belgium or somewhere like that.’
Now I had their attention. You know when you are being quotable, because there is a mood shift. The journos’ attention span becomes a little longer, and considerably more intense. It was time to kick the argument upstairs, to the City boardroom:
‘I have to be brutally honest. I wouldn’t pay to watch us at home this season. If I was a City fan I would be humming and hawing about whether to buy a season ticket next season. It is a lot of money for a season ticket at our place and they are not getting value for money.’
Bingo. The club went bananas. Pearce banned me from doing any more interviews, a damage limitation exercise which suited me perfectly. I named no names, but the players I felt were cheating, cutting corners, got the message. It was only later I discovered they were saying, ‘Who the fuck does he think he is?’
There was a smoking club of about five or six, which included Didi Hamann and Ousmane Dabo, a lumbering midfield player who had arrived from Lazio with an inflated view of his own importance. I had a problem with them, because I felt smoking set an unprofessional example to the younger players, but that was a statement of principle on health grounds, rather than a personal attack.
Dabo, though, evidently felt otherwise. I had no issue with him, since he was no longer a threat to me. I’d been hyper-alert initially, because he played in my position and I still couldn’t shake off the fearful, insecure young lad who whispered in my ear that I was on the edge of ruin, but he was so far off the first team he was irrelevant.
My mood wasn’t improved by a 2-0 home defeat by Aston Villa, but the focus shifted to the season’s last milestone, the Manchester derby. I missed that game, and would never play for City again, because of Dabo’s determination to turn an otherwise low-key training session into his version of the May Day parade.
He began by leaving a tackle on me, a little livener that put me on my guard. He then came in late, so I gave him a dig back at the next opportunity. Neither of us was inclined to give ground, and I began to think, ‘So you have got some bollocks after all. Why didn’t you show that a little sooner? If you’d suggested you’ve got a bit of character you’d have played a few more games.’
He was pursuing a risky strategy. He was bigger than me, a little taller, and older. He had never seen me fight, though I’d had enough altercations for him to realise I’d be no pushover. He obviously thought I needed putting in my place. Fair enough, since my mood swings were extreme, and I struggled to hide my dissatisfaction. But if you go for the king, you’d better make sure you take him out.
It could have been stopped at source, had Pearce stepped in and said, ‘Oi, fucking behave yourselves,’ but the confrontation acquired a dangerous dynamic. Dabo’s running commentary was in French, and I didn’t need an interpreter to understand its virulence; a look at Sylvain Distin’s furrowed brow was all I needed. I responded sarcastically, telling him what a world-class player he was, but when that didn’t register I simply repeated, ad nauseam, that he was shit.
Pearce stopped the session on the advice of his coach, Steve Wigley, when our tackles became increasingly reckless, and Distin walked Dabo to the dressing room in an attempt to calm him down. I followed him, about 10 paces back, and wasn’t blameless since I kept on chuntering. He turned suddenly, sprinted at me, and gave me that primal choice: fight or flight. Instinct and experience told me to stand my ground.
As so often in such circumstances, time telescoped. In that split second, I thought of two other training-ground incidents. The first was a similar practice-match situation involving Nico Anelka, who tangled with Steve Jordan, fell on top of him, and split his lip with two punches. The second spat, about six months previously, involved me and Paul Bosvelt. It was a heat-of-the-moment quarrel, since we remain good friends.
Bosvelt, too, ran at me. He slapped me across the face, because he thought I had been cheeky to him. It took me by surprise, and Pearce evidently thought I needed to be taken down a peg or two because he declined to intervene. The lads got in between us, holding me back to give him a chance to tell them he felt I had disrespected him. I had not forgotten that belittlement, which bordered on humiliation.
Dabo wasn’t going to get the chance to emulate it. He stopped about a yard in front of me, basically within punching distance, and I saw his right hand go back. Without thinking, I threw a jab, and caught him on the chin. The blow was quick, on the money, and left him stunned. He wasn’t a natural fighter. I’m from the streets. There’s your difference. I might be slight and wiry, but I’ve always been able to handle myself. He didn’t know my formative influences.
If he had run at someone like that in a pub in Huyton, he’d have been lucky to get out with stitches, if he got out at all. He followed through with his slap, clipped me on the side of the face, but when you’ve been first to the punch it minimises the impact. I hit him again, and followed him down to give him another whack, because from where I come you never wait for a fighter to confirm whether he wants to continue.
Paul Dickov and Danny Mills jumped in, pulled me off him, and dragged me away. Physios immediately tended to Dabo, who took a couple of minutes to come around. He saw the blood, realised he’d been hurt and lost face. A manic, macho urge prompted him to lash out. Pearce was among those holding him back. I told him, quite calmly, ‘Let him go, gaffer. Let’s finish it man on man. That’s no problem.’
Dabo is shouting and bawling, but I’m at my most rational. I’m not fearful of his aggression, because I know, deep down, I have his number. I am lucid, almost an observer. I didn’t want to fight a team-mate, because no one wins, but he resorted to violence first. Had he kept on walking, this would have all petered out in raised voices. Remorse comes later when you realise you have inflicted damage on someone’s son, someone’s loved one.
If I had been as cowardly, and as out of order, as Dabo later claimed, why would Distin, his best mate, have sat next to me in the changing room and admitted he saw fault on both sides? Sylvain is a lot bigger than me, a physically imposing guy, and if he was really upset he could easily have rectified things on his friend’s behalf.
Pearce sent me home, to await further instruction from the club. I did so, and poured my heart out to Peter Kay. Dabo went home, posed for photographs with medical tape over a badly swollen eye, apparently at the behest of his girlfriend, and sold his story. A perfect storm, of prejudice and wounded pride, rolled in.
His story was flawed, since his injuries were hardly consistent with being attacked from behind, as he claimed, but, inevitably, my reputation went before me. I accepted my culpability and, since I didn’t have Dabo’s number, I texted Sylvain and asked him to pass on a message, offering to drive to Manchester to meet him, to sort things out man to man.
Maybe the message didn’t reach him. He pushed the police to press charges, and they duly obliged. My initial intention was to argue that I’d acted in self-defence, but once the judge suggested a guilty plea would lead only to additional community service, and the imposition of a concurrent custodial sentence, I took the line of least resistance.
Footballers are natural pragmatists. I regarded City’s decision to fine me £100,000 and suspend me for the final weeks of the season as prejudicial because it created the impression Dabo was an entirely innocent party. I was cast as the instigator, the transgressor. Pearce made a strategic error by admitting the club only took action once Premier League safety had been confirmed.
I exploited the situation that summer, but please don’t dismiss me as yet another greedy, feckless player striking out for all he can get. Forget fluffy images of fealty. You have to understand the survival mechanis
m that is engaged when your future is on the line. It is naive to ignore the reality that everyone associated with you is looking out for number one.
I was under no illusions. I was a commodity with an identifiable market value, to be coveted, nurtured, or traded. City had to assess the balance between my positive influence as a player and the liability I had become off the field. I was a serial offender, and the prospects of long-term rehabilitation weren’t great, because I was progressively more aggressive as my frustration festered.
Predictably, short-term self-interest dictated events. I told Alistair Mackintosh, City’s chief executive, that I was determined to leave. John Wardle, his boss, confided that Pearce was about to be sacked. New investment, which turned out to be from Thaksin Shinawatra, was coming in. Sven-Goran Eriksson was lined up as the new manager. They wanted me to stay for at least another season. If they felt I would be flattered by their candour, they were wrong.
Fuck them. I was the difference between City staying up, and a bad, bad team getting what it deserved – relegation. How dare they side with someone who had contributed nothing to the season? I was in the wrong, but Dabo was equally culpable. They had betrayed me, and I would not forgive, nor forget.
The £5.5m release clause in my contract was my trump card. Mackintosh offered to double my wages, but it was clear that money would not be a problem, since Newcastle and West Ham were ready to intervene. City tried to intimidate them by insisting any fee would have to be paid as a lump sum, rather than in instalments, as is traditional.
Newcastle settled me in a rather more salubrious cell to that which I would become accustomed, a suite at the Malmaison hotel in the city. They joked about posting bouncers on the door, to ensure I would not leave until I had signed for them. I met Sam Allardyce, and liked his vision of a team that matched pace with solidity, passion with gumption.
It’s funny how things work out. Football is intricately interconnected. Sam had been City’s initial choice to succeed Pearce, but Shinawatra insisted on Sven. Sam featured in Chappy’s Preston promotion team, and entered club folklore when he lost a sumo wrestling match against Ronnie Hildersley, a slightly built midfield player who began at City, on the beach in a post-season lads’ holiday in Spain.