No Nonsense Read online

Fuck ’em.

  You are not a victim. They will not break you. They won’t make you beg. Your background might cost you in years to come, because the line between aggression and self-assertion is pretty blurred, but right now the estate is your sanctuary. What right have they got to try to kill your dream?

  Their system stinks. Too many academies are full of bitter, angry coaches who think the under-12s are beneath them. They want the cars, cash and recognition that come from being with the first team. They can’t get over the fact they never made it.

  You can surrender, as so many do, or you can scream and scrap. You are a late developer. You are improving every day. No one, but no one, wants it more than you. You are going to feed this down their throats. No more feeling sorry for yourself. Dry your eyes, man the fuck up, and get on with it.

  Grandad’s cold-eyed reaction when I went downstairs – ‘You’re just going to have to knuckle down, aren’t you?’ – was just what I needed. This was just another obstacle to overcome, another setback to be taken care of. Someone will see sense soon. Won’t they?

  An hour passes. The phone rings again. It is Barry Poynton who left Everton just before Dewsnip arrived. He is head of recruitment at Manchester City’s academy, and wants me to go there for a trial. He says all the right things, striking the right balance between subtle surprise at my release and a challenge to my competitive nature.

  Dad and I get more such calls over the next day or so. Preston North End like the look of me. So, too, do Leeds United. City were in the Championship at the time but it felt right to go with Barry. He was the first to react, to sense the opportunity in my bad news. Let’s face it, he also had a vested interest in proving Everton wrong.

  It wasn’t a fairy tale. It never is with me, is it? I really struggled for my first two and a half years at City. I hated the travelling, an hour each way on a good day, depending on traffic. Frankie Bunn, one of the coaches, was especially good to me, but life was a series of Groundhog Days. Other coaches didn’t fancy me. Too small, they’d say. Too small . . .

  If you are at a physical disadvantage in an athletic sport, where you have to be strong and fast, you’d better develop alternative options. I’m not suited to tippy-tappy academy football. My blood has to be up, and my senses need to be sharp. I’m a player of ragged edges. No one will ever describe me as neat and tidy, freshly washed and ironed. I have to get down and dirty.

  Jim Cassell was the only one who saw anything in me. He began as a scout, when his playing career with Bury was ended by a knee injury, and developed a coach’s eye, which looks beyond the obvious. He didn’t really know what he had on his hands, though he sensed I would play for nothing rather than walk away. Something intangible, something inexplicable to those who don’t understand that football is a people business, told him to give me one last chance.

  ‘Everything in me says we have to get rid of you, Joe,’ he told me. ‘You don’t look like you are going to be big enough. You are never going to have the speed that should be necessary at the top level. But you have something in your eyes. I can’t put my finger on it. I like that. You’ve got six months to show me something, or you are gone.’

  At least Cass was upfront. I was still convinced I would make it, but I appreciated his honesty. I respected him, because of the straightness of his character and the authenticity of his experience. Football is full of bullshitters, career cowards who are two-faced and operate double standards. He told me as it was – as it is to this day. Shape up or ship out.

  I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think of doing the latter. My first instinct was to go back into non-league, with a good club like Marine, Bootle or Southport, and rebuild my reputation. I spent a week labouring on the roofs during the summer break, cutting my hands to ribbons ferrying tiles up the ladders, before retreating to the van with a vow I would never return. I had 10 GCSEs, but they were about as much use as Boy Scout badges.

  Dad was adamant I had to eke out any time I had left at City. He wasn’t one for paternal platitudes, but he put things into perfect perspective. ‘You’ve got to handle disappointment because you get let down a lot in life,’ he told me. ‘Stay there. Use the gym. Make it work for you. They’ll see what you can do eventually. At least you’re on a wage. You’ll be getting paid to stay fit.’

  I was on the princely sum of £72 a week and understood how much my football meant to my dad. He would definitely have made it as a pro, but he didn’t have that ‘fuck you’ mentality you need. I’ve seen him be ultra-competitive, go way over the top, but he’d probably want to have a pint after the match with the bloke he was threatening to kill.

  He feared an age-old working-class drama was starting to play out. Estates like St John’s are, essentially, unlocked cells. The long walk to freedom is hazardous, and littered with mantraps. There is a temptation to accept your fate as preordained, turn in on yourself, and succumb to resentment, frustration and societal expectation.

  All my mates were bevvying, birding or drugging. Many were completing their apprenticeship in criminality. If I had been weaker, mentally, I would have been lost. You don’t submit a CV in these situations, but it was made very clear to me that I’d rise very quickly through the ranks in the local drug syndicate. The going rate for a successful enforcer was several thousand pounds a week, in ready cash of course.

  Dad knew the alternative scenario as well as I did. He was working six-week shifts in Ireland, but on his fortnight off, he took to accompanying me on eight-mile runs on his bike. He had me doing sets of 10 shuttle runs up and down the embankment of the M62. Knees high, arms swinging, lungs burning. No pain, no gain.

  It was a Scouse version of Rocky, with a sprint through the boarded-up badlands of St John’s being Liverpool’s answer to Rocky’s triumphant run up the 72 steps towards the Museum of Art in Philadelphia.

  Gonna fly now . . .

  CHAPTER FIVE

  MAKING IT

  So, you want to be a professional footballer. I might not be the best example to follow, but I would have loved to meet someone like me during my struggle to make it at Manchester City. This is my take on why I pulled through, after Jim Cassell rewarded me with a one-year pro contract on £300 a week. I didn’t listen too intently when I was a kid, but what do you have to lose?

  We all have inner turmoil. There’s nobody who doesn’t have that quiet terror of being found out. Some drink to suppress it, some drug it. Some seek cheap, empty sex, and others need the release of a mad gamble. Nobody’s perfect. I certainly don’t profess to be perfect. Actually, I’m probably as complex as it gets.

  We all walk around, insisting that everything’s sound and we don’t need anyone’s help, but we’re all vulnerable from time to time. The sooner you start talking about your fears, the better. If I had been open to that early in my career, it would have helped enormously. I bottled everything up. Football told me that being true to myself was a sign of weakness.

  People condemn me for being outspoken. I merely say what I am thinking. When I’m asked a question, I try to answer as honestly as I possibly can. The consequences are what they are. Remember, this industry isn’t the be-all and end-all. There’s so much more going on in the world. Football just happens to be something that people are really interested in.

  I now see the game as a tool to influence people in a positive way. For years I used its power in a terrible manner. I inflicted a lot of pain and hurt on those closest to me. But for every squeaky-clean idol like Michael Owen or David Beckham, there is a darker role model like me. I’ve been a car crash. All my glorious fuck-ups are out there, so let’s not waste time on bullshit.

  I know the world has changed. Kids of 17 live on their phones. They don’t read the papers. It is not that they feel my principles and morals are unimportant, but they are simply unaware of them. They are the values of a different time, another era. One thing does not change, though: in football it is kill or be killed.

  Kids like you are trying to take my job. Th
at’s the reality of the situation, and I ain’t going to give my job away. I’m not going to let you take food out of the mouths of my children. You will have to rip that shirt off my back. For that to happen either I have to decline physically, or you are going to be mentally stronger than me. Really? How far are you willing to go?

  Are you going to do that by going out with your mates on a Saturday night? Are you going to do that by sitting around and moaning about what’s going on in the academy? Are you going to do that by cutting corners? I’m not cutting any corners, by the way. I will make it my business to discover your weaknesses. That’s why I have played as long as I have, at the level I have.

  Don’t talk to me about talent. Listen to Conor McGregor, the UFC fighter. I did, and agreed with every word he said: ‘There’s no talent here, this is hard work. This is an obsession. Talent does not exist. We are all equal as human beings. You could be anyone if you put in the time. You will reach the top, and that is that. I am not talented, I am obsessed.’

  Successful footballers are not normal. They are borderline psychotic, because they will trample over anyone who gets in their way. Normal people don’t get to the highest levels in life. Normal people don’t climb Everest, sail around the world, or think nothing about playing football in front of 70,000 people. Normal people sit in the café, play bingo, go to work, come home, and repeat the same routine the following week.

  I’d see it as really offensive if someone told me I was normal. I’m quite happy with who I am, and I am trying to affect the world around me in whatever way I can, but I am not normal. I am pushing personal boundaries as far and as fast as possible. Life is about seeing how far you can get under your own steam.

  Now, if you come to me and say, ‘Joe, what is the most important lesson you could teach me?’, I’d ignore the artificial nature of the question and give you a straight answer. It is, simply, love what you do. That is the secret of long-term success.

  My love of the game kept me going through the darkest times. Not the money. Not the bollocks that comes with it. I ran on pure, unadulterated love. That is what gets you through the days when the bells and whistles fail, when the world seems a cold and unforgiving place.

  I also asked questions, loads of questions. Even now, when I go into an environment where I feel intellectually inferior, I’m not afraid of making myself a nuisance by simply seeking knowledge. In football terms I knew I couldn’t beat people physically or technically, but I could be mentally stronger than anyone who had an eye on my job.

  I was drawn to strong characters, like Peter Schmeichel. He wasn’t a person you could warm to, because he let no one in, but I might have just caught him at an opportune moment. He was getting a massage in the dressing room at Maine Road. His head was down and he was lying naked, lost in the rhythm of the oil being rubbed into his body by one of the physios.

  I was a nobody, a kid making his way in the reserves. I pulled up a small stool next to him and asked him questions for 30 minutes. They had nothing to do with the games he had played or the saves he had made. They were about his mind. Why he put up with me I just don’t know. Maybe I caught him at a time when he was feeling a bit vulnerable or disarmed, but I ended up prising gold dust out of him.

  ‘Where are you at?’ he asked, talking to the floor. I explained I’d been playing well but, typically for a young player, I’d have a run of 10 good games then throw in a couple of mares. ‘I haven’t had a bad game for four years,’ he said, and I laughed, thinking he was joking. He was 37 or 38 at the time.

  Slowly, he lifted his head and looked me in the eye: ‘I’m telling you, I’ve not had a bad game for four years. My teammates have had a bad game in front of me, and I’ve made one or two mistakes, but overall I’ve not had a bad game for four years. Before that I went six or seven years without a bad one.’ I’m thinking this is a wind-up, but he was deadly serious.

  He started talking to me about his frame of mind. He taught me about willing things into existence. He explained why he was the best keeper in the world, and how he got there: ‘Look, if you think you’ll have a bad game, you’re going to have a bad game. Even if you are playing well and you think, “I am due a bad one”, you will suddenly play poorly. Everyone makes mistakes. It’s normal. But champions, world-class players who have long, successful careers, get over their mistakes in a heartbeat. They follow a mistake with something good.’

  He unlocked a forgotten memory from the hard times I had as a YT. I suddenly remembered Alex Gibson, the youth-team coach, saying, ‘If you make a mistake in a game, if you play a bad pass, buy yourself two simple ones and then you’re back in the positive.’ Maybe I should have listened to him with more intensity, instead of brooding about his lack of faith.

  People saw Schmeichel’s mindset as arrogance. I remember them saying, ‘He’s a cunt, big-time, big ego.’ His attributes didn’t fit the mould of being a good team-mate. He was very selfish, very self-centred, very ego-driven, but he was a fucking winner. You knew, looking in his eyes, and watching the way he trained, prepared, carried himself and spoke, that he was a successful human being.

  He would go out to training 10 minutes early, and move any footballs in his net to the sidelines. Their presence in his goal offended him. Any player who idly attempted to chip him in a practice match would get a volley of abuse and the ball belted at his head. Fall below his professional standards and he would tear off his gloves, and stalk back to the changing room.

  I looked at him and thought, ‘Yeah, I might have to step on a few people here. They might not like me, but I’m going to have longevity in this game.’ That’s why, when I went into the first team, I never came out of it. I saw other kids go in, go out, shake it all about, but they didn’t last. I was there for keeps.

  My mind, not my ability, got me through all the stuff that happened afterwards, going to jail, playing in the Premier League with idiots abusing my kids. I dealt with the madness head-on. Schmeichel’s single-mindedness made a huge impact on me. I’d always try to nick a little knowledge from my team-mates, the likes of Fowler, McManaman and Anelka. Questions, questions. Don’t ask, don’t get.

  In my experience football is still a very reactive sport. Do that run, do that gym session, stand there, move there, do this, do that. React, react, react, react. We are telling kids, ‘This is the tactic I want you to play. When the ball comes here this is how I want you to turn. When this happens this is what I want you to do.’ We’re not teaching them to be proactive.

  It becomes much of a muchness because everyone can predict what you can do and when you will do it. As a young player, you should dare to be different. Look at Dele Alli. Touch, flick it over your head, volley it in. No one taught him to do that; that’s a kid playing football on the street. That’s someone who is enjoying his football, who has not had coaching constraints.

  He’s not had someone nowhere near as talented trying to coerce him into playing a certain way, stifling his creativity. Our academy systems are flawed. We’ve got to let players develop independently up to the age of 13 or 14. We’re not helping by taking them into academies at six and subjecting them to the whims of an academy coach who could well be substandard, and preoccupied with personal ambitions of working towards the first team.

  Let’s face it, we don’t have a great record of producing outstanding coaches. They bend to the wind that’s blowing in the Premier League. Do we want big, strong physical players or small technical players? Do we want to play like the Germans, the Spanish or the French? Too many kids are being discarded too quickly, with too little thought.

  We’re playing a numbers game. Jamie Vardy, Charlie Austin, Dele Alli and countless others have developed outside their business model. How many players of their potential do we lose? If the people who ran our academies ran our economy the country would be bankrupt. They’re saying, ‘Give me a hundred quid. I’ll give you two quid back in five years.’ Some investment! Ninety-eight per cent waste . . .

  But you
are here to learn how to beat the odds. Everyone develops their own survival strategy. Be careful. The dressing room is a harsh environment because it is full of young men with an inability to communicate at a deep, emotional level. It is not a place to admit vulnerability. Insecurity means the humour is barbed, and I have seen kids destroyed.

  I was lucky at City. Senior players like Kevin Horlock caned us, but he integrated us into the group. Andy Morrison, the captain, was, let’s say, a little different. I was always a bit cheeky, a little chirpy. The other first-year YT lads were timid, but I didn’t give a shit. All pros try to create an ‘us and them’ mentality, which makes them unapproachable, but I had no fear factor because of what I’d seen with my dad, on the road with Knowsley United.

  I’d answer back, which didn’t go down too well. I refused to be their slave, because I already had my training-ground job, cleaning the showers. I also, even then, had my eyes on their shirts. I saw this as part of the psychological warfare that would eventually end with me in the first team. I wouldn’t let them think they could get one over on me. But I did make one mistake.

  A big mistake.

  My group of YTs were in the indoor dome at Platt Lane one afternoon, before City moved to the Carrington complex. Morrison was in the gym, kicking the ball against the wall before a session, and we decided to have a game of dare. Jocky was a bit of a bully, a scrapper, and even the senior pros were petrified of him, but I drew the short straw and had to do something to him.

  My plan was to wait until his back was turned and kick a ball in his general direction. It landed nowhere near him, and by the time he realised what was going on we had scarpered. We were pretty pleased with ourselves until, after training, he caught us in the youth-team showers and blocked the only exit. This, by the way, is the man whose autobiography was entitled The Good, the Mad and the Ugly.

  ‘Who kicked the ball?’ he said, in the sort of tone that told us this would not end well. ‘I am going to hit every fucking one of yous if you don’t tell me.’ The lads were not doing a great job of disguising their anguished glances in my direction, so I decided I was going to have to take what was coming.