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WELCOME It was June 1990 when I went from being a six-year-old boy who played football in the playground, to becoming an actual fan. And there was one man responsible for that: Paul John Gascoigne. Watching Italia 90 back then, I wasn’t aware about the negative feelings towards Bobby Robson and his England team – I just watched the games in awe. It was Gazza who lit them up. His Cruyff turn against the Dutch; the two free-kick assists against Belgium and Egypt; sticking out his tongue during the anthems; and of course, those tears. I was a fan of Gazza before I was a fan of a club, and as the years rolled on, the aura around him only grew. From north London to Glasgow, via some often-hilarious high jinks in Rome, the stories from his career blossomed: from the sublime and ridiculous to the quite frankly unbelievable. Of course, Gazza’s niggling demons in life have been well documented and he has made plenty of mistakes, both personally and professionally. But deep down, there was just a boy who loved football and made others love it too. So, in this issue we celebrate 50 top tales that made him a legend, talking to some of those who experienced his charms ﬁrst-hand and still love him dearly. As fans, we always will. Enjoy the mag – it’s a fun one...

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5 THINGS YOU’LL LEARN INSIDE Which team deliberately scored an own goal to reach a tournament

Which League Two club can count the Dalai Lama as a supporter

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YOU ASK...

FEATURES

28 Gazza: the 50 greatest stories Angry swans, angrier cyclists, ﬁreworks and bank raids: FFT on the tales that launched a legend 40 The rise of Thomas Tuchel Chelsea’s boss has always been different – with drama never far 46 Before Neymar broke football When Denilson, Lentini, Vieri & Co reigned. Well, that was the plan... 54 Pat Nevin: accidental footballer “Team-mates called me ‘Weirdo’. But no, I was the normal one...”

Ricardo Carvalho chats Chelsea, training terribly, Mou and more

UPFRONT 12 14 15 19 20 21 22 24 90

Cows take charge in the Azores Fabrizio Ravanelli’s best games The return of the Reggae Boyz Ligue 1’s knight on a horse Gordon Strachan injures a DJ Romania’s new grudge match New Zealand: kings of 2010 Q&A: Lee Clark in... Sudan?! 74

FEATURES

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60 Callum Wilson: Toon treasure The striker on his St James’ Park dreams and England ambition 64 Intertoto Cup: WTF?! FFT recalls the wacky curiosity that bafﬂed English football 70 Team GB: going for gold Man City pair Lucy Bronze and Caroline Weir want to best 2012 74 How Subbuteo ruled the world In the beginning, there was an egg-collecting war veteran... 98 Sylvinho selects his Perfect XI

84 85 86 87 88 89

Marcus Maddison: why I quit Wigan: calm after the chaos? Best & Worst: Ipswich Town Millwall’s disco-mad Russian Ian Holloway on transfers Bradford’s Harry Potter magic

90 92 93 94

Neville Southall: do one, Fergie Alexi Lalas’ Arsenal rejection Rachel Brown-Finnis: volcanic Wilfried Bony detests eagles

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THE PLAYERS LOUNGE

YOU ASK THE QUESTIONS “I don’t think Rooney tried to hurt me on purpose in 2006. Once, he stopped me in a match to wish Chelsea luck against Liverpool...”

RICARDO CARVALHO I t took a while for Ricardo Carvalho to break through – much longer than many would have waited. But working in silence has always been one of his main virtues. So, when he finally got the chance he had been waiting for at Porto aged 23, following three loan spells, he couldn’t look back. He established himself in the first team under Jose Mourinho, lifting European trophies in consecutive seasons, before triumphing in a new, record-breaking revolution at Chelsea and being called the best Portuguese centre-back ever. On the way, he became Mourinho’s most trusted central defender – signed twice by him, latterly at Real Madrid – and one who understood his firebrand boss better than anyone, having spent nearly nine silver-tinged years together in three different countries. Curiously, Carvalho achieved it while maintaining a reputation among his peers as the worst trainer in the game. Not that such a tag has ever bothered him. When FourFourTwo queries him about it now, he simply chuckles. How could he not? After hanging up his boots in 2017 at the age of 39, Carvalho loved football right to the very end – he was crowned a European champion for Portugal at 38, avenging the demons of Euro 2004 when Greece stunned the Selecao on home soil. Now he’s ready to answer your questions about it all...

6 July 2021 FourFourTwo

As a youngster, you were loaned out three times by Porto. Did you worry that you’d never get an opportunity in the first team? Lorenzo da Costa, Porto At the start, it was tough. I’d spent six years at the academy of Amarante, my hometown – back then, they did good work and players often left for bigger sides, like Nuno Gomes. But moving to Porto was hard for me, because we’d played on dirt fields at Amarante – I’d never trained on a grass pitch. It was a lot to adapt to, but deep in my mind I knew my opportunity would come. I was 19 when I was first loaned out to Leca, but I can’t moan – while I headed to a top-flight team, all my colleagues were sent to second-tier sides. Things went well for me there, then I returned

to Porto in the same year we won the league for a ﬁfth consecutive season [1998-99]. Porto had a very famous centre-back duo: Aloisio, who was so elegant, and Jorge Costa, our captain. For most of the campaign I stayed on the sidelines learning from the best. However, the next season I thought I had to play in order to keep growing. I spoke to president Pinto da Costa and my coach Fernando Santos, and they both agreed. I spent two years on loan [at Vitoria de Setubal and Alverca]. Was Porto’s 4-1 triumph over Lazio in the 2003 UEFA Cup semi-ﬁnals a key turning point in your career? Freddy Powell, Colchester That Lazio team was really strong, and they had a very famous, fast player in

Interview Marcus Alves Claudio Lopez. So for me to have a duel against one of the best strikers of that time, and prove I could give him a hard time, felt special. We won 4-1 and were convincing that night [in the first leg], but I’m not sure if that was the turning point for me. The same campaign, we played Panathinaikos and lost the first leg 1-0 at home. Then in the second, we beat them 2-0 and I put in a great display, stopping another quick player in Emmanuel Olisadebe. I believe that was truly the beginning for me. What was the 2003 UEFA Cup Final against Celtic like to play in? It was entertaining for the fans, but I was broken by the end... Stuart Digby, Glasgow [Laughs] Oh, that was a mad game! It was insanely hot in Seville. I don’t even know how we managed to survive that heat – it required a lot of sacrifice from us. But at least we stayed ahead of the scoreline for most of the match: 1-0, 1-1, 2-1, 2-2 and finally 3-2 in extra time. It really was a thriller. Back then, the UEFA Cup felt like the Champions League for us; we didn’t know when we would be in another European final, so we wanted to make the most of it. What was Jose Mourinho like for you in the early days? Dillon Robertson, Eastbourne I was always under the impression that he felt I could do better. I remember after the Panathinaikos game, he came to me on the bus and said that it had been my best match. The same thing happened after the final against Celtic: “You played well and had a mature game,” he told me. It gives you a lot of confidence. He did that after we beat Manchester United 2-1 [in 2004] too, pulling me aside at training to tell me that I’d been the man of the match. I worked with Jose for quite some time, and fortunately it happened on several occasions. [Laughs] It was a pleasure to work with him for so long, though, because he improved my game over the years. He always wants his teams to play better than the game before. He doesn’t accept losses very well, and we knew how difficult it was for him to live with a defeat – you could see that during the week. So we did everything we could to achieve good results, as it would be easier to deal with him! But that’s normal – we players also want to win every game. If we lose, our own routine is affected by it.

YOU ASK

CLUBS 1997-2004 Porto 1998-99 Leca (loan) 1999-2000 Vitoria Setubal (loan) 2000-01 Alverca (loan) 2004-10 Chelsea 2010-13 Real Madrid 2013-16 Monaco 2017 Shanghai SIPG COUNTRY 2003-16 Portugal

YOU ASK In 2003-04, is there a game you look back on and think ‘that was the one’ en route to Champions League glory? Beating Manchester United? William Vukovic, Lancaster Manchester United were Manchester United back then – one of the world’s best teams and favourites in anything they were involved in. To play against the best and show you weren’t inferior to them… well, that was testament to how good our team was for the planet to see. We weren’t only dominating the Portuguese league; we proved that we could beat anyone in the Champions League, too. It was an enormous result.

Clockwise from right Success at Old Trafford put Mourinho’s Porto on the map; Carvalho hit the ground running in blue; “Don’t rub them, count them”; the long wait to break through paid dividends; before Jose whisked his trusted defender off to Chelsea

You weren’t one of the tallest central defenders, so how did you overcome that throughout your career? Josh Conway, Northampton I wasn’t one of the tallest, but I had aerial reach, read the game very well and was intelligent, so I anticipated plays. Above all else, I enjoyed being a defender and doing what I did. Most of the coaches I worked with used me as a defender regardless of how strong I was, because I had all of these skills. When I was climbing up the ranks at Porto, defenders were usually asked to clear the ball from the penalty area – send it away, avoid taking risks – but that wasn’t me. I liked to drive the ball forward. In my day, that was difﬁcult; people at Porto said I was a defender and not required to do it. But now you see that centre-backs are asked to do what I did! Some people judged me by my height, but luckily I had the right coaches at the right times. They knew I could go far in my career. Benni McCarthy once called you the “worst trainer ever at Porto”, joking how Mourinho would send you home because of it... and then you’d be the man of the match at the weekend. How true was that? Andy Murphy, Southampton [Laughs] Everybody says this, so maybe I have to accept it. I think I’ve always dealt with this criticism well! So many people tell me that I didn’t train as well as I played, so I have to assume there must be some truth in it. But honestly, I don’t believe I trained that badly – if you don’t do it reasonably well during the week, you’ll struggle to make the starting XI. Perhaps the thing was that I used to be more focused in matches.

to Porto. I’d been with Portugal at the Euros [in 2004], and after we lost the ﬁnal I went on holiday – that’s when I heard about Chelsea for the ﬁrst time. But before that, there were some talks with Real Madrid – president Florentino Perez travelled to Porto and met Pinto da Costa, but they couldn’t do a deal.

When did Mourinho ask you to follow him to Chelsea? Could you have gone to Real Madrid instead? Glenn Dixon, Hendon It took a while to ﬁnalise. I remember the ﬁrst player to join Jose was Paulo Ferreira, who he’d brought from Vitoria

How did you adapt to life in England, with the new language, culture and, most importantly, the unpredictable British weather? ‘Deano’, via Instagram Believe it or not, it was harder adapting to the Madrid lifestyle in 2010. Spanish

8 July 2021 FourFourTwo

people may be similar to Portuguese, but there was one thing I missed a lot about London – having meals earlier. In Spain, we often had lunch out and dinners at home because of our kids. The problem was that if you arrived at a restaurant in Madrid at 1.30pm, you’d have to wait until 2pm to get in! It was too late for me. [Laughs] Sometimes I’d meet Tiago, who played for Atletico and is one of my best mates in football, for lunch at a place near their training ground. One day, the owner spoke to him in private and said, “Tiago, please can you stop Ricardo arriving so early.” By the time people were having dinner

in Spain, my kids were already asleep! [FFT: What about in the dressing room at Cobham?] That was a big difference. At Chelsea, you’d train, work, rest, take care of your life and spend time with your family. The adaptation was easier for me, because this was how I liked to be. In fact, I actually had to adapt at Porto. They’d have huge lunches with lots of people which went on for hours. I’d rather spend time with my family. Jorge Costa, Vitor Baia and everyone at Porto loved them, though. At Chelsea we didn’t quite have that, but still had a brilliant dressing room and achieved success on the pitch.

YOU ASK You had a couple of famous battles with England at Euro 2004 and World Cup 2006. What are your memories? Richard Bates, Preston The game at Euro 2004 was amazing and I still remember the atmosphere – it was incredible, and there wasn’t an empty seat. It was always fantastic to play in front of English fans, too. It was an exciting game with two great sides, and it couldn’t have ended better, with Ricardo saving Darius Vassell’s penalty without his gloves on. The Wayne Rooney incident in 2006 – he kicked you in quite a delicate area. Do you think he did that on purpose? Shaun Hemmings, Stockport Not really. I’d played against him many times before – I remember one game when he came to me on the pitch and said, out of nowhere, that he would be rooting for Chelsea in a match against Liverpool. Can you believe that? He told me his whole family supports Everton, and that he preferred us to win. So we had some relationship and respected each other. Obviously, when I walked on the pitch I’d do everything to beat him, and he did the same. But honestly, I don’t believe he meant to hurt me at the World Cup. I’d been marking him very closely and he just tried to get rid of me. It happened in the heat of the game. We have to leave what happens on the pitch and move on. Mourinho made headlines with his ‘Special One’ speech when he arrived at Chelsea. As someone who already knew him from Porto, what did you think when you heard him say that? Chukwuma Akachi, Lagos If you’re asking me if I was surprised, probably not. It was a big statement to make, of course, but that was Jose. I’d been at Porto since I was 16, and that was the mentality loud and clear. I was used to hearing things like that. It was an important message for us at the time. That’s the spirit we brought to Chelsea from day one. Chelsea only conceded 15 goals in your ﬁrst season, which was insane. How did that happen? Vlasis Magalos, via Instagram Fortunately, I hit the ground running. We won the Premier League in our ﬁrst season, at a time when Arsenal and Manchester United had dominated. It was a dream come true to win a title that the club hadn’t lifted in 50 years – it felt spectacular, as it was the start of a new era for a team that has since earned the respect of everybody. We weren’t paying much attention to the statistics, though. We were just a team that defended very well – without the

ball, everyone tracked back and made sacriﬁces. It made our job in defence easier, so it was actually a team effort. What was it like to have John Terry as a partner, and why did you work so well together? Luke M, via Instagram There are some things you simply can’t explain. Our connection was something else – if he didn’t clear a ball, he knew

“I HAD MARKED ROONEY VERY CLOSELY AND HE JUST TRIED TO GET RID OF ME – IT WAS ALL IN THE HEAT OF THE GAME”

that I’d cover him and vice-versa. We complemented each other on the ﬁeld. It’s a real privilege in football to be able to play next to a guy you fully trust, so I have to be really thankful for that. We clicked straight away – he went above and beyond to help me adapt to the English game. John was a tremendous defender, a true leader and someone whose opinion I valued a lot. How much did you enjoy Chelsea’s Champions League battles against Barcelona? Was that last-16 victory in 2005 a huge moment, when their players lost it at the ﬁnal whistle? Sam Jones, Putney That game was just insane. Within 20 minutes, we were already winning 3-0. If we’d kept playing like that, we would have thrashed them that night. And this was a Barcelona side that included the likes of Ronaldinho, Deco, Xavi and

Carles Puyol. It was unbelievable. But you can’t expect a team like that to sit and watch you play the whole game, so we ended up conceding a penalty after a handball, and then Ronaldinho scored one of the most beautiful goals of his career. In the second half, Terry headed home a corner to make it 4-2 and we went through. What did you think when Mourinho appeared from a laundry basket before the ﬁrst leg of the Champions League quarter-ﬁnal against Bayern Munich in 2005? Max Gallagher, Colliers Wood He was suspended and couldn’t be in the dressing room, so it was a surprise to see him there! But it wasn’t like we spent much time asking around how he’d managed to do it. We had a huge match ahead of us and, speaking for myself, I was focused on what I had to

YOU ASK do on the pitch; who I’d have to mark. It was obviously nice to have him with us, though. Mourinho is like this – he will do everything within his power to win. If he’d sent his message through a coach, we’d have paid just as much attention because we knew it would have come from him. He felt it would have a bigger impact coming directly from himself this time. Was Mourinho the best manager you ever had? If so, why? Erin Hamilton, Surrey No doubt. We spent eight and a half years together and had good and bad moments. He tries to fix things in his own way, and I’m particularly grateful to him for being so straightforward – it’s easy to accept someone like this when you win, but not when you lose. When he spoke in our first few years, no one took it personally, thinking he wanted to put you down or humiliate you in front of the other players. We all accepted and respected him for who he was. We knew that he was being genuine and only wanted to lead us to victories. Understanding this was key for the success we had. Go on, you were there: do you think that Luis Garcia goal crossed the line for Liverpool in the 2005 Champions League semi-finals? Matt Richards, via Twitter [Laughs] There’s no proof that the ball crossed the line. I was there and I can tell you it didn’t! I know it was a really difficult situation to check, but it was tough on us as we could have reached the Champions League final in our first season under Mourinho. Not doing so because of a goal that no one knows actually existed hurt us – it hurt a lot. That’s part of football, though. How difficult were those penalties to watch against Manchester United in the 2008 Champions League Final? How did you feel for Terry after his slip and miss? Rohan Patel, Tooting It was tough. Because that’s your colleague, the guy who played by your side, who had a fantastic relationship with you. The truth is that I felt as if it were me who’d missed the penalty, to be honest. But that doesn’t compare to what he went through – it was really hard on him. I don’t think he deserved that, but football is like this. You watch it and see that the goalkeeper went to the opposite side, so if he hadn’t

10 July 2021 FourFourTwo

Clockwise from above Riccy and Terry “clicked straight away”; Madrid was “the most difﬁcult dressing room”; taking control for Chelsea at the Camp Nou; moving to Monaco was never about the money; “Give us a hand here, Pepe!”; “Would anybody like some laundry doing?”

HIGHS & LOWS HIGH: 2004 Plays 90 minutes in every game as Porto win the Champions League LOW: 2004 Only 39 days later, Greece humble Portugal on home soil in Euros ﬁnal HIGH: 2006 Makes World Cup all-star team, after lifting second title at Chelsea LOW: 2008 Watches defensive pal John Terry slip up in losing Moscow shootout

slipped we would have won the trophy. It was the deciding penalty. The worst situation I went through, though, was when Portugal lost the Euro 2004 Final to Greece at home. We had a brilliant team, with amazing players at the end of their careers who deserved to win it. What sort of atmosphere did you ﬁnd at Real Madrid? Was anything tough about life at the Bernabeu? Eric Rocha, Lisbon It was the most difﬁcult dressing room I’ve ever been in – you see a small thing happen there, then the next day it’s splashed on the front page of all the papers as if it were a big problem. And when you don’t win trophies at giant teams like this, things get even more complicated. Real Madrid are possibly the biggest club in the world, so have this pressure to always be winning titles. When it doesn’t happen, people talk more. The egos were stronger there.

HIGH: 2016 Aged 38, starts all three group games as Portugal win the Euros Is Pepe actually a nice person off the ﬁeld? What happens to him on it?! Edward Slater, via Instagram I think he needs his aggressiveness to be the great player he is. Deep down, we all need this hunger he has on the ﬁeld and then, whether he crosses the line or not, it’s up to everyone to judge. Off the pitch, Pepe’s a quiet guy who doesn’t talk much. On it, he transforms himself because that’s part of who he is – we’re all so focused during games that here and there we can cross the line, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you did it on purpose. Do we really know the real Cristiano Ronaldo? What’s it been like seeing him develop over the years? Vicky McMahon, Sunderland I think people do now, yes. He’s grown a lot over the years and is much more

mature. One thing hasn’t changed, though: his whole life revolves around being successful in anything he does. Cristiano is a perfectionist. He doesn’t demand anything from you that he can’t do himself. People may criticise him and disagree with him, but there’s no question that as a footballer, he’s Portugal’s biggest symbol worldwide – and by his own merit, he has been in that position for many years already. You’ve been a part of many brilliant teams down the years, but who was the best player you ever played with? Not including Ronaldo... Donny McDonald, via Instagram Apart from Cristiano? [Laughs] That’s still difﬁcult for me to say! I’d mention Rui Costa and Luis Figo for Portugal. At Chelsea, the best were Didier Drogba, Michael Essien, Arjen Robben, Frank Lampard and Petr Cech. Frank was one of the most consistent and complete footballers I’ve ever worked with – he always played well for us. At Porto, I’ll go for Deco.

YOU ASK may identify with this – it’s the best thing in the world to win a trophy for your people, a spectacular and strong sensation. But when you lose, it’s the worst feeling in the world – it doesn’t even compare to a club defeat. It takes much longer to heal. At club level, you often have another match in the same week and can quickly forget about it. When I remember 2016, I think about the huge Portuguese community that we have in France; the struggles they face, having had to emigrate in search of a better life. And yet, despite all that, they came to our training ground every day to support us. It made us feel that we could beat France in their stadium, even though they had a brilliant team. Winning the Euros in Paris was the best thing that could have happened to us.

“OFF THE PITCH, PEPE IS A CALM, QUIET GUY. ON IT, HE NEEDS HIS AGGRESSIVENESS TO BE THE TOP PLAYER HE IS” How angry were you when Mourinho declared publicly in 2012 that your career would be over if you stayed at Real Madrid? Could you have gone to QPR as rumoured? Rory Campbell, Uxbridge The truth is that by the end of 2011, I’d been away from the pitch for a few months, so Jose spoke to me and said that I wasn’t a player to be left on the bench. I was contacted by some clubs, including QPR, who had signed Jose Bosingwa and were trying to convince me to join. I’ve always been a man of ﬁxed ideas, though. At the time I didn’t

feel it was right to leave Madrid, nor the moment to return to England, despite having a connection with the Premier League. I wanted my name to remain associated with Chelsea. I’d spent six years there, so didn’t want to play for any other team in England. I was 34 and approaching the end of my career, so ended up staying with Real Madrid for one more season. How did you find your three seasons at Monaco? Some people criticised players who went there, saying that they only went for financial reasons. Rob Poole, Dover My contract at Real Madrid had expired and I had a few options on the table, including from the Middle East. I still thought I was capable of playing at the highest level, so I opted for the French league. If it were for financial reasons, I honestly wouldn’t have gone because I could have made much more money in the Middle East. I basically signed for Monaco because I wanted to continue playing in a competitive league.

Was it obvious Kylian Mbappe was going to be a star when you played with him in his first Ligue 1 season? Jamie Henry, Ammanford He’s a five-star person. The best thing about football is when you meet kids like him who become idols for a bunch of people, and then you realise that he hasn’t changed a bit from that boy you knew. This is Mbappe. It was incredible to see a talent like him emerging. We had a good relationship, and recently, when I was Marseille’s assistant coach, we played PSG in the French Super Cup. He came over to our bench to give me a hug. At Monaco, everything we spoke about had the sole purpose of helping him improve. When you’re starting out and have the traits he had, you can be more individualistic than you should, so it was important for him to improve his decision-making. He always wanted to do more, and felt that he could, but it’s crucial to find balance for the team. That was how he reached this level. Who was the most difficult forward you played against? @progkafa, via Twitter If we consider that Cristiano and Lionel Messi aren’t centre-forwards, the guy I found hardest to mark was Drogba. I hadn’t heard of him when Porto took on Marseille in the Champions League [in 2003-04] and was so impressed the first time we met – he was really strong and fast. He went on to reach the UEFA Cup final that season, before we both signed for Chelsea. At 38, you played a part in Portugal’s Euro 2016 glory. What was that like? Brian MacGrath, Dublin If I’d ended my career before that, I’d have felt like something was missing – that I should have done a bit more for my nation. Other international players

You moved into coaching soon after that, and joined Andre Villas-Boas as his assistant at two different clubs. How have you found it so far? Martin Owen, Doncaster I was so happy after winning the Euros that I considered retiring from football. [Laughs] Luckily, I’m a guy who gives it some thought before making a huge decision like that! I spoke about it with Portuguese FA director Tiago Craveiro, who told me to calm down and think it through. I was almost 100 per cent convinced that I wanted to hang up my boots, but I kept receiving offers from everywhere, making the whole thing even more difficult. Ultimately, Andre Villas-Boas invited me to work with him in China. It was a great experience for my family and we all enjoyed living in Shanghai, while I could also prepare myself to retire because I didn’t play much. There were only three slots for foreigners and they were usually taken by the likes of Hulk and Oscar. In the end, I spent most of my time helping Villas-Boas at training, especially with the defence. About the same time, my wife got pregnant, I was nearly 40 and I decided that was it for me. I spoke to [former team-mate] Tiago, who said I should take the coaching course that he was doing – perhaps we could see if we liked it or not. The UEFA B licence would allow us to coach kids in youth football, but we went on to complete classes for the A licence as well. In the meantime, Andre joined Marseille and asked me to be part of his staff. Having been at Monaco, I was already familiar with Ligue 1 and found it an interesting challenge. We did very well in the first season, finishing second and guiding the team to the Champions League. It was a great campaign. Now I’m able to see things from another perspective, a coach’s perspective, which changes things quite a lot. It’s not an easy job!

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WEIRD WORLD OF FOOTBALL

MEAnWHILE In… ...Portugal, when AVB said he was rallying around his country ahead of Euro 2020, he meant it very literally

“I’M OVER HERE, DANIEL!”

Harry Redknapp was known for hanging out of car windows during his time at Tottenham – and another ex-Spurs boss has taken it even further. Andre Villas-Boas hung out of a car door recently to celebrate his result at the Rally de Portugal, on his World Rally Championship debut. The 43-year-old

12 July 2021 FourFourTwo

has long been a motorsport enthusiast – during his Chelsea days, he expressed a dream to emulate his uncle by competing in the Dakar Rally. Villas-Boas fulﬁlled that ambition in 2018, after leaving Shanghai SIPG. He later moved to Marseille, but left in March after criticising the decision to sign Olivier Ntcham without his agreement. AVB was at the wheel in a different sense on his rally return, and

ﬁnished a respectable 32nd out of 44 in Portugal, as the third-highest Portuguese driver. With the Spurs job vacant, sadly it wasn’t enough to grab the attention of Daniel Levy, who instead preferred to approach every manager in Europe, Bobby Davro, Shirley Bassey and the whale that swam up the Thames before even contemplating giving Villas-Boas another go.

UPFROnT

“ARE YOU FEELING THIRSTY, LUIS?”

LAAAAMPIONS...”

Argentine side Colon won their first ever top-flight title when they lifted the Copa de la Liga Profesional in early June – and their captain was given quite the reward. Luis Miguel Rodriguez is only 5ft 4in tall, the same height as Italy’s diddy man Lorenzo Insigne, but was handed nearly his own body weight in beer after victory – Independiente were eliminated in the semi; Colon overcame Racing 3-0 in the final. Their veteran star rendered almost literally pint-sized by his prize, things didn’t end well – the glass collapsed to the floor on live TV, sparking brief fears that Rodriguez might be swept away in some sort of lager river.

You’ve all heard of the Champions League – now it’s time to introduce you to the Lampions League. That’s the nickname for Brazil’s Copa do Nordeste, a competition for clubs in the country’s north east, which has gained its moniker in honour of a popular 1920s bandit leader called Lampiao. Beer brand Brahma have got involved, putting a billboard near Stamford Bridge to challenge the Champions League winners to jet to Brazil and face the ﬁnest from the Lampions League. They even got ex-Bahia boss Joel Santana to don lederhosen and join the campaign. Apparently, he’s the Brazilian version of Harry Redknapp – he sounds like a top, top fella.

COLOMBIA: THE LAND OF THE TIGER

BOOKED FOR DIVING

Colombia were stripped of their Copa America hosting rights after it was deemed unsafe to stage games even behind closed doors – two weeks later, they were somehow facing Argentina in a World Cup qualiﬁer, with people pretending to be tigers in the stands. Fancy-dressed fans turned up for the match in Barranquilla after a 10,000 crowd was allowed in, even though widespread civil unrest in the country had prompted CONMEBOL to relocate this summer’s Copa America. Inevitable trouble ensued outside the stadium, as locals clashed with police – things probably would have been less chaotic if there’d been an actual tiger on the loose.

A parachutist got more than he bargained for when he landed on the pitch during a Polish lower league ﬁxture – within seconds, he’d been shown a yellow card by the referee. The ofﬁcial’s disgruntlement was understandable – he was busy enough keeping order between Olimpia Elblag and Pisa Primavera Barczewo before a birdman threw a giant curveball into proceedings – but we’re not sure he fully thought the punishment through. By issuing a yellow, not only was he allowing the parachutist to stay on the pitch, but the intruder would escape a red unless there was another offence prior to full-time – unlikely, given that it involved heading back to the airport, getting in another plane and skydiving from 10,000 feet again.

BUNCH OF COWBOYS

SADNESS IN HIS EYES

July will mark the return of the westernmost club ever to play in European competition – and this time they’re dressed as cows. Santa Clara are based in the Azores, nearly 1,000 miles west of Lisbon, and will compete in Europe for the second time after an Intertoto Cup foray in 2002. The Ponta Delgada side ﬁnished sixth in the Primeira Liga to qualify for the Europa Conference League, and could set a new record for the furthest distance ever travelled for a European match if they face Kazakh opposition. The club’s manager and president had vowed to dress up as cows if they qualiﬁed (because why not?), and duly kept their promise. We guess you can call it bovine inspiration.

Only London is hosting more matches at Euro 2020 than Saint Petersburg – but the local cats don’t appear to be particularly happy about that fact. To mark the city’s seven ﬁxtures, the Mitki art group put together a massive painting of a feline, sporting the ’tache and weary eyes of Russia manager Stanislav Cherchesov, who seemed fed up of football even when his team reached the World Cup quarter-ﬁnals against expectations three years ago. His predecessor Leonid Slutsky was marginally more cheerful, although his playing career was famously curtailed after falling while trying to rescue a cat from a tree – an incident still less weird than that time he managed Hull for about three minutes.

“YOU CAN CALL ME DR DROGBA NOW”

“TAXI FOR RUGGERI!”

Didier Drogba was the star of the show when Chelsea won the Champions League in 2012 – this time around, he celebrated by donning a mortar board and heading to university. A week after his former club lifted the trophy once more, the 43-year-old was invited to receive an honorary degree in Abidjan, in recognition of his charity work and his contributions to restoring peace in Ivory Coast. It’s unknown whether John Terry also turned up for the event in full university gown beneath a tracksuit, attempting to accept the award on the talisman’s behalf despite playing absolutely no role in earning it. Well, it wouldn’t be the ﬁrst time...

Enrico Ruggeri was already one of Italy’s most famous singers – but now he’s also the oldest player ever to feature in Serie D. Ruggeri competed at Eurovision in 1993 and has been a regular in charity matches over the years, featuring in the annual Partita Del Cuore ﬁxture in September. Recently, the Inter fan signed for Serie D side Sona, linking up with former Brazil full-back Maicon. Ruggeri would only play once the club were safe from relegation, and his moment came a day after his 64th birthday in June. The singer started upfront against Tritium, but lasted just nine minutes before being substituted – longer than Maicon should have done against Gareth Bale in the Champions League, to be fair.

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GAMES THAT CHAnGED MY LIFE FABRIZIO RAVAnELLI 14 July 2021 FourFourTwo

RUSH GOALIE Kyrgyzstan ﬁelded a forward in goal for a World Cup qualiﬁer against Myanmar, after all three keepers had to self-isolate. They still won 8-1

UPFROnT Italy 4 Estonia 1

March 25, 1995 European Championship qualifier “Every footballer who works hard wants to wear the national shirt. I scored on my debut against Estonia, which was really important for me – when you play for your country, it’s a huge responsibility and I didn’t want to lose my chance. Arrigo Sacchi was one of the finest managers I ever had. He always tried to help, showing me good movements to help the midfield and defence. He demanded so much from forwards – if you wouldn’t run, it was impossible to play for him. Sacchi wanted you to pressure teams, and that was one of my greatest qualities. He loved that about me.”

Juventus 4 Parma 0 May 21, 1995 Serie A

“Juventus hadn’t won the Serie A title since 1985-86. Four days before the Parma game, we’d lost the UEFA Cup final to them. There was a lot of disappointment, but now we could win the league. Thankfully, I scored twice and we won 4-0. It was a fantastic day for me, because it was the first trophy I’d won as a key player – I scored 30 goals that season. When I joined Juve, I was young and had been playing in Serie B. I worked so hard every day, and there was a lot of competition in training just to earn your place. When my moment finally arrived, I was ready.”

Ajax 1 Juventus 1 (2-4 pens) May 22, 1996 Champions League ﬁnal

“The best moment in my career. Juve had only won the European Cup once before, but many lives were lost at Heysel that day [in 1985] so it felt like it didn’t count. There was pressure on us, but we all wanted to win – Alex Ferguson said the team had tiger eyes because our mentality was very strong. In 1996, Ajax were Europe’s best team: they’d beaten Milan to win the ﬁnal a year earlier. They ran and ran under Louis van Gaal, but in our hearts we were ready. Scoring in that game was a dream; you feel like the king in that moment. I put every ounce of energy into lifting the cup [left] and it was the greatest souvenir of my life.”

Middlesbrough 3 Liverpool 3 August 17, 1996 Premier League

“Before Euro 96, I didn’t know too much about English football – but after one or two matches, I understood that it was a fantastic place to play. The fans created a great atmosphere and wanted to help the players. I prepared well for my ﬁrst game against Liverpool – at the time, I was one of Europe’s best forwards and people were interested to see how I’d do abroad with a smaller team like Middlesbrough. I got a hat-trick! After the ﬁrst goal, a penalty, I was emotional – my heart was beating so fast because I really didn’t want to miss it. My father was in Perugia, getting updates in his swimming pool, and cried when he realised I’d scored three goals. When I watched the game back on television, I saw the Boro fans put their shirts over their heads just like me!” Sean Cole

REGGAE BOYZ 2.0 Jamaica have raided England for a Gold Cup recruitment drive It’s 23 years since a glut of Premier League stars helped Jamaica shine at their first World Cup finals – now the Caribbean nation are hoping for a repeat. Robbie Earle, Frank Sinclair and Deon Burton were among seven England-born players in their squad at France 98, having largely been recruited during qualification. Another World Cup has eluded Jamaica – they reached their first ever CONCACAF Gold Cup final in 2015, but then endured their worst World Cup campaign since the pre-1998 days, finishing bottom in the penultimate group of qualifying after a home defeat to Haiti. Ex-Hull, Livingston and Tranmere midfielder Theodore Whitmore - the Jamaica-born scorer of both goals in the Reggae Boyz’s 1998 World Cup win over Japan – was soon reinstated for a second spell as boss, initially using local stars. There were no England-based players in their 2017 Gold Cup party, and things looked on the up when they sunk Mexico to reach the final. Their CONCACAF Nations League campaign went... less well. After defeat to El Salvador, it was decided that another English recruitment drive was in order for 2022 World Cup efforts. Fulham’s Bobby Decordova-Reid arrived in 2019, joining club-mate Michael Hector and Bristol City’s Adrian Mariappa; both had been involved for some time but didn’t feature at the 2017 Gold Cup. Ravel Morrison debuted in

November alongside Aberdeen’s Greg Leigh, while eight more England-born players – Andre Gray, Ethan Pinnock, Jamal Lowe, Liam Moore, Kasey Palmer, Amari’i Bell, Wes Harding and Curtis Tilt – earned their first call-ups in March. Ostersund’s Bromley-born wideman Blair Turgott and QPR’s Dillon Barnes also signed on for the June friendlies in Japan, as a bolstered Jamaica prepared for this summer’s Gold Cup, which takes place in the USA from July 10. That could mean a late return to pre-season for the Reggae Boyz’s English contingent, and also a busy schedule in 2021-22 as they bid to reach the World Cup. Jamaica will play some 14 qualifiers between September and March – including three in January, which isn’t usually a FIFA international date. An eight-team group will compete for three automatic World Cup places – Mexico and the USA are favourites to take two of them, with Honduras and Costa Rica also firm contenders. The talent search is continuing apace, too. Among those name-checked as targets by the Jamaica FA are Michail Antonio, Demarai Gray, Nathan Redmond, Isaac Hayden, Kemar Roofe, Mason Holgate and Ivan Toney, although the latter recently told FFT of his England dreams. Even without those players, Jamaica’s push has already given them a chance. At Qatar 2022, the Reggae Boyz could be back in town. Chris Flanagan

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ASK A SILLY QUESTIOn

WARREn ‘HAVE A nICE DAY’ BARTOn The ex-Magpie berates John Beresford, rues razor blades and explains his favourite Americanisms Interview Nick Moore Illustration Bill McConkey

Hi Warren. You’re living in California these days – how’s it going? I’m all right thanks, although I’ve just got a puncture, which isn’t ideal. Are you on your bike? No chance of that! I’m driving around LA. I think I’ve gone over a razor blade. Bad luck. Now, on Wikipedia it states that “during his time at Newcastle, John Beresford formed a formidable partnership with his doppelganger, Warren Barton.” Would you say you are John Beresford’s doppelganger? Reluctantly! All I’ll say is I’m a natural blond and there’s about six inches in it, too. If he’s dying his hair, isn’t he my doppelganger? He’s older than me and has an MBE, though. So who knows? We asked him and he said, “I’ve been called a lot worse, and if you’ve seen Warren Barton’s missus, you’d take it as a compliment.” He’s 100 per cent correct. To be called his doppelganger, I’m gutted and he’s delighted. He’s doing cartwheels being compared to me. We also asked John about the many fashion crimes you both committed during the 1990s. Do you feel shame? Hang on. Beresford and Barry Venison… knock yourself out. They had some bad gear, but I pride myself on my clothes. You’re clutching at straws. John went to Baby Gap; I shopped at Savile Row. Consider the record set straight! It’s a funny word, doppelganger. What’s your favourite word? I use ‘bloody’ a lot. In America, people think you’re James Bond, saying bloody this and that. They think you’re royalty. When FFT visited America, everyone kept asking us if we knew the Queen. It’s nuts! Americans will say, “I went to Manchester once and met a guy called Paul – you know him?” I always pretend that I do. “Oh yes. A lovely guy, Paul...”

“THE WORST PLACE? I WOn’T BE RUSHInG BACK TO UKRAInE. BUT LET’S SAY SUnDERLAnD!”

You used to work in the mailroom of an accountancy firm. Can we put the ‘mailroom’ in brackets and say a renowned accountancy firm? No. What’s the key to being great in the mailroom? Did you use a trolley? Deliver on time and to the right person. I had a red trolley with chrome wheels and delivered like I played – bombing up and down the wings like a fiddler’s elbow. I got the job done. I’m still good at sealing and stamping – no problem. You don’t need the Royal Mail! Do you prefer a miserable but honest postman, or a cheerful but false one? I like the whole ‘have a nice day’ thing. I like people saying it. I’d rather have someone in Starbucks who smiles and doesn’t mean it, than the grunt you get in England. They still expect a tip, too! Terrible. Have you adopted any crazy Americanisms? Do you yell, “You got this!” or stuff about smashing goals? I do like ‘the bike’ for an overhead kick. I don’t call the goal ‘the cage’ or the posts ‘the pipes’, though. And they call a No.6 ‘a quarterback’... Urgh. You have a travel agency – can you advise us on some holiday gems? I’m a bit of a Judith Chalmers, yes. I’d recommend Venice, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. And there’s a breathtaking place called Jackson Hole in Wyoming. And the worst place on earth? I won’t be rushing back to Ukraine, but let’s say Sunderland! Even if the sun is out... not great. Oof. Which football manager would you most like to have as your dentist? It’s got to be Jurgen Klopp. Look at his teeth! Pearly white. And he’s a top guy. You’d trust him completely. Finally, as you live in Los Angeles: if you could join the Crips or the Bloods, which would you go for? Neither, as I wouldn’t suit the bandana. Maybe that’s one for Beresford? No doubt! Thanks for chatting! Cheers. Warren is a guardian of the 1892 Pledge scheme, encouraging Newcastle fans to raise money and eventually own part of the club. For details, see nufctrust.co.uk

viSiT THE HOME OF THE FOOTBALL QUIZ

UPFROnT

THE UL

fourfourtwo.com/quiz

Roll up, roll up for posers on rejected trialists, Football League newbies and curious international call-ups...

01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09

Zinedine Zidane has left his role as Real Madrid boss for a second time – how many European Cups did he claim in charge of Los Blancos?

Manchester City winger Riyad Mahrez spent a month on trial at which Scottish First Division outﬁt in 2009?

11 12 13

Since 2009-10, only once has the Europa League been won by a club from outside England or Spain. Who was it?

Former Rangers favourite Gennaro Gattuso will manage which Serie A club in the 2021-22 season?

Which country won the women’s football tournament at the 2012 London Olympics, beating Japan in the gold medal match?

Which highly-rated midﬁelder led the Championship’s assist charts with 16 across 2020-21? Which Russian city will roll out its red carpet when hosting the 2022 Champions League Final?

2016 France 2012 2008 Germany 2004 2000 Italy 1996 1992 Germany 1988

In which year did Colombian goalkeeper Rene Higuita pull off his iconic scorpion kick against England at Wembley? Only three players netted goals for England at Euro 96. Can you tell us the names of those Three Lions sharp-shooters? Lille’s manager announced his departure from Les Dogues two days after they won the Ligue 1 title. Which gaffer was it?

The stadium below will stage second-tier football next term, after its team ﬁnished bottom with just 16 points. Who play there?

Can you ﬁll in the four missing losing ﬁnalists from the last eight European Championships below?

14 15 16 17 18

Blackburn forward Ben Brereton bagged a surprise international call-up for which nation in May? At which edition of the Euros did Ireland’s Ray Houghton score his famous goal to defeat England? Which National League winners will be making their debut in the Football League next season?

Robert Lewandowski broke Gerd Muller’s 49-year-old Bundesliga goal record in 2021 after hitting how many for Bayern Munich?

The four players above all signed for Premier League sides 20 years ago this summer. Can you name them?

Bayern have swooped to recruit English left-back Omar Richards from which Championship side?

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MAGNA WHAT NOW? Ex-Bristol City defender Bradley Orr has been ﬁned for a lockdown breach – he claimed he could keep his soft play centre open because of the Magna Carta

UPFROnT

REQUIRED READInG RAnDOM CLUB PROFILE

CLERMONT FOOT

Les Lanciers twice had a female boss – now they’re in Ligue 1 for the first time Clermont Foot have reached France’s top flight for the first time, and their historic season began appropriately – with a knight in shorts, riding a horse into the city. The club are nicknamed the Lancers – they’re based in the city of Clermont-Ferrand in the Massif Central mountain range, famous for the Battle of Gergovia when Julius Caesar was defeated by Vercingetorix and his rowdy locals in 52 BC. Vercingetorix may have later been imprisoned in Rome and beheaded, but he’s a folk hero in Clermont-Ferrand. As well as being one of the inspirations for comic book icon Asterix, he was the man Clermont Foot had in mind when they unveiled a new mascot for 2020-21, named Torix. The club had been in Ligue 2 since 2007 but struggled to progress further, prompting a change of strategy in 2014. Helena Costa became the first female to manage in the top two tiers of a men’s European league... or would have been, if she hadn’t resigned before the campaign even started. The Portuguese former manager of the Qatar and Iraq women’s national teams (right) quit within a month after being unveiled, upset that signings had been made and friendlies arranged without her knowledge, and believing she was being used as the face of the club. “She’s a woman,” bemoaned tactful club president, Claude Michy. “They are capable of leading us to believe in certain things and then… she simply said, ‘I’m going’. Was she scared? I don’t know. We couldn’t make her change her mind. I am not the first man to be deserted by a woman.” So naturally, he swiftly appointed another female boss: Corinne Diacre, ex-assistant coach of the French women’s team. Diacre helped the club finish seventh in 2015-16, but left after her third season to boss the female national side.

Under Pascal Gastien, Clermont Foot climbed up to ﬁfth by 2019-20, then pushed for promotion in 2020-21. That threatened to be derailed when 29 members of the club, including 15 players, tested positive for COVID in March, and they took only one point from three games after a brief break from action. But four straight wins helped them defy a relatively small budget and secure second place, earning a spot in Ligue 1 for the ﬁrst time in their 110-year history. It’s surely one of the region’s greatest triumphs since the Battle of Gergovia – let’s just hope their historic campaign doesn’t end with Torix being carted off to Rome.

THE AWAY LEG

Steve Menary, James Montague (Pitch, £12.99) ●●●●● With varied locations from the spartan stadia of Georgia to the chaotic Libertadores final between Boca and River Plate, The Away Leg does a fine job of showcasing the bewildering diversity and edginess of global football during the pre-pandemic era. Its travelogue chapters, with 11 tales from around the world, are often poignant, amusing or downright alarming. Played in an almost-deserted arena that once hosted 70,000 during the Cold War era, the Tbilisi derby is a world away from the glamour of the Premier League. France 98’s infamous Iran vs USA clash crackled with political tension, but TV coverage failed to reflect the anti-Khamenei protests by Iranians – perhaps an attempt by western channels to diffuse the simmering tension between both countries. There’s also the curious tale of Lebanon’s national team, sent to the jarringly unfamiliar climes of North Korea in 2017 for an Olympic qualifying match, and adapting to close monitoring by authorities during their visit to Pyongyang. This is a fascinating and well-written globe-trot. Jon Spurling

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STEVE LAMACQ

GO AWAY Alexander Sorloth asked Trabzonspor fans to leave him alone, after receiving millions of Instagram messages urging him to re-sign What do you like most about going to a match? Very much how I’ve always promoted less-fashionable underdog bands, I think my whole ideology suited the U’s. There was something glorious about walking a mile to a bus stop in Earls Colne, going to Layer Road and doing it all in reverse after a 0-0 draw in the Fourth Division. I just love lower-league football, because there’s a similar feeling to an intimate gig. If you go to something at the O2, you’re one tiny voice in a massive crowd of thousands. But if you see a band at a tiny venue with 200 people, you’re much more valuable to the creators in front of you. You really feel like you’re participating in the event. You certainly got that at Colchester. When I started, we were barely getting 2,000 crowds. I’ve always enjoyed that low-rentness.

STEVE LAMACQ COLCHEST ER

The legendary radio DJ remembers Bovril in china cups, punk night pals, ballads for awful left-backs... and the time Gordon Strachan put him in hospital So… why Colchester United? I grew up in a family where no one followed football, so there was no pressure on me. When I was seven, I fell into supporting Arsenal because I liked Charlie George. But then punk rock happened and I fell out of love with the game for a while – the former took over all my spare time and changed everything. When I turned 17, though, I came back to football. Colchester was a short bus ride away and the nearest Football League club to where I was from.

for yourself!” He looked dead straight at me and gave a single-ﬁnger salute.

What was the first match that you ever attended? The first one I have memory of was a Friday night game against Mansfield in late 1982; Roy McDonough – Red Card Roy – was upfront for us. It was a horrible, rubbish match on an awful pitch, and Roy scuffed a shot before falling over in the mud. As he picked himself up, I yelled, “Go on Roy, you’ve still got five minutes – make a name

Who was your childhood hero, and did you ever meet them? The only childhood one I had was from the Arsenal days. But was George my favourite player? Oh no, I went for the unfashionable John Radford [above] – a stocky, Yorkshire striker. Years later, I became sports editor of the Harlow and Bishop’s Stortford Gazette at 21, and blow me: Radford was appointed manager of Bishop’s Stortford. I had to

20 July 2021 FourFourTwo

call him up quite regularly and he was the most dour bastard. Man, it was such hard work. What was your greatest moment as a player? I played six-a-side at the Phoenix Festival, which ran for a few years in the ’90s as an offshoot of Reading. I was in goal for Radio 1’s team, which was all right, but Loaded magazine turned up with some ringers – Craig Johnston played for them. It was near half-time in our game when Gordon Strachan smacked this shot which hit my ear and ﬁzzed over. Unfortunately, while I was falling backwards, I landed awkwardly on my wrist. Hours later the pain had become very evident and I had to visit the Red Cross tent, where I was shoved into an ambulance. Then I had to scurry back and watch The Charlatans headline the festival. Strachan did say to me at the end, though, “Some good saves there, goalie…” I was delighted.

Who from your club’s past would you bring back for the current side? I have a real fondness for Peter Cawley, who epitomised football in the lower divisions. He was such a big presence in our defence and one of those players you had absolute faith in – he’d never shirk a challenge. I’ve got a picture of me and him at Fulham, which is part of a Colchester shrine around my desk: he looks 9ft tall and I look like a child in my giant Blur Modern Life Is Rubbish T-shirt. Bizarrely, years ago I got a taxi home from a gig and started talking to the driver about the music we’d grown up with. It was only when I got out and paid him that I realised it was Cawley! Where’s the best place you’ve ever watched a game? This is weird, sorry... When I was at the Harlow Gazette, my editor sent me to cover a Hertfordshire Senior Cup game between Bishop’s Stortford and Hitchin. I wasn’t happy, as I’d planned to go to a gig, but he said with a wry smile, “Do you know the one fact about Hitchin Town? It’s the only place where they serve you Bovril in a china cup.” Sure enough, they had this tiny shed where they served it in these little old chipped china cups. It was fantastic. Where’s the strangest place you’ve ever met a player or manager? One of my favourite players from the noughties was Joe Keith. I ran a punk rock karaoke night in Islington, where you could go up and sing with a band and then I’d DJ for a couple of hours. I’d get requests, and felt a tap on the shoulder just as I was cueing a record... awful timing. As I turned around with a moody face… Joey Keith! A friend of mine said to him, “He’s got a photo of you on his wall!” How embarrassing.

UPFROnT

Who’s the worst player you’ve seen? He’s probably not the worst, but I feel sorry for Paul Tierney [above], who was a Manchester United trainee and joined us on loan in 2004. In a sea of average he was slightly worse than that, and there’s a song about him. It’s actually quite a nice tribute called The Ballad of Paul Tierney by Lonely Tourist. What’s the most important piece of memorabilia that you have or wish you still had? When Colchester were leaving Layer Road in 2008, there was a tea hut in its second iteration with the club crest on it. I really wanted it, to the point where I asked my dad, “I haven’t got room for it yet, but if I buy this, can I keep it at the bottom of the garden?” He said yes; my mum said no. So I never did get it. Which footballers have you met with a good taste in music? Paul Abrahams, whose goal helped us to reach the 1997 Auto Windscreens Shield Final. In the ’90s, I persuaded Radio 1 to do a show from Colchester Arts Centre – we got Ash to headline. But about four or ﬁve players turned up as well, and Abes was one of those. He’s always had sound musical taste. If you could drop yourself into your all-time ﬁve-a-side team, who would you be playing alongside? Mike Walker (the only goalkeeper I’ve seen claim a cross with one hand); the long-serving Tom Eastman in defence; Mark Kinsella, who’d earn us an extra 10-15 points per season making things happen; then Jamie Cureton upfront, who was part of that great front two with Chris Iwelumo. [FFT: And he’s still playing at 45…] Is he? That’s brilliant. Joe Brewin Steve Lamacq hosts his radio show on BBC 6 Music every weekday from 4pm, and edits going-deaf-for-a-living.com

CRAIOVA vs CRAIOVA After an ugly divorce, two bitter rivals are set to face off in Romania Followers of Romania’s top flight are preparing themselves for a season of confusion in 2021-22 – thanks to two teams called Universitatea Craiova. The clubs will meet in the top tier for the first time, after a decade of bitterness. Universitatea reached the quarter-finals of the European Cup in 1982, but they were relegated in 2011 and swiftly removed from the Romanian league structure after a dispute between their owner Adrian Mititelu and the FA. Eventually winning a legal challenge against their expulsion, FC Universitatea joined the second division in 2013 – in the meantime, the FA had also awarded a place in the second tier to a brand new club, CS Universitatea Craiova. The new team got promoted, while FC Universitatea were relegated and went bust. The new CS Universitatea have remained in the top flight ever since, and finished third in 2020-21. In 2017, Mititelu launched another club – officially called FC U Craiova 1948, but with the word ‘Universitatea’ prominently displayed on its crest. Arguments ensued about which club are actually the rightful owners of Craiova’s footballing heritage – some even said FC U should stop playing the old Universitatea club anthem, because it was “making people confused”. Having guided FC U from the fourth tier, Mititelu was jailed in 2020, but his son took charge of running the club and promotion to the top flight was sealed recently – setting up a vitriolic head-to-head with CS Universitatea in 2021-22. FC U weren’t actually allowed to play in Craiova before the start of the year, but they’ve now moved into the Stadionul Ion Oblemenco, alongside CS

Universitatea. FC have also appointed ex-Chelsea frontman Adrian Mutu (above, centre) as their new manager, and are ready to spend in a bid to climb above their rivals. “I know many things about this competition, and I want it to be intense,” Mutu told FFT at his unveiling. “I hope there won’t be any conflict between the fans, I’m totally against violence, but I really feel we can compete.” There have already been some incidents between supporters – CS Universitatea won the Romanian Cup while FC U fans were celebrating promotion, and things weren’t particularly friendly. “The city is ours, even though we haven’t played in the top tier for quite some time,” FC U ultras leader Andrei tells FFT. “You will see that in the stadium. People know who the real Universitatea Craiova is.” Like many of the big names from Craiova’s history pre-conflict, former player and coach Sorin Cartu is backing CS Universitatea – he’s now their president. “I’m not interested in the other club,” he huffed. “They can have a bigger budget. What they’re doing is a cheap mockery.” A similar rivalry has emerged in Bulgaria recently. In 2020-21, CSKA Sofia finished third in the top tier, two places above CSKA 1948. Romania could have twice the confusion next year – there’s also a battle over the heritage of Steaua Bucharest between perennial title challengers FCSB and CSA Steaua, who are about to begin life in the second tier after rising from the fourth division. For now, though, the Romanian top flight’s biggest grudge match will be in Craiova. And it means war... Emanuel Rosu

FourFourTwo July 2021 21

UPFROnT

 France went to the 2002 World Cup with that campaign’s top scorer in the Premier League (Thierry Henry), Serie A (David Trezeguet) and Ligue 1 (Djibril Cissé), but were knocked out at the group stage without netting a goal.  Unai Emery’s grandad, goalkeeper Antonio Emery, conceded the ﬁrst goal in La Liga history, back in 1928.  Between them, Gianluigi Buffon, Peter Shilton and Stanley Matthews have made at least one appearance in every season since 1931-32.

 The 1980 Copa del Rey Final was between Real Madrid and Real Madrid Castilla, held at Real Madrid’s Santiago Bernabeu. Real Madrid triumphed 6-1.  Hertha Berlin’s reserve team have reached the final of the German Cup more recently than their first team – Hertha BSC Amateure lost to Bayer Leverkusen in the 1993 showpiece.  Manchester United haven’t tasted defeat in a home league match when leading at half-time since 1984.  Norway are the only international side to have played Brazil more than once and not been beaten.  Don Revie is still the last permanent England boss to have won the English league championship.  England made no substitutions in their Euro 96 semi-final against Germany – it has never happened in the 25 years since then.

22 July 2021 FourFourTwo

We asked our Twitter and Facebook followers to tell us their favourite hard-to-believe football facts – here are some of the best

 The windscreen wiper was invented by a Newcastle fan – he’d kept having to clear snow off his car during the drive back from the Magpies’ 1908 FA Cup Final loss to Wolves.  Dejan Stankovic featured in three World Cups for countries with three different names: Yugoslavia, Serbia & Montenegro, and Serbia.  Frank Lampard has had the most shots at World Cup ﬁnals since 1966 without actually scoring a goal. The

England man’s effort famously crossed the line against Germany in 2010 (below), but it wasn’t given.

 John Collins was the ﬁrst player to score a goal in a competitive professional match while wearing Adidas Predators, for Celtic against Rangers in 1994.  Manchester City became the only reigning English league champions to be relegated in 1937-38 – despite being the top scorers that season, notching 80 goals and conceding 77.

 Brighton are the only club to have won the Charity Shield without ever winning the league title or FA Cup. The Seagulls were invited to take part as Southern League champions in 1910, sinking Football League conquerors Aston Villa 1-0 at Stamford Bridge.  USA were the first team to win a World Cup match, beating Belgium 3-0 in 1930 – although France share the record after overcoming Mexico 4-1 in a fixture that took place at exactly the same time.  Barbados intentionally scored an own goal to secure qualification for the 1994 Caribbean Cup. In the final game, they needed to defeat Grenada by two clear goals to progress from their group on goal difference. Rules decreed that drawn matches went to extra time, where a golden goal was bizarrely worth two goals – Barbados led 2-1 with three minutes left and were struggling to score a third, so netted an own goal, then defended both ends to ensure the tie finished 2-2. In extra time, they bagged the golden goal (at the right end), giving them a 4-2 victory. Follow FFT on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram for more content like this

41 enuJ fo sa tcerroc stats llA

 New Zealand were the only unbeaten team at the 2010 World Cup after drawing all three group matches, while Scotland were the solitary outﬁt to go undefeated at the 1974 tournament.

STRAnGE BUT TRUE

 Giuseppe Bergomi played in four World Cups without ever appearing in a single World Cup qualifying match. He broke into the starting line-up for the ﬁrst time at the 1982 tournament, and Italy were holders in 1986, then hosts in 1990, so didn’t have to qualify. The defender made a comeback for the 1998 World Cup.

UPFROnT

LEE CLARK INTERVIEW

The former Huddersﬁeld manager headed south to Sudan for his latest challenge – the biggest issue has been sunburn...

You moved to Africa in March, with Al-Merrikh near Khartoum. What’s it been like so far? As a youngster, my house backed on to the Tyne – I never thought in those days that I’d be living in a hotel looking out on the River Nile. I looked into the club, the country and the potential of what could happen, in terms of taking the club forward. It was a big decision and I’ve been away from my family, but I’ve been loving it. I’ve been living in a hotel, occupying myself planning for the next day and the games ahead, or watching footage of teams we’ll be coming up against. You took over Sudan’s champions, but some said it was a step down. What did you make of that? Around the world, people think their league is the best and the only one that matters. Sudan has got its issues, but the football is still the same and so is the passion. Once COVID is gone, we’ll be getting 43,000 every week. I took over for a few games in the African Champions League, and we’ve got the Arab Club Champions Cup coming up. I don’t take notice of the people who make comments when they don’t really know what’s going on, because Scotland was the perfect example when I took the Kilmarnock job in 2016. People down south turned their noses up at it and said it was a backwards step, but it was fully justified. I went to a fantastic club. During Ramadan, you trained at night, and English also isn’t the squad’s first language. How have you handled the different culture? The players pray before the game and at half-time, but that’s fine – I like to

24 July 2021 FourFourTwo

give the players time to calm down anyway, then I get my point across. During Ramadan we were training at midnight and I was getting back to my room at about 4am. I’ve tried to buy into it – I want to be challenged. The players and people of Sudan are just so polite and respectful. Whatever you ask them to do, they’ll try to do it to the best of their ability. There are a few guys in the squad who speak English, but for the majority it’s Arabic. My sports scientist is Egyptian but has been in America for the past 10 years, so he speaks fantastic English. Also, my analyst has studied in London, so translation isn’t a problem.

What about the African heat – is it tough for a Geordie?! It’s absolutely scorching. It’s the ﬁrst time I’ve coached wearing a cap. I’ve had to – I burned my head in the ﬁrst couple of days! It was in the low-30s at our training camp and the players thought it was cold – they were in full tracksuits and hats, while I was lying on the sunbed next to the pool!

What are your long-term ambitions with Al-Merrikh? I want to continue their success domestically, and build a group of players that can be stronger in the African Champions League. They did well this year in the group stage, but other teams were a bit too powerful. The standard of our league is probably around League One, pushing to the bottom end of the Championship. Another remit is to help players develop to a level where they can go to Europe, have fantastic careers and bring money back into the club in transfer fees. Your last job in the UK was at Blyth Spartans. Do you feel your career in the dugout has been unfairly judged? I just think there’s an unbalanced view. I took over Blackpool at the end of October, and even though they’d already played 14 games, I accepted responsibility for relegation – I didn’t push it on anyone else’s toes. At Bury, I left in October, they were fourth from bottom and I still got the ﬁnger pointed at me for relegation. You can’t have it

HARSH Guatemala are out of World Cup qualifying despite conceding no goals and scoring 14 in four games. They came second in the group to Curacao

THE VIEW FROM THE STAnDS

both ways. People tend to forget about Huddersfield’s 43-game unbeaten run – I also kept Kilmarnock and Bury up from awful positions, and Birmingham in the Championship while reducing the budget by 75 per cent. That’s very rarely talked about, and they forget about the money I made for those clubs in transfer fees. Then I watch other managers who have done similar things and lots of excuses are given. I’m obviously not Mr Popular. At Huddersfield, you had an all-star midfield planned. I took a young Danny Drinkwater on loan from Manchester United. The youth team midfield there was Ravel Morrison, Paul Pogba and Jesse Lingard, and I was trying my best to get the other three lads, but Sir Alex thought they were a bit too young. Morrison later had a successful loan spell with you at Birmingham. What do you make of how his career has actually turned out? It’s one of football’s saddest stories. When I signed him, Sir Alex said he was the best ever player to come out of Manchester United’s academy. It was difficult getting him off the training pitch, and there were times he’d go back and do extra when we had a game the next day. You couldn’t really criticise him, even though you were trying to educate him about keeping his energy levels for the game. He was trying to get better. Ravel’s lifestyle and what happened away from football stopped him being the world-class footballer he had the ability to be. Deep down, there was a fantastic kid there. People ask when the penny is going to drop, and you hope it still might, but we’ve missed out on seeing a really special player. It’s a great example to any youngster: the full package matters. Your 16-year-old son Bobby is now at Newcastle and highly rated. Is he better than his dad? He’s better than I was at the same age. He’s representing England, but it’s a rollercoaster ride for young players. There are going to be some dips along the way and I’ve got to be there as his father. I hope he gets a career – it’s an unbelievable opportunity to do what you love and get paid for it. Chris Sweeney

UPFROnT

Is there an issue you feel strongly about? Contact us: fourfourtwo@futurenet.com FourFourTwoUK FourFourTwo

A DYING ART

What makes a captain in today’s game? Being the best player? Or being the oldest? Maybe it’s the length of time a player has been at a club. Long gone are the days of the galvanising captain who would grab a game by the scruff of the neck or bark orders at his team-mates, a la Roy Keane. Unai Emery once had ﬁve captains at Arsenal, which is funny – because if there was one team who has lacked leadership over the last few years, it’s Arsenal. It’s possible that the decline of the captain goes hand in hand with the rise of head coaches in the game, meaning that players are never unsure what to do or where to be, as they’ll be constantly receiving orders from the touchline. Aside from shaking hands with ofﬁcials and choosing which way to shoot, what does a captain do now? Steven Custons, via email

DYCHE DASTARDLY

If gamesmanship was an art form, then Sean Dyche is Leonardo da Vinci. There aren’t many coaches in world football (none?) who, at 4-0 up against Wolves, would instruct his players to hold the ball in the corner to waste time. Dyche’s Burnley are well drilled, disciplined and hated by everyone who steps foot into the hallowed halls of Turf Moor. They always try to make life as hard as possible for the opposition, and Dyche is a master of his craft. Da Vinci had his Mona Lisa, but Dyche... well, he has Ashley Barnes. Ben Holt, via email

WIN!

STAR LETTER ✱WASTING MY TIME

I hate time-wasting in football – like, truly loathe it. Do I understand why it’s part of football? Absolutely. Does that change my opinion of it being one of the worst aspects of the modern game? Nope, not even slightly. I know that teams waste time for a reason – protecting a lead, playing for a hard-earned draw, or even trying to frustrate the opposition – but it all needs to go. I truly believe that if you cannot win a game by playing hard for the full 90 minutes, then you shouldn’t be on a pitch. I would rather lose fairly than win by cheating. Tom Clapham, via email N’GOLO FOR GLORY

Luka Modric’s Ballon d’Or win of 2018 was seen as a breath of fresh air, breaking the Messi-Ronaldo duopoly. I’d never suggest those two didn’t deserve their domination, but it’s always annoyed me that defensive players don’t get the same credit. Fabio Cannavaro was an outlier in 2006; Matthias Sammer before him.

Ice Pred T-shirt for Star Letter and an A4 print of choice for Spine Line, courtesy of Art of Football

327 SPINE LINE: “‘Portugal 5-3 North Korea’ was the last time a team came from 2-0 down to win a World Cup knockout game in 90 minutes before Belgium in 2018,” says Shaun Weaver. #FFTSpineLine

Wouldn’t it be nice to see a titan like N’Golo Kanté rewarded for another incredible year? He’s transformative in any team he plays for, and now a winner of it all. Vote N’Golo! Karl Blackwell, via email

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GAZZA

50 SHADES OF

There will never be another Paul Gascoigne – that bonkers, brilliant, side-splitting soul adored by generations. But perhaps it’s just as well: only one man could have gotten away with so many trafﬁc accidents, shoot ’em ups, avian scraps and more. FourFourTwo celebrates some of the greatest tales of all... Words Chris Flanagan Additional reporting Ian Murtagh Portrait James Cheadle

GAZZA

1 ELTOn, MEET GAZZA

Paul Gascoigne was destined for stardom from the very beginning. At the age of 17, he helped Newcastle to win the FA Youth Cup in 1985 – a feat they haven’t repeated since. “I played alongside Gazza at every age level from the age of 10 to the ﬁrst team,” Joe Allon tells FFT. “When we won the Youth Cup, I swear he must have laid on every goal for me. He was an ugly duckling of a player at times – he carried a bit of puppy fat, and Jack Charlton had threatened to sack him a few days earlier, saying he was overweight. “But in the ﬁnal, he turned into the most beautiful swan I’ve ever seen. We won 4-1 at Vicarage Road and Watford’s chairman, Elton John, came into our dressing room to congratulate us. Gazza stood up, stark naked in the bath, chanting, ‘Elton, give us a song!’”

2 FIRInG SQUAD

From an early age, Gascoigne became pals with Jimmy Gardner, nicknamed ‘Five Bellies’ by the midﬁelder due to his rotund physique. The pair remained close throughout Gazza’s playing career – Five Bellies would frequently be the fall guy in various pranks, from his Newcastle days onwards. “Jimmy’s mates once got a crossbow from somewhere, and Jimmy put an apple on his head while I tried to hit it,” said Gascoigne. “Then we got hold of an air gun. Jimmy stood about 20 yards away with his pants pulled down and I ﬁred at his bare arse. For each of the pellets I managed to hit him with, I had to pay him £25. His arse ended up looking like the end of a watering can.”

3 JACKSOn’S DRIVE

Gazza had established himself in Newcastle’s first team by the time Peter Jackson signed from Bradford in 1986. “Jacko was given a brand new sponsored car from a Vauxhall dealership – he was the first player to have a company car,” former defender John Anderson tells FFT. “One day, when Gazza was out injured and everybody else was training, he tucked a fish into the underside of the passenger seat. As the fish rotted, the smell got worse, but Peter didn’t know where it was coming from. “The whiff was unbelievable. He kept taking the car back to the garage but they couldn’t find the source until one day, it went for a full valet and they discovered loads of maggots where the fish had been…”

4 “MR WILLIE, I’M F**KInG STARVInG”

Mirandinha was the ﬁrst Brazilian to play in England when he joined Newcastle in 1987, and quickly became mates with Gazza – as well as the victim of several japes.

30 July 2021 FourFourTwo

“GAZZA STOOD UP, nAKED In THE BATH, CHAnTInG, ‘ELTOn, GIVE US A SOnG!’”

“During my first trip with the squad, we were coming back from Norwich and it was normal procedure to stop for fish and chips,” Mirandinha told FFT. “It was taking longer than usual for that to happen, so Gazza told me to go to the manager Willie McFaul and say ‘Mr Willie, I’m f**king starving’. I went to the front of the bus, said exactly those words and everybody burst out laughing.” Gascoigne also duped him into telling the squad that the English word for Wednesday was ‘Wankday’, then borrowed his car and crashed it into a field. “The next day, Mirandinha asked for his car back,” remembered Gazza. “I took him to it, stuck in a fence, with the back wheels nearly touching the front wheels.”

5 BALLS TO THAT

Newcastle drew 0-0 at Wimbledon in 1988, but a photograph from the match became legendary – after Vinnie Jones grabbed the starlet’s testicles mid-match, in an attempt to put him off his game. “Vinnie literally followed Gazza all over the pitch, but he used to take our long throws,” Lawrie Sanchez told FFT. “We got a throw near the penalty box, so he said to Gascoigne, ‘Paul, stay there – I’ve got to go and take this long throw, I’ll be back in a minute’. “Gascoigne was so intimidated by this guy who had been threatening him and marking him all afternoon, that he actually stood where he was until Vinnie came back after taking the throw!”

GAZZA

6 BIG BAnG THEORY

Long before Mario Balotelli caused chaos with indoor ﬁreworks, Gazza was doing the same – while on under-21 duty with England. “One evening, Julian Dicks tried to get me to sneak into town and go to a pub, but I didn’t feel like it,” Gascoigne recalled in his autobiography. “He went on and on, and wouldn’t let me go to sleep. The next day, when he was asleep, I got my own back. “I bought some ﬁreworks and went into his bathroom, lit a big banger and set it off. The noise was incredible. I rushed into his room shouting, ‘Evacuate, evacuate, bomb blast, bomb blast!’ Dicksy jumped up and ran naked out of the room into the corridor.”

7 AUF WIEDERSEHEn, EGG

Chris Waddle played alongside Gascoigne for Newcastle, Tottenham and England, and saw plenty more of his hotel antics whenever they roomed together. “Most people would take some cheese and biscuits or a dessert up to the bedroom – he came with 24 eggs,” said Waddle. “He sat at the bedroom window in the hotel, and if there was a cashpoint or a shop, people at the cashpoint were pressing the codes, then eggs were bombing in on them. “He had a good arm on him, he could really throw. I’d be watching Auf Wiedersehen, Pet on telly and all I’d hear was his arm going.”

8 COLD On MARS

Gascoigne moved to Tottenham for a British record fee of £2.2 million in 1988. His debut? Newcastle away. “The reception was mixed,” remembered the Geordie. “When I took a corner, someone threw a Mars bar at me. I picked it up and tried to take a bite, but they must have had it in the freezer for months – it was rock hard. I was relieved not to break any teeth.” Given that it was Newcastle in September, maybe they’d just left it outside for an hour.

9 A HELL OF A RIDE

If you agree to become an odd-job man for Gazza, you’re probably asking for trouble. “When he ﬁrst signed for Spurs, Paul found a run-around guy called John Coberman,” explained kit man Roy Reyland. “One day at the training ground, Gazza turned up with a massive motorhome that he’d bought for his dad. He told John there was a rattle from the roof, and John climbed up to check it out. “Gazza started the engine, backed it out of the drive and put his foot down. He drove all the way down to the M1 with poor old John clinging on for his life. When he returned, he was as pale as a milk bottle!”

“PLEASE WELCOME nO.8…An OSTRICH”

When Gazza drove past a zoo en route to training, he had an idea. “I went in and said, ‘Can I borrow an ostrich, please? I’d like to take it to training’. I put a No.8 shirt on the ostrich and drove to training with it in the back seat – it had a neck like Steve Sedgley. I waited until the lads were on the pitch warming up, then said, ‘Guys, I’ve got a new player for you!’ and sent the ostrich out. “The lads were running side to side, and the ostrich was behind them, doing exactly the same. But the worst thing was that the lads ﬁnished training at 1pm – I ﬁnished at about 5pm. Have you ever tried to catch an ostrich?”

FourFourTwo July 2021 31

GAZZA

11 THE SOAP DISPEnSER

Gascoigne was a relative newcomer to the England squad when they visited Albania for a World Cup qualiﬁer in March 1989. “There was a noise in the room opposite mine,” Tony Cottee told FFT. “I walked in and Gazza was launching bars of soap, trying to hit the chickens in the courtyard. Every time he hit a chicken, he’d scream in celebration. “Bobby Robson came in and said, ‘Gazza! What are you doing?’ Gazza said, ‘Throwing soap at the chickens’ arses, boss’. Bobby said, ‘Oh OK, that’s all right’ and walked off. Because it was Gazza, he got away with it – anyone else would have got told off!”

12 GAZZA vs YOGI BEAR

When Spurs made the trip to Selhurst Park in 1989, all hell broke loose during the warm-up. “We were away at Crystal Palace, and there were these mascots mucking around – three blokes dressed as Postman Pat, Jess the Cat and Yogi Bear,” explained Gazza. “Jess the Cat came and shook my hand, then I decided to go one better and wrestle Yogi Bear. While I was cavorting with Yogi, I kicked the cat up the backside. It was only meant to be a tap, but I was wearing football boots…” The afternoon ended with Spurs winning 3-2, and Jess the Cat demanding an apology.

13 “HE THOUGHT DIABETES WAS A FAMOUS BOXER”

Gazza’s captain at Spurs was Gary Mabbutt. “I’m a diabetic, so I always got on the bus early after a game and had my injections,” the defender told FFT. “I was on the coach with my needle, then Gazza said, ‘What are you doing?’ I’d tried to tell to him what being diabetic meant, but I think at that stage he thought diabetes was a famous boxer. “I said, ‘I have to inject myself four times a day’. He said, ‘What, every day? For the rest of your life, or just while you’re in football?’ I said, ‘For the rest of my life’. He said, ‘For the rest of your life… I bet you can’t wait to die!’”

GAZZA’S GOnGS PFA Young Player of the Year 1987-88 PFA First Division Team of the Year 1987-88, 1990-91 World Cup all-star team 1990 BBC Sports Personality of the Year 1990 BBC Goal of the Season 1990-91 PFA Scotland Players’ Player of the Year 1995-96 SFWA Footballer of the Year 1995-96 European Championship Team of the Tournament 1996

32 July 2021 FourFourTwo

“BOBBY ROBSOn CAME In AnD SAID, ‘WHAT ARE YOU DOInG?’ GAZZA SAID, ‘THROWInG SOAP AT CHICKEnS’ ARSES, BOSS’”

14 ICE CREAM SUnDAYS

During Gazza’s four years at White Hart Lane, offering him a lift anywhere was ill-advised. On their way to a home game, Paul Stewart had to turn around and drive the wrong way up a dual carriageway, after Gascoigne had left something at home. Gazza resolved the situation by holding a wallet to the window, pretending it was a police warrant card. On another occasion, he tucked into an ice cream after being picked up from the airport by Paul Walsh. “As we went past a cyclist, Gazza let his window down, ﬂicked his wrist and the ice cream hit the bloke full on in the face,” Walsh revealed in the book Our Gazza. “This poor geezer was covered in ice cream, trying to see where he was going. Suddenly, the trafﬁc lights turned red. Gazza put the window back up and locked the door, which was being punched and kicked by this guy.”

15 PIGEOn PATROL

Gascoigne’s air riﬂe wasn’t solely reserved for aiming at Jimmy Five Bellies’ backside. As well as putting a dent in the golden cockerel that sat atop White Hart Lane’s main stand, he also failed in an bid to become a one-man pest control service at the stadium. “I was at the club one Thursday and asked the groundsman, ‘What are you doing?’” said Gazza. “He replied, ‘I’ve got to get rid of these pigeons’. I said, ‘I’ll help’. I got up on the roof, but as I moved over, I fell and landed 30 feet below on the steps. I had a bruise all the way down my leg. I said, ‘Gaffer, I don’t think I can train today, the pigeon did it…’”

16 WORLD In COMMOTIOn

You know when they show the starting XIs on television before a match, and there’s a graphic of each player walking up to the camera and folding their arms? Never try that with Gazza. Broadcasters had to learn the hard way at Italia 90 – players were asked to mouth their own name, but the England man had other ideas, mouthing ‘f**king wanker’ and hoping

GAZZA no one noticed. Somehow they didn’t – it was sent on to broadcasters for use at the ﬁnals.

been playing for about an hour. Then I heard someone shout, ‘Gazza!’ – it was the gaffer. I looked at him to apologise, but he walked past me and went absolutely ballistic with the two Americans, shouting, ‘Do you know he’s got the most important game of his life tomorrow, do you not know who he is?’ They didn’t know what he was talking about!”

17 RULInG ROBBO OUT OF ITALIA 90

22 MAGGIE: THE CUDDLY TYPE

Terry Butcher was England’s captain for the knockout stages of the 1990 World Cup – it was supposed to be Bryan Robson, until fate intervened. Or more accurately, Gazza. “After the game against Holland, a few of us sneaked out to a pub,” Gascoigne later explained. “Suddenly we heard some police sirens – Bobby Robson had sent the police to look for us. We ran like hell back to the hotel. I threw myself on the bed, messing around, and Bryan tried to tip me off it by lifting it up and turning it over – but he slipped, and the bed fell on his toe. There was blood everywhere. He was out of the World Cup.”

Gascoigne received a hero’s welcome when he returned to England after the 1990 World Cup – and even met the Prime Minister, who wasn’t known for tactility. “Hundreds of thousands of fans greeted us – we had an open-top bus parade after ﬂying into Luton Airport, and Gazza was wearing false breasts,” Bryan Robson recalled to FFT. “We were invited to meet Margaret Thatcher at 10 Downing Street, and were all on best behaviour. Everyone else shook her hand, but Gazza gave her a big cuddle. Only Gazza would do something like that.”

18 GAZZA 1 TUTAnKHAMUn 0

23 STORM In A TEAPOT

England were in the same World Cup group as Egypt, so the Three Lions’ stay in Italy was the perfect time for Gascoigne to emulate the ways of the pharaohs. “We were sat by the swimming pool, then there was a commotion on the diving board,” Stuart Pearce told FFT. “Gazza had stripped off naked, mummiﬁed himself in toilet roll and launched himself into the pool. “The toilet roll ﬂoated to the surface, Gazza swam a length, got out naked and walked to his room. Bear in mind it wasn’t just players there, it was members of the public as well...”

19 WORST DIVE EVER

England’s first knockout match was against Belgium in Bologna, requiring a short flight from the team’s base on Sardinia. “To take my mind off the flight, I went into the cockpit and persuaded the pilot to show me how to fly,” said Gascoigne. “He told me which switches you flick to make the aircraft go up, down or sideways. I wasn’t supposed to touch any, but I grabbed one and pulled it. The plane immediately went into a dive…”

20 CAUSInG A RACKET

What’s the perfect way to prepare for the biggest game of your life? Wear yourself out playing tennis, obviously. “The day before the Germany game, Bobby Robson said, ‘Plenty of rest tonight – it’s the World Cup semi-ﬁnals tomorrow’,” recalled Gazza. “At 10pm, I heard two American guys playing tennis. I thought, ‘I wouldn’t mind a game of tennis’. I started taking the two of them on and was getting a bit tired – I’d

SnA K ES AnD BROOMSTICS

When Gazza found a nine-foot snake at his ﬁrst villa in Italy, he was so terriﬁed that he quickly moved house. At his second home, he encountered a smaller one. “I found a two-foot snake in the bedroom,” he said. “I wasn’t as scared, so I whacked it with a broom and took the dead snake with me to training. When everyone had gone out, I put it in Roberto Di Matteo’s jacket pocket. He came in after training, got changed and put his hand in his pocket. He went apes**t…”

A cruciate knee ligament injury hospitalised Gascoigne after the 1991 FA Cup Final, but that didn’t stop him generating mayhem. “Jimmy came to see me, and brought me a pellet gun,” he said. “It came in handy for pointing out of the window at the photographers waiting down below in the street. But mostly we just dropped water bombs on them.” Gazza had already agreed to join Lazio when he sustained the injury – the transfer was delayed for a year, and the Italian side’s general manager headed to England to visit him during his recovery. “Maurizio Manzini came to see me train,” said Gazza. “One of the youth lads was sent to get him a pot of tea. This lad was heading towards us, carefully carrying the teapot on a tray, and I got out my riﬂe and shot the teapot right off the tray. I think Lazio were starting to wonder what they were signing.”

24 “ER, nICE TO MEET YOU”

If Lazio president Sergio Cragnotti wasn’t already wondering what he’d let himself in for, he certainly was when he met Gazza. The deal had already been agreed when Cragnotti took over the club, and the pair came face to face at Lazio’s training ground after Gascoigne ﬁnally completed the move to Italy in 1992. “I said to him, ‘Tua ﬁglia, grande tette’ – ‘Your daughter, big tits’,” remembered Gazza. “He wasn’t amused. I only discovered later that I’d mixed up the daughters – I’d been thinking of his brother’s daughter.”

FourFourTwo July 2021 33

GAZZA

25 WInTER OF DISCOnTEnT

In the same summer that Gascoigne arrived, Aron Winter joined Lazio from Ajax. “On my first day, I was in my hotel room and someone knocked on the door,” Winter told FFT. “Paul was standing there, half-naked with a bottle of champagne to welcome me.” Later, Winter got more than he bargained for when he visited a restaurant with his wife. “Paul was in the same restaurant with his girlfriend, although I didn’t notice him at first,” explained the Dutch midfielder. “When they’d finished, Paul told the waiter, ‘My friend Aron will pay’. The waiter didn’t believe him, so Paul called me. When I saw him, I raised my hand to greet him. He said to the waiter, ‘You see, Aron says it’s OK’. “When I finished my meal, I was shocked when I got the bill, because it was quite high. I hadn’t eaten that much, but then I realised what had happened…”

26 THE BAnK RAID

Gazza was given his own personal security guards in Rome – a great idea until one of them mistook him for a burglar, and pointed a gun to his head. On another occasion, they were more useful. “All of Lazio’s bodyguards worked for Italy’s leading security ﬁrm, who also looked after the country’s money,” said Gascoigne. “When I found out one of their jobs was guarding a huge bank vault, I got them to sneak me in with Jimmy. I sat on this huge mountain of money, about £50m, and started chucking wads in the air.”

27 TUnnEL VISIOn

Dino Zoff was Lazio’s manager when Gazza moved to Serie A, and was permanently kept on his toes by his star man. Once, Gascoigne attempted to fool the boss by lying in front of the team bus in a pool of fake blood, pretending to be dead. Another time, he stole the whistle that Zoff used to referee practice matches, and attached it to a live turkey that he had brought to training. “Gazza was capable of anything,” striker Beppe Signori told FFT. “One time he showed up naked in the hall of the hotel when we were away on a retreat, then he did the same thing on the team bus. When we were going through a dark tunnel, he got undressed and sat next to Dino Zoff!”

28 THE WORLD WAS HIS LOBSTER

Gazza’s time at Lazio afforded him access to some of Rome’s ﬁnest eateries. “I went to a posh restaurant and ordered lobster, because I’d seen they had a massive lobster tank,” he revealed. “I pointed to the one I wanted, but they were taking so long.

34 July 2021 FourFourTwo

I thought, ‘What are they doing? I’ll just get it myself’, so I dived into the tank in my best suit. It took me a while, swimming around, to catch the one I fancied. When I ﬁnally did, I hooked it out and said, ‘There’s the f**ker I want’. Then I ate it in my dripping wet suit.”

29 ROME, VIA PHnOM PEnH

Race Across The World didn’t exist as a TV show until 2019, but Gazza was inflicting the idea on unsuspecting associates a quarter of a century earlier. Inevitably, one of them was serial victim Jimmy Five Bellies. “I drove my car at him at about 30mph, just to scare him, which it did – especially when I hit him,” confessed Gazza. “I thought I’d killed him, but he recovered.” Later, the midfielder was invited along to the Vatican – he arrived five minutes too late to meet the Pope, but received a medal and asked Jimmy to fly from England to collect it. “When he arrived at Newcastle airport, he realised he had to fly first to Heathrow, then Copenhagen, Lisbon, Paris, all sorts. It took him about two days. I enjoyed that trick so much that I pulled it again, with my brother. This time I was more ambitious, with the first flight taking him to Cambodia…”

30 “THE IRA WERE GOInG TO KILL ME”

Gazza joined Rangers in July 1995 – within weeks, he’d caused a sectarian row during a pre-season friendly. “Ian Ferguson told me, ‘If you score, do the Sash’,” revealed Gascoigne. The celebration involved pretending to play the ﬂute, as if on an Orange Order parade. “I said, ‘What’s the Sash?’ He showed me and said fans would love it. I thought, ‘I’ll do anything for the fans’, so I did it against Steaua Bucharest.” If he didn’t realise what the gesture meant the ﬁrst time, he ill-advisedly did it again in 1998 – at Celtic Park. “The IRA were going to kill me,” he said. “I used to look around the crowd and try to see if anyone had a gun. The police came and said, ‘Check under your car for bombs’, so I got Jimmy to drive me into work. I’d just have a cigarette 300 yards away and let Jimmy start the car to see whether it blew up or not.”

31 SUBBED TO THE PUB

For Gascoigne, England games at Wembley were the perfect opportunity for mischief. Well, any game to be honest. But particularly England games at Wembley. “During the warm-up, he’d ping a ball in the direction of the band – once I saw him chip the ball into one of those giant trombones,” said Terry Venables. “He also pinched a Royal Marine’s helmet and received a full military dressing down from an angry drum major, who came into the dressing room and bawled at him to give it back,” revealed Gary Lineker.

In March 1996, England hosted Bulgaria in a friendly. “Terry Venables told Gazza that he was going to take him off after 80 minutes,” admitted mate Danny Baker. “Gazza passed this information to me and Chris Evans, drew a map of the service roads at the back of Wembley, and told us to bring a car and be outside a speciﬁc door 10 minutes before the end of the game. The door opened, and out came Gazza in his England strip. “A few minutes down the road, we pulled up outside a fairly crowded pub. People were standing outside with drinks, and Gazza got out and engaged them in conversation. The game was continuing on the television, while Gazza was standing in his England strip with a lit cigarette.”

32 GAZZA’S On FIRE, RESTAURAnT’S TERRIFIED

The infamous dentist’s chair incident before Euro 96? Inevitably, it was Gazza’s idea. “I went in for a filling and I came out drunk – it must have been some anaesthetic!” the schemer told FFT. “I decided I’d be the first one in the chair because it looked like a good laugh, then a few of the lads did it.” Gary Neville hadn’t been among those at the nightclub. “The first I knew about it was when I came down for lunch the next day,” he recalled. “Gazza was lighting a cigar with something that looked like a Bunsen burner from a chemistry class. The flame was about three feet long. In the dining room of a five-star hotel, he was almost setting fire to himself.”

33 A RELAXInG DAY AT THE LAKE

Terry Venables had a strategy to deal with an excitable Gazza at Euro 96 – he told goalkeeper David Seaman to take him fishing. Before the quarter-final against Spain, they headed to the nearest lake. “He saw a trout, went for a big cast, then bosh... flew straight into the lake,” said Seaman. “He was shouting, ‘Help, get me out!’ “Another day, me, Gazza and Ian Walker went fishing on a boat in the middle of the lake. There was a bloke there who looked like a fisherman, but then he popped up behind the reeds, taking pictures. We started rowing in, I phoned the fishery owner and said, ‘Close the gate, we need to get the film off him’. “Gazza ran after the guy, who was at the gate in his car, because the gate was locked. Gazza reached in and nicked his phone, then started letting his tyre down, so the guy drove off and smashed straight through the gate.”

MOP TOP STROP Gazza famously scored against Scotland at Euro 96 – and made the most of it when he returned to Rangers for the new campaign. “I’d been hammered for a few months beforehand by the players, saying, ‘We’re going to stick it right up you, English bastard’,” said Gazza. “Afterwards, I used to get a mop and pretend it was Colin Hendry – I’d ﬂick the ball over the mop, volley it past Andy Goram, then do the celebration. He wasn’t happy…”

GAZZA

35 CUP FInAL FEVER

In November 1996, Rangers faced Hearts in the Scottish League Cup ﬁnal at Hampden Park – only for Gazza to have a blazing row with Ally McCoist in the ﬁrst half. “At half-time, the two of us were still going at it,” said McCoist. “Walter Smith was getting angrier – I knew to keep my mouth shut, but Gazza kept going. Eventually, Walter picked him up by the scruff of the neck, hung him up on the pegs where you put your coats and said, ‘Paul, I’ll not tell you again to shut up’. Gazza walked into the directors’ room in his strip, drank a whisky, then came out for the second half and scored a couple of goals. He was unbelievable.” Rangers eventually won 4-3 – Gascoigne was banned from attending the post-match party, but showed up anyway. “I found out where they were and turned up at the Indian restaurant,” he said. “I was dancing on the table bollock naked.”

36 WHEELS On THE BUS GO ROGUE

Days after a Scottish Cup defeat to Celtic in 1997, Gazza was given permission to head to London for a week... as long as he stayed out of the newspapers. He swiftly linked up with showbiz pals Evans and Baker – the trio headed to the Television and Radio Industries Club’s annual awards ceremony, but got stuck in trafﬁc. “Behind us was a London bus,” Baker later wrote. “Gazza got out of the taxi, walked up to the driver’s window and shook his hand. Then he hauled himself up into the driver’s cab alongside his new friend – with Paul’s hands ﬁrmly on the wheel. He drove the bus along the Bayswater Road. Marble Arch isn’t for skylarking amateurs, but Paul was at the wheel, pantomiming an irate motorist as the bus careered over the junction. He really did drive a London bus full of people around Marble Arch in broad daylight. “Later, he saw a gang of council workers digging up a pavement – one of them passed a pneumatic drill his way and he dug up a few sections of London, several feet from where work had actually commenced. ‘Your mate,’ the taxi driver said to us. ‘He’s not all there, is he?’”

“I DIVED In THE TAnK, CAUGHT THE LOBSTER AnD SAID, ‘THERE’S THE F**KER I WAnT’” FourFourTwo July 2021 35

GAZZA

37 TWO FOR THE PRICE OF OnE

Gazza had put a fish in a team-mate’s car during his Newcastle days – but by the time he’d reached Rangers, he’d honed his craft. He put two fish in a car. “We used to come to training in collar and tie at Ibrox – it was in the history of the club,” said Ally McCoist. “One morning, Gascoigne comes in with this pair of waders on, with a collar and tie underneath it, holding up two of the biggest trout you’ve ever seen. “Later, he asked me, ‘Who’s been annoying you?’ I said, ‘Gordon Durie’, so he told me, ‘Go into his pocket and get his car keys’. We unscrewed the spare wheel – I threw one of the fish in and went to throw the other in, but Gazza said, ‘No’. He found a compartment in the back seat, and threw the other fish in there. He said, ‘When he finds the first fish, he’ll just think that’s it.’ It was a sensational criminal mind... “For the next three or four days, Durie was saying, ‘The smell in my car, I can’t get rid of it – I’m stopping at traffic lights and people are walking by and sniffing’. He found the first fish, but said, ‘For the life of me, I can’t get rid of the smell’. You know those Christmas tree air fresheners? It looked like Sherwood Forest in his car!”

WHY I LOVE GAZZA... RIO FERDInAnD “He was one of my favourite players as I was growing up, because of the way he played. I’d watch Gazzetta Football Italia every week, just to watch him and his segment. I even got a Lazio shirt. I spent some time with the England squad during Euro 96 and he’d play table tennis with two hands – his forehand was two-handed, which was weird, but good. The night before the

38 BEWARE THE SWAn

Scotland or Netherlands game, I went into the computer room and Gazza was playing golf on a simulator thing, with a bottle of red wine empty next to him. This was the night before a big game – I thought, ‘Wow, is this how superstars live?’ Then he went and played how he did. When I later broke into the England team, Gazza’s advice was very simple – ‘Just go out and enjoy yourself’.”

Dead ﬁsh are one thing – a live swan is quite another, as former Rangers midﬁelder Ian Durrant remembered. “We were playing golf at Loch Lomond, when Gazza disappeared into some bushes and came out clutching a huge swan,” said Durrant. “Don’t ask me how he managed to

catch the thing, but he got it into the car and it was attacking Ally McCoist. “You might go down the park and you see a swan 20 yards away, and it’s idyllic,” the midﬁelder explained. “Three yards away, it’s enormous and up for a square go. We were in the back of a Range Rover driving around and it was chaos. The swan was going mad. There was £22,000 worth of damage…”

39 LOST In TRAnSLATIOn

Rangers signed Gennaro Gattuso in 1997 – unfortunately, Gascoigne turned out to be a rather ineffective translator for the Italian. “The Old Firm game was coming up, and Gattuso was running about scything people at training,” said Ally McCoist. “Walter Smith was going off his head, saying, ‘We’re playing Celtic this weekend, we need to watch some of these tackles’. So he shouts, ‘Gazza! You can speak Italian, tell Gattuso to calm down’. “Wrong man… Walter should have known better. In broken Italian, Gazza told Gattuso, ‘The manager wants more from you – if you want to play, you need to show a level of commitment in training’. Two minutes later, the ball got played to me and I was wearing six studs on my chest from a Gattuso tackle. Walter was going apoplectic!”

40 THAT SInKInG FEELInG

For one car to end up underwater over a 19-year playing career, it might have been regarded as misfortune. Two, and it could only have been Gazza. As a Newcastle player, Gascoigne released the handbrake on a pal’s car, before it rolled down a steep hill and into the River Tyne. At Rangers, he went to Loch Lomond with Chris Evans – but not before ﬁnding a local garage. “We asked for the cheapest car they had,” said Evans. “The man said, ‘It’s a death trap’. We said, ‘Perfect’. We painted it black, drove it to Cameron House, straight down the jetty and into the loch.”

41 DRESSED TO IMPRESS

Gazza was worshipped by Rangers fans in Glasgow – on one occasion, it led to a bizarre costume change. “We went to a pub and the lady behind the bar was a massive Gazza fan,” said Stuart McCall. “She asked whether she could have the T-shirt he was wearing – he said she could, as long as he could have her top in exchange. He put it on and then we were back in the car, but there was a horrible smell. The girl’s top wasn’t the most hygienic. “The next minute, Gazza disappeared into a charity shop and re-emerged in a blue and white dress. In the next pub, no one made a big thing of him wearing a dress. ‘Oh, it’s Gazza’ was the general opinion.”

GAZZA

42 “MInD THAT BOLLARD”

Gascoigne moved to Middlesbrough in 1998 – ﬁrst, he was seen leaping over a hedge on a motorbike, then he commandeered a bus. “The club had bought a brand new coach – it must have cost a gazillion quid as it had just about every appliance known to man,” said Paul Merson. “Gazza noticed the keys were in the ignition, so he ﬁred up the engine and started the one-mile drive to the high street to put bets on for a few of the players. “He didn’t get far – at the end of the road that led out of the training ground, he turned right and crashed the coach into a concrete bollard. The locks on the compartments that contained our kit had been mangled, so the doors were wedged shut. We ended up on another bus, having new shirts sent straight to the game at Aston Villa.”

43 WATERLOGGED BAIZE

Gazza was known for his OCD traits at Boro. Sharing a house with Andy Townsend, he struggled to sleep after the Ireland midﬁelder borrowed a coffee mug and accidentally took it to Birmingham while visiting his family. The six-mug collection was incomplete, so Jimmy Five Bellies was dispatched to the Midlands to retrieve the cup at 1am.

“WE WERE In THE BACK OF A RAnGE ROVER AnD IT WAS CHAOS. THE SWAn WEnT MAD. THERE WAS £22,000 WORTH OF DAMAGE”

On another occasion, Gazza’s snooker room ﬂooded with water from a hole in the ceiling, due to a faulty toilet upstairs. “He squelched across the room, got the triangle and reds, and tried to set the balls back up again,” said Townsend. “He took the triangle off, and all the reds started ﬂoating away on the water. I said, ‘What are you doing?!’”

44 DOn’T COME BACK In AnGER

Put Liam Gallagher and Paul Gascoigne in the same room in the ’90s, and it wasn’t going to end well. Soho’s Groucho Club found that out. “He had a big steak in front of him, then he went to the toilet and I ate his steak,” said Gazza. “He came back and said, ‘Where’s my f**king steak?’ I rubbed my stomach and he said, ‘F**k it’. I thought he was going to order another steak, but instead he came back with a ﬁre extinguisher.”

“I was going to spray the whole gaff with foam, and the last word that came out of his mouth was, ‘Nooooo!’” said Gallagher. “I said, ‘F**king yeah, you Geordie f**king c**t, f**k off’. I was like the Terminator; he was like Father Christmas, covered like a snowman.”

45 GAZZA AnD WAZZA

Gazza left Everton just a few months before Wayne Rooney’s ﬁrst-team debut in 2002, but he was already well aware of the young talent in the Goodison ranks. Gascoigne ﬁrst spotted Rooney putting in an impressive display for the under-19s. The emerging star was only 14, but not too early for the veteran to start leading him astray. “I went into the dressing room and said, ‘Well done lads, I’ve got £40 spare, is anyone going out tonight?’” he recalled. “Rooney said, ‘I am’, so I said, ‘There’s £40, go get yourself a couple of pints’. He’s never given me that £40 back – the interest is about £1.2m now!”

GAZZA

WHY I LOVE GAZZA... PETER BEARDSLEY “Gazza can be so kind. He shares a birthday with my son, and before the 1990 World Cup, Bobby Robson invited wives and families to our base on Sardinia. It was Gazza’s birthday, so we had a party for him and a huge chocolate cake shaped as a brush, because Bobby had labelled him ‘daft as a brush’. It had ‘Happy Birthday Gazza’ written on it – everyone knew he loved chocolate cake, but he quickly sent it back and had a quiet word with one of the

46 BIG SHAQ, BIG BLISTERS

Gascoigne’s move to Everton had seen him link up with Thomas Gravesen in midﬁeld. “Me and Lee Carsley had come in early in the morning one day, and we were sitting in the dressing room,” the Dane told FFT. “It was 8am and suddenly we heard a noise in the hall. It was someone making massive steps. We looked at each other thinking, ‘What’s going on?’ The door to the dressing room gets kicked in, and in comes Gazza. He’d bought Shaquille O’Neal’s shoes – he had size 52s on. “I was like, ‘What are you doing?!’ He said, ‘I’ve got blisters!’ I said, ‘You’ve got blisters?’ He said, ‘They’re not easy to drive in’. He had an automatic – his boots were getting stuck!”

47 BIRD BRAIn

After an ostrich at Spurs, a turkey at Lazio and a swan at Rangers, Gazza introduced another bird to the fray at Everton – a parrot. “Whenever I went to Belleﬁeld, Gazza was up to something,” the club’s former head of media Alan Myers told The Athletic. “One day I walked in and Walter Smith said, ‘Do me a favour. Get it out’. I had no idea what he was on about, but I walked into the dressing room and there was this big green and grey

“IS GAZZA THE OnLY EnGLAnD PLAYER TO HAVE FED RAW HORSE MEAT TO PEnGUInS? I HAZARD THAT HE IS”

38 July 2021 FourFourTwo

hotel staff. No one had any idea what was happening. A few minutes later, the cake came back and written on it was ‘Happy Birthday Gazza and Drew’. He hadn’t forgotten that my son was celebrating his ﬁrst birthday. That was a lovely touch. I love the bloke to bits – his biggest problem has always been not being able to distinguish between the hangers-on and his true friends. We still speak every week – I’m honoured to call him a friend.”

48 ROBOT WARS

Why go to the effort of insulting your friends yourself, when you can get a robot to do it? That was the very sensible conclusion that Gazza came to when he called upon artificial intelligence to inflict more banter on Jimmy Five Bellies. Gascoigne paid £1,000 for the robot, programming it to go into Gardner’s room and shout, ‘Make a cup of tea, fat man’. At least it didn’t shoot him with an air rifle.

parrot sat on one of the shelves. Gazza had brought it. There was a pet shop in Woolton Village and he’d bought it before training. The lads were going mad because it was ﬂying around while they were trying to get ready.”

49 “CUP OF TEA, LADS?”

Gazza’s spell at Burnley lasted two months in 2002, but it was long enough to make a mark. “He used to put laxatives in the tea,” said midﬁelder Paul Weller. While some players were suspicious that a renowned prankster seemed eager to make a brew, others felt honoured that a legend was at their service. “I didn’t drink tea before training then, but Gordon Armstrong had three!” said Weller. “Stan Ternent thought it was funny, until he realised we had a game tomorrow and half the team had downed a bottle of laxatives...” Burnley won only one of Gazza’s six outings.

50 “WHAT DO PEnGUInS EAT?”

Gascoigne joined Chinese side Gansu Tianma in 2003, and ﬁlled his days by visiting the zoo. He soon asked if he could feed the tigers – the zookeeper was initially reluctant (Gazza, tigers, what could go wrong?) only to be worn down. Gazza rooted through a box of tiger food and pulled out a horse’s head, before dangling it in front of the cage. “The tigers would roar and paw at the bars,” Danny Baker wrote in Behind Closed Doors. “The head was heavy and Paul realised he’d need to give it a hoick to clear the bars, so he began to swing it. As he swung it back for the last time, he lost his grip and the horse’s head ﬂew behind him, over a wall and into the penguins’ enclosure. Is Gazza the only England player to have fed raw horse meat to penguins? I hazard that he is.”

THOMAS TUCHEL

THE MONSTER WITHIN He’s already transformed Chelsea into trophy winners, but Thomas Tuchel’s journey towards conquering Europe has been far from plain sailing. Brilliance has often collided with belligerence, to dramatic effect...

Interview Ed McCambridge

he tale of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde tells of a man corrupted by an inner demon – a destructive form of himself that rears its head unexpectedly. Dr Jekyll is intelligent, friendly and agreeable; Mr Hyde the very opposite. And yet they are one. There are shades of Thomas Tuchel in Robert Louis Stevenson’s infamous character. In a career where the German has risen from crocked lower-league footballer to celebrated Champions League-winning coach, he has also been repeatedly derailed by episodes of antagonistic behaviour. As a player, Tuchel was described as “exacting and demanding, which didn’t go down well with some of his team-mates” by a former coach. His will to win meant that anyone not pulling his weight was quickly confronted. Yet, when a knee cartilage injury curtailed his playing days, it was Dr Jekyll, not Mr Hyde, who made his first steps into management. There was little sign of his darker side in 2005 when, aged 32, Tuchel went to Cologne to gain his UEFA Pro Licence. “He didn’t show that side of himself during his time on the course,” Erich Rutemoller, Germany’s assistant manager between 1994 and 2004, and the UEFA course leader in Cologne, tells FFT. “These conflicts only arise when you are thrust into management full-time. But Thomas was clearly intelligent, and a smart coach knows which conflicts to engage in and which not to.” Rutemoller admits to immediately liking Tuchel, a young man with an “excellent academic background”. The prodigy had already earned a degree in sports science, which put him a step ahead of some of the other students. “I got the impression that he would have no trouble with the training, because he already had a good foundation of knowledge and experience built up,” says Rutemoller. “Perhaps because his playing career ended so early, he felt an added motivation to succeed as a coach.” Tuchel passed with flying colours before returning to his post as Augsburg’s reserve

THOMAS TUCHEL

THOMAS TUCHEL team boss. So impressive was his tactical understanding and meticulous preparation, it wasn’t long before senior football – and all of its trials – came calling.

KING LOUIS DETHRONED

In August 2009, newly-promoted Bundesliga club Mainz needed a quick fix. Former coach, the Norwegian Jorn Andersen, had just led Die Nullfunfer back to the top flight, but a 2-1 loss in the first round of the DFB-Pokal against fourth-tier Lubeck, coupled with an ongoing spat about playing style, saw him axed five days before the league kick-off. That quick fix was Tuchel. “We were shocked to lose Jorn on the eve of a new campaign,” former Mainz defender Nikolce Noveski, who made 348 appearances for the club between 2004 and 2015, recalls to FFT. “We’d been very successful under him. He’d led us to promotion, so we were really disappointed.” With survival at all costs the season’s target, hiring a manager with no senior experience could have sparked a dressing room riot. Yet Tuchel’s demeanour put minds at ease. “Our first impression of Thomas was that he was very competent,” says Noveski. “He explained his ideas for the season and

how he wanted us to play, and placed great emphasis on team spirit. We soon realised that he was a good ﬁt.” If the initial introductions gave the team a lift, early results compounded that high. Mainz went unbeaten in their opening three league matches, securing two draws and a win. The latter in particular, a 2-1 defeat of Louis van Gaal’s Bayern Munich, instilled a belief that they could beat anyone under their new boss. “I remember before that game, Thomas talked us through exactly what we had to do in the ﬁnest detail,” says Noveski. “He played a motivational video in the changing room before we went out onto the pitch. We went out there believing that we could win.” So perfectly executed was Tuchel’s plan against Bayern, that the German football magazine kicker ran an in-depth review of it in their next issue. Rutemoller, Tuchel’s proud mentor back in Cologne, admits to being blown away. “That wasn’t a lucky result by an underdog, it was a well-executed plan – and against Bayern Munich, no less,” beams Rutemoller. “It was so impressive that I adopted some of those ideas into the courses I run, using it as an example of how to prepare and execute a gameplan to perfection.”

Tuchel’s Mainz weren’t done with bigger boys either: by the end of his first season, they had defeated Jurgen Klopp’s Borussia Dortmund, plus Hamburg and Gladbach, to seal a top-half Bundesliga finish for the first time in club history. Under the guidance of Klopp, in charge before Andersen, Mainz had reached the top flight for the first time in 2004. Yet in three attempts from there, Klopp’s side had never finished higher than 11th. Remarkably, Tuchel had outshone him first time around. Comparisons were first drawn between the pair during the latter’s first year in Mainz, and remain a source of fascination to fans today. Both started out there before moving to Dortmund, and each has gone on to win the Champions League with an English club.

“THAT WIN OVER BAYERN WAS SO IMPRESSIVE, I THEN USED IT AS AN EXAMPLE OF HOW TO EXECUTE A PERFECT GAMEPLAN”

THOMAS TUCHEL

“They share an incredible passion for the game,” explains Noveski, who played under both. “Klopp was more emotional and his management style reﬂected that. For him, creating a positive atmosphere was key. Thomas was more interested in the ﬁner details; his preparation for games was unparalleled. In terms of motivation, they were similar. They got the best out of us.” Tuchel continued to wring what he could from Noveski and his team-mates the following season. A squad of budget buys,

Above “Don’t even try to keep up with my beard, little guy” Below Triumph in Porto, one year on from ﬁnal anguish

loan signings and academy products – not least future Chelsea man, Andre Schurrle – did even better in year two. Bayern were dispatched 2-1 again, as Mainz finished fifth and reached the Europa League qualifiers. While players and fans were fully behind their coach, the same couldn’t be said of the board. Working on a shoestring budget, not even Tuchel’s tactical nous could prevent Mainz finishing a disappointing 13th in 2012. But after he demanded investment to take things forward, key men – including Schurrle – were sold to raise money instead. It led to another 13th-placed finish, as Mr Hyde began to stir from within. “Tuchel is a perfectionist, and when things aren’t being done exactly as he wants, he isn’t afraid to challenge people,” says Noveski. “He can be direct, and sometimes that can bring you into conflict with people.” Press conferences grew increasingly narky, with Mainz’s board coming under fire. When it became apparent that funds wouldn’t be released after an impressive finish of seventh in 2013-14, the boss snapped. “Thomas asked us some time ago to terminate his contract prematurely,” Mainz director of football Christian Heidel revealed after the final game of the season, a 3-2 win against Hamburg. “He doesn’t want to coach the team in 2014-15.” Tuchel’s players were stunned. “It was a shock, as we were still under the impression that Thomas would be our manager for the foreseeable future,” says Noveski. “He left a big hole at the club when he went. But it was clear that a coach of his ability wouldn’t always stay with Mainz.”

BOMB BLASTS AT BVB

Leaving clubs under a cloud of smoke would become a trademark forTuchel, who followed Klopp for a second time when he took the reins at Dortmund in the summer of 2015. Outshining the gurning great had been a realistic target at Mainz, but doing so at Dortmund looked nigh-on impossible – after all, in seven years at the Westfalenstadion, Klopp’s Dortmund had bagged two league titles, the DFB-Pokal and even reached the Champions League final in 2013. Hopes had been lowered after Klopp’s disappointing final year in charge – Dortmund recovered to finish seventh and missed out on Champions League qualification – but there was a teary goodbye to the outgoing gaffer nonetheless. “Obviously, the sadness was high,” Fussball News editor and host of Borussia Dortmund podcast Yellow Wall, Stefan Buczko, explains. “But the enthusiasm about Tuchel was also pretty big when he was appointed – fans saw him as the best man to succeed Klopp.” Indeed, few supporters could argue that fresh ideas weren’t required, and Tuchel’s tweaks had an immediate impact: Dortmund kicked off the campaign with five wins, going seven games unbeaten. But an early-season 5-1 shellacking against the might of Bayern set the tone for Tuchel’s tenure. “Immediately, Dortmund were much more comfortable with the ball and weren’t quite

POETRY IN MOTION

The boss who bested Tuchel in his ﬁrst European outing is a quirky character... Thomas Tuchel’s ﬁrst European match as a manager came in 2011, when he faced Romanian minnows Gaz Metan Medias with Mainz in the Europa’s League third qualifying round. It didn’t go well, either – Gaz Metan triumphed on penalties after a pair of 1-1 draws. Tuchel might have recovered from the disappointment pretty quickly, but his managerial rival of 10 years ago didn’t quite use that match to launch his own career. Cristi Pustai has just left his job at Romanian second-tier side Dunarea Calarasi following their failure to get promoted. The 53-year-old went unpaid for several months, as were his players. But he won’t be unemployed for long. If Pustai ever decides to give up football, sick of the various problems in Romanian football, he could simply turn to his other job as a maths teacher. That, however, is only one among a string of curiosities about the man who put Tuchel to the sword in 2011. When he’s not playing with numbers on a sheet of paper, Pustai learns poetry and listens to folk music. He used to organise a folk festival in his hometown of Medias, and after many of the games he was involved in, recited famous odes instead of commenting on controversial moments or referees. While thinking of Tuchel today, Pustai smiles. “Back in 2011, we surprised him with a very aggressive style,” he recalls. “We fought so hard and went through. I was Tuchel’s fan when Chelsea came to play in Bucharest last season, against Atletico Madrid in the Champions League. I wanted him to have a nice memory from Romania as well, not just the bad one against Medias. I don’t think he’s forgotten that one!” Emanuel Rosu

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THOMAS TUCHEL so gung-ho every time they won it back,” reveals Buczko. “Tactically we became a bit more flexible too, and could play a bit more confidently with the back three – something you hardly ever saw under Klopp. “We weren’t good enough to challenge Bayern, but that was largely down to the fact that Pep Guardiola was coach during that period. They were incredibly dominant.” Former Dortmund midfielder Gonzalo Castro confirms the tactical variance. “Under Tuchel, our job was to hold our positions and be patient,” he tells FFT. “Our goal was always to move the opponent side to side, so we could work the space for [Pierre-Emerick] Aubameyang to finish. Off the ball, we tried to condense the centre and force the opponent wide, where it’s harder to score. That was key for Tuchel, as he didn’t want us to concede centrally. He organised everything precisely, down to the last millimetre in training.” Dortmund ultimately finished 10 points off the champions in Tuchel’s first season, and were dumped out of the Europa League quarter-finals by Klopp’s Liverpool. It was an acceptable debut year for the new coach – but cracks were already beginning to show. During Tuchel’s first season, chief scout Sven Mislintat – later of Arsenal – was fixing a move for Spanish midfielder Oliver Torres. Tuchel, who didn’t have a direct influence over transfers at the club, flat out disagreed. “When the transfer was pretty much being finalised, Tuchel admitted he didn’t want the player,” explains Buczko. “There was a huge falling-out, which eventually manifested itself in Tuchel banning Mislintat from the training ground. I think that dispute initiated

“IT JUST DIDN’T FIT. THOMAS IS A GREAT COACH, BUT HE CAN ALSO BE DIFFICULT”

Mislintat’s later exit, because he didn’t feel welcome at the club any more.” The summer brought a squad overhaul, as Mats Hummels, Ilkay Gundogan and Henrikh Mkhitaryan were replaced in the squad by Ousmane Dembele, Marc Bartra and Raphael Guerreiro. Alongside Christian Pulisic and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, the new men transformed Dortmund into a lightning-fast attacking unit. A breathtaking 3-2 win over Bayern Munich in the 2016-17 DFB-Pokal semi-ﬁnals provided the most exhilarating example for fans to savour; the Bavarians had sauntered towards another league title, but Tuchel earned a shot at silverware in his second season as Dortmund coach. Yet just two weeks before that giddy win over Bayern, an event of seismic proportions had shaken the club – and set off a chain reaction which would see Tuchel ﬁred in the coming months.

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In early April 2017, Dortmund’s team bus was the target of a roadside pipe bomb attack en route to a home Champions League knockout clash with Monaco. The perpetrator had been attempting to drive down Dortmund’s share price in a baffling get-rich-quick scheme, like something from a Coen Brothers movie. ‘Sergej W’ was later charged with 28 counts of attempted murder – had it not been for the vehicle’s reinforced glass windows, the ‘attempted’ element may well have been absent from his charge sheet. A police officer and defender Bartra were the ‘only’ two injured, yet the psychological impact upon those on board was of greater significance. The decision to restage the Monaco game just a day later remains a bone of contention at the club – and not because Dortmund lost. “It was reported that Tuchel told his players he wanted to play the game the next day,” recalls Buczko. “But publicly he said he didn’t want that, and UEFA was forcing them to. That caused a lot of resentment towards him from both players and board members.”

While court cases rumbled on behind the scenes, there was at least some cause for celebration that season – Dortmund won the 2017 DFB-Pokal with a 2-1 victory over Eintracht Frankfurt. But it would prove to be Tuchel’s final match in charge. The German was sacked at the end of the campaign; Dortmund insisted the decision had nothing to do with personal matters, but CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke later claimed the parties “broke up because it just didn’t fit”, before adding, “Thomas is a fantastic coach, but he’s a difficult person.” As Buczko says, “He was liked but never loved by fans.” Ultimately, Mr Hyde appeared to have cost Dr Jekyll another job.

THE PARIS DISAGREEMENT

Despite Tuchel’s growing reputation for attracting trouble, his appointment at Paris Saint-Germain in May 2018 appeared to be based on that strength of character. At his unveiling, PSG president Nasser Al-Khelaiﬁ talked up the German’s “strong

THOMAS TUCHEL principles” as well as his coaching ability, having seen his club fail to navigate beyond the Champions League quarter-finals for six years running. Crucially, Tuchel was seen as a disciplinarian who could stamp his authority on a squad of difficult personalities. A story from his Mainz days goes that he didn’t allow his players to leave the canteen table while others were still eating – something he personally thought to be ill-mannered. In Paris, Tuchel opted for a softer approach. “At PSG, you have to forge a good bond with the players – especially Kylian Mbappe and Neymar,” Pierre-Etienne Minonzio, writer at L’Equipe, tells FFT. “They are the real bosses of the club, so you have to find that balance between getting a relationship with them, but also asking them to do the things you want as a manager.” Getting Neymar to arrive punctually for training and go to bed at a sensible hour would be one thing – all-night poker sessions at the Brazilian’s mansion remain legendary – but getting the world’s record signing to buy into a tactical system was another. “Tuchel’s style is about counter-pressing, so you need players who are willing to run a lot and put in the defensive effort,” says Minonzio. “It simply won’t work with eight players doing it. You need everyone – and that includes Neymar.” At the time of Tuchel’s arrival, PSG had won five of the last six Ligue 1 titles. Delivering on all domestic fronts was par for the course, though – everyone knew the capital club’s real ambitions rested with Europe. Tuchel’s first season in Paris was, therefore, a failure. PSG cantered to the Ligue 1 title by

Clockwise from below left Tuchel won the DFB-Pokal in his ﬁnal match as BVB boss; “if you run, you’ll get your pocket money”; an instant impact as Chelsea manager

16 points, but lost the Coupe de France final to Rennes, went out in the quarter-finals of the Coupe de la Ligue against bottom side Guingamp, and capitulated at home to Manchester United in the Champions League last 16 after blowing a 3-1 aggregate lead. As ever, spending was the answer: some €95 million worth of talent arrived, including combative midfielders Idrissa Gueye and Ander Herrera. Those new recruits had the desired effect, allowing the likes of Neymar, Mbappe and Mauro Icardi to focus on what they do best: scoring goals. PSG immediately looked more streetwise, especially in Europe, as they topped a tough group including Real Madrid before disposing of Tuchel’s former club Dortmund in the second round. “He managed to get that balance right for a long time, over the course of a whole season,” says Minonzio. “Especially in the Champions League. PSG looked great going forward and far more assured at the back.” When Ligue 1 was curtailed by the global pandemic in March 2020, PSG were awarded the title on a points-per-game basis. While other nations contrived to finish their league campaigns following June’s restart, the Parisians had the luxury of being able to focus exclusively on the Champions League’s latter stages when they returned in August. It looked that way, too: star duo Neymar and Mbappe dazzled as Atalanta were seen off in the quarter-finals and RB Leipzig in the semis, setting up a final showdown against Bayern Munich. Tuchel’s steely entertainers were on the brink of something no PSG side had managed in their history. Sadly, it wasn’t to be. A cagey affair was settled by a header from Kingsley Coman, the French winger who had come through PSG’s academy. As Neymar sobbed after the final whistle, Tuchel wouldn’t have known then that this would be his last opportunity to win a Champions League with the club. “After that game, everything changed,” remembers Minonzio. Over the summer, Mr Hyde began to rear his ugly head again. Icardi’s loan had been converted to a permanent €50m transfer from Inter, yet Tuchel seethed at the club letting Edinson Cavani and Thiago Silva run their contracts down. “We lose too many players on free transfers,” he snapped in October, after the season’s kick-off. “It’s too much. We can’t ask this squad the same thing as we did last season.” Sporting director Leonardo admonished Tuchel for his comments, warning him “to respect the people above you”. For Minonzio, this simple exchange was the beginning of the end for their relationship. “Tuchel started making some provocative statements to the press,” he explains. “He criticised the club over the transfer window, he criticised the board and he criticised Leonardo. You can’t do that. There are clubs where you can have open debates, but at PSG with Qatar, that’s not possible. When he started doing that, it was over.” It was over, officially, on December 29 – but Minonzio believes the dressing room had been lost long before the announcement.

“He initially managed to implement his tactics at PSG, but long-term, he struggled to get the players on board in the way he has elsewhere in his career,” he says. “Neymar, Mbappe and others weren’t willing to run as much as he wanted them to after a point. “But overall, it was a success because he won titles and managed to get PSG to the Champions League ﬁnal. Nobody had done that before. For that reason alone, he has to be considered one of the most successful managers in PSG history.” As it turned out, though, European success wasn’t far away for Tuchel – just not in Paris.

BLUE SKIES AHEAD

When the Bavarian replaced fan favourite Frank Lampard as Chelsea’s new manager in January 2021, the Blues were ninth in the Premier League table. In just a few short months, however, Tuchel somehow managed to morph his struggling side into stubborn opponents, culminating in their top-four finish, FA Cup final appearance and shock Champions League triumph. “When you win the Champions League final, there isn’t much that can top that,” says Erich Rutemoller. “He’s worked for some of the biggest clubs in the game: Dortmund, PSG and now Chelsea. He is undoubtedly a top coach, and has a really bright future ahead of him.” “He was already very highly rated,” agrees former Mainz centre-back Noveski. “But that Champions League win has elevated him into the top bracket.” Such has been Tuchel’s impact in west London that the Blues are already being talked up as serious title rivals to Manchester City next season – the side they beat three times in all competitions from mid-April. It figures: in the German’s 19 league matches, Chelsea kept 11 clean sheets and leaked only 13 goals. With the likes of Timo Werner and Kai Havertz set to grow into their second campaigns at Stamford Bridge, the future looks genuinely exciting. That’s providing the manager and his club can keep the peace, of course. Tuchel doesn’t forget. Amid his end-of-season success, the 47-year-old couldn’t resist a little dig at PSG when asked whether reaching successive Champions League finals meant he must be doing something right. He paused, before grinning knowingly, “Or not, because it’s not with the same club. It depends who you ask.” Even in the happiest of times, it seems that Mr Hyde is never lurking far away.

MORE ON FOURFOURTWO.COM • Quiz: Can you name every Chelsea boss of the Premier League era? • Timo Werner: How can Tuchel unlock his forward’s potential? (by Ed McCambridge) • Didier Drogba’s last dance: How Chelsea’s talisman delivered the Champions League (by Chris Flanagan)

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“FIVE HUnDRED QUID?! THE GAME’S GOnE...” RECORD SIGnInGS

Football’s transfer market has been abused and obliterated worldwide since the late 19th century – but not all of its record movers made too lasting an impression. Amid the high-proﬁle hits were plenty more with some peculiar stories to tell...

Words Paul Simpson, Mark White 46 July 2021 FourFourTwo

RECORD SIGnInGS

1998 DEnILSOn

1968 PIETRO AnASTASI

£500,000 > VARESE > JUVENTUS

When Anastasi’s volley clinched Italy’s Euro 68 triumph, a pregnant woman in Catania, the striker’s hometown, was so euphoric that she gave birth. Prior to the tournament, the 20-year-old had become the most expensive footballer on the planet, joining Juventus for £500,000 plus a batch of fridge processors (Varese president Giovanni Borghi also ran one of Italy’s largest electrical appliance brands). Nicknamed Petruzzu ‘u turcu (‘Pete the Turk’) in Sicilian dialect because of his olive skin, Anastasi was revered as ‘one of us’ by Juve fans who had left the south to work for Fiat, the club’s owner, in Italy’s north. Passionate, skilful, and selﬂess, Anastasi scored 78 goals in 205 Serie A appearances for the Old Lady, excelling as a traditional centre-forward – like his idol John Charles – and as a false nine. He would have been more famous outside Italy but for some stupid horseplay before the 1970 World Cup, when an enraged masseur punched him in the groin, necessitating testicular surgery. Anastasi died in January 2020 aged 71. Scoring goals was a way of life. His greatest day, Anastasi said, was not winning Serie A titles or even Euro 68 but December 30, 1979, when he bagged his 100th Serie A goal, for Ascoli against Juve.

£21.5M > SAO PAULO > REAL BETIS

“I love my family,” was the heart-warming – or possibly stomach-churning? – slogan on Denilson’s T-shirt in September 2001. The spaghetti-legged Brazilian wideman must have believed that his £21.5 million move to Real Betis was ﬁnally working out. His 1998 transfer had been problematic: tax issues foiled a switch to Barcelona, so he joined Betis. His destination didn’t matter to selling club Sao Paulo, who used the cash to renovate their stadium. As Denilson said, “The whole ‘most expensive player ever’ thing got out of hand. People suddenly thought I was going to arrive in Spain and become the top scorer in La Liga.” Despite Betis’ relegation in 1999-2000 – and the news his agent had siphoned off the fee owed to him – Denilson later inspired Los Verdiblancos to sixth in La Liga in 2001-02. He then became the obvious scapegoat of fans frustrated by a series of false dawns. That was harsh – Betis had 10 bosses in his seven years at Estadio Benito Villamarin – but also understandable. The winger exited with more bookings (33) than league goals (14). Nor did the Brazilian’s love of nightlife help. Over-indulging at a party, Denilson once escaped it through a toilet window when he

found out president Manuel Ruiz de Lopera – tipped off by his private investigator – was inside the building. The tragedy is that, in the past 25 years, few footballers – Romario and Ronaldo being obvious exceptions – have played with such inhibited joy as Denilson. At his very best, he could mesmerise defenders with a stepover, scoop the ball over a player’s head without looking and beat four opponents from inside his own half. In 2002, his form earned him a place in Brazil’s World Cup-winning squad, ending with eight Selecao goals in 61 outings. It should have been more. Such talent made Denilson’s itinerant decline – via Bordeaux, Saudi Arabia, the US, Brazil, Vietnam, Greece and a demoralising snub by Bolton – all the more devastating. When he arrived in Vietnam in 2009, he was 32 and his knees were shot (although he still earned $12,000 for his solitary game). When hugely promising careers conclude that badly, our instinct is to blame the player. Sure, in the summer of 2006 Denilson left Bordeaux for Al-Nassr after a row about his wage demands, but it’s also true that, after he left his homeland, few of his managers really knew what to do with him.

EVER InCREASInG RETURnS

The world-record transfer fee has mushroomed 197.99m per cent since the 19th century...

1893

WILLIE GROVES £100 West Brom ▼ Aston Villa

1903

BEN GREEN £500 Barnsley ▼ Small Heath

48 July 2021 FourFourTwo

1904

ALF COMMON £520 Sheff United ▼ Sunderland

1904

ANDY McCOMBIE £700 Sunderland ▼ Newcastle

1905

ALF COMMON £1,000 Sunderland ▼ Middlesbrough

1913

DANIEL SHEA £2,000 West Ham ▼ Blackburn

1913

TOMMY BARBER £2,000 Bolton ▼ Aston Villa

1914

PERCY DAWSON £2,500 Hearts ▼ Blackburn

1920

DAVID JACK £3,500 Plymouth ▼ Bolton

1990 ROBERTO BAGGIO RECORD SIGnInGS

£8M > FIORENTINA > JUVENTUS

teams (his hometown Vicenza, Fiorentina, Juventus, Milan, Bologna, Inter and Brescia), he scored 291 goals in 643 games. His strike rate for the Azzurri was similar (27 in 56). At his peak, Baggio was a game-changing genius. His Juve team-mate David Platt said of one display against Ancona in November 1992, “We won 5-1. Baggio scored four goals in the ﬁrst 20 minutes. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a better performance from any player in any game I’ve played in. For half an hour, he was on ﬁre.” When you’re capable of such greatness, absolute consistency is impossible. In the summer of 1997, Alex Ferguson contemplated building a Manchester United side around a 30-year-old Baggio. Unwilling to jeopardise his Italy career, however, the player joined Bologna instead. After cutting off his ponytail to symbolise his rebirth, he scored a personal best 22 league goals for the Rossoblu and made the Azzurri squad for France 98. Although Baggio later shone at Brescia too, it’s hard not to wonder how a move to Old Trafford would have changed his career – and football. Baggio probably only played a season and a half of club football at the highest level. Yet he made fans feel that, as Viola coach Aldo Agroppi put it, “The angels sing in his legs.” His wonder goal against Czechoslovakia at Italia 90 – he dribbled past four opposition players before beating the goalkeeper – even wowed Madonna who said, “I didn’t know his name then, but that goal – and his big green eyes – conquered me.” She was hardly the only one.

The £8m transfer of ‘The Divine Ponytail’ to Juventus in the summer of 1990 didn’t just break the world transfer record – it also nearly broke Fiorentina, the club that had agreed to sell him. Angry Viola supporters protested (or rather rioted), throwing bricks, chains and Molotov cocktails amid the lawless uproar where 50 people were injured and eight more arrested. Baggio felt guilty even though, as he insisted later, “I was compelled to accept the move.” Worse, Juventus just never suited Baggio – in 1994, new coach Marcello Lippi revealed he wanted the team to become “less Baggio dependent”. He didn’t really suit Milan or Inter either, making just 60-odd appearances for each of the San Siro giants. His illustrious, yet chequered career is a reminder that, now and again, football comes down to a power struggle between players and managers. Gabriele Marcotti summed up the dilemma: “If you play Baggio and don’t win, then you’re an idiot for playing him. And if you don’t play Baggio and don’t win, then you’re an idiot for leaving him out.” Baggio was, Juve great Michel Platini said, not a No.9 or a No.10 but a nine and a half. Resenting tactical instructions, he couldn’t be relied upon to press an opponent or track back – essential skills during the early 1990s, when calcio was infatuated with Milan coach Arrigo Sacchi’s all-conquering 4-4-2. His knees were fragile. He was only 18 years old when doctors first informed him that he would never play again. At the 1994 World Cup, after scoring five goals in the knockout stages, Baggio limped through the final with a strained hamstring. Sacchi never forgave him for the skied penalty in Pasadena that handed the trophy to Brazil. Francesco Totti was kinder, telling a journalist who compared him to Baggio, “I won it and he didn’t, is that what you’re saying? But he was only playing with one leg.” Was Baggio, as some managers alleged, inconsistent? Turning out for seven Italian

1921

TOM HAMILTON £4,600 Kilmarnock ▼ Preston

1922

SYD PUDDEFOOT £5,000 West Ham ▼ Falkirk

1922

MICHAEL GILHOOLEY £5,250 Hull ▼ Sunderland

IT’S HARD nOT TO WOnDER HOW JOInInG MAn UnITED WOULD HAVE CHAnGED HIS CAREER – AnD FOOTBALL

1922

WARNEY CRESSWELL £5,500 South Shields ▼ Sunderland

1925

BOB KELLY £6,500 Burnley ▼ Sunderland

1928

DAVID JACK £10,890 Bolton ▼ Arsenal

1932

BERNABE FERREYRA £23,000 Tigre ▼ River Plate

1949

JOHNNY MORRIS £24,000 Man United ▼ Derby

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RECORD SIGnInGS

1952 HAnS JEPPSOn

£52,000 > ATALANTA > NAPOLI

2000 HERnAn CRESPO £35.5M > PARMA > LAZIO

When Crespo swapped Parma for Lazio in the summer of 2000, Italian journalist Vittorio Malagutti described the deal as a “monument to capital gains”. The rationale for the blockbuster transfer was simple: as coach Sven-Goran Eriksson said, “I wanted to try to win the Champions League.” That never happened, partly as, in January 2001, Eriksson left Stadio Olimpico to become England manager. The media were less surprised by the fee than the identity of the player. This was no reﬂection on Crespo’s considerable gifts, but he was hardly a galactico – unlike Luis Figo and Zinedine Zidane, the next two players to break the transfer record by moving to Real Madrid. Yet he was a model modern striker: industrious, intelligent, he could score with his head, either foot and stretch defences (or more accurately, goalkeepers) with powerful long-range shots. The 25-year-old frontman had ﬂourished at River Plate and Parma, but he was hardly a household name – even in Italy. Ultimately, the deal worked out for Crespo. He endured a slow start in the Eternal City – after scoring four goals in three months, he told Eriksson,

1949

EDDIE QUIGLEY £26,500 Sheff Wed ▼ Preston

1950

TREVOR FORD £30,000 Aston Villa ▼ Sunderland

50 July 2021 FourFourTwo

1951

“Mister, I don’t score many before Christmas”, to which the Swede responded, “Hernan, by Christmas the season is half over.” He took the hint, bagging 22 goals in the second half of the campaign to win the capocannoniere. The Argentine’s subsequent career would be dictated by transfers. After notching 48 goals in 73 games for the Biancocelesti, their debts prompted his sale to Inter in 2002. He was sold (against his will) to Chelsea in 2003, loaned to Milan (where, in 2005, he became the first player since Ferenc Puskas in 1962 to score twice in a European Cup final and still lose) and then moved on to Inter, Genoa and Parma, where he retired in 2012. Crespo was the first player to score for five different clubs in the Champions League, is still Argentina’s fourth-highest goalscorer of all-time (with 35 in 64 appearances), landed league titles in Argentina, England and Italy, the Copa Libertadores and the UEFA Cup. It was a glittering CV, but if the goal-getter had managed to settle at one team during his prime – or been coached for longer by Carlo Ancelotti, who got the best out of him at both Parma and Milan – he surely could have won so much more.

JACKIE SEWELL £34,500 Notts County ▼ Sheff Wed

1952

HANS JEPPSON £52,000 Atalanta ▼ Napoli

1954

JUAN SCHIAFFINO £72,000 Penarol ▼ Milan

Jeppson had impressed for Djurgarden, at the 1950 World Cup, as an amateur with Charlton and at Atalanta before his sale to big-spending Napoli in 1952. The deal was crucial for kick-starting Italy’s domination of the world transfer record; their clubs were accountable for 14 of the next 16. Capturing Jeppson – a ball-playing forward but with aerial prowess – helped Partenopei president Achille Lauro to become mayor of Naples, and while he never quite lived up to his price tag, the Swede hit 52 goals in 112 games and was dubbed ‘the Bank of Naples’.

1950 TREVOR FORD

£30,000 > ASTON VILLA > SUNDERLAND “I was an animal,” said Welsh ace Ford. The forward’s brutal style was evident on his home debut for Sunderland, when he scored a hat-trick that included shoving the goalkeeper over the line. Ford repaid the Rokerites by firing 67 goals in 101 league games, and he was almost as prolific for Wales (23 goals in 38 caps). Still, Sunderland never progressed, partly because Ford and maverick midfielder Len Shackleton loathed each other. Banned after an illegal payment scandal, Ford retired, but then enjoyed a surprise renaissance at PSV.

1957

OMAR SIVORI £93,000 River Plate ▼ Juventus

1961

LUIS SUAREZ £152,000 Barcelona ▼ Inter

1963

ANGELO SORMANI £250,000 Mantova ▼ Roma

1992 GIAnLUIGI LEnTInI RECORD SIGnInGS

£13M > TORINO > MILAN

Most great players define their careers with a magic moment on the pitch. Lentini defined his with a tragic moment off it. On the fateful night of August 2, 1993, the 24-year-old forward was driving his Porsche 911 at a minimum speed of some 110mph (approximations vary) on a spare tyre, when it crashed, flipped and burst into flames. His life was never the same again. The world’s most expensive footballer – he had joined Milan from Torino for a record £13m the previous summer – was found unconscious in a ditch by a lorry driver, before spending two days in a coma. “I was lucky to be alive,” he later admitted of a terrifying accident that also fractured his skull. Even by the standards of calcio, the most efficient manufacturer of melodrama in the world outside Hollywood, the transfer had been controversial. Torino fans rioted, briefly imprisoning the club’s millionaire owner Gian Mauro Borsano in his own house (imagine the fury if Turin rivals Juventus had won out with their bid). The hefty fee, condemned by the Vatican as an “affront to the dignity of work”, led the media to frame Lentini’s recovery almost entirely in terms of whether Milan would ever get their money’s worth. Lentini’s move had actually been the third that summer to obliterate football’s transfer record, after Milan’s other major purchase of Jean-Pierre Papin (£10m) from Marseille was swiftly followed by Juventus shelling out £12m for Gianluca Vialli from Sampdoria. Before his moment of recklessness, Lentini had seemed destined for greatness. Milan coach Fabio Capello, a stern judge, said, “He was a really big talent. Fast, strong, physical. Really good.” Lentini had noticeably improved his upper-body strength during a productive loan to Serie B Ancona in 1988-89. When Lentini eventually broke through at Torino in 1989-90, he impressed with his guile, versatility (he shone on either wing) and creativity – while not a great scorer of goals, he was a great maker of them. The most startling aspect of his game was how quickly he ran with the ball, although some fans said he needed 10 metres to reach the speed at which he could glide past full-backs.

1967

HARALD NIELSEN £300,000 Bologna ▼ Inter

1968

PIETRO ANASTASI £500,000 Varese ▼ Juventus

1973

But for the accident, Lentini would almost certainly have been in Arrigo Sacchi’s Italy squad for USA 94. He didn’t have much luck in European competition, suffering defeat in two Champions League finals (with Milan in 1993 and 1995), a UEFA Cup showpiece (with Torino in 1992) and only winning the 1994 Champions League Final as one of the Rossoneri’s unused substitutes. Lentini never forgave Capello for his cameo in 1995, later declaring, “He too, helped to crush me. I was playing really well before that final against Ajax, but he didn’t let me play. That night, I decided to give up on great football forever.” The world-record price tag, the reckless driving and unsubstantiated rumours of an affair with the wife of Azzurri hero Salvatore ‘Toto’ Schillaci gave a misleading impression of Lentini. As he once said, “You don’t choose the fee, you just have to enjoy it” – and by ‘it’ he meant football. Even when he recognised that he could no longer compete in Serie A – distressingly, memory loss and blurred vision didn’t help – Lentini played on in the lower leagues before finally retiring in 2002 at the age of 43, after a brief swansong at the amateur team in his hometown of Carmagnola. Would Lentini have been as great as Messi? Or Baggio? Possibly not, but it’s hard not to be haunted by the recollection of his Milan team-mate Marcel Desailly. “You could see the skills, how he was before the accident; after, his balance was completely different,” admitted the Frenchman. Perhaps Lentini’s true greatness rests not on the goals he assisted or scored, but on the goal he pursued with such courage after the crash. Sadly, even he must have feared it was a lost cause.

JOHAN CRUYFF £922,000 Ajax ▼ Barcelona

LEnTInI WAS In A COMA FOR TWO DAYS AFTER HIS CAR CRASHED, FLIPPED AnD BURST InTO FLAMES 1975

GIUSEPPE SAVOLDI £1.2m Bologna ▼ Napoli

1976

PAOLO ROSSI £1.75m Vicenza ▼ Juventus

1982

DIEGO MARADONA £3m Boca Juniors ▼ Barcelona

1984

DIEGO MARADONA £5m Barcelona ▼ Napoli

1987

RUUD GULLIT £6m PSV ▼ Milan

1990

ROBERTO BAGGIO £8m Fiorentina ▼ Juventus

FourFourTwo July 2021 51

RECORD SIGnInGS

1987 RUUD GULLIT £6M > PSV > MILAN

Gullit may never have made his name in Italy were it not for the classic trope of English bosses assuming that an overseas lad couldn’t cut it in Blighty. Arsenal and Ipswich eyed the dreadlocked Dutchman, then of Feyenoord, but neither seized the opportunity. “He could obviously play a bit, but was lazy and undisciplined,” evaluated Gunners boss Terry Neill. English football’s loss – at least initially – was to be the rest of Europe’s considerable gain. Gullit played with deftness, speed and versatility and took little time to storm to the top of Dutch football, but didn’t seem fussed about who he bustled out of his way to get there. Feyenoord fans labelled him a ‘wolf’ for his 1985 move to PSV, which duly brought 46 goals in 68 league appearances. Two years later, however, he was preparing to dump them too. In January 1987, then 24, Gullit went for a Milan medical – lighting a ﬁre under his employers. PSV declared war, using the legal might of tech giant owners Philips to ﬁght Milan chief Silvio Berlusconi. With Juventus watching on with interest, Berlusconi offered to treble his wage. In the end, he got his man for a million more than Diego Maradona had cost Napoli in 1984.

1992

JEAN-PIERRE PAPIN £10m Marseille ▼ Milan

1992

GIANLUCA VIALLI £12m Sampdoria ▼ Juventus

52 July 2021 FourFourTwo

Gullit could be Milan’s Maradona, though: a hard-running rebel who spoke his truth. He arrived in Lombardy to a storm of screaming fans and police sirens, after all, claiming the sports papers were “generally full of rubbish”. Vice-president Adriano Galliani apologised for Gullit’s abrasive nature – in contrast, Marco van Basten had charmed his admirers when he joined the club. If Van Basten was known as ‘the Swan of Utrecht’, Gullit was more the anarchist of Amsterdam. But together with Dutch team-mate Frank Rijkaard, their grace and grit combined for something special. Arrigo Sacchi’s Milan were drilled to perfection, and Gullit shouldn’t have worked – he took being called an anarchist “as a compliment” – but his intensity and energy were key to the Rossoneri’s success. He initially struggled to buy into his freedom being compromised, but Gullit became Van Basten’s strike partner and won the Ballon d’Or midway through his ﬁrst campaign. The Scudetto followed, then two European Cups – understandably, he never had a problem being one of a famous trio. “You’re obviously going to get it when you’re playing so well,” he told FFT. “It’s great to be one of the three – we made such an impact.”

1992

GIANLUIGI LENTINI £13m Torino ▼ Milan

1996

RONALDO £13.2m PSV ▼ Barcelona

1922 WARnEY CRESSWELL

£5,500 > SOUTH SHIELDS > SUNDERLAND Michael ‘Rubberneck’ Gilhooley – a proliﬁc header of a ball – was the most expensive footballer on Earth for only 24 hours. His new club, Sunderland, then stumped up £5,500 for ‘the prince of full-backs’, Cresswell. While 1922 was another world in football – Cresswell was commended as a gentleman for giving an opponent he had injured a box of tobacco – some things never change. South Shields denied their star was off to Everton or Burnley for £6,000, then accepted £500 less from Sunderland – who broke the record once again in 1925 to bag Bob Kelly.

1961 LUIS SUAREZ

£152,000 > BARCELONA > INTER After winning the Ballon d’Or at Barcelona, elegant playmaker Suarez – not that one – followed mentor Helenio Herrera to Inter. He arrived in Milan to become the fulcrum of a revolution, but while his former club had been fluid and beautiful, many spectactors found Herrera’s Inter to be defensive and dull. Suarez was the Nerazzurri’s jewel, spraying balls, working tirelessly and leading Inter to three Scudetti and two European Cups. Jimmy Greaves was reluctant to become the first six-figure signing at the time, joining Spurs for £99,999. Suarez had no such issue.

1996

ALAN SHEARER £15m Blackburn ▼ Newcastle

1997

1998

RONALDO

DENILSON

£19.5m Barcelona ▼ Inter

£21.5m Sao Paulo ▼ Real Betis

1999

CHRISTIAN VIERI £32m Lazio ▼ Inter

RECORD SIGnInGS

1928 DAVID JACK

£10,890 > BOLTON > ARSENAL

1999 CHRISTIAn VIERI £32M > LAZIO > INTER

Blink and you’d miss Vieri. Not just because the burly striker made beating the offside trap an art form, either – he just couldn’t stay at one team for longer than a season. ‘Bobo’ was an outsider from the very start. A Bologna-born boy brought up in Australia, he ﬂitted from city to city in the ’90s, scoring goals wherever he went. But while numerous nomads struggle to impress without laying down roots, Vieri’s allure lingered. He became a cult ﬁgure – mostly across his home nation via the likes of Pisa, Juventus and Lazio – and always left his audience craving a bit more. “I want him and him alone,” former Atletico Madrid boss Raddy Antic famously declared while courting the striker in 1997. “Vieri dead is better than any other attacker alive.” The Italy frontman dazzled at eight clubs before the age of 26. But when Marcello Lippi – Vieri’s manager when they won the league at Juve – joined Inter in 1999 and demanded that chairman Massimo Moratti sign his old charge as Ronaldo’s sidekick, the Nerazzurri were forced to dig deep. Inter had just come eighth, but Vieri didn’t take much convincing. “That’s my weak point – I went to Inter to play with him,” Vieri said of Ronaldo, who

2000

HERNAN CRESPO £35.5m Parma ▼ Lazio

2000

LUIS FIGO £37m Barcelona ▼ Real Madrid

2001

had moved to Inter for a record £19.5m fee of his own two years earlier. He even posed for photos upon the Italian’s arrival, with Vieri only too happy to share the limelight next to his new Brazilian buddy. In return, Vieri told of how Ronaldo would give him penalties just to enhance his Golden Boot chances. They appeared to have a beautiful friendship off the pitch, but it didn’t blossom enough on it. “He’s linked to my biggest regret at Inter,” Lippi lamented of Vieri. “Both in their prime, [23 and] 26 years old, something to scream about. With various injuries, however, they only played together three times [for me].” Vieri and Ronaldo had struck a combined 287 career club goals before their maiden campaign as a pair, yet Inter ﬁnished fourth in Serie A under Lippi before bombing out of Champions League qualifying to Helsingborg – failing to even score across two legs. The duo would never win a Serie A title together... or come remotely close. Vieri bagged only the Coppa Italia in 2005, his swansong after six seasons with Inter. Some 123 goals later, though, you might say that they got their money’s worth. Who knew staying for more than a year might pay off?

ZINEDINE ZIDANE £46.6m Juventus ▼ Real Madrid

2009 KAKA

£56m Milan ▼ Real Madrid

No one can truly recall the exact number of the first five-figure transfer. Given the negotiations, though, it’s understandable. In 1928, Arsenal’s Herbert Chapman met Bolton officials in a bar to discuss a deal for Jack, who had already been a record mover in 1920 and scored the first goal at Wembley. Chapman tipped a waiter £2 to ply his guests with double gin and tonics, as he stayed dry. Chapman would get his way, while Jack became the first man (of only three in history) to net 100 league goals for a second English outfit. It was a hell of a hangover for Bolton.

1992 JEAn-PIERRE PAPIn

£10M > MARSEILLE > MILAN

After four Ligue 1 titles and a Ballon d’Or win, Marseille’s main man moved to Milan. Juventus soon trumped his transfer via the £12m Gianluca Vialli, however, which rather set the tone for poor Papin’s time at San Siro. In an era of three foreigners maximum on a team-sheet, he replaced Gullit for the 1993 Champions League Final, though only on the bench. Papin’s woes were summed up as he watched his old Marseille mates triumph, two years after ﬁnal misery with l’OM against Red Star. He departed after being snubbed for the 1994 Champions League Final against Barça.

2009

CRISTIANO RONALDO £80m Man United ▼ Real Madrid

2013

GARETH BALE £86m Tottenham ▼ Real Madrid

2016

PAUL POGBA £89m Juventus ▼ Man United

2017

NEYMAR £198m Barcelona ▼ PSG

FourFourTwo July 2021 53

PAT nEVIn

Student, music critic, activist… footballer? Pat Nevin spent the early 1980s trying to deﬁne his life by everything other than his exploits on the pitch, leading the Chelsea favourite down some alternative roads featuring knife attacks, The Proclaimers and Saddam Hussein’s secret police

Words Matt Barker 54 July 2021 FourFourTwo

PAT nEVIn

here was a time, back in the early ’80s, when footballers and the sport they played were widely seen as fantastically naff. If you were into music – the good, alternative kind – then a love of the game was an unlikely bedfellow. Things would change later in the decade with the fanzine movement – whose typewriter-and-Tippex publications were frequently sold in independent record stores – Italia 90 and World In Motion. They then hit overdrive in the Britpop-drenched ’90s, but in Margaret Thatcher’s Britain 40 years ago, you tended to keep quiet even about watching Match of the Day. The main problem was a lack of visible, like-minded souls on the pitch. Footballers had the worst taste in music. Certainly, you never expected to ﬁnd one in the pages of the NME: that hallowed bastion of the weekly music papers, home to notoriously caustic articles and referential reviews that would apply deconstructivist theory to the latest Crispy Ambulance album. So, when Chelsea’s newest signing – a young, Scottish winger who joined from Clyde for £95,000 in the summer of 1983 – was interviewed by the music journalist Adrian Thrills, it felt like a genuine moment.

KEEP IT QUIET Chelsea had approached Pat Nevin one year earlier, but the Glaswegian politely declined. Instead, he was intent on finishing a degree, studying part-time while turning out for the Scottish Second Division side. He couldn’t hold off in the end, however: Nevin was named the division’s player of the year and then invited to the 1982 European Under-18 Championship in Finland. Scotland won with their speedster voted player of the tournament. Word soon spread about his obvious talent – not that he did the talking. “I’d kind of told nobody, including my own girlfriend,” Nevin admits to FourFourTwo now. “I wanted people to like me for who I was and not what I did. And that was a big part of it – what I did was not who I was.” Nevin was never overly bothered about all the other stuff that went with playing. Press interviews were a particular bugbear, even if he enjoyed chatting with Thrills in the NME to such an extent the pair went on to share a flat. Dubbed “the first post-punk footballer”, Nevin namechecked his favourite bands (Joy Division, New Order, Cocteau Twins, Clock DVA, the Associates and The Smiths, among them), before touching on everything from the working-class Tory vote to nights out in his native Glasgow. Everything, that is, apart from football – although he readily admitted to being “humbled” by the dedication of Chelsea’s travelling away support. The real eye-opener, though, was Nevin’s apparent intention to knock the game on the head and return to his studies. That, or seek out a career in journalism. “As things stand, I’ve signed for two years and don’t intend to commit myself to longer yet,” he said. “When people ask me what I do for a living, I don’t say that I’m a footballer – it doesn’t come out right. I usually say I’m a student, which is technically true anyway.”

Below Blues adored Nevin’s silky wing play Right The NME interview with future ﬂatmate Adrian Thrills

Nevin smiles at the memory now. “I used to love playing football, I really did,” he says. “The problem was that I didn’t particularly like the rest of it. There were attempts to fit in, but they were half-hearted. You were expected to fight to become a footballer, to think of nothing else. I thought, ‘No, there’s a life out there’. It was trying to get people to understand the dichotomy between being utterly dedicated to your craft, but knowing it’s kind of frivolous as well. And that doesn’t make you unprofessional.” The Chelsea move proved an immediate success: Nevin won over supporters with his darting wing play, linking up with another new signing, Kerry Dixon, whose 28 league goals ensured promotion back to the top tier after a five-year absence. Away from the pitch, the young Scot soon took to the capital’s culture and was out most nights at gigs, theatres and galleries. It helped that he had arrived in London the same summer as fellow Glaswegian Charlie Nicholas: a very different proposition. “I said, ‘The limelight’s all yours, Charlie!’” laughs Nevin. “He’s at champagne bars and dating Page 3 girls and whatever, and I’m at the Institute of Contemporary Art watching [Scottish post-punk indie crooner] Paul Haigh, and I’m really at home there. “It’s funny – I absolutely got it right away that within the bubble of playing football at the weekend in front of thousands of people, nobody’s noticing you when you’re going to art galleries, or going to gigs, or seeing a film. It was two different lives. London’s brilliant for that, so it suited me fabulously.” Then, as now, footballers had to be team players, usually underlined with well-worn military metaphors invoking trench warfare. It added to the naffness. Nevin never lacked team spirit or work ethic, nor was he ever deliberately aloof – but he wasn’t one for boozing sessions straight after training either.

PAT nEVIn

“MY nICKnAME WAS ‘WEIRDO’ – I WAS THInKInG, ‘nO I’M THE nORMAL OnE, YOU’RE THE WEIRDOS’” “It’s not that I didn’t like footballers,” he insists. “How many of your workmates do you really hang about with? You don’t really, especially in football when you move about all the time. I’d live a normal life and then go and do this mad thing at the weekend. “It’s this big thing, trying to tell people that there’s supposed to be this gang, this band of brothers – but if you look at it closely, it doesn’t add up. How long does a player stay at the same club: about three years? There’s always movement. But also the whole thing of ‘we’re in this together, I’ll ﬁght for you’, all of that... but I want your job. You’re my best mate, but I want your job and I’m going to take it. That’s how viciously competitive it is.”

I PROCLAIM YOU STRANGE

This raincoat-wearing student type suddenly appearing in the dressing room fascinated Nevin’s Chelsea team-mates. It took a while for them to fully trust him. “My nickname was ‘Weirdo’ for quite a long time,” he laughs. “I was always thinking, ‘Oh, no I’m the normal one – you’re the weirdos,

you just don’t get it’! Looking back, I was probably right: there wasn’t one normal person there...” He feels a bit ashamed about it now, but at the time Nevin felt some disdain when it came to music tastes. “Yeah, for a wee while I looked at them and thought, ‘My god, look at all the rubbish they’re listening to, what they’re reading, what they’re wearing’. “After a while you mature and appreciate other people’s viewpoints. They’d given up everything to play football – they’d taken such a massive chance and I hadn’t. I could go off and do something else because there was no pressure for me, but there was a lot for them. They were in this bubble of football from a very early age, and that was all they wanted or all they knew.” Nevin enjoyed his team-mates’ company, the camaraderie and Pythonesque sense of humour. “They had real street smarts,” he remembers. “There was a long period when journalists were always taking the mickey out of ‘thick’ players. I had more in common with the journalists because we could talk about music or books, but I knew they could

FourFourTwo July 2021 57

PAT nEVIn never survive in the dressing room. You need a certain type of street attitude to cope with that environment. Footballers aren’t thick, they’re really not.” Things would sometimes get a little lively, especially if ‘Weirdo’ tried to wrestle control of the team bus stereo on the journey back from a game. Usually, his cassettes would be unceremoniously yanked out of the tape deck and lobbed back in his general direction within 20 seconds. “I remember there was a new band, they’d released a couple of singles and I thought, ‘I love this, everyone must love this’,” recalls Nevin. “I put this band on, telling everyone, ‘You’ll love this, they’re Scottish’. But they fell about laughing. It was The Proclaimers. I couldn’t listen to what they were listening to because it often gave me a headache, so I’d sit there with my headphones on, listening to [notorious German industrial noiseniks] Einsturzende Neubauten or something and think, ‘This doesn’t give me a headache!’” Undeterred, Nevin upped his game, creating carefully curated video compilations featuring clips from late-night music programmes. “I’d put two or three songs on that I knew they could put up with – this sort of tiny crossover area where we met, where I was getting fed up with a band that they were just getting into, like Simple Minds or something. Then I started adding cartoons and this sort of strange stuff to the tapes, kind of mash-up things, and it was all so I didn’t have to listen to their music.” Blues manager John Hollins once burst into Nevin’s hotel room after hearing screeching

His relationship with Ken Bates was slightly more tricky. The famously gruff Chelsea chairman, who bought the club for £1 in 1982, had little time for anything progressive. A skinny teenage Glaswegian with gel in his hair sporting a Joy Division badge on his trench coat was always going to be a red rag. True to form, a bafﬂed Bates would shake his head and tell his young winger that he didn’t have a clue what he was on about. However, as the pair understood each other better, and as Nevin crucially continued to deliver on the pitch, they found themselves increasingly getting on. “We had nothing in common, but ended up liking each other because of it,” explains the Scot. “He had no real power over me and didn’t try to push me into anything. Everyone was frightened of him, but he just didn’t get where my strength of character came from, that this boy could say ‘no’ to him.” Discussing a new contract once, chairman Bates warned his charge that he may never play again. Nevin shrugged. “I said, ‘And your point is? Why is that important? I will play again, maybe not professionally, but I don’t care’. He looked at me and said, ‘You mean that, don’t you?’ It wasn’t an act, it wasn’t fake. If I’d have been faking it, he’d have seen straight through it.”

feedback coming from the other side of the door. The wideman was listening to the new Jesus and Mary Chain single Upside Down, but a panicked Hollins searched around the Scot’s room, adamant that one of the hotel’s appliances must be on the blink. “Holly was really funny,” chuckles Nevin. “He’d ask me about the bands I liked, and when I told him the names he’d always say, ‘Prefab Sprout?! You’ve just made that one up, haven’t you?’”

KNIFE ATTACKS AND SECRET POLICE

Nevin’s readiness to speak out about social issues of the day – notably, the entrenched South African system of apartheid – didn’t

THE ALTERnATIVE CROWD

Pat Nevin has some company when it comes to footballers with music tastes that lean towards the eclectic…

SLAVEN BILIC

After hanging up his boots, Bilic launched two bands, the second of which (Rawbau) produced 2008 hit Vatreno Ludilo, which became the unofﬁcial anthem of Croatia’s Euros campaign in Austria and Switzerland. He’d later liken Germany to metal band Rammstein at the tournament and take his future West Ham No.2, Julian Dicks, along to a Megadeth gig. “He put some of their songs on at Liverpool,” revealed Dicks. “That seemed to lift the mood.” Rock on.

58 July 2021 FourFourTwo

TERRY BUTCHER

As if a bloke who played with blood pouring from his bonce would be into Craig David. Instead, Butcher confessed his love of AC/DC and Iron Maiden to FFT in 2009 (“none of this modern rubbish”), and once got the latter’s Steve Harris and Adrian Smith in for a Rangers training session. He was often joined for pub sessions by Deep Purple’s Ian Gillan. “His party piece was setting ﬁre to the sporty paper, the Green ’Un, as you were reading it,” chuckled Butcher.

XABI ALONSO

When he wasn’t spraying passes around the pitch and maintaining fantastic facial hair, the former Liverpool darling could regularly be found tweeting his beloved anthems from the likes of Dinosaur Jr, Spiritualized, Teenage Fanclub and The Velvet Underground. As a kid growing up in the Basque Country, Alonso’s favourite band was Nirvana – although in a 2010 interview, he did admit a modern partiality to Coldplay. Oh Xabi, really...?

STUART PEARCE

Pearce has probably been asked about the Sex Pixtols more than his actual football career over the years – but such is the price one pays for being different in this game. ‘Psycho’ famously dragged team-mate Gareth Southgate to a gig at Finsbury Park after England’s win over Spain at Euro 96, but his real love are The Stranglers, who he claims to have seen more than 300 times. Pearce is still a frequent gig-goer around his football responsibilities at West Ham.

DAVID DE GEA

The goalkeeper outed himself as a massive Slipknot fan in 2015, tweeting a picture at one of their gigs with the excitable caption, “Amazing concert!!!” The Spaniard has professed a love for Metallica and Avenged Sevenfold, and also has a surprise ally in the dressing room: his manager. “Ole [Gunnar Solskjaer] was really into heavy metal and would put on some appalling stuff,” said an unimpressed Rio Ferdinand. “You wanted to stick ﬁngers in your ears.”

go down enormously well with the less-enlightened section of Chelsea’s broad fanbase. Although a minority, they were still vocal enough to cause the club problems. The far-right National Front would regularly target Stamford Bridge as a recruitment ground for their youth wing, leafleting supporters while they made their way to the stadium and often finding willing conscripts among fringe hooligan gangs. Chelsea’s reputation wasn’t helped by Bates’ blunt views on everything from the influence of foreign players to keeping unruly fans in check with electric fencing. “I was just making it clear that these things that were being sung, shouted or whatever at games weren’t acceptable,” continues Nevin. “You don’t have 40,000 people singing songs using the N-word these days. It’s taken decades and decades to come, but it’s good that we’ve come this far. On one very specific occasion, I refused to talk about anything else after a match, because it was one when our player [fellow wideman Paul Canoville] had been involved and I was like, ‘OK, that’s it, I’m not having this any more’. “None of it was me attempting to organise anything – it was how I felt. I’d been brought up with that attitude. I was quite involved with the anti-apartheid movement at school and as a student, so it would have been odd for me not to get involved. But you’ve got to be careful – there can be misunderstandings and consequences.” Bates called in his midfielder to discuss the situation, asking him to tone down some of the ‘political’ stuff in the press. Shut up and dribble, in other words. “To be fair to him, he was trying to protect me,” says Nevin. “He knew the dangers, he knew all about the far right at the time, and he knew the possibility of some supporters turning on me. What he didn’t understand is that I didn’t see it as a danger. I went, ‘So what? As long as I play good football, that’s all that matters. If they bring their politics to my place of work, then I’m going to bring my politics and give it back, with interest’. But he would say, ‘What if you met somebody with a knife on them?’ And he was right, actually – that did happen...” A rival fan – reportedly a Spurs supporter – once brandished a weapon after confronting Nevin on his Tube journey home after playing for Chelsea. The winger, his boots still tucked under one arm, quickly pushed his would-be assailant away before jumping off the train at the next stop. Happily, though, the Scot’s relationship with Chelsea fans in general was never anything less than positive. Occasionally he would even bump into some at gigs, and many of them remain friends to this day. “It was all lower profile than it is now,” he reflects. “I never got asked for an autograph at a gig. People who were into that sort of thing were cool, so it was a brilliant getaway and escape from everything. The manager was great and knew all about it – it wasn’t

“ME AnD BRIAn M c CLAIR WERE MORE LIKELY TO TALK ABOUT STEVE BIKO THAn ARCHIBALD” Above On the run with Everton Top left “Are we all done? A Flock of Seagulls are supporting The Cure tonight...”

like I was going out nightclubbing until four in the morning or whatever.” Nevin would frequently wander off alone while on international duty, or during one of Chelsea’s then-rare excursions overseas. When the Blues travelled to play a friendly in Iraq (another of Bates’ terrific ideas), the Scot merrily embarked on a tour of Baghdad’s backstreets with £30 expenses in his jeans, tailed by Saddam Hussein’s secret police. There were a few players who shared his curious mindset and love of alternative music, though, most notably international team-mate Brian McClair. The two had met when they were 17 and part of a Scottish youth squad. “I was sitting on my bed reading the NME when this guy walked in with a copy of Sounds,” reveals Nevin. “I went, ‘Interesting!’ He was studying maths at Glasgow University – we both came from a student background and were more likely to be talking about Steve Biko than Steve Archibald. It wasn’t that we thought we were better than anyone, we just came from a different kind of culture. It was this weird kind of mix; we felt comfortable in ourselves, so it wasn’t a lonely existence.” Nevin picked up two player of the season awards over five years at Stamford Bridge, but when the team were relegated in 1988 after losing a play-off final to Middlesbrough (the result of a Football League restructure), he moved on to Everton and new adventures. By then, there was wider change in the air

and the idea of a footballer reading a book, or a book reader watching football, wasn’t quite so abnormal. After four mixed seasons at Goodison Park, Nevin’s career began to wind down. Another five years as a Tranmere player brought with them three consecutive Division One play-off semi-final defeats from 1993, before shorter stints at Kilmarnock and Motherwell led to his retirement in 2000 aged 37. “It’s complicated but, from the age of 15, I watched other people and football became who they were,” explains Nevin. “I’d always thought, ‘What happens when it’s not there any more?’ You’re bereft and you’re lost. I never sat myself down and thought, ‘Right, you’re a footballer’. It was always about wondering what I would do next. All the way through [my career] I was always writing, I was the chair of the PFA, I was always doing something else… If you’re an insider you don’t think twice about it, but as an outsider you constantly think that this is all very strange.” Would Nevin still feel like an outsider if he played in today’s game? “I’d probably just as deliberately be outside, because I’d want to keep lives separate and I wouldn’t want that job to define me,” says the 57-year-old. “I have a despair and dislike of celebrity life, and I’ve always had that. If I had it back then, what do you think I’d feel about it now?!” Pat Nevin’s new book, published by Monoray, is available now – visit octopusbooks.co.uk

FourFourTwo July 2021 59

CALLUM WILSOn

BLACK AnD WHITOOnTE Striker Callum Wilson was Newcastle’s shining light amid dark times last season, leading from the front even amid injury woes of his own. Goals are already back on his mind, but they’re a sideshow for the real area of celebration

Words Ian Murtagh

allum Wilson closes his eyes, imagines the scenes and smiles. It’s the opening day of the new season and Newcastle’s striker has just scored his ﬁrst goal in front of 52,000 adoring fans at St James’ Park. Suddenly, everything makes sense. The noise, the adulation, the crowd worship. At long last, Wilson can feel like a fully-ﬂedged Geordie icon, emulating legends such as

CALLUM WILSOn

“I WAnT TO FEEL WHAT THOSE GREATS BEFORE ME DID WHEn THEY SCORED A GOAL AT ST JAMES’ PARK. IT’S A BIG REASOn I JOInED THIS CLUB”

CALLUM WILSOn Jackie Milburn, Malcolm Macdonald, Les Ferdinand and, of course, Alan Shearer. The Toon Army burst into song, raucously hailing Tyneside’s latest assassin. Wilson is already their hero, but only a TV one up to now; a digital god, a 3D black-and-white warrior whose achievements last season helped to secure Premier League survival. But this is for real, and the 29-year-old can hardly wait. “Wow, it will be special,” he tells FourFourTwo. “It’s something I’ve been waiting for ever since I joined the club, and a reason why I signed for Newcastle – to feel what all those great names before me felt when they scored in front of that crowd.” Wilson netted 12 Premier League goals in an injury-hit, fluctuating and surreal season after leaving relegated Bournemouth for £20 million last summer. He scored on his debut at West Ham last September, but admits his next goal will feel even better. “Fortunately, I’ve got a good relationship with the fans without having any personal interaction with the vast majority of them,” he says. “Social media is a big thing and you can communicate that way. Of course, I’ve met them when I’ve been in town or at the shops. As a footballer, you get recognised a lot up here. They follow you around, chase you, shout at you and stuff like that, but it’s all been very positive and I appreciate it.” But the striker knows there’s nothing quite like doing his thing right in front of them. “Yeah, I need to get to know the fanbase, feed off them and be inspired by them,” he adds. “And when that first goal goes in – and it won’t take long – I want to hear them, see them and take in that unique atmosphere. It will feel like joining a new club and making my debut all over again. I can’t wait.” Wilson is a man on a mission, intent on joining the illustrious list of strikers who have scored 100 Premier League goals. On 53 at the age of 29, he’s also a man in a hurry. “I’m desperate to hit three figures,” he admits. “It’s a burning ambition of mine. I know that I’ll get there at some point, hopefully sooner rather than later. Without the setbacks I’ve had, I would have been a lot closer to that target than I am now.” It’s said without a hint of arrogance – more a statement of fact by a player who has met every challenge confronting him with relish and professionalism. And Wilson has faced some tough ones along the way. As a youngster at Coventry, he was loaned to fifth-tier outfits Kettering and Tamworth, before establishing himself with his local club. After moving to Bournemouth in 2014, Wilson fired the goals which catapulted the Cherries to promotion in his first season on the south coast, before taking to top-flight football with consummate ease. But just seven matches and four goals into his first Premier League campaign, a cruel ACL injury forced a six-month lay-off. Worse, Wilson then suffered the same knack again in February 2017 – this time, the other knee – only nine months after his return. “Injuries are part and parcel of the game and I’ve had my fair share,” reflects Wilson,

diplomatically. “But I’ve never felt sorry for myself. The two cruciate injuries were just unlucky, and hamstring injuries are a consequence of being a quick and quite explosive player. When you’re fatigued, sometimes you can break down, so it’s all about staying strong. “What’s happened to me has shaped me to being the person and footballer I am today. I believe I’m more rounded on and off the pitch, both physically and mentally. I pride myself on my professionalism, and now appreciate all the little things in football like training sessions and gym workouts.” Recalling his time with Coventry allows FFT to remind Wilson of one of our favourite ever photoshoots in 2014, when he and some of his young Sky Blues team-mates dressed up to recreate the famous self-titled album by the city’s favourite sons, The Specials (above). “Ah yes, I remember that,” he chuckles. “How could I forget?! Deﬁnitely one of the most random things I’ve ever done, but it

Above A very Specials shoot Below All smiles at Anﬁeld before VAR stepped in

was really enjoyable. We were all just a bunch of fresh-faced kids and loved getting dressed up in suits and hats for the shoot. And it turned out pretty well, didn’t it?” Wilson hesitates when it’s put to him that Newcastle could organise a similar stunt, however. “Who are Tyneside’s most famous groups?” he asks, before concluding that the likes of The Animals, Dire Straits and Lindisfarne are a little too much before his time. “I think I’ll have to pass on that one.” It’s typical of Wilson that his rise up the divisions hasn’t coincided with a change in his personality. There’s genuine affection for each club he’s played for, and the Toon man claims that fame hasn’t changed him. “I still enjoy meeting fans, talking to them or interacting on social media,” he says. “In my book, it’s a vital part of being a modern footballer. I like to think that I’m a respectful sort of person – there will come a time when no one wants to interview me, photograph

CALLUM WILSOn me or even talk football, so at this time, if people want to hear my story, I’m all for it. “I remember those spells at Tamworth and Kettering when some of my team-mates would turn up for games in their work gear. It was a real eye-opener but also a reminder that if I didn’t work hard, then that could be me in a few years – playing part-time football and having to get a job to make ends meet. “I’ve learned something everywhere I’ve been, and like to think that I left all those clubs on good terms. From the outset, I’ve played with my heart on my sleeve and left everything on the pitch. I’ve never downed tools or been a selfish player, and hopefully supporters see that and appreciate it. At Bournemouth, I even tried to play on after doing my ACL! My former clubs gave me the platform to be where I am now, so I’ll always be grateful and have a soft spot for them.” As for Newcastle, Wilson believes that better times lie ahead after a campaign he admits didn’t go as smoothly as planned. “No season is ever straightforward, but we encountered more problems than most with Jamaal Lascelles getting injured and Allan Saint-Maximin missing for six weeks with COVID,” he explains. “Other players were affected as well. We picked up quite a few injuries along the way, too – not just me but other key players – so it was never easy, especially when we could barely buy a win.” Wilson is referring to the grim period from mid-December to early April, when the Magpies won only two matches from 19. At that point, did he fear a second successive relegation after dropping with Bournemouth? “Not really, although after that 3-0 defeat against Brighton [in March], you could feel the growing tension and anxiety among the fans. I was still out at that stage but always felt that when I was fit, I could help the team. “It’s no coincidence that when the injuries cleared up and Steve Bruce had virtually everyone fit, results picked up dramatically. Obviously, we’d have preferred to win a few

“WE BEAT LEICESTER AnD WEnT TOE TO TOE WITH MAn CITY. IF, WE CARRY On, THE FUTURE IS BRIGHT”

Above “When we said, ‘The camera loves you’, Callum...”; admiring Saint Max in training

more games earlier on, but the way the lads bounced back from that bad Brighton result showed the character in the dressing room. We beat Leicester and went toe to toe with Man City. If we can carry on where we left off in those games, the future is bright.” With Wilson leading the line before picking up yet another hamstring problem, and the brilliant Saint-Maximin operating behind him, Newcastle were transformed from being a goal-shy, pedestrian side into one bristling with attacking content. Sufﬁce to say, Wilson is a massive fan of his mercurial sidekick. “Allan’s a nice guy who keeps himself to himself off the pitch,” he says of a man who donated games consoles to a local group of disadvantaged children in June. “But on it, some of the stuff he does is breathtaking. He’s like a playground footballer when the ball is at his feet, doing all sorts of tricks and taking on two, three and sometimes four opponents. It’s probably only in training that I appreciate how skilful he really is. I guess you’re concentrating so much in games, but there are times during the week in practice matches when you just have to applaud the stepovers and his footwork.” Wilson knows that the No.9 shirt – worn by Messrs Milburn, Shearer and er, Obafemi Martins before him – holds mythical status on Tyneside, but the striker continues to wear the No.13 he donned at Bournemouth. He’s not exactly counting down the days to if or when current occupier Joelinton hands him the famous digit, either.

“Of course I know what it means at this club,” he says. “But it’s a tricky one because the shirt is taken. If it ever became vacant and was up for grabs, I’d happily wear it. But I’m not particularly superstitious, underlined by the fact I wear 13 which hasn’t served me too badly! “The bottom line is that I play football for the badge on the front of the shirt, not the number on the back – but that doesn’t mean I’m not familiar or in awe of the history of the No.9 shirt and those who have worn it. “It’s very humbling and a huge honour to be mentioned in the same breath as those greats, and if I can achieve just a quarter of what they did at Newcastle, I’ll be delighted. “Funnily enough, I’m yet to actually meet Alan Shearer face to face, although we have spoken on the phone. With all the COVID restrictions in place, it’s been difficult to do so many of the things we took for granted a couple of years ago. When everything gets back to normal, I’d love the chance to shake him by the hand, chat football and thank him for all the kind things he’s said about me on TV or in the media. It’s very flattering.” As he edges towards his 30th birthday in February, Wilson is convinced that he is still improving as a footballer and a goalscorer – and he takes inspiration from another striker who learned his trade in the grounding climes of non-league. “I suppose there are similarities between myself and Jamie Vardy,” he says of the erstwhile Halifax and Fleetwood hitman. “What he’s achieved at Leicester is pretty unbelievable, and credit to him – he always says how proud he is of his background. But the most impressive thing about him is the sheer number of goals he’s scored since he reached 30. For someone in his late-twenties, he’s a terrific role model – living proof that 30 can be the beginning of something in your football career, and not the end. “It’s the same with Robert Lewandowski in the Bundesliga. He’s still breaking records at an age that everyone used to say was when a striker starts slowing down. As far as I’m concerned, that’s when you’re quickening up because your football intelligence is so much greater than it was as a kid. At the highest level, scoring goals is as much about what goes on in the head as on the grass. “So yeah, I do believe that I’m getting better as a striker. I certainly haven’t given up on my England career – I’d love to add to the four caps I won before the pandemic. Lockdown came at the worst possible time for me, but I feel like I have some unfinished business there.” Wilson will go into the new season needing another 47 goals to join the Premier League 100 club that Vardy became part of last term, the Leicester striker having bagged 84 of his 118 top-flight goals after turning 30 in 2017. Few would bet against Wilson following his counterpart over the next three campaigns. He might even have a special celebration for that momentous day – not that it’s likely to top the one he’s got planned for scoring that long-awaited 54th in front of an adoring Toon Army at St James’ Park in August.

FourFourTwo July 2021 63

N I D E Y A WE PL InTERTOTO CUP

InTERTOTO CUP

AND ALL WE GOT WAS THIS LOUSY TROPHY English clubs those particularlywreerlue among be associated with Euctant to football’s ugly cousinropean mid-90s, making for biin the scenes and grim batterzarre ings on a regular basis t it sure was fun while it la. Bu ed – for some of its teams,stan yway Words Chris Flanagan

FourFourTwo July 2021 65

InTERTOTO CUP ewer than 2,000 curious souls were gathered at Brighton’s Goldstone Ground in late June 1995, to witness the moment it all began: Wimbledon Reserves 0 Bursaspor 4. British football’s eccentric relationship with the Intertoto Cup was off to an inauspicious start, featuring a club that didn’t want to be there, and would never play in Europe again. Only taking part so they wouldn’t face UEFA sanctions, Wimbledon ended up ﬁelding such a weakened team that they were banned from Europe altogether. “I’d never heard of the Intertoto Cup before that,” remembers John O’Kane, part of that team. “It was a very strange experience.” But such was life in the tournament once marketed by UEFA as having “no ﬁnal, no winner and no trophy” – as if that was somehow a selling point. Instead, it brought oddities like European football in Rotherham, Spurs losing 8-0, Dean Windass in Lithuania and the sorry lost kits of Partick Thistle. The continent’s most maligned tournament lasted for nearly half a century... and rarely was it boring.

“IT WAS A BIT OF A TRAUMA…”

The Intertoto Cup launched 60 years ago, well before British clubs ﬁrst took part.

Originally, it was largely the brainchild of FIFA vice-president Ernst Thommen, who managed a football pools company in Switzerland and wanted meaningful matches for punters to bet on during the summer months. Reluctant to endorse a tournament purely arranged for betting purposes, UEFA refused to get officially involved, but decided not to prevent keen bean Thommen from organising it himself. The competition commenced in June 1961, featuring teams from Switzerland, Austria, the Netherlands, West Germany, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Sweden. The format was almost identical to the Champions League – eight groups of four, although only the group winners progressed to the quarter-finals. Ten months later, the final was won by an Englishman – Keith Spurgeon bossed Ajax to victory over Feyenoord in front of 40,000 fans in Amsterdam, two years after he’d ended a non-league playing career with Herne Bay, Snowdown Colliery Welfare and Clapton. The first edition of the tournament was known prosaically as the International Football Cup (a level of imagination not seen again until Cardiff City opened the Cardiff City Stadium in 2009), but it later became the Intertoto Cup – ‘toto’ being the German word for betting pools. Slovnaft Bratislava triumphed at the next two editions, although things started to get complicated in 1964 when UEFA banned any clubs competing in the European Cup or Fairs Cup from taking part in the Intertoto’s first knockout round, which was held during the season. Initially, the solution was to give those teams a bye to the next round, but Dutch side DWS were still in the European Cup by then, so were forced to withdraw. When Gornik Zabrze and Vorwarts Berlin also had to pull out for similar reasons two years later, a decision was taken to change the format from 1967 onwards – scrapping the knockout rounds and holding only the summer group stage, meaning that the competition no longer had a single winner. It continued that way for almost 30 years,

Left Wimbledon were soon left to ponder the point of it all... Below ...but at least Bursaspor fans enjoyed it

with an ever-expanding number of nations represented – but no British involvement until UEFA opted to wrestle control of the tournament in 1995. The knockout rounds were restored, with two eventual winners earning spots in the UEFA Cup. Ten countries still didn’t enter, although the FA accepted three of the Intertoto’s 60 places, having received indications earlier in the season that most Premier League clubs would be interested. When those same sides were actually offered the places, however, it soon became clear that no one was up for it; clubs were unwilling to bring their players back from holiday for a group stage that began in June. Sheffield Wednesday – 13th in the standings that season – were the only team still open to the idea, before eventually saying no as well. The FA and Premier League were getting ready to share a fine of £150,000 – each withdrawal would cost £50,000 – until an irritated UEFA ramped up the pressure and threatened to ban all English clubs from Europe. A scramble swiftly ensued to find three teams, any teams, to somehow take part. Wednesday agreed, while Tottenham and Wimbledon – seventh and ninth in that year’s table – were dragged kicking and screaming, despite managers Gerry Francis and Joe Kinnear being dead against it. Thus followed a farce. Wednesday fielded a strong outfit featuring Chris Waddle, Dan Petrescu and Mark Bright for the five-club group stage, narrowly missing out on progression to a Karlsruhe side who boasted Slaven Bilic among their ranks (the match between the two sides reffed by none other than Pierluigi Collina). The Owls ended up playing their home matches in front of pitiful attendances at Rotherham’s Millmoor, since Hillsborough was undergoing renovation in preparation for Euro 96. Spurs and Wimbledon, who both switched their games to Brighton’s Goldstone Ground because of ongoing pitch repairs at White Hart Lane and Selhurst Park respectively, approached team selection very differently – opting for a mix of youngsters and loanees, specially drafted in to fulfil the fixtures. Tottenham fielded emerging teenagers like Stephen Carr and Jamie Clapham, but also borrowed Mark Newson from Barnet, Ian Sampson from Northampton, David Byrne from St Mirren and a 33-year-old Alan Pardew from Charlton. The north Londoners were beaten 2-0 by Swiss side Luzern in front of 2,497 in Brighton, and although they won at Rudar Velenje in Slovenia, Spurs then went down to little-known Swedish visitors Oster before closing their campaign with an 8-0 hammering at Köln – an all-time club record defeat. “We played their first team and had no chance,” Pardew told FFT, recalling that demoralising night against Dorinel Munteanu, Toni Polster, Bodo Illgner & Co. “It was a bit of a trauma.” For Wimbledon, who had missed out on a place in the European Cup Winners’ Cup in 1988 because of the ban, there were opportunities for young players like Lenny Piper, Iain Laidlaw and Jason Euell, while

InTERTOTO CUP

Michael Appleton, John O’Kane and Graeme Tomlinson were each loaned to them from Manchester United. “It came out of the blue,” O’Kane tells FFT. “Alex Ferguson wanted three players to go and help out at Wimbledon – we thought we were joining up with the first team, but got there and it was a youth and reserve setup. We went there for experience – or probably it was to get us out of the way!” The trio were all in the starting line-up as Wimbledon became the first British club to begin their Intertoto campaign, at home to Turkish side Bursaspor on June 24. They were beaten 4-0, before travelling to Slovakia for a game against Kosice. “Either the night before or two nights before the game, we went out on the piss – I can still remember us all in this nightclub, buying bottles of champagne for about £2,” laughs O’Kane. “It was quite laid-back.” The Dons drew 1-1, before a 13-day wait for their next fixture. “The Wimbledon tennis was on, and some of us were having a drink in the town centre,” recalls the ex-full-back, 20 at the time. “Somehow we met [former decathlete] Daley Thompson at one point, and he got us into Top of the Pops randomly! The three of us went, but when we got to the studio, they said, ‘You’ve got to dance’. We

“SOMEHOW, WE MET DALEY THOMPSOn AnD HE GOT US InTO TOP OF THE POPS . I DOn’T REMEMBER MUCH OF THE GAMES”

Below How it all began: a Turkish trouncing at the Goldstone Ground

were footballers trying to be cool, thinking, ‘F**king no chance are we dancing’. So we stood at the side and watched, then went for a night out. I don’t remember much about the games that we played, but it was a good experience.” Only 702 people watched Wimbledon scrape a goalless draw with Beitar Jerusalem at the Goldstone, before a 3-0 loss at Belgian side Charleroi ended their winless campaign. Neither they nor Spurs ﬁnished bottom of their groups, but their team selections had frustrated UEFA to such an extent that the governing body slapped both of them with a one-year ban from European competition. The suspensions were later lifted on appeal – neither qualiﬁed that season anyway, but England were docked one UEFA Cup place as part of the punishment, which subsequently denied a disgruntled Everton their Fair Play spot for 1996-97.

ZIZOU, ARSHAVIN AND AWKWARD RETURNS Partick Thistle also became the first Scottish side to compete in the Intertoto Cup in 1995, despite narrowly avoiding relegation from the top flight that year. They too had come second bottom of their group, having endured a less-than-ideal start when their kit went missing en route to Austria and LASK Linz. Welsh team Ton Pentre were thrashed 7-0 by Jon Dahl Tomasson and Heerenveen at Cardiff Arms Park. Zinedine Zidane’s Bordeaux were one of the two winners of that season’s Intertoto Cup, eventually making it all the way to the UEFA Cup final. In the 13 years that followed, six English clubs would reach the UEFA Cup via the same route – although the next team actually prepared to play was Crystal Palace in 1998... when they had just finished bottom of the Premier League.

InTERTOTO CUP With the Intertoto’s group stage scrapped by then, Palace crashed out to Turkish club Samsunspor in their opening round 4-0 on aggregate, and went on to finish 14th in the second tier that season. West Ham fared better in 1999: Frank Lampard, Rio Ferdinand and Joe Cole helped the Hammers beat Jokerit, Heerenveen and Metz to reach the UEFA Cup. Juventus joined them as Intertoto winners that season, just months after they’d fluffed a two-goal lead against Manchester United in the semi-finals of the Champions League. Bradford took part in 2000, having narrowly stayed up on the final day of the Premier League season. Complete with Stuart McCall and Dean Windass in their side, the Bantams faced Atlantas of Lithuania and Martin Jol’s Waalwijk, before losing to Zenit – who gave a first-team debut to teenage starlet Andrey Arshavin at Valley Parade. Aston Villa were among the Intertoto Cup winners in 2001, and a year later there was similar success for Fulham, making their first ever appearance in Europe after coming 13th in the Premier League – seizing the chance when clubs above them didn’t. “It’s still a great memory for me,” insists Zat Knight, a young defender attempting to become a first-team regular back then. “The Intertoto Cup wasn’t fashionable and some of the boys were annoyed to be in it, especially when we were going to teams they had never heard of. Every footballer wants as long an off-season as possible. “But our manager Jean Tigana had a different mindset of ‘why not go into it?’ If you win it, you get into the UEFA Cup, and if you don’t, you’ve had competitive pre-season matches. I was excited about it – I thought I’d probably get some games. I remember going to Finland for the first round, where they have nearly 24 hours of daylight in summer. It was 10pm or 11pm and it was bright outside – it was weird...” The home leg against FC Haka was no less strange – a bumper crowd of Fulham fans thought they’d said farewell to the old terraced Craven Cottage at the end of the Premier League season two months earlier, ahead of a groundshare at Loftus Road. Their beloved stadium was due to be substantially redeveloped, with the possibility Mohamed Al-Fayed might instead build a new one. When the Intertoto Cup opportunity came about, though, Loftus Road wasn’t actually ready; Fulham needed to make a brief and slightly awkward return to the Cottage, in front of fewer than 8,000 fans against Finnish opposition. Only 5,000 were there a fortnight later against Greek side Egaleo, before they eventually moved to Loftus Road for the next round against Sochaux. In the final, Knight would go head to head with Serie A legend Beppe Signori, as Fulham took on Bologna. “Coming up against Signori, I was testing myself as a young defender, so to come out on top was great,” he recalls of a 5-3 aggregate win where Junichi Inamoto scored four goals. “The experience helped me in my career, although it was pretty funny when we won because the trophy was about

68 July 2021 FourFourTwo

“THE TROPHY WAS ABOUT THE SAME SIZE AS A DEODORAnT. ALL OF THOSE MATCHES, AnD THAT WAS WHAT WE GOT...” the same size as a deodorant. All those games, and that was the trophy we got!” The competition format changed again in 2006, when Newcastle were one of 11 clubs to make it from the Intertoto Cup to the UEFA Cup – only needing to win a solitary round against Lillestrom to get there. They were crowned that season’s sole Intertoto winner months later, on the basis that they progressed further in the UEFA Cup than any of the other 10 teams, reaching the last 16. To honour the achievement, captain Scott Parker was effectively awarded a certiﬁcate on the pitch at St James’ Park (above), much to his bemusement. Blackburn then followed the Magpies from Intertoto to UEFA Cup in 2007, before Villa did it for a second time in 2008. Bafﬂingly, they made it all the way to the UEFA Cup’s last 32, only to decide at that late stage they

Clockwise from top Scotty P struggles to hold his emotions; Lampard & Co made it into the UEFA Cup; Windass in Europe: sure, why not?; “No, you can’t sell this thing in Harrods...”

weren’t bothered any more, fielding a weaker line-up in defeat to CSKA Moscow. Perhaps it was a fitting end to Britain’s odd relationship with the Intertoto Cup, though – a competition which concluded that season as part of a continental rejig that also saw the UEFA Cup renamed the Europa League. During the Intertoto’s long life, several clubs consistently opted out – even those who have still never played in Europe, like Charlton and Reading. Some took part, but made it abundantly clear they didn’t want to. Others embraced it. “At the start, you could have just thought, ‘I don’t want to go to Finland’,” Zat Knight reflects now. “But you look back and realise it made sense. We were the first team to get Fulham into Europe. We made history.” Somewhere in the corner of the Craven Cottage trophy cabinet, the tiny Intertoto Cup still has pride of place.

MORE On FOURFOURTWO.COM • Dead trophies: Football’s now-defunct competitions remembered (by Johnny Dee) • The Curlett Cup: Liverpool’s greatest trophy you’ve never heard of (by Ed McCambridge) • 16 of football’s weirdest sponsors ever (by Tom Wiggins)

SPURS VS JOSE? THE RELUCTANT WAR FOR THE EUROPA CONFERENCE LEAGUE UEFA’s bid to spread the love has sprouted a third European competition for 2021-22 and beyond – and it might just present a tasty reunion from the off For the first time in half a century, a new European club competition begins in early July – potentially leading to a showdown between Tottenham and Jose Mourinho. A fresh continental tournament hasn’t been launched since the UEFA Cup replaced the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup back in 1971, but Europe’s governing body is introducing the Europa Conference League – largely to give clubs from smaller nations more opportunity to play European football up to Christmas. The idea of reintroducing a third club competition throughout the season – for the first time since the demise of the European Cup Winners’ Cup in 1999 – was first mooted six years ago during Michel Platini’s final days of presidency. Platini had previously reformed Champions League qualification to give smaller countries a greater chance of representation in the group stage – given that UEFA presidential elections are one vote per country, keeping more nations sweet has never been the worst idea. The French great was banned from football two weeks after the Conference League idea went public, but Slovenian lawyer Aleksander Ceferin was elected as his replacement by similarly winning the popularity of Europe’s smaller countries. It all means that the Europa League will be slimmed down from this season onwards, with only two qualifying rounds beginning on August 5, leading to a reduced group stage featuring 32 teams instead of 48. Instead, non-champions from UEFA’s 39 lowest-ranked countries will go directly into qualifying for the Conference League, which is scheduled to begin on July 8. Among the clubs playing in the first qualifying round will be Welsh trio TNS, Bala Town and Newtown, plus Coleraine, Glentoran and Larne from Northern Ireland, and Dundalk, Bohemians and Sligo from the Republic of Ireland. Each of Europe’s top 16 countries is also intended to have at least one direct entrant every season, although Villarreal – seventh in La Liga – won the Europa League to qualify for the Champions League instead.

Two years after making it all the way to the Champions League final, seventh-place Premier League finishers Tottenham have qualified for Europe’s third competition – as have Roma, now led by two-time Champions League winner Jose Mourinho. At the time of writing, the possible bans of Juventus, Barcelona and Real Madrid from the Champions League (“these clubs are like children,” sniffed UEFA president Ceferin) had some potential to alter qualification places, but Tottenham and Roma were the two early favourites to reach the Conference League final – bringing the particularly tasty prospect of a Tottenham vs Jose grudge match in the glamorous location of Tirana’s Air Albania Stadium next May.

InTERTOTO CUP Spurs begin in the Conference League’s play-off round on August 19, alongside the likes of Rennes and Union Berlin. Meanwhile, Rubin Kazan, Anderlecht and Trabzonspor are among the strongest names to enter in the third qualifying round, while Basel, Feyenoord and Partizan Belgrade start in the second qualifying round on July 22 – as do Aberdeen and Hibernian. Rather confusingly, Hibernians of Malta could also reach that stage if they win their first-round tie. Thankfully, there’s nothing else confusing about the competition – well, apart from the fact that a whole load of other clubs will join the Conference League when they lose their various Champions League and Europa League qualifying ties. Many are likely to be champions from the smaller nations, who could take up to 10 of the 32 spots in the group stage, which begins on September 16. As an example, a possible group for Spurs could pit them against Greece’s PAOK, North Macedonian champions Shkendija and the table-toppers in Gibraltar, Lincoln Red Imps. Matches will be screened via BT Sport on Thursday evenings alongside the Europa League – group winners progress directly to the last 16 in March, with second-placed teams facing February play-offs against clubs who finish third in their Europa League group. There are similar changes to the Europa League’s format, with only group winners going through to the last 16, and clubs that finish second progressing to play-off clashes against third-place finishers from Champions League groups. Got it? Time will tell whether the new Conference League is competitive, or whether the bigger sides take a processional march to the latter stages. If it’s anything like the Intertoto Cup, expect chaos…

A FRESH COnTInEnTAL TOURnAMEnT HASn’T LAUnCHED SInCE THE UEFA CUP In 1971

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BROnZE FOR Too young for London 2012 and denied by politics for Rio 2016, Lucy Bronze is ﬁnally heading to her ﬁrst Olympics this summer as Team GB’s outstanding talent in Tokyo. For the reigning Best FIFA Women’s Player, it’s time to see what all the fuss is about...

Interview Rob Stewart

his will be your ﬁrst Olympics – how are you feeling about it? I’ve been playing for England for a long time [since 2013], but it’s funny thinking about the Olympics – I’ve heard so much about London 2012 from my team-mates who bang on about it... especially Jill Scott! Jill, Steph Houghton and Ellen White describe the Olympics as an experience like no other – that being an Olympian can’t be replicated, as you’re part of something that transcends our game. They say the Olympics are so much bigger than anything you could imagine, so I’ve got huge expectations because they’ve sold us the experience of a lifetime. I’ve been told that only when you take part will you understand what it means to be an Olympian. What are your memories of London 2012 as a supporter? I didn’t go down to London but I did get to St James’ Park, which is closer to home – the

getting to know them was amazing. I saw what it takes to become the best in the world, and how to excel in terms of my mentality. It’s where everything clicked for me, which may sound silly as I could have stayed there and remained on that route to success, but I wanted to challenge myself on home soil.

USA beat New Zealand and that was a really cool experience. It made up for the fact that I couldn’t get to Team GB matches, as they were so far away and sold out so quickly. The whole nation watched on TV and it ignited careers for people like Steph; it created a real buzz around women’s football. I hope Tokyo will give it another boost. How concerned are you about the impact of COVID-19 on the Games? We’re disappointed that we won’t have any family and friends watching, but playing in empty stadiums has become something of a norm. It won’t dampen the experience. You see those iconic ﬁve Olympic rings and the Team GB kit, and that’s a prospect that sends shivers down my spine. It’s so inspirational. How do you rate Team GB’s prospects of striking gold on August 6? We have every chance to be on the podium, because we’ve got a hugely talented squad with loads of players capable of playing in the gold medal match. We have players who’ve won things and played in Champions League ﬁnals with masses of experience, so we have our sights set on gold. The hard thing is that we don’t have anything to compare ourselves against, whereas sides like the USA do. Team GB will be a brand new team, but a lot of us have played together and enjoyed success. We’re an unknown quantity – another way to look at it is that we haven’t lost a game at the Olympics for nine years! [after Team GB didn’t send a side to Rio 2016] How have you found interim England boss Hege Riise during her short time in charge? She’s very different personality-wise to what I’ve experienced before at international level. She’s pretty quiet and composed, but when she speaks you really do listen because she drip-feeds little gems of information. Hege has kept everyone on their toes because her style is so different to what we’ve been used to. She’s told me, “You’re very much like me when I was a player”, which is nice to hear. It’s good to have a coach who understands me as a player and a person, and how I work as part of the team. In terms of winning top

honours, you won’t get anyone much more experienced than Hege Riise. She’s won it all at international level, so she’s able to share personal experiences as a player to help us on our journey. That’s potentially invaluable. So, how does she differ from Phil Neville? Everyone knows Phil is lively and an extrovert character, who likes to have a laugh and be friends with everyone. He wears his heart on his sleeve, and his emotions on the touchline are there for all to see. With Hege, you look at her and think, ‘Was that good or bad?’ She’ll give you a little smile, but it’s never over the top. Then again, she’d never say something was awful and start shouting and screaming. We might have that to come, who knows! How does it feel to be the current holder of the FIFA Best Women’s Player award? I was so chuffed to win that. Along with the Ballon d’Or, it’s one of the highest individual accolades in women’s football, so when you look at it from that perspective it’s incredible. When I set out, I wanted to be the best player in the world and I wanted to win everything. I hadn’t dreamed of seeing that trophy on my shelves, but it was a seal of approval for everything I’ve put in. My mindset has always been to push myself to constantly improve, so the trophy vindicates what I’ve been doing. I’m still going in the right direction and want to help club and country win major honours. On the club front, how do you reﬂect on your trophy-laden three years with Lyon? They were easily the best years of my career. Playing with the best players in the world and

TEAM GB GROUP E CHILE July 21 8:30 BST

JAPAN July 24 11:30 BST CANADA July 27 12:00 BST

Is Lyon’s failure to win the league for the first time since 2006 – and defeat to Paris Saint-Germain in the Women’s Champions League – proof of a changing of the guard? That Champions League quarter-final was so tight, but games between them have always been close – the margins are small. When we won the Champions League we just had that extra edge over teams, but the gap between us and our rivals wasn’t that huge. We never trounced teams 5-0 in the semi-finals. Yes, we beat Barcelona 4-1 in the 2019 final, but that was down to nerves on Barcelona’s part. PSG pipped Lyon this season but there’s no chasm, and if you look at the bigger picture it’s getting tougher to win – the Champions League is getting better as women’s football gets bigger and better. Even in the quarters you can’t avoid facing a strong team now, so it’s similar to the men’s competition in terms of strength in depth. Barcelona’s victory this year should inspire other clubs like City that it’s not simply the preserve of Lyon. There’s a chink in the armour in terms of perceptions about Lyon, but they’ll want to bounce back. They say you should never go back, so why did you return to Manchester City in 2020? I wanted to replicate that Lyon success with more English players. I’d been at City before and it seemed like the right fit, because they want to push forward and achieve big things, but it’s more of a project. We won the FA Cup and pushed Chelsea close [in 2019-20], and if we’d got off to a stronger start we could have won the WSL and made more progress in the Champions League. City have always been pretty successful, but need a mentality shift to push forward – as was the case with England. We’ve constantly hit the semi-finals and that next level was elusive. I know what it takes to get there and now I want to help others, especially English girls, get there too.

“AnDY MURRAY IS AT THE EnD OF THE PHOnE nOW. AT FIRST, I WAS JUST TRYInG TO PLAY IT COOL.. ” Manchester City’s Caroline Weir is one of only two Scots in this year’s squad – but her iconic mentor has proved that’s no obstacle to gaining Olympic glory Interview Joe Brewin Are you excited about representing Great Britain this summer? It’s a big honour, but not something I thought I’d ever do. I didn’t associate football with the Olympics – I dreamt of playing at World Cups and European Championships for Scotland, which I’ve been fortunate enough to do. But getting to represent Team GB is such a unique opportunity, and one I’m proud to be part of. You’ve played at one major tournament before, at the 2019 World Cup. How is this going to compare and be different? Already it’s feeling pretty different, with the preparations. It’s going into a different team with different players. Obviously I know most of the girls, but Team GB is so special. At the World Cup, football is the biggest thing, but the Olympics feels so much bigger than that. It’s a celebration of many sports, so we must keep that in mind, but from a football point of view it’s going to be very exciting. It’s just different. I don’t think you can compare them. Do you have any standout memories from watching the Olympics? I have a few. I loved coming back from school and putting on the TV to watch swimming, athletics, diving – some of the more random sports you might not normally go for. But you just support Great Britain and hope they do well. In terms of the standout memories, I’d say Chris Hoy winning all his medals in 2012, then Andy Murray getting gold so soon after losing the Wimbledon ﬁnal. Does it mean something extra special to be one of only two Scots selected, alongside Arsenal’s Kim Little? Deﬁnitely. I knew it was going to be a really competitive squad to get into, but I’m happy and proud to be there. I’ve played with Kim for years, and watched her in 2012 thinking how amazing it was that a Scot was in the team and doing so well. As a teenager, she was the Scottish player who everyone looked

up to. She’s had a great career from a young age – I didn’t realise until recently that she was only 22 in 2012. I was like, ‘Wow, that’s so young…’ Kim has been a role model for girls in Scotland and players coming through, so I’m thrilled to be there with her.

You’ll have heard many of the girls talking about 2012. Does it disappoint you knowing this won’t quite be the same? Honestly, we just feel fortunate that it’s still going ahead. With the postponement last year and everything that’s happened in 2021, I think we have to feel lucky that it’s actually starting. I’ve spoken to the girls about 2012 and they talk of it as a career highlight, but it was also London – could anything compare to that anyway? From my own point of view, it’s a huge thing to be selected. How does it feel to see a mural of yourself daubed on an Indian takeaway back home in Dunfermline? It’s so funny. I was home a few weeks ago, and you have to drive right past it to get to my parents’ house. It does make me laugh, and it’s still looking good, you know! There’s no grafﬁti on it, which is nice... Your agency is led by Andy Murray, who’s become a mentor for you. What’s he like? He’s as you would imagine – very humble. We had some conversations about the women’s game and female coaches, and we had quite a few things in common. I was a huge Andy Murray fan before, so I was just trying to play it cool! But if I’ve ever got any questions for him about performance, he’s at the end of the phone. I’m very passionate about gender equality too, and he’s been brilliant on some appearances we’ve done together. I’ve asked him how he answers a certain question and gets his point across, as it can sometimes be difﬁcult trying to formulate what you want to say on that subject. On that note, you’re a supporter of both Common Goal and Girls United. I love the concept of everyone giving a small amount towards something bigger. You can pick what you want to impact with Common Goal, while Girls United are bang on what I’m passionate about: empowering women and girls to develop skills that can breed success, in football or elsewhere.

“I nEVER THOUGHT I’D GET TO PLAY AT THE OLYMPICS. TEAM GB IS SUCH A UnIQUE OPPORTUnITY AnD I’M SO PROUD TO BE A PART OF IT” FourFourTwo July 2021 73

TEEnAGE FLICKS SUBBUTEO

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In 1946, RAF veteran Peter Adolph came up with an idea for a family-friendly football game to brighten life in post-war Britain. It wasn’t easy – and was often controversial – but 75 years on, Subbuteo’s legacy is assured through pop-punk, Paolo Di Canio and more Words Gary Parkinson

t’s a scene that couldn’t be more 1979 if it were Alan Sunderland’s perm voting Margaret Thatcher into power. While a bulbous cathode ray TV screen flickers in its wooden cabinet in the background, five young men are crowded around their domestic table, animatedly flicking figures across a green cloth. One of the lads then turns to the camera and sings, “He always beat me at Subbuteo, cos he flicked to kick and I didn’t know.” These young chaps are Northern Irish punk band The Undertones, and this is the video

SUBBUTEO to their new single, My Perfect Cousin, which they hope will build on the momentum gained from Teenage Kicks, Jimmy Jimmy and Here Comes The Summer. In the event, it does better than that. Although Teenage Kicks goes on to be John Peel’s favourite song ever and a must-play for every terrible wedding band, My Perfect Cousin becomes The Undertones’ sole top-10 hit. In an era of huge record sales – 1979 was the UK singles charts’ pre-digital peak, with 79 million singles ﬂogged – tens of thousands of kids buy the single, with its

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SUBBUTEO cartoon sleeve of a Subbuteo ﬁgure decked in the red and white stripes of the band’s local club, Derry City (below). It’s arguably The Undertones’ high point. Through no fault of the Derry pop-punksters, it also coincides with the start of a slide for Subbuteo, which had spent two decades as a family favourite but was being forced to change. With VCRs and video games on the rise, could it survive?

BIRD’S EGGS TO PLASTIC BALLS

It can’t have been easy, in Tunbridge Wells in 1946, to be called Adolph. Luckily, Peter Adolph was unlikely to suffer any Teutophobia – he was freshly demobbed from the Royal Air Force. Having spent most of his twenties helping to foil near-namesake, Herr Hitler, he turned 30 in 1946: old enough to feel the urgency of carving out a career on Civvy Street, but young enough to have the energy to do so. He also had two things that every business venture needs: a good idea, and some fine timing. Adolph was about to fill a hole by launching a half-decent football game, just as the national sport was entering a period of unprecedented popularity. One more thing in Adolph’s favour was something he’d actually got wrong. He knew of a pre-war game called NewFooty, which used small figurines whose semi-spherical bases were slightly flattened at the bottom, so they were better to flick at a ball. Adolph took that as his starting point, but he hadn’t really done his due diligence. “He just assumed that NewFooty was no longer operational because of the Second World War,” explains Stephen Hurrell of the endlessly fascinating blog, subbuteo.online. “So he decided to do his own game.” Had he known that NewFooty was still alive and flicking, perhaps Adolph might not have ploughed on. But then again, perhaps he would have. He wasn’t a man who often shirked a challenge.

He always adapted in adversity. Having been rejected by Brentford at a schoolboy trial, Adolph was persuaded by a mate to support QPR and did so for the rest of his life. When his first post-war job, as a bookkeeper for the Pensions Office, ended with him walking out following a clash with his superiors, he decided to avoid the problem of bosses entirely by setting up his own business. Even the idea that made him famous only arose because of a calendrical hole in his first venture. A keen ornithologist, he started to deal in rare birds’ eggs, but this was seasonal: spring and summer were busy, but what should he do during autumn and winter? Turning threat to opportunity, he spied a gap in the market – an indoor football game for all the family. Blissfully unhindered by fears of a lawsuit, Adolph set about refining the NewFooty idea. Its figurines had heavy lead bases; quite aside from the growing awareness of lead’s poisonous properties, it was also expensive and too painful to flick for long periods or distances. Instead, Adolph augmented a rounded blue button, which had fallen off his mum’s coat, with a small washer, reasoning that

Above Adolph’s game, now to be found in an attic near you Left Silly hats and street fun before the 1973 FA Cup Final

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this would give the base balance and swerve – a prediction borne out by his own tabletop experiments. Switching out for some lighter materials immediately made the game less painful, less expensive, less deadly and a lot more fun: players could now whizz about the pitch like demob-happy fun-seekers suddenly relieved from employing a stifling Mourinho low block. Satisfied with the concept, Adolph decided to test the market before actually going into production. He risked two and a half quid – about £250 in today’s money – on a small advertisement in the August 1946 edition of The Boy’s Own Paper, asking its 250,000 readers to send their postal orders for seven shillings and sixpence (37.5p) in exchange for “a new football game”. He applied for a patent and promptly left for New York. In the pre-jet age, transatlantic travel was far from commonplace – it took five days on a liner – but a Stateside egg buff had requested an evaluation of his collection, and business was business. On his second day in New York, the hotel bellboy delivered a telegram, which Adolph feared was a late cancellation. But it was a message from his mother, asking quite what she should do with the £7,500 in postal orders from 20,000 responses to his advert for a game that didn’t yet exist. Adolph’s answer was simple: “Bank them.” He evaluated the eggs, cut short his trip and sailed back across the Atlantic to his destiny. The fun had begun. Now it was a race against time to fulfil the orders from a spare bedroom in Tunbridge Wells, bulk-buying buttons from Woolworth’s and hand-folding paper nets around wire goals. As for the pitch… well, there wasn’t one. As brazen as he was brilliant, Adolph merely included some chalk and instructions to mark out your own, suggesting the surplus army blankets which lurked in every home back then – and thereby, accidentally, instantly adapting his invention to any size of kitchen table top. The two-dimensional figures that were to perch atop the washer-weighted buttons took some six months to arrive from the Leeds manufacturers; Adolph assuaged the growing numbers of complainants with an apologetic advert which prompted another deluge of orders. Finally, in March 1947, the figures arrived and the first sets were packed and posted. Moreover, Adolph’s patent was approved, after a switch from the original propulsion method – small spoons from ice-cream cartons – to the finger-flicking method. All it needed was a name. Adolph wanted to call it The Hobby, which the Patents Office understandably said was far too vague. So, remembering the hobby falcon, he pored through the books to discover that its Latin name is Falco subbuteo – the latter word literally means “close to a buzzard”. As a side note, you’re probably saying it wrong, even if you’re saying it right. Adolph pronounced it “Sub-byew-teo” rather than “Sub-boo-teo”; Latin scholars prefer the latter, but some versions of the game carefully spelt out the ‘correct’ pronunciation.

SUBBUTEO THE REAL HOUSEWIVES OF… ER, KENT Two things cemented Subbuteo’s longevity: playability and collectability. Though finance was never far from Adolph’s thinking, the main reason he wanted to change the bases was to increase players’ control over their figure’s movements. Quite the competitor himself, Adolph had developed the physics of finger-flicking with the inquiring mind of an engineer and the patience of a set-piece specialist perfecting the knuckleball. “He was actually able to execute inswinging corners, which was a sight to behold,” Mark Adolph, who grew up playing against his competitive dad, remembers. “He was able to make the players dance, while he had a lovely deft touch – and an incredible, hard and accurate shot.” Good technique was important – using the curved base, players soon learned how to curl their men around opponents’ blockers – but so was fun, and the game’s speed helped add to both in a virtuous circle.

Excitement mounted as the human player kept possession as long as his or her figures kept touching the ball without allowing an opponent a touch, while the defending player swiftly marshalled resources with covering runs – always at the risk of giving away a foul. Collectability was not a new commercial idea – tobacco manufacturers had packaged their cigarettes with collect-the-set cards since 1875 – but when the requests quickly flooded in for teams in other colours than the standard reds vs blues, Adolph saw green: “a licence to print money,” as his son described it. “Purchasing their first set would

Below Shanks wasn’t averse to using the game as a motivating tool at Anﬁeld

be just the start of their involvement… they would want to collect more teams and accessories,” wrote the younger Adolph in an understandably affectionate memoir of his father’s career. As austerity gave way to prosperity and the average teenager’s purchasing power sharply increased, so did the augmentary options. Serious players could buy practice accessories including dribbling posts and a shooting target. For those more interested in the spectacle and the setting, accessories soon included terracing, stands and TV cameramen; over the years, real-world developments were reﬂected in pitchside

ALL THE PLAYERS REQUIRED InDIVIDUAL ASSEMBLY AnD HAnD-PAInTInG BY An EnORMOUS nETWORK OF HOMEWORKERS

SUBBUTEO DICK AND DENT IN DA WORLD CUP

adverts, floodlights, policemen, anti-hooligan fencing and even streaker figures. All quite realistic considering that the players were, in relative terms, glued to a five-foot coat button while chasing a six-foot ball. After the initial home-made run, the base moulding was done at a local factory; when the owner decided to retire, Adolph bought him out – and when he realised that the underused moulding machines’ downtime cost money, our hero once again turned lemons into lemonade. Using his contacts, he won contracts to mould the figures for Scalextric cars, Hornby train sets and Dinky Toys – and then, at the turn of the 1960s, came the idea that supercharged Subbuteo. The ‘players’ were still two-dimensional cardboard cutouts, affectionately known as ‘flats’. But with Adolph’s machines churning out little 3D fellas for other companies, why not do the same for Subbuteo players? There were risks involved in what was to be marketed as the Continental range. The 3D players were far more labour-intensive to produce, requiring individual assembly and hand-painting by what became an enormous – and ultimately controversial – network of homeworkers, who were each paid £1.50 for every thousand figures. “About half the mums in Kent were happy to work for us and earn a little ‘pin money’,” recalled former Subbuteo salesman David Morrison-Wilpred in an interview with the superbly-named Subbuteo collectors’ title Flick Me Sideways. Despite initial misgivings and subsequent refinements, the ‘00-scale’ players proved immensely popular and prompted a golden era in the 1960s: there were even official Beatles Subbuteo figures (disappointingly, though, on flat bases). Having the 1966 World Cup hosted by England didn’t hurt either, with the game’s first ever TV advert and various members of the victorious home squad offering to endorse the product.

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Adolph rebuffed those approaches but Subbuteo still loomed large (or rather, small) for real-life footballers. Bill Shankly deployed a set for tactics and team talks; there’s a story – perhaps apocryphal, this being Shankly, but equally possible – that before Liverpool hosted Manchester United, he strode around the tabletop flicking opponents off the pitch, decrying them as unfit or useless. Eventually, only George Best and two others remained, at which point Shankly noted that if his team couldn’t beat three players, they shouldn’t be playing football. Such man-management style might belong to a different era, but the Subbuteo pitch remains: Man City use them as tactics boards at all levels, including Pep Guardiola’s first team, as do England all the way up to Gareth Southgate’s seniors. In 1969, Waddingtons, the Leeds-based board-game giant responsible for Monopoly, Cluedo and other family favourites, offered to buy out Subbuteo. Adolph countered with a 35 per cent stake, but like that rapacious teenage market, they wanted the lot. After agonising over it, he finally accepted £250,000 – around £4m in today’s terms. Son Mark would describe it as his naturally bullish father’s “only regret”. The inventor was kept on as brand director, but quickly bristled against the corporate culture and walked away – only returning to cheekily offer Waddingtons a Subbuteo clone, receiving nothing but an injunction.

Top Baddiel & Skinner always were ganging up on poor Statto Above Subbuteo endured a ﬂop revival in 2005, with new ‘ﬂats’

Waddingtons held a 1970 Subbuteo World Cup at London’s Savoy Hotel, but the next one in Munich four years later was much bigger: England’s representative Michael Dent was interviewed by Radio 4 before playing the final against the Netherlands’ Dick Rietveld, during which crowds gathered outside the window of Hamleys toy shop in London to follow the action (Dent nudged ahead in the last minute, only for Rietveld to equalise and win it in extra time). Expanding Subbuteo into the European market, Waddingtons found a particularly fervent market in Italy – even if the Azzurri contingent at the 1974 World Cup walked out over refereeing decisions. “The Italians absolutely love Subbuteo,” Stephen Hurrell told the Outside Write podcast. “The game is still huge there; it’s played in stadiums on matchdays, it’s on mainstream television.” It also gets into the blood: ask Paolo Di Canio, born in Rome in 1968 and brought up playing the game. “When I was young, I would play Subbuteo with my friend,” he says. “There was a squad with horizontal green and white lines – I was captivated by the colours. I decided that if one day I became a footballer, I would like to play in Scotland. After 10 years playing in Italy, an offer came from Glasgow. The first time I wore the Celtic shirt was emotional for me – I was like a child who has just received a big present.” By that time, the pieceworking housewives of Kent were a blur of fingers and brushes: there have now been more than 700 different colourways produced – often at short notice and in great number. “If a team like Watford, playing in a fairly unusual kit colour, knocked out a Manchester United or an Arsenal or a Liverpool, suddenly this massive demand came in for a team that they did offer in catalogues, but didn’t actually produce a lot of,” explained Hurrell. “So that meant they had to send thousands of figures away to local households to paint them up quickly and get them out onto the shop floors.” For most of the ’60s and ’70s, Subbuteo were knocking out 300,000 miniature teams a year – millions of button-bottomed figures. The template was also extended into rugby, cricket and hockey (“for girls”), even if speedway, snooker and angling (yes, really) were somehow less successful. But a tabloid scandal was brewing – and it would change Subbuteo forever. In the late 1970s, a Sunday newspaper splashed on a damning article claiming that Subbuteo’s homeworkers were paid “slave labour wages.” It was a typical tabloid exaggeration – nobody was forced to take the work – but the recently-established Low Pay Unit became involved and Subbuteo suddenly decided to do what bosses have done for centuries when faced with rising wages: mechanise. The new figures were universally derided as “zombies” for their lifeless features, and sent designers back to the drawing board.

OCCUPYInG A COSY CORnER OF RETRO SEnTIMEnTALITY, SUBBUTEO HAS REMAInED A CULTURAL TOUCHSTOnE DOWn THE YEARS

In early 1980, as The Undertones and their cousin-baiting ditty played out in bedrooms across the nation, Subbuteo were producing another type of player – quickly nicknamed the “lightweight”. While the new figures started to fall from grace with a general public fascinated by the burgeoning video game market, they found approval among one Subbuteo sector: the competitive player. As with the real game, the 1982 World Cup belonged to the Italians, who craftily polished their players’ bases to whizz them around the pitch. Renzo Frignani lifted the trophy, but the man he’d hammered 7-2 in the final – Swiss champion Willy Hofmann – refined the idea to a science. Realising the polished figures could make lung-bursting runs – or at least the Subbuteo equal – Hofmann perfected a Klopp-esque system of devastating counter-attacks to win the 1986 World Cup. A year later, a 16-year-old British prodigy called Justin Finch made the front pages by insuring his right hand for £160,000 – but by then, the marketing was starting to feel gimmicky. The last major Subbuteo World Cup was back in 1990; it was broadcast by Channel Four, and in an idle moment, you could do worse than Stephen Hurrell’s suggestion of checking it out on YouTube: “It’s absolutely crazy – people nearly come to blows over games, the crowd are booing players... it’s pantomime stuff.” Even as it waned in popularity, Subbuteo inspired depths of devotion. Gianluigi Buffon, born in Tuscany in 1978, was given a Borussia Monchengladbach team as a boy and has carried a candle for the Prussians ever since. “I’m not a fan, but it’s a team that I’ve always followed with pleasure,” gurgled Gigi.

“When I was little it was one of the teams I always played with in my Subbuteo. I liked it because it had beautiful colours and a name I couldn’t pronounce.” Word is that Buffon now owns 500 Subbuteo teams. Not every future star was as contented with the contents. Ashley Williams, born in Wolverhampton in 1984, raised a question that had troubled Subbuteo: “I asked my mum why there were no black players in my England teams,” he recalled. “There was no John Barnes or Des Walker and I wanted to know why. My mum thought it was a good question, so we sent in a letter. I didn’t stand on a mountain shouting about it, I was just a kid asking a question – but they changed it: they introduced black players.”

SPICE UP YOUR LIFE

Such an active response to a customer query would have delighted Peter Adolph, but his time was almost up – as was the company who had bought him out. Adolph died in 1994; Waddingtons sent a three-foot ﬂoral wreath in the shape of a Subbuteo player in QPR kit. On his headstone is an engraving of the hobby falcon, Falco subbuteo. In that same year, Waddingtons sold its games division to US giant Hasbro. Acquiring Premier League licences promised something of a rebirth, but declining build quality in a computer-crammed competitive market meant Subbuteo was out on its plastic feet. In 2000, Hasbro announced that production would cease, blaming “the huge number of football-related products” that had “ﬂooded the market”: the scarcity that had once been a boon to Adolph’s original game was now but a distant memory.

SUBBUTEO In 2005, history folded back on itself when Hasbro tried a relaunch with the 3D players replaced by 2D photographs, not unlike the original ‘flats’... except they were individual players. It flopped: there wasn’t the demand for flicking Roy Keane into Patrick Vieira. So that’s it then, right? Not quite. Occupying its own cosy corner of retro sentimentality, Subbuteo has remained a cultural touchstone down the decades. The Undertones weren’t the only band to namecheck it; in 1986, Half Man Half Biscuit frontman and football’s poet laureate, Nigel Blackwell, penned the classic All I Want For Christmas Is A Dukla Prague Away Kit, in which the narrator is once again comprehensively beaten by a cousin-Kevinalike. Those defeats sting. In 1997, Subbuteo hit the silver screen – twice. Besides the screen version of Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch, it also turned up in the Spice Girls movie Spice World – even if, as Stephen Hurrell ruefully notes, “Mel C broke many Subbuteo rules when she scored”. Ten years later, Lee Mack’s sitcom Not Going Out included an entire episode around a thwarted attempt to recreate the 1986 World Cup Final – the one won by Argentina, not Willy Hofmann – and two years later, Subbuteo popped up in Gavin and Stacey thanks to Uncle Bryn. Still it goes on. The 2020 Red Dwarf reboot featured Lister hoarding a Subbuteo Partick Thistle away team, reasoning that “someone would kill for it”. And indeed they might, for the retro/vintage boom – and the internet’s niche-friendly nature – is keeping Subbuteo bubbling along nicely. These days it’s mainly about collectors and enthusiasts rather than the mass market, but there are promising signs. A Hong Kong company has been licensed to produce new official Subbuteo goods, and thanks to some bedroom geniuses with 3D printers, you can now get a rubber-backed and therefore wrinkle-free pitch, a faux-muddy ‘winter’ pitch, a VAR screen for those controversial decisions, and even floodlights that work properly. In March 2021, history was made with the first all-female Subbuteo team, for the England Lionesses. Peter Adolph might have aimed his original product at teenage boys, but he would have been delighted to accommodate girls – not to mention grown men and women. He did, after all, intend to create a game for all the family. And, as his son Mark has commented, “I feel privileged that Subbuteo is still in people’s consciousness.” And presumably, irking cousins somewhere.

MORE On FOURFOURTWO.COM • Corinthian ﬁgures: how the big-headed football collectibles took the world by storm (by Jonathon Rogers) • From Barnes rapping to mascots scrapping: 90 things we miss about football in the ’90s • Watch: Got, Got, Need! The Story of Panini Stickers – a FourFourTwo Films exclusive

THE PARTnERSHIP

Footballers may have long swapped booze and Mars bars for barbells and speed ladders – though as Trent Alexander-Arnold is showing, the pursuit of perfection is never-ending. Not even planet football’s ﬁnest are improving their optics quite like this... Words Alec Fenn

80 July 2021 FourFourTwo

After scoring a belting 91st-minute winner in Liverpool’s 2-1 win over Aston Villa in April, Trent Alexander-Arnold returned to the Anﬁeld dressing room and switched on his phone. Amid the myriad messages from friends and family, a congratulatory text had arrived from the United States, where a particularly interested New Yorker had watched the game with his early morning cuppa. For Dr Dan Laby, the goal was a tiny piece of evidence that his work with the Liverpool right-back might just be having an impact. For Alexander-Arnold, it was a reminder to the critics of his considerable talents, after a challenging period for club and country in which he had been dropped from Gareth Southgate’s England squad for their March internationals.

PARTnERSHIP Six weeks earlier, the 22-year-old had sat down with his sponsor Red Bull to plot how they could take his game to a new level. Yet there would be no gruelling ﬁtness regime or hours spent in front of a tactics board – that was taken care of. Instead, it was concluded that sharpening his visual skills could provide an advantage in an area where no other player was remotely focused. “It was a chance to work on something I’ve never looked at and that’s never really been touched on in football,” Alexander-Arnold explains to FourFourTwo as he perches down at a 3G pitch in Kirkby. A crowd of local school kids gather outside the perimeter fence to catch a glimpse of their idol. “When I’m picking a pass, I need to be able to see the whole pitch and which players are making runs,” he adds. “What you see is what you base your decisions on.” Laby was the man tasked with Project Trent. The bespectacled ophthalmologist (try saying that over dinner) and sports vision expert has helped athletes to improve their sight since 1992, when he started working with baseball’s LA Dodgers. Laby now aids individual athletes and sports teams across the globe. The Reds’ assist machine offered a compelling test of his studies. “We began by looking at Trent’s basic ability to see things sharply,” Laby tells FFT from New York, a day before our own meeting with his new client. “He told me he hadn’t had an eye exam since he was 11 years old, and that surprised me. He needs to be able to see his team-mates, his opponents, the goal and the ball in a fraction of a second.” Alexander-Arnold’s eye exam has been speciﬁcally designed for athletes. Unlike traditional eye tests, which assess your capacity to see a selection of letters or symbols of decreasing size until you’re squinting helplessly at interdependent ants on a wall, the AVTS test displays small targets with low contrast for several hundred milliseconds. It’s designed to replicate the visual

“nO OnE KnOWS I'M DOInG THIS. IF I CAn GET A HEAD START On EVERYOnE ELSE, THEn WHY nOT TRY IT?"

challenges of sport and daily life, with the Liverpool maestro required to immediately spot the targets. After his eye exam, Alexander-Arnold was put through a series of tests to yield further baseline measurements of his visual skills in different situations. The ﬁrst rated his ability to track multiple objects at the same time, using software called NeuroTracker. “Think about when he’s defending or when he’s one-on-one with an opponent,” says Laby. “He needs to know exactly where the defender’s foot is, where the ball is, where his hips are. He needs to know where his body is in relation to the space around him. So that’s critical.” Although Alexander-Arnold has become accustomed to picking out his team-mates with pinpoint regularity – never displayed better than with his quick-thinking corner which decided Liverpool’s 2019 Champions League comeback against Barcelona – the NeuroTracker proved tricky. “There were four moving balls on a screen that I had to track, then eight more appeared and started moving,” he says. “But I still had to focus on the original

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PARTnERSHIP four balls. At the end I had to identify where they were. Not easy...” The third and final baseline test was an augmented reality challenge. Using an iPad app, Alexander-Arnold firstly had to perform as many digital keepie-uppies as possible over a specified period of time. Then he was handed a dribbling and control test: targets appeared on screen, requiring him to move the ball to hit each one, with the app tallying up a final score. His baseline measures now complete, the England wideman set about a customised practice programme away from Liverpool’s training ground which involved two readily available apps, BrainHQ and GlassesOff. Each one trains his technique to focus on objects for prolonged periods, his peripheral vision and multiple object tracking. “The initial programme was about six or seven weeks,” continues Alexander-Arnold. “I wouldn’t do it the day before a game, but I’d do it roughly four times a week at home for probably 45 minutes to an hour.” Laby has also challenged the right-back to learn how to juggle, using YouTube tutorial videos, as “it requires hand-eye coordination, concentration and timing”. “These are all essential things you need on a football pitch,” says the doctor. FFT wonders how long it will take before actual improvements are made. “It depends how many days we can train,” insists Laby. “Normally if he trains three to five times per week for six to eight weeks, we will see a real difference. We have a batch of tests at the end of that period to see which areas he’s improved in and whether he needs a bit of extra work in others.” Six weeks after the start of his new training programme, and the day before we meet Alexander-Arnold, he evaded Leeds’ offside trap and ran onto a lofted through-ball from Diogo Jota, before squaring for Sadio Mané to score the opener in Liverpool’s 1-1 draw at Elland Road. That assist drew upon many of the visual skills he’s been honing inside his Cheshire home, and which he believes have already given him an edge. “It’s hard to measure it on the pitch, but I think certain aspects have helped me,” he says. “Just knowing what’s around you, being able to identify space and paint a picture of what’s going to happen in a few seconds’ time, judging other people’s movements and seeing things a little bit quicker than them, I would say.” Laby, however, is refusing to take all of the credit. “I’m not expecting Trent to say, ‘Wow,

I can see how much better I’m making these great plays’,” he shrugs. “But we know that if we can improve his vision by one or two per cent, he’s going to have a crucial advantage on the pitch.” Alexander-Arnold came under criticism for his defensive frailties throughout Liverpool’s challenging 2020-21 title defence, but he believes the sight training can genuinely aid his development in this respect. “For sure,” he says. “It can help to identify the small things: where the opponent’s body weight is, my anticipation of what they may do next, and simply being able to see things slightly quicker and clearer. So much of my game is based on vision, so it was something I was very eager to do.” Laby believes Alexander-Arnold’s enhanced optical prowess could enable him to play in other positions. “Different positions require different visual skills,” he explains. “His skills for passing and

Above Laby puts Trent through one of his three baseline tests Below “See the ball, be the ball”

crossing are already a major strength. Who knows, maybe he’ll find himself further up the pitch in the future, and maybe his visual abilities will be better suited to that?” In the meantime, Liverpool’s No.66 is doing his best to keep his efforts a secret. “No one knows I’m doing this,” he smiles. “I don’t know any other footballer who does it – if I can get that head start on everyone else, then why not?” In contrast, Laby is keen to support other football clubs and players. “It’d be great to work with a top English club, but with a team lower down the leagues there’s more room for improvement and the impact of visual training could be bigger,” he says. As a cold breeze quickly saps the heat from the north-east Merseyside sun, we have just enough time to ask Alexander-Arnold what the next realm of refinement will bring, with fitness, nutrition and now even his eyeballs all carefully managed. “Everything,” he fires back. “There’s always room for improvement in everything that you do – that’s the mindset I’ve got. If you can find something to tap into that others don’t have, then that one per cent improvement is worth so much.” If all else fails, there’s a fine party trick in the making. Back the juggler... Got the vision to train with Trent? Take on the challenge now at redbull.co.uk/trainliketrent

“IF YOU FInD SOMETHInG THAT OTHERS DOn’T HAVE, IMPROVInG BY OnE PER CEnT IS WORTH SO MUCH”

AROUnD THE GROUnDS

THE

nD nDS

EFL • nOn-LEAGUE • SCOTLAnD InTERVIEW

MARCUS MADDISOn The former Peterborough star has left professional football at 27 to play for eighth-tier Spalding, and tells FFT how he fell out of love with a cruel game Interview Joe Brewin You’ll be a Spalding United player for 2021-22. What’s the story there? I came away from football at Bolton in April thinking, ‘I don’t want to do this any more’. I didn’t want to be part of the game I’d lost all of my love for. The politics just got to me. I enjoyed playing but not the other stuff that comes with it, so I was like, ‘No, I’m done with this’. But then Gaby [Zakuani, his former Peterborough team-mate who is now Spalding’s manager] called me up and explained that I could play part-time. It’s been like a new lease of life for me. When was the last time that playing football gave you joy? When I look back at my career, I’ve not been happy for a very long time. I liked the Saturdays and Tuesdays – but I’ve always hated the day-to-day life of a footballer. I hated going to training

84 July 2021 FourFourTwo

every day. Even at Peterborough when things were going very well, there were days when I’d get in my car thinking, ‘I might just put this in a ditch, take a photo and then I don’t actually have to go in today’. I used to be ‘ill’ quite a lot, waking up with a headache and not going to training. It was a long time that I wasn’t happy, but the matchdays got me through it. For the past couple of years I’ve been on the bench, living away from home and hardly playing… I didn’t have that getting me through it, so it became a constant ‘I hate this’. Which parts did you ﬁnd hard about being a professional footballer? The football part comes easy, but it’s the rest. Being in a dressing room with 30 other blokes all the time – if you’re not an outgoing person, you’re sat by yourself for long periods and feel a bit isolated. Then you’ve got the politics of new contracts – if you don’t sign, you get phased out. That happened to me at Peterborough. I didn’t want to sign a new contract because I thought I’d had my time at the club, but as soon as I told them, they made life difﬁcult for me. I wasn’t allowed to go to the training ground, so for a month before I joined Hull [on loan in January 2020], I was just stuck at home doing nothing. When I eventually got to Hull, I needed some time [to be ready] but couldn’t really have that. From there, my career has kept spiralling downwards, though there are several factors behind that. Being made to sit at home on my own was quite a big one – I wasn’t welcome at Peterborough any more.

“I’D THInK, ‘IF I DRIVE MY CAR In A DITCH AnD TAKE A PHOTO, I WOn’T HAVE TO GO In TODAY’” You’ve mentioned ‘all the abuse’ as a contributing factor behind stepping away – is that on social media? Nobody would say things to my face! That was one of the toughest things I found. If people had said things to me in person I’d be like, ‘Fair enough – that’s your opinion’. But when it goes online, they’re hiding behind a persona. I’ve had guys abuse me online and be nice to my face, which makes no sense – how could you do that to someone?

I had my car keyed, and got punched in the back of my head on a night out. There have been many different things. In better times, you contributed to a string of ex-Posh strikers getting big transfers – not least Ivan Toney. What have you made of his rise? I don’t have many friends in football, but Ivan is one. We got the best from each other, so I’m buzzing for him – I think he’ll do very well in the Premier League. He’s not lightning quick but his movement, ﬁnishing... everything about him makes him a great striker. Lee Bowyer said “I don’t know why he isn’t in the Championship” after signing you for Charlton. Why didn’t your chance come sooner than Hull? In my career as a whole, I always felt like people were against me. My stats

AROUnD THE GROUnDS

and goals should have elevated me to a higher level sooner, and I always felt like I had a bad name in football for no reason. Other players would do far less than me and still get transfers. That’s how I look at it now – I feel hard done by. Some managers said my on-field demeanour… what was the word they used… a “moaner”. But that was just from frustration at not being able to do something or not winning – it comes from a competitive standpoint. When I moved to the Championship, I didn’t actually find it hard – I only played in seven matches, but if anything it was a little easier because you don’t have the rough and tumble, and get much more time on the ball. I honestly found League Two to be the hardest division I’ve ever played in. Bolton was where everything ended. What happened there? I can’t fault anybody at Bolton, to be honest. It just all went wrong for me personally. I went there wanting to do well, and that’s always been a thing I’ve found hard – when I’ve done that before, I’ve tried too hard and played terribly. I played my best when I was relaxed and didn’t really care. But at Bolton I was sitting in a hotel room at the stadium, broke my television the first day I arrived, got a red card on my debut against Morecambe, crashed my car… everything was going wrong. In the end you think, ‘This isn’t meant to be’. In my last game against Harrogate, I got brought off at half-time having not played well. It was nothing against the gaffer [Ian Evatt], but I said to my agent, “I’m going home. I don’t care what they say. I can’t do it any more.” Since leaving professional football, you’ve stepped up the gaming and have your own streaming channel. Is that something you want to pursue? I’ve always loved it, and play between six and eight hours a day. It’s a huge thing for me – I can remember playing Crash Bandicoot as a kid, and I’ve been hooked ever since. I’ve just got to keep putting it out there. Hopefully people will see the videos and enjoy it – I play a bit of FIFA, Call of Duty… anything. We’ve been doing Resident Evil Village on stream recently, too. What are you hoping your spell with Spalding will lead to? I haven’t thought about it like that. If I had a good season, we did well and a team came in for me, I don’t know if I’d take it – a year is a long time. I’ll go to the gym and train twice a week with Spalding, but I’m just looking forward to having some ‘me’ time. Whether in a year’s time I change my mind and go back to professional football, that’s a decision I’ll have to make. But as of now, I’m happy in myself.

CASH AnD THE LATICS LEAGUE 1 nEWS

Wigan fans had every right to hate 2020 more than most, enduring an owner who almost killed their club. It’s taken a year – but the smiles are ﬁnally back... Supporting Wigan Athletic should come with a health warning. Fans of the 2013 FA Cup winners have been through the mill ever since: after dropping out of the Premier League that season, they’ve seen two promotions, three relegations and eight permanent managers. “Blood pressure issues following Wigan are second to none,” Latics fan and The Pie At Night writer Sean Livesey eye-rolls to FFT. In May 2019, things were looking up. Boss Paul Cook had led Wigan to League One glory two years earlier, and they had survived in the second tier amid a prolonged takeover bid from the Hong Kong consortium IEC. “We were rooted to the bottom at Christmas,” explains Livesey. “But by the New Year, a lot of our signings – like Jamal Lowe and Kieffer Moore – clicked. We played some of the best football we’d seen in a long time.” Wigan clambered out of the drop zone, but their good run was halted by coronavirus. Then came another takeover from Hong Kong in June – from businessman Au Yeung Wai Kay – before the restart. Smashing wins to nil against Huddersﬁeld, Blackburn

and Stoke offered a perfect welcome, and took the Latics eight points clear of danger – but disaster was to strike. “After we beat Stoke, we heard we were entering administration,” recalls Livesey, of the revelation that Kay had hired an insolvency ﬁrm to liquidate Wigan within a month of purchasing them. “We found out the club owed £40 million to Kay, yet this money had seemingly never passed through the accounts. It was bizarre.” Administration meant a 12-point deduction, as the Latics’ survival bid suddenly seemed doomed. Staff and players were laid off, but a ludicrous 8-0 victory over Hull – the biggest in the club’s history – kept hopes alive. “It was amazing but heartbreaking at the same time,” says Livesey. “We knew that even if we could stay up, this side was going to be torn apart.” Wigan’s fate was in their own hands going into the ﬁnal day, but a home draw with Fulham signalled relegation to the third tier. Cook departed, with John Sheridan named his successor. Mercifully, the administrators opted against liquidating the club, as Kay eventually waived £36m of loans and scurried off in a cloud of uncertainty.

Wigan began their new League One season ownerless, shorn of 21 more ﬁrst-teamers who had been sold or released, and managed just two wins in 14 games. Takeover bids came and went, while fans raised cash to pay salaries. The November 2020 arrival of Cook’s old No.2 Leam Richardson as manager proved deﬁning, however. “Miraculously, just as results started to improve in March, administrators announced a formal agreement had been reached with a buying group called Phoenix 2021,” says Livesey. Led by Bahraini businessman Talal Mubarak al-Hammad, Phoenix 2021 completed their deal in March 2021, two months before Wigan preserved third-tier status with a game to spare. “We’re on the up,” beams Livesey. “The new owners have been different in their approach – Al-Hammad has even become a star in his own right on Twitter. I don’t think they’ll splash the cash, but they want to get Wigan back to the Championship. There’s no debt, and we’ve got a fanbase that’s desperate to watch football again. To be honest, we’re simply thrilled that’s still an option.” Ed McCambridge

AROUnD THE GROUnDS

BEST&WORST IPSWICH TOWn

Rich Woodward, of the Blue Monday podcast, celebrates Weah-like wonders and triumphant arm-wrestles

W: Paul Hurst was out of his depth and lasted ﬁve months, while Pauls Jewell and Lambert pretended to know what they were doing, but were clueless. Is it a ‘Paul’ thing? (No pressure, Mr Cook...)

BEST: Sadly our greatest era was just before I was born, so of the players I’ve seen: Richard Wright, Aaron Cresswell, Tony Mowbray, Jason de Vos, Mauricio Taricco, Kieron Dyer, Matt Holland, Jim Magilton, Jon Walters, Marcus Stewart, Darren Bent. WORST: Andy Marshall, Amir Karic, Piotr Malarczyk, Georges Santos, Drissa Diallo, Ulrich Le Pen, Nigel Reo-Coker, Lee Martin, Lee Chapman, Paul Taylor, Cameron Stewart.

CHAnT

B: Tony Mowbray had a decent one to the tune of the Hokey Cokey. It ended, “Arm up, ﬂag up, you’re offside.” W: The trend of self-deprecating stuff like, “How s**t must you be?”, almost always followed up by conceding, can go straight in the bin.

PLAYER

B: Kevin Beattie [right] is repeatedly acknowledged as so, but Stewart is my personal favourite. W: Mark Fish and Balint Bajner failed to last beyond 45 minutes in their ﬁrst starts for the club. Marlon Harewood somehow diverted an open goal-bound effort onto a post and wide – defying both logic and physics.

MOMEnT

B: Dare I say the recent US takeover? It could be our best chance of making a concerted effort not to be mediocre in almost two decades. On the pitch, beating Inter at Portman Road in 2001 was a special night. W: Conﬁrmation of relegation to the third tier for the ﬁrst time since 1957 in 2019, with little more than a whimper. The fans deserved better.

GAME

B: Beating Bolton 5-3 after extra time in the 2000 play-off semis: eight goals, three penalties (one saved), two red cards and a pitch invasion at full-time. Sam Allardyce is still having a hissy ﬁt over referee Barry Knight’s ofﬁciating.

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CULT HERO W: Losing 3-1 to Southampton in 2002. We were closer to mid-table than the drop zone before kick-off – then Chris Marsden waltzed through our defence, panic set in and relegation followed.

SEASOn

B: 1980-81 without question. That side deserved much more than ‘just’ a UEFA Cup for all its skill and exertion. W: 2018-19. Relegation felt inevitable from September onwards.

GOAL

B: Fabian Wilnis’ shot past Fabien Barthez in our ﬁrst home game of 2000-01 remains the loudest roar I’ve heard at Portman Road, and set up the rest of that season perfectly.

W: Keith Andrews’ pair at Barnsley in 2011 – they turned that game but kept Paul Jewell in a job for another year.

SIGnInG

B: Giovani dos Santos [below] on loan from Spurs in 2009 – too good for the Championship. He knew it, we knew it. W: The £1.5 million spent on Peterborough’s Paul Taylor yielded just one goal in 25 games. He’s tough to beat.

MAnAGER

B: Bobby Robson, with Alf Ramsey just behind. I think we win that game of Top Trumps with most teams.

B: Mick Stockwell [below] featured in almost every outﬁeld position over 15 years, scoring a George Weah-esque goal against Wimbledon in 1993-94. W: Larsen Toure’s 11 games included him booting a corner out of play. He threw his top into the crowd after normal time of a cup tie at Doncaster, then had to retrieve it ready for extra time...

HARD MAn

B: Beattie is believed to have beaten Sylvester Stallone in an arm wrestle while filming iconic 1981 flick Escape To Victory. Rambo wasn’t best pleased. W: Grant Holt (for ‘them lot’) wearing his wrestling outfit.

FACIAL HAIR

B: [John] Warky’s ’tache. W: Roy Keane’s salt and pepper beard. A physical manifestation of his internal torment as Ipswich tumbled down the Championship table.

BOY’S A BIT SPECI A L IAnIS HAGI

AROUnD THE GROUnDS

THE UnLIKELY LADS

SERGEI YURAN MILLWALL (1996)

RANGERS

LOWDOWN Son of Romania’s ﬁnest footballer, Gheorghe, Ianis debuted with his dad’s Viitorul Constanta side in 2014 – and skippered them at 16 – before spells at Fiorentina and Genk. Rangers made his January 2020 loan permanent for £3m, however, after some ace showings and a couple of late winners. Hagi became a regular in their title-winning season, playing on either wing under Steven Gerrard. HIGHLIGHT Aside from voicing a role in the Romanian version of Disney ﬁlm Frankenweenie? In only his sixth outing, Hagi’s brace rescued Rangers in a Europa League win over Braga. Exactly the kind of storyline any good starlet needs – with his acting ability, he could play himself in the movie. THEY SAID... “Sometimes Hagi isn’t in the XI and I don’t understand why – Glasgow are not Manchester City,” grumbled ex-Romania boss Christoph Daum. But it wasn’t City who went unbeaten in the league last season… WHAT’S NEXT? The 22-year-old aims to join his dad’s old club Galatasaray one day, but seems taken by Scottish football. “Ibrox baby!” he yelled after his Braga heroics. “It’s just different.”

WHO ARE YA? | CRAY VALLEY PAPER MILLS

COULD BE Proud producers of cutesie greetings cards, sticking it to Moonpig. ACTUALLY Isthmian League South East Division side founded in 1919. After the local mills closed in 1981 they were shunted to their current home in Greenwich, the Badgers Sports Ground (which must have annoyed the badgers). Former Charlton star Kevin Lisbie ended his career there in 2019 following an FA Vase ﬁnal loss.

CREDENTIALS Yuran was a league winner at both Benfica and Bobby Robson’s Porto prior to signing for Spartak Moscow. British fans might have caught him at the 1994 World Cup for Russia – before he was sent home – or as a confused onlooker when David Batty fought Graeme Le Saux in Spartak’s Champions League win over Blackburn in 1995. HOW’D IT GO? Newcastle tried to snare Yuran, who apparently said no over the choice of car on offer. Instead he arrived at second-tier Millwall in 1996 with fellow Russia international Vasili Kulkov, insisting the loan deal represented a “career pinnacle” after quadrupling his pay packet. The Lions were in a sticky patch, but fell off a cliff after gaffer Mick McCarthy exited. Yuran often missed training after “wild nights at a disco” with his new wife, and was convicted for drink-driving – having told his spouse this was “the way all footballers live in England”. She twigged something was wrong when Spartak didn’t take him back. THEN WHAT? Millwall went down on the final day of the campaign, having topped the First Division in November. “The only thing other players could have possibly learned from him was how to steal a living,” boss Jimmy Nicholl huffed of his laissez-faire loanee. Yuran agreed years later, but labelled Millwall the “worst club in the world”. By 2001 he was finished, via stints at sides in Germany, Russia and Austria.

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AROUnD THE GROUnDS

WHA T’ S OCCURRIn G

IAn HOLLOWAY

As clubs prepare to be afﬂicted by transfer fever, FFT’s columnist regales tales of his greatest hits and misses – and one or two big ’uns who got away. It’s all about trust, time and the powers of persuasion, says ‘Ollie’...

f you’ve had a good year, you’re basking in its glory that summer. But a bad one? Well, you’re just working your socks off to get your chairman to provide you with some better players. It’s such a busy time – but it’s also the one where you can make a difference. Now, the big clubs are looking at players 24/7, with a giant scouting network across the world. Most of us have to rely on agents who we like, but definitely the eyes of people we trust. For me that was Gary Penrice, my team-mate at QPR and Bristol Rovers. ‘Penny’ had a network of people attached to him – because you just don’t have time to do that as a manager. The skill is in telling your scouts what you’re looking for, then trusting them to go out there and find it. That might be a part-time bloke in Portugal you’re paying travelling expenses to, or someone else. I’ve written in these pages before about the value of looking abroad – especially for lower-league clubs, because foreign players will come and work for a lot less usually. When I joined Plymouth back in 2006, there was already an agent there bringing in players like our excellent goalkeeper, Romain Larrieu, and midfielder Akos Buzsaky. Penny knew how good some of the Hungarians were too, so he found Peter Halmosi through an agent – he went to Hull for £2m 18 months later, after we’d got him for £400k. Transfers don’t always work out, but the reality is that you never buy anyone who you think is going to make your team worse. Sometimes they just don’t achieve what you thought they could; maybe that’s your fault, maybe it’s theirs. It’s life. In football, you stand or fall on who you buy. At Palace, I found out that you’re vulnerable when you go up. I didn’t have Penny with me then – he’d gone to Stoke – and we were in a bit of a stretched situation where we needed some players. One of them was Florian Marange, a French defender who didn’t even end up getting into my Premier League squad. The people [chairman] Steve Parish was talking to said this bloke was good, so we took a risk. The window closed and I lost my job

shortly after; some of the players I thought I was getting, like Nicklas Bendtner, just didn’t happen. Really, you need to get 75 per cent of your transfers right, while hoping you’ll get the time to develop them – because inexperienced lads do miss more. People said Timo Werner and Kai Havertz had poor seasons for Chelsea after coming for a lot of money, but Frank Lampard bought them for the right reasons – they’re growers, not 30-year-old wisteria you’ve ripped off a lovely building, like Edinson Cavani at Man United. They’re going to slowly creep up your wall. You’re trying to build something – whichever club you’re at, the skill of management is achieving what you want from what you’ve bought. But it’s never on a fair playing ground. Bristol Rovers was probably the hardest time of my career, but also the most energetic – I bought strikers who kept scoring, but the club kept selling them. Jamie Cureton and Jason Roberts cost £250k; Nathan Ellington was £150k at 17, a huge risk. Some players, like Barry Hayles for £250k, just work immediately. He was 26, having played in non-league up to then, but went for £2m 18 months later after stepping up two divisions and top-scoring. What he did was quite phenomenal. But they don’t all go your way. At Blackpool, I wanted Jamie Vardy – I was talking to him and his agent, but my chairman didn’t want to pay that sort of money for him. We’d played against Fleetwood and beaten them 5-1, but he got the one and I could see he was good enough even from that. There was another, too: Medhi Benatia, who went on to play for Bayern and Juventus. When he was at Clermont, we had a chance to sign him for €200,000. Penny had said to me, “Ollie, you have to get this kid”, so I said to Karl Oyston, “Do the deal before I go.” But he wouldn’t. I eventually landed on an icy runway, got the fastest train I could to see him, and within ﬁve minutes knew he was as good as anyone I’d been looking for. But the deal went bust – Udinese eventually got him for nothing. It was a blow, but I think he did all right without us in the end...

“TRAnSFERS DOn’T ALWAYS WORK OUT, BUT YOU nEVER BUY AnYOnE WHO YOU THInK IS GOInG TO MAKE YOUR TEAM WORSE”

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AROUnD THE GROUnDS

FRESHER THAn THE AVERAGE COACH nOn-LEAGUE nEWS

Ex-pro Jamie Clapham is in at Loughborough – but only allowed one promotion

At the age of 45, Jamie Clapham is heading back to school. Well, uni. The former Ipswich left-back isn’t awakening his inner fresher to sign up for a course, though. Instead, he’ll be putting them through their paces after taking the head coach role at Loughborough University FC. That means Clapham, the assistant head coach at Leeds as recently as 2018, will guide a team of students in the snappily named United Counties League Premier Division North next season – some ﬁve promotions below the Football League. Well, technically. The Loughborough job is one of the oddest in English football, and not only because of the age difference between the seasoned non-leaguers they face on the pitch. The Leicestershire outﬁt also have to juggle term times, a gruelling BUCS (British Universities & Colleges Sport) competition, and are prevented from earning promotion beyond the eighth tier due to an FA rule introduced after Team Bath went up to the Conference South in 2008 (then folded a year on). But far from being a fall from grace, ex-defender Clapham is excited by his new challenge, with Loughborough’s

state-of-the-art training facilities the envy of clubs much higher up the food chain. In fact, Clapham was worried that the Scholars wouldn’t consider him because his predecessors had been former students and lecturers. “It was a question for the university if they wanted to go down the same academic route again, or if they wanted to go in a different direction – and fortunately for me, they did,” Clapham tells FFT. “The programme itself has developed quite rapidly, going from struggling a little bit to where it is now. The facilities have improved as they’ve come on, and the university is steeped in tradition of elite performance. It’s inspirational to be around the place – there are Olympians and Paralympians training here. There’s all sorts going on.” Despite limited scope for climbing English football’s ladder, Clapham says it’s the development of players that’s most important to him. “What you want most is players who are coachable, want to learn and who are willing to put in the hard yards to do that – it doesn’t matter what level [you’re playing at],” he explains. “Ultimately, a lot of these

THE LOUGHBOROUGH JOB IS OnE OF THE ODDEST In EnGLISH FOOTBALL

players at Loughborough have been in the football system somewhere before. They’ve all got great technical abilities and are competent. What we’ll offer them are the facilities to improve, while our link-ups with the likes of Liverpool and Chelsea – plus the other contacts we’ve got – will give them exposure. That’s potentially huge for getting them back into the programme somewhere, if that’s what they desire.” It’s a well-trodden path – several former Loughborough students have reached the Football League, like new Bolton signing Dapo Afolayan, Bristol Rovers defender George Williams and ex-Coventry forward Robbie Simpson. But before he gets to grips with helping the new intake move back into the pro game, has he decided if he’ll be going by ‘Mr Clapham’ now? “As long as it’s not derogatory, I really don’t mind,” he laughs. “It’s not something I’ve thought about, but I’m sure there’ll be times I’ll be their best mate and others when I’ll be the worst person on Earth.” Some things in football just don’t change, whatever the level. Chris Evans

CLAIMS TO FAME BRADFORD CITY

BIG IN TIBET

Despite their ailing fortunes, Bradford boast some A-list fans – not least former One Direction heart-throb Zayn Malik and… er, the Dalai Lama. Malik is a local lad, but His Holiness was reportedly seduced by the club’s home strip, redolent of the robes worn by Buddhist monks. The Tibetan spiritual leader even blessed the Bantams ahead of their 2013 League Cup Final. It didn’t work, mind – they lost 5-0 to Swansea.

COLOUR MAGIC

No other professional English team shares Bradford’s claret and amber mash-up. Bradford cashed in early on the Harry Potter movie boom as a result, ﬂogging some 10,000 scarves akin to the wizard’s Gryfﬁndor gear. Curiously, another Harry Potter – this one not dreamt up by JK Rowling – played for the club’s reserves in their early years.

“KEEP IT TIGHT…”

City’s Premier League clash with Derby in April 2000 produced a record-equalling seven goals before half-time – a feat seen only three times since 1992. Bradford led 4-3 through Dean Windass’ hat-trick, but dropped two points after conceding a penalty. Doh.

QUIDS IN

You’ve heard of Mark Hughes’ two matches in one day, but Colin Doyle’s pair in the space of 24 hours runs Sparky close. In March 2018, the keeper – signed for precisely £1 from Blackpool two years earlier – played a full game for Ireland on Friday night, then landed six hours before kick-off the following day to help Bradford bag their ﬁrst win for nearly three months. Commitment.

THAT’S NUMBERWANG

Bradford are the only English club to feature unique numbers on their players’ shirts, indicating the order in which they debuted. One fastidious Bradford fan spent two years compiling the list. We stand corrected: that’s commitment...

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FFT GRABS A WORD WITH...

NEVILLE SOUTHALL • ALEXI LALAS • RACHEL BROWN-FINNIS • WILFRIED BONY

TEAMS Bury Everton Port Vale (loan) Southend (loan) Stoke Doncaster Torquay Huddersﬁeld (loan) Bradford York Rhyl Shrewsbury Dover Dagenham & Redbridge Wales

nEVILLE SOUTHALL

“FERGIE WAnTED ME TO SIGn FOR MAn UnITED. I TOLD HIM TO F**K OFF AnD HUnG UP THE PHOnE” The outspoken Welshman on humble beginnings as a binman, glory days at Everton and telling Sir Alex to do one Interview Ed McCambridge

You worked as a binman and a hod-carrier before turning professional aged 21. How much did those experiences shape you? I told my careers officer at school that I wanted to be a footballer or a postman. She ended up getting me a job knocking down Llandudno gun sites, which had been built to prevent German invasion during the war. There were all sorts of nasty injuries – people getting hit by sledgehammers and stuff. Afterwards, I worked on the bins which was great banter. I’d get up at 4am, finish early and then go and work for my uncle in the afternoon for some extra cash. Football’s not a real job, it’s a hobby you get paid for! As a teenager, you were approached by German outfit Fortuna Dusseldorf but turned them down. What happened? My uncle ran a Sunday team, which I played for. One summer, he bought an old bus that looked like something from Dad’s Army and drove us from Llandudno to Dusseldorf, all through the night. I’ve no idea how how he arranged it, but we played a friendly against Fortuna on a shale pitch, which isn’t nice to dive on. The following morning, my uncle asked if I wanted to stay in Germany and sign for Fortuna because their manager was interested. He didn’t really explain who they were or what it meant, so I just said, “Nah, I want to go home.” Looking back, if my uncle had explained it better, I might have stayed. You got booed by your own fans ahead of your Bury debut in 1980. You write in your book that it didn’t bother you. How come? I’d been playing non-league football before Bury, so I was used to getting abuse. I could

understand where they were coming from as their old No.1, John Forrest, was a fans’ favourite. When you take over from someone like that, people aren’t happy. It’s strange when you catch a ball during your ﬁrst game and your own fans are chanting, “You’re s**t, get off!” But I didn’t let any of it affect me. Everton paid £150,000 to sign you in 1981. At just 22, you went from the Fourth to the First Division. Were you nervous? Not really, as I knew I had a safety net and could have gone back to Bury. I had to ﬁnd out how far I could take my career. I worked as hard as I could at Everton and read loads of books about boxing, golf and gymnastics – sports which rely on similar physical and mental attributes to those goalkeepers need. You learn a lot from different sports. In 1984-85 Everton won the title and the Cup Winners’ Cup. What made it special? We had everything. We could play teams off the pitch but, if people tried to kick us, we’d do the same to them. Some of the lads had been around and were experienced winners, like Andy Gray and Peter Reid. Every training session was a new competition. If you were having a bad game, you soon had 10 voices having a go at you. We dragged each other through all the bad times. We had the right system, the right players, the right coaches. Sometimes that happens. You were the last goalkeeper to receive the FWA Player of the Year award. Are goalkeepers underrated now? Who has deserved to win it in recent years? So many modern keepers complain about

balls moving in the air and that stuff. In my day, we were using a different ball every week and the pitches were mud baths! The physicality was so much higher back when I played as well. Some of the tackles were assault. I reckon it’s easier than ever to be a goalkeeper nowadays. How close were you to joining Manchester United in 1990? Is it true Fergie was put off by your hostile phone manner? I was at my house one Sunday afternoon and the phone rang. A voice said, “Neville Southall, it’s Alex Ferguson, can we talk?” I said, “F**k off” and put the phone down. I thought it was Andy Gray messing about. Fortunately, Fergie called me back and we had a chat. Ultimately, he was put off after I sat against a goalpost at half-time against Leeds instead of joining my team-mates in the dressing room [pictured left, with Everton 2-0 down to the newly promoted side], and that was that. Would I have gone to United? No, I was happy at Everton. The Wales teams you represented boasted some incredible players. Why couldn’t you reach a major tournament? We had square pegs in round holes. Dean Saunders, Ryan Giggs, Mark Hughes and Ian Rush were brilliant forwards, but how do you fit them all in? We didn’t have a Gazza in midfield – someone who could dictate play – so we had to put Sparky in there. He would usually get booked after about 30 seconds, so you didn’t get the best out of him. It was also a shambles in terms of the organisation. We flew economy everywhere, at all sorts of times. We’d go over to play Georgia and land at two o’clock in the morning, as no one had bothered to check what the local time would be when we arrived. All our match kit would just get piled up on the floor in the dressing room, and we’d have to fight over it. If you were unlucky, you’d end up with extra small shorts and a huge shirt with a massive collar. It was a joke! You remain the sixth-oldest footballer in Premier League history after featuring for Bradford, aged 41, in 2002. You hadn’t made a top-tier appearance for two years and had retired from playing. How did that all come about? I was the goalkeeping coach at Bradford – I never expected to play. But then all three of our keepers got injured in the same week. There was even a 16-year-old apprentice who couldn’t play, so I didn’t really have a choice. I was far from match fit, but you could still rely on my experience. I conceded a couple of goals [in a 2-1 loss to Leeds] but thought I did all right. The media went berserk saying I was out of shape, but I wasn’t bothered by what they thought. I’d not been playing for a couple of years! The press have never liked me. Neville Southall’s book ‘Mind Games: The Ups and Downs of Life and Football’, published by HarperCollins, is available now

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ALEXI LALAS

“AT THE OLYMPICS OPEnInG CEREMOnY In 1992, I LOOKED UP AnD THERE WAS FIDEL CASTRO AnD nELSOn MAnDELA” America’s brilliantly bearded behemoth recalls starring on home soil at USA 94 and bringing Beckham to MLS Interview Simon Yaffe

You left Rutgers University in 1991 to join the US national team. That’s a big step... I didn’t envision becoming a professional – everything just snowballed. Rutgers gave me a good, but limited, soccer experience. I was spotted by the Olympic national team, then I left Rutgers to feature at the 1992 Olympics.

TEAMS Padova New England Revolution Emelec (loan) MetroStars Kansas City Wizards LA Galaxy United States

What were the Olympics like? Did you hang out with the US basketball Dream Team? It was an incredible experience, and being in the Olympic village was nuts. I remember walking out at the opening ceremony, looking up and seeing both Fidel Castro and Nelson Mandela. Then I turned to my right and saw the US Dream Team in the other direction. It was a surreal, but wonderful, experience. I’d broken my foot shortly before the Olympics, so wore a boot a size-and-a-half too big in order to incorporate the cast. I was adamant about playing in that tournament. You had an unsuccessful trial at Arsenal. How did that come about? I was a no-name. I didn’t have a résumé or work permit, and Arsenal had much better players than me. I remember Tony Adams, Paul Merson and Ian Wright picking me up from my hotel, taking me to training and then on to a sports bar, where we ate potato skins. I was sitting with these legends and thought it was the best thing ever. Did that give you a point to prove when you scored in a 2-0 victory over England in the [now-defunct] US Cup in 1993? It was awesome to play against England, never mind score! I wasn’t surprised with the result, as we were pretty good at being the underdog. We knew we had to defend like banshees and counter-attack, which we did. What are your memories of the 1994 World Cup, on home soil? It changed my life forever. I lived the power of what a World Cup can do to an individual.

The opportunities afforded me on and off the ﬁeld kept coming. I still meet people who’ll say that World Cup introduced them to the game. It gave the American public an idea of what the game can be. It opened their eyes. Would you have taken a better penalty than Diana Ross? That was destined to fail from the start! You had a billion people watching on, so I guess even the great Diana Ross can get the jitters. You were beaten 1-0 by Brazil in the last 16. Was that painful or were you proud to run the eventual champions so close? It meant the end of the adventure, but we knew we had achieved something lasting. After that summer, the game in the US was bigger than ever. Getting past the group stage was the litmus test for our credibility. At what age did you start with the long hair and beard combo? I grew my hair throughout college but the goatee was the result of a run-in with Bora Milutinovic, our head coach at USA 94. He was an incredible manager who tested us on a continual basis. We were preparing for the World Cup when his assistant told me to cut my hair. It was a test to see just how badly I wanted to be part of the team. We were in Phoenix, so I took a walk and went and got my hair cut. When I strolled into the next team meeting, Bora looked at me, nodded and didn’t mention the way I looked ever again. So I grew my hair longer and then grew the goatee. I created a brand, it was by design, but it wasn’t disingenuous. I liked it.

You released an LP with The Gypsies at the 1994 World Cup, and opened concerts for Hootie & the Blowfish. Tell us more... Music is a huge part of my life, so I milked those opportunities for all they were worth and had a blast. I’ve always taken music as seriously as everything else – it fills me with a different type of excitement and emotion. What are your memories of playing in Serie A with Padova? I also had offers from Coventry and Bochum, but there was only one place I was going to go. I wanted to be a pioneer. I’d never been on the books of a professional club before; all my soccer experience was international. I learned the language and was conjugating verbs on my first night in Padova.

TEAMS Liverpool Alabama Crimson Tide Pittsburgh Panthers Everton IBV (loan) Arsenal (loan) England Team GB

What do you remember about the early years of MLS? I remain incredibly proud that myself and others decided to come back and start this thing. We had a belief. We had talked about a league of our own, but we also recognised the history of American soccer was littered with teams and leagues which went defunct. To think it was 25 years ago is pretty amazing. There aren’t many opportunities in life when you are there at the beginning of something. What was it like to be in the USA squad in 1998, particularly for the Iran game? We wanted to show we had improved, but it was a disaster; a wasted opportunity. I grew up knowing that Iran referred to the US as ‘The Great Satan’, so everybody knew that the political aspect was going to be ramped up. The narrative brought people in who may not have otherwise watched this game. We would go to countries and not be liked simply because we were the US, and it was a chance to beat America at something. After retiring, you were the president of LA Galaxy when David Beckham signed. How did you pull that off? We had cultivated a relationship with David for a long time. We wanted to do something big and bold, which would not only change how the Galaxy was viewed, but MLS as well. There were few people who could do that, so we made David an offer he couldn’t refuse. I was in Florida visiting my in-laws and had to keep getting up from the table to sort out spreadsheets, because we were budgeting whether we’d be able to make all the money back. Beckham was a huge part of the team, but he was still just a player and no player is bigger than the club, so the balance was out of whack. In the end, there was quite a lot of collateral damage, which meant I was ﬁred. To this day, people speak about the Galaxy because of the Beckham link. What do you think the 2026 World Cup will be like – similar to 1994, or is soccer even bigger in the US now? It’s going to be like ’94, but times a hundred. There’s a player, right now, whose life is going to change forever in 2026. I love seeing stars forming in front of our eyes.

RACHEL BROWn-FInnIS

“COVERED In MUD, I TRUDGED TO MY DEnTIST AnD SAID, ‘HI, CAn YOU SORT OUT MY FROnT TEETH?’”

The former England goalkeeper discusses a fascinating career from being an Olympic ball girl to training on an active volcano Interview Gershon Portnoi

You were a ball girl at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. How did that happen? A goalkeeper coach called Mick Payne, who I’d met at a Bob Wilson camp, asked me to go to a camp he does every year in Alabama. So, at 15, I ﬂew out there on my own to stay with a random family, while the 1996 Games were in Atlanta. One of the Olympic football matches was in Birmingham, Alabama, and the family I was living with were soccer-mad. Both their sons were ball boys and somehow I got accreditation, went down to the ball boy practices at the stadium and got roped into it. Even though I was playing for Liverpool at the time, there I was, all kitted out as a ball girl! It was a Nigeria match, and after the game I chatted to Daniel Amokachi, saying,

“I’m a big Everton fan, can I have your shirt?” even though I wasn’t! And he handed me his green shirt, which I kept hold of for ages. It was like a double XL, so wasn’t particularly endearing, but I gave it to a girl called Nikki who I played with for Everton – it stayed in good hands. She was a mad Evertonian, and pestered me about it for three or four years. Tell us about those Bob Wilson camps... I used to read Match magazine every week, and there were adverts in the back for those training camps. I’d never had any goalkeeper coaching until that point [aged 12]. So I kept asking mum and dad, and they took me. We stayed in a huge private school, which looked like Hogwarts. As the parents drifted off and

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just us goalkeepers were left, the lads looked around, thinking, ‘When is she going to leave with the other parents and sisters that have dropped off their boys?’ I ended up being the only girl out of 95 boys! I had the whole wing of this ridiculous building to myself, with the other wing for the boys. Your career started at Liverpool with a 6-0 defeat to Arsenal – you were 15... Kelly Smith smashed a left-foot volley from about 20 yards out – she was this wonderkid that I’d never heard of. Six weeks before, I’d played for Accrington Stanley in Division 29, or something like that, so it was just a whole other level. I was this skinny kid who could barely kick the ball out the box. The Liverpool keeper also played for England and I thought, ‘Great, I can learn from her’, but she quit two weeks after I joined. I’d recently turned 15 and was suddenly starting. You went to The University of Alabama on a soccer scholarship, but left because of racism – what happened? I was living in Tuscaloosa, and it was before the internet so I had no idea what it was all about, other than having seen Forrest Gump. Racism was so deep-rooted, I just remember it being an ‘us and them’ mentality. When I was there, Rosa Parks having to give up her bus seat was only one generation in the past. I couldn’t believe how near the surface it was. No one really challenged it, which is what sat most uncomfortably with me – people were accepting of that sort of behaviour. I didn’t like that attitude. There were black fraternities and sororities on campus, and separate white ones too. They didn’t mix, and I couldn’t get my head around it, so I moved to Pittsburgh. You won the FA Cup with Everton in 2010. How did it feel to lift the trophy? I’d been there seven years at that point and gone toe-to-toe with Arsenal for the league title, so to ﬁnally get over the line and beat them with Natasha Dowie’s extra-time goal was genuine, unbridled joy. The celebrations went on for a few days, even though most of us worked alongside playing... You pulled a few sickies then... I think so! It’s very fuzzy. We got straight on the bus and had a few alcoholic beverages on the way back, then went straight out in Liverpool. Some of us still had our tracksuits

on and hadn’t even showered! We probably didn’t look our best, but we certainly enjoyed ourselves. It was probably that kind of team spirit which got us the victory. How was being part of Team GB in 2012? I remember the men’s and women’s teams being jammed inside a classroom and Kelly Holmes said, “Whether you win a medal or not, you are and always will be an Olympian.” That meant so much – having idolised these people, now I was one of that elite club. My first football match as a fan was at Wembley, seeing Burnley vs Wolves in the Sherpa Vans Trophy final, aged eight. I went down on the train with my mum and dad, my little brother and the whole town of Burnley. That was in 1988, then 24 years on I was part of Team GB at the Olympics, walking out at Wembley! I still get a lump in my throat thinking about everything I’d gone through to get there. It was quite a journey. The Olympic village was unreal – 5,000 people eating dinner together, wandering around, and guys like Usain Bolt and Mo Farah just there, getting some lunch. You once played for a side in Iceland – what was it like being based there? My former Liverpool team-mate Karen Burke said her team IBV needed a goalie. It wasn’t even mainland Iceland – it was the Westman Islands, which is where [former Portsmouth defender] Hermann Hreidarsson is from. For the first training session, we literally ran up a grassy volcano. At the top they said, “You can’t spend very long here because it’s really hot under your feet.” They put slalom poles down the mountain, then the defenders had to slide tackle around the poles, and keepers had to dive down the volcano around them. It was the best training session. When could you ever get to do this in Liverpool?! We heard you lost some teeth… Yeah, my two front teeth are – courtesy of the FA – both implants. Ironically, it was my best friend Jodie Handley that knocked them out during an England training camp. It was a wet day – I went sliding down at her feet to get a through-ball and she came hurtling in with her studs up, wiping out my two front teeth. Conveniently enough, my local dentist was just up the road. So I trudged up in my England gear, all wet and muddy, knocked on the door and said, “Hi, can you sort out my front teeth please?” You suffered a few bad injuries, including tearing an anterior cruciate ligament. How tough was that? Before the 2007 World Cup, my surgeon told me, “If you were a male England goalkeeper you’d have earned millions and I’d encourage you to retire, but I know you won’t. So you’ll have to play through the pain for the next six months.” I had some bone growing on the underside of my kneecap, so it scraped with every movement, even just walking upstairs. The pain was unreal. It put me in good stead for dealing with childbirth – it was a breeze! Rachel was talking in association with BT Sport

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WILFRIED BOnY

“I WEIGHED EIGHT KILOS AT BIRTH – I’VE ALWAYS BEEn BIG, BUT CZECH MILITARY TRAInInG MADE ME A BEAST”

The Ivory Coast powerhouse starred for Swansea before joining Man City, but injuries and malaria took their toll... Interview Guus Hetterscheid

Your eldest son Geoffroy, 16, has signed his first deal at Swansea. Will we see a new Bony dancing at the Liberty Stadium? [Laughs] Yes, let’s hope so. Geoffroy is very talented. He has my physical strength, but is much faster than me. My other son Orphee is also in the Swansea academy. They feel at home there. I became a dad at a young age, just before heading over to Europe. It was a difficult time back then. I had no work and no money. I didn’t finish school because of football. My father was a teacher and used to say, “Wilfried, there is much more to life than football. Educate yourself.” I told him it was my destiny to become a footballer. He later accepted my life as a footballer and our relationship got better. When my dad passed away in 2018, he told me he was proud of me and what I’d achieved. I now tell my sons to do their best at school. If they make it into the Swansea first team, the fans can use the great Bony song they sang for me! Your first Swansea spell was incredible... It was very successful. I came from Vitesse Arnhem, where I was the 2012-13 Eredivisie’s top scorer with 31 goals. We beat Feyenoord, Ajax and PSV, but unfortunately I couldn’t say goodbye with the title. I was happy and ready to prove myself in the Premier League with Swansea. I quickly felt at home at the club and in the city – but it rained every day! I got 25 goals in my first season, including against Manchester United, Man City, Spurs and Liverpool. Maybe that’s why City bought me - they didn’t like that I scored against them a couple of times on New Year’s Day!

At Vitesse you were known as ‘Daddy Cool’ after the Boney M song. But face to face with Vitesse’s mascot, Hertog the eagle, you lost your cool... The DJ at Vitesse’s stadium came up with the idea of playing Daddy Cool whenever I scored. I didn’t actually know the song, but I liked it. Everyone in Holland called me ‘Daddy Cool’. But, you’re right, I wasn’t that cool in front of Hertog – it was an eagle with massive claws! Someone at Vitesse thought it would be nice if the players posed with Hertog, so during pre-season, the eagle was taken to a bridge in Arnhem city centre to see who would dare have a photo with this thing. I said, “No way, man. Are you crazy?” I looked at the falconer, who’d once been attacked by one of his own birds and had an eye missing. I said, “You can do your job with one eye. If I lose an eye now, I can forget my career!” [Laughs] You went on a two-week trial at Liverpool as a teen in 2007. How was that for you? I couldn’t believe my eyes. I was training with players like Sami Hyypia, Stevie Gerrard and Jamie Carragher. Peter Crouch, too, and we later ran into each other at Stoke. I trained for two weeks with Rafael Benitez. That was a fantastic experience. I was used to playing football on the street in Ivory Coast. The level at Liverpool was too high for me back then, and I was under no illusion that I’d be able to stay. I returned home to Ivory Coast. Two months later, I was asked by Sparta Prague to go to the Czech Republic. I started in the second team, but moved on quite quickly to the first team. What do you remember about Sparta? It felt like another world. It was so cold – the first time I saw snow! I hardly spoke English but I enjoyed exploring Prague. I went out to restaurants on my own or wandered around town. I spoke French to people, English and some words in Czech. Many people laughed, but thanks to those conversations I learned to speak Czech. I was also getting fitter and stronger. Over there you train like a soldier. For pre-season we trained four times a day. We also went running in the mountains with weights on our shoulders. Military training in the Czech Republic made a beast out of me. I already have strong genes and have always been a big guy. I actually was eight kilos at birth. My mum is also physically very strong. She was a black belt in judo. Your body would work against you in your Premier League days, right? It did, especially when I joined Manchester City in January 2015. I was wrecked. I played well with Ivory Coast during the Africa Cup of Nations, which we won. That was great, but it meant that I’d played a lot of extra games. I’d also gone from a couple of weeks at 40 degrees in Africa back to just five degrees in England. I didn’t have time to rest. I pushed

TEAMS Issia Wazi Sparta Prague Vitesse Swansea Manchester City Stoke (loan) Al-Arabi (loan) Al-Ittihad Ivory Coast

myself too much, picked up one injury after another and couldn’t show the true Bony. I wanted to begin the 2015-16 season in top shape. After a holiday in Ivory Coast, I went to Spain with a personal trainer before the start of pre-season at City, but it turned out I’d contracted malaria. I had a fever above 40 degrees. After that, I broke a few fingers in a friendly against Stuttgart. It was a spell of real bad luck. How do you reflect on your time at City? In the autumn of 2015 I was in terrific form. I scored eight times in 14 matches and we won the League Cup that year. But because of my injuries, City looked for new signings. Competition was fierce for the strikers. I was up against the phenomenal Sergio Aguero – he often arrived at training with a grumpy face or he was late, but he was a killer in the penalty box. Kevin De Bruyne and David Silva were magicians – really top players. When Pep Guardiola arrived, you joined Stoke on loan. How was your time there? That was a crazy period. I was fit again and played at the beginning of pre-season, but after the first few months I wasn’t allowed to play any more. Why? I actually prefer not to talk about that for now.

Then a return to Swansea followed... I was very happy to return, but that period was different to the first. The team was not as good and we ended up getting relegated from the Premier League. In a home game against Leicester in February 2018, I suffered a serious knee injury – it was really difficult to witness the relegation from the sidelines. I didn’t come back until November and made a few appearances in the Championship, but mostly as a substitute. I went on a six-month loan to Qatar’s Al-Arabi in January 2019, in order to keep my national team place for the Africa Cup of Nations in Egypt that summer. After a move to Al-Ittihad in Saudi Arabia, you became a free agent. What’s the plan? Saudi Arabia was a lot of fun but, because of the pandemic, we agreed to terminate my contract. I returned to my family in Swansea and trained with Newport. Over Christmas, I contracted COVID and had to self-isolate for a couple of weeks. I was coughing all day long. I’m now fit again and ready for a new adventure. I want to play football for another three years, then maybe move into business. I’d also like to start my own youth academy in Ivory Coast. I don’t see myself as a coach, because it causes too much stress. I always want to keep smiling.

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MY PERFECT XI

SYLVInHO GK

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ANDRES INIESTA

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PEP GUARDIOLA “A genius – whatever he said would happen, happened. Before one game, he said, ‘They will have three chances: from a set-piece, this one situation and Pedro Munitis’. And it happened.”

The ex-Arsenal, Barça and Brazil left-back compiles a line-up of former colleagues so good, Thierry Henry only earns a spot on the substitutes’ bench

VICTOR VALDES “When Pep Guardiola took charge of Barça before the 2008-09 campaign, Victor wasn’t a goalkeeper who could play with his feet. But he was forced to use them in training – the centre-backs would be positioned wider, so they gave him some options. Guardiola encouraged him to take risks and made the difference in his career.” DANI ALVES “This boy had dynamite in his boots. He was the full package: very aggressive defensively, took free-kicks, shot on goal, provided precise crosses, pushed forward and overlapped. He used to stay a little longer after training to work on his weaknesses, but above all else, he was really competitive.” CARLOS GAMARRA “Gamarra played behind me at Corinthians – even though he wasn’t the tallest, he never missed an aerial ball. Thanks to his amazing positioning and calmness, he was always in the right place. He didn’t concede a single foul at the 1998 World Cup, where Paraguay almost beat France in the last 16.” CARLES PUYOL “The truly special thing about Puyol was the way he won the ball back through defensive intelligence – he knew how to anticipate any move. While you were going on the attack, he was busy marking the opponent’s striker. Maybe other players were more elegant, but they deﬁnitely weren’t as smart.” ASHLEY COLE “What an impact he had in the ﬁrst team at Arsenal. I remember when he came from the academy – a winger who converted into a full-back. He was complete. When I left in 2001, he was already taking my spot.” XAVI “Xavi was a real extrovert who naturally made the team revolve around him, but he only took his game to another level when he

started moving forward and providing more assists. It’s something he had within him, but he only realised it after a while.”

ANDRES INIESTA “A very versatile footballer who could play in a number of roles and was extraordinary in all of them. Andres was more reserved than Xavi and had his own world – you needed to figure out the best timing to enter it.” DECO “No one at Barcelona believed he was born in Brazil because, as well as controlling the ball with the sole of his boot and hitting superb passes, he also tracked back in midfield, did slide tackles and dealt with aerial balls. Not bad for the pimply-faced boy I first met at Corinthians in 1995!” LIONEL MESSI “In five years, I saw him go from the prodigy who succeeded Ludovic Giuly to the player who ran the show. Messi [below] was always hanging out with the Brazilians, and in a way we ended up adopting him. His parents still thank us whenever we meet. One thing that brought us closer was my Argentine accent speaking Spanish, which I learned alongside former right-back Nelson Vivas at Arsenal.” SAMUEL ETO’O “Although he didn’t possess the technique of a [Brazilian] Ronaldo, he was lethal in the penalty box. His work ethic was outstanding. You’d play a ball in behind the centre-backs and he’d still get the better of them. Eto’o left everything on the pitch.” RONALDINHO “Ronnie had a unique personality and Brazilians still don’t fully understand him. He transformed on a football field. He was like, ‘For God’s sake, pass me the ball!’ He called me ‘titio’ [uncle] as I was the oldest Brazilian. We both played on the left side and he’d constantly say, ‘Titio, give me the ball, but so the right-back can’t see it coming. Otherwise, he’ll be on my ankles!’” Marcus Alves

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