Taking le Tiss Read online

  Taking Le Tiss

  My Autobiography

  Matt Le Tissier

  To my wife,

  my children and my parents

  Table of Contents

  Cover Page

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Foreword

  Introduction

  Preface

  1 - HOD’S LAW

  2 - SOUTHAMPTON HERE I COME

  3 - KNOCKED INTO SHAPE BY THE HAIRDRIER

  4 - IT’S STUART PEARCE—‘OH…MY…GOD!’

  5 - I GET RON ATKINSON FIRED AND FERGIE HIRED

  6 - PUNCH UPS, HANGOVERS AND LADY BOYS

  7 - DODGY REFS AND HAT TRICKS

  8 - WHY I TOLD SOUNESS, HODDLE AND VENABLES TO GET LOST

  9 - IAN WHO?

  10 - HOW TO GET A MANAGER SACKED

  11 - GET THE BALL TO TISS

  12 - ONE DRUNK GAFFER AND A MATCHFIXING SCANDAL

  13 - FINAL DAY COCK-UP

  14 - SUBBED BY A FISH UP A TREE or PEOPLE CALLED RUPERT SHOULD NOT RUN FOOTBALL CLUBS

  15 - LAWRIE OUT, DAVE JONES IN

  16 - LAST-DAY ESCAPE

  17 - SAINT AND SINNER

  18 - GLENN, CHIPS AND FRY-UPS

  19 - MATT OUT OF DELL

  20 - END OF THE ROAD

  21 - FROM FINAL TO FARCE

  22 - LOWE DOWN

  23 - THEY THINK IT’S ALL OVER

  24 - FAIRWAY TO HEAVEN

  25 - REACH FOR THE SKY

  26 - LIFE BEGINS AT 40

  27 - WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT MATT

  Alan Ball

  Matt Stats

  What the Fans Say

  Index

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Foreword

  By Alan Shearer

  I wasn’t surprised when Matt asked me to write the foreword to his autobiography. After all, I did all his work for him when we were teammates so it is only fitting I should help him now. The big surprise is that he hasn’t asked me to write the whole thing—with him adding the one brilliant punchline which people will remember and talk about for ever.

  Matt might not have been noted for his work-rate, but he is one of the most naturally gifted players it has been my privilege to play with. He could do things with a ball which left you, literally, speechless. His skill and technique were sublime and the really annoying thing is that it all came so naturally to him. The rest of us would be working our backsides off, chasing, closing down, taking knocks and tackling, while he would amble around like he didn’t have a care in the world. Then, suddenly, he’d explode into life and win the game with a piece of pure genius. And he got almost as much pleasure creating goals for others. If you made a run, you knew he had the ability to find you with an exquisite pass or cross.

  I had to do all the running for him. Well, we all did. We were told to get the ball and give it to Matt because he had the ability to create something special. People thought he was lazy but what they don’t appreciate is that he concentrated on doing his running in all the right areas. We, his teammates, knew that if we lost possession he was never going to chase back and help. You accepted that because when the ball was played forward and there was just a sniff of goal, he’d be on it in a flash.

  Once you got to know him, you realized he cared passionately about winning and scoring—and about Southampton Football Club. That’s why he stayed there his whole career when he could have had his pick of teams. He had several opportunities to leave but he didn’t see why he should, and he was single-minded enough to dig his heels in when others were saying he should go. You have to applaud him because that sort of loyalty is very rare.

  I can identify with that because that’s just how I felt about Newcastle—it was always my dream to play for them. But I have a lot of affectionfor the Saints. They were my first club and I am very sad to see what has happened to them in recent years. I know it has hurt Matt, who gave so much to keep them in the Premier League against the odds for so many years. And he provided the fans with wonderful entertainment along the way.

  He was capable of scoring from virtually anywhere. Some of his goals were absolutely breathtaking. Even when I was playing against him, there were times I almost found myself applauding his goals. But Matt was not just a great goal-scorer—he was a scorer of great goals. Some of them left you puzzling, ‘How the heck did he do that?’

  I’ll never forget the one he put past his big mate Tim Flowers for Southampton, at Blackburn. He beat a couple of men as though they weren’t there and then fired into the top left corner from 35 yards. There was no luck about it, he knew exactly where he wanted to put the ball. It was a really special goal, and the fact he beat Tim all ends up gave him even more satisfaction. Tim has never lived it down even though we won the game. It always seemed to be Newcastle or Blackburn he scored against. He really seemed to enjoy scoring against my teams.

  Being a similar age, we always had a bit of friendly rivalry going right from our days together in the Southampton youth team. And we are still good friends now—even though we are the exact opposite in terms of lifestyle and looks.

  He has never been your stereotypical footballer, either on the field or off. The club’s nutritionists must have wondered how he was still alive, let alone playing at the top level. His idea of a diet was picking the lettuce out of his burger. And he hasn’t changed now that he has retired. Even as a TV pundit he looks like a sack of spuds—or as though he has eaten one. He’s never bothered what people think of him. He openly admits, ‘This is the way I am, take me or leave me.’ And everyone respects that. They are quick to poke fun at his failings—but always in a good-natured way. He takes it well—with his body size and dress sense he hasn’t got any choice—and he can certainly dish it back. In spades.

  I have to say he is perfect for Sky’s Soccer Saturday show because he is so laid back, but his wit is as sharp as his shooting. He can laugh at himself and has the perfect sense of humour for that show, coupled with the fact he knows the game inside out and isn’t afraid to speak his mind.

  This autobiography has been written very much in that vein—self-deprecating with a great sense of his own worth and a lot of jokes. And obviously it has been written by someone else because it is far too much like hard work for Tiss. But I bet he takes all the credit.

  Introduction

  If you are hoping for smut and scandal from this book then look away now. A lot of ‘celebrities’ rely on revelations about their personal lives in order to sell books, but I have always been a very private person so there’s no sleaze here. It’s Tiss and Dell not Kiss and Tell.

  So if I guard my privacy so carefully, why write an autobiography? Mainly because my Sky colleagues Jeff Stelling and Phil Thompson have recently published books, and I thought if they could get in the bestseller list with such a pile of tosh, I might as well have a go. Thommo said he found it so therapeutic that the idea suddenly became very tempting.

  Southampton supporters have been asking me to tell my story ever since I finished playing, but I wanted to wait until I had achieved something else. Now, with the popularity of Sky’s Soccer Saturday and the controversial double relegation of the Saints, it seems the perfect time to talk about my career at The Dell and why I stayed with one supposedly unfashionable club for my whole career when I could have got far more money, and maybe medals, by moving.

  There have been a lot of misconceptions about me over the years and a lot of wildly inaccurate stories in the press, so this is the perfect chance to put a few things straight. A lot of people think they know what went on—but they don’t. Now I can say exactly what happened.

  I am acutely aware of my own failings, so I’m not going to gloss over the fact I didn’t have the best
diet and was never the greatest runner. I was once carried off in training after a fainting fit caused by eating too many sausage and egg McMuffins before we even started. Tim Flowers was asked to write a few lines for this book to describe me and he sent in: ‘Matt Le Tissier signed for Southampton, ate a lot, scored some bloody good goals, should have left.’ That pretty much sums it up so there’s no point reading the book now—apart from the football, the fun and my forthright views about the likes of Alan Ball, Graeme Souness, Ian Branfoot, Rupert Lowe—and a certain Glenn Hoddle.

  Unfortunately I never won the Footballer of the Year award; in fact the only vote I got each year came from the reporter on the Southampton Echo, so that hardly counted. But for a decade I did have my acceptance speech ready, just in case, and here it is…

  ‘I really want to thank all the people who have been so important to me, starting with my mum and dad. I couldn’t have wished for better parents. They were the most supportive people possible—but without interfering. They got the balance brilliantly right and I have them to thank for everything I have achieved in life. They had three kids by the time they were 20 but have remained married for 48 years, which is a fantastic achievement—although I think the reason they stayed together is because neither of them wanted custody of me. My grandparents have been superb and my brothers have been fantastic. All three of them could have been professional players but they have never shown any jealousy or resentment towards me, only pride and support.

  My own children, Mitchell and Keeleigh, are growing up to be fantastic kids and have given me a lot of pleasure. I now have a new baby girl, Ava, with my wife Angela. We were together many years ago and there was a lot of love left over so she recently made the decision to come back to this country to see if we could make a go of it. It is wonderful to be married to her finally. We didn’t think she could have children so she needed to have fertility treatment. There was only a 20 per cent chance of success but we were lucky it worked first time, and we are now blessed with Ava who is an absolute joy.

  Family and friends are important to me and there are some people who really do need a special mention. Pete and Pat Ford, and their children Martin and Stuart, and the Phillips family all really helped me to settle when I first came to Southampton and homesickness might have been a problem. My “mum” in England, Celia Mills, has looked after me for the last 12 years and seen me through a lot. She is one of the loveliest people you could wish to meet.’

  I also need to thank Jerome Anderson who was my agent during my playing days and never put me under any pressure to move, even though he would have made more money from a transfer. (If any young players ever want a good agent then go straight to him at the S.E.M. group.) And I must thank Richard Thompson who representedme during this book deal with HarperCollins, for whom Jonathan Taylor has been a big help. Thanks too to Jordan Sibley at Southampton Football Club for sourcing some of the photos, to the club photographer Paul Watts for taking them and to the Southern Daily Echo for supplying some of the older pictures. They say the camera never lies but do some of them seem to make me look overweight?

  I also need to single out my golf buddies Laurie Parsonage, Ben Johnson and Paul Mico, one of the best DJs in Southampton. I’m absolutely obsessed with golf and I will always be grateful to pro Richard Bland who allowed me to caddy for him on the European Tour, giving me the best time of my life outside football. He and his brother Heath are really good friends, along with taxi driver Mark Harris who has ferried Saints players around the city for years and knows all their secrets. If he ever wrote a book he’d make millions. In contrast, I must thank Mike Osman for costing me a fortune by persuading me to invest in a nightclub. Despite the huge loss, we have remained friends throughout, which must say something. I must also thank Big Dave and his wife Teresa who have been a big help in recent years.

  Francis Benali and Claus Lundekvam are close mates but I have to thank all my former teammates, too numerous to mention individually, for doing my running and allowing me the licence to play the way I did. I couldn’t have done it without them, and it was nice to know they were prepared to graft on my behalf.

  I want to thank all my former managers but especially Alan Ball—and it is so sad he isn’t here to read this. My time playing under him really defined me as a player and I must thank both him and Lawrie McMenemy for their joint efforts in finding the perfect position in the team for me. Thanks, too, to all the Saints staff I have worked with over the years, from the backroom team to the stadium personnel and, of course, I will always be grateful to all the Saints fans for their constant support and belief in me.

  More recently I need to thank everyone at Sky for giving me the chance on Soccer Saturday and making me so welcome. They have ensured I can stay involved in football in a casual way, with no pressure or fear of getting the sack if results don’t go well. And finally I must thank the man who has put all these words to paper, Graham Hiley, who was lucky enough to follow my entire career as the Saints correspondent with the Southern Daily Echo. Obviously when I was playing I needed people around me to do all the hard work, so I thought I’d carry on in the same vein and get Graham to do the writing while I just sat and talked. It is a tactic which has worked well for me over the years and you wouldn’t want to change a winning formula—unless you are Ian Branfoot.

  Preface

  Even now people still ask me why I stayed with Southampton throughout my playing career when I probably could have earned a lot more money elsewhere. The fact is, I loved the club—and still do. That’s why it breaks my heart to see where they are now. And that’s why I almost gave up my job with Sky Sports to become the club chairman.

  When I was playing we had four last-day escapes from relegation, some against almost overwhelming odds. And yet I always had a feeling that we would do it. Many fans say that it was all down to my goals but the fact is I couldn’t have scored them without ten players alongside me. We had such a fantastic team spirit that we somehow survived every crisis—and I loved being part of it.

  We punched above our weight for years while we were at the homely but inadequate Dell. With a capacity of just 15,200, the club desperately needed to move to a new stadium in order to continue competing at the highest level. I was so proud that my goals helped keep us in the Premier League long enough for St Mary’s to be built—and when I retired at the end of the club’s first season in their new home, I felt the future was secure.

  But somehow the spirit of Southampton seemed to seep away and, through a catalogue of errors, this great club has slipped into the third tier of English football for the first time in 50 years. Worse than that, it almost went out of existence altogether. The financial problems which had dogged the Saints for more than a year suddenly came to a head in April 2009 when the holding company went into administration. It meant an automatic 10-point deduction and certain relegation, and there was a very real chance that, after 125 years, the club might fold.

  I have always said I would do anything I can to help the Saints, so when I was asked to front a consortium to save the club, I readily agreed. It would have meant giving up my cushy number talking about games in the warmth of the Sky Soccer Saturday studio. It would have meant getting a proper job for the first time in my life, working in an office, starting at 9am…and having to wear a tie! Perhaps it is for the best that our consortium couldn’t quite put the finishing touches to the deal. Thankfully, another group did manage to step in and save the club—and I genuinely wish them well. Meanwhile I can get back to working four days a month—pretty much the same as when I was playing…

  1

  HOD’S LAW

  ‘YOU’LL NEVER PLAY

  FOR ENGLAND, YOU’LL NEVER PLAY FOR ENGLAND!’ THAT WASN’T THE FANS CHANTING,

  IT WAS TERRY VENABLES AND GLENN HODDLE.

  So how does a scrawny, incredibly talented kid from Guernsey get to play for England? I’ll tell you.

  I grew up playing against three older, highly talented brother
s—that sharpened me up. And then I flew to the mainland and joined the nearest top-flight club. Southampton. I played for the England Under-20s and B side and then, finally, when I was 25, I got the call. Terry Venables was the new England manager and I was in his in his first squad for a home friendly against Denmark. I couldn’t believe it. I came off the bench to replace Paul Gascoigne. It was a fairly low-key game but I felt 10ft tall when I went on. I didn’t get much chance to shine but we won 1-0 and I reckoned I was now on my way to becoming a regular. That was in 1994.

  It had been my dream to play for England for as long as I can remember. I used to watch these superstars on a flickering black and white television and imagine that it was me pulling on the white jersey in the World Cup Finals. And yet, when the first call came, I didn’t go. I’d had a few training camps at schoolboy level but my first real international recognition came in 1987 when I was selected for the England Under-20 tour to Brazil. Saints were on a close-season trip to Singapore at the time and I was meant to fly direct from there to South America but I twisted an ankle. Chris Nicholl gave me a fitness test and effectively wrote me a note excusing me from games. It was nothing to do with the fact that I had a holiday booked in Tenerife.

  I told Gordon Hobson, an older journeyman pro in the best sense of the word. He couldn’t grasp that I had turned down the chance to play for the Under-20 squad. He thought I was mad. Even at that young age I was a cocky git and I knew I was young enough to get in again the following year. And I did. Graham Taylor picked me along-side the likes of Neil Ruddock, David Howells, Kevin Pressman and Carl Leaburn, a tall skinny lad from Charlton who was a bit like John Fashanu and a real handful.

  We played three games in Brazil. I scored in the first two with Neil Ruddock setting me up for one, and then Carl Leaburn was picked to play in the final match. It would have been his first appearance for England but he made the mistake of going shopping when he had been told to rest—and he bumped into Graham Taylor who promptly dropped him. It didn’t matter because it rained heavily and the match was called off. The humidity out there was unbelievable. I know I wasn’t the fittest but I was struggling to breathe after 10 minutes.