Taking le Tiss Read online

  After a meal the lads had a clear-the-air meeting in the bar where they went through all the things they felt were going wrong. As the alcohol flowed, the debate became increasingly heated to the point where David Speedie and Terry Hurlock came to blows. Very few people would ever dare tangle with Terry Hurlock but David Speedie didn’t worry about that. There were a few punches thrown and a bit of blood. Eventually it all calmed down and Speedo went off to clean himself up. As he walked back in Terry went to throw a heavy glass ash tray at his head—only for Micky Adams to get in the way. For once in his life Fusey was trying to act as peacemaker and paid the price, ending up with a cut on his forehead. To make matters worse, the hotel manager called the police and Micky ended up spending the night in the cells even though he’d done nothing wrong. Speedo was arrested and hauled before the courts the following morning before being sent home in disgrace.

  I flew in from Guernsey a couple of hours later and turned up all bright and jolly. It was like gate-crashing a funeral. The mood in the camp was the most sombre I had ever experienced. There was no banter so I asked what was wrong and the lads looked at me as though I was an alien. There were no mobiles or Sky News in those days so I hadn’t heard. I was gutted to have missed it because I could have lobbed in a few of my sarcastic hand-grenades and inflamed the situation. (I met David Speedie on a golf trip to Mauritius last year. We ended up rooming together and he couldn’t have been nicer. He had certainly mellowed and I was even able to remind him of the bar stool incident without getting clouted. He was great company, good as gold and seemed very happy with life, so maybe he really didn’t want to be at Southampton.)

  Games in the Channel Islands were always special to me, but for the rest of the lads they were a good chance for a few drinks and to stock up on the Duty Free before it was abolished. I remember a friendly against Guernsey in 1995 when half the team were still drunk at kick-off. I was a bit disappointed because a lot of people had turned out to see us, and my son Mitchell was our mascot. He ran out in a Southampton shirt with ‘7 Daddy’ on the back. He is 17 and very embarrassed by it now but it was cute at the time. We had to rely on a header from me to win the game 2-1 but I took it a bit personally that some of the lads couldn’t stay sober for a match which meant a lot to me.

  Not all the foreign trips were to glamorous locations. We had a horrible trip to East Germany to play Carl Zeiss Jena before the wall came down. I can’t believe we went there; the club must have received a fair wedge to make it worthwhile. It was a real experience crossing the border, with East German armed guards searching every inch of the team coach. We were stuck there for at least an hour and the agent warned us not to do anything to antagonize the trigger-happy police. Even I knew when it was wise to keep quiet and we all sat there on our best behaviour—apart from John Burridge.

  He was as mad as a bucket of frogs. He even slept with a football as part of his pre-match preparation and, when he was relaxing watching television, used to get his wife to suddenly throw oranges at him to test his reflexes. It was like Inspector Clouseau asking Kato to jump out and attack him. Anyway, ‘Budgie’ wasn’t noted for doing or saying the right thing and he kept on at one particular border guard asking him if there were landmines in no-man’s-land, the couple of miles of neutral territory between the two heavily armed border barriers. The guard steadfastly refused to answer him, so Budgie kept on asking. Eventually the guard admitted that there were mines in those fields and Budgie cracked, ‘Well, how do you dig up your potatoes then?’ Not the subtlest remark!

  HE WAS AS MAD

  AS A BUCKET OF

  FROGS. HE EVEN

  SLEPT WITH A

  FOOTBALL AS

  PART OF HIS PRE-MATCH

  PREPARATION.

  As we entered East Germany it was as though someone had flicked the view from colour to black and white. The whole place was so bleak and the poverty unbelievable. We had a stroll outside the hotel to try and buy souvenirs but the shops were empty apart from a few bits of rotting fruit. The food in the hotel was no better. We ate in a dungeon and it was the worst food I have ever tasted, but I did get one of the best tour gifts I ever received. Usually the players were given glassware or tacky commemorative souvenirs but we all got really nice watches from Zeiss.

  The match was played in a stadium surrounded by a running track so there was very little atmosphere, and that was shattered by the sonic boom of East German fighters swooping low overhead every few minutes. But it meant a lot to the people that we were there. There was so little to brighten their lives that one guy cycled for four hours just to be there. We had a few souvenir pin badges to give out and each one caused a massive scramble, as though we were handing out food parcels. One guy burst into tears of joy at being given a simple badge.

  Another grim trip was to Northern Ireland at the height of the troubles. We played a game at Cliftonville, a bizarre ground tucked right in the middle of terraced houses. We actually went in through some-one’s front door and out the back, into the stadium. Iain Dowie was a big player for Northern Ireland at the time but he was obviously the wrong religion as far as the home fans were concerned. They were hurling all sorts at him, not just verbal abuse but coins and bottles. Thankfully there were huge fences around the ground and it was easy to see why. It was a horrible atmosphere and the kids were so ill-mannered. They’d just stick a piece of paper in front of you and demand that you sign it without a please or a thank you or any patience. I signed for one scruffy kid who promptly kicked me on the shin and ran off. I would have chased after him but he was quicker than me.

  I had a similar experience when we went to Portsmouth to play a testimonial for their long-serving goalkeeper Alan Knight. It’s no secret that there’s no love between the two neighbours. Most of the fans restrict it to heated banter but, for a small minority, it is pure hatred, even in friendlies. I remember one game at Havant’s ground when our goalkeeper Alan Blayney hung his towel through the back of his net only to turn round a few minutes later and find someone had set fire to it. The team coach had bricks thrown at it on the way home and that was just a Reserve game.

  It might not have been a league game but the atmosphere for Knight’s testimonial was evil, even though we were there to do him a favour. They fielded a lot of ex-pros, 12 of them at one point. Despite their extra man we won 5-0. Afterwards I popped my head outside to see if I could find my uncle who had come to watch the match. There was a crowd of Pompey fans, most of whom were great and I was happy to sign autographs for them until one guy spat at me and threw a right-hander. I just saw it coming and dodged it.

  A few years later, during Dave Merrington’s charge, we flew to Bahrain for a mid-season game. We were allowed to drink in the hotel and Dave was OK with us having a couple. He told us not to stay up late as we had a match the next day but he didn’t say don’t drink. Another Big Mistake. It was only an easy friendly against the Bahrain national side so a few of us had quite a lot to drink but the humidity was terrible. We’d have been struggling even if we had been in the right condition but we were all over the place. At half-time we were 2-1 down and Dave ripped into us saying, ‘I hope you lot haven’t been drinking.’ Lew Chatterley, the assistant manager, was standing behind Dave and his face was a picture because he knew what we had been up to. Dave was quite scary when he was in full rant and none of us dared look at him or at each other. He must have known by the way we were playing that we were still drunk, but we blamed it on the humidity. David Hughes literally couldn’t breathe because he had never played in such conditions and I risked Dave’s wrath by telling him he had to get David off the field. The gaffer was actually quite good about it and Hughesie has been grateful to me ever since because it was due far more to the alcohol than to the heat.

  7

  DODGY REFS AND HAT TRICKS

  ‘COME ON MATT, DO SOMETHING—WE DON’T WANT

  TO BE GOING TO EXTRA TIME!’

  The 1987-88 season was a bad one for me. I only got tw
o goals, one in the FA Cup and one in the League Cup, and I got suspended twice and missed quite a few games. I got sent off in back-to-back Reserve matches and in those days that also meant you could miss first-team games. But, not usually, I blame the refs.

  We had to play Millwall at the old Den on a Tuesday afternoon. It was always a horrible place and we got stuck in traffic so we had to get changed on the team bus. One of the coaching staff had to run to the ground with the team-sheet and we eventually arrived at 2.50pm. The ref kindly agreed to put the kick-off back—to five past three. So, that helped! By 3.15 I was back in the dressing room. I got dismissed for not retreating 10 yards and then telling the ref that he was stupid. Well worth all the time and effort of getting to Millwall then.

  The following week I was sent off again, at The Dell, supposedly for elbowing, although I’ll never believe that a foul was committed. I was dribbling the ball when a player came in to tackle me. I stuck out an arm to hold him off and the next thing I knew the ref had produced a red card. It meant a double ban so, in all, I only started 10 first-team games that season with nine more appearances as a sub. I didn’t manage a league goal but scored at Reading in a 1-0 FA Cup win and in a League Cup draw with Bournemouth. It was a really poor spell for me and maybe I was spending too much time gambling and at the snooker club where I’d spend 10-11 hours after training.

  Let me tell you about David Axcell. We got off to a great start in 1988-89. We actually won our first three games, which is unheard of for Southampton. We began by beating West Ham 4-0 at The Dell, I came on as sub and scored, and as of 2008 the club have still won only one opening fixture in the 20 years since then. It meant we were top of the table and full of confidence when we went to Highbury and I scored my first goal at a big club. I had previously netted on the road at Hillsborough, Elm Park and Vicarage Road but those were my only previous away goals. It was a surreal moment. When I saw the ball in the net I couldn’t quite believe I had scored at Arsenal—especially being a Spurs fan. There was a two-second gap before it dawned on me and then I went bonkers.

  We played well and raced into a 2-0 lead, and were all over Arsenal but we hadn’t counted on referee David Axcell. First of all he failed to see Arsenal midfielder Paul Davis punch Glenn Cockerill off the ball, breaking his jaw. I must admit I didn’t see it either because I had been subbed. I twisted an ankle quite badly soon after scoring so I had to go off and, as Arsène Wenger will confirm, the view is terrible from the Arsenal dug outs. I only realized how bad the injury was when Glenn came off. He needed a plate inserting in his cheekbone and was out for about eight weeks, roughly the same length of time as Paul Davis who was hit by a nine-match ban. It had been a very sly punch but it was captured on TV and Davis was done by the FA in one of the first uses of video evidence. He also received more immediate punishment from Jimmy Case who ran over to Glenn and said, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll get him.’

  And he did. David Axcell awarded the Gunners a very dodgy penalty when the ball hit Kevin Moore’s arm from all of half a yard away. There is no way he could have avoided it but the ref pointed straight to the spot. All eyes were on Brian Marwood as he ran up to score the penalty so no one noticed Jimmy standing a bit further back from the edge of the area. As players from both sides went to follow up, Jimmy took a long run-up as though he was also following up but instead he ‘collided’ with Davis, who went off two minutes later!

  Having missed the sly punch, Axcell assumed that Glenn had been time-wasting and added an incredible nine minutes of injury-time. It was before the days of the fourth official holding up a board so it seemed as though he was just playing on until Arsenal equalized, which they did seven minutes after the game should have ended. And that point ultimately won them the title. Everyone remembers Michael Thomas scoring at Anfield to win the league for Arsenal in the last minute of the season, but if they hadn’t been gifted that undeserved point against us they’d never have been champions.

  I reckon we were robbed of a win, not just by Davis punching Glenn but by the ref who punished us for time-wasting when he had missed the cause of the hold-up. It wasn’t the last time a David Axcell decision would influence a game I played in. In 1992 we played West Ham at The Dell in the quarter-final of the Zenith Data Systems Cup. It was the first week in January and it was bitterly cold. No one wanted to be there. That included the players, the fans and, I’m pretty sure, Axcell. With 10 minutes to go it was 1-1, and with no replays there’d have been extra-time and penalties, and the pitch was beginning to freeze.

  Axcell jogged past me—I was running full tilt at the time. He said, ‘Come on Matt, do something, we don’t want to be going to extra-time.’ Next time I got the ball I dribbled into the West Ham box. Tim Breacker put his arm on me, and I went down like a sack of spuds. Axcell immediately awarded us a penalty. I can’t be sure how it looked to him, but I thought the ref was a cheat for giving the penalty; it never really occurred to me that I was the cheat for going down. After all, it was frosty and I was slightly off-balance and I was genuinely amazed to see him point to the spot. I scored the penalty and we all went home.

  I THOUGHT THE

  REF WAS A

  CHEAT FOR

  GIVING THE

  PENALTY; IT

  NEVER REALLY

  OCCURRED TO ME

  THAT I WAS THE

  CHEAT FOR

  GOING DOWN.

  That set-back at Highbury seemed to stall our season and we lost our winning momentum but had a resurgence in November when Chris Nicholl won the Manager of the Month award after we beat Aston Villa 3-1. I scored with a header which I knew very little about. Nigel Spink went to punch the ball which grazed his hand; it hit me on the head and flew in. I celebrated like I had known what I was doing. That win put us third in the table, but it was our last victory until April. We went on an awful run of 17 league games without a win, diving from third top to third bottom. We didn’t even look like getting a victory, apart from an away game at Newcastle where we led 3-1 with 15 minutes to go when they sent on a young lad by the name of Michael O’Neill who scored twice, and then pretty much disappeared without trace. Tim Flowers took a whack on the head with 20 minutes to go and got concussion. He was celebrating in the dressing room because he thought we had won 3-1.

  I scored past Dave Beasant but it was my last goal of the season. I had 11 goals by New Year and then no more. The team weren’t playing well and I was dropped. After 21 games without a win in all competitions, we faced a six-pointer at home to relegation rivals Newcastle on April Fool’s Day 1989, with the losers looking certain to go down.

  I watched from the stands and it was an awful game between two sides badly lacking in confidence. Chris Nicholl had left me out because he felt I wasn’t the right sort of player for that kind of match which, in my opinion, was totally misguided. Totally. I thought as we were in serious trouble the team needed a creative spark. The match had 0-0 written all over it until injury-time when Rod Wallace skipped past the keeper who made the slightest contact. Rod was heading away from goal so there was no need for the foul but ref Gerald Ashby pointed to the spot. Derek Statham was the regular penalty-taker at the time but he was out injured, and I remember being gutted that I wasn’t on the pitch to take it. I would have loved the chance to be the hero, especially as none of the other lads fancied it with so much at stake. Then up stepped the unlikely figure of ‘Razor’ Ruddock, who at least had the bottle to have a go in only his sixth game for the club. I swear half the crowd ducked, expecting the ball to go high or wide or both, but he slammed it home for a 1-0 win. The outpouring of relief was incredible and it turned our season around. We lost only one of our last eight to finish an amazing thirteenth while Newcastle were relegated.

  I was still trying to establish myself at that stage, and it wasn’t until the 1989-90 season that I became a regular. That was my first really good season and the one which made me think I had finally arrived. We played Wimbledon early on and I scored twice, one of which w
as my first penalty for the club. I got behind Terry Phelan down our right and managed to lob in a cross. Alan Shearer jumped for it with their centre-back Eric Young and goalkeeper Hans Segers who punched it clear. Amazingly, the ref gave a penalty for handball. After scoring that spot-kick against Newcastle, ‘Razor’ then missed one and Paul Rideout missed against Villa so Chris Nicholl decided to have a penalty competition in pre-season. I had always felt pretty confident of scoring with a free shot from 12 yards so I lined up with ‘Razor’, Glenn Cockerill, Rod Wallace and a few others whose hearts weren’t really in it. Chris Nicholl saw how serious I was about it and gave me the job.

  A few games into that season, the club sold Danny Wallace to Manchester United, a move he memorably described as ‘the icing on the jam of my career’. But it meant that the manager obviously felt that Danny’s brother Rodney and I had developed enough to be able to become regulars in the side. Sadly, the move never worked out that well because Danny was plagued by injuries. At the time it just seemed that he was unlucky with niggles and strains but it turned out that he was in the early stages of Multiple Sclerosis. He has good days and bad days now, but he has done a lot of work to raise money and awareness for the charity. However his move helped me to play more games and I scored 24 goals that season. We played some fantastic stuff. Rod and I were just breaking into the team along with Alan Shearer. Tim Flowers and ‘Razor’ Ruddock were beginning to establish themselves and we still had the experience of Jimmy Case, Glenn Cockerill, Paul Rideout and Kevin Moore. And we also had a young Jason Dodd breaking through.