Always Managing: My Autobiography (36 page)

‘I’m tired, man,’ he said.

‘I know, Kenwyne,’ I replied. ‘That’s the point of it. We have to find out how fit you are when you are tired.’

But there was no getting him going again. He’d just had enough. Later that summer we were playing Bournemouth in a pre-season friendly and he asked to come off.

‘What’s the problem, Kenwyne?’ I said.

‘It’s too hot,’ he said, shaking his head.

‘Kenwyne,’ I reminded him, as politely as I could in front of several thousand people. ‘You’re from Trinidad. This isn’t even a warm day for you.’

He had all the tools – a great spring, good pace, and power in the air – but he was laid back to the point of semi-consciousness. He just looked like he would rather be on a beach somewhere. A lovely boy, very nice boy, but seemingly without any sort of drive. So am I surprised he went on to make a significant career as a Premier League footballer? Yes, you could say that.

Less of a shock was a young man who played his first game for me on 6 August 2005, as a 73rd-minute substitute against Wolverhampton Wanderers. Theo Walcott was only 16, but we knew even then he was going all the way. His success at Arsenal and with England did not surprise me at all.

I first came across Theo when he was about 12. Mike Osman, the comedian, got involved in setting up a television show that was going to take a few kids who were good footballers, and follow their progress over the next few years. He wanted me and Alan Ball to make guest appearances, doing some one-on-one coaching. He was a good judge, Mike, because two of the players were Theo Walcott and Adam Lallana, who has made over 200 appearances
for Southampton. It would have been interesting had he seen the project through, but Mike is one of those chaps who gets good ideas but doesn’t always take them to the end. So the show fell apart, and I next met Theo as a kid going through Southampton’s youth ranks. He was on the right track even then – a smashing kid from a lovely family – and I had no worries at all introducing him to first-team football at such a young age. Southampton have always had a strong youth policy and had been working wonders with their academy, utilising a great talent scout called Malcolm Elias, who is now at Fulham. I had tracked the progress of that youth team all the way to the FA Youth Cup final, where they lost to Ipswich Town, despite being much the better side over two matches. Theo was on one wing, Nathan Dyer the other, and Gareth Bale, who was a year younger, was on the bench with Lallana. It was quite a team – there was a real conveyor belt of talent at Southampton, and there still is, by the sounds of it.

Theo’s first start for us was at Leeds United, and it was Dave Bassett’s idea to play him through the middle as a striker. He had always been a wide player in the youth team, and that was where I was going to use him, but Dave fancied him against their central defenders, and he was right. Theo was so good it was frightening. He scored after 25 minutes and could have had five – I haven’t seen such a confident debut from a young man. One of their defenders was taken off because he was in such trouble against him. He absolutely ripped them to pieces. He came short, got it to feet and turned and ran at them. He spun in behind, and we played him in. He went past them like they had their legs tied together. He was unbelievable – you knew straight away that he had the ability to change the biggest games. People talk about him as if
he hasn’t got the football brain of a top player, but I think he’s a very clever runner off the ball. He killed us with Arsenal in my last season at Tottenham Hotspur by bending his run, and I think he is a player who knows precisely what he is about. His final ball is sometimes not the best, but that often happens with a player who is exceptionally quick. Every left-back knows he is in for a game against him because he is so lightning quick.

Even with a talent like Theo, though, it was a struggle at Southampton. By the end of November we were mid-table. Nothing disastrous – a couple of wins and we would have been in the play-offs – but I was beginning to realise what I once had with Milan Mandaric. We didn’t mix the same way at Southampton; we didn’t have fun. And Portsmouth were in trouble, too. The fateful day they played Chelsea they were fourth from bottom, level on points with Everton, who everyone thought wouldn’t be in that position for long. Soon, there was going to be a vacancy in the bottom three and Portsmouth were going to fill it. Milan was worried.

He had sacked his last manager, Alain Perrin, and the word was that Neil Warnock was going to get the job. I had been told Milan had as good as offered it and Neil had agreed. He was just waiting to finalise the contract. And then, that Saturday, Milan saw Frank at the Chelsea game. Portsmouth lost 2–0 and maybe he was feeling vulnerable. He began talking to Frank about me. Frank said he should ask me back. He said to Milan that I’d like that. ‘I don’t know,’ said Milan. ‘I’d like it too, but he’d never come back here now. We fell out. We don’t talk any more. I think I’m finished here, Frank. We’re going down. Unless you could persuade Harry to come back?’

So that night, Frank called me. I remember it, because we had played Wolverhampton Wanderers that day and Peter Knowles, who was my roommate on England Youth team trips many years before, had come over to see me. What an incredible life he’d had. Peter was a wonderfully gifted footballer, a forward with Wolves and prolific scorer, who had given it all up in 1969 at the age of 24 to be a Jehovah’s Witness. Astonishing. Not least because in his playing days he was a lunatic. He was renowned for pranks. He drove me mad. I got stuck with him, really, because nobody else wanted to share his room. It was like being shacked up with Keith Moon from The Who. He was wild. Flash, too. He would sit on the ball, or beat his man and deliberately go back and beat him again. I remember him intentionally getting George Best sent off once, by tripping over his own feet. He had such talent, he would take the piss during matches. And then he went to Kansas City to play in a promotional league one summer, came back, and gave it all up for God. I hadn’t seen him since, really. It was a nice surprise.

So that weekend, Frank called. He said he had been talking to Milan and Peter Storrie and they would like me to go back to Portsmouth. He said Milan thought I was the only person who could sort it out there. ‘They’d love you back, Harry,’ Frank told me.

I didn’t have to think long about my reply. ‘To be honest, I’d love to go back, Frank,’ I told him. ‘It hasn’t really worked out at Southampton. It’s difficult. Tell them to call me if they are interested.’ Later that day, Peter Storrie made contact.

I arranged to meet Milan at his flat in Gunwharf Quay on Portsmouth Harbour. After all I had been through previously with the south coast clubs, the meeting was very hush-hush. Milan buzzed me in, and I parked my car underground, in the pitch black,
and sneaked in up the lift at the back. ‘I need an answer, Harry,’ Milan told me, over a glass of wine. ‘Because if you want the job, I’ve got to tell Neil Warnock that it’s off.’ I agreed in principle to go, but we still had to sort out my contract. Unfortunately, Milan trusted a friend of his, a newspaper man, with the secret, so the next day it was all over the papers. And that caused a fresh round of trouble.

Anyone who knows me understands what I am like with the public. Talk to me, and I’ll talk back. I am not one of those people who is determined to be left alone. If we’re in a lift, or a taxi, and you start the conversation, as long as it’s polite or friendly, I won’t ignore you. I meet football fans all the time. It doesn’t matter what club they support, I’ll always have a chat. Maybe that’s why I hated all the confrontation around joining Southampton. It meant that when a person approached me in the street, I never knew whether there would be trouble. And I’m used to making friends. Now, I was being linked with a return to Portsmouth. What was I going to do? Lie? It was around that time that I was in an Italian restaurant with Sandra and bumped into Richard Hughes, who was a player at Portsmouth with me, and Eddie Howe, another pal, who is now the manager of Bournemouth. They came over for a chat and Richard asked me, straight out, if I was going back to Fratton Park. ‘You never know, Richard,’ I said. ‘It’s definitely a possibility. There’s every chance.’ That was enough. Richard likes a bet. Suddenly, there was money going on my return. I was 33-1, but the price came down quite sharply. And that was enough for the Football Association’s compliance unit to get involved.

No bets traced back to me, but they did to Richard. I’m not going to deny what I told him that night. He’s a friend. He asked
me a straight question, I gave him a straight answer. What he then does with that information is his business. I certainly didn’t tell him to put a bet on, and my friends know that I am as likely to change my mind as go through with any career move. On other occasions, I would have said there was every chance I was going to Leicester City, Newcastle United or Tottenham Hotspur (the first time I was asked) – yet I didn’t take any of those jobs. Anyway, I like Richard a lot. Am I supposed to bury him, lead him up the garden path, tell him to get lost? I talk frankly to everybody. If a cabbie had asked me the same question that night, I wouldn’t have lied.

If betting on managerial appointments is wrong, then ban it completely. Don’t pretend it’s fine unless you actually know the manager in question. Since when did having good information in a betting market become a crime? We all know people at football clubs or racing stables do it. The bookmakers quickly close the book if they suspect the punters know more than they do. Yet I ended up having to go before the FA, and Richard was quizzed as well. Milan was very supportive, but it dragged on far too long. In the end Brian Barwick, who was FA chairman at the time, got involved. He realised we had done nothing wrong.

Why did I go back to Portsmouth? I think, more than anything, I went back for Milan. We picked up where we left off, as if nothing had happened. I appreciated his faith in me, and he appreciated the gamble I was taking. ‘You know there is going to be some aggro, Harry?’ he told me. ‘You know the fans are divided?’

I did. I knew I was hanging myself out to dry and there would be a group who would not accept me for going to Southampton, but I thought I could win them over with some good results. I always think that. ‘I know the score, Milan,’ I said. ‘If I do no
good, I’m dead. If I do no good, this is my last job in football.’ Harry the gambler, that’s me. I knew I was taking a big chance but I felt sure I could turn them round and get the fans off my back by keeping Portsmouth up. Fail, and I would get ten times the grief that would have been aimed at Neil Warnock in the same circumstances. I didn’t mind that. They had loved me before, and they could love me again – as long as I got the results. Believe me, Saddam Hussein could have been a Premier League manager provided he kept winning. Had Milan given him the job, and he’d finished where I did that season, by the last match of the season the fans would have been singing, ‘There’s only one Saddam.’

I suppose my memories pushed me to take the risk and go back, too. I’d enjoyed my first time at Portsmouth so much – all but those last few weeks – that I just wanted a second bite. Portsmouth was nothing but ups for me, really. Winning the league to earn promotion, staying in the Premier League, working with great players; I had so many good feelings about the place, so much I was looking to rekindle.

Even so, I had put myself under real pressure, there was no doubt of that. It was only when I walked into the club that I realised the extent. The first day, Dejan Stefanović, a big Serbian centre-half who had been one of the last signings during my first spell, gave me the full rundown and told me he thought I was mad to return. ‘This is not the team that you had before,’ he said. ‘This is the worst team that you will ever manage. All your players are gone. We’ve got nothing now. It’s desperate.’ He wasn’t far wrong. In the year I had been away, the squad had changed hugely. From the last team I picked in November 2004, to the first I picked in December 2005, only five players started both games. I’d left
a good team, I thought, but a lot of them had gone and been replaced by inferiors. My gut instinct was that we were in trouble.

Our first game was away at Tottenham Hotspur. It was strange, I can’t deny that. Before, I could do no wrong: Milan had saved the club, but if we fell out, the fans were 100 per cent for me. Now, there were banners up branding me JUDAS, SCUM, along with a lot of abuse as I took my seat. Losing that first match 3–1 was certainly not a good start. As I walked away to boos and curses I knew this was the hardest job of my career.

The team wasn’t good enough, and we had to do something about that fast. In the January transfer window, I bought Benjani for £4.1 million, Pedro Mendes, Sean Davis and Noé Pamarot from Tottenham for £7 million and took Wayne Routledge and Andrés D’Alessandro on loan. These weren’t my first choices. We had originally tried to get Darren Anderton from Tottenham, but we couldn’t match his contract. He had a deal that gave him parity with Tottenham’s best paid player, meaning he had been getting rise after rise and was on an absolute fortune. I only wanted Mendes initially, but Daniel Levy drove his usual hard bargain, and they came as a job lot. Plus, Milan kept a typically tight budget – the only one we pushed out the boat for was Benjani.

The first game with our newly assembled squad was Everton at home. We lost 1–0. Next up, Birmingham City away. On the day of the game they were a point behind us with a match in hand. Birmingham won 5–0. It was scary. The three Tottenham men had barely played, and were so unfit they were going over with cramp early in the second half. This one couldn’t run, that one ceased up. No matter how much a player trains, nothing prepares him for the sheer physicality of a match – but we had no time to ease them in.
I sat feeling powerless as Birmingham murdered us. They didn’t have a bad team at all: Matthew Upson, Jermaine Pennant, Stan Lazaridis, Muzzy Izzet, Emile Heskey and Chris Sutton started; David Dunn and Mikael Forssell were on the bench. By the first week in March they were five points clear, still with a game in hand. We were struggling to gel. West Bromwich Albion were in 17th place and they were eight points ahead of us. We looked doomed. I had done all I could in the transfer window, but we needed ten players not five.