Always Managing: My Autobiography (6 page)

Since then, since Glenn and Terry, there has been no identity in our game. We were nothing under Sven-Göran Eriksson. No identity at all. Roy will keep England organised, for sure, but I just hope he will also be a little bit bold, open up and try to get England playing the type of football we all want to see. If you look at Brendan Rodgers, he’s now gone to Liverpool but he still knows how he wants to play, and he made a courageous decision straight off the bat – because Carroll wasn’t in that plan. I know a lot of managers who would have thought, ‘Keep Andy around, just in case we need to lump it.’ But Brendan knows he is never going to play that way, so he can make a clear-headed decision. I think he deserves a lot of praise for that: for having an idea, for sticking to his beliefs. It may seem harsh that Carroll doesn’t fit into his philosophy, but that is certainly how Spain operate: this is how we play, and we don’t compromise. I just hope England have the confidence to come up with a blueprint of their own before the tournament in Brazil next summer – because the last World Cup was a disaster.

I was so disappointed with the way our standards deteriorated under Capello. In South Africa in 2010 we were just dire. The match against Algeria was a real low. If you were managing the bottom team in the Premier League and you were taken to see the Algerians play and given the pick of their crop – any player you wanted – you’d probably say, ‘No thanks.’ And there we were, struggling to beat them.

I got off on the wrong foot with Capello, unfortunately. I was managing Portsmouth and was invited into the television studio for one of his early England games. I don’t usually do that stuff, but they must have caught me on a good day because I agreed. We didn’t play well and I was quite critical of his decision to use Gerrard wide on the left. I wasn’t vicious, I just said that it was not his position. The next thing, I heard Fabio had the needle about it. He came down to Portsmouth for a match and he was waiting around upstairs to see me afterwards, with his assistant, Franco Baldini. He definitely had the hump. ‘You are a very influential person,’ he insisted. ‘People listen to you a lot.’ What could I do? I told him I was asked on television to give an opinion, and I told them what I thought. What was I supposed to do? Lie? Pretend I thought it was a great decision? I have never gone on television for an England game since – but I always found Fabio difficult after that.

Not that it seemed to make much difference, either way. George Graham told me that he met Capello on holiday in a supermarket in Marbella. George was a huge fan of that disciplined, Italian style of play, so he thought he would go over and introduce himself. He said he was George Graham and that he used to manage Arsenal, and Fabio gave him a complete custard pie. Couldn’t have been less interested. George regretted even trying to be friendly.

So I didn’t get to know Fabio, and I think that goes for most of the English managers. I don’t think he engaged much with our football and, in the end, the FA were probably looking for a way out and were not too disappointed when he quit. I can understand his decision, though, once they had taken the captaincy away from John Terry without consulting him. I would have found that difficult, too, as a manager, because the captain has to be your pick. You’ve got to work with the players and earn their respect, so should at least be in on the process, even if in exceptional circumstances the FA believed it was not the manager’s final call. To treat Capello as they did was highly disrespectful, but the result was probably convenient for all. I suspect they would have got rid of Capello in 2010 if they could – although his qualification record was top class – and his decision suited them. Maybe he was looking for an excuse to go, too. He would have known he would get another top job, as he did in Russia, and he’s already a very wealthy man. I just think we ended up underachieving massively under him, as much as with any manager.

It is sad, but England can sometimes be quite painful to watch, and I know from some of the players that it is not an enjoyable experience for them, either. I’ve heard a great many wonder about carrying on in international football because they get slaughtered if the result isn’t right or they don’t play well. They leave clubs they love – where everybody is together – go and play for England, and find that this faction doesn’t like that lot, and after one off-night everybody gets ripped to pieces. When I was at Tottenham, I had plenty of players who said, ‘I don’t want to play, pull me out of the squad, I don’t want to go.’ I’m sure it is different with the older players. I can’t imagine Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard, John
Terry or Ashley Cole not wanting to turn out for their country, but I’ve known a lot of younger ones that weren’t interested. Times have changed. My generation would have given their right arm just to be named in the squad, but the younger ones aren’t steeped in that tradition. They can’t be bothered. They weren’t brought up on England as the pinnacle of a career, as we were.

I think we need to bring this next generation together and get people like Frank Lampard and David Beckham in to talk to them. They haven’t always had the easiest times with England, they haven’t always been successful, and they’ve certainly been criticised, but they have always been there for the team, 100 per cent. Maybe it has become too easy to get out: ‘I won’t play this game, I won’t turn up; it’s the end of the season, I’d rather go on holiday.’ I think they need to be sat down, fifty or sixty of the current elite group across all ages, and told that to play for your country is an honour, and probably the greatest honour. That to want to play is expected, and the way it should be.

Having such strong views on England, I have been asked whether I thought I should have at least got an interview for the job. It’s a moot point. Yes, it would have been nice to be considered, but I wouldn’t have gone, and I know, in my shoes, Roy wouldn’t have, either. We’ve both been around long enough; they know what we can do. They either want you or they don’t. What point is there in auditioning? An interview would smack of an organisation that doesn’t know what its plans are – let’s see if we can find an England manager out of this lot – and I wouldn’t have wanted to be part of that.

In the end, I don’t know if there were people at the FA pulling strings for Roy or working against me, and I don’t really care either
way. I’ve known Trevor Brooking since he was a kid at West Ham. I can’t say we’ve had a close relationship since I left, but he came to my father’s funeral, and I have never had reason to believe he would have done anything to stop me getting the England job. As for Bernstein, the FA chairman at the time, I don’t even know the man. A few weeks after Roy was appointed I bumped into him at the League Managers Association dinner, but we didn’t talk about England. I certainly wasn’t going to start asking awkward questions. These people are strangers to me, anyway. If you look at the people that make the big decisions at the FA, the ones that have the greatest voice, all I would say is: there should be more football people involved. I’d like to see more ex-professionals, more ex-managers, more expertise. It can’t be that they have Trevor in as a token figure, and the rest are amateurs.

It’s not as if it’s going well.

In fact, we’ve spent fortunes and had some right disasters. The whole set-up needs to change. We need more committees of people who have played or coached football, people who know what is right and wrong in the game. I wouldn’t trust the FA to tell me a good manager if their lives depended on it. How would they know? What clubs have they ever run? Who do they speak to that really knows the game? I’m not knocking them because of what happened to me. This isn’t about me or Roy Hodgson, but about English football being run by people who really haven’t got a clue. And they get to pick the England manager. Then again, it shouldn’t surprise us. Look how they treated the greatest English footballer.

When I go to Upton Park these days, there are two gigantic portraits in the corners at each end. One is of Sir Trevor Brooking, the other of Bobby Moore. Think about that.
Sir
Trevor Brooking; plain old Bobby Moore. No disrespect to Trevor, he was a great footballer and remains a fine ambassador for the game, but it doesn’t seem right. How was Trevor knighted and Bobby ignored? How was the greatest footballer and one of the greatest sportsmen this country ever produced reduced to living his final years as a commentator on Capital Radio and a columnist in the downmarket
Sunday Sport
newspaper – rejected by his club, his country, and those who should have placed him at the heart of the game? The hypocrisy that followed his tragically premature death in 1993 sickens me.

Bob’s got it all now. The old South Bank named after him at Upton Park, statues outside the ground and at Wembley Stadium. They even use his name to sell West Ham United merchandise these days. ‘Moore than a football club’ is the slogan. When he was alive they didn’t want to know him. I saw him get slung out of there for not having a ticket.

It was the 1979–80 season and I had just returned from four years playing and coaching in America with Seattle Sounders and Phoenix Fire. I went to watch West Ham, who were in the Second Division at the time. I can’t remember who they were playing – a team in yellow, I think – but I know I sat next to Frank Lampard’s mum. Frank was still playing but West Ham were struggling that season and it was quite a poor gate. They weren’t going to get promoted but they were too good to go down. It was a mid-table, middle of the road, nothing match. The players’ families and guests used to sit in E block, and Bobby would often come to watch. He didn’t want to cause a big commotion walking through the crowd, or hanging around before the game, so he would wait until after kick-off, go up to one of the old turnstiles with the wooden doors, and knock. The bloke would open up and, blimey, it’s Bobby Moore. ‘Come in, Bob, there’s plenty of seats upstairs,’ and up he would go. I can see him now. He would sit over in the corner, right out of the way, on these rotten old wooden benches that they used to have, and watch the match on his own.

This day I was sitting in E block next to Frank’s mum, Hilda, when from behind me I heard, ‘Harry.’ I turned around and it was Bobby. We were about fifteen minutes into the game. ‘Fancy a cup of tea at half-time?’ I said, and he gave me the thumbs-up. Next thing I knew, a steward was marching up the steps towards him. ‘Excuse me, Bob’ – he looked almost ashamed – ‘it’s not me, but the secretary wants to know if you’ve got a ticket.’ Bob said he hadn’t. ‘Then I’m afraid I’ve been told to ask you to leave.’ And he went. Bobby Moore.
The
Bobby Moore. Thrown out of a half-empty stand at West Ham because he didn’t have a ticket. Now he’s dead you can’t move for pictures of him around the
place. It disgusts me. I don’t think he ever went back after that. Not just to watch a game casually, anyway. If he had a ticket as a press man he would go, obviously, and sit in the press box with the writers, but I don’t think he returned to the club seats. What did they want him to do: queue up outside with the punters? Ring the club and ask them to do him a favour? They should have been phoning him to attend their matches. ‘Come and be our guest, Bob. Front row in the directors’ box every week, Bob.’ They should have treated him like he owned the place. Nothing should have been too good for Bobby.

Can you imagine if you were a promising young footballer and Bobby Moore, England’s only World Cup-winning captain, came around your house to persuade you to sign for West Ham? Game over. Arsenal and Tottenham wouldn’t have stood a chance. Even if the kid was just a baby when England won the World Cup, his dad would have been in awe. In the seventies what man wouldn’t have wanted to have a cup of tea, or a beer, and talk football with Bobby Moore? Instead, West Ham were turfing him out of the ground like a hooligan. It still upsets me to think about it.

Bobby was made an OBE after England won the World Cup, but that’s not as grand as it sounds. John Motson is an OBE. So is Des Lynam, Garth Crooks and Jimmy Hill. Craig Brown, the former manager of Scotland has a higher award, a CBE, as does Paul Elliott, the old Chelsea defender, and Pelé, who is Brazilian. And don’t get me started on those who have received knighthoods for running football. Sir Dave Richards, Sir Bert Millichip. Bobby might not have cared where his name went on any honours list – but I do. To me, it sums up the way he was shunned by the game in the years before his death. Sir Trevor Brooking is the Football
Association’s cup of tea. He’s their type of person. Bobby was a player’s player.

I first really got to know him when I was called up to West Ham’s first-team squad in 1965. I had signed for the club two years earlier and played in the team that won the FA Youth Cup in 1963. Bobby was 22 and had been made captain of England that year, but he always had time for the younger players, and I got on well with him. He was the captain of the club, a young captain, and we all looked up to him. To us, he was the governor. Everybody loved him, everybody who came into contact with him wanted Bobby as a friend. You couldn’t help it.