by Ian Holloway
I’d brought a few lads with me who had been released from QPR on frees in Matt Lockwood, Graham Power and Steve Parmenter. I added Tom Ramasut and tried to get Gordon Bennett to come back to Rovers but he turned down the offer – he did recommend a bloke called Richard Everson who I employed as my chief scout – and he turned out to be fantastic.
We’d actually begun my reign as manager by playing at Twerton Park against Peterborough. It was a weird day because after that match, we were moving to the Memorial Ground in Bristol, but we won 1-0, I had a bloody beast and Barry Fry was sat there with his shirt off – the worst sight I’d ever seen. It was daylight robbery because they deserved nothing less than three points, but I wasn’t complaining – we were up and running. It was an embarrassing match in all honesty, and I wondered what the hell I’d done leaving Rangers in the first place. I’d managed to coax Geoff Twentyman, a former team-mate and then a sports guru at BBC Radio Bristol to be my assistant.
I was bursting with pride to be back at my boyhood club and be its manager. The fans seemed pleased and one bloke made a T-shirt for me to warm up with and on the back it said ‘Ollie’s back!’ and on the front it said, ‘Ollie’s front’, which made me smile. The first few weeks were a hell of an eye-opener but our next home game against Stockport was even more special because we were finally back in Bristol again. We drew 1-1 but one of the goal posts was about a foot too high at one end – the end we both scored at! The groundstaff at the Memorial Stadium only ever put up rugby posts and weren’t used to putting up goal posts. As it turned out, I think theirs would have still gone in whereas ours would have gone over! We’d not lost any of our first three games, but lost my fourth in charge away at Millwall, and from the middle of October till the middle of February we won just three out of 19 league and cup matches – Christ it was hard!
Geoff Twentyman had left his job at BBC Radio Bristol open and decided he wanted to return to his old job, and I’m proud to say he’s gone on leaps and bounds ever since.
Another old mate from my Rovers days, Phil Bater, was running his own gardening company so I called him up and asked if he’d like to be my No 2, and he said he’d be happy to come on board. Phil was hard as nails and scared everybody to death, and his influence was instantaneous and we won three games in a row after he’d joined us. I signed big Julian Alsop for £25,000 from Halesowen and the fans nicknamed him Bert the Brickie because he had a typical non-leaguer’s attitude and was mad as a March hare, but a fantastic lad. I’d been under massive pressure at the time. He scored a vital equaliser at Peterborough (Peter Beadle scored the winner in a 2-1 victory) and we eventually finished 17th in Division Two. Both Phil and Julian had given us a massive lift at just the right time. We had five wins in the last eight games, which kept it from being a disastrous first year. The lack of investment meant that I reckoned we’d be a good bet for the drop if we didn’t spend, so I said to chairman Geoff Dunford and his board, “If you want to see that again, don’t add any players.” One of the directors had suggested he was fed up with seeing the same “shit” as he called it, so I put the ball in their court and gave them a chance to change the “shit”. They either backed me or we went down – it was as simple as that. I’d been a plate spinner and a juggler throughout that first year because you never really do just one job at that level. I’d had no idea about the politics Gerry Francis had often spoke about and I was seeing them at close quarters now. Talk about being thrown in at the deep end. To be fair to the chairman, he didn’t take my comments personally and I signed five players during the summer and every one of them was a humdinger, even if I do say so myself! I still had a load to learn and was on a sharp learning curve that I just about managed to hang on to at times, but there were other aspects to being a manager that I hadn’t grasped yet, such as how to deal with the media because I was a joke and took everything personally. I was too emotionally involved, probably because I was still playing, and I had trouble splitting the role of player and manager. I thought I could do everything, but the truth was I didn’t do any of the jobs particularly well during that first season. Being back in Bristol and in the middle of the City-Rovers thing, I was like a walking ego, I have to say. It was frightening. I hope I never go back to being that bloke because if you get that engrossed in what you’re doing, you’ll almost certainly get it wrong, as I was proving. You need to be objective and you need to be able to see things for what they are. You need to be stood on a bank at the side of a stream and throw a big pebble in and see where the ripples go and how the water passes by to figure out what you need to do next. My problem was I was the pebble and I was fighting against the rapids, splashing around so that I couldn’t see a thing – it was a joke. I still believed I could do the job and be a success but I swear had I not had the security of a three-year deal left, I’d have been out on my ear. They couldn’t have afforded to pay me off and the fact the chairman and vice-chairman were the people who had wanted me as manager in the first place meant they had to stand by me or it made their judgement look rubbish. By the end of the season, it was just a total relief not to have been relegated and to be back in my home town.
I needed quality in my squad so I brought back my old mate Pen from Watford, which meant a great deal because obviously I thought a lot of him as a player, but he was also a terrific judge of players. I’d asked his advice the year before about Barry Hayles and he came to watch him play for Stevenage against Woking in a non-league cup final at Vicarage Road. He reckoned Hayles was a fantastic find, but added, “What about the centre-half for Woking? He’s outstanding.” I began to watch the lad, Steve Foster, more closely because I’d only been concentrating on Hayles, and he was right – he was playing out of his skin and marked Hayles out of the game. We ended up signing them both. I’d tried to get Hayles the year before, but Stevenage were adamant they wouldn’t let him leave and told me even if I offered £400,000 they wouldn’t sell. Then he broke his leg and we managed to get him for half that fee, with another £50,000 if he scored 25 goals in one season. Guess how many he scored in his first season? I wasn’t complaining, though.
So Brian Gayle, Jason Perry, Steve Foster and Barry Hayles all arrived for a total of £350,000 which was a fair amount of money for a club our size at the time. The funny thing was, the fans were behind me in a ‘back Ollie!’ kind of way. It was weird in a way because I hadn’t earned their support as such with performances from either the team or me, and even though I was still running round and putting my foot in, I wasn’t the player they must have remembered. Perhaps I was living off past glories as a player but I still seemed to be in the honeymoon period and they’d never once got on my back.
I was pleased with my new signings because I thought they were all really good, solid lads and we began the 1997/98 season with a pre-season that dreams are made of. We won the first game 7-0 and Hayles scored a hat-trick, and two days later, I played two different sides in each half and Pen made his Rovers comeback debut in a 10-1 win at Bideford. I began to think our goals problem might have been solved and we followed that up with a 5-1 at Oxford City, and the board were getting excited by the way things were going. We’d nailed all our problematic areas down. It showed too, only losing one of the opening 10 games of the season, giving us a solid base to build on. My new signings were bedding in well and we were consistent throughout the year, so much so that we had an outside chance of going up. But with six games left, I lost Phil Bater as my assistant. Our youth set-up wasn’t all that it should have been and he wanted to take control of it, which I didn’t have a problem with because I knew he’d do a great job. I still needed a No 2 for what was a vital run-in and I couldn’t think of anyone better than Pen, who accepted my offer of becoming my assistant manager.
With two games to go we were away to Blackpool and still needed points to be sure of a play-off spot, but my season was ended when Gary Brabin almost split me in two. I went to play a ball through and Brabin lunged at me and almo
st took my nuts off. I had to be carried off on a stretcher and was shaking I was in so much pain. Brabin actually scored a great goal that day and we lost 1-0, meaning we still needed a good result against Brentford on the last day. They were already relegated so we fancied our chances, but after 10 minutes Pen was sent off! Before the game he’d been fidgety and unsettled and eventually he came up to me and said, “I want to say something.” What came out next was quintessential Pen, and I wondered what he was on about. He said, “Come on lads, we’ve got to have eyes like Marvin Hagler. We’ve got to be determined and believe we can do this.” I let him carry on because he needed to get it out of his system but something still wasn’t right. He was fired up and I said, “Are you OK?” He said, “Yeah, yeah, great!”
Brentford had Warren Aspinall in their side and I told the lads not to get involved with him, because he would stir it up given the chance. He was a tough cookie and wouldn’t say no to a physical encounter but what I didn’t know at the time was that Pen had had dealings with him in the past. With 10 minutes gone, we won a corner and as Matt Lockwood was on his way to take it, I notice Pen by Aspinall on the edge of the box and next thing, Pen elbows him in the face, right in front of the ref! He gives him a red card and Pen’s off, and I was wondering what he was doing. He’d lost it completely and started walking over towards me, muttering under his breath, “What have I done, what have I done?” The ref was looking at him wondering where he was headed because our changing rooms were in the opposite corner to where I was and I had to say, “You’ve got to go over there,” and felt terrible having to point him in the right direction. It was the world’s longest walk because he made an 8-yard walk about 160 yards. I was having a bit of banter with their manager Mickey Adams but I thought we could blow it so decided to throw caution to the wind. What I didn’t know was Pen had gone to the dressing rooms, got his car keys and driven away still in his kit! He just couldn’t deal with it and had to be somewhere else – he didn’t know what to do and didn’t know what to say so he went and parked up about a mile from the ground and listened to the match on his radio. We were actually playing really well and I said to the lads, “Just because he’s had an absolute brainstorm – Marvin Hagler – what a bloody idiot – doesn’t mean to say we can’t win this game. I’m expecting you to win this game.” I switched tactics around and Curo puts us 1-0 up. With Gillingham drawing, we were above them in the table, but with 10 minutes left, they equalise. The whole ground fell silent but I still believed we could win and was telling the lads to calm down and they’d be alright. Five minutes from time Matty Lockwood gets down the flank, crosses in a perfect ball and Hayles heads home his 25th of the season. The place erupted and the other results had gone our way so we were in the play-offs. From zeroes to heroes and the transformation had been satisfying to say the least
We had a real chance of going up and were up against Northampton Town, who’d gone up the year before. In the first leg of the semi-final at the Memorial we raced into a 3-0 lead with just 46 minutes gone. Then Hayles goes through and hits the post – it could have been four – but my lads look like they’re celebrating getting to the final already when they pull one back to make it 3-1. That goal knocked the stuffing out of me, personally, but everyone else seemed to think we’d done it. I didn’t because I knew it was only half-time, and as I was coming out I bumped into their manager Ian Atkins. He could see I was carrying a tape and said, “Is that today’s game?” I said it was and he asked if he could have it. I said yes and handed over my copy without question, but he went away and showed it to his team. He told me in later years that he said to them, “That wasn’t fair. That wasn’t a goal. That was just luck.” They beat us 3-0 in the second leg. We lost the plot and I couldn’t get them re-focused and it was the worst night of my career. I was absolutely gutted because I knew we had them at one point, but I remembered the dignity Joe Jordan had showed in defeat several years earlier and wanted to conduct myself in the same way. I went in their dressing room and it was horrendous because they were cock-a-hoop. I shook hands and then got out of there. It was a crap, humiliating night and the Northampton fans had given me dog’s abuse so I just wanted to get home and forget about football for a few weeks. I’d bought a suit especially for the game – it was only a Marks and Sparks three-piece thing, but I took great pleasure in stuffing it in the bin after I’d taken it off. Basically, I was still a rotten loser. Now I had to figure out how to get the lads’ chins up again in time for next season. It was going to be the first real test of my managerial skills.
Chapter 15: Stack ‘em and Rack ‘em
Barry Hayles was presented with the Golden Boot for finishing top scorer in our division and had begun to attract interest from a number of Premiership clubs. I didn’t want to sell him because he was my best player and I wanted to build a team that could win us promotion. I strengthened the team by bringing in a Swedish lad called Marcus Andreasson and Jamie Shore, the latter being another Bristolian marooned at Norwich. Jamie was a genius of a player and my scout Richard Everson put me on to him. He’d been at Lilleshall and they were convinced he was going to be one of the best players they’d ever had there. He was even tipped to be the next Paul Gascoigne and Man United had wanted to sign him, but he’d chosen to go to Gordon Bennett at Carrow Road. Norwich were reluctantly releasing him because he had terrible problems with his knee. We reckoned if we could get his knee right, we’d have a gem of a player on our hands, so we took a chance and signed him on a free in the summer. I took him pre-season training with me to build his fitness up and I could see there was something special about the kid. He was a winner and was unbelievably determined in everything he did. Time would tell whether or not the gamble would pay off, but it was a risk I thought was well worth taking. We’d taken another kid from Norwich who was being released because he was deemed not to be good enough. He came for a trial with the youth team and Phil Bater ran in and said, “You’ve got to sign this kid on, Oll!” Phil didn’t get so excited that often, so we did. His name? Bobby Zamora. We also brought Guy Ipoua, who’d come from nowhere and impressed during a trial, so with two new lads to challenge up front and, having kept Hayles for the time being, I was hopeful that we could give it a good go for the 1998/99 season.
One player I did lose was Pete Beadle, who’d been scoring for fun for me. Geoff Dunford had called me and told me he needed £150,000 to put in the bank fairly quickly and with Beadle’s contract running out, he was looking like the most obvious way of bringing the money in. Beadle had given me a list of demands for a new deal at Rovers and when I showed it to the board they all started laughing, asking me if he was serious. “Yeah, he is serious because he scored all those goals for us and he’ll walk away for nothing if we don’t agree a new deal with him. It’s either that or we sell him.” We were due to play Port Vale in a friendly and their manager John Rudge called me up and asked about his availability. I said I didn’t want to sell him, but would for £300,000 – not a penny less – and it all had to be up front. I told Pete that Rovers weren’t going to give him a new contract and that Vale wanted him, so he’d better play well in the friendly against them. He had a blinder and as we walked off John Rudge said, “I’ll give you that.”
“Give me what?”
“£300,000 up front.”
“Alright, then.”
If only every transfer was that simple. That was it – the deal was done, but I’d lost a good striker and needed a replacement. I spoke with Pen about possible replacements and he suggested looking at a lad called Jason Roberts, whom we’d tried to buy a couple of years earlier and was now at Wolves. We’d looked at him around the same time we’d been watching Barry Hayles and offered Hayes £100,000 for him, but they turned it down and Wolves came in and paid them £250,000. I looked at his appearances and goals since the move and in 18 months he’d hardly played. Mark McGhee was manager at Wolves and I called him up and asked if Roberts was available. He said, “Yeah he is
, I just need my money back.”
I asked if he’d accept the money in instalments and he was happy so long as he recouped the £250k. Our plan was to put £125,000 down straight away with the rest split over the next two years. That meant I could give Geoff Dunford the money he needed, plus a bit more, and bring in Roberts as well. I told him what I’d set up and he said, “What, you can do that?” He’d been trying to sell my captain Andy Tillson who was also our highest paid player for £50,000 to keep the bank manager happy.
I said, “What’s the point in selling Andy for that when I’m going to need another £100,000 to replace him? No, you’re not selling him.” We had a bit of an argument about that, probably the first we’d had, but I had to stand firm because Andy was a bloody good player, a fans’ favourite and a gentleman as well. Eventually we agreed that if the Beadle and Roberts deals went through without a hitch, I’d keep my captain. We got Roberts and his agent down and I had my doubts as to whether it would all go through. It was all about desire and Barry Hayles had plenty of it because he actually took a pay cut to join us from Stevenage and I needed Jason Roberts to do the same. I said, “I don’t care what you’re on now, I’m going to pay you less. You won’t be the worst paid, but there are some who are being paid more. If you want to come here for the right reasons, Gary Penrice will get you playing again.”