Ollie

by Ian Holloway

  On the pitch, I’m awarded manager of the month thanks to our seven wins on the bounce and we go from almost bottom to almost top and it was very gratifying. The lads were now calling Gianni ‘Zorro’ by this point because they all thought it was him that had been quoted in that article and they felt it was him that had stabbed them in the back. There had been so much speculation about my job that during an interview around that time I said, “Possession is nine-tenths of the law so if someone out there wants my job, come and get it.”

  I told the board I was fed up with all the speculation – why was it there at all? I said I’d done nothing wrong, my lads had done nothing wrong and I didn’t deserve it. It was a joke and in my eyes, there was no smoke without fire and I wasn’t having it anymore. I forced the board’s hand and they relented, giving me a new three-and-a-half-year deal. It meant I could settle down again and plan in earnest for our future. Shortly after signing the new contract, Kim and I were invited to Monaco to meet Antonio Caliendo, head of the Monaco-based consortium. Gianni came too and, as ever, was the life and soul of the party. He was terrific company and reminded me of a cartoon character called Bert Raccoon who’d wanted to help everybody but had ended up letting everyone down, though not intentionally. He just couldn’t say no to anybody and that was probably his Achilles heel. We had an amazing trip and didn’t pay for a thing and finally, I get to meet Antonio, the main man behind the consortium, and after a minute in his company, I was thinking, ‘thank God!’ He could barely speak a word of English and Gianni had to interpret for him, but what he did was grab my arm and say, “I wanted my own coach, but I like how strong you are and how your players play for you. That’s why we’ve given you a new contract.”

  I asked if his coach was Ramon Diaz and he just smiled. We went to a casino a bit later and Antonio was playing roulette and had amassed a stack of chips and Gianni comes up, grabs a load of them, places them here, there and everywhere and loses the lot! That was Gianni in a nut-shell. Antonio went ballistic at Gianni and then walks off to play blackjack and slowly but surely, gets all his chips back. Just by watching him do that told me he was the brains behind the operation. Gianni was no fool and his rise had been meteoric. He actually was a former waiter who’d got friendly with several Aston Villa players while working in Birmingham and eventually he’d gone back to Italy as an interpreter when Gordon Cowans moved there from Villa. He was later involved in the transfer that brought Fabrizio Ravenelli to England and, I believe, made a substantial amount of money on the deal. After the Monaco trip, I almost felt in the circle of trust and with a solid coaching staff of Tim Breacker, Pen and Mel Johnson. Mel had been a huge part of what we were doing because if ever we needed someone bringing in to cover an injury, I’d just ask Mel to find me someone and I’d leave it to him because he never let me down, but he’d done so well for me that Tottenham heard about his talents and made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. I spoke to our board about keeping him, but they didn’t even try and looking back, with Gianni being an ex-agent and Antonio being an agent, they wanted to bring their own players in. It was an Italian way of thinking, but not one I was happy about. Worse still, they never replaced Mel. We were operating without a chief scout, which no club should ever do, and I had to get Pen to do some of the scouting work as well as his coaching job. We finished eleventh that season and during the summer I went all over the world with Gianni watching players he felt we should sign or had been tipped off about, and said no every time. By the time we started pre-season training, there were players turning up for trials that I’d never even heard of! I felt under pressure because the consortium wanted to show the supporters they were moving the club forward, but I couldn’t sanction any deals without seeing the players first. The fans were starting to question the consortium’s long term intentions and they in turn wanted to fend them off with some impressive new signings. The fans wanted to know who Antonio was and what he did, so Bill Power who regularly read the supporters’ internet site forums started promising big name signings on the net! I said, ‘Bill, you can’t do that – we’re not signing anyone.’ I called a board meeting so I could tell them what I was thinking. Pen had been working his socks off and I took a huge flip chart in with me and showed them exactly where we needed strengthening and had a list of strikers as long as my arm. At the top, were Marlon King, then Leroy Lita, Barry Hayles, Steven Howard and Stefan Moore of Aston Villa. I also had Ian Evatt on the list because we needed a central defender but some of the reports on him had been a little indifferent, so I finished by saying that we didn’t need to do anything immediately. I was going away on holiday and told them I’d pick up where I left off on my return, but while I’m away, I get a call from my physio telling me we’d signed two players. I wanted Steven Howard because he was big and strong before we got anyone else, but Gianni had brought in Luke Moore instead – and Ian Evatt – without any agents being involved or having a medical! Then Gianni rings me and cheerily says, “We’ve got Evatt , he’s going to sign for us.”

  I said, “For crying out loud, what are you doing? We don’t need to do anything.” When I got back off holiday there were other players Gianni had promised were on the way, so I came out to speak to the press and said, “Well I don’t know what’s going on at my football club because I’ve haven’t signed these players.” You are judged as a manager by the players you bring in and it was being taken out of my hands. I had to come out and say how I felt and whether that was professional or not, I don’t know, but I felt I had to keep the supporters in the picture. Gianni, and chairman Bill Power, had also been in the papers while I’d been away saying we were going to sign a really big name – I thought it might be Arnold Schwarzenegger – that’s a big name.

  Then I get a call from Dennis Wise. He said, “Ollie, I’m supposed to be having a meeting with you.”

  I said, “What’s all this about then, Den?”

  He said, “Well if you don’t know about it, I’m not too happy about it, then.”

  I told him to let me have a think about it and he said that he was due to have a meal with Bill Power and Gianni, and was I going? I told him I didn’t have a clue about it so I called Gianni and he said, “Oh yeah, he’s a bloody good player.”

  I said, “Gianni, let me have a think about it. He’s 38, ex-Chelsea – our fans hate Chelsea – and do I even need a midfield player? I don’t know about this at the minute.”

  Then I called Dennis, who might have made a great addition if I needed a player of his ilk, and said I wasn’t sure about all this and he said, “Well I’m pissed off at your chairman, Ollie and I’m going to

  tell him.”

  I think they’d even promised him a contract. I put it all down to over-exuberance and inexperience on Gianni’s and Bill’s part – no more than that – but it was starting to cause me major headaches and seriously undermined my position as the manager. There also seemed to be some kind of power struggle behind the scenes and I felt Mark Devlin and Bill Power weren’t getting along with Gianni and the cracks were beginning to show. We could have been great if Gianni and Bill had stayed together because they got along like a house on fire, but Bill and Mark Devlin tried to set up a potential investor without Gianni’s knowledge, and when he found out he wanted Mark out. We went on tour to Ibiza to take part in a tournament and Gianni was telling everyone he was going to get rid of Mark. Bill told him that would happen over his dead body and if Mark went, he was going to go, too. They stopped talking to each other and yet again the club was thrown into turmoil – it never seemed to end. Mistrust, suspicion – it was all happening, and when we lined up for our team photo just before the season started, Bill, the club chairman was missing, which pretty much summed up the whole situation, and everything came to a head when we took on Sheffield United three games into the new campaign.

  We’d taken four points from our games with Hull and Ipswich and I’d been enjoying my usual touchline banter with my old mate
Neil Warnock. It was the first time in all the years we’d had matches against each other that I’d let him get to me, because I usually just laughed at whatever he said. He was going on at me throughout the game, which we ended up winning, and whenever I questioned a decision, he’d shout to the referee, “Don’t let Ian Holloway run the game!” I laughed it off, but later on he did it again after I said something to a linesman, and said, “Don’t let him run the game!”

  “Do me a favour, Neil” I said to him. “What the fuck are you on about? He’s running the game for you – he’s made two bad decisions in your favour.”

  “Fuck off!” he said back.

  “What?” I asked. Then I let rip. “Everyone else in the game is right, you know. You really are a wanker!” “You what?”

  “For years I’ve stood up for you because everyone reckons you’re a wanker and I totally agree with them now. You fucking idiot!”

  Neil’s name, famously, is an anagram of Colin Wanker, just for the record, but I shouldn’t have let him get to me. I’ve no beef with Neil whatsoever, never have, never will. He just knows how to wind people up, and the bugger had finally managed to press my buttons that day, although after the match we were back to our old selves again.

  Then, as I’m walking down the tunnel our press officer comes up to me and say, “Ollie, there’s been an altercation in the boardroom and Gianni’s been rushed off to hospital, and an alleged shooting has taken place.”

  After talking with the team, I went into my little room and Bill Power walks in, looking as white as a sheet. “Bill, what’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know, I don’t know,” he almost whispered.

  “Is Gianni alright?”

  “Yeah, yeah... don’t say anything will you?”

  “About what? I don’t know anything about anything.”

  So I go upstairs for the post-match press conference and not one question was about the game. I told them I didn’t know what they were on about and did anyone want to ask a question about the match that had just put us joint top? One or two did and then I left, but before I did, I said, “By the way, this is about football. This club has been rocking for years and we’ve managed to keep our focus on the football so if you want to ask me a question about football, do it, otherwise, piss off!”

  Gianni, it turned out, was OK and the events of that day have been well-documented and not really something I want to recount in my book, but eventually Gianni and the consortium took complete control of the club and Bill Power and Mark Devlin left Loftus Road. It wasn’t long before the rumours over my job started to resurface, but I had three years of my contract to run so I wasn’t overly concerned. I even got a dreaded vote of confidence! I wasn’t having any of that crap so I turned the tables and when I was asked about it, I said, “I’d like to give the board a vote of confidence instead. They’re inexperienced, but I’ll give them time to get it right.”

  I believe I’m still the only manager to have given the board the confidence vote. They weren’t too impressed. My lads were still with me but they’d been horrified to read an article in The Sun prior to our match with Stoke City where club president Harold Winton slaughtered me saying I was useless, and my time was up. When Gianni came into the dressing room after we’d won and said, “Ha, ha, Ollie. Every time you get criticised you win. Maybe you should get criticised every week,” Martin Rowlands said, “Why don’t you just fuck off?”

  That pretty much summed up the mood of my players who were still one hundred per cent with me. One thing was for certain – the situation had to come to a conclusion one way or another.

  Chapter 20: We’re Gonna Need a Bigger Garden

  My job as QPR manager was getting harder by the day. Gianni’s business partner, Antonio Caliendo, changed the way the club did its business. All of a sudden none of the cheques the club had issued recently were being paid. Instead accounts were being settled at the end of the month, as most big companies do, I’m told. The staff, who’d done things differently for 20 years, were horrified. It was like the equivalent of having a monthly shop at the supermarket but not saving any money for anything in between so if you needed more bread or milk, tough luck, there’s no money available. It just wasn’t working and the staff could see it wouldn’t work and kept coming to me to say as much, but I told them, “Look, this is the way they are going to do it, so just get on with your job.”

  It was a really unsettling period and everything was coming back to me all the time and most of the problems had nothing to do with football, but it was spreading down to the players. The butcher wasn’t being paid on time for the meat he supplied to the club, the groundsman told the players we had to be out of our training complex by the following Wednesday – it was madness and the players were getting fed up with it all. It felt like we were slipping back towards administration again.

  I arranged a meeting with Gianni to try and clarify everything but he just said, “Ah, that’s rubbish!” or “That’s not true,” but the problems didn’t go away. I decided to get the lads together and told them they couldn’t use the current situation as an excuse and that they were being paid to win matches and if anyone didn’t like it, they could go, just as I’d done a couple of years before.

  We were due to play Leicester the next night so I phoned Gianni to try and see if we could sort anything out. I said to him, “Gianni, this is pathetic. Today, the groundsman told my players to empty their lockers and be out in two days because you haven’t paid your bills.”

  He waved his arms and said, “Ah, no worry Ollie. It’s a no problem, I will pay the bill and everything is okay again.”

  “It is a problem,” I countered. “The lads are all over the place and if we’re not careful, they are going to be hopeless against Leicester tomorrow. I need to speak with Antonio and tell him there are major problems at this football club with the way he’s paying people. I’m having too many problems to be your manager, so tell him I need to see him before tomorrow’s game.”

  At half-eleven that night, I get a call from Antonio saying, “Ian, don’t worry. Don’t you trust me to run a big business?”

  I said, “Yes, Antonio, but at the moment, this isn’t working. Everybody’s worried because they’re used to doing things one way and these are problems that I don’t need to be getting. I’ll see you at the game tomorrow.”

  His English wasn’t brilliant so whether he understood me properly, I don’t know. Instead of preparing properly for the game with Leicester, I’d had the lads wobbling everywhere and it was a joke. I went up to Gianni’s office before the match and Antonio was there and they were on about taking me out for a meal the next day and sorting out a new deal because of, as they put it, ‘how wonderful I was.’ Do me a favour!

  I said, “Look, these issues cannot carry on because it keeps coming back to me and the lads and it isn’t good for the team’s morale.” I needed to know Antonio understood what I was saying but I wasn’t sure he did. I left them there and went down to prepare for the game. We lost to Leicester, who were struggling at the time and we were absolutely horrific, though we still only lost 3-2. They didn’t look the same group of players and we thoroughly deserved to lose the game. Gianni insisted he wanted to take me out the next day, but I told him I couldn’t because I had to have a piece of skin cancer removed at hospital.

  I felt very apprehensive on my way for my appointment because I didn’t know how much skin they needed to remove or where from. I was on my own because Kim was off with the girls and the doctor ended up taking a lump out of my back and a piece off my face, just under my left eye. I was fortunate that I didn’t need a skin graft and probably just got away with it and was left feeling both relieved and unnerved by the whole experience.

  As I was driving home, I got a phone call from Rob, my agent, whom I’d told about the mention of a new contract from Antonio. Rob said, “Really? Well, I’ve had a weird experience tod
ay. The conversation you had last night looks a little different today.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well Leicester have called Gianni to ask for permission to speak with you and he’s given the go-ahead.”

  I said, “What does that mean, then?”

  “It means he doesn’t want you. He’s granted permission for you to talk to them.”

  I asked why Gianni hadn’t called me? Rob said Gianni told him he’d tried but couldn’t get hold of me, which to be fair, was probably true because I switched my phone off at the hospital. I said I would call Gianni, but Rob said, “No I wouldn’t. I’d go and see Leicester. Son, wake up and smell the coffee – they don’t want you. I’m telling you, you should go up and speak with Leicester.”