by Ian Holloway
“When do they want me to do that?” “This evening. Get your suit on, I’ve got directions. Get up there.”
So bear in mind I have a lump missing from my back with three stitches in it, and a lump out of my face so I wasn’t looking the best. I was worried about the skin cancer, pissed off about the previous night’s performance and I was going somewhere because my agent was telling me to, which I wasn’t sure about so I wasn’t travelling north in the best of moods, in all honesty. Kim had asked me how I felt about it all and I said that I was pretty angry about the whole situation.
It was one of the most surreal days of my life but I met up with a director from Leicester at his house in the country and he was a nice guy. I sat down, feeling a bit weary and looking a little worse for wear and had a cup of tea. I was asked about how I felt about things and I said, “I’m a bit shell-shocked in truth because I wouldn’t have expected Gianni to give you permission to talk with me. Why am I here?”
They told me I was one of eight people being interviewed for their job and I just laughed. I said, “You do realise I’ll get the sack, now?” I knew my meeting Leicester would put me in an untenable position because it would give the board the opportunity to claim that I didn’t want to be manager of QPR, which was completely untrue. I left knowing nothing would come of it and I was never asked to go for a second interview. In fact, they never spoke with me again and I felt they’d been a little flippant towards me. The whole affair left a bad taste in my mouth, but I had to carry on unless told otherwise, and the next morning I was driving into work when my phone went. It was someone asking about taking one of my players, Ian Evatt, on loan. He needed some games and I’d been thinking of sending him out anyway so I called Gianni to discuss it with him and I said, “Gianni, I’ve got a bit of a problem…”
“Ah, Ollie. I’m sorry I didn’t ring you. I suppose you’ll be taking your staff with you.”
“Taking them where?” I said. “To the training ground? I’m driving into work. They were interviewing eight different people and why you said I could speak to Leicester I don’t know. Why I went up there, I don’t know, so I’m coming into work today.” He sounded utterly shocked by all that. I added that I was calling because somebody wanted to take Ian Evatt on loan and he said, “No, no, you can’t. We’ll talk when you get here.”
I started to wonder whether I was manager anymore so I called Rob and said, “Does he want me to take this game on Saturday or what?” Rob told me I had to be careful and I said, “Well I’ve just spoken to him and it’s as though I’m not the manager anymore.”
Rob called Gianni and got back to me to say that I was in fact still the manager. I still felt I had to sort things out with Gianni so I phoned him and said, “Gianni, what’s going on?”
“Well in Italy when a club calls to speak to the manager, the deal is already done. I thought this was the case…”
“Well you thought wrong, Gianni” I said. “And I don’t like the fact that you let me go for an interview in the first place.”
I didn’t see him again that week and just got on with things. Then we had a problem with our goalie Simon Royce and we didn’t have any back-up so I called Gianni telling him we needed a keeper for the weekend but he kept knocking me back saying we couldn’t afford anyone. Then he tells me he could get Carlo Cudicini on loan from Chelsea and I said, “No you can’t. You wouldn’t be able to get him to come here.” I got hold of Pen and asked him to gather some targets together and we tried absolutely everybody without success and eventually Chris Coleman said we could have Paul Jones on a free, but he’d broken his finger and wouldn’t be fit until the week after and I needed somebody there and then. I started to get the feeling something was going on because everything we tried failed. We were on a coach travelling up to Leeds by which time I was frantic. I had a young kid on the bus but it would have been too much for him when I get a call from Pen saying, “I’ve got a belting idea, Oll. I think this is a total stitch-up. They want you to go with an untried kid and get beaten tomorrow. Why don’t you call Neil Warnock? He never has a goalie as sub – he’ll want you to beat Leeds and I guarantee he’ll let you have him for nothing.”
I managed to get hold of Neil and he said, “Yep, you can have Barnsey.”
I told him we needed him today so he could sign before the deadline and play him, and the deal went through at noon on the dot, just hours before kick-off. I called Gianni and told him I’d managed to get someone and he said, “I told you we got no money, you can’t do that.”
I said, “Yes I can – he’s free.” He couldn’t say anything to that but things were still not right. As I walked into Elland Road, Sam Ellis, Leeds’ No 2 looked at me and looked like he’d seen a ghost. He said, “Ollie, I didn’t expect to see you here.” I laughed and said that the Leicester thing was all rubbish but he said, “No, not because of that. Come in here a minute.” I walked into Kevin Blackwell’s office with Sam and he said, “Hang on a minute, I’ll just get Kevin.”
Kevin arrived a moment later and said, “Ollie, I didn’t think I’d see you today, listen to this.” With that he put his mobile phone on loud speaker and played a message he’d received. It went, “Hello Kevin, it’s Ken Bates. I’ve got some information here. Just talking to Paladini upstairs. He said he’s sacked Holloway and they’ve got Barnes in goal from Sheffield United. See you later.”
As far as I’m aware, Ken Bates knew something only me, Neil Warnock, his secretary, my secretary and Gianni knew. I’ve no beef with Ken Bates because he was doing what any chairman would do if he felt it benefited his club, and was merely passing on info that his manager might have been able to use. Kevin was only doing what I believe he would hope I’d do for him if I was in a similar situation – which of course I would because it was the right thing to do. Talk about undermining me before a game!
I did the team talk and made a few changes – in fact it was more like Queens Park Strangers than Queen Park Rangers and though we did reasonably well, we still lost 2-0. Pen called on the way home and I told him what had happened and he said, “That’s an absolute fucking disgrace, mate – an absolute disgrace.”
I decided I wasn’t going to have this anymore. I had a terrible night’s sleep and woke up early and called my agent and went over in detail what had happened the previous day and he asked me how I felt about it all. I told him it was a disgrace and he said, “Well you’d better call Gianni up and tell him, then and be professional about it. Whatever you do, don’t shout.” So I had a coffee, tried to compose myself as best I could and called him.
“Gianni…”
“Ah, don’t you listen to he say what she say what he say what she say.”
“Listen to me and listen to what I have to say. There’s only one person who could have said this. Ken Bates told Kevin Blackwell we’d signed the Sheffield United goalkeeper and that you told him you’d sacked Ian Holloway. Just for once, tell me what the hell’s going on.”
He went quiet and then said the board wanted a change.
“Great. Talk to my agent.”
I put the phone down and later Rob spoke with him. The next morning, thinking I was going to be sacked, I was placed on gardening leave, which basically means you stay at home on full pay but that they don’t want you in because you’re a bad influence. I’ll never forget what Gianni said regarding my interview at Leicester. He said, “Why, if you’re happily married, would you go and see another woman?” The fact is I was told by my wife to go and see another woman, not the other way round, so why hadn’t he said it that way instead? I believe the whole thing had been manufactured to get me out and because I didn’t want the players they had wanted to bring in but didn’t want the fans to turn on them because most of them were on my side. It was a sad end to my time as manager, which contractually it wasn’t, because I still had two years to run on my contract, it seemed I wouldn’t ever work for the club again.
So I was no longer the manager of QPR, which hadn’t been what I’d wanted at all. I still believed in my team and think with the right backing I could have taken the club forward and think my players still believed in me, too.
Gianni called me to tell me that I would get my wages every week paid into my bank account, but my world had stopped. Apparently I had a bad attitude and a negative input on the football club and was to stay away. This was my reward after working that hard to keep things together. That didn’t sit well with me at all, I can assure you.
My staff and I had been on a long hard road together and we’d given everything to QPR and after plunging into administration and having just seven players on the books at one stage, no goalkeeper and two long-term injuries. Then we win promotion two years later, despite everything, and were well-placed in the table in our first year back up. I felt that was a major achievement, not a bad influence.
My agent told me to chill out but three weeks later I picked up three points for speeding and lost my license. My ego was in tatters – I’d lost my job, my car and my right to drive – three things that no man wants to lose. I felt a part of my manhood was gone, and I was reduced to a fit of pique in a supermarket when I trashed a shopping basket into a fruit stall. I wasn’t a nice person to be around – again – poor old Kim. My agent told me not to go to any games anywhere for a while, and he then started to get me loads of work on TV. I did some work on Sky News as a kind of resident pundit for the day and I really enjoyed it. Things went well and they offered me different types of jobs after that. The more I did it, the easier it got and I was covering a few different sports and because of that, I got asked by ITV to do around three ‘World Cup Cuppas’ with Steve Bunce off Capital Radio and it was a good laugh. Then I got a 10-match deal to appear on a World Cup programme for ITV2. I met some fascinating characters, including a hero of mine from Blackadder, Brian Blessed, and he was an inspirational bloke in many ways. I asked him about his many adventures, including climbing Everest. “I’m going to do it again and this time I’m not going to use any oxygen,” he bellowed in that incredible voice. “My doctor said I shouldn’t but I’m bloody well going to do it.” I asked him how he still had so much enthusiasm and he said, “Well I wake up each morning and I need a new challenge and I keep looking forward to my new Everest. Some people’s Everest might be picking a finger up off a bed because they’ve been paralysed for however many years, but if you don’t want that challenge each time you wake up, you’re wasting your life young fella.” He was an outstanding human being and sometimes you imagine how certain people are and put them on pedestals and they let you down when you actually meet them – Brian Blessed was exactly the opposite. All the while, I had to keep my mouth shut regarding my situation, because if I’d have said one derogatory comment about my job at QPR, I could have been sacked.
I was doing all sorts of things and having a bit of a laugh, too. Meanwhile, Gianni was doing interviews saying, “Oh we’re never going to have him back,” which totally contradicts what gardening leave is meant to be, which is being sent away for a little while and then going back to your job at a later date. It was all a bit weird.
I got a stack of wonderful letters from the Rangers fans saying some really lovely things and I’ll be eternally thankful for that, but none of them really made me feel any better. I read them all and sent a hand-written reply to each and every one and it took me a long time. It was a very emotional time for me, because I never go into any relationship without being fully committed so it was the equivalent of bereavement for me. It wasn’t a nice time for Kim, either, because we should have enjoyed the extra time we had together and gone places and generally chilled out, but I was angry and not much fun to be around, if I’m honest. I actually tried a bit of gardening but ended up pulling a lot of Kim’s expensive plants out and leaving a fair amount of weeds, so that was the end of my active gardening service! We then decided we were going to sell the house we’d bought in St Albans, so I painted the whole place from top to bottom, which took me about three weeks. In between shopping and doing the school runs, I was finding it hard to occupy the time and I was desperate to do something constructive again. I’d gone from telling everyone what to do and being the most important figure in my workplace to being at home where everything I said didn’t actually mean that much! I was treading water and it was driving me mad – could I really do this for two years, which was when my QPR contract was up? With the TV work I was doing, I even wondered whether I could be bothered going back into management again and when interviews came up, I asked myself if I really wanted the jobs. I had some serious thinking to do and I mulled over the events over the past few months and things just didn’t add up.
It made me think back to about three months before the contact from Leicester, when I was receiving phone calls from somebody claiming to be a senior official at the Nigerian FA, telling me they wanted me to manage Nigeria at the 2006 World Cup.
“To be honest,” I said, “I’m very worried how you’ve got my number. I don’t know who you are…”
“I am the president of the Nigerian Football Association and this is a great honour to manage our country…”
I had to intervene with, “Look, you’re actually breaking the laws of my contract. I’ve got a wonderful job and I’m very happy at QPR and I can’t help you. Sorry.”
I called Rob and told him about it and he told me it was bullshit and that I should get the number when it came up on my mobile. Each time it read ‘number withheld’ and this guy called twice more and I told him the same thing each time.
Was I being tested? Who knows. I asked Danny Shittu, who is Nigerian, about the calls and he said, “Just take no notice Ollie – nobody knows who’s doing what.”
The bottom line to the whole affair is that I don’t believe the consortium ever wanted me to run their club. They wanted their own man in, someone they could manipulate so they could control who was coming in and out of the club. Instead of telling me the truth to my face because they thought I was popular, they resorted to underhand tactics in my view. They used to read the fans’ websites and because there were no dissenters at first, they left me alone. After a few poor results, however, there were a few whingers coming on, and I think they saw a chink in the armour and went for it.
Later I found out my replacement, Gary Waddock, had sent out youth coach Joe Gallen and his chief youth team scout, to do some match reports on our next two opponents – and this was the Saturday when we played Leeds United, when Ian Holloway is still manager of QPR. Should I believe that he had no idea that he would be the next manager, then? I think the evidence is as damning as the phone call Ken Bates made to Kevin Blackwell. All I know is that Waddock, Joe or the scout didn’t say one word to me about researching those two games, and they could have mentioned it anytime that week because I was still the manager. Had I been in their shoes, I’d have said, “Well actually, Oll, I was approached when you went for that interview.” But nobody said a word to me. Waddock got the job and the first thing he says is, “I’m going to change the style of football. We’re Queens Park Rangers and we have a tradition of playing a certain style of football and I’m going to change things overnight.”
I think that hurt me more than anything else did. As a manager, you cannot be undermined and the minute your chairman undermines you, you might as well walk, because nobody is going to believe you’re in charge ever again. Too many chairmen do that and it was happening to me all the time towards the end so perhaps I should have seen all this coming. Being a chairman or owning a club means you take on an awful lot of responsibility and power. I often wonder if they realise that they are carrying the hopes, dreams and aspirations of every fan who would run through brick walls for their club and give up time with their family to watch you play at the other end of the country through wind, snow and rain. The QPR fans had that passion and loyalty, but I’m not sure the men at the top re
cognised that.
I couldn’t have asked any more from my players who were incredibly loyal to me, but even they couldn’t do anything in the end. Had Chris Wright stayed, I think I might have still been at Loftus Road today and we might have even been in the Premiership. I’m incredibly proud of my time as QPR manager and what my staff, my players and I achieved, and nobody can take that away from me. Nobody.
Chapter 21: The Pig of Plymouth
Gianni had told my agent that I had to apply for new jobs while on gardening leave because obviously the sooner I found a new position the better for him because they wouldn’t be paying me for doing sod all. I was contacted by Tranmere and Brentford, but the money wasn’t anywhere near what I was looking for and then I went to speak with Millwall, who impressed me but I’d already promised I would go and speak with Milton Keynes Dons. Millwall chairman Stewart Till tried to put me on the spot asking me for an immediate answer to their offer but I told them I’d given MK Dons my word and I didn’t break that for anybody. I told them that if they couldn’t be bothered to let me be a man of my principles, I wasn’t going to work for them. I actually really liked the Millwall chairman and think I could have worked with him.
I’d met him at a hotel in London and they answered my queries – and I had a lot – very well. I asked them questions related to whether or not there was likely to be a power struggle because I wasn’t about to go through that again. It also proved I knew about business and was an experienced manager and it showed I wasn’t desperate for a job. I had the best part of two years’ wages to come so money wasn’t an issue and with all the media work I was doing, I was actually earning more than I’d ever done before and I wasn’t going to give that up easily. I’d been taught not to be pushed around and I think if you looked at my CV, if I wasn’t forced to sell my best players, I could take teams up and I also believe I can manage in the Premiership. Things went well, but Millwall were itching to make an announcement of who their new manager was so they could get moving and planning for the season ahead, but I knew MK Dons were building a new stadium and I was keen to speak with their chairman Peter Winkleman. I told Millwall that I couldn’t commit to anything and if their terms were answer now or no deal, I told them to take me out of the running. They came back with an improved offer, but it wasn’t about that and more money wasn’t going to change anything because I wanted to meet Peter in Milton Keynes. When I actually did go, I found Peter a fascinating man and I’d never met anyone who had such a burning desire to make a town and a football club mould together and work. I was only with him a couple of hours but I learned a lot from him in that time, though I was disappointed not to at least get a call to say that they’d eventually given the job to Martin Allen.