by Ian Holloway
I spoke with the board and they asked me how they could finance any wage increases. It was all about ‘bums on seats’ in their opinion and Home Park was barely half full at the best of times, and that was with us playing some decent stuff, too. I’d already gone through the worst case scenario with them a year earlier, then told them we needed to sort it out in the summer at the latest, but all they were concerned about was how many season-tickets we were going to sell and that we should wait and see what money was generated from that. We weren’t exactly coming apart at the seams, but the stitching was becoming loose and as the weeks and months passed by there was every chance things could go horribly wrong and the stuffing would spill out. The worst case scenario I’d mentioned to them was that all my top players would leave and we’d get absolutely nothing for any of them and I found it a bit difficult to accept that this was looking more like a probability than a possibility. I was trying to build a team and had a bunch of players who believed in the dream – Argyle in the Premier League – but the board wasn’t prepared to push the boat out and see how far we sailed. We were tied to a fixed mooring to Plymouth Sound on choppy seas and the promises I’d been given when I took on the job in the first place were not being kept. We had one shot at the jackpot and it was all about speculating to accumulate, but when I said that even if we had to sign some of the lads back on just so we could sell them at their market value, it made perfect business sense because we couldn’t possibly lose. It might have been a short-term solution but it would have benefited the club in the long-term. Unfortunately, the board just couldn’t get past the thought of an escalating wage bill. They were standing still as football in general raced on past their station but I’d done my job and raised my concerns on several occasions and as a manager, that’s really all I could do – time would tell if I’d be proved right.
Several players were adamant they’d be on their way when their current deals ran out. Paul Connolly was determined to leave because he felt the club hadn’t looked after him. Akos Buzsacky was a very money conscious lad – that’s the main reason he’d come to England in the first place – and he knew he could get better money somewhere else so I had several members of the squad who had their minds elsewhere. It was another problem to sort out and one that would fester unless we at least offered them somewhere near what they wanted or felt they were worth in the current market.
One of Capaldi’s best mates was David Norris, probably our best player, so if anyone was going to have his head turned, it was Dave and when Southampton came in with an offer for him, he wanted to go. He lost the plot a little and he was saying “That’s unfair, Ol, they bought me for peanuts and I should be allowed to go.” He was going on about it and, to be fair, he had a point.
I remember being in the gym listening to them all talking about Capaldi’s wages so I chipped in and said, “Look, you’ll all get a piece of that either here or somewhere else, but don’t let it ruin your focus.” I added, “I’ll try and change these people into paying you more but if I can’t, you’ll be on your way to somewhere else and you’ll get it there, but don’t let it stop what you’re doing because nobody wants to buy a loser.”
I was pissed off at Saints manager George Burley for unsettling Dave in the first place – it happens, of course – that’s football, but I’d already told George he wasn’t for sale. He’d just signed a four-year deal, he couldn’t go anywhere and he was just upsetting the player. George said, “Well everyone’s got a price,” and I said “Well yeah, but you haven’t offered it and I’m trying to build a team and all you’re doing is unsettling him.”
I had more conversations with Dave Norris during the first few weeks of the season than I did with anyone else about anything else. I told him straight that I had a guideline of who Dave was much better than, and that was Jobi McAnuff, who’d gone to Watford for £1.75m. Southampton had offered £1m so I said, “Dave, if Southampton reckon you’re worth £1m, please tell me how Jobi McAnuff is worth £1.75m? My job is to tell the board how good my players are and get value for money for the football club. You might want what you want, but you signed a contract last year and if you wanted to leave, you shouldn’t have signed it – that’s the way it goes, son.”
He still wasn’t happy and said that he’d come up two leagues with Plymouth and they’d only paid Bolton £25,000 for him and he thought he’d given the club good value. I said that if he could get Southampton to pay the right money, he could go, but until they did, he had to keep his focus. I said, “If you let this muddle your head, you’ll start playing badly and they won’t want you anyway. I’ll speak to the board and try and get you a wage a player rated at £2m should be on because I know where all this has come from – Tony Capaldi.” Dave, who was already our top paid player after Barry Hayles, smirked at that and I said, “What you’re talking about is fairness and at the end of the day, Tony had to wait all last year, could have broken his leg and might not have got another contract. I’ve told the lot of you, if you focus on the football, the money will come.”
Dave said, “I can’t, Ol – my head’s come off.” I told him I’d speak with the board about getting him a contract extension with a rise and possibly a clause in the deal, but I couldn’t guarantee anything.
At the next board meeting, I put it to them about Dave Norris and what I felt would work because I was worried about his influence on the team. I needed him to play well so I suggested my plan and what it would do and how focused it would make him until January when we could at least get a fair price for him – that’s all we wanted – to get him playing again and get a decent fee for him because there was no way we’d be able to satisfy his demands in the long-term. There was a 50% sell-on clause due to Bolton when he was sold, too, which complicated matters and affected the fee Plymouth would accept for him. I did all I could but to this day, I don’t think they ever really understood because the board think about Plymouth Argyle Football Club and what it means to them as opposed to what Plymouth meant to Tony Capaldi who had played well for us and who had gone on to triple his money because our board didn’t recognise him and reward him accordingly.
My plan went down like a lead balloon in the boardroom. “Why should we have to give him some more money? He’s just signed a new contract – Southampton haven’t come up with the money, he doesn’t want to leave and he’s under contract.”
I asked them whether they felt the contract he was now on reflected the value we were now placing on him in the current market. The response was, “We don’t have to give David more money. He always fights and plays well for this club.”
I then spoke to the chairman on his own and told him he needed to look at this situation carefully because David Norris was a huge part of the team, and the club’s greatest asset. He was our biggest influence on the pitch and if it wasn’t addressed, things would deteriorate. The chairman said to me, “What effect would that have on the dressing room if we give him a new contract?”
I said, “I think it will have a positive effect because it will show you’re changing again and are prepared to pay the current rate and when the others come in, we’ll give it to them, too.” The board didn’t agree and I knew from that moment on I was going to lose our best player and probably several more – they were thinking about pounds and pennies, not the bigger picture. They wouldn’t even give Dave a £2,000 rise until January – that would have got him playing again and probably added another million or so to his worth – wasn’t it worth the £40,000 or so it would cost to finance that increase to make another million? Apparently it wasn’t, so I told the lad that the board weren’t having it and that he should chat with the chairman himself, which he did later in the season. I was trying to change the mentality of the club and get everyone to think about what a big club we were with fantastic potential rather than ‘little old Plymouth Argyle’, but I wasn’t sure I could change the thinking. All I could do was try and get the lads performing on the pitc
h, get those with their minds consumed by money playing and hope that something might give along the way. We’d missed the chance to put out a statement to the rest of football when Southampton came in by boldly saying that we weren’t interested in selling our best players – we were trying to do something and were changing as a club, but we missed the boat and instead I had to look at who were our saleable assets in order to bring in more money – something I never should have been forced to do.
I’d already tied Dan Gosling up on a deal so the first one we looked at was Akos Buzsacky. I told the board he was a talented boy and we couldn’t afford to have him running out of contract. Some of the other players such as Paul Wotton, Lilian Nalis and Lee Hodges could be left until later because they were older and more likely to re-sign. Barry Hayles wouldn’t be a problem but I knew the board was very concerned about Sylvan Ebanks-Blake because although he was on a three-year contract, he had a £1.5m release clause in his deal. They wanted to re-negotiate his contract and take the clause out and I told them they could try, but I knew he’d never take that clause out and it was just a matter of time before somebody came in with a bid for that amount because he was scoring goals for fun. In fact, Manchester United had first refusal on him but they never took the option to take him back to Old Trafford, despite Sir Alex calling me ‘a robbing bastard’ for taking him to Argyle for just £200,000! I thought it made more sense to concentrate on the lads who would walk for nothing – if Sylvan went at least we were guaranteed a set fee.
At last, we sat down with Akos and got to a point where he was happy with the offer and I thought that was the deal done – until his agent demanded a fee. I informed Akos about it and he told me he’d deal with the agent so I told the chairman I felt Akos was in the bag. Then his agent rang me and asked me when he was getting his money. I said, “Well he’s staying with us, you didn’t bring him here and Akos told me he was going to sort you out.” He still said he was due a fee, so I told the chairman and he said he wasn’t going to pay the agent a penny. “He’s our player and he’s only just signed with that agent anyway, so no.” I understood his stance but warned him it could be a potential problem, and unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened. The agent called back and told the chairman and said if we weren’t going to pay him, QPR would and they would pay £500,000 for Akos. I came in from training and the chairman says, “We’ve got £500,000 for Akos,” and I said, ‘What are you on about? We’ve agreed a deal.”
He said, “I’m sorry, but I’m not going to pay his agent.”
I had to sit Akos down and had a long chat with him. I told him I believed in his talent and I knew I needed to work on parts of his game that were frustrating the other lads. They felt he played the wrong ball at the wrong time too often, trying things that were difficult instead of playing the easy pass. I then told him QPR had made an offer that our board was willing to accept.
“What does that mean?” he asked.
I told him it meant that he could still play for me, but QPR were willing to pay a lot of money and it might be worth speaking to them, see what they had to offer so he could make his mind up and if he didn’t want to leave, he could come back having seen what the market had to offer and be 100% committed to Plymouth Argyle. I told him that’s what I’d do and that’s what he did. His agent took him to meet QPR and I went and told the chairman that Akos wasn’t sure and was still thinking about staying with us.
He said, “What do you mean ‘isn’t sure’? That’s £500,000 and he’s out of contract in the summer.”
I said, “Well what if he chooses our offer over QPR’s?” He said, “I’ll take the contract offer away.” I told him he couldn’t do that but he was adamant he would because it would pay for the money we’d spent on Nick Chadwick and the Jermaine Easter transfer fee. I told him if he did that, we still needed a replacement for Akos and he just smiled but I told him I wasn’t going to let him get away with that. I’d need a right-sided midfielder but I still argued that if Akos came back and wanted to stay, that was the best option because he wasn’t going to lose his value. As it was, Akos called the next morning and told us QPR had made him an offer – one that we couldn’t match – and that was that. He left on loan and signed permanently once the January transfer window opened.
I had to replace Akos so tried to bring Scott Sinclair back on loan from Chelsea, but they weren’t interested so instead managed to bring Lee Martin on loan from Manchester United. Pen had been chatting with his agent so when I asked Sir Alex if he could come, he said he’d leave it up to the player as there were a few teams in for him. He asked me if I’d play him and I said if he did well enough, he’d play, which Alex said was fair enough. Fortunately the kid wanted to come to Argyle and made an instant impact, scoring on his debut and gave everyone a lift.
We’d flown out of the blocks in our first game of the season at Hull City – the team we’d ironically beaten on the last day of the previous season – winning 3-2 at the KC Stadium and then beat Wycombe 2-1 in the Carling Cup playing my reserve team, so we were off and running. We’d papered over the cracks for now and carried on the form we’d ended 2006/07 with and our next game was at home to Ipswich, who’d also been sniffing around David Norris for a while so I was determined to get one over on them – little did I realise that as the fans filed into Home Park, I’d be leaving the ground in an ambulance!
I was getting ready to leave home so nipped to the toilet and started to have a shave before putting my suit and tie on. It was then I had this agonising dragging sensation in my back and I lay on the floor, doubled up in pain. Kim came in and I managed to get dressed and she drove me to the ground. The pain was unbelievable and I think I must have looked grey because by the time I reached my office; I couldn’t stand it any longer and asked for someone to call an ambulance. I honestly thought I was dying but the doctor soon sussed out it was a kidney stone and that I didn’t need any treatment because it was small enough to pass. Apparently I had to drink lots of water and I’d be fine – if only that could have solved all the problems that were brewing at Home Park where thick black storm clouds were now gathering.
Chapter 28: Foxes Glacier Stint
Something happened a couple of weeks into the new season that knocked me sideways. Sometimes certain things happen that really wake you up to what actually is and isn’t important in life and the tragic death of Ray Jones, a kid we’d brought to QPR as a junior when I’d been manager at Loftus Road, is a perfect example of a moment that shocks you to the core.
As a manager, you try your best to get a team that can gel and work together and you’re constantly talking to players and attempting to get them to buy into what you are trying to do. Then you get a kid like Ray who was a breath of fresh air – he wanted to listen to every word you said and take on all the advice he could and what a talented boy he was, too. Ray had the world at his feet and was without a shadow of a doubt going to be one hell of a centre-forward and to have his life cut short in a fatal car crash was an awful loss to everyone. I found out on the news, which isn’t a nice way to find something like that out and as a parent you can’t help but think, “Christ, what if that had been my boy?” I had instant empathy with his parents and Ray’s death puts everything into perspective, doesn’t it? You get fans on websites moaning about this and that but what does it really mean? Not a lot in reality. Ray’s never coming home and will never get the chance to grow into the man he should have been and all I know is the world was a much worse place without that kid and I’ll always think of him as a Ray of sunshine.
At Argyle, as in the rest of football, life went on. The soon-to-be out-of-contract players situation was getting to a critical point. I needed an answer from the board about what we were going to do and I was taken aback when the chairman said, “Well actually, we want to negotiate a new contract for you. We’re very happy with the way things are going.”
I said, “Mr Chairman. Thank you very much,
but at this moment in time, I’m not interested in myself. I agreed a contract with you, I don’t need a new one, all I want to know is how we are going to deal with the lads who will walk away for nothing because I’m getting very concerned.”
“I’ve told you,” said the chairman. “It’s all about bums on seats and the gates we are getting…”
I told him that it was all about bums on seats – but that we needed more bums on seats in the boardroom. We’d lost two directors since I arrived at the club and neither had been replaced and we needed new investment and needed it now. I’d asked the supporters publicly why they weren’t coming to watch the team and got a big pile of replies, most saying they simply couldn’t afford to come anymore, but a large number were just convinced the board had no money and couldn’t see the point. I said to the board, “The economics of this area and this football club doesn’t work out. You need an injection of cash from somewhere – I don’t want you to take it out of the team but you already know we could sell Sylvan so you should be speculating against that money because it’s not even a gamble.”
Chief Executive Michael Dunford – a very clever bloke – had looked into the figures of borrowing £1m against the potential sales of Dan Gosling, Sylvan and Dave Norris and worked out that, as a short-term deal, it would cost the club £30,000 in order to give the club an extra £35,000 per week on top of the budget. There’d be no transfer kitty, but I’d be able to bring two or three top players on loan to be able to have a right old kick at promotion. He asked what I thought it would do to the morale of the squad and I said if the players we brought in were good enough, it wouldn’t matter because the lads would have them all day long. I put it to the board and it was a flat “We’re not doing that.” I just couldn’t understand their thinking because it all seemed pretty simple and no-risk to me, but it was thrown out of court.