Men in White Suits

by Simon Hughes

  ‘OK, we did not have fantastic facilities – as Roy argued. We used to train next to the airport [in Dublin] and Jack [Charlton] or Mick would be doing their team talk while the ten o’clock from Liverpool would be flying in. They’d have to stop because of the noise. They’d start, then the half-ten would be overhead. It was laughable.

  ‘There was shit everywhere, muddy pitches. But look at England and all the money they had, achieving nothing. We were Ireland, that’s what happened. The kit turned up three days late but nobody cared because we had something else: a bond. That’d see us through.

  ‘To walk out in 2002 was the worst possible thing he [Keane] could have done. There wasn’t one particular reason why he decided to go home. It was a number of events happening shortly one after the other and he’d had enough. I saw them as little problems.

  ‘I was gutted, but not personally, because we all make choices in life. You have to do what you believe in. I was gutted because, one: at the time, Roy was one of the best players in the world. Two: the team needed him, despite all his faults. He was a loner, Roy. We never mixed, really. Socially, he never added anything. But on the pitch he was phenomenal.’

  It does not surprise McAteer that it ended as it did for Keane at United, with him being released on a free transfer and falling out with Alex Ferguson, despite more than a decade of service and unparalleled success.

  ‘Loyalty and honesty – that’s Roy. He’s like me in that sense. I feel really let down if I don’t get that back from people I respect: family, friends, teammates. I struggle to get over it, though I usually do in the end. I’m not sure whether Roy ever does. If he doesn’t get the loyalty he expects, then you’re dismissed, never back in the circle.

  ‘Not so long ago, I spent the day with Mike Phelan [Ferguson’s former assistant]. It was really interesting. He must have been sick of me at the end because I was asking him so many questions. He told me that with Fergie, if he watched a game and a player lost the ball and then found it really difficult to get back into position, Fergie would turn round and go, “He’s finished, lost his engine.” He’d then try to get the player out of the club. With Roy, Roy was forever telling him it was a one-off – he’d had a bad night’s sleep and he was tired for that game. Fergie gave Roy more chances than other players. But once the seed was planted, Fergie would never change his mind.

  ‘You’ve got to be honest with yourself. Roy was such a brilliant player in such a crucial position, any slip in standard would have felt like an avalanche. What he offered was of such a high standard that when he was on his way down it became easier to spot. But I don’t think Fergie knew how to handle a Roy Keane in decline. Roy is a difficult person to deal with. You never know what he’s thinking.’

  It is impossible to think of Keane tolerating the supposed behaviour of the Spice Boys – a term that makes McAteer want to ‘hide behind the couch’ when I mention it.

  ‘The reputation of our team was exaggerated. So much has been said and written, it is difficult to know what is true and what is myth. People prefer to believe the sexier stories. It’s a case of someone saying something often enough for it to become an accepted truth.

  ‘I have heard all the tales. It pisses me off. Wild parties, drinking, modelling, doing adverts, nights out in London, the celebrity circuit. There were occasions when some of this was true but it certainly doesn’t reflect what actually happened day to day. It is easier for people to see it as part of a trail when really they were separate incidents that occurred over a long period of time. We didn’t lead a jet-set lifestyle. Occasionally, we let our hair down and it was used as an explanation for all the things that went wrong on the pitch. That was bollocks.’

  McAteer admits to frequenting the trendy London nightclub Browns.

  ‘Maybe in the course of a season, when the time was right, a group of us would get the train down on a Saturday after the match had finished. It was usually when there was an international break. If I wasn’t going away with Ireland, I’d travel with a few of the boys that weren’t internationals, lads like Razor, John Scales and Jamo. They were all Londoners and knew the scene, so they liked to go where they were comfortable. I didn’t see the harm.

  ‘Maybe Roy should have just put a stop to it. But it was never the Liverpool way to stop players from socializing. The club’s success had been built on it. I’d grown up on stories about Terry McDermott being out on the sauce but still being the fittest player around. Management had long seen it as a positive. Perhaps they weren’t wise enough to the changes around football: the media intrusion, the added expectations because of the wages we were earning.’

  While McAteer had a short relationship with Mel C, Stan Collymore was photographed separately with models like Dani Behr.

  ‘Having a celebrity girlfriend is not unusual. OK, you saw the odd page-three girl linked to lads like Phil [Babb] and Scalesy as well as myself, but that kind of thing had gone on for generations behind closed doors without anybody finding out about it. The media were just a lot more aggressive with footballers in the nineties because of the money in the game and the coverage it got on TV. We were expected to be pillars of the community because we were earning a lot more money. But it was new money, a new society with new expectations. Were we meant to become prayer boys overnight? At the beginning, I enjoyed the whole celebrity thing. Who wouldn’t? A few years earlier, I’d been broke. Suddenly, Robbie Williams was out with us. Seeing people off the telly – musicians, actors, supermodels and all that – it was fucking ace. Then, after a while, you realize it’s actually quite shit.’

  The impact of the players’ allegedly louche behaviour was felt when Gérard Houllier became Liverpool manager independent of Roy Evans after five months in the role together. The Evans–Houllier axis was a marriage made in purgatory, one where the pair might as well have petitioned for divorce on the wedding day.

  ‘It was a very confusing period,’ McAteer recalls. ‘The players did not know who to go to. I’d been dropped from the team along with Robbie [Fowler]. The usual procedure would be to go to the manager’s office and speak to him. But whose office did we go to now? Roy told me that he and Houllier had agreed to speak together whenever they dropped a player. But when it came to that time, Houllier always seemed to go missing.’

  In Houllier, it felt like Liverpool had appointed the French version of Howard Wilkinson. With no professional career to boast of, in the 1970s Houllier had taught French at Alsop High School, less than two miles away from Anfield. He was an avid student of football, someone who by the late 1990s could lecture on the subject with authority. This he had done on occasion at the behest of Wilkinson, who occupied in England the post of technical director, which used to be Houllier’s job in France. Houllier was articulate in the dialogue of football but he failed to qualify for the World Cup finals at his only time of asking with France, whose FA kept him on as spokesman for their national think tank. But as many a theorist has discovered, there is a Grand Canyon between talking a good game in the office and winning major honours.

  Houllier brought a small team, Noeux-Les-Mines, to the upper reaches of the French second division. His progress continued at Lens, then, when the biggest club in Paris took note, he won them the French league title. But that solitary trophy was in 1985–86, when Paris Saint-Germain had all the best players in a weak championship. When he failed to consolidate, he retreated into the womb of his national federation.

  Houllier was Liverpool’s first foreign manager. After forty years, the door to the old Boot Room was closed. He was a coach of schoolmastery rather than old-school persuasion. McAteer believes Liverpool had appointed an academic instead of the charismatic motivator that was needed: someone capable of guiding a young group of British players that had finished third in the Premier League table the season before.

  McAteer became concerned about Houllier’s suitability when Liverpool travelled to Valencia for the second leg of a secondround UEFA Cup tie at the start of November 1
998. McAteer watched proceedings from the substitutes’ bench.

  ‘A lot of the lads lost respect for Houllier that night,’ he says. ‘We’d played badly in the first leg at Anfield and everybody expected us to go to Spain and get trounced. We conceded a goal late in the first half and went in 1–0 down at half-time. In the dressing room, Houllier just stood there open-mouthed like a stunned goldfish. He did not know what to say. He was lost for words. It was really embarrassing. Roy could sense what was going on, so took control and calmed everything down. He got the belief back in us. In the end, we went through on away goals despite being down to nine men at the final whistle after a couple of skirmishes with their players. We weren’t happy with the referee’s performance. Most of us were a bit hyped up because we thought all the decisions had gone against us.

  ‘We were in a celebratory mood but in the corner of the room Houllier was there rinsing through the kits. Roy asked him what he was doing and Houllier told him that he wanted to give a set of shirts to the French officials. Roy went crazy and told him to fuck off because they’d nearly cost us progression. Houllier then changed his mind and announced they were for the French players in the Valencia team. Roy didn’t change his stance and again told him to do one. Moments later, Houllier chucked the kit down and stormed off in a huff.’

  Nine days later, it was Evans walking away, announcing his resignation as joint Liverpool manager following a 3–1 home defeat to Tottenham Hotspur in the League Cup. Liverpool were eighth in the table at the time. They finished the season in seventh place.

  ‘I respect Roy a lot for taking himself out of the situation. He only did it because of his love for Liverpool. He could see the team. The players and the results were suffering because the joint managerial role wasn’t suiting anyone. It was clear Houllier was going to stay, because he’d just been brought in by the board. So there was only one option. There was no other solution. Roy could have carried on and taken another job at the club probably, but he did the big thing with a clean break.’

  Evans made an emotional farewell. After telling the squad at Melwood, his departure was announced at an Anfield press conference. The following day, a picture of Evans wiping a tear away as he left the ground for the last time in an official capacity was published in the Liverpool Echo. Different players have spoken of the reaction to Evans’ departure. There were suggestions some laughed as Evans left the room.

  ‘Amongst the lads that had been with Roy for a number of years, that’s simply not true,’ McAteer says. ‘We were all gutted for Roy. We wanted him to stay. Nobody wanted Houllier in the first place. The chairman should have been stronger and given Roy another year, because we weren’t that far away.’

  McAteer was dismayed at the Frenchman’s approach as he quickly set about dismantling the team. McAteer was the first player Houllier sold, leaving for Blackburn at the end of January. Cameroonian Rigobert Song was brought in as his replacement in the same week.

  ‘The way Houllier was speaking, it was as if we were on the verge of relegation. It was as if we were a gang of lads on the Club 18–30 circuit. But the season before, we’d gone as close to the title as any Liverpool team had since 1990. He had an exciting group of young players at his disposal, with talent that just needed harnessing a little. But Houllier came out with loads of comments about us being technically inferior. He made out we were crap. Then he spoke of a five-year rebuilding job to make us “contenders” again. We were fucking “contenders” five months earlier. He was getting his excuses in, buying himself time. A lot of the foreign managers do that now.

  ‘Houllier was wrong. A huge rebuilding job wasn’t necessary. There was no need to go and spend nearly £100 million on foreign players and get rid of the young internationals Liverpool had on their books. Roy had helped the development of six players that went on to become full England caps. Under Houllier, the promotion from within all but stopped. He was the worst kind of survival manager who tried to solve all problems with a chequebook.’

  McAteer believes Liverpool fell into the trap of appointing a foreign manager just because it was the ‘cool’ thing to do.

  ‘Wenger had come into Arsenal and revolutionized the place. He changed the style of the team very quickly. There were players like Tony Adams, the leader of the team but someone who’d suffered with off-field problems [Adams had been to rehab for alcoholism], and suddenly under Wenger he’d become a new man. It was like he rediscovered himself.

  ‘Houllier came in and didn’t analyse anything. He already had the idea that we were a bunch of party animals who were out all the time. It was so far from the truth.

  ‘Maybe the game was evolving too quickly, not just for Roy but for Liverpool. Football changed so quickly. The money, the media, the TV, fitness, diet – everything. Whether Roy was up to speed with all that, I’m not sure. But he had a young team who never questioned him on anything. In the dressing room, the voices were John Barnes, Mark Wright and Rushy. Never ever did one of the young lads pipe up. Otherwise Ronnie Moran would be in your face. Roy built some team. When he left, it was reaching its peak. Houllier didn’t know what he had.’

  After leaving Liverpool, McAteer’s spell at Ewood Park ended abruptly after he clashed with Graeme Souness. He moved to Sunderland and finished his career at Tranmere, where he was eventually appointed as assistant to John Barnes in 2009. Three wins in fourteen games left Tranmere in the relegation zone. Even in the hard times, McAteer can see the funny side. There is room for one last story.

  ‘I sensed that the sack was imminent for me and John. I went to the training ground and John, as always, was in early. He’d just done his pre-match press conference with the media for the Saturday. The chairman [Peter Johnson] called John into his office and I had a feeling it was going to be bad news. I went to put my training kit on. When I got to John’s office, John looked me up and down and said, “Put your jeans back on. We’ve been sacked.”

  ‘I asked him whether he wanted to go for a coffee to chat about everything. John used to ride a bike into work to keep fit. He said, “That’s fine, I’m going to ride out of here.” I told him he couldn’t do that. He’d just done the press conference. They were all over the place. If they saw him riding out the training ground, there’s the headline already: “ON YOUR BIKE”. I could see it.

  ‘So I suggested he put the bike in the car. He agreed it was a good idea. So we go to the car park and lift the bike up but it won’t go in. It was like the fucking Krypton Factor. John was on the phone as he always was. I had it in this way, I had it in that way …’

  McAteer’s mobile phone began to vibrate.

  ‘It was my mate. He goes, “Macca, turn the wheel the other way – the bike will go in …”

  ‘I was like, “What?”

  ‘“Turn the wheel the other way, it’ll go in.”

  ‘I look around the car park and say, “Where are you?”

  ‘He says, “I’m at home, you’re live on Sky now – turn the wheel and it’ll go in!”

  ‘I went, “Cheers, mate.” So I put the phone in my pocket, turned the wheel the other way and we drove off.

  ‘So there we were, live on Sky, being sacked. Brilliant.’

  With that, McAteer’s attention tails off and the sound on the Dictaphone fades to laughter.

  CHAPTER SIX

  JAMES BOND,

  John Scales, 1994–96

  OUTSIDE A CAFE on Wimbledon High Street, John Scales reaches into the right pocket of his hoodie and casually pulls out a half-empty packet of cigarettes. ‘You don’t mind if I have the odd smoke, do you?’ he asks considerately, waiting for permission to spark up while he flips a lighter low on fuel between his fingers. ‘It’s a bad habit of mine.’

  It is a curious sight, seeing a professional footballer chugging away, whether or not he is currently playing. It is not quite midday but the wave of surprise is not suppressed by the fact he prefers to drink espressos instead of lager, although the espressos are doubles and he sho
ots three of them down like chasers. Each one includes a hunk of Demerara sugar.

  ‘I’ve done things the wrong way round,’ Scales says ruefully, offering a faint smile. ‘In my playing career, I drank a lot – too much at times. As for the smoking, I’ve managed to cut that down to a reasonable level. I’m more of a social smoker than an addict.’

  Scales admits he has a rebellious streak, something he believes resulted from his earliest experiences as a footballer as he attempted to fit into the ‘brutality’ of dressing rooms at Leeds United then Wimbledon. At Liverpool, he concedes the players went out too much and acknowledges that, aged twenty-eight, he should have been confident enough to put a stop to it.

  When Liverpool unveiled their new strip before the 1996–97 season, Kathy Lloyd – frequently seen topless in lads’ magazines such as Maxim, Loaded and FHM – was involved in the photo shoot wearing a full goalkeeper’s kit, her arms wrapped around Scales’s shoulders, Scales looking slightly uneasy. ‘I went with the flow for far too long and eventually it caught up with me,’ he says.

  In his defence, however, Scales reasons that expectations of Liverpool’s footballers were contradictory at the time and remain unrealistic.

  ‘Until the mid to late nineties, the lad culture ruled inside all clubs,’ he explains. ‘It was no different to any building site across the country. You had to be tough, sharp with your tongue and prepared to stand up for yourself. But now the papers began pouncing whenever you tried to be one of the lads in public. All I wanted to be around other players was myself, but this was a time when being honest seemed almost rebellious. I did not want to be a typical footballer. But it was something I probably ended up becoming; otherwise, I wouldn’t have gotten along.