Finally, a response. Watto’s retort, delivered with full fury – just like all the verbal barbs of years gone by – remains burned into my soul for all eternity, allowing complete word-for-word recall: “Fuck off, Baz, you cunt. You are fucking up my game. Fuck off!”
Then the fans started on me. And when the Everton fans start on you, you know about it. In unison, and with those strong scouse accents that can sound so coarse in such situations.
“Fuck off, baldy!”
“Sit down, slaps!”
“Get back in your box, Kojak!”
And so on and so forth as I trudged back to the dugout. That was gratitude – Premier League style – I raced around the bloody pitch three times, flat out, probably covering more ground than some of the players.
And for what? Stick off the boss, stick off the fans, and stick off the player.
Being head of the medical department at Everton involved much more than just having a fancy title. At Halifax and Preston my role as club physio had been multi-faceted, but running the entire medical department was a different beast entirely.
I loved the job, of course, but it was also tough and extremely high-pressured with few days off. The fact I could cope with it is a different matter and the summation of all the previous chapters. I was responsible for the health and well-being of over £100 million worth of talent. I was responsible for making the final decisions regarding the management of players’ injuries. The buck stopped with me.
I had a staff of five to oversee and organise, and I must admit I found it difficult to let go of the craving to do every job. To see somebody else warming up, cooling down and massaging the players was certainly odd. If I am being totally honest, I don’t know if I ever got used to delegating the workload.
In this environment and at this level, the days are seldom identical and you are at the mercy of the exigencies of the business. I had to travel the world (often at very short notice, but always business class) to fulfil my duties. For example, after Everton’s match against Burnley at Turf Moor in 2009, the boss pulled me to one side and told me we were signing a Russian player the next day called Diniyar Bilyaletdinov and that I had to fly to Hamburg via London the next morning and perform as good and concise a medical as I could in a hotel room in Hamburg. Why Hamburg? Fuck knows. He played for Lokomotiv Moscow!
So instead of enjoying a relatively easy half-day after the match, I boarded the 7am flight from Manchester to London, changed planes at Heathrow, then flew to Hamburg before getting a taxi at Hamburg airport and arriving at the Hilton Hotel at 2pm. I conducted the medical in the hotel and flew back to the UK, via Amsterdam, the same day. I finally arrived home at 3am the following morning and was up for work at 7am.
Now I hasten to add that I wasn’t complaining; it was thrilling, exciting and I even learned a few words of Russian – I am just telling you about the fluidity of the job.
My son soon loved ‘Billy’, as he became known, and wanted his name on the back of his Everton shirt – but not at over a quid a letter. I persuaded him to go for a Brazilian player instead after telling him they were the best players in the world. So, Jo it was. Result.
Those medicals had the potential to cause great stress, especially with the foreign players and agents who didn’t really seem to have any preference for the club they joined, as long as the deal was good. I am proud to say I conducted more than 60 medicals in my career as a physiotherapist and only ever had to fail two players. Both players went on to have further significant problems with the joints I had vetoed (phew, what a relief).
One of the players actually played a couple of games against us later the same season. The old doc asked me to point him out. “Right,” he said without a trace of irony, “we could do with him collapsing in a fucking heap.” Doc, that was very funny.
As soon as there was a problem with a medical, you could see the fucking mood change in around five seconds flat. From the agent saying, “My player, he is a-loving only this club” to, “We are having other clubs, mister, if you push us”. One player went from being an Everton fan all his life, as a boy growing up on the continent only ever dreaming of pulling on the blue shirt, to somebody threatening to fuck off to another club if the blood tests weren’t back in the next hour. We called his bluff and, guess what? Yes, he waited. Of course he did. He loved Everton, didn’t he?
When you failed a player on medical grounds, all hell broke loose. All of a sudden you were a fucking joke and so was your medical department. The chief executives got involved and the mud started being chucked – usually at me. But fuck them all. I wasn’t bothered. I was, for eight years, the guardian of the club, and no way was I letting anybody in who wasn’t fit enough to be there. I always felt my duty was not to the manager, chairman, agent or player, but to the fans.
One medical I will never forget was that of Marouane Fellaini. It was the last day of the transfer window – September 1, 2008. It was lunchtime, everybody had left the training ground, but I hung around. I knew David was after a player and he would never give up until the clock struck midnight. I sat at my desk by the phone. Everybody was telling me to go home, it was over, too late to sign anybody now. But I knew David better than anybody – he would not give up, he would never give up.
Then the phone rang. It was David.
“Baz, I’ve got a player, club-record transfer fee. I need a medical ASAP.”
“OK.”
“Right, Baz, listen carefully. I need you to meet me on the corner of the park.”
“OK. Sefton Park or Stanley Park?”
“Hyde Park. He’s flying into Heathrow at 8pm.”
Jesus! I set off from Liverpool in my car. It was pissing down with rain and the motorway was busy. Then, when I was just north of Birmingham, I got another call.
“Baz, slight problem, he can’t get into Heathrow, he’s coming to Luton. See you there.”
“OK, Dave.”
I was glad. Going to Luton saved me a lot of hassle – I wouldn’t have to drive through central London.
I had just got to the outskirts of north London when the phone rang again.
“Baz, slight problem, he can’t get into Luton, so we are boarding Phil Green’s (a long-time Everton supporter and friend of Bill Kenwright) jet to Brussels to meet him there.”
“I haven’t got my passport, Dave.”
“Don’t worry, you won’t need it.”
Now I know David is a powerful guy but I didn’t think even he could get somebody out of the country without a passport.
I got to the airport about 9pm. It was chaos – windy and raining. The agents – there were two of them for some reason – were running around, sending emails and arguing in French, and David and Dave Harrison were scratching their heads in dismay. Time was running out as the jet was being fuelled. Of course, I was not allowed to board the plane due to the lack of a passport, much to David’s consternation. Suddenly they were off, running across the tarmac, through the rain and wind, to the plane, papers flying everywhere, and I watched amazed as it took off and disappeared into the stormy night back up the fucking M1.
This was surely a mission impossible but, luckily, David Moyes’s alter ego is Tom Cruise. It was nearly 2am when I was driving home and the news came through on the radio: Everton had got their man.
It was a lesson to any aspiring person on the value of determination and never giving up. That money (£15 million) which David spent, in such bizarre circumstances, is beginning to look like a fantastic investment now. That’s why David is special.
In terms of the medical – or lack of it – we were OK really because Fellaini hadn’t ever had a serious injury and we had already received faxes of his cardiac screening, latest blood tests and medical records.
I loved the job but, as you can tell, it owned you, and the hours owned you. Forget planning anything; you did as the job required. No complaints. When Fellaini injured his ankle one day, we went straight down to London to see the specialist. But I k
new the nature of the player, knew the nature of the player’s agent and knew what was coming. It had been a long day and we were on the way back to Liverpool when the inevitable happened.
“Baz, je voudrais un rendez-vous avec Monsieur Van Dyke à Amsterdam demain s’il vous plaît.”
And with that short sentence all your plans were cancelled (for those of you without a basic grasp of French, it basically meant I was off to Amsterdam). Twelve hours later, I was on the early flight to Holland to see the renowned ankle specialist. Again, I am not complaining – I got to visit Ann Frank’s house; I am just telling you what it was like (and yes, OK, there was also a bit of window shopping in the red light district). I made the most of my European trips: San Sebastian, Barcelona, Nice, Amsterdam, Hamburg. What a lucky bloke.
Notwithstanding the trips abroad and my extra responsibilities, the rest of the job was virtually the same as before. In at 8.45am, assess the injured players from 9-9.30am, and then climb the stairs to David’s office to unload the bad news. Of course, it wasn’t always bad news – often it was good news, and we had a relatively unburdened first seven years. But still, I was the man charged with giving the daily delivery of the injury updates. And it took its toll.
Knock on the door, and in I would go, clutching my list. I had learned over the years how to spin the news to my best advantage – where to hide the bad bits, talk up the good news, play down the negatives.
Then David, Steve Round, Jimmy Lumsden and Chris Woods would, in the mode of a top Hollywood courtroom drama, begin the cross-examination. But I never cracked. I had been doing the job too long and I wrote everything down so I could always back it up. They were good guys and didn’t give me too much grief; it was their job to question, probe and query. I suppose I was lucky it was not ancient Rome where the bearer of bad news got his fucking head chopped off.
I would then return to the medical department downstairs and discuss with the players their individual treatment and rehabilitation plan for the day. The injured lads would go for breakfast and the medical department would get to work preparing the fit players for training with massages, strappings and stretches. At 10.30am I would go outside to monitor training whilst simultaneously doing the late-stage rehabilitation work with the injured players – it was fucking great.
After lunch the medical department would meet and we would reassess the injured lads, discuss plans for the next day and maybe use the swimming pool for an afternoon session. The day would conclude with a further brief meeting with the boss. And that is how the department worked – smooth as silk, very professional, full of energy and enthusiasm, and stocked with top-class medical staff. I know we had the best medical department in the country and so did the players. I was very proud of all the medical team.
Nevertheless, with respect to the assistant manager, coaches, fitness coaches, sports scientists, other physios, scouts and match analysts (the list has probably got even bigger since I left), it is the boss and the head of the medical department in the senior football environment who really have to make big decisions – the former much more than the latter. Of course, all the others work hard, give advice and make suggestions, but it was only David and I who lay awake at night hoping we hadn’t dropped a bollock.
The fact I shared the pressure – albeit a much smaller amount – with the boss, allied to my own desperate efforts as a manager back at Halifax, enabled me to understand better the strain any boss of a Premier League team is under. This pressure would crush most men, most mortals, but David isn’t most men. He is exceptional with exceptional talent. If you ask him who the Chancellor of the Exchequer is, he probably won’t be able to tell you. But ask him who gave the free kick away that led to Aston Villa’s equaliser at Villa Park six years previously and he will get it in an instant.
He is like the bloody Rain Man. David’s almost supernatural ability to read, understand, analyse and recount every single passage of play while he is in the dugout is truly amazing. For example, on numerous occasions when we conceded a goal, the coaches would blame the most obvious offender, but David would often argue that the initial problem had started 15 passes and five passages of play earlier when one of our players took a sloppy throw-in. The coaches would argue against him and then sit scratching their heads in disbelief when the post-match video analysis proved the boss right – every time.
He also has the unusual ability of being able to read another human being’s mind, which is something of a dying art. I never tried to pull the wool over his eyes with the daily injury report. He could remember everything you said – and yes, everything you had said the previous week as well. If there was an inconsistency, God help you. He would have made a fantastic barrister.
In some ways, Everton is similar to Birmingham City – both big city clubs, both living in the shadow of their more illustrious and successful local rivals, both playing in blue and both with a set of staunch yet long-suffering fans.
I had started at the top as a 16-year-old all those years ago and, after a remarkable and torturous journey, had finally found my way back to the summit. A quarter of a century after ignominiously leaving the biggest football stage, I was back at the highest level of professional football. The big difference now, though, was that I was mentally tough enough to cope.
It had been a hard slog, but I had endured, and as I stood at Old Trafford, Stamford Bridge and Villa Park drinking in the atmosphere, I felt very proud of what I had achieved despite some very difficult and testing times. It had been a rollercoaster ride and, like the best rollercoasters, it had negotiated some very high points and very low points. But I had sat tight and ridden it all the way to the end.
There was another striking similarity between the Everton of this era and the Birmingham of the mid-’70s – they both owned a player who would be considered the best of his generation. Trevor Francis, of course, had been the star attraction at Birmingham (I think I may have mentioned him before), while Everton in the 2002/03 season unleashed one of the greatest talents in the modern game – Wayne Rooney.
I have had so many high spots in my career, but being able to say I worked with Wayne is probably the top one. Everybody knows about him as a player, but I was lucky enough to know him as a lad. He is a very modest, polite young man, always courteous, always on time, hard-working, very bright and switched on.
What sets these once-in-a-generation players apart from the rest? Obviously, much of it is natural ability and athleticism but lots of players are talented and athletic. With Wayne it was those things and – contrary to what many people may think – the most incredible, unflappable temperament.
I remember about 30 minutes before his (and my) first Merseyside derby at Goodison, which was live on Sky Sports, he came into the medical room and started juggling the ball and generally larking about. He was laughing and clowning around. I couldn’t believe how relaxed he was. I was shitting myself, as you would no doubt expect even though I was only the physio, because the Merseyside derby is a big, big game. I was fascinated to get an insight into how he really felt, remembering all those fears that wracked my body when I was 17 years of age and about to cross the white line.
So I said to Wayne – just 17, minutes before his first Merseyside derby, live on TV: “Please tell me you are nervous...”
In a strange way, I wanted him to say he was very nervous, even scared, just like I had been. It would vindicate me. We were both local lads after all. This game should be difficult for him.
“No.”
“Come on, you must be a bit nervous?”
“No.”
“Just the teeniest bit?”
“No.”
“It’s OK, you can tell me, I won’t tell anybody.”
“I am no more nervous than if this was a reserve game. I can’t wait for the kick-off.”
And that was it then, in a nutshell. Born to be great, born to play at the highest level, whereas I was born to be mediocre, born to scrape a living at the lower levels. I think it�
��s fair to say Wayne and I are somewhat different. The players at the very top all seem to have a fantastic mental approach. Vive la difference and all that.
The 2002/03 season was all about Wayne and his effect. We finished seventh (a great achievement) and my enduring memory, other than Wayne’s incredible goal against Arsenal that heralded the arrival of the next great English footballer, was the buzz that went round every time he got the ball. Everybody stood up and there was an almost reverential silence as the fans waited in expectation for the magic to be produced – and he seldom failed to deliver.
My first season with Everton was unforgettable. A new superstar had been born. David Moyes was voted Premier League Manager of the Season – just as he had predicted eight years earlier after that pre-season training session at Preston – and I was at last getting the financial recognition that had eluded me for so long.
There were hundreds – yes hundreds – of days that season when I felt incredibly privileged to be doing what I was doing. Some days, when the medical room was quiet, I would go and help Chris Woods fire balls at the keepers. I can hardly describe the feeling of happiness and almost total disbelief that I was being paid by such a great football club to spend my time taking shots at England international goalkeepers such as Richard Wright, Nigel Martyn and even Woods himself. This truly was the Promised Land.
There was a great feeling at the end of the season that the manager and players could take the club back to their rightful place as regular top-six finishers and bring European football back to Everton. There were record season ticket sales in anticipation of Moyes’s brave new world.
I was really looking forward to my summer holidays as we went into the final game of the campaign at home to the champions, Manchester United. But, yet again, a totally unpredictable set of circumstances conspired to throw a spanner into the works and ensure a nerve-wracking but somewhat exciting postscript to the season.
Wayne’s rise had been so meteoric that he was called into the full England squad to play some friendlies during June and go to South Africa. The club were a little concerned things were happening just a bit too fast for the lad who was still only 17 and, understandably, wanted to protect him from too much publicity too soon.
The Smell of Football Page 22