Wayne hurt his leg against United. It was a totally bona fide injury but was seized upon by the press, who were aware of the club’s concerns about the player getting too much exposure, as a ruse to get him out of the trip to South Africa.
The whole thing escalated into a full club-versus-country dispute and the upshot was that I would have to go down to London with Wayne to participate in a joint medical evaluation of the player’s injury.
That was pressure.
By now, there was a public feeding frenzy regarding this meeting and it was presented by the press as a power struggle between Everton and the Football Association. It was big news every day and our routine, medical-based meeting was portrayed as something akin to the gunfight at the OK Corral. I was very nervous (but not scared).
Due to the media interest, there was an element of the clandestine about the whole day. Everybody seemed very tense. We evaded the press and all parties met in a top-floor suite in a posh hotel near Heathrow. We were ushered into the room and I presented our case. It was very amicable and the England manager, Sven-Goran Eriksson, was the perfect gentleman. I was very impressed with him – as with Howard Kendall, it was that word charisma again.
It was unanimously agreed that Wayne would miss the South Africa trip because of the injury and join the squad for the latter part of the international itinerary. What a relief.
After the business was concluded, we sat drinking coffee and making small talk. It was almost surreal and a marvellous indicator of just how far I had come up the football ladder when Sven offered me a biscuit.
The fact Wayne was excused from the trip was perceived, in the media, to have been a victory for Everton and our medical team, but it was never that – just a common-sense decision on the management of a genuine injury. And again a stark reminder of the pressure involved at this level of professional sport.
So with that frisson of high pressure comfortably negotiated, it was time for my annual summer holiday. I had two weeks off (I was getting lazy by now) and looked forward to the 2003/04 campaign with great optimism. This was to be the year when the football giant that had been enjoying a good kip for nearly 20 years would finally awaken and former glories would be restored.
If only life was that simple.
Chapter Fourteen
LIFE AT THE TOP
Pre-season 2003. My first pre-season at the top level and what a great experience.
Previously, the pre-season tours I had been involved in had taken me to such exotic places as Morecambe, Llandudno, the Isle of Man and Devon. Not any more. During my time at Everton, I would be lucky enough to travel the world – from Thailand to Switzerland to Salt Lake City – always business class. It was five-star all the way.
Hopes and expectations at the club were so high, but it just didn’t happen and we finished the 2003/04 campaign a dismal 17th, culminating in a crushing 5-1 hammering at Manchester City on the last day of the season. It’s hard to put a finger on what went wrong exactly. It was probably a combination of things: high expectations, bad luck in some games, loss of confidence, bad referees. You know, the usual excuses.
The only good thing about the whole situation was that Wayne was selected in the England squad for the Euro 2004 tournament that summer in Portugal. Wayne sparkled on the big stage, scoring four goals as England advanced to a quarter-final against the hosts. His performances certainly cheered all Evertonians up. But then, bang, disaster struck in the quarter-final against Portugal.
The dreaded metatarsal break, an injury that has been the curse of England players in recent times, and one Wayne would suffer again before the 2006 World Cup. The metatarsals are the long, slim fragile bones in the foot and sadly they seem to keep breaking. Why? In my opinion, a combination of reasons: poor boot support, hard pitches, the increased speed of the game and probably the power of the players.
The England doctor called me about 30 minutes after the match and confirmed the nature and severity of the injury. My blood ran cold. Wayne was now the hottest property in Europe – if not the planet – and I knew for the next few months the eyes of the football and medical world would be focusing on him, his injury and his recovery. I would be under pressure and public scrutiny like never before.
Fuck this one up and you are history.
As part of the recovery process, Wayne had to have an X-ray every couple of weeks which we would then take to show to the consultant in Manchester. As you can imagine, there was a huge degree of media interest about these appointments as everyone waited with bated breath for the latest progress report on the game’s newest sensation.
On our very first visit, we had just pulled on to the M62 outside Liverpool when Wayne said, “We are being followed.”
“Rubbish.”
“No, really we are. That Chrysler Voyager behind is following us.”
“Wayne, you are watching too much TV.”
“Turn off the motorway then.”
So I turned off the motorway and, coincidentally, the Voyager also turned off.
“Told you.”
“Wayne, that is called a coincidence.”
“Turn right here then.”
“Another coincidence.”
Left, right, right, left, 180 degrees around the next two islands and I had to admit that he was right. Wow, what a shock. A combination of astonishment, fear, excitement and, overall, confirmation of the amount of media interest in this player and the scrutiny the management of his injury had generated. In the end, with a bit of The Sweeney circa 1975 driving, I shook off our tail and we ended up in a kiddies’ playground. You should have seen the look on those kids’ faces as we roared into view and screeched to a halt in front of them. Open-mouthed they pointed at the car.
“Look, it’s Mick Rathbone.”
I had another stark reminder of the national obsession with Wayne’s foot a few weeks later when it was time for his first bit of jogging. We were at Everton’s former training ground, Bellefield, which is surrounded by 12-foot high walls and is very private and secluded. We had just started jogging when Wayne said, “Shit” and stopped running. I thought he must have had pain in his foot, so I nearly had a cardiac arrest, let me tell you.
“What’s the matter? Is it your foot?”
“No, I’ve got my old Puma club trainers on but I’ve just signed a deal with Nike. They will go mad.”
“And how will they know?”
“The photographer in the big tree will take a picture.”
“Listen son, stop eating cheese before you go to bed. Nobody can see us here.”
“He is up there all right, hidden in the tree. You can’t see him but he is there.”
Talk about paranoia.
However, to my total disbelief, when I looked at the back page of The Sun newspaper the next morning, I nearly choked on my cornflakes. There it was, just as he had predicted, a big photograph of me and Wayne jogging with an arrow pointing to his trainers and the caption: “Who’s been a naughty boy then?”
Those incidents taught me a lesson, though – when you are with Wayne Rooney, don’t pick your nose or scratch your balls.
It’s a real shame Wayne is now unpopular with a large section of the Everton fans. He was such a good lad, a great player and a true Evertonian. Hopefully, in time, attitudes will soften and I would love to see him get a good reception at Goodison. I think that would mean the world to the lad.
By July 2004, the air of optimism that had accompanied Everton’s pre-season of 2003 was a distant memory. We were at our preseason camp in Austria and all was doom and gloom. A small, ageing squad, very little money to spend on new players, rumours of Wayne about to be sold, boardroom in-fighting involving two factions struggling for control of the club and an angry backlash from the supporters following the great disappointment of the previous campaign all contributed to a sense of impending disaster.
David, our first-team coach Jimmy Lumsden and I were in a bar having a drink one evening. For that afternoon’s train
ing, David had decided to put on a ‘fun’ session to try and lift spirits a bit. He had taken half of the lads to one end of the training pitch to play a game of ‘chip the ball on to the crossbar from the edge of the box’, while Jimmy had taken the other half to the opposite end of the field for a game of ‘curl the ball in from the corner flag’.
David asked Jimmy how it had gone.
“Yes great, boss. Everybody really had a good time, it was a good laugh and it really seemed to give everybody a bit of a lift.”
“Who won, Jimmy, as a matter of interest?” asked the boss.
“Well,” said Jimmy, a little embarrassed. “I actually won.”
“That’s odd,” said the boss. “I won our competition.”
“Fucking hell,” I exclaimed. “You won the chipping the ball on to the bar comp, you won the curling the ball into the goals from the corner flag comp, and I got the highest score in the bleep test despite being 45. We are well and truly fucked. This is definitely going to be our last season at the club so I think we should all agree now to relax, stop worrying, give it everything we have got and just try to enjoy it as much as we possibly can.”
I am a strong believer that if you want people in professional sport to perform at their best, then it is essential they are allowed, or even encouraged, to relax and enjoy the whole experience. It’s just common sense really, if you are enjoying something you will do it better. I had felt for a while, with all the new technology at the top clubs, the intense, highly scientific approach to the modern game and the days of preparation before a fixture, that we were in danger of throwing the baby out with the bath water. In the drive for thoroughness and professionalism, I felt we were taking some of the enjoyment, spontaneity and, ultimately, level of performance out of the whole proceedings.
That’s my theory anyway and I am sticking to it. Either way, the new approach to proceedings, demonstrated by that fun afternoon, allowed the players to relax without too many expectations, and it paid off. The club finished fourth that season and qualified for the preliminary round of the Champions League. It was nothing short of sensational and one of the few times in the decade that the traditional Premier League top-four monopoly of Man United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool was broken.
I remember we beat Newcastle at Goodison in our last home game of the season and, in front of 40,000 delirious and grateful fans, did a well-deserved lap of honour. We had to wait 24 hours until Arsenal played Liverpool at Highbury – anything but a win for our Merseyside rivals would ensure we qualified and pipped them to the keys to Fort Knox. The game was live on TV and I remember being so nervous watching it. There was so much riding on it for Everton. If we could qualify for the Champions League it could generate the kind of money that might allow David to really compete with the big boys. It was possibly Everton’s one and only chance in the foreseeable future to become a club once again capable of winning things, just as they had been so many times in their illustrious but sadly distant past.
Sitting there watching the game at home, knowing how much rested on it, was pure torture. There was nothing you could do but sit and watch, knowing it was completely out of your hands. It took me back to the climax of the 1993 season when I was at Halifax and a similar situation had unfolded. On the Tuesday evening 11 days before our momentous final game against Hereford, Northampton Town had played at home to Wrexham. The upshot was that, if they had won, then we would have been all but relegated that night without even making it to the final day of the season. I recall sitting, glued to the radio, feeling sick with worry.
It was amazing to be involved in two such similar situations – your life in their hands and all that – concerning two completely opposite prizes and all played out almost 90 Football League places apart. It was a fucking big ladder I had climbed.
Arsenal won, we qualified for the Champions League, and we all headed to Liverpool for an impromptu party. A truly amazing feat but, more importantly, a real opportunity for Everton Football Club to re-establish itself among the elite.
Sadly, it ended in tears.
To qualify for the group stages in August 2005 we had to beat Spanish side Villarreal over two legs . After the first leg at Goodison Park, which we lost 2-1, we needed to win in Spain. That match will always stick in my mind for many reasons: it was played at 10pm, it was really warm, Villarreal’s ground was very compact with steep sides and, most memorably, the seats in the dugout were leather Recaro seats – beloved of the ’80s hatchback.
However, the most remarkable part of the whole experience was when we walked out to inspect the pitch. The entire stadium was full of Everton fans, despite the fact that the club had only been allocated a few thousand tickets. They were in all four corners of the ground, in every stand with their flags and colours. Jimmy Comer, our masseur and a lifelong Everton fan, was busy trying to convince us he had something in his eye, such was the emotion of the occasion.
How can you quantify the size of a club? Fan base? Trophies? Money in the bank? History? It is all a matter of opinion at the end of the day. All I can say is I doubt any club in England could have produced support like that on that balmy evening in Spain.
Everton played well, especially in the second half. Then, as is often the case in football, a referee’s decision – the simple ruling out of what looked like a superb goal from Big Dunc by the world-renowned Pierluigi Collina – denied Everton the tie, the chance to go to the group stages, and who knows what else?
We lost 2-1. It was a real sickener and a missed opportunity. I could see David was gutted after the game. He knew. He knew how close we had come to being in a position to turn Everton’s fortunes around. But to his – and our – credit, we kept our collective chins up, got on with the job in hand and continued to try to rebuild the club.
Those foreign matches were amazing. Who gets to go to Kharkov, Minsk, Bergen, Bucharest and Olomouc? We played at Benfica’s Stadium of Light and the Olympic Stadium in Athens. The atmosphere at these games was amazing, even better than the Premier League (sorry, but it’s true). Thank you Everton. There is something truly special, almost surreal, about stepping out of your hotel in the middle of Belarus and being surrounded by dozens of scousers in Everton shirts.
Following our Champions League disappointment, the subsequent period of five years, up to my departure in May 2010, in which I had the honour to be the head of the medical department at that fantastic football club, proved very successful. It was painstakingly slow – two steps forward and then one back, but the overall momentum and direction was forward with regular top-six finishes.
We enjoyed slow, steady progress on and off the pitch. The older stalwarts like Dave Weir, Alan Stubbs, Lee Carsley, Kevin Kilbane and Gary Naysmith – all good servants – were gradually replaced by younger players. From 2005 onwards David, on a shoestring budget, performed miracles in the transfer market by signing the likes of Mikel Arteta, Tim Cahill, Steven Pienaar, Leighton Baines, Joleon Lescott and Phil Jagielka. All for the kind of fees that now seem almost laughable.
Those years were great for me. I felt well respected and wanted, just as I had at Preston. Some of the fans would even chant my name sometimes, and one occasion in particular stands out. We were playing at St James’ Park and it was about one hour before the kick-off. My daughter Lucy, who was studying at Newcastle University, came to watch the match and I arranged to meet her outside. She arrived with her boyfriend and I went out to the main entrance to give them their tickets. I introduced myself to her boyfriend, then made a lame joke about having to go back to the dressing room before I got mobbed by the Everton fans. I had barely finished that statement when a large gang of Everton fans (presumably pissed) spotted me and started chanting my name. It was very embarrassing but, by God, I fucking well loved it.
How ironic that, of the two top-flight clubs I worked for, one lot of fans chanted my name, while the other lot booed me. I do know, however, that if the Everton fans had seen me play back in the 1970s, they would al
so have booed.
Much as I enjoyed that incident, even greater acclaim was to come. One day, David was being interviewed on Sky Sports and was asked about Nigel Martyn. The reporter put it to David that Nigel (who we had signed for next to nothing) must surely be his best-ever signing.
I a flash, David said, “Actually no, Mick Rathbone, my physio, is my best-ever signing.”
Fuck me, I didn’t expect that. Good job I was on my own in my office at the time, otherwise I would also have been using the ‘there is something in my eye’ routine!
David and I had formed a special relationship which started on that warm afternoon in Avenham Park on my first day at Preston. Sometimes I would shrug my shoulders and say, “I am just a physio, David”, and he would reply, “You are more than that and you know it.” That meant everything to me.
Phil Neville used to wind me up by saying, “Come on, Baz, admit it, you are running the show really.” I wasn’t but I hope my role did extend beyond that of the medical guy.
With the greatest respect to all the additional staff who have come into the game over the last decade, it was the interface between David and myself, on a daily basis, that was crucial. Once when we were in Salt Lake City, Seamus Coleman had a badly infected foot and I was changing his dressing early one morning. David phoned me to say I was late for the staff meeting and everybody was waiting to start. I apologised but explained how crucial it was to change the dressing and check the wound, and that I would be there in five minutes, so he should start without me.
When I got there, of course, the meeting hadn’t started. It couldn’t start because despite the best intentions of everybody sat there, laptops at the ready, all the essential dialogue regarding who was training, who had what injury and when they would feature was, by definition, between the boss and the head of the medical department.
The Smell of Football Page 23