by Tony Adams
Not having heard anything from Harry about Peter Storrie taking that clause out of my contract, I had written to Peter directly on a Friday, 24 October, to ask what was happening, as I was growing weary of things not being sorted. When my phone rang on the Saturday evening – we were not playing our home game against Fulham until the Sunday – with Peter’s number coming up, I thought he was calling about the contract.
‘Harry’s going to Tottenham,’ he said, though the public announcement of the Ramos sacking, and Harry’s appointment, would not come until later that night. ‘Come in tomorrow and we’ll talk about it.’ He was short and to the point.
I thought things over. I would be sorry to see Harry go. He had given me a great opportunity and let me have my head with the coaching. In fact, he had adapted from being the old-fashioned manager who controlled everything to the modern guy who has to accept the input of others – from his chief scout helping with recruitment, through the tech guys doing the analysis, to me and Joe preparing the team.
If he hadn’t let people have their heads, I don’t think the club would have been so successful and credit to him for it. I also think that if he hadn’t learned to do all that, he wouldn’t have got the Tottenham job, where a lot of the transfer dealings were taken out of his hands and where they had a lot of staff. The game was changing and he knew it. The manager/head coach was still the kingpin of football operations at any club, but he had to work with more people than ever before and devolve some responsibility.
I would also miss Harry simply for his company. He could be calculating with people, I had seen that – like the way he would complain about a player in the office, then the player concerned would knock on the door and come in and Harry would be his best buddy. I would imagine he might be like that with me as well. But then he needed to be that way because he was the boss and his neck was on the line. He needed to keep people sweet in order to get the best out of them but had private opinions that would inform his longer-term actions. Anyway, you can’t always be everyone’s friend. You have to be a bit ruthless. Ultimately, I don’t think he cared at all if people didn’t like him. Results were what counted for Harry.
There’s always been talk about his transfer dealings, which would come to a head in a court case a few years later, in which he was cleared, as well as his fondness for a bet.
Just after I arrived at the club, a Panorama programme aired about transfer dealings in the game and Harry and Kevin Bond featured. Kevin was even sacked from his job at Newcastle but resurfaced as manager of Bournemouth. The evidence against Harry did not seem solid, however.
I am often asked my opinion of all that and would just say that I think Harry was canny in probably having it written in his contract that if he made a profit for the club on a player transfer, then he was due a bonus or a percentage. It happens with many managers. It is designed to remove any temptation to take a bung.
As for the gambling, all I can say of my experience with him is that he was a product of his environment, growing up in the East End of London. He told me how he’d go round his nan’s from school at lunchtimes and put her bets on for her, so he was around gambling in his formative years. He always did like horse racing. He was also brought up among Jack-the-lads.
I guess that was why I could relate to him in many ways, even though our paths in life took different turns. As an East Ender, he was one of my own, and football also got me out of my environment. I found him charming and fun and I have always thought, after my time with him down the years, that as a manager I would want someone like him alongside me: experienced and wise. He is an emotional, happy, romantic and passionate individual, and that worked alongside my serious side.
I was never going to go to Spurs with him, though. Not with my Arsenal background, even if Harry had wanted me. I knew that Kevin Bond would be rejoining him. I thought I would be leaving Pompey too, as I didn’t have a contract in place and any new manager would almost certainly want to bring in his own staff.
So it was with a heavy heart that I drove down to Portsmouth on the Sunday, to join Joe and Paul Groves in Peter’s office. Peter asked us if we would take the team that afternoon. Joe and Paul seemed happy enough to do so, but I had some questions I wanted answering. I asked if I could have a word alone with Peter and he agreed. Joe and Paul left the room. I was confused and a bit angry.
‘Hold on, Peter,’ I said. ‘I told you on Friday that I wanted my contract sorted. I don’t even have a contract with the club but you want me to take the team? What’s going on?’
His answer took me by surprise, and took the wind out of my sails.
‘Why don’t you have a bash at the job?’ Peter said. ‘You watch the game today, let Joe and Paul take the team, then come up to the lounge and talk about it.’ Sacha was at the game today, he added.
I had been thinking this might be my last day at the club. Now it sounded as if I was being offered the job of Portsmouth manager. This scenario hadn’t occurred to me.
‘Come up and talk to Sacha,’ Peter continued. ‘Put yourself up for the job. You’re asking about what’s going on here at the club. Here’s a chance to find out. I know you want to be a Premier League manager. Well, there’s a job available here . . .’
He had a point. It was a Premier League job at a club I knew well after two seasons there. I knew the players, the set-up, the culture of Pompey. For that minute, and that day, it made sense. And so, after the 1-1 draw with Fulham, I went up to the lounge to talk to Peter and Sacha.
Sacha told me about a new training ground they were going to buy and a new stadium he was going to build. He even got out all the plans. I had heard about them before because Harry told me he had seen them. I also remembered Harry telling me then: ‘Tone. It’s a load of bollocks.’ And it did seem at odds with the implied messages of the summer’s transfer dealings that the club was cutting back.
But I hadn’t been a Premier League manager and I could see there was an opportunity here. It would be a risk but surely one worth taking. I needed my next experience in the game, that of being a manager at the top level, and here it was, being presented to me. Against that, I knew it might just be for one game, that football changed quickly, and I recalled my days as a young player when I had three managers in three months at Arsenal when that club was in turmoil. Or about as much turmoil as Arsenal ever got itself into.
I was thinking on the hoof. And I was thinking that I would never know if I was a potential Premier League manager unless I took this chance. It might be a big regret if I turn it down, I told myself. Someone else might get the job, and should another owner come in after Sacha who was prepared to invest and that manager had done well, suddenly it would look like the best job in the world. And Peter was saying all the right things.
I decided there and then that I would take the job and shook hands with Sacha and Peter. I drove back home to the Cotswolds and told Poppy. She was always happy for me to go with my instincts and accept roles that were good for me, but she was unhappy now at how impulsive I had been in saying yes. In fact, she was hurt.
‘You didn’t consult me,’ she said. ‘You’ve got children to think of here as well.’ Hector was now two and a half, Atticus coming up to five. This on top of Oliver, at 16, and Amber, then 13, still being at home. She also pointed out that I’d told her I didn’t exactly trust Peter Storrie.
She was right. I should have told Peter and Sacha that I needed to go home and speak to my family first, but I didn’t. That was my first mistake and others would follow. I got flattered into it. I just saw the opportunity, not the storm clouds that were gathering over the club.
I went in to Fratton Park on the Monday morning and signed a contract for the rest of the season plus two more after that. This one was for £700,000 a year, not the £100,000 one I had been wanting and waiting to sign a few days previously. It wasn’t up there with what Harry was getting, but then he was an experienced Premier League manager. I was probably a cheap option for them but
it was still a good salary, even though it was never about the money. Not for me, anyway.
It didn’t start well, with two defeats in a week, away to Liverpool, thanks to one controversial set play, and at home to a late goal by Wigan. They say luck evens out over a season. I suddenly started to wonder if I would be there long enough for the luck to even out. Fortunately, we stopped the bleeding with draws against West Ham and Hull that followed a good away win at Sunderland. Roy Keane was their manager and just didn’t look as if he was having any fun. I would come to know how he felt.
Not around a UEFA Cup game at home to AC Milan, however. It was the sort of night and game I was made for. I loved pitting my wits against a team from the highest level and a manager like Carlo Ancelotti, who would go on to win league titles with Chelsea and Paris St Germain and the Champions League with Real Madrid. Milan were a good side at the time, if not the great side of previous decades. They had Kaka, Gennaro Gattuso, Pippo Inzaghi and Andriy Shevchenko. At the back was Philippe Senderos, once dubbed the Swiss Tony at Arsenal, but I think it’s fair to say he never quite emulated me there.
On the bench they had Andrea Pirlo – and Ronaldinho, who came off it to turn the tide after we had gone 2-0 up through Younes Kaboul and Kanu. The Brazilian’s 84th-minute goal was followed by Inzaghi’s in added time and it was 2-2 at the end of a breathless game. So good was the match that a poll among Pompey supporters in later years would vote it the club’s best game of all time.
After losing to Braga before Harry went, the draw meant, however, that we were now struggling to get out of the group. It was all but up when we lost 3-2 in Wolfsburg in another good game, their striker Edin Dzeko having a fine match, as my tech guys, Woody and Eddy, pointed out to me in their analysis.
A 3-0 win over the Dutch side Heerenveen in the final game was too little too late and we duly departed the competition. It was always likely. The squad simply wasn’t deep enough to sustain a European campaign. Still, they were pleasant interludes as the real business of the Premier League was proving much less enjoyable. The ground was shifting under my feet all the time. It was all getting a bit Harry Styles – going in One Direction.
I was trying to put my stamp on the side, trying to go back to the work ethic with the players. David James would later say that I did less coaching than before and, while later I was certainly distracted by off-field matters, I probably did even more coaching work with the players initially. I worked particularly hard on making the lines between defence and midfield, then midfield and attack, much tighter.
And I tried some new things. In seeking an assistant, I tried to get Terry Burton, but he was then secure in his role at Cardiff. I also asked Martin Keown if he wanted to help out, but he was by now earning good money as a pundit and didn’t want to give that up to move into what could be an unstable situation.
I did bring in Johnny Metgod, once of Nottingham Forest and who was at Feyenoord with me before going to be technical director at Den Haag, to work on ball drills and warm the guys up. I warned him about the growing problems of the club but he still wanted to get back into English football. I promoted Paul Groves to first-team coaching from the reserves in a change forced on me after Joe Jordan had come to see me.
‘Look, I’ll stay if you want,’ he said. ‘But Harry has asked me to go to Tottenham with him . . .’ It was good of Joe even to think of staying, but I couldn’t ask him to.
‘No, Joe,’ I said. ‘I’m not going to stop you. There’s a good chance this could go tits-up here anyway.’
It was clear that some of the players wanted out too, though they had a dilemma. Where else were they going to get the wages they were on now? They had lost Harry, then Joe, and I could see some hearts weren’t in it any more. We lost games against Newcastle and Bolton. This was just not my team. If it went on much longer without changes being made, we were going to fail.
I said as much to Peter Storrie and talked about moving out some among the higher earners and getting in some new, hungrier players in January. I was preparing a list of targets with my tech guys. We knew Barcelona were willing to let Yaya Toure go, but he wanted £75,000 a week. It didn’t seem ridiculous at that time, with some of the Pompey players being on sums not far off. I told Peter that I wanted Edin Dzeko and that we could probably get him for £8 million. A French agent had rung me up to say the player was available as he had lined up a replacement for Wolfsburg.
Now I was getting caught up in stuff going on away from the pitch. In fact, a lot of my time was spent dealing with players and their agents, and I was back in the Wycombe scene of more management than technical work. I could do it, but I realised I was lacking a coach, as I had been to Harry, to train and prepare the team.
Then, just before Christmas, I was called up to London, to an office in Berkeley Square, to meet with Sacha and Peter. There was also a financial guy in the office. It proved to be a bizarre meeting and one that pulled the rug from under my feet.
‘Mr Adams,’ Sacha said. ‘I am sorry to have to tell you that I will not be investing any more money in the club and we are reorganising a few things. In fact, we will need to sell players. We need to find £6 million by the end of January or we may have to go into administration.’
I don’t know why but I said, ‘OK. Thanks very much.’ I suppose it was because at least I knew where I stood now. I still thought that if I could ship some players out – though that might take some doing, with plenty of them on those high salaries – I could sign some with more stomach for the fight. We certainly needed a few, judging by the 4-1 defeat at home to West Ham on Boxing Day.
I looked at the team and I could see a majority simply weren’t interested. I thought to myself that I just wasn’t getting any respect here. I had never done it before – and never since – but once they got back into the dressing room, I gave them all a complete and utter volley. It wasn’t like me and I don’t really believe in it. You’re not actually going to get players onside by giving them a bollocking. But I just couldn’t help myself that day.
‘You are,’ I shouted, ‘a fucking disgrace . . . Half of you are not trying and it’s unacceptable . . . You’re letting yourselves, the fans and everyone else down . . . You’re going through the motions.’ Nobody argued. It wasn’t very Churchillian but it was honest.
Had I lost the dressing room, in the parlance of the phone-ins? I don’t really know what it means but I do know I never actually had the dressing room. They were never my players. I was just in there as a figurehead.
I was particularly disgusted with Jermain Defoe and looked him straight in the eye when I said: ‘If any of you don’t want to be part of this club that I am building, then you can fuck off. Come to me tomorrow morning and we’ll sort you a new club.’
Thank God the next morning Jermain did come to see me. He said he wanted to go back to Spurs. I guessed he had had a phone call with Harry, or maybe his agent had, but I didn’t mind even if someone might have seen it as tapping up. By now in the game it was much less blatant: there were so many representatives and hangers-on around players, and so many means of communication without documentation, that any charge could be avoided. Actually, I was delighted. It meant we would get in the money that the club needed and which might finance some transfers of my own. I told Jermain I would see what I could do.
I was thus in a happier frame of mind two days later when I took Portsmouth to Arsenal and received a wonderful reception from the home fans singing my name. It just didn’t feel right being Pompey manager as an Arsenal man. I suppose it was fitting it finished ‘One-nil to the Ars-en-al’, as the old song had it. David James had been brilliant for us but made a mistake 10 minutes from time in this one.
Come January, we did indeed do a deal to let Jermain go back to Spurs for £15 million having paid £7.5 million for him just a year earlier. And with that £21 million deal for Lassie Diarra’s move to Real Madrid going through, I even thought I might have money to spend.
How wrong I was
. And what an introduction as a manager to the Wild West of the January transfer window in English football it was.
It had begun after that meeting with Sacha and Peter in Berkeley Square. Peter took me to Les Ambassadeurs to talk strategy and make plans. When I got there, the ‘super-agent’ Kia Joorabchian – who had become well known as Carlos Tevez’s representative through some controversial moves – was at the table.
Peter suggested that David Moyes at Everton liked David Nugent and that we might be able to get Leighton Baines as part of the deal. We had Djimi Traore at left back but he was prone to mistakes. Peter asked me if I would be open to that. I said, yes, let’s do it. Baines was a good player.
Peter rang the Everton chairman Bill Kenwright, who in turn rang David Moyes. Two words came back from him: no chance. Any information Peter had got was mistaken. I thought so. A deal like that always did seem fanciful to me. And so was set the tone for January.
I liked a big German defender I had seen play when I was scouting – one Per Mertesacker, who was then at Werder Bremen. His agent said he was looking for a bigger English club than us, but I tried – and failed – to persuade him he could use Portsmouth for a couple of years as a stepping stone. In came Arsenal a few years later . . .
Newcastle United had let it be known they were willing to let Joey Barton go, and I knew he was fit and in a good place as he’d not long been through Sporting Chance following his own problems. I met him and his agent at the Dorchester hotel in London, but the deal never came off, probably because I could not give Joey the assurances he was seeking about the health and future of the club. Being an honest man, I didn’t want to mislead him.
I talked to Peter about Dzeko and asked him to go down to Seville, where Wolfsburg were in a warm-weather training camp during the German winter break. The deal was there to be done, the agent had told me.
Instead, at a meeting in a hotel in Kensington, I was presented with the ‘opportunity’ to sign Giovani dos Santos, who had been a teenage prodigy with Barcelona before being sold to Tottenham for €6 million in 2008. Spurs – where Harry was now the manager – wanted to unload him already, and we were being identified by his agent Pini Zahavi, it seemed, as the potential destination.