We talk a little about his brief foray into management in Argentina when he finished playing. “Yes, I managed a few teams in the second division,” he says. “I didn’t win anything, and if you don’t win anything people say you are not a good manager. But I don’t care, for me football is exactly the same. You win, or you lose. In Argentina it is all about winning, not about how you play. It’s not nice.”
So has his active involvement in the game finished? “People believe that I only have opinions about football, that it is my life,” he replies, “but I live now like a normal person. I don’t go to see a lot of matches, football is in the past. I have a ranch in Argentina that I look after; I like that. It is my business. Football is a part of my life, the reason I come back here is because I was a player. But not all the time.”
Ricky is coming to the end of one of his regular visits to the UK. “I come to the UK once a year at least and spend about four or five weeks. It’s a good time,” he says, then laughs. “Especially in summer. Ossie is the one I am close to; also John Lacey, Mike Hazard, Stevie P; Paul Miller I see every time I come back. Garth Crooks too – he is an interviewer now, which surprised me,” he chuckles. “Garth interviewed me last year. Archibald is in Spain so it is difficult to keep in touch, and I see Terry Naylor when I come back. Johnny Pratt and Mark Falco live around here, so I see them.”
Despite the regrets we’ve discussed, about leaving too soon and about the effects of the war between the two countries he loves, it’s clear Ricky is still a man who enjoys life and maintains an optimistic approach. For such a pioneering figure, he is very down to earth, and as he gets ready to leave he says, “When we made the decision to come here, I think we didn’t realise how important it would be.” Keith Burkinshaw underlined how important that decision was in an interview with The Independent in 2006. “I was lucky with them,” he said. “They were good characters. I didn’t have any problem with their behaviour. They were better behaved than the English lads: they weren’t drinkers; they were family-orientated. I made other good signings, but in terms of turning things around, those two were vital. They made us into a world-class team.”
Next door in the kitchen, there is an animated discussion in Spanish, then Ossie Ardiles pokes his head around the door. “Hey, is this a book or the Bible you’re writing?” he laughs. We’ve reached a conclusion. Ricky says he has promised to give someone a lift and, after extending his best wishes, he leaves the room – the man who played 178 games for Spurs, wore every outfield shirt number except 2, and scored 25 goals including the greatest goal in the greatest cup final ever.
4
OSSIE ARDILES
“TO PLAY FOOTBALL IS THE BEST THING IN LIFE”
“Come, we go into the garden,” says Ossie Ardiles, leading the way through the sitting room and through a well-appointed kitchen. As we head towards the double doors that open on to a lengthy garden we pass a section of wall that is taken up entirely by a boot rack containing about 20 pairs of football boots. Ossie strides across a well-kept lawn towards a huge, brick barbecue and wooden shelter that dominates the far end. Pinned up around the shelter are club pennants from Argentina, England, Croatia, Japan – showing all the points of Ossie’s career. There’s an empty manager of the month magnum of champagne, and some graffiti on the pine beams which is less than complimentary about Ossie’s abilities as a chef.
Ossie begins to stoke up the smaller grate in the barbecue, then leans down and asks, “Have you seen one of these before?” He is brandishing an enormous hookah pipe. The bizarre image of reeling around the garden of a boyhood hero in a drug-induced haze comes to mind, but Ossie is smoking nothing more exotic than tobacco. And so we settle down to talk about Ossie and that great Spurs team in an English country garden with the wind gently sighing through the trees, watched by Letii, the family’s small, yappy dog, and with proceedings occasionally punctuated by the sound of the hubble-bubble.
In 1978, for a World Cup winner to come to England was sensational, especially to join a just-promoted club. Spurs must have worked hard to convince Ossie he was making the right move. In fact, says Ossie, “They didn’t have to sell me the club. I’d done some research so I knew Spurs were a big club, it had been through some bad times but it was big, and it was London – it’s good to be in the capital. And it was England.” Then he reveals that history could have been very different if Burkinshaw hadn’t managed to persuade his directors to fly him to Argentina in person. “There were some rumours, apparently it was Manchester City who were interested. But Keith was there.” If City had bagged Ardiles and Villa, would Spurs have been on the receiving end of that cup final wonder goal three years later?
The legend goes that Ossie asked the Spurs boss, “Can my friend come too?” when Keith arrived in Argentina to sign him. The story, as it turns out, is not true. “I didn’t recommend Ricky,” says Ossie, shaking his head firmly. “The truth is I played the World Cup and Ricky didn’t play all the World Cup, so I was more known, particularly in Europe. The World Cup finished and I had wanted to play in Europe, always. There was a lot of speculation that people from Spain and France were looking at me.
“Keith travelled over, and I got a call when I was in Córdoba that I had to be in Buenos Aires. They talked to me and then Ricky was mentioned. Would he like to move? I said ‘Yes, no problem.’ Somebody had already put the idea of Ricky to Keith.
“I shared a room with Ricky at the World Cup, before the World Cup too – so we knew each other very well. We had to go and talk to our families. My wife was very, very positive, very willing to move. I was willing as well. Ricky had some doubts, he was just married and his wife had some doubts. We talked, and then we are here.”
Presumably Burkinshaw had explained what role he would expect each man to play? “No,” says Ossie. “Never in his life did he say to me ‘Play here’ or ‘Go there’. He bought Ricky thinking he was a kind of midfield animal, a hard man, because in the World Cup in one game he was kicking everybody, so he had a reputation. But in fact he wouldn’t kill a fly.”
Ricky has told of a lonely, frustrating experience that stifled his naturally gregarious nature when the pair first arrived, and Ossie remarks on this too when describing his own feelings. “When we first arrived I found it very exciting. Of the two of us Ricky is usually the most sociable, but there were times of loneliness. We lived next to each other, which was a big help, especially at the beginning, because it was difficult to express myself with only a little English. I could understand people, and I could read the papers but I could not express myself. So we supported each other very strongly – we were a kind of family.
“Because I could speak a little English, I found it easier to just fit straight in. I wanted to carry on learning the language, to study here . . . Ricky had this strange feeling that while he was here he was not living – he was going to live when he went back to Argentina to be a farmer. I had my two sons, my family . . . We wanted to be here. The club were wonderful as well – like Stevie P says, it used to be a family club.”
If English culture in general proved a challenge, how about English football’s dressing room culture? “It was absolutely great,” says Ossie enthusiastically. “I have to say that immediately I arrived in England I absolutely adored, I loved, the football culture. It was football, football, football from the beginning to the end. It wouldn’t be politics or religion, it was football and having fun. The joking and the banter – even though we didn’t understand a lot of it – it was really great and I loved it.
“The welcome from the players was wonderful. Even those who we thought would be frightened of us for their place. It was a challenge, we had to play well and there was competition – but everybody took it in a very good way. So straight away Steve Perryman was very good to us, he was the captain; Glenn Hoddle because . . . because he played like us,” he says, laughing, “John Pratt was very funny, and Terry Naylor was wonderful.”
Like Ricky Villa, Ossie was also i
mpressed with English club supporters. “We come from a Latin culture so when you are winning you are a god, but when you lose you are nothing, the worst person on Earth. So we were very surprised here because the first few games did not go well. There were some catastrophes really – the 7–0 at Liverpool . . .” He grimaces at the memory. “In that game we didn’t know what we were doing on the pitch – we didn’t know what our marking was. And Liverpool at that time were a brilliant team, the best. But people were very quiet about it, it was, ‘OK, next match, let’s get on with it.’”
The modern image of a football manager is of a tactical control freak who orchestrates every aspect of the game through a series of complex instructions to each individual player. But, as a number of players in both Burkinshaw and Bill Nicholson’s teams have said, this was not the style of those great managers. “Keith never said to us, ‘You have to play in this way.’ We would organise ourselves on the pitch,” says Ossie. “Of course, we realised very early on that Glenn was special, a special kind of player. Supremely talented, I would say, so there was an immediate rapport with Ricky and me. It was difficult for him to speak with Ricky because of the English, but with me there was a big rapport, and the play developed.
“It was great to play with Glenn, all the time we were laughing and testing each other. There was competition between him and me of course to see who was the best.” It’s an interesting comment given Glenn’s reputation for being a little difficult to approach. Ossie is keen to challenge the popular perception, eager to defend a man he still considers a great friend. “I like Glenn very, very much,” he says. “I think it was a tragedy when he was sacked as England manager, for a silly comment. I understand what he meant but he didn’t say it properly and the press went for him. I know exactly what Glenn tried to say because we used to talk about it a few times when he was a player.”
One of Ossie’s observations on the training regime he encountered also counters some popular perceptions about how the game is played in Argentina compared to England, or at least at Spurs. “In Argentina we used to run so, so much, but in England it was always with the ball. Of course, we would do the running, but we would do most with the ball, so it was very enjoyable.”
Once the press hysteria had died down those who assumed the role of wise old heads began to speculate that once the English winter kicked in, these foreign boys – particularly Ossie – wouldn’t fancy it. “Even in Argentina they were saying that Ricky would survive because he is big, while I was kind of small and fragile,” remembers Ossie. “When the winter came, the pitches here were so much better anyway, but with the mud and the cold” – he leans back in his chair and laughs – “I loved it! I would fly around the mud – I didn’t get stuck.”
It was a tough first season as Spurs battled to establish themselves back in the top flight. The team finished 11th, and a decent run in the FA Cup had been brought to an end by Manchester United in a fifth round replay at Old Trafford. The following season saw the two sides drawn together in the third round, and after a 1-1 draw at White Hart Lane the chances of another cup run looked to have slipped from Tottenham’s grasp. But the replay was to be both a memorable game and a turning point in the fortunes not only of the team, but of Ossie too.
An injury to goalkeeper Milija Aleksic during the game meant Hoddle donned the green jersey and Spurs were robbed of a creative outlet. But Hoddle performed confidently in goal and Spurs took the Reds to extra time. With their one substitute used and the clock running down, Ricky Villa danced into the penalty area and laid the ball back to where he knew Ossie would be making a run. Ossie shot, scored and sparked pandemonium in the away section. Spurs had won. “That was a very, very important game,” remembers Ossie. “So much happened, and remember we only had one player on the bench. It was at Old Trafford, so it was very, very difficult, and Milija Aleksic got an injury and it got worse, and then we had extra time. So Glenn went in goal; he was very brave in fact.”
Although Spurs were to be knocked out again in the sixth round, once again floundering against Liverpool, that result gave the signal that Tottenham Hotspur were able to slug it out with the big boys and come through. It was fitting that the club should send this signal in a competition which has always meant so much to everyone at Spurs – the FA Cup. But was Ardiles, like Villa, oblivious to the competition’s allure? He laughs. “Maybe Ricky didn’t know the importance of the FA Cup, but not me. You know, I saw the cup final in 1979, we went to see the game because Alan Sunderland was our next door neighbour. Now, with all the Arsenal supporters, well . . . it was impossible,” he laughs. “But that day it was great. I realised the importance of the FA Cup.”
Inevitably, we spend some time talking about the 1981 FA Cup campaign that is so closely associated with Ossie. “I wasn’t in the team at the start of the run, for the first game, because I was playing in a kind of mini-tournament for the national team,” he remembers. “After that I played all the games.”
In those days, the FA Cup final was the most glamorous game of the season and the build-up would go on for weeks. One of the many traditions was the production of a cup final single, and someone at the club approached a lifelong Spurs fan called Bob England about getting one of his acts to write and help perform the song. The act was Chas & Dave, the song was Ossie’s Dream and it was to be a phenomenal success. Bob told Chas Hodges and Dave Peacock that everyone at the club was talking about Ossie, and this planted the idea for the song. But the song’s star knew little about his role until he arrived at the studio.
“I didn’t know anything,” shrugs Ossie. “Stevie P was a very organised guy and he’d handled it all, so I didn’t have a clue what would happen. I was told we’d be doing a record and there was a line for myself. And that the record was my name, which I didn’t like really – I said it should be the team.
“Chas & Dave did the song for us, and we went to the studio. I heard the song, and then they said, ‘This line you’ve got to sing yourself’ – the line ‘In the cup for Tott-ing-ham’. I said, ‘No fucking way. No. No. No. No. No. No. Definitely no. Anyway, they give me a few drinks and I did it,” says Ossie, laughing at the memory.
Ossie is now glad he did, speaking proudly of the record’s success. “It was number five nationally in the week leading up to the final, and in London it was number one. I told my friends at home that my record is number one in London!”
Although aware of the importance of the FA Cup, nothing could have prepared Ossie for the frenzied interest in the centenary final. “The build-up to the match was unbelievable,” he remembers. “There was a live link to Argentina for the first time, so we were talking on the day of the final at about 10am to our families in Argentina. We were talking and talking and talking. It was a big, big thing.
“The game was tough, the first one. At the end of that match we were definitely happier. We didn’t celebrate like we had won, but we were the happier team. We knew how close we were to losing it. Manchester City were a very good side – very competitive, so for them they probably felt like the main opportunity had gone. We were more confident, because the semi-final had been the same – a draw, then in the second game we were better.
“I remember Ricky receiving the ball and starting to run forward,” he says of the winning goal. “And I was like Garth as well, kick it, kick it . . . But typical Ricky, he did a dummy, then another dummy . . . In England usually when you do that – whack – they get you, but he kept on.”
Many who watched from the old Wembley terraces didn’t really appreciate just how good that goal was until they saw the TV replays afterwards. “It is the same for the players on the pitch,” says Ossie. “You don’t think, ‘Oh what a brilliant goal’ you get on with winning. After, when we saw the replay, that’s when we realised.”
That goal won Spurs the cup, and the victory was one of the most important in the club’s history, signalling a return to the top after the fallow years. The importance of the win was not lost in the dres
sing room. “Everybody was going mad,” grins Ossie. “Spurs had not won anything for a long time. It was a team that had been promoted three years before; we knew we played very well – it was the making of that team. That was the start. It meant a lot to us.” Ossie himself played a major part in the wild celebrations, launching himself into the deep bath in the dressing room while clutching the trophy. As he flew through the air he hurled the famous cup up and it crashed against the ceiling, leaving a hefty dent in the rim. Ossie remembers taking some stick from his stunned team-mates. “People were saying, ‘You’ve dented it’ but everything was so mad – I was saying, ‘Fuck off, who cares?’ That night was wonderful.”
Ossie’s next season was to end in circumstances that were far from wonderful, putting the mere outcome of a football match into stark perspective. He takes a long drag on his pipe.
“When we won the cup in 1981 it was a turning point. Before, maybe the team had been relying too heavily on Glenn, on me, Stevie P. The 1981/82 team was the best team I played in at Spurs. It was just brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. We played lots of games, we were competing with Liverpool, we were in Europe, we were competing right until the very end. But at the end we had far too many games. We finished third in the league, but that was misleading because we were much, much better than that.
The Boys From White Hart Lane Page 9