Taking le Tiss

by Matt Le Tissier

  But it still came as a shock when I heard that Souey had resigned while he was on holiday in Israel. Even more unexpected was the fact that Lawrie McMenemy followed a few hours later. The public declaration was that Lawrie felt honour bound to go because he was the one who’d brought Graeme to the club. But if that was true, why didn’t he go when Alan Ball resigned to go to City or when Dave Merrington was sacked?

  My reading is that it was a tactic on his part. I think Lawrie thought that the club would panic at losing him and beg him to return and help them appoint a successor, or even take charge. Did Lawrie gamble, thinking the inexperienced new chairman wouldn’t be able to manage without him and that he’d end up increasing his power base? That seems the only logical explanation. But it backfired spectacularly. He reckoned without the arrogance of Rupert who jumped at the opportunity to get rid of him. They were always going to clash. Lawrie was the traditional manager, steeped in the game but disparagingly dismissed by the new breed as ‘old football’. Lawrie might have been regarded as a dinosaur and he certainly had his faults, but he knew the game, the club, the players and the fans. He was always going to be a rival to Rupert who wanted to call the shots, and if Lawrie made a mistake it was by underestimating the size of the new chairman’s ego.

  Rupert thought he could do the job and that he didn’t need Lawrie’s help, so he promptly accepted his resignation. I’m not sure it was even formally submitted but Rupert couldn’t get him out the door quick enough, which was the start of a rift which is still as deep as ever. It’s incredibly petty that there is nothing at the new stadium named after Lawrie who, remember, is the only man to have won Southampton any silverware. It is an absolute disgrace to cut him out like that. When the stadium was built, the club held a poll among supporters who were asked to vote for four legends who’d have suites named after them. I never saw the votes but Lawrie came fifth—behind FA Cup winning goalscorer Bobby Stokes, Terry Paine, Mike Channon and me. The players’ lounge was named after Ted Bates—fair enough because there’s no bigger legend in the club’s history. And a hospitality bar was named after club president John Corbett who’d bailed the club out financially when it had been on the brink of going under, and the directors’ room was named after former chairman Alan Woodford. But did Lawrie get a mention? No. It was so ridiculous that Mike Channon said they should name the toilets after Lawrie because that was how Rupert was treating him.

  MIKE CHANNON

  SAID THEY

  SHOULD NAME

  THE TOILETS

  AFTER LAWRIE

  BECAUSE THAT

  WAS HOW

  RUPERT WAS

  TREATING HIM.

  The local paper came up with a good idea, naming the media suite after Lawrie because one of his great strengths was dealing with the press, and he certainly gave the club a much bigger media profile than it often deserved. But the board steadfastly refused to acknowledge his achievements with any kind of lasting tribute. When Rupert Lowe returned for a second spell as chairman, he even ordered a picture of Lawrie with the FA Cup to be removed from the boardroom. It was replaced by a picture of a train presented to the club by Doncaster Rovers. How out of touch can you be?

  I was sorry to see Lawrie go but not overly disappointed to be losing Graeme Souness, especially after the way he had humiliated me in front of my teammates. I lost a lot of respect for him over that. So there was yet another search for a new manager, which was about to become a recurring trend. The new man was Dave Jones. We knew all about him because his Stockport side had knocked us out of the League Cup quarter-finals a few months earlier. We thought that we’d done the hard part by drawing 2-2 up there in difficult conditions, thanks to a late equalizer from Egil Ostenstad. Stockport were two divisions below us, albeit on their way to promotion. Alan Neilson played left-back despite being right-footed, and I told him not to be afraid to cut back onto his right foot and I’d time my run accordingly. It was a rare moment where one of my tactics actually paid off. He whipped the ball in with his right foot and I chested it down and volleyed in to put us 1-0 up. We were cruising towards the semi-finals but they outplayed us and deservedly won 2-1, so I thought Dave Jones was a decent appointment.

  I was even more encouraged when he took the time and trouble to phone me before the first day of pre-season. It was the first time a manager had ever done that to me, and I met him at the Hilton Hotel because he wanted to pick my brains and get a feel for the club, which seemed very sensible. It was a clever move too because I immediately felt he was on my side. Things seemed to be going very well—and then I broke my arm. Before his departure Graeme Souness had landed us with a 10-day pre-season tour of Germany. He must have known he wouldn’t be coming with us because we were based in the middle of nowhere. We played Carl Zeiss Jena, again, and it was interesting to see how much the place had changed since the Berlin Wall had come down. And then we went to the tiny town of Ansbach. I remember scuffling for the ball and falling. It was a nothing challenge but I put my left arm out to break my fall and heard two little clicks. I thought it was weird but I didn’t feel any pain—until I went to push myself back up. It was agony.

  I wasn’t sure what I’d done but I knew it hurt like hell. I sat on a stretcher in a corridor waiting for an ambulance which took an eternity to reach this club house in a remote forest. The blood had drained from my face because of the pain. The journey to the hospital was a shocker because the country roads were packed with bumps and potholes, and the pain was like being plugged into the mains. Our physio Jim Joyce gave me a couple of painkillers but they made absolutely no difference. The x-ray showed I had shattered the elbow joint; the ball of the elbow had broken into three pieces and the specialist recommended immediate surgery. He wanted to remove the joint.

  I said if he did that it’d leave me with a floppy arm and he agreed. I panicked and told Jim to get me out of there immediately. There was no way I was going to be left with a dangly arm. I was beginning to doubt whether this guy was even a real doctor. I couldn’t believe it and said I didn’t care how much pain I was in, I wanted to go home. We couldn’t get a flight that night so I had to get a taxi back to the hotel and somehow try and sleep. At least I had company on the flight. Simon Charlton had pulled a calf muscle so he volunteered to come back with me. I think he just wanted to get away from the boredom of the tour.

  I went to see a specialist and he was absolutely gobsmacked at the diagnosis I’d received in Germany, and he reassured me I wouldn’t be left with a floppy arm. He said there were two options: he could put it back together with screws and wire, his first preference; but if that failed he would need to insert an artificial joint, except that would have to come from France and would take a week to arrive. He wanted to have one just in case, so that meant I had seven nights of trying to sleep with a broken arm. I still remember rolling onto it in my sleep and screaming with the most excruciating pain I have ever felt in my life. As it turned out, of course, he didn’t need the artificial piece so I had gone through one week of agony for absolutely nothing, but it was still better than having a floppy arm. The screws and the wire are still inside me.

  When I came round from the anaesthetic, the first thing I did was to ask when I would be able to swing a golf club again. That was far more important to me than when I’d be able to play football. And I was actually back on the driving range before I was back on the pitch. I missed the first six games of the season but came back for the match against Liverpool at The Dell. I was expecting to be on the bench but about an hour before kick-off Dave Jones told me I would be starting. I was a bit nervous about my arm but he didn’t give me much time to think about it.

  HE LOOKED LIKE

  HE HAD MUGGED

  A TRAMP ON THE

  WAY TO

  TRAINING,

  WHICH TOOK THE

  PRESSURE OFF

  ME.

  I suspect the Liverpool lads were under orders to test me out because within two minutes one of their player
s took me out on the edge of the area. I fell onto my arm and there was a sharp intake of breath around the ground and an eerie silence as I lay on the ground for three or four seconds waiting for the pain to kick in. But it was fine and I breathed a huge sigh of relief as I got up. However, I still paid a price for missing most of pre-season because I tweaked a hamstring just before half-time. That was unheard of for me, but it only happened because I’d not had the right preparation, and it was the first of many niggling injuries.

  Dave Jones went back to Stockport to sign two of their better players, goalkeeper Paul Jones and left-back Lee Todd, who was the scruffiest dresser I’ve ever seen. He looked like he had mugged a tramp on the way to training, which took the pressure off me. He certainly showed plenty of ability in training but couldn’t transfer it to the pitch. He seemed to lack the right mental attitude to make it as a player. Paul Jones was under pressure from the start because the fans loved Maik Taylor, but gradually won them over with some fantastic displays and won our Player of the Year trophy.

  Dave Jones then sold Jim Magilton to Sheffield Wednesday for £1.6m and spent £1m of it on Carlton Palmer, who was the only player I knew who could trap a ball further than I could kick it. He wasn’t the most naturally gifted talent but he was awkward to play against because he had these great long octopus legs. He was incredibly loud and very, very confident and quickly dominated the chat in the dressing room. You couldn’t say anything without him butting in with an opinion, even when he knew nothing about it.

  Carlton was unbelievable. How he remained so skinny was beyond me, he must have had a freakish metabolism because the amount of alcohol he could put away was amazing. He’d have a right skinful followed by two hours sleep and then next morning leave everyone for dead in the sprints. How did he do it? He was amazing in training—provided there wasn’t a ball involved.

  He also tried to stamp his personality on the club. We were on the same team in a five-a-side and I gave the ball away and didn’t chase back, as usual. He had a real go at me, trying to embarrass me in front of the others. I snapped, ‘Carlton, your job in the team is to win the ball back—and when you get it, you give it to me because I can play.’ There was steam coming out of his ears but we left it at that. He realized that if I had the balls to stand up to him then maybe I wasn’t such a softie. The first few weeks were a bit fraught but we actually got on OK after that. I think he was just testing me to see how far he could go. We even socialized a bit because I was living at Ocean Village at the time, not far from Carlton and our new £2m club record signing David Hirst. It’s fair to say those two liked the odd beer.

  I got on well with Hirsty. He had a very dry sense of humour, we shared a similar outlook and had a pretty good understanding on the pitch. He’d been struggling with an injury before he arrived and I always thought it was a real shame we couldn’t have got him earlier. He was a terrific finisher and a very good footballer, prompting Alex Ferguson to try and break the British transfer record for him. He made his England debut at the same time as Alan Shearer and, at that stage, was ahead of him in the pecking order. It would have been awesome if we’d got him in his prime but, even so, he was a great signing and a good lad to have in the dressing room—and on a night out.

  The arrival of those two helped us turn around our typically bad start, when we lost seven of the first nine, with just one win immediately putting the new manager under pressure. But then came the new arrivals and we won four out of five, which also coincided with my wearing red boots for the first time. We’d won 2-1 at Barnsley in the League Cup but our kitman Malcolm Taylor forgot to pack Carlton Palmer’s boots. As he wore size 9, the same as me, he asked if I had a spare pair. I had the red ones with studs and a pair of black mouldeds, which I was just about to put on. I decided it would be kinder to let him have those, so I wore the red ones. After about 15 minutes I could sense the ball drop behind me so I flicked it over my own head and that of Arjan de Zeeuw, ran round the other side and as it dropped I hit a sweet 25-yard volley which flew in off the underside of the bar. I turned to Carlton and said, ‘That’s why I can wear red boots and you can’t.’

  After those four quick-fire victories we then lost the next three and really needed a victory at home to Leicester, and it came from the most unlikely of sources. December 13, 1997, is a day which will live long in the memory of all Saints fans and especially mine. It will go down as the day I provided the assist for Francis Benali to score his one and only league goal. After 11 years and several hundred games without a goal, the Leicester defence probably thought there was no point marking him as he stood 15 yards out waiting for my free kick. He was screaming for it and I remember thinking, ‘He’s completely free…but it’s Franny.’ I expected him to nod it across goal for someone else. It never occurred to me he might actually score but he met the ball with a thumping header which flew into the top right corner. He assures me he meant it—and Franny wouldn’t lie. It was a terrific goal followed by a second of stunned silence and then a volcanic roar, very similar to the last ever goal at The Dell.

  It was a special moment for both of us, having played up front together for the youth team. He did score a few at that level so I’m not sure why it took him so long to get off the mark, but I was pleased to have been part of such a special moment. He was a schoolboy at The Dell well before me and brilliant for the club. He is still a great mate and one of the loveliest men you could meet—except when the red mist descends. Then there’s no getting through to him. As his captain and friend I immediately knew when his eyes had gone. I’d try to calm him down but there was nothing you could do. Launching John Fashanu into orbit probably made his reputation as a tough tackler, as Nicky Barmby would have testified from row C following another trademark challenge which led to another early bath. He was aware of the problem and did his best to try and curb it, culminating in his ninth and final red card at Bolton. Jamie Pollock was a niggly, narky wind-up merchant and he was targeting Franny who quickly reacted. As the red mist descended, you could see him struggling to control it. He knew it was wrong as he drew back his fist. In the end it was neither one thing nor the other, but his powder-puff slap was still enough to get him sent off but not enough to hurt Pollock. Franny would have felt better if he’d decked him.

  His incredible will-to-win was a big factor in all our relegation escapes. People always say my goals saved us but we’d never have survived without someone like Franny in the side. You need players like that. He wasn’t the most naturally gifted but his commitment was awesome. That comes from a local lad playing for his home club. I still remember one goal-line clearance in an end-of-season Great Escape at Wimbledon. Any other player would have given it up but not Franny. He’d never give up, no matter what the score—and somehow he got the ball to safety, and we got the points and stayed up.

  Over the years a succession of players were bought to replace him—Lee Todd, Simon Charlton, John Beresford, Micky Adams, Stuart Gray and more. And he saw them all off. He epitomized the spirit of Southampton, shown by the lads who came through the youth team such as Tommy Widdrington and Neil Maddison. They seemed to care that bit more. We could certainly have done with them in 2005 when we pathetically went down without a fight on the final day.

  We had no big-time Charlies in our side. We were aware of our limitations and it helps in the dressing room when you don’t have any prima donnas. I always regarded myself as just one of the lads, which is all I ever wanted. People say I played as an individual but I loved being part of a team, which had lots of different components. I was acutely aware of my deficiencies as a player, and I know that I needed other players to make up for that. I got almost as much pleasure from setting up a colleague as I did from scoring, and I really enjoyed being part of a tight-knit group whose collective spirit kept us up for so many years, often when we had no right to stay up. If you look at the resources we had compared to the budgets of our rivals, we consistently performed well above our weight by surviving on gates
of just 15,000. There were times when I’d look at the squads of the clubs who did get relegated and wonder how the hell that happened because, man for man, they were better than us. But what we had was a collective belief, a unity and spirit. We had players who’d come up through the system and knew what the club was about, and we brought in others who’d fit into that mould.

  HE WAS ABOUT

  THE ONLY BLOKE

  I KNEW WHO

  SHARED MY LOVE

  OF MALIBU AND

  COKE.

  A prime example was John Beresford, who was a big name when he joined in January 1998 for £1.5m, which was a lot of money for us. He was a great character in the dressing room, chirpy and great for a laugh. I got on really well with him, to the extent that a couple of years ago I took him to see Shania Twain in concert. I know how it sounds but I had been a big fan long before she became famous. I was given a ticket to see her at Wembley Arena but I was right near the back. So I bought a couple of tickets to see her at Sheffield but couldn’t find anyone to go with me. Bez lived up there so I asked if he fancied going. He was always up for a night out so I went up and stayed with him. We got to the arena a bit early so we stopped off in a bar. He was about the only bloke I knew who shared my love of Malibu and Coke, which isn’t exactly a manly drink. The look on the barmaid’s face was priceless as two guys walked in and ordered this girly drink—and when we told her we were going to see Shania Twain you could see ‘What a pair of gays’ stamped across her forehead.