Taking le Tiss

by Matt Le Tissier

  One of the big problems now is that refs are often too quick to give a red card and that they panic under pressure from the crowd. And most, if not all, have never played the game at any decent level so they can’t distinguish between a nasty tackle and a mistimed attempt for the ball. (Most officials are lads who were not very good at football, and the only way they can get involved is by becoming a ref.) I also think the fourth official should be an ex-player who can quickly look at a video replay and make a judgement. Refs can’t officiate on their own. They can’t see every incident. They need help. It doesn’t have to be a high-profile former star; in fact most of them have so much money that they don’t need the hassle. But there must be plenty of ex-pros who still need the extra cash. The match would only need to be halted for around 30 seconds—less time than it usually takes for teams to argue their case. And it would ensure the right decision is made, especially when refs get a goal decision wrong.

  The worst one I can remember was an 18 yard shot from Mark Hughes at home to Leeds. It was hit with such power that it flew back out but the ref thought it had hit a post and waved play on. I’m not sure if it hit a stanchion or the advertising boards behind the goal, but the ball definitely went in. That could have proved very costly. It would have put us level at 1-1 and might have given us the platform to go on and win the game. Instead we lost 3-0, and that could have had a major knock-on effect at the end of the season—as it did for Bolton who went down when they had a goal ruled out in similar circumstances a few years ago.

  And refs should also be prepared to change a decision, even if that means losing face. That’s why I was full of admiration for Steve Bennett in 2008-9 when he gave Hull City a penalty for what he thought was a handball against Aston Villa when in fact the ball had clipped the bar. It took a big man to change his mind when he realized it was a mistake—and of course the home crowd went mad. But he actually gained more respect for admitting he got it wrong than he’d have done if he had just refused to change his mind.

  I didn’t like Steve as a ref when I was playing, I felt he lost control of his emotions, he used to get the same glazed look in his eyes as Francis Benali did when he was losing the plot—but I did salute him for that decision. He had the bottle to go to the linesman and, whether it came from the fourth official or not, the right decision was made, which makes a mockery of what I was told all through my career, that there was no point arguing with officials because they never change their mind. It just shows I was right to keep shouting at them.

  There are some refs you can have a bit of banter with, although FIFA have done their best to try and stamp that out. And they don’t want officials to use their commonsense; everything has to be set in stone. My favourite was Paul Durkin because he did have that human touch and a sense of humour. He’d take a bit of stick and dish it back. I remember we were playing Everton and it seemed to me that in the first 20 minutes he gave every throw, every free kick and every 50-50 decision to them. I was getting fed up so when he did it again I thought it was only fair that I should enlighten him as to what he was doing wrong. I said, ‘For F***’s sake Paul, are you going to give us anything?’ He just looked at me and said, ‘Have you actually touched the ball yet?’ He said it with a smile on his face but, ‘Fair enough’ I replied, he’d made his point. That banter and rapport is what’s now missing from the game. Refs think they should be the stars of the show.

  Not all of them are like that but certainly a few are very ‘up themselves’. I’d include Uriah Rennie and Rob Styles in that bracket. Graham Poll had a tough time when he first came on the scene but he improved quite a bit with experience. He loved himself but he was a decent ref and it’s a shame his career ended up with him being remembered for the fiasco of showing three yellow cards to the same player.

  I DIDN’T HAVE

  TOO HIGH AN

  PINION OF REFS

  WHO ARE RIGHT

  DOWN THERE

  WITH TRAFFIC

  WARDENS IN MY

  ESTIMATION.

  Generally I didn’t have too high an opinion of refs who are right down there with traffic wardens in my estimation. Perhaps part of the problem is that players have very little contact with them. Even when I was captain I don’t remember ever meeting refs before the game, although I believe that has now changed. There was never any contact with officials after the match—unless you count me yelling at them as I walked off the pitch. And the problem doesn’t end there. I only appeared at an FA hearing once, after I had been sent off twice for the Reserves in 10 days. It was a bit like being made to stand on the ‘naughty step’ at school as they talked down to me. I didn’t really say anything. Ian Gordon, one of the club directors, did most of the talking—which was probably just as well otherwise I’d probably have ended up in more trouble. The panel consisted of councillors from regional football associations. I’ve said for years that they should have ex-pros on the panel, not necessarily high-profile stars but people who have at least played the game to a fairly decent level and understand it. But that will never happen because the FA councillors do not want to lose their power.

  The whole system needs a radical overhaul.

  18

  GLENN, CHIPS AND FRY-UPS

  ‘GLENN HODDLE IS A BIG BELIEVER IN REINCARNATION.

  I MUST HAVE DONE SOMETHING REALLY BAD IN A

  PREVIOUS LIFE TO GET HIM AS MANAGER TWICE.

  WHATEVER IT WAS, I HOPE I ENJOYED IT.’

  After the hurt and disappointment of being left out of the England squad for France 98, you can imagine my deep joy when Glenn Hoddle became the new Southampton manager in January 2000. I’ve often felt that Saints were a footballing soap opera with each episode becoming more unreal. First we lost a very good manager following ridiculous allegations of child abuse and then in walked my old mate Glenn. No scriptwriter could have come up with that.

  Having narrowly avoided the drop with three successive wins at the end of the 1998-99 season, we managed to maintain the momentum at the start of the new campaign winning three of our first five, which was quite remarkable for us. And we were comfortably mid-table when we went to Old Trafford on September 25 for a game which still gives a smile to all those who love to see Manchester United embarrassed.

  It was bad enough for the champions when Marian Pahars put us in front with a sublime goal, cheekily nutmegging Jaap Stam before slotting in. I just laughed. As if that weren’t humiliating enough, it got worse for United with a moment to feature on any DVD about football bloopers. I had got injured in a 4-2 win over Newcastle but I came back for this match at Old Trafford. Dave Jones put me on at half-time but I didn’t even touch the ball for the first six minutes until I got it 25 yards out. I remember thinking I had to get it onto my right foot and smash one. That’s not quite what happened. I stubbed my foot on the ground just before I kicked the ball. I hurt my ankle and it turned into a really feeble shot. I turned away in pain—and disgust. I was worried about my ankle and annoyed with myself for cocking it up, until I saw our fans cheer. I had no idea the ball had gone in and, until I saw it on TV that evening, didn’t even realize their keeper had let it through his legs. Massimo Taibi had a ‘mare. It was a simple take but he somehow missed it altogether. He blamed his studs getting caught in the turf according to his translator, who was probably doing him a favour. What he really said was, ‘I’m a crap keeper.’ That was the beginning of the end of his career at Old Trafford.

  That brought us level at 2-2 and typically we went behind again before Mikael Silvestre cocked up. Marian Pahars robbed him and squared for me. I was waiting for the pass and was ready for a simple tap-in, but he actually smashed the ball quite quickly. I instinctively stuck out a side foot and the ball flew in making a much better-looking goal than it should have been, and we hung on for a 3-3 draw.

  Two days later the club was rocked to its core as Dave Jones was charged with child abuse. He had gone to the police station voluntarily and everyone, including him, expected it to
be a case of providing them with information from his days as a social worker in a Liverpool care home. He had worked there for a while after he finished playing, before he got into coaching and management. The police had leaked his name to the press a few weeks earlier saying he was being investigated for abuse. None of us could believe it when he was charged with nine offences of indecent assault and child cruelty. Instinctively I knew he couldn’t possibly be guilty. You trust your instincts with a person, and Dave was as decent and honest a guy as you could wish to meet.

  Never in a million years would Dave Jones have been capable of sexual abuse. And that view was reinforced by the way he conducted himself throughout what must have the most horrendous ordeal. I cannot think of a worse crime to be falsely accused of—and Dave felt the same. He said he would rather be charged with murder. Legal restrictions meant he couldn’t even defend himself in the press, although the local paper did take his side. They knew he was a decent, innocent man.

  There was a stunned atmosphere at the training ground but Dave was very open with the players, and with anyone who spoke to him about the case. He said he was totally innocent, had nothing to hide and was looking forward to having his say in court, although I don’t think he really believed it would go that far. He answered questions honestly and easily, never got defensive or evasive and never cracked under the pressure, and I never had a moment’s doubt about his innocence. The fact that he was charged was bad enough—but for the case to go all the way to court was an absolute scandal. And it was no surprise that it collapsed the moment it got in front of a jury.

  Two ‘victims’ pulled out just before the case went to court, one failed to turn up and, after four days of flimsy evidence, the judge had had enough and pulled the plug. It turned out that the Crown Prosecution Service had contacted a lot of the former residents at the care home asking if they had suffered any sort of abuse—adding if so they might be entitled to compensation. Half of them were in prison when they got the letters and suddenly saw the chance to earn easy money. What other answer were they going to give? And with Dave being a high-profile figure, they had the chance to make a name for themselves.

  HE DESCRIBED

  WORKING WITH

  US AS HIS

  SALVATION. IF

  THAT WAS THE

  CASE, THEN

  THINGS REALLY

  MUST HAVE BEEN

  BAD!

  How the CPS didn’t see through that will always be a mystery. Dave must still be burning with anger and resentment. It cost him several hundred thousand pounds to clear his name, money which he didn’t fully recover through the court. Worse, his father died through a stress-related condition soon after Dave was charged. I hope the people who falsely accused Dave—and particularly those who relentlessly pursued the case when all the evidence pointed to his innocence—can live with themselves. It also cost him his job at Southampton. He didn’t let the court case affect him at the training ground—in fact he described working with us as his salvation. If that was the case, then things really must have been bad! Dave took it all in his stride but results on the field weren’t that good. Our form wasn’t helped by the fact that I was starting to pick up niggling injuries. I would play a few and miss a few. I played in a 2-1 home defeat by Chelsea on Boxing Day and then Dave played me again at Watford two days later, even though I had been struggling with a few knocks. It was too much and I suffered one of the worst muscle injuries I ever had. I ripped the back of a hamstring and the back of a calf at the same time. I went to see Mark Zambarda and he said he had never seen such a complicated series of pulls.

  It kept me out for a long time, which wasn’t good timing as we changed managers in mid-January. We had slipped to seventeenth and there were fears of another relegation battle, though that was nothing new. As Dave said, it was business as usual. The final straw was probably a 5-0 defeat at Newcastle in a live Sky game. We had a lot of injuries, so all the crocks went down to the casino to watch the match on television. We were a goal down after just two minutes and, embarrassingly, I jumped up and cheered because I had drawn Duncan Ferguson in the sweepstake. I remembered myself and sat down but I got a lot of stick off the lads. It was a case of the team being hammered but hey, it’s not all bad; I won a tenner.

  Another goal followed almost immediately and we were three down after 15 minutes, four behind on the half hour and statisticians were thumbing the record books for our heaviest defeat. The local paper was full of letters from fans saying there should be a change of manager with most calling for the return of Alan Ball. We then beat Dave Jones’ old club Everton 2-0, but it was too late to save him. He was placed on ‘gardening leave’ with chairman Rupert Lowe announcing it would free him to concentrate fully on his court case. In came Glenn Hoddle as a ‘temporary’ replacement, although it was never made clear what would happen after Dave was cleared, as we all expected. Would he get his job back? We couldn’t imagine Glenn meekly making way to allow Dave to pick up the reins. It was never said, but we all knew he was not coming back.

  I hadn’t spoken to Glenn since he left me out of the World Cup squad. It wasn’t that I was blanking him, just that our paths hadn’t crossed—apart from one slightly surreal moment in the summer of 1999. I was having dinner with a friend at the Chewton Glen, a top hotel in the New Forest. Gradually the restaurant emptied until there was just us and a couple behind me. They were arguing and, at the sound of raised voices, I stopped my own conversation and listened in. The more I heard, the more I recognized one of the voices. I turned round and saw Glenn with his wife. He didn’t see me so I had a little chuckle and called the waiter over and said, ‘Can you ask that couple over there if they’d like a drink?’ It was my way of subtly letting them know I was there and had heard them arguing. When Glenn saw me, his face was a picture. He must have thought of all the people to have overheard, why did it have to be me? But he did accept the drink.

  The next time I saw him was when he walked into our training ground as manager. I had mixed feelings. Obviously I was unhappy at the way I had been treated with England, but I still rated him as a good coach even though his man-management skills clearly left something to be desired. I actually thought it was a good appointment for the club. And because we were similar as players I was hoping that by working with me on a day-to-day basis, Glenn might bring the best out of me. I was ready to put the past behind me but I’m not sure he felt the same.

  It was exciting for the fans to have a big-name boss, a former England manager who put the club in the spotlight. There is no doubt the players were excited. But it wasn’t long before I realized that Glenn and I weren’t going to see eye to eye. There were a few clues in training. People would make mistakes the whole time and get away with them but if I did something wrong he was very quick to get on my back. He didn’t do that with anyone else. Maybe he had higher expectations from me because I was the most naturally talented player, or maybe he thought I was ‘swinging the lead’ because I was injured when he arrived and it took me a long time to get fit. I don’t think he fully realized the extent of my problem. It didn’t help that my eventual come-back from that injury was as a sub away to Spurs in a game which obviously meant a lot to Glenn—and we lost 7-2—despite twice taking the lead. Whoops!

  Anyway, Glenn singling me out for criticism went from bad to worse and I’d had enough. I turned round one day in training and told him to eff off. He couldn’t believe what I’d said. He was too stunned. Besides, he didn’t like confrontation. He’d shy away from it so he let it go. I’d have had more time for him if he had sent me off.

  HE CERTAINLY

  LOVED TO LOOK

  THE BEST PLAYER

  WHEN HE JOINED

  IN COACHING

  SESSIONS—AND

  IN FAIRNESS, HE

  OFTEN WAS.

  Working with him at Saints made me understand why he had a problem with me. He does have a large ego, and many times during my career I was compared to him because of the w
ay we both played. We were often spoken about in the same sentence but I don’t think he liked that. He felt he was in a different league to me. Talk about petty. He certainly loved to look the best player when he joined in coaching sessions—and in fairness, he often was. He might have hung up his boots long since, but it was obvious that he could still play. It reminded me exactly why I had idolized him as a player but there were times when I wasn’t sure whether our training sessions were for our benefit or his.

  I probably lost more respect for him while he was at Southampton than I did when he was England manager. It should have been a fruitful partnership but I found him incredibly arrogant and extremely stubborn. It didn’t matter what we were talking about, he had his opinion and he was always right. And I never felt his heart was in the job. It was a stepping stone to a bigger club—and the Tottenham job was probably always in his sights. He needed Saints to get him back in the game. His reputation had been tarnished after the World Cup and his comments about the disabled. He didn’t seem to have learned anything from that or to have developed any kind of human touch.

  There was an inkling or two that he was never going to be part of the community. It was a shame because tactically he was the best manager I ever played under. From knowing the opposition’s weaknesses to setting up his own team to counter that, he was top-class. I remember him physically moving defenders on the training field to show them exactly where they should be for set pieces. He knew how to change things on the pitch if the match wasn’t going well, and he certainly tightened up our defence.