I don’t think Rupert ever wanted Harry but he was over-ruled by the board. The two of them were like chalk and cheese and they were never going to hit it off. The thing about Harry is you have to let him do things his way. Sometimes that means turning a blind eye to the way he works; you just let him get on with it. What you can’t do is tie him down and tell him how to operate. If you want someone just to coach the players and do things strictly by the book then get a Glenn Hoddle. Harry is a law unto himself—but he gets the job done. If he had been allowed to do that then I think he’d have kept Saints up. But it was clear that he hated the environment and having to work with Rupert. He said all the right things publicly but his body language said something else.
The opening game set the pattern. Saints were 2-0 up at home to Middlesbrough on 90 minutes but only drew 2-2. If the game had gone on another minute, they’d have lost. It was a real body blow after the team had played so well. A major problem that season was the injury to Michael Svensson, who battled hard for years in a bid to recover before finally conceding defeat and hanging up his boots at the end of the 2008-09 season. He was a top, top player, a fantastic centre-back who won everything in the air and was a perfect partner for Claus Lundekvam who struggled without him. Harry brought in Calum Davenport but he did not look very confident at that stage of his career. He has improved since then but he had a shocking time with us. Harry also brought in Henri Camara who started well but faded, as he tends to do. He signed Nigel Quashie who gave the midfield more bite, and he brought Peter Crouch into the side. But it was not enough. The writing was on the wall as the team raced into a 3-0 lead at home to Aston Villa but in the end could only draw 3-3. We were still in with a chance of survival on the final day—and being brutally honest we should have stayed up.
Our fate was not in our own hands. If Norwich won, we were down. But they lost by six at Fulham. All we had to do was win at home to Manchester United. That was not as tough as it sounds. They had nothing to play for and had the FA Cup Final the following week, and gave a very half-hearted display. They were there for the taking. Saints teams of old would have got stuck in and rattled them with a few meaty challenges but there was nothing. At half-time it was 1-1 and I actually wondered if there was an unspoken agreement that we would not injure any of their players before the Cup Final if they went easy. It was like a training match for them because they missed countless chances with half-hearted finishing. And we never got at them. In the end they pretty much put us out of our misery with a second goal, and the game just petered out.
That was the saddest thing of all. When I looked back to all our Great Escapes and the effort and passion, when relegation did finally happen we went down so tamely without a fight. That was unforgivable, and that hurt more than anything. That would never have happened with the likes of Francis Benali, Jason Dodd, Tommy Widdrington and Neil Maddison. It was scandalous.
But if I had been stunned by the arrival of Harry Redknapp, the next twist left me utterly gobsmacked. Even allowing for the fact that Saints had turned into a soap opera, no one could see this one coming. A scriptwriter would have rejected it as totally implausible. Rupert, in his wisdom, appointed as Technical Director Sir Clive Woodward. That’s right, the man who led England to World Cup glory—at rugby. A man with a wealth of experience and knowledge…none of it in football.
But look at the context. Relegation had cost the club £50m so it just didn’t have the money to make quirky appointments. All the available cash should have been directed at getting us back in to the Premier League. Then you bring in extra backroom staff and improve the gym. Ted Bates, in his wisdom, used to say, ‘You win nothing with bricks and mortar.’ He was so right. All the money should have been channelled into bringing in players who would get us promoted. Instead Rupert was star-struck by Sir Clive and by the idea of revolutionizing the game. All the values which had served the club so well for so many years were dismissed out of hand as ‘old football’, and he opted instead for Sir Clive and the likes of Simon Clifford who was so far up his own backside that he needed a glass bellybutton to see out. He came from the mighty Gosforth Town, a non-league club that he’d pledged to take to the Premier League within 10 years. That was in 2005. He will have to go some. Last time I looked they were towards the bottom of the second tier of the Unibond League, five divisions away from the Premier League.
CLIVE DID DO
SOME GOOD
THINGS AND LEFT
A LEGACY OF
IMPROVED
TRAINING AND
MEDICAL
FACILITIES, IT’S
JUST THAT SAINTS
COULDN’T
AFFORD IT.
Bringing in Simon Clifford was one of Clive’s biggest mistakes. He came in with a big ego and inflated ideas of his own importance, all through making his name from Soccertots coaching courses. Dealing with hardened experienced pros was totally different. He had no real experience of the game at the top level but talked like he was God’s gift. Clive brought in other medical and coaching staff, instantly alienating many of the club stalwarts who had been there for years, important people who knew and understood the players. Clive did do some good things and left a legacy of improved training and medical facilities, it’s just that Saints couldn’t afford it. The money should have gone on players. His offhand manner also rubbed people up the wrong way and, of course, his very presence made the club a laughing stock. If Clive had stuck to the sports science it wouldn’t have been so bad, but it worried me when I heard him say he wanted to be a top football manager and that his ultimate ambition was now to win the World Cup for England at football. To be fair, he couldn’t have done much worse than Steve McClaren.
So, you had Sir Clive Woodward with all his forward-thinking emphasis on sports science sharing an office with Harry Redknapp, a traditional old-fashioned football man. I’d have loved to have been a fly on the wall in that office when they were together—and it was only for a few months—or to have witnessed one infamous meeting which degenerated into a slanging match. I heard it was straight out of the school playground with Rupert and Harry going toe to toe, yelling, ‘Eff off!’ ‘No, you eff off!’ ‘No, YOU eff off.’
But Sir Clive did try to get me onto the coaching staff. He wanted me to coach the club’s strikers from the youth side to the first-team. I had Sky commitments but I was definitely interested. I thought I could work around those and come in Monday to Friday and then see whether I was needed on match days. Clive was keen on the idea and told me to meet Rupert to arrange financial terms. The only question was whether the package would compensate for my loss of earnings with Sky.
And what was I offered? Rupert offered me less for working five or six days a week than Sky were paying me to work five or six days a month. I heard afterwards that he thought it was very reasonable for someone with no experience. Obviously 17 years playing in the top flight didn’t count. In fact the money wasn’t really an issue for me—but the amount being offered did tell me exactly what Rupert thought of the idea. He didn’t want me working at the club. It would have been a huge PR coup for him but either he saw me as a threat or feared I might take away some of his glory. Or maybe he still had a grudge because I’d publicly said that Glenn Hoddle should not get the job when Gordon Strachan left.
Anyway, by December 2005 Harry couldn’t take any more. You could see from his body language that he’d had enough. He quit to return to Pompey, remarkably. You couldn’t make it up. You would’ve got good odds against that happening but it left us looking for a ninth manager in nine years under Rupert.
Francis Benali and I had long discussions with Sir Clive Woodward about the idea of our taking over as a managerial partnership. We had a very serious meeting with him at his flat in Bassett and spoke in depth about the job. I think he wanted to be manager with Franny and me as coaches, but neither of us were happy with that. I suggested it would be better if he was Director of Football with me and Franny as managers. Clive was a
ll for it and phoned Rupert to get the ball rolling. But we did not get a call, let alone an interview. He felt it would be wrong to employ someone with no coaching badges.
In fact I did start taking my coaching badges but I thought they were a complete waste of time. They were designed for novices, not players who had been at the top of the game for 17 years. The Level 2 badge was incredibly simplistic. I was being told how to teach someone to pass the ball 10ft with their side foot. If that was Level 2, what was Level 1? The only possible reason I could see for those courses was that they’re a massive cash cow for the FA. They must rake in a fortune from them. It costs thousands to get your Pro Licence. And it certainly has not helped us find an English manager for the national team. Steve McClaren was a disaster, another example of what happens when you promote from within on the cheap. Thankfully Fabio Capello is doing well, considering he looks like Postman Pat.
At that time, I would have fancied a crack at coaching because the club had fallen so quickly. I did not think things could possibly get any worse. We were two thirds of the way down the table when Harry left so I thought it was a chance to do something about it. Management had not really appealed until then but, suddenly, I was up for it. I had seen the decline and I wanted to make MY club better. I wouldn’t have been interested in managing anywhere else or working my way up through the lower leagues—far too much like hard work. But the chance to help Southampton was very tempting and for Rupert not even to reply to us showed just what he thought of us, and of the fans who’d have loved it. Instead he appointed George Burley, 24 hours after appearing to offer the job to a Dutch unknown by the name of Mark Wotte.
There was a huge clear-out of players but George kept us clear of relegation trouble though there was increasing unrest on the terraces culminating in a revolution which ousted the board. The problem was that the chairman had alienated the fans so much that there was now a mood for Anyone But Rupert. So what happened? A tax exile in Jersey by the name of Michael Wilde bought a large chunk of shares, including a substantial number from existing board members. That enabled him to call an Extraordinary General Meeting to vote out Rupert and the rest of the board—at least those who did not switch allegiance to his camp. Michael didn’t have quite enough shares to oust Rupert on his own, and he needed the support of local businessman Leon Crouch who was temporarily cast in the role of Kingmaker.
Mike needed to win the PR war so he dipped into the club’s heritage and recruited Lawrie McMenemy and Mary Corbett, the daughter of former club president John Corbett who had kept the club going when it faced financial meltdown after the war. He’d paid the players’ wages out of his own pocket and, in the Sixties, with remarkable foresight, bought a seemingly worthless piece of land just outside the city. Jacksons Farm would now be worth millions if planning permission were ever granted for housing. So, property developer and Liverpool supporter Michael Wilde, what attracted you to Southampton Football Club?
I like Michael but I have to say he did not do a great job with the people he brought in to run the club—with the notable of exception of Lee Hoos, who is now chief executive at Leicester. Because Michael did not have any experience of operating a football club he brought in Jim Hone as chief executive. In addition they brought in Ken Dulieu who was supposed to be a non-executive chairman for the PLC board. But that soon became a salaried executive role with expenses that would make an MP blush. Likewise, I gather Jim Hone lived in the De Vere hotel for several months when he arrived at the club. Rupert Lowe and Andrew Cowen received pay-offs when they were ousted. Eventually, Hone, Dulieu and Hoos were kicked out in the next power struggle so they all got pay-offs—on top of their big salaries. Then we wonder why we had no money. I must be the only person in Saints’ recent history to leave the club and not receive a penny for going.
Meanwhile, it was becoming increasingly unpleasant behind the scenes with so many power struggles that I never knew who was speaking to whom. In a nutshell there were two boards—the PLC board of the holding company and the football club board. At the start, the power was held by the non-executives and two shareholders, Michael Wilde and Leon Crouch. But, almost by stealth, the executives increased their power base. The balance of power shifted and they forced Michael Wilde out on the basis that he had not delivered the investment he had promised when he took over the club. The sole business plan seemed to be to gamble on spending a lot of money they did not have on buying players to win promotion. But when that failed, there was no plan B.
Saints did reach the 2007 play-offs to get back into the Premier League but lost to Derby on penalties. After going down 2-1 at St Mary’s the team produced an awesome display to win 3-2 at Pride Park. This is about the only competition where away goals don’t count double so it went to spot-kicks and, again, I would have given anything to have been able to take one. We had massive away support and transformed one end of the ground into a wall of yellow, showing once again what a great fan base there is at this club. But Derby won and then beat West Brom in the final to reach the top flight, only to bomb out abysmally being relegated with a record low number of points. That hit Saints hard because it meant the club now lost the parachute payment which had effectively sustained it for two years. The board had to scrape around to try and find investment, something none of its members had been expecting to do when they came in.
I THINK THE CLUB
HAS HAD QUITE
ENOUGH SELF-SATISFIED,
ARROGANT,
EGOTISTICAL
SMUGNESS TO
LAST A LIFETIME.
The big problem now was all that in-fighting and backbiting meant that no serious investor would touch the club. By all accounts Paul Allen, one of the co-founders of Microsoft and one of the world’s richest men, was interested in coming in but he took one look at all the political wrangling and backed off sharply. The best offer the board could attract was from the Hedge Fund SISU, which ended up taking over at Coventry. I think that is the only time that Rupert Lowe (who was still a sizeable shareholder), Michael Wilde and Leon Crouch have ever been on the same side when they all voted against it. That led to Jim Hone, Ken Dulieu, Commercial Director Andy Oldknow (now back at the club as Chief Operating Officer) and Lee Hoos walking off into the sunset with handsome settlements while Leon Crouch stepped in as chairman.
Leon is a true Saints supporter, someone who makes decisions based on what is best for the club rather than for his own pocket. He might not have the polish of Rupert Lowe but his heart is in the right place. He’s a bit rough and ready but I think the club has had quite enough self-satisfied, arrogant, egotistical smugness to last a lifetime. And unlike Lowe and Wilde who merely spent money on shares, he put his own cash into the club. I believe that at the first board meeting after Michael Wilde came in, Leon said he would put a million in if the others did the same. It went very quiet. More recently he has kept the club alive by paying the monthly wage bill to the tune of £1m.
When he took over as chairman at the turn of 2008, it seemed the club at last had someone in charge who was prepared to make decisions for the good of the club. The biggest of those was the appointment of a new manager after George Burley was lured away to become manager of the Scotland team. I think that was something which suited both parties. George could not turn down such a great opportunity and, by then, his body language was suggesting that he’d had enough of the bickering at the Southampton circus. Saints got some compensation and made a fresh start. They bought time with the caretaker pairing of John Gorman and Jason Dodd, but a shocking 1-0 FA Cup defeat at Bristol Rovers showed it was not working and Leon Crouch took swift and decisive action. He brought in Nigel Pearson who immediately won over everyone at the club with his strong, likeable personality, commonsense and knowledge of the game. He was a breath of fresh air and for once it seemed as though everything was geared up for a bright future.
He used his contacts in the game to bring in some good loan signings and he instilled a real fighting spirit and t
ogetherness in the players—and the stadium staff loved him. To his eternal credit he led the team to another last-day escape from relegation. I really thought those days had gone, the moment we were relegated to the Championship. Never in my darkest nightmares did I think we would be battling to avoid the drop to League 1.
I was in the Sky studio and went through hell on that final day at home to Sheffield United. We had to win and hope other results went our way. It was a real rollercoaster of emotion that afternoon as Saints went behind but fought back to take the lead only for the Blades to level. Remarkably Stern John put us back in front before being sent off. It was a horribly tense finale knowing that if we conceded or Leicester scored at Stoke we’d be down. But we got away with it and the future looked rosy. We had a passionate, committed, caring chairman and a knowledgeable, respected, talented manager…what could go wrong now?
Re-enter Rupert. Of all the episodes in the Saints soap opera, this probably surprised me most. Forget Bruce Grobbelaar being charged with match-fixing, Dave Jones being wrongly accused of child abuse and Harry Redknapp arriving and leaving—they were nothing compared to this bizarre alliance. Michael Wilde—the man who spent around £3m of his own money specifically to get rid of Rupert Lowe—suddenly teamed up with him to get rid of Leon Crouch. You couldn’t make it up. Between them they had enough shares to regain control of the club. And since Nigel Pearson had been a Leon Crouch appointment, he was never going to last.
He must have known the writing was on the wall when Rupert rejoined. This is Southampton and one of the reasons we got into such a mess was that we’d had eight managers in 10 years under Rupert Lowe. So what is the first thing he does when he returns to the club? He gets rid of the manager. Brilliant. Not just any manager but the best manager we’d had for some time.
Rupert said he had to cut costs but getting rid of a quality manager and bringing in a couple of Dutch guys who did not know the Championship wasn’t just a false economy, it was crazy. Yes, their combined wages were less than Nigel’s but he had indicated he would take a pay cut. If Nigel Pearson had stayed I’m sure we would not have been relegated.
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