Taking le Tiss

by Matt Le Tissier

  All the teams I played against were very respectful. Paul Doswell made sure he only picked me for matches against teams where most of their players were Saints fans so that no one would try to make a name by ‘doing’ me. That was the one thing I was wary of. There weren’t many occasions as a pro when an opponent ever tried to injure me, but there were a couple of tackles that made me wonder. The former Pompey midfield hard-man Mick Kennedy trod on my ankle in a Simod Cup tie at Bradford, and Roy Keane caught me in a match at Old Trafford when I felt he wasn’t going for the ball. It was quite early in his United career and I was in my own penalty area—God knows why. I cleared the ball and he came in late but it was right in front of the Stretford End so there was no chance of him getting booked. His studs connected with my shin after the ball had gone. Fortunately the shin pad did its job otherwise it could have been a leg-breaker. It taught me a lesson though—I stayed clear of my own penalty area after that.

  I then played beach football for England, but hated it. It was nothing like proper football. You couldn’t dribble, it took a lot of getting used to and was very hard work. Eric Cantona was the big star for the French team so the organizers set up a press conference with the two of us promoting the event. Being the true professional I am, I turned up at 10.55 for an 11am start. He sauntered in at 11.35 without a care in the world and sat down next to me. I sarcastically held up my wrist and pointed to my watch, expecting an apology but he didn’t speak a word to me. He didn’t even acknowledge my presence, the arrogant so-and-so. No wonder fans used to bait him to the point where he exploded and famously jumped into the crowd to kung-fu kick one of them.

  THEIR

  SUPPORTERS HAD

  BEEN TAUNTING

  ME ABOUT A

  STORY THAT I

  HAD BEEN SEEN

  PLAYING BINGO

  WITH MY

  MOTHER-IN-LAW.

  Talking about abuse, I never took it personally. I was so laid-back it was water off a duck’s back. I’d had all the jibes about having a big nose when I was at school so I was used to that. I took it that the fans saw me as a threat and were trying to get at me. And the more anyone tries to get to me, the less I let them. I used to laugh it off and would even share a joke with the fans. I remember sitting on a wall at Upton Park during a break in play, and having some banter with their supporters who had been taunting me about a story that I had been seen playing bingo with my mother-in-law.

  Radio 5 Live had done a phone-in asking people about the strangest place they’d ever seen a footballer, and someone kindly rang in to say they had seen me in a bingo hall in Southampton. It was true—and I did take my mother-in-law. She had recently lost her husband and was trying to get her life back. She liked a game of bingo so I offered to take her. I quite enjoyed it and went a few times. I didn’t realize it would end up making headlines on the radio or that the Chicken Run at Upton Park would keep shouting ‘Clickety-click 66’. But I did have the perfect retort because I told them I had won £100 which was a week’s wages at the time.

  Inevitably I also got a lot of abuse when I played in a testimonial for former Pompey striker Steve Claridge. He was playing for Millwall when he called to ask if I’d play in his benefit game. I said that was fine and count me in, and went to hang up but thought I’d better check where it was, expecting him to say the New Den. Instead he said it was at Fratton Park. If ever there was time I wanted to re-wind a conversation, that was it. So I thought I may as well have a bit of fun. I knew they’d make me wear a Pompey kit so I had my own Saints shirt made up with ‘7 Scummer’ on the back, which was what Portsmouth fans called anyone who had even driven through Southampton.

  I hid it in my kit bag until just before kick-off when I told Steve Claridge I had a little surprise lined up if he could make sure we got a penalty at the Fratton end where their hard-core fans were gathered. Sure enough we got a spot-kick and I sent the keeper the wrong way to score. The boos rang out as I ran to the side of the goal, and the jeers became even louder when I took off my Portsmouth shirt to reveal the red and white stripes—until I turned my back to let them read what I had put on the shirt. It seemed to go down really well. It gave everyone a laugh—and it meant I got out alive. I wasn’t worried about it backfiring because I reckoned very few of them can read.

  The day was good fun, their fans gave plenty of good-natured stick but they appreciated that I had been good enough to turn out. I was gutted not to score with a dipping 35 yard volley which hit the underside of the bar and bounced out. It was pretty special even by my standards. Within seconds the crowd were chanting, ‘What the effing hell was that?’ It was quite a sharp response, not what you normally associate with Pompey fans. In fact, if I ever win the lottery I’ll buy Pompey. And if I get four numbers…

  A lot of ex-players find there is a big void after they retire but that wasn’t the case with me. I was awarded an honorary degree by Southampton University in 2004. I remember being very nervous having to make that speech to a group of students, most of whom had seen me propping up the bar at the local nightclubs when I was single. Then I had a pub named after me—Le Tissier’s Feet. A lot of people thought it was mine and I had to spend a lot of time denying it because it wasn’t the classiest establishment. The owner asked my permission and, as I lived 200 yards away at the time, I thought it would be quite funny to have my local named after me.

  I was also awarded the Freedom of the City, although I have yet to take advantage of the fact I’m now allowed to drive my sheep through the city centre. And I loved doing a radio show for a year or so, being the DJ for the club’s ill-fated radio station ‘The Saint’, one of Rupert Lowe’s worst business decisions. I believe he bought it for £1m and sold it for £1—the business equivalent of signing and selling Robbie Keane. It did provide me with one stand-out moment when I got to interview the music legend Chesney Hawkes whose only real hit, fittingly, was called ‘The One and Only’. I love that song so much. It was quite an iconic song for me because it was used as the soundtrack for my greatest goals video. I was thrilled to meet him. He was a lovely bloke and very down to earth.

  I remember one scam on ‘The Saint’, not quite on a par with the recent Ofcom voting and competition phone-in scandals, but I feel it’s time to own up. Each week we used to give away two tickets to the next home match. In those days they were all sold out. I had promised a mate a couple of tickets but had forgotten to get them. So I told him the question in advance and got him to ring up with the right answer. Mind you, in those days the radio station was only on Sky digital so we only ever got half a dozen people calling in.

  I was a club ambassador for Saints for the first year after I hung up my boots, which was really only a nominal title to keep me involved in the club. It was money for old rope because all I had to do was be a match day host and entertain the corporate guests, that’s in the days when the club used to have them. Effectively I was paid £500 a match to have a posh meal, the perfect job. Maybe Rupert Lowe felt guilty about the way he had treated me because that was almost as much as I used to earn as a player. On second thoughts, perhaps not.

  I did feel the club probably took advantage of me over the years, knowing that I didn’t want to leave. From a business point of view I can understand it but when you consider what I did for the club, I do feel they could have offered me more generous terms. That wasn’t just on the field but putting bums on seats and boosting merchandise sales. Some recognition would have been nice. And on top of that Francis Benali, Jason Dodd and I put a huge amount of time and effort into helping on the community side. If ever there was an event which needed attending at short notice, they always asked one of us. And we were happy to do it. Rupert Lowe certainly never invited me to be a special guest in the directors’ box. That has only happened once since I retired when I was guest of honour for the England v Macedonia international at St Mary’s. It was a huge honour to be asked by the FA to meet the teams.

  It’s worth adding that clubs do ha
ve a tendency to look after players who they’ve brought in rather better than their home-grown talent. I’m pretty sure that Mark Hughes was on a lot more than me, and he did far less for the club or the community than I ever did. Most of the time I didn’t know what other players were on. It was only towards the end that I began to realize. Financially I would have been a lot better off if I had been more mercenary and a pain in the backside, but that isn’t in my nature.

  It made me laugh when people used to speculate about how much I was on with Saints because they were always way off the mark. I remember watching a Sky Sports feature on wages during the final year of my contract, and they estimated that after so long at the club I had to be on about £25,000 a week.* I wish. I did well out of my testimonial, though, thanks to the efforts of my committee who really put in the hours. I probably netted about £650,000 which went to pay off my house in Guernsey and the legal costs of my divorce, which were over £100,000. That still rankles because it was needless expenditure. It was money which would have been far better spent on the kids. I had to pay all my own expenses and half of my ex-wife’s. At one point I was £105,000 overdrawn at the bank, which was an interesting position to be in.

  Over the years I let quite a lot of money slip through my hands but the bank was brilliant. It knew I was going to get my testimonial cash. The manager understood football and my situation. He was on my committee as treasurer so he knew better than anyone what was coming in. That was in the days when banks used to give credit. I’m not sure they would be so understanding now.

  I still get offers of work, and thankfully I don’t have to accept the less attractive ones, like I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here. The money on offer was nowhere near enough for a fortnight of hell, suffering such revolting creatures. But enough about Ant and Dec. Even a million pounds wouldn’t have got me in the jungle eating fat live maggots with bulging eyes and disgusting bodily parts. I didn’t spend a lifetime eating burgers and chips only to go and lose it all on starvation rations.

  I did speak to the producers about doing Celebrity Big Brother. I was quite interested in doing that, and we even had a meeting in my agent’s office. I thought it would be quite nice to sit around doing nothing for a couple of weeks and getting paid for it. I ‘d be good at that. And I would have enjoyed winding up some of the precious little luvvies and pricking their egos. It could have been good fun.

  That was the year Caprice appeared. She was going out with Tony Adams at the time and I wanted to meet her just to say, ‘Tony Adams? Are you sure?’ But the offer never got off the ground. They kept stalling about who was going in, and all that time I was turning down offers of work just to keep those dates free. In the end I decided I couldn’t afford to keep doing that so I rang and said no.

  I’ve continued to do Question of Sport, though God knows why they keep asking me back because I have a shocking record. They don’t give you the answers, which is a bit mean. I’ve done They Think It’s All Over where they do give you the questions well in advance to give you chance to think up some funny comments. But when you have someone like Jonathan Ross on the show it is hard to get a word in edgeways. Even on his own chat show it is hard for guests to have their say because it is all about him and he just talks over them. But if there’s ever a reality golf show, count me in.

  * * *

  * To give you an idea how bad I was at money, I bought my first house in the late Eighties for £62,000 and sold it a year later for £45,000 because I wanted more space. I bought a three-bedroom place for £105,000 and then sold it for £87,000. I must be the only property tycoon to start at the top and work his way down. There was a lot of negative equity around at the time but I had been advised to invest in bricks and mortar so I did. After that, I thought I’d play safe—so I bought a nightclub!

  And when I was offered a new contract in my last season, in 2001, it was worth a maximum of £3,450 a week, good money by most people’s standards but not then in the Premier League. Hassan Kachloul had been on around half that, but when he was out of contract he turned down an offer from Saints of £14,000 per week, describing it as an insult. I wish someone had insulted me like that. In fact they could have been really rude and offered me just £7,000 a week. Instead Hassan agreed to sign for Ipswich for around £24,000 and then changed his mind and went to Villa for £28,000 a week. He played the first half of the next season until a change of manager meant he fell out of favour and he sat in the Reserves on a huge salary for two and a half years.

  24

  FAIRWAY TO HEAVEN

  ‘IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN AN UNORTHODOX WAY OF

  DOING IT BUT I MADE IT ONTO THE LEADERBOARD

  AT A EUROPEAN TOUR EVENT’

  After football, golf has always been my great passion. Retirement has given me the chance to play some of the world’s best courses and to see some top players close-up through caddying for my close friend Richard Bland, who is making a name for himself in the game.

  I first caddied for him the season before I retired, in a Challenge Tour event in France, golf’s equivalent of the Championship. The problem was that pre-season training began on the Monday, the day after it finished, and the only flight I could get back was on the Sunday afternoon. So, I caddied on the Thursday, Friday, Saturday and half of the final round on the Sunday. When I left Richard at the eleventh hole he was right up among the leaders, but he fell away badly without my help and guidance and only finished tenth!

  For a bloke who loves his golf as much as I do, it was a great experience. Richard was quite impressed and said if he ever made it onto the main tour he’d let me caddy for him again. I didn’t think anything of it because he didn’t look like getting his European tour card at that stage, but he scraped into the final event by sinking a massive putt on the final hole. It was the equivalent of Saints staying up on the final day of the season.

  He had a magnificent final round to win that tournament, which catapulted him into the top 15 earners by winning his European card. And he kept his promise. I was still under contract at Southampton so I had to pick an event at the end of the season and chose The Scottish Open at Loch Lomond, a place where I’d been lucky enough to play. It went pretty well apart from the fact it rained the whole time we were up there, something I forgot to take into consideration when picking that event. The umbrella was up and down all week, and the bags were pretty heavy so my shoulder was killing me by the end.

  Richard easily made the cut and was five under par after three rounds. He had a reputation for being harsh with his caddies and had already got through a couple that season, but he went easy on me as I was doing it free of charge. I said to him, ‘If I make a mistake it will be a genuine one and if you shout at me, I’m off.’ On the second day we were stood at the tee of the sixth hole, a par five with the loch down the right side. I stood the bag upright and, just as he was about to tee off, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that it was about to topple over. Richard was mid-swing and I told him to ‘Stop’, just as the bag crashed to the floor. I was so embarrassed but, fair play to him, he remembered what I had said—and eventually smiled. I picked up the bag and he went through his routine again and I thought, ‘If this shot goes in the water, I’m dead.’ He must have read my mind because he over-compensated and pulled it left, missing the fairway. He then left himself with a 4 foot putt for par, and I knew he’d blame me if he dropped a shot. The ball hit the side of the cup, looped around it and, almost in slow motion, dropped in.

  As he was playing the eighteenth on the final day, he looked at the scoreboard intently and said if he birdied that hole it would probably qualify him for the British Open the following week because all the other players above him were exempt. He asked what I was doing that week, and I said I thought I could make myself available if necessary. There was a lot riding on his putt and I studied it closely, trying to look as though I knew what I was doing. It was 12-15 foot and he asked what I reckoned. I said, ‘You need this putt to get into the Open and you’re aski
ng me?’ He hit a fabulous shot which missed by just 1inch.

  Richard finished twenty-first and picked up £28,000—and didn’t have to pay his caddy who would normally have got something like £600 a week plus five per cent of the prize money—making almost as much as I earned as a footballer. Richard did pay for our room at the De Vere for the week though. With all the room service I ordered, it would have been cheaper to have paid me commission.

  It was a fantastic experience being part of a big tournament, but the best moment came after the third round when Richard went to the driving range and suggested I watch. Suddenly I was aware that someone else had begun hitting balls in the next bay. I turned round and saw Ernie Els, my great golfing hero. I’ve always loved the way he plays and how he makes the game seem so easy and effortless. I admit I was totally star-struck, and Richard got his camera to take a picture of me and Ernie together. It is still one of my most treasured possessions. I was like a big kid and said, ‘Sorry to interrupt you but I think you are a fantastic golfer.’ I couldn’t believe it when he said, ‘And I think you are a fantastic footballer.’ I was so chuffed that he had even heard of me.

  A year or so later, I played a celebrity tournament in Singapore with my former teammate David Hirst, cricketer Darren Gough and rugby player Jeremy Guscott. They took their partners but I was single so I took my brother Carl and, as a result, I spent the entire tournament well under the influence. We stayed on afterwards and took part in a pro-am. I played with Richard Bland, Hirsty and Darren Gough, who has remained a mate ever since. Before our round we went to watch Ernie Els. He hit a drive to within 15 yards of where I was standing and, as he walked up to the ball, he spotted me and called, ‘Alright Matt? How are you doing?’ The others were gobsmacked and I felt 10 foot tall.

  At that time I was jetting all over the world playing golf, but I had to come back in February 2003 because I had paid £700 at a charity auction for my son Mitchell to be the Liverpool mascot. Even though I played for Southampton he was a Liverpool fan, though now I’ve retired he is an out and out Saints supporter. I flew back from Australia for that—and it was a rubbish 0-0 game. I blame the mascot.