It would actually keep me awake at night, obsessing over the littlest mistakes my dad had scolded me for in some regular Under-10 or Under-11 game. It didn’t matter that I’d scored. I’d lie there angry at myself for the ones I hadn’t put in the back of the net. If a missed opportunity had meant a draw instead of a win, because I’d made the decision to go for power rather than simply pass the ball into the net, I’d beat myself up over it. I know that sounds ludicrously perfectionist for a kid of ten, but you’ve got to have that kind of drive to succeed in football. My commitment and passion were on a different level from either of my brothers’—and to this day, no one in the family knows exactly why.
I wasn’t a normal kid. I’m the first to admit it. I was definitely not normal. I was so obsessed with football that when I got up in the morning, the first thing I did was look at my boots, making sure they were clean and spotless. Not a speck of dirt or a grass stain better be on them. They had to look brand new. I had various official team kits. I especially loved the Manchester United kits—the green and yellow away shirt and the classic red home kit with the tie-up front. I’d make sure they were all hung up, clean and neat in the closet, looking just like they were in a shop window.
Before I left for school, I’d have my Lakemba or Canterbury Reps kit all laid out for when I got home, knowing I’d have after-school training. Boots spotless, shin pads perfect, my socks neatly laid out across the bed. When it was time to leave I had my trainers on, my boot bag ready, my water bottle filled—my parents didn’t have to do a thing. I already had that focussed mind-set of a full-time footballer.
At a very young age I was self-disciplined and an extreme perfectionist. I can’t recall a time when I wasn’t this way: my brother Sean used to tease me about it. He still does, because I’m known as the one of the three boys who can’t stand clutter, disorganization or anything out of order in my home or with my clothes.
I realize now, in hindsight, that in the six or seven years since I’d started playing football, a combination of my perfectionist personality, good role models, opportunities to play—even my mum’s Samoan whacks with her sandal and my dad’s post-match analysis—all of it turned a passion for the game of football into an obsession that would soon consume my life.
GOLDEN BICYCLES AND OLYMPIC DREAMS
FOOTBALL BECAME MY WHOLE WORLD. I fell hopelessly in love with the game. The only friends I had were my footballing friends. I had mates at school, but we didn’t get together after school. I really didn’t have a spare minute. I was so engrossed in the game that I watched it and trained every day. More importantly, I was learning to respect the game.
At the age of seven, my dad took me to meet a key figure, a man who was to play a pivotal role in transforming my game. His name was Johnny Doyle. Johnny Doyle was the local guru of football, a former player turned coach, who was known for bringing out the best in players though private clinics and lessons.
Before we even met, my dad told me about Johnny Doyle’s past: born in Ireland, he came to Australia and played professionally at centre-forward for various teams like South Sydney Croatia, Pan Hellenic, APIA Leichhardt and Canterbury-Marrickville Olympic. He’d even been called up for the Australian national team in 1970. After his playing days he became a coach at a high level for football teams in Australia.
Johnny had the build of a classic No. 9—the strong centre-forward. A big dominating presence. He also had a schoolteacher’s mentality. He was a mathematics teacher at Kingsgrove North High School, where I would be enrolled a few years later.
I started doing sessions with Johnny Doyle at the age of seven and continued until I was fifteen. Meeting him for the first time, I was excited but nervous. Here was this coach who’d made dozens of good players into great ones. And, according to my dad, there were even some players who used to train with Johnny Doyle right before they went overseas to trial with professional clubs.
That was my dream. Somehow getting an overseas trial. Johnny was like the finishing act: the master trainer before any kid—any good Sydney-based player—jetted overseas. My dad’s opinion, at least, was that the only way I was going to make it as a professional footballer was under the tutelage of Johnny Doyle.
He held his lessons on the little home pitch of St George Football Club. Simple clubhouse, locker room, three pitches. We used to park the car, jump over a little fence, then walk down this pathway to where Johnny Doyle would be waiting with his sack of footballs and his equipment. We’d do private lessons, just me individually, but also small group sessions of two or three. Those were usually with my brother Sean, and with a young player named David James who in later years would become one of my closest mates.
Straightaway, I saw that Johnny was a different style of coach from any I’d met before: he stressed close ball control, quick touches, two-footed shooting—a more European or Latin American style of technical football. He changed my entire sense of touch and way of striking the ball.
But the most important characteristic of Johnny Doyle’s style was belief. He took my game to the next level because he believed in me. Long before anyone else, he saw that I might really have a future in the sport. He recognized the intangibles: the drive, the fire, the passion. He saw that I loved football more than anything in the world besides my family. Some coaches just didn’t see it. They couldn’t look past my size.
Johnny Doyle used endless repetition to develop my close-control skills. There are no shortcuts: loads of touches. Left foot, right foot. Left foot, right foot. Over and over and over.
At training, we used to shoot against a brick wall. There was a small green door in the centre of the wall. We all called it the “magic door”. Hitting it meant you’d won a “golden bicycle”. Nothing fancy about these drills. Just a brick wall, a green door, and I’d shoot from fifteen or twenty metres out. We’d practise kicking against the wall over and over again, aiming for the green door.
Johnny Doyle’s objective was to make me two-footed. The drill was two touches with your left foot, pass, hit the wall, two touches, pass, and hit the wall again. Ideally you could take the touch—kill the ball completely—strike it cleanly and hit the green door, then Johnny would say you’d won a golden bicycle. If you could take the touch and hit the green with your left foot, you’d earn two golden bicycles.
A golden bicycle—man, it felt like you’d achieved something. It felt like scoring a goal in a competitive match. It was good fun, but if you were doing it with two other players there was added pressure.
Johnny Doyle would always tell me to concentrate on what I was good at: whether that was heading or my vision. To play to my strengths. As a kid, I could play in the middle and find a through-pass other players didn’t see. I always had a good sense of space and peripheral vision on the pitch.
We also worked for hours on all aspects of heading. People often say I’ve simply got an uncanny ability to jump, but it’s much more complex than that. If someone tests you and says, “Jump, Tim!” to touch the chalk line at the top of the wall, that’s a vastly different skill from jumping and heading a ball. The art of heading is leaping and being able to adjust to the ball mid-flight. Frequently, you’ll leap and, as the ball is making its cross, the spin on it will change its trajectory. It’ll dip, the wind will drop it; you’ll have to recalibrate your jump; not so high, bend over more. Heading well takes a combination of vertical leap, anticipation, intuition and a healthy dose of improvisation.
Here’s an example: take an in-swinging ball from the left. Most likely this will have been kicked by the left foot of the sender, causing it to curl into you. You don’t want to head an in-curling ball too hard because you have both the ball itself and the spin to account for. You need to let the ball touch your head and convert that natural power and spin of the cross into a directed header. If you try to make too much contact, you’re guaranteed to sky that ball