I also need to single out my golf buddies Laurie Parsonage, Ben Johnson and Paul Mico, one of the best DJs in Southampton. I’m absolutely obsessed with golf and I will always be grateful to pro Richard Bland who allowed me to caddy for him on the European Tour, giving me the best time of my life outside football. He and his brother Heath are really good friends, along with taxi driver Mark Harris who has ferried Saints players around the city for years and knows all their secrets. If he ever wrote a book he’d make millions. In contrast, I must thank Mike Osman for costing me a fortune by persuading me to invest in a nightclub. Despite the huge loss, we have remained friends throughout, which must say something. I must also thank Big Dave and his wife Teresa who have been a big help in recent years.
Francis Benali and Claus Lundekvam are close mates but I have to thank all my former teammates, too numerous to mention individually, for doing my running and allowing me the licence to play the way I did. I couldn’t have done it without them, and it was nice to know they were prepared to graft on my behalf.
I want to thank all my former managers but especially Alan Ball—and it is so sad he isn’t here to read this. My time playing under him really defined me as a player and I must thank both him and Lawrie McMenemy for their joint efforts in finding the perfect position in the team for me. Thanks, too, to all the Saints staff I have worked with over the years, from the backroom team to the stadium personnel and, of course, I will always be grateful to all the Saints fans for their constant support and belief in me.
More recently I need to thank everyone at Sky for giving me the chance on Soccer Saturday and making me so welcome. They have ensured I can stay involved in football in a casual way, with no pressure or fear of getting the sack if results don’t go well. And finally I must thank the man who has put all these words to paper, Graham Hiley, who was lucky enough to follow my entire career as the Saints correspondent with the Southern Daily Echo. Obviously when I was playing I needed people around me to do all the hard work, so I thought I’d carry on in the same vein and get Graham to do the writing while I just sat and talked. It is a tactic which has worked well for me over the years and you wouldn’t want to change a winning formula—unless you are Ian Branfoot.
Even now people still ask me why I stayed with Southampton throughout my playing career when I probably could have earned a lot more money elsewhere. The fact is, I loved the club—and still do. That’s why it breaks my heart to see where they are now. And that’s why I almost gave up my job with Sky Sports to become the club chairman.
When I was playing we had four last-day escapes from relegation, some against almost overwhelming odds. And yet I always had a feeling that we would do it. Many fans say that it was all down to my goals but the fact is I couldn’t have scored them without ten players alongside me. We had such a fantastic team spirit that we somehow survived every crisis—and I loved being part of it.
We punched above our weight for years while we were at the homely but inadequate Dell. With a capacity of just 15,200, the club desperately needed to move to a new stadium in order to continue competing at the highest level. I was so proud that my goals helped keep us in the Premier League long enough for St Mary’s to be built—and when I retired at the end of the club’s first season in their new home, I felt the future was secure.
But somehow the spirit of Southampton seemed to seep away and, through a catalogue of errors, this great club has slipped into the third tier of English football for the first time in 50 years. Worse than that, it almost went out of existence altogether. The financial problems which had dogged the Saints for more than a year suddenly came to a head in April 2009 when the holding company went into administration. It meant an automatic 10-point deduction and certain relegation, and there was a very real chance that, after 125 years, the club might fold.
I have always said I would do anything I can to help the Saints, so when I was asked to front a consortium to save the club, I readily agreed. It would have meant giving up my cushy number talking about games in the warmth of the Sky Soccer Saturday studio. It would have meant getting a proper job for the first time in my life, working in an office, starting at 9am…and having to wear a tie! Perhaps it is for the best that our consortium couldn’t quite put the finishing touches to the deal. Thankfully, another group did manage to step in and save the club—and I genuinely wish them well. Meanwhile I can get back to working four days a month—pretty much the same as when I was playing…
‘YOU’LL NEVER PLAY
FOR ENGLAND, YOU’LL NEVER PLAY FOR ENGLAND!’ THAT WASN’T THE FANS CHANTING, IT WAS TERRY VENABLES AND GLENN HODDLE.
So how does a scrawny, incredibly talented kid from Guernsey get to play for England? I’ll tell you.
I grew up playing against three older, highly talented brothers—that sharpened me up. And then I flew to the mainland and joined the nearest top-flight club. Southampton. I played for the England Under-20s and B side and then, finally, when I was 25, I got the call. Terry Venables was the new England manager and I was in his in his first squad for a home friendly against Denmark. I couldn’t believe it. I came off the bench to replace Paul Gascoigne. It was a fairly low-key game but I felt 10ft tall when I went on. I didn’t get much chance to shine but we won 1-0 and I reckoned I was now on my way to becoming a regular. That was in 1994.
It had been my dream to play for England for as long as I can remember. I used to watch these superstars on a flickering black and white television and imagine that it was me pulling on the white jersey in the World Cup Finals. And yet, when the first call came, I didn’t go. I’d had a few training camps at schoolboy level but my first real international recognition came in 1987 when I was selected for the England Under-20 tour to Brazil. Saints were on a close-season trip to Singapore at the time and I was meant to fly direct from there to South America but I twisted an ankle. Chris Nicholl gave me a fitness test and effectively wrote me a note excusing me from games. It was nothing to do with the fact that I had a holiday booked in Tenerife.
I told Gordon Hobson, an older journeyman pro in the best sense of the word. He couldn’t grasp that I had turned down the chance to play for the Under-20 squad. He thought I was mad. Even at that young age I was a cocky git and I knew I was young enough to get in again the following year. And I did. Graham Taylor picked me along-side the likes of Neil Ruddock, David Howells, Kevin Pressman and Carl Leaburn, a tall skinny lad from Charlton who was a bit like John Fashanu and a real handful.
We played three games in Brazil. I scored in the first two with Neil Ruddock setting me up for one, and then Carl Leaburn was picked to play in the final match. It would have been his first appearance for England but he made the mistake of going shopping when he had been told to rest—and he bumped into Graham Taylor who promptly dropped him. It didn’t matter because it rained heavily and the match was called off. The humidity out there was unbelievable. I know I wasn’t the fittest but I was struggling to breathe after 10 minutes.
I never actually played for the England Under-21 side, probably because I was picked for the England B-team instead. I made my debut for them against the Republic of Ireland on what appeared to be a potato field in Cork. It was an awful day. It hammered down with rain, again—to the disgust of the VIPs including Southampton manager Chris Nicholl because they all had to sit out in the open. And all the subs had to sit on a gym