In my last two years at school, I was in serious training. Dad used to drive me to all my practices and games. He had been working as a postman for a few years by then. He would do a night shift from 11pm until 4am, sleep a few hours during the day, and then drive me to practice before going to work again. There’s no way I would have been able to do any of it without the help and support of my parents. I am forever grateful to them for all they did.
Paul got the same support, and he played for Basingstoke for a while, but his heart wasn’t invested quite as deeply as mine. I’m sure he could have made it as a professional player too if he’d pushed himself, but he had other, stronger interests. He was always very supportive of me, though, coming to games and proudly cheering me on.
Of course we had our brotherly fights, meaning proper physical fights. He was the older brother, I was the annoying little brother, so he was always telling me to get lost and stop bothering him, which obviously goaded me on. Dad would drag us off each other telling us we had to stop fighting and be kinder to each other because we were brothers; his own brother had fled to Australia in slightly dubious circumstances and he’d hardly seen him as an adult, so he wanted Paul and me to be close and appreciate each other. We did appreciate each other deep down. But we were also average teenage boys who showed their love through giving each other bruises and black eyes.
Hampshire Cross Country Championships
I had an early lesson in dealing with criticism and overcoming challenges. At the age of 14, I returned home from a training camp down in Portsmouth and Dave Hirst was soon on the phone to my dad telling him I had to work on my fitness. Other players were fitter and I had to do something about it.
You would expect most sporty youngsters to be athletic and fit but you need to raise the bar if you want to make it at the top. I was surprised when Dave called but I wanted to be the best player I could possibly be and I was determined that I would do anything to increase my fitness levels.
So what do you do if you’re a dad and you have just been told your son is not fit enough? You enter him in the Hampshire Cross Country Championships for under 14s! This was a three-race competition, over a month. The Championship medal winner was determined by the average position over the three races. I was up against all the best runners in the county under the age of 14 who had, in all probability, run these distances many times before. The only time I had done anything like this was in school PE when we went around Down Grange fields. It was always muddy and wet.
The first race was no different. The rain had been falling and the course was full of mud. The first race was a shock to the system but I went on to come first against a field of nearly 60 teenagers. In the second race I knew what to expect and, even though I felt nervous, I went on to win that race too. So now I had won the first two races and only had to come in the first three on the final race to be crowned champion. And this is what I did.
The third race didn’t go as planned but I still finished in the first three and was duly announced as the Hampshire Cross Country Champion for the under 14s. I remember finishing the last race and sitting down on the soggy grass to take my spikes off, saying to dad “I’m never doing that again!” My dad laughed. We often speak about that day still.
Apprenticeship begins
As soon as I turned 16, I signed my apprentice contract with Portsmouth and left school without looking back. It was one of the proudest moments of my life, turning up at Portsmouth Football Club’s ground, Fratton Park, for my very first day as a professional footballer along with all the other lads who were starting that season. We already knew each other because we’d all been playing on schoolboy contracts for the youth team for a couple of years, so there was a great atmosphere; it was incredibly exciting.
Mum and dad drove me to the ground and I was taken to the boardroom along with the other new apprentices to sign all the paperwork and complete the formalities, which included having our photos taken. We were all wearing our best suits and feeling very grown up.
We all got a signing fee of £200. I gave my fee to mum and dad; I knew they wanted a new stereo and it would help to pay for that. I wanted to show them how grateful I was; they’d helped make my dream of becoming a professional footballer come true. I could never thank them enough for that. As they drove away, I had a real lump in my throat and a tear in my eye. Up to this point in my life, they’d always been there; now, for the first time in my life, I was alone. I was a professional, a grown up, I had to knuckle down and do my apprenticeship. I was excited, but more than a little nervous.
I shared my first digs with my mate, Brendan O’Connell, an Irish lad who’d grown up in London. He was cool. We had so many laughs together and with the family we lived with. We got a weekly wage of £26 and I felt rich. All our living expenses – basically food and board – were paid for by the club, so the £26 was just spending money. It went pretty far in those days.
The main objective was to work towards getting a professional contract; that was the goal of every apprentice. At the start, I was just happy to be there. I couldn’t believe I was getting paid, every week, for doing something I loved. I knew I was fortunate in that. I never took it for granted.
So that was it. At the age of 16, I left school and started the next adventure of my life, as an apprentice at Portsmouth Football Club. That’s where I met one of the greatest mentors of my life: Alan Ball.
Chapter Two: On the Ball
Getting to know Alan
AS THE YOUNGEST member of England’s 1966 World Cup winning team, no one knew about the pressures on young footballers better than Alan Ball. He was in charge of Portsmouth’s youth team when I joined and he immediately became my mentor.
I’d known Alan for a while already by then. He would often come and watch the Portsmouth schoolboy training sessions and chat to my dad while I was training. He and dad got along great, which helped to reassure me as I adjusted to living away from home for the first time. My dad’s opinion was important to me, so it was natural for me to respect someone dad liked and respected too. I looked up to Alan and came to regard him as my football dad.
You never knew who you might meet when you were with Alan. Before I’d started my apprenticeship, when I was 15 and still at school, I’d been asked to play for the Portsmouth reserves a couple of times. If the squad was down a few players, due to injuries, one of the reserve team would go up to play for the first team, and then I got to play for the reserves. Even though I was 15 and still on a schoolboy contract, Alan believed I could hold my own against seasoned professionals. It was great experience.
On one occasion when they needed me to play, for some reason dad wasn’t able to get me there, so Alan offered to pick me up and bring me back after the game. He arrived at our house in his big fancy Mercedes. I remember sitting in the back and dreaming of owning one some day. I thought maybe if I stuck around Alan, some of his success might rub off on me.
The game went well that night. We must have won because I remember being in a great mood before we left. As we were getting in the car, Alan told me we had to drive over to the other side of the pitch before we set off home, because someone was waiting to talk to him. I could see this man in the distance but, at that point, I didn’t think much of it. Nothing could have prepared me for what happened next!
We drove around the ground and pulled up where this man was standing. He got into the passenger seat next to Alan and turned around to say hello to me. I couldn’t believe my eyes – it was Bobby Moore! The captain of England’s 1966 World Cup winning team was sitting right in front of me; he was saying hello to me. Then Alan introduced us so now he knew my name. Bobby Moore knew my name! I was stunned.
I sat back in my seat as Alan and Bobby talked, thinking it must mean something that