Taking le Tiss. Matt Le Tissier

for the Millwall players because it gave them a real lift, but away teams never felt comfortable. I was stuck out on the wing so I was close to the crowd who were giving me fearful abuse. We were losing 2-1 with a minute to go when Glenn Cockerill broke through the inside right channel and the keeper brought him down, the ref pointed to the spot and I had the job of taking the penalty in front of their fans. It was the only time in my career I thought I might miss because I knew if I scored there’d be hell. But I came to my senses and sent Brian Horne the wrong way to get a point.

      I also got a couple of hat tricks in quick succession. My first for the club came in the return game against Wimbledon at Plough Lane in a match when Francis Benali got a red card for launching John Fashanu into orbit. To this day I have never seen a player go that high. He came down with ice. Of all the people for Franny to pick on. We were losing 3-1 when we went down to 10 men, but we came back to draw 3-3. I scored another penalty after Rod Wallace fell over. It wasn’t even a dive. John Scales was nowhere near him but the ref pointed to the spot, it was really funny. It was my second hat trick but I never got the ball—typical Wimbledon. My first goal took a deflection off Eric Young so they wouldn’t give it to me.

      Soon afterwards, against Norwich, I got my second hat trick at The Dell, which is still my favourite treble. The first goal was a tap-in from a Kevin Moore knock-down, but I really enjoyed the next two goals. I picked the ball up about 40 yards from goal and went on a dribble. I beat my old mate Andy Townsend but didn’t have the pace to get away from him. I found him back in my way so I beat him again and scored with a lovely low right-footer in off the post. Then Francis Benali nicked the ball off their winger and hit it up the left wing to me. Their defender committed himself and I nicked the ball past him. I was still a long way from goal and right out on the left touchline but I saw Bryan Gunn coming out a long way and wondered what he was doing. I didn’t have the energy to take the ball any further and I had the whole goal to aim at so I chipped it over him. The ball drifted and hit the inside of the far post and bounced in.

      At the end of that season I won the Barclays Young Eagle of the Year award and the PFA Young Player of the Year award. The PFA was a huge honour, being recognized by my fellow professionals, even more so when I saw the previous winners. The worst thing was having to make a speech. I had an idea I might have won—or at least got close—because my agent had been told to make sure I attended. And he wrote a speech for me, just in case. I’d never done any public speaking so he offered to help—and I reckoned that if an agent offered to help free of charge I must have won. And the organizers getting Saints legend Terry Paine to present the award was another big clue. I found myself rehearsing the speech in the toilets 15 minutes before the announcements. When Rod Wallace came third it was a double celebration.

      The Barclays Young Eagle award was a more low-key affair so I was able to wear an open-necked short-sleeved shirt with no jacket, although Chris Nicholl wasn’t too impressed by that. It was good of him to attend to support me, but I remember getting into an argument with him because I was convinced I could be a sweeper. That would have meant playing two hulking great centre-backs to win the ball and give it to me to ping around like Franz Beckenbauer or Glenn Hoddle, making me look like a world-beater. I was always cool under pressure so I felt I could do that—although I must admit part of me was winding Chris up, getting back at him for all the times when he’d kicked me in training.