times at home. I would take Joanne out in the garden or in the front
room to play so Mum wouldn’t be tripping over a toddler while she was
cooking. When it came time to sit down, I used to have the job of laying
the table. Then, at secondary school, I opted to do Home Economics
– cooking, basically – because the alternative was a double period of
Science. I enjoyed being in the kitchen when I was at home anyway.
By the time I was thirteen, if Mum was working, she’d leave me to get
dinner ready for all of us. If she was cutting hair at home, I’d make cups
of tea and arrange little plates of biscuits for her clients while they were
there at the house.
There must have been some kind of mistake, because when I moved
on to secondary school – Chingford High in Nevin Drive – it turned
out they played rugby instead of soccer. Lucky for me, our rugby
teacher, John Bullock, was tough and disciplined but a lovely man. He
was great with all of us and always seemed to have a lot of time for
me. He was a fantastic teacher. He died a few years back, on the same
night I got sent off against Argentina in Saint-Etienne, but he was the
one teacher I stayed in touch with. Even after I first went up to Old
Trafford, I used to write to Mr Bullock, as well as go back to see him
and the school, which I think meant a lot to him. People have told me
since that he really adored me, and just talked about me all the time.
I don’t think Mr Bullock was very interested in soccer, but there were
that many of us boys going on at him, pestering him, that he agreed to
give it a go. And everything changed. As soon as we had a school
soccer team, we started winning leagues and cups, which was great
for us. It was great for the school, as well. Maybe the soccer helped me
to be happy there. I wasn’t that interested in lessons. I was cross-country
champion for the local borough and swam for Chingford High, but there
was only one thing I ever wanted to do with my life. I was lucky that I
had that drive from a really young age. Knowing what I wanted in the
future, what would have been the point in messing about along the
way? I got in trouble once or twice for being cheeky, like every schoolboy
does. But, most of the time, I kept my head down and did my homework:
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I used to pop into Alan Smith’s house and his mum, Pat, would help
me with some of it. She was really good at Maths, I remember, and
Alan was too. He’s in insurance now, working for Rothschild, and I run
into him now and again: he’s married and has moved away but he
works from an office in his mum and dad’s loft. The important thing
was that I never missed a day’s school, unless I was ill, at either Chase
Lane Primary or at Chingford High.
If it hadn’t been soccer, I don’t know what I would have ended up
doing when I grew up. I liked Music lessons and, at primary school,
they thought I had a decent voice. I sang a solo in the school choir just
before I left there. One subject I really enjoyed all through school was
Art. Even before I went to Chingford High, I loved drawing and painting.
As well as doing it at Chase Lane Primary, Joan had all the stuff we
needed for painting inside the hut in the park. On a rainy day at home,
I’d spend hours copying Disney cartoon figures out of comics. I seem
to remember Donald Duck was my specialty. As I got older, I began
drawing cartoon figures that I’d made up myself. Even the artwork
ended up coming back to soccer, though. Once I started playing for
Ridgeway Rovers, instead of Mickey and Donald, I started drawing
cartoons of games and the other people involved with the team: great
goals, complete with Stuart Underwood in the background, his speech
bubble describing what was going on in the rest of the picture.
Playing for the school team was the way into higher level soccer, of
course, and I was able to represent my District with Waltham Forest
and my County with Essex. I’ve been lucky to have such good coaching
ever since those evenings over in the park with Dad. Don Wiltshire and
Martin Heather were both great for me as a teenager, though they
couldn’t have been more different. Don, who managed the District side,
was this solid, well-built man with a deep voice and a way about him
that told you he knew exactly what he wanted for the team. When I
first started playing for Waltham Forest, it felt like being selected to play
for England.
People criticize schools soccer sometimes, saying it’s all about getting
the ball down the other end quickly, using kick and rush tactics, with
the bigger kids always being the ones who get a game. All I can say
is, it wasn’t like that for me at school, at District or County level. It took
me a little while to get into the side because I was so much smaller
than most of the other boys my age. But once I had a chance, Don and
Martin both used to encourage me, and the rest of the team, to play
to our strengths.
Martin Heather was the Essex manager and the exact opposite
to Don – or Stuart Underwood, for that matter. All the boys loved
him. Martin was also the sort of man that our mums would fancy:
quiet, always smart, very well-spoken. He was a very different kind of
coach, too. He hardly ever shouted, which meant that when he did
you knew he wasn’t happy. He really looked after us. I remember he
took us on a soccer tour to Texas when I was thirteen.
Though back then it didn’t make any difference to me if I was in
Chase Lane Park or at some tournament in a foreign country – either
way I was playing soccer. I vividly remember going with Essex to play
in America.
I love the States. I love the patriotism, the way of life. For once, I
didn’t even feel homesick. That trip was different because instead of
staying together, we lodged on our own with local families. The first
people I stayed with were Mexican. Their house was just a couple of
steps up from being a shack, to be honest, but they turned out to be
really nice people. They had a son who was taking part in the
competition.
They were mad about soccer and couldn’t do enough for me. All
my Essex team-mates were staying in these huge houses and being
driven around in huge cars. We’d just get in the pickup and drive down
to McDonald’s for breakfast every morning. I had such a great week
with that family: I sometimes find myself thinking about them even now.
Happy at home and playing as much soccer as I was, there was only
one worry in my life: I thought Manchester United were never going to
notice me down in London. The Ridgeway policy of young boys not
going off straight away to professional clubs didn’t bother me. I was
having a great time playing and training with the team and, because of
my dad, there was only one professional club I ever wanted to play for.
In the back of my mind I just had to trust that, if I got on and worked
hard, United would hear about me. What else could I do?
Word got around about the success of Ridgeway Rovers and we got
used to the scouts turning up at our games every week. I know my dad
was approached by scouts from West Ham and Wimbledon, as well as
from Arsenal and Spurs. When the time came to train with a professional
club, I had to choose between the two North London clubs, as I couldn’t
have gone to United anyway, unless we’d moved up to Manchester. I
chose Spurs. Maybe it had something to do with my grandad being
Tottenham mad. I remember saying to Mum at the time:
‘Grandad will be pleased, won’t he?’
Tottenham seemed a friendly club; back then David Pleat was the
manager. I just felt more at home there. The coaching was good and
Spurs had some excellent players of my age: Nick Barmby was in the
same group and so was Sol Campbell, who already had this great
presence about him. I don’t know what the coaches and the other lads
thought about me turning up to train in my Manchester United uniform.
I wasn’t going to hide the fact that I was a United fan, even though I
enjoyed my time at White Hart Lane.
Despite the interest from London clubs, for me it was always
Manchester United. I might have ended up being a supporter or playing
for them anyway, but I’m sure Dad was the main factor. He was the
original Cockney Red. And he was passing the passion on to me even
before I knew he was doing it. Dad was ten years old at the time of
the 1958 Munich Air Crash. He had already been following United but
the disaster turned it into a lifelong obsession for him. I think it was the
same for a lot of supporters of his generation. When I was young, we
used to talk about the United team of the time: Robson, Strachan,
蚂蚁加油更衣室打造完美球迷衫m
足球市场-更多更全的球星自传下载m
Hughes and the rest. But he used to tell me about the Busby Babes,
about the European Cup at Wembley, about Best and Stiles and Law
and Charlton. What other club could there have been for me? Here I
was, almost a teenager, with people saying they thought I had half a
chance of someday making it as a professional player. I don’t know
about United born; I was definitely United bred. And what kept me
going was the idea that, eventually, I’d get the call I’d been waiting for
ever since I’d first kicked a ball.
2
The Man in the
Brown Sierra
‘So, what have you got to tell me about
this young lad?’
‘What’s the matter, Mum?’
‘Lucky you had a good game today.’
‘Why?’
I’d been playing for my District side, Waltham Forest, away to
Redbridge. I must have been eleven. My dad had been working and
couldn’t come to watch, so Mum had taken me to the game. The ‘good
game’ was probably one of the best I ever had for that team, and
afterwards I remember coming out of the dressing room with the rest
of the boys. Mum was waiting for me. We got to the car park and I put
my bag in the back of the car. It was only then that I noticed she had
tears in her eyes.
‘Just lucky you had a good game.’
‘Yeah. But why?’
‘That man over there: he’s a Man United scout. They want to have
a look at you.’
I can still remember the rush of joy and excitement. There was relief
in there too. I burst into tears on the spot, just cried and cried. I couldn’t
believe how happy I felt. I’d wondered for such a long time if I’d ever
