How NOT to be a Football Millionaire - Keith Gillespie My Autobiography (6 page)

A relaxed approach suited our circumstances. Given our size relative to other nations, the odds were stacked against us, and the players, media and fans were all in it together. I loved pulling on the shirt because of that togetherness and was determined to be there for my country, through good times and bad.

My second campaign was a struggle. We paid for our missed opportunity in the Euro qualifiers, and landed a group with Germany, Portugal, and an emerging Ukrainian side. As low seeds, it was always the risk. Our home form killed us. Ukraine won in Belfast and another new nation, Armenia, took away a point. We never got going after that and finished fifth, miles off the pace.

The IFA decided not to renew Bryan’s contract, believing that we had underachieved. He felt like he’d been stabbed in the back. I’d had a few disagreements with Bryan, but he was a good person, and was a source of support for me long after he left the job.

History has judged his tenure kindly. Unfortunately, after his departure, a troubled period for Northern Irish football was looming over the horizon.

8

£7m Man

WHEN I travelled to Sheffield for an FA Cup tie on January 9, 1995, I was expecting it to be just another game in my football education. Instead, it was a night that would change my life for ever.

There was a bug going around the camp and, after doing alright against Coventry, I was disappointed when the team was named at the hotel and I wasn’t even on the bench. But I’d been that soldier before so I got on with the normal routine, went to the ground, and was standing in my suit in the away dressing room while the lads were getting changed when the gaffer pulled me aside and said he wanted to have a word.

We went into the toilets at Bramall Lane, and he cut to the chase.

“I’ve put this bid in for an English striker with Newcastle, and the only way the deal will go through is if you go there. Do you want to think about it?”

I just about managed to mutter a yes.

“There’s no pressure. Just have a think and we’ll talk about it after the game.”

I knew straight away that Andy Cole was the player involved. We had an idea the gaffer was looking for a striker and it was always likely to be an Englishman because of the UEFA criteria on foreign players. I just didn’t expect that I would somehow be involved. I walked out of the toilet and said nothing to the lads as they went out to take on Sheffield United. My head was spinning.

I had no agent at the time, nobody on speed dial who handled this sort of thing. So, I was locked in my own world. I sat next to Ben Thornley during the game and hardly paid attention to events on the field. With all sorts of thoughts racing around my mind, I started picking Squeaky’s brain without telling him what was happening.

Ben had actually been sitting next to me on the bench when Newcastle came to Old Trafford, and we had remarked on the noise from their fans. I casually brought up the subject again. “So what do you think about Newcastle?” I said. “Would that be a good club to play for?” He was very positive, wondering aloud what it must be like to experience that kind of atmosphere every week. I agreed with his sentiments and, before the game was over, told him that it wasn’t a hypothetical discussion for me. This was the real thing. And, in a short space of time, I had already come around to the conclusion that I was going for it. That was my gut instinct.

Although I had three years left on my contract, the fact that Newcastle United wanted me now was decisive. Kevin Keegan wouldn’t be looking for me unless he was going to put me in his team, and regular Premier League football in a passionate place carried a serious appeal. My life’s mission had been to establish myself at Manchester United, but now my head was turned by a new Plan A.

I went down to the dressing room where the word was out. Steve Bruce, a Geordie, came straight over and said it would be a fantastic move. Brian McClair said the same thing. They were already preaching to the converted.

From there, it all happened very quickly. A private car arrived to take the gaffer and I to a hotel in Sheffield where a contingent from Newcastle were waiting.

This was new territory. I’d never entered these kind of negotiations before, and the gaffer must have sensed what I was thinking. “Look,” he said, “if you’re happy enough, I’ll sort out the deal here and make sure it’s a good one for you.”

He told me to ring my mum who thought it was bad news when the phone rang close to midnight. The gaffer asked to speak to her and explained the situation, promising that he would do his best for me. She trusted him, and gave her consent. My manager was now my agent.

We then headed for a private meeting room where Keegan, the Newcastle chief executive Freddie Fletcher, and board member Freddy Shepherd were sitting around a table.

This was a serious deal for both parties. Cole was the form player in the Premier League, and it was obviously important for the gaffer that the negotiations went well.

But he was looking out for me too. I copped on to that pretty early in discussions. We were talking money and I was sitting there, as a £250 a week player, unsure how much I could reasonably look for.

The gaffer was two steps ahead. “Keith’s on £600 a week at the moment so he’ll be looking for an increase on that,” he announced. I put on my best poker face and rolled with it, wondering if this was normal. In those days, I was an innocent lad about the ways of football.

But while I was trying to look cool about my fictional wage, the Newcastle lads didn’t seem too unhappy. They were happy to double it and put me on a similar contract to Lee Clark, a local lad who was making a big impression. As they talked figures, the gaffer took out a pen and paper and started doing the sums and working on the multiples, scribbling away while I made small talk. It was a bit surreal.

Keegan was selling the club to me, although he was hardly going to talk about his other transfer targets with a rival manager sitting there. He spoke about wanting to build a team to challenge, and how he felt I could make a serious contribution. After an hour or so of easy chat, I shook hands on a deal worth £1,200 a week, with a £175,000 signing-on fee to be paid in instalments across my four-year contract.

My temporary agent had served me well. He asked if I was happy on the trip back to Manchester and, beyond saying yes to that, there was little to say. There was no dramatic goodbye, but I couldn’t say a bad word about how he handled it. He looked after me. I was in a lift at York races many years later when the doors opened and Sir Alex and his wife walked in, and my natural instinct was to sharpen up because he was the boss, even though we hadn’t worked together in years. That was his influence, his presence. Maybe a different character would have spent that last car journey through the night searching for answers about why they were being let go but I understood his reasons for doing the deal. My mind was already focused on the future.

I had an idea that a hectic few days lay ahead, yet it was only the following afternoon, when the news broke, that the scale of the transfer really hit home. It was a British transfer record deal, valued at £7 million, with Newcastle receiving £6 million and my £1 million valuation making up the rest. Keegan had refused to do business until my presence in the switch was guaranteed.

The rest of that week was a whirlwind. I went to the Cliff, grabbed my football boots, said my goodbyes and then a car arrived to bring me to Newcastle. Just like that. After spending so long at the club, it ended abruptly. That’s how it goes in football. You may live and work beside people every day and then, out of the blue, you are shaking hands and wishing them well on their next journey.

Up in Newcastle, Keegan was firefighting, so I posed with his assistant, Terry McDermott for the publicity photos. I was whisked away to stay in Freddie Fletcher’s house to throw any press off the scent. Some Newcastle fans were so furious at Cole’s departure that they gathered at the ground to protest. Keegan went out to the steps of the Jackie Milburn Stand to address them, and plead for patience.

I admired his approach. Few managers would have done the same.

On the Thursday, I reported at Newcastle’s Maiden Castle training ground in Durham to be introduced to my new team-mates and stretch the legs. I wouldn’t be involved in that weekend’s game as, by freakish coincidence, Manchester United were visiting St James’ Park. Part of the deal was that neither myself or Andy would be involved. So, after my driver took me down to Viv’s to pick up the rest of my possessions, I was given permission to fly to Belfast and appear on the main late-night talk show in Northern Ireland which was presented by a guy called Gerry Kelly.

Four days after heading to Sheffield as a low-profile Manchester United player, I was sitting in a green room with Michael Flatley from Riverdance and the actress, Dame Thora Hird. I have little recollection of what I said. My mother was invited on stage and asked if she was a calming influence in my life. She said my feet were firmly on the ground already. That balance was about to receive a stern test.

The following morning, I checked into the Gosforth Park Hotel, my home for the next five months. Shay Trainor, a Northern Irish guy who I’d befriended in Manchester, came up with a few of his pals and we decided to head out and see what a Saturday night in Newcastle had to offer.

We didn’t know where the hot spots were, so headed in blind, down to the Quayside where we dropped in and out of a few bars. Suddenly, I was the centre of attention, on a different level to anything I had tasted in Manchester with people queueing up for photos or looking for me to sign this and that. Eventually, we wound up in Tuxedo Royale, a nightclub on a boat, with an attractive entourage. Some of the girls came back to the hotel’s late bar. I didn’t kick a ball, but I had no problem scoring on my first weekend in Newcastle.

I woke to an unexpected headache on the Sunday morning. The back page of the Sunday Mirror claimed that Ferguson had got rid of me because he couldn’t control my behaviour off the pitch. There was nothing to back it up. I turned up at the ground for the game, fearing some kind of backlash, and Keegan was sitting there, laughing, waving the paper at me. “What’s all this then?” he said, with a smile. He could see right through it.

(Shay knew solicitors in Manchester who got on the case, and Ferguson offered to come forward as a witness. A year later, I received my first libel settlement, a sum of £17,500.)

Sitting on the bench that afternoon was a strange experience. I was rooting against Manchester United for the first time in my life. I’d been invited into the away dressing room before the game to have a chat with the lads, but when Paul Kitson scored for Newcastle in a 1-1 draw, I was off my feet celebrating. That’s how soon it changes.

I made my debut the following Saturday at Hillsborough – Sheffield was a landmark location for me that season – as a substitute. That went well enough to secure a start for the visit of Wimbledon. The club flew my family over for the game, and I hit the ground running, skinning their full-back Alan Kimble in the first minute. Instantly, the home crowd were on my side.

A couple of weeks later, I was on the scoresheet twice, when Manchester City came to town for an FA Cup tie. I had the measure of my marker, David Brightwell, and collected the man of the match award in front of the Sky cameras. From getting a game here and there at Manchester United, I was now in the thick of the action, and loving every second.

Off the field, my pace of life had also changed completely. I was a young, carefree, single man with plenty of cash, few commitments and the luxury of staying in a beautiful hotel with all expenses paid. I made the most of my time in Room 131. The social life was fantastic. Younger lads like Lee Clark, Robbie Elliott, Steve Watson and Steve Howey all knew the town inside out and I slipped into the groove pretty easily, working hard and partying hard.

I was generally out three times a week. After a while, I fell into a routine. Fixtures permitting, Wednesdays and Saturdays would centre around the bars on the Quayside. Sunday was the Bigg Market, a legendary area packed with pubs and revellers, where we would start at one end, crawl down a familiar route and finish up in a place called Masters.

A lot of weekends followed the same path as the first one, with a new friend or two coming back to the residents’ bar. I had to be careful who I invited, though, as I had become such a part of the furniture at the hotel that I actually started seeing a girl who worked on reception. If she was working a late shift at night and then up early for the morning, she’d sneak up to my room. But I had to be careful about bringing other girls back. I soon learned what a goldfish bowl the city was, and got used to reported sightings of myself in places I had never been.

That was a warning of things to come but at that point I was too young to care. I was busy enjoying all the perks. With the Premiership expanding into a league of global interest, TV money was making clubs richer, and players were beginning to really enjoy the benefits. It was a good time to be coming of age.

I turned 20 the day I scored against City, and also passed my driving test in the same week. The club had put me on a crash course when I signed, and a month later I was a proud licence holder. Immediately after receiving the good news, I was whisked to a garage to pick up a car from Rover, who were sponsors at the time. Every six months, we got an upgrade. Boot companies were equally generous and started sending me whatever new stock they had with the intention of getting my endorsement. It was just a matter of shopping around. I chose Adidas Predators and the PFA sent Brian Marwood, the ex-Arsenal winger who is now on the executive staff at Manchester City, to do the negotiations. I signed for £12,000 a year plus bonuses for goals, international caps and other add-ons.

The cheques kept dropping in, and I was on a high. There was slight disappointment around the club when we finished the season in sixth spot, considering they had challenged for top spot in the first half of the campaign. However, Keegan had major plans for the summer with a view to a launching a real challenge the following season, and I was confident of being a big part of that.

Football-wise, nothing fazed me. In the space of five months, I had come a long way. There was just one thing I didn’t quite have under control.