How NOT to be a Football Millionaire - Keith Gillespie My Autobiography (8 page)

The yearning for a bet lingered. Long, boring afternoons spent playing Super Mario could only amuse me for so long.

11

Pipped At The Post

MY gambling meltdown was merely a subplot in one of the most dramatic Premier League title races of the modern era.

The 1995/96 season should have been Newcastle’s year. Our collapse was the story that dominated the headlines. In horse racing parlance, we led early, idled in front, and got nabbed on the run-in by Manchester United.

The only surprise is that I didn’t have us backed.

Man United had started the season slowly, lulling everybody else into a false sense of security. Alex Ferguson had dispensed with Incey, Mark Hughes and Andrei Kanchelskis and placed his faith in the lads I had grown up alongside at the Cliff.

The Fledglings had matured, and a serious transition was underway. Butty and Gaz Neville were given even more opportunities, while Scholesy and Phil Neville were thrust into league action on a regular basis. Meanwhile, the departure of Kanchelskis to Everton a month before the new season left a vacancy on the right wing. Becks stepped into the breach. But he wasn’t the only option Ferguson had considered in the summer of 1995.

Six months after letting me go, he tried to buy me back.

It all came about during my early pre-season after the messing about in Canada. In unfortunate circumstances, I had some company. Jim, my loyal friend from home, was in Sandhurst training to join the army when a problem with his eyesight emerged. He was discharged, and understandably felt down in the dumps. Jim had always wanted to be in the army. I tried to lift his spirits, and invited him to Newcastle for a week. Every morning, I trained. Every night, we drank.

In the afternoons, we lounged around the house – I’d be having a few bets, of course – and this 0161 number kept flashing up on the phone. I didn’t recognise it so, as usual, I let it ring out. They never left a message. Then, one day, the phone flicked straight to answering machine, and I heard a distinctive unmistakeable Glaswegian voice.

“Keith, it’s Alex Ferguson...”

I leapt across the room to grab the handset, and got there just in time. True to form, he got to the point quickly. He explained that Kanchelskis was on the way out, and that he had been chatting with his staff about possible replacements. Brian Kidd had mentioned my name. He’d never thought about it until then.

“Are you interested in coming back?”

“Of course I would be...”

“Right, leave it with me...”

What else was I going to say? It was an instinctive response. I was never going to refuse Alex Ferguson and, ultimately, Manchester United were the biggest club in the world. My last contact with Newcastle had been a dressing down after some high jinks on international duty, so I just thought, “fuck it, why not?”.

The conversation was short. Jim was as shocked as I was, and we had plenty to chew over that night. But it never went any further. I waited for the phone to ring, but Ferguson never called again.

I spoke to Gaz Neville a lot – when my Manchester United-supporting mates wanted tickets he was the go-to guy – and he spoke to Peter Beardsley about it on England duty. Beardsley and Keegan were very, very close and Peter told Gaz that Ferguson had lodged a £4 million bid that was dismissed outright. I understood why. Considering I was a potential deal-breaker on the Cole transfer, Newcastle were hardly going to let Manchester United have both players. The club said nothing to me about it.

I was fine with that. Flattered, but not disappointed. I liked where I was and, as we burst out of the stalls and opened a clear advantage, the grass was greener in the North-East.

The gaffer wanted us to express ourselves, and assembled a talented team with a simple enough mission statement. Ginola had joined from PSG for £2.5 million and slotted in on the left, with myself on the right, and Rob Lee rampaging through the middle to provide support for Peter Beardsley and Les Ferdinand, who we’d signed for £6 million from QPR. The formula worked. While the cavalier approach left our defence exposed, we had so much firepower that management believed results would go our way if we played to those strengths.

We didn’t go overboard on tactics and training was fun. Mostly five-a-sides. Team-talks were short. If we’d won the week before, Keegan kept it to no more than a couple of minutes. He preferred to go around one-to-one and give individual pep talks. That kind of man-management was his strong point. Big Les always said that the gaffer had this special way of making you feel like the best player in the world, and I related to that.

Until Christmas, we were practically unstoppable. Certain games stand out for me. We murdered Manchester City at St James’ Park in September; it could have finished 30-1 instead of 3-1. Chelsea were the next visitors, in front of the Sky cameras, and I was man of the match in a 2-0 success, even though a former World Footballer of the Year, Ruud Gullit, was on the same park.

By January, we had opened up a 12-point lead. Losing at Old Trafford on December 27 didn’t check our momentum. Instead, that setback was followed up with five successive wins.

The game in Manchester halted my progress though. I suffered a ruptured abdomen, a really unusual injury that left me on the sidelines for five weeks, just as the Black Friday story was about to break. The good vibes in the dressing room were a welcome distraction from my own troubles.

As a group, we revelled in the euphoria our exploits had created around Newcastle. We went out together every couple of weeks, and attendance was compulsory. The bonding sessions always began with a meal in a classy place called Unos, who reserved a private area, and we moved on from there. Peter Beardsley didn’t drink, and I respected his patience. The sober guy was often left to pick up the pieces. One of the nights, I was sitting in Unos next to our Czech keeper, Pavel Srnicek, and he dared me to down a carafe of red wine. I rarely shirked that kind of challenge, and knocked it back in the space of three minutes. No hassle.

It was only when I went out into the cool air that the after-effects of the macho behaviour hit me. I ran up the street towards our next destination, oblivious to an open manhole in my path. Straight in. After that sudden jolt, the cut on the back of my neck was the least of my worries. The minute I got into the bar, I was spewing red wine all over the place. Pedro went to fetch his car and pulled up outside to take me home. Inevitably, I sprayed another shower of red wine all over the back seat of his Rover. He wouldn’t take any money the next day for cleaning it. That was Pedro all over. Always generous, always the first to the bar to buy a drink, even when he wasn’t having one.

Often, the last stop on the nights out was my place, the bachelor pad. For the lads who were living with wives and partners, it was a popular haunt. There was always a few women around the place. When I was injured, there was one particularly raucous night where a good crew landed back. Big Les was there, Warren Barton, Lee Clark, Steve Watson, Robbie Elliott and some of their mates. Ginola usually drank Amaretto but, for some reason, he ended up lying backwards on the front lawn with just a can of beer in his raised hand. My next door neighbour lodged a complaint and the gaffer called everyone into a meeting where he blamed the senior players for turning my place into a doss house. I escaped the rap.

In February, a superstar rocked in to join the party. Keegan believed we needed strengthening for the title run-in, and paid £6.5 million to sign the Colombian striker Faustino Asprilla from Parma. ‘Tino’ had charisma, and arrived in the middle of a snowstorm with a fur jacket and a confident strut. David Batty was also recruited from Blackburn to add a bit of steel to our midfield.

We had a settled dressing room, and both lads fitted in to the banter just fine. Tino was a social animal, a real character. He had remedial English so his interpreter, Nick, was always by his side, be that in the dressing room or the nights on the town.

Nick was on a bigger wage than our left-back, Robbie Elliott. We’d see him on Tino’s shoulder in a club, trying to help him with whatever girl had taken his fancy. Tino generally had enough English to get by in that situation though. He’d strike up a discussion and just say to the girl ‘You come home with me, yes?’ and, often, it worked.

Accommodating Tino on the pitch was a little bit more difficult. He was a flamboyant player, with gangly legs, quick feet, and a wonderful ability to make the game look easy. Naturally, the gaffer was keen to utilise his talents, especially after his debut as a sub at Middlesbrough when he turned a one-goal deficit into victory.

Big Les and Beardsley had forged a profitable partnership, but if Tino was to start a game then something had to give. So, Keegan put Tino and Big Les together and switched Beardsley to the right wing which was bad news for me. I was short of 100 per cent fitness after coming back from my lay-off ahead of schedule, so I could sort of understand the decision, although I also think it was easier for the gaffer to drop the young lad.

After Middlesbrough, we hit a rocky patch. People have asked me if there were visible signs that it was coming, but nothing was dramatically different at training. Maybe we were feeling the pressure of being on top for so long. All the same, it wasn’t as though people were walking around with panicked looks on their faces. The spirits remained high.

On the pitch, however, something was missing. We had lost our fluency. The little things that were going our way early in the season were starting to go against us. Mistakes crept in, and we started to make things complicated. It was a slippery slope.

We won just one of our next six games, and lost our unbeaten home record to Manchester United. Schmeichel was inspired, Cantona nabbed a goal, and they grinded out the win. They were more streetwise in those situations.

The real sickener was at Liverpool, an iconic Premier League game that people in Newcastle would rather forget. I was an unused substitute, and spent those 90 minutes behind the gaffer on a bench that went through the full range of emotions. Tino put us 3-2 up shortly before the hour mark, but we lacked the solidity to shut the game out. Stan Collymore struck twice, with the injury-time winner striking a hammer blow. The gaffer stood up afterwards and said he was proud of any team that could score three goals at Anfield, yet the reality was that our vulnerabilities had been exposed.

My exclusion became a talking point with the press and in sections of the dressing room. Rob Lee told me he was going to see the manager about it. We trailed to QPR at St James’ in the next game and the fans chanted my name. I was brought on and made an impact as Beardsley, who was moved infield, scored twice to claim the three points. Despite that, I was on the bench for the trip to Blackburn, although I was on the park as we suffered another late collapse to turn a win into a defeat. A Geordie, Graham Fenton, grabbed the two late goals that really handed Manchester United control of their destiny.

The gaffer found that loss tough to take and began to show the strain. He cancelled one of our nights out, and broke from the norm by making our team-talks longer. Still, we were within touching distance as we headed into the final week of the season. A fixture backlog meant we had three games, and wins against Leeds and Nottingham Forest would have put us level on points going into the final day.

I was recalled for Elland Road and nabbed the only goal, but the only thing people remember about that night is the gaffer’s post-match interview. He was seriously wound up. Alex Ferguson had hinted that Leeds and Forest might roll over for us because Leeds hated Manchester United and we had agreed to visit Forest for Stuart Pearce’s testimonial. After a tough game with a Leeds side that were definitely trying, Keegan went on Sky and let rip at Ferguson with his infamous, “I’d love it if we beat them, I’d just love it” rant. We only heard about it on the bus home when one of the lads got a call from his wife. A bunch of us went out in our tracksuits to Julies nightclub when we made it to Newcastle, and it was the talk of the place.

People say that Keegan’s rant was evidence of him cracking, but the fact is that we were in control against Forest on the Thursday when Batty was unlucky to slip in possession with 15 minutes to go. Ian Woan capitalised to fire home a screamer for a 1-1 draw. That was game over in the title race. Manchester United were two points ahead with a superior goal difference that was ironically helped by a 5-0 win over Forest a week earlier. A point at Middlesbrough on the Sunday would do for them.

Only in the event of an unlikely defeat would our clash with Tottenham become relevant. Man U won comfortably. We struggled to raise a beat and drew. The damage had been done at Anfield and Ewood Park.

We trudged down the tunnel in low spirits. The fans wanted us out for a lap of honour, but Keegan, normally so positive, was reluctant. He never seemed to lose hope that we could turn it around, but now it was over, the realisation was setting in.

After a bit of encouragement, he agreed to go back out, and the supporters greeted us like champions. Around town that night, the well-wishers were all saying the same thing, stressing that the club was only three years back in the top flight and would benefit from this harsh experience.

That optimism was misguided.

12

Breaking Point

SOMETIMES, I wondered if trouble was attracted to me like a magnet.

I’m not looking for pity. I’ve never claimed to be an angel. But there were times when events that were completely outside my control caused real problems. Take Sunday, October 20, 1996, for example, the night which led to my first proper brush with the law.

The context is important. The incident occurred a few hours after we had swept Manchester United off the park, a 5-0 drubbing that was particularly sweet after the pain of the previous season. I say ‘we’ when, in fact, I had nothing to do with that victory.

It was a game I had anticipated starting. The gaffer had taken us to St James’ the day before to work on set pieces, and he always gave the team away in those sessions. There was no announcement, but the players knew the score from their role in proceedings. It was clear that I was in, and Ginola was out. There was a huge gang over from home for the game, including my Dad and Jim, and I was delighted to give them the good news on the Saturday night.

I reported for duty the next morning and my mate Paul Ferris, our Northern Irish physio, pulled me aside. He tipped me off that Ginola had marched into Keegan’s office after training and threatened to leave unless he was put back in the side. Paul reckoned it had worked. The gaffer named his team and, sure enough, Ginola was in at my expense. I stormed out of the dressing room, kicking the door on the way. Keegan followed me into his office and we had a blazing row. He denied the story, but I wasn’t buying his response and told him that I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to even sit on the bench. This was no ordinary game, and I was embarrassed after telling all the lads I’d be in.

The gaffer convinced me to stay, but I was still seething at kick-off. You know what happened then. Ginola was outstanding and produced a goal of the season contender as we tore my old club apart. It was hard to argue with that.

I went into Masters afterwards to catch up with my lot and, naturally, town was hopping. As I sipped on a drink, I was approached by a fan I recognised. His name was Terry Mann, a hefty guy in his 30s who looked older. The local players knew him to talk to and while I’d heard rumours that he was associated with a hooligan element, he seemed normal the few times we had met. I expected a hardcore Newcastle fan to be in heaven after a win like that but, as he drew closer, it was obvious that he was bladdered and had something else on his mind.

“You don’t want to play for us anymore,” he said, jabbing a finger at me. “You want to be back at fucking Manchester United.”

I was a bit shocked. A few weeks before, I’d delivered one of my best ever performances in an epic 4-3 win over Aston Villa so I didn’t understand how anybody could think I wasn’t committed; especially if they knew how angry I’d been earlier in the day. The tirade continued. It was a waste of time listening and Frances, my girlfriend, grabbed my hand to take me away.

As I turned, Mann swung a fist in my direction. Like a natural winger, I dropped the shoulder to dodge and instinctively went to hit him back in self defence. Otherwise, he was coming back for another go. I connected with a right hand punch under his eye which had extra impact as I grazed him with a ring I was wearing – a 21st birthday present from my mother.

Blood poured down his face as the bouncers swarmed in to eject him from the premises. The staff in Masters always looked out for the footballers. He didn’t go quietly and one of our group went to the front door to see what was happening. Mann was taking a few steps back, charging at the bouncers, getting nowhere and then trying the same again. I thought it was safe to go and order a round when I heard screaming and shouting and turned to see that Mann was no more than five yards away from me, jogging on the spot, with the doormen slowly dragging him back out. Then, we learned that a posse of his mates had gathered with intent outside. It was time to leave.

One of the bouncers, Gary, ushered Jim, myself and my Dad to a side door, and we sprinted up the road to hop into a waiting taxi. Frances and the others followed. I was pretty shaken. My relationship with the Newcastle fans had been rock solid until then. This was totally out of nothing, and yet it was inevitable there would be repercussions. And headlines of course. It was a simple story to write. Pissed-up Keith Gillespie punches a fan in a bar, a tale which suited my bad-boy reputation.

On Tuesday, I was called into the gaffer’s office. The news was worse than I thought. He said that Mann had been to the police, and reported that I’d hit him over the head with a bottle. Utter bullshit. The advice was to hire a solicitor and immediately go to the police to give a statement as the alternative was the cops knocking on my door which wouldn’t have looked good. When I went to the station, I had to be formally placed under arrest because a complaint had been filed, although I was then allowed to leave straight away to await further developments.

Fortunately, the bar had clear CCTV footage of the incident which backed up my story, and the investigation was dropped. Still, when you’re in the public eye, it is the arrest that people remember, not the subsequent exoneration. Maybe I shouldn’t have struck Mann, but the alternative was getting assaulted in a public place. Standing up to a thug who would later be convicted as a hooligan only succeeded in adding weight to the rap sheet against me. I struggled to make sense of it.

For the club, the destruction of Manchester United was hailed as evidence that we were ready for the next step. Instead, it was a false dawn. Our form tailed off dramatically, with just one win from the next nine games. We had fine individual players that just weren’t clicking.

The new star of the show was Alan Shearer, a world record breaking £15 million capture. It was the feel-good story of pre-season, a local boy coming home to provide the missing link. We were on a lengthy tour of Asia when the deal was completed, and watched the footage of Shearer being greeted like a God on Tyneside. There was a little bit of a stir over his demand for the famous number 9 shirt because it belonged to Big Les who had performed brilliantly the previous season. He was unhappy to be moved to number 10 and, as a knock-on effect, Lee Clark, a lifelong Newcastle fan, was switched to 21. It may sound stupid, but footballers can get attached to shirt numbers.

The players generally took to Alan, who was a good character to have around the place as he demanded high standards from everyone. But it quickly became apparent that himself and Ginola would find it hard to work together. Alan was intolerant of the quirks that the rest of us were already accustomed to. Ginola was a lazy type of player, more concerned with throwing his arms in the air in disgust rather than trying to get the ball back when he lost it. There was less of that behaviour in the English game at the time and it grated with the others. Shearer couldn’t handle it. They’d argue on the pitch and in training. The mutual dislike never boiled over into anything physical; it just simmered, and that was a problem because they were two important elements of the team. I know there are plenty of examples of players who don’t get along clicking on the pitch, but when a team is struggling it can become an issue. It certainly did in our case.

Still, despite our disastrous run into Christmas, a 7-1 filleting of Spurs demonstrated that we retained the ability to turn it on. We followed that up with a comfortable win over Leeds and a draw away to Charlton in the FA Cup. Considering how strong we were at home, there was nothing wrong with that result. Certainly, no reason to believe that something major was coming down the tracks.

Two days later, I pulled into the car park at the training ground where the first person I saw was our press officer, Graham Courtney. He greeted me with news that I could scarcely believe. The gaffer had resigned. Kevin Keegan was no more.

I didn’t see it coming. I’m not sure if any of the players did. Terry McDermott said that a load was lifted from the gaffer’s shoulders when he made the decision, so he was obviously feeling the burden of a stressful year. We read afterwards about disagreements with the board and other stories. But whatever was going on behind the scenes or in his own head, he never displayed any weakness to the players. From our point of view, it was midway through the season and we weren’t a million miles off the pace. This was completely unexpected.

It was my first experience of losing a manager. In later years, I was in dressing rooms where the banter was back to normal within 24 hours, and certain players were secretly delighted. With Keegan, there was genuine sorrow. For a couple of days, everyone went about their business silently. Our veteran coach, Arthur Cox, tried to lift the spirits. Himself and Terry were put in charge for our next league game at Aston Villa. Arthur had plenty of knowledge, but also had this ability to make people laugh when he didn’t mean to with his range of old school phrases and mannerisms. He lightened the mood in the teamtalk ahead of the Villa game and we should have won after scoring a couple of early goals. They came back to claim a point. Old defensive habits died hard.

The club moved fast to find a replacement. With the fans still grieving for Keegan, they needed a big name and delivered one when they appointed Kenny Dalglish, with Terry staying on as his assistant. When I was a young Manchester United fan, I despised Dalglish because of his central role in Liverpool’s dominance of the ’80s. My adult perception was different. I liked his interview manner, the dour sense of humour that was his trademark when it came to dealing with the press. Shearer and Batty had won a league title under his stewardship at Blackburn, and spoke highly about his managerial style.

He probably endeared himself further to Shearer by quickly freezing Ginola out of his plans. Although he came in and gave the usual speech that a new man gives, which basically involves promising a clean slate for everybody, he made a statement of intent by dropping Ginola for his first game in charge – against Southampton at the Dell. I remember looking over to the bench and seeing Ginola sitting there wearing a pair of trainers instead of boots, which was odd but not out of character.

Sympathy was in short supply. It was awkward for me because we roomed together on away trips and I probably knew him better than most. He was a decent bloke but the frequent strops didn’t do him any favours. Within two months, he handed in a transfer request.

After a rocky start, which included an FA Cup defeat at St James’ to Nottingham Forest – bloody Ian Woan again – we found some form under Dalglish although we did manage to lose another 4-3 at Anfield. This time, I was part of the drama and scored on the way to coming back from three goals down, only for Robbie Fowler to pop up with a final-minute winner. We had the last laugh on Liverpool that season though.They were pushing Manchester United at the time, but their challenge went off the rails and we went unbeaten for the last 10 games to nab second spot and a place in the Champions League qualifiers.

Even though the man who brought me to Newcastle had departed, I ended up being involved in 32 Premier League games that season. I was confident that my future was safe under Dalglish so I sold the party house in Gosforth and splashed out £250,000 on a new property in a village called Whickham. My Northern Irish buddy Phil Gray, who was playing for nearby Sunderland, had introduced me to a guy named Ian Elliott who became my first agent, and he helped with the purchase.

Ian lived near Whickham and we socialised together quite a bit. One afternoon, we were chatting about things to do when you live outside town, and Ian casually asked if I had an internet betting account. I didn’t know such a thing existed. Remember, it was 1997.

In the year since the fallout from Black Friday, I had resisted the temptation to visit a bookies in case I was caught. Phone betting had proved my undoing the last time. The internet seemed like the perfect solution so I signed up, registered my credit card details, and got back in the game.

I started off betting more conservatively than before and with less frequency. The missus had moved in with me and only worked a couple of days a week so I knew I couldn’t get away with sitting in front of the horses every single afternoon. Maybe a few hours here and there. I convinced myself that I was in control. This time it was going to be different.