How NOT to be a Football Millionaire - Keith Gillespie My Autobiography (9 page)

13

Blackout

I OPEN my eyes to a world of confusion. No idea where I am. No idea how I got here.

There are faces looking at me that I don’t recognise. Mouths that are saying nothing. All that’s audible to my ears is a humming noise, a whirring. And a gentle beep, that sounds like an alarm clock dying a slow death. Maybe it’s in my head. A dream.

I close my eyes. Time passes. How do you measure sleep when you have no idea where it started?

Eyes open again. This time, it’s a little clearer. I see people in white coats. I hear Irish voices. But it’s like I’m trapped in that Talking Heads song. The one where the lyrics are mostly questions.

‘
You may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?’

Slowly, my memory is decoding. Little things make sense.

The Irish voices? I’m in Dublin, with my Newcastle team-mates, for a bonding exercise. That’s why Steve Howey is standing there, too. Wait. Why is Steve Howey in this strange place with the humming and the beeping and the people with white coats? In a hospital.

‘You may ask yourself, my God, what have I done?’

Seriously. What have I done? I’m not sure I want to know but Steve tells me the story. I sigh, and decide all I want to do is sleep. And the kind people in the hospital want to keep me here for the night. The only problem is they insist on waking me up every two hours. I ask why.

“We have to be careful sir,” explained the doctor. “With head injuries, you can never be too sure.”

I’m scared, and don’t feel like sleeping for a while.

After September 17, 1997, sweet dreams were an anti-climax for me. I had already lived a real one. If I could bottle the feeling I experienced that night, then I’d never have to worry about money again. Send me to a desert island and tell me I can only bring a video of one football game, and I wouldn’t even have to think about the answer. Newcastle 3 Barcelona 2. That Wednesday night in St James’ Park, I tasted perfection.

A nervous qualifying round win over Croatia Zagreb had booked the club’s place in the Champions League proper for the first time in its history, and the fact that Barcelona were coming to town made it very real. Home games were always special, but there was just something extra in the air in the hours before the game. It seemed like everyone had come to the ground that little bit earlier. Even the warm-up had an atmosphere.

Barca’s team was a who’s who of the European game. Luis Figo, Rivaldo, Sonny Anderson, Luis Enrique, Miguel Angel Nadal, Michael Reiziger, Ivan De La Pena. Christophe Dugarry on the bench. A serious array of talent.

I knew the names but didn’t watch much Spanish football in those days. There wasn’t the same level of coverage or interest there is now. And, the strange thing is, despite watching Euro 96, I really didn’t know much about Sergi, the Spanish international left-back that I would be duelling with. Maybe knowing nothing about him removed the fear factor. Ignorance was bliss.

We took the lead early when Tino took a tumble in the area and slotted away a penalty. The ground erupted. I wanted a piece of the action, and Steve Watson gave me the opportunity by sending a quick free-kick in my direction. Sergi approached, and I took a couple of touches to get the ball under control. We were just outside the box, and he was trying to block my path into the area so I acted on instinct, dropped the shoulder and burst into a sprint on his outside that caught him by surprise. The extra yard was all I needed to nick the ball ahead and whip it into the box. Tino, as ever, had made an intelligent run into space and produced a gigantic leap to dispatch a header into the back of the net.

After that, I demanded the ball. Wingers know when they have the measure of an opponent. The actions of the full-back always give it away. I’d been told that Sergi liked to get forward, but he stopped crossing the halfway line when they had the ball and concentrated on sticking tight to me instead. He was petrified.

Early in the second half, Philippe Albert broke down a Barca attack. They were stretched and Rob Lee slipped it out towards me. I was still in our half, and Sergi bore down on me instantly. But there was room on his outside again so I clipped the ball in that direction and skipped away. See you later, mate. All I could see ahead was open space.

So, I ran, and ran, and ran as the crowd roared with encouragement. I glanced into the area where Tino was sneaking into a gap between two Barca defenders. After a 30yard dash at full tilt, with an angry Spanish man behind, executing a cross was a big ask, probably one of the most difficult skills in football. I fell to the ground as I curled the ball in Tino’s direction, and watched as he sprung off an invisible trampoline to meet it perfectly. 3-0. What a rush.

They pulled a couple of goals back, with Luis Enrique chesting one in, and then Figo capitalising on a rare error from my new neighbour and pal, Shay Given. But this was our night. The final whistle saved the memory.

It was a Wednesday like no other, especially when I didn’t end up in town to celebrate. With a game at West Ham on Saturday, the club had checked us into the Gosforth Park before the game so they could keep an eye on us afterwards. I wouldn’t have lasted a minute in town anyway. The weight of the occasion had drained all the energy from my body.

Mum was over, and I was sitting with her afterwards when Shearer walked in.

He looked at me as though he was thinking of something to say, and just shook his head with a grin that basically said “Where did that come from?”

I wish I knew the answer.

Unfortunately, the Barcelona game was an exception to the rule in ’97/98. A chink of light in a season of darkness. Dalglish rang the changes in pre-season and it backfired. Ginola was sold to Tottenham. Big Les was going the same way. On the day he was putting pen to paper, Shearer tore his ankle ligaments badly in a pre-season friendly at Goodison Park and was ruled out for up to seven months. The club tried to stop the Ferdinand sale, but Big Les was unhappy about the original willingness to let him go and pushed through his transfer.

We missed Shearer desperately, and his absence was a major factor in our struggles.

The Champions League experience peaked on that glorious opening night. We actually finished above Barcelona and still went out – Dynamo Kiev and PSV Eindhoven proved stronger over the six games. The gaffer was so short of forward options for the home game with PSV that I started up there. They won 2-0 and that was it for us really. I was suspended for the Nou Camp trip which turned out to be a bit of a let down for the boys with the stadium just a quarter full.

Goals were the problem. The highly rated young Dane, Jon Dahl Tomasson, was brought in from Heerenveen in Holland, but he missed a sitter in the first game and that set the tone for his year. He went on to have a great career with his country and with some top clubs, but Newcastle was the wrong place at the wrong time.

Aside from his magic against Barca, Tino was struggling with injury, and the club decided to get some of their money back by selling him to Parma in January. It was a quieter town when he left. He always had a few Colombian mates over and, on one of his last nights, I remember ending up back in his house, with some fella just hammering away on this set of bongo drums. It was never boring when Tino was around but, with Shearer on the comeback trail, Dalglish reckoned we could survive without him.

The gaffer was heavily criticised for his dealings in the transfer market. He brought in Ian Rush, John Barnes and Stuart Pearce, a veteran trio that failed to excite the fans. Barnes and Pearce played quite a few games, but were past their prime. Rushy, who I enjoyed a bet with every Saturday, was unable to help the striking situation.

Their experience might have complemented the squad if the gaffer’s foreign signings had worked out. Our new Italian defender, Alessandro Pistone, looked like a world-beater in his first game at Everton. The problem was that he spent too much time on the treatment table with nothing more serious than a broken fingernail. His standing in the dressing room was reflected in a later Christmas raffle when Shay had to buy him a present and handed over a sheep’s heart because the boys reckoned he didn’t have one.

Temuri Ketsbaia had plenty of heart, but struggled to control his passion. He scored the goal against Croatia Zagreb that booked our passage into the Champions League proper and that made him popular in the dressing room as every man collected a £20,000 bonus. Temuri was unpredictable, though, and always seemed to be angry about something. Like a volcano that might erupt at any minute. He is remembered for going nuts after scoring a winner at St James’ against Bolton. Temuri was furious that he was coming off the bench in most games, and celebrated by throwing his shirt into the crowd, kicking the advertising hoardings like a man possessed, and then tossing his boots away. He was crying violently and so out of control that when the game restarted and the ball came in his direction, he just belted it into the far stand. The gaffer lost the plot with him after.

Even in victory, there was chaos, and we soon followed that up with an eight-game winless run in the league. The return of Shearer wasn’t enough to get our campaign back on track. From the high of a top-two finish, we slumped to a finishing position of 13th. The only thing that kept our season alive was a run in the FA Cup.

For all the troubles on the pitch, we retained a healthy social life and, at the end of February, the jaunt to Dublin was organised. The road to the confusion of the hospital bed started in the Teesside Airport bar.

We’d drawn at Everton on the Saturday and travelled the next morning. The gaffer had sanctioned the trip but decided against attending, so Terry was in charge.

I recall how the day kicked off, but need the help of others to piece together the rest.

We were staying in a decent hotel close to Dublin city centre, and went straight from there to Cafe En Seine, an upmarket bar, for an early drink. I was in giddy form, and started flicking bottle tops in the direction of other players. Shearer was struck by a couple and getting wound up, which I found enjoyable, so I made him my target and tension brewed.

It came to a head when I clumsily knocked some cutlery off the table. “Fucking pick it up,” Shearer snapped. But the lounge girl was already over clearing up the mess. I thought he was talking to me like a small boy, and shouted back. Red mist descended. We had a bit of a row and, for some reason, I asked him if he wanted to take it outside. Madness.

Cafe En Seine is a long, narrow bar so it was quite a walk to the front door. There was no discussion en route. I was mulling over my next move. We emerged to a busy street, where Sunday afternoon shoppers were going about their business. It didn’t deter me from the battleplan. I took a swing at Shearer but I was punch-drunk and inaccurate. He responded with a blow that sent me flying backwards against a plant pot. I cracked my head and entered the blackout zone.

The next thing I remember is the view from the hospital bed. Thankfully, a night of spot checks convinced the medics there was no potential for long-term damage.

So I was discharged, and returned to the hotel to find that all the lads were out at a function. The peace and quiet of my hotel room was disturbed by a knock on the door. An unfamiliar journalist was standing there. “Is it true you had a fight with Shearer?” he asked. I slammed the door in his face.

A few minutes later, there was another knock. This time, it was Shearer and Rob Lee. Peace was restored before they had even come inside. We ended up laughing about it, although we knew a media storm was inevitable. Which was fair enough really. What else do you expect when the England captain knocks out a team-mate in broad daylight?

Tales of my wild boy reputation were filling newspapers again. It didn’t help that I’d been involved in another incident in a hotel in Whickham a few weeks previously, another case of some arsehole having a go, words being exchanged, a scuffle ensuing, and the aggressor pressing charges by claiming that I’d attacked him. It came to nothing, but the damage was done.

One newspaper wrote that I’d been told by the club to curb my drinking or else I was out the door. No such discussion took place, and no fines were handed out after Dublin either. Perhaps I was fortunate that Shearer was the other player involved. They couldn’t have punished me without punishing him and he was so important that I’m sure they wanted to avoid going down that road.

The stuff in the press pissed me off. Others got off lightly. Take the second night of the Irish trip. Stuart Pearce was the most senior player of a group that tossed a traffic cone through the windscreen of an innocent motorist’s car. Pearce handed over the money to pay for the damage there and then, and somehow managed to come out of the incident smelling of roses. They said he had taken control of the situation quickly.

Pearce loved his image, the whole ‘Psycho’ nickname that portrayed him as a real tough guy. I thought it was nonsense. He never intimidated me when he was a Nottingham Forest player, and I thought a lot of the fist pumping stuff was for show. My view didn’t change when he became a team-mate.

One incident springs to mind. We had moved training ground to Chester-le-Street and the fans were allowed to come in and watch open sessions. A big crowd showed up one day, so ‘Psycho’ was out, desperate to show everyone that he cared. He started bollocking me in a training game, and flipping at the slightest of errors. “Move about, you Irish fucker,” he barked. I’d had enough of the posturing and decided to react in full voice. “Stop trying to give it to people to look like a fucking big man!” He looked surprised and backed off. Funnily enough, he barely said a cross word to me afterwards.

The up and down nature of that season was summed up by the fact that we managed to make the FA Cup final despite our awful finish in the league table. My own rollercoaster year was rounded off by missing the bloody game.

I’d missed the quarter-final win over Barnsley because of the head wound from Dublin, but Dalglish called me in for the semi with Sheffield United at Old Trafford where Shearer came up trumps on a fun afternoon. My friends and family were thrilled and booked trips for the big day. Arsenal, the champions elect, would be our opponents.