Saints and Sinners

Graham Hiley

Description

From flying head-butts and flying tackles, to flying ashtrays and flying linesmen, Saints and Sinners is a frightening run-down of some of the hardest players ever to pull on a Southampton shirt - and their on- and off-field exploits which gave them such notoriety. During more than twenty years of covering the club's fortunes, author Graham Hiley has amassed a wealth of anecdotes from some of the toughest men to represent Saints; including the likes of midfield enforcer Jimmy Case, uncompromising defender Neil Ruddock, serial red-card offender Francis Benali, Mark 'Psycho' Dennis...and many more. Off the field, they are some of the nicest guys you could wish to meet. But once they crossed that white line, even the toughest of opponents would want to steer well clear. From the side dubbed 'Alehouse brawlers' by the legendary Bill Shankly through to club legend Benali and the stories behind his 11 red cards, Saints and Sinners is a fascinating and often funny look at some of the club's greatest characters. Open if you dare...

Sujets

• History of sport
• Hampshire

Informations

• Publié par: Pitch Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 29 août 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781785312533
• Langue: English

Extrait

First published by Pitch Publishing, 2016
Pitch Publishing
A2 Yeoman Gate
Yeoman Way
Durrington
BN13 3QZ
www.pitchpublishing.co.uk
Graham Hiley, 2016
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the Publisher.
A CIP catalogue record is available for this book from the British Library
Print ISBN 978-1-78531-194-9
eBook ISBN 978-1-78531-253-3
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Contents
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Foreword
Inside Foreword (geddit?)
Denis Hollywood and Brian O Neil
Terry Paine MBE
Jim Steele
Chris Nicholl
Jimmy Case
John Burridge
Mark Dennis
Alan Shearer
Micky Adams
Francis Benali
Neil Ruddock
Jason Dodd
Iain Dowie
Terry Hurlock
Bruce Grobbelaar
Gordon Watson
Carlton Palmer
Graeme Souness
Chris Marsden
James Beattie
Claus Lundekvam
David Prutton
Michael Svensson
Rickie Lambert
Photographs
For Martin, Catherine and Tim with love
Acknowledgements
OVER THE years, Saints have had more than their fair share of hard-men and larger-than-life characters, loosely termed Sinners for the purpose of this book.
The aim was to bring together a collection of hilarious, insightful and even poignant anecdotes and memories as well as look at the physical and mental toughness needed to play at the top level.
Some of the candidates were obvious: Mark Dennis, Francis Benali, Terry Hurlock, Neil Ruddock and the man who was the inevitable answer to the increasingly pointless question: Who was the hardest player you ever encountered? - Jimmy Case.
Then there are survivors of the infamous Alehouse Brawlers , as they became known, Denis Hollywood, Brian O Neil and Terry Paine soon followed by Jim Steele and a host of other hard-men who thrived in the days when there was more leeway with tackling.
If you will forgive one self-indulgence, I have also included the legend that is Rickie Lambert - simply because I wanted to.
Sadly, some hard-men and characters are missing. John McGrath, Jimmy Gabriel, David Docker Walker, Peter Osgood, Alan Ball and Kevin Moore died far too soon while some others now have dementia.
It is a wretched disease which also afflicts my own father, Peter, who was immensely proud of my previous books but who, sadly, will not be able to read this one.
Here, I must thank Saints FA Cup-winning manager Lawrie McMenemy, not just for providing the foreword but also for his long-standing support of the Alzheimer s Society. I also need to thank all the players who gave up their time to be interviewed, recounting their stories with brutal honesty - just as they played.
It is one of life s great mysteries how this collection of colourful characters could be hard as nails on the field but, to a man, the nicest people off it.
No book like this could ever be compiled without research and, as always, I am eternally indebted to the dedication and thoroughness of the club historians David Bull, Gary Chalk and Duncan Holley, whose methodical attention to detail is quite remarkable. In particular, their excellent works In That Number and All the Saints were invaluable.
Other books which provided essential information include Jeremy Wilson s Cult Heroes , Alex Crook s Match Of My Life and the collected autobiographies of some of those featured, most notably Matthew Le Tissier, John Burridge, Jimmy Case, Perry Groves and Neil Ruddock.
The photos come from my good friend and excellent freelance photographer Paul Watts (pbwpix.co.uk) and from the Southern Daily Echo . I must thank sports editor and fellow Pitch author Simon Carter plus Saints correspondent Adam Leitch, as well as Jez Gale, who had the unenviable job of actually finding the pictures.
I am extremely grateful to Paul and Jane Camillin, Dean Rockett Duncan Olner and Graham Hales at Pitch Publishing for their understanding with deadlines and for giving this project the go-ahead. I also have to thank Simon Williams at Southampton Football Club for his help, along with John May at Southampton Solent University for his advice, football knowledge and assistance with legal stuff.
Last but not least, I must thank the love of my life, my wonderful but long-suffering wife, Theresa, who shrieked with horror at many of the anecdotes - the parental guidance warning is dedicated to her! And I must thank my children Martin, Catherine and particularly Tim, who had the daunting task of proofreading the entire book.
I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I loved writing it.
Graham Hiley
Foreword
by Lawrie McMenemy MBE
EVERY SUCCESSFUL side needs a mix of saints and sinners - or, as I always described them, road-sweepers and violinists.
Any manager will tell you that you have to get that blend right - you can t have too many of one and not enough of the other. They both need each other.
You need the skilful, crowd-pleasing ball-players but you also have to have the tough-tackling hard-men in order to let them perform.
Sometimes you have to have a quiet word with the violinists and explain that they would not be as good without the road-sweepers to clear the way.
And sometimes you have to explain to a road-sweeper that he is not a violinist and he should stick to what he is good at!
Over the years, Southampton have had their fair share of saints and sinners - fantastic players like Matthew Le Tissier or real hard-men like Jimmy Case.
He was probably the toughest player I have ever worked with. He was a natural hard-man who really knew how to look after himself - and his team-mates.
He was my last signing for Southampton and not a bad legacy to leave. I wish I could have signed him a few years earlier because he would have made a huge difference to the team.
He was hard as nails but he could really play too. He had won as many medals as anyone in the game and was one of the best players never to play for England.
Yet I got him on a free transfer. In those days, you paid 25,000 to the selling club and they would pass it on to the player tax-free as a kind of signing-on fee, but effectively it was a free transfer.
I had been looking for that sort of midfield enforcer and Jim s contract was up at Brighton. He came down for a meeting and sat sideways on to me, which I thought was strange. But I didn t realise that, under his long hair, he was sporting the biggest hearing aid I had ever seen.
But, like a lot of hard-men, he was one of the loveliest guys off the pitch. He was not too bothered about the money. I used to joke that when we were talking about football he would put one ear towards me, and when we were talking money he used the other.
He didn t ask too much about the contract, only whether he could continue living in Brighton as his wife s mother had just moved down to be near them.
I said that was fine but I knew he liked a night out, so I told him if I heard about him stepping out of line then I would make him move up here. As it turned out, he moved to Southampton soon afterwards and he was still there when I left.
He was a fantastic influence on a lot of the younger players I was bringing through, the likes of Alan Shearer, the Wallaces and Matthew Le Tissier. He had 100 per cent respect in the dressing room because he was not a loud-mouth, just a naturally aggressive good-quality player.
I put him in there with the younger legs to give us that blend of youth and experience and it worked well.
We didn t have the budget to buy international players when they were at the top of their game, but we were able to get them towards the end of their careers - players like Alan Ball, Peter Osgood, Peter Shilton, Frank Worthington.
They all had a touch of quality but they all knew how to look after themselves - and they often played just as hard off the field.
As a manager, you had to know how to handle that side of them. At that stage of their careers, they didn t need coaching - but they certainly needed managing!
I didn t need to tell them how to strike a ball - that was second nature to them. But I needed to keep them in check in other areas.
These days, the game has changed. Managers are more like coaches rather than running the club from top to bottom, as was the case with the likes of Brian Clough, Bill Shankly, Bill Nicholson, Sir Alex Ferguson and myself.
My big challenge was trying to manage a team with a few rascals in it. You can t treat everyone the same. Some you could tell off in front of the rest of the team; others would have to be spoken to in private. Some would need a cuddle, some would need a kick up the backside.
You did what you needed to do in order to get the best out of them.
An example of that was the time I called Brian O Neil in to see me. I told him I had heard he had been out the night before and asked if he had a good time. He said yes and I said I had heard it was more than just a good time. He said it had just been an ordinary night out.
I said I heard he had chinned someone. He said he hadn t... but then looked into my eyes, realised the game was up and asked how much I was going to fine him.
I said I was going to let it go... but to be more careful in future and that he owed me. He went out and played one of the games of his life in the next match.
Along with John McGrath, Brian was one of the players I inherited when I took over as manager. They were two of the hardest competitors I have ever worked with.
John was a commanding old-fashioned centre-half. The ball might go past him or the player might go past him. But it was v