Red: My Autobiography Page 6

  We made it three wins in six days with a massive victory at Blackburn, the reigning champions. Becks scored in front of our travelling fans, and as they went crazy we jumped all over Becks like we’d just won the league. The relief was overpowering. The manager had put his trust in us. Perhaps now the rest of the country would give us some slack.

  We kept up the momentum: 4–1 away at Chelsea then eight goals against Southampton and Coventry City in back-to-back matches. But standards only needed to drop a fraction and the manager would be straight on to us.

  That November, I experienced his anger on full blast for the first time. I’d just come back from international duty when we drew 1–1 away at Nottingham Forest. Not a great result, but I didn’t think I’d done too much wrong, until I walked into the dressing room.

  ‘What’s happened to you, Neville?’ he shouted. ‘The only reason I’m picking you is because you’re playing for England.’

  I went home feeling distraught.

  More than Butty or Scholesy, who had thicker skins, I would turn an incident like that over and over in my mind. After your hundredth bollocking you become a bit more immune to it, but at that age I would take it to heart. In fact I would hate it. I wouldn’t sleep. It was like the end of the world. Was he just bringing me back down to earth now that I was an established international? Or did he really think I was too big for my boots? I fretted, but that’s my personality.

  If you told Scholesy he was playing in an FA Cup final, he’d shrug his shoulders and saunter off. Butty would say, ‘Why wouldn’t I be playing?’ Becks would be straight on the phone. I’d immediately start thinking of my opponent and how I was going to combat him.

  But we never let our momentum slip, and by the spring of 1996 we were chasing the Double. Newcastle had been the early pace-setters, impressing everyone with their cavalier football under Kevin Keegan and storming twelve points clear. But we’d welcomed Eric back from his ban in October, straight into a massive game against Liverpool, and he’d scored the equalizer from the penalty spot. What a man.

  And now Newcastle were in reverse. Crucially, we beat them up at St James’s Park in March, despite a personal nightmare. I was at centre-back with Steve Bruce against Faustino Asprilla and Les Ferdinand. We got battered – at least I did. I kicked fresh air one time in the first half as Asprilla tormented me. At half-time the manager was on turbo-charge. ‘Asprilla is beating you on the ground, he’s beating you in the air. What’s going on? Play like that second half and you’ve cost us the title.’

  Out we came for the second half, and this time we had the slope. It’s a big old slope at Newcastle, the biggest in the league. In the first half it felt like we were stuck at the bottom of a hill being pounded, but now we were up at the top and, while it might sound odd, I felt taller.

  That second half was an occasion when I felt the Manchester United spirit course through the team. It relies on excellence from individuals – from Schmeichel and Bruce, who were immense that evening, and from Eric, who popped up to score the winner – but there is also something collective. It’s unspoken but unmistakeable: let’s get this match won. It’s our time.

  We weren’t playing well but we seized the moment and the whole world knew then that Newcastle were never going to win the league. They should have been 3–0 up and cruising but they lacked the ability to get the job done. We had it in us to fight, to dig in and survive. Do that and, more often than not, you get your rewards. And of course Eric delivered for us, after a great cross from Phil, just as he did so many times. As wins go, it was huge, season-defining.

  Newcastle were the type of team that gave you a chance, and that’s what the manager kept saying to us even when they were streets ahead. It might have been very different if we’d been chasing a battle-hardened team like the 1998 Arsenal side or Mourinho’s Chelsea. Once Newcastle started slipping, even the young players among us sensed the opportunity. Pavel Srnicek was inconsistent in goal, the full-backs Barton and Beresford were a weakness, and they were soft in the centre. Keep up the pressure and we knew we stood a good chance.

  With four games to go we were in the driving seat when we travelled to the Dell to face Southampton. The first half was disastrous – 3–0 down! The Dell could be a tricky place to visit, but this was terrible.

  ‘Get that kit off, you’re getting changed,’ the manager said in the dressing room at half-time.

  I can’t say I liked our grey shirts – United colours are red, white and black, and I’ve never thought we should play in anything else – but it hadn’t occurred to me that our strip might be the problem. I just thought we were playing really badly.

  I didn’t know it at the time, but the manager had been talking to Gail Stephenson, an eye and vision expert at Liverpool University. She would later work with all of us on our peripheral vision. She gave me eye exercises to do before a game and I’d work on them just like stretching my calves or hamstrings. Attention to detail.

  She’d warned the boss that grey shirts would be hard to spot against a crowd, and perhaps she had a point, given that we wore that kit five times and lost four of the games and drew the other. So off they came – good riddance – and we did pull one goal back through Giggsy in our blue and white change strip. But it didn’t stop everyone having a good laugh at our expense.

  Fortunately Newcastle’s jitters were worse, as the whole country saw when Keegan lost the plot live on Sky with his ‘I’d love it’ rant. He was jabbing at the camera with his fingers. Watching at home, I couldn’t believe my eyes.

  The manager always says, ‘Never become emotional.’ He wants hardened winners, and I was surrounded by players who knew how to get us over the finishing line. After thrashing Nottingham Forest 5–0 we needed just one more win to clinch the title. I ended up on the bench at Middlesbrough as we won 3–0.

  We had done it with kids, though there is no doubting who made the greatest contribution. Eric was immense. As young players we’d looked to him for leadership and he’d been incredible as a match-winner. Winning titles is all about teamwork, but there are a couple from my time – certainly that year, and also 2006/07 with Cristiano Ronaldo – when you are so indebted to one player that you feel like giving him your medal. That was Eric’s championship.

  He was in his pomp, but we also had a fantastic, well-balanced team. Some of the media were urging the manager to push Becks into central midfield because of his way of spraying around passes, but that would have made him too static. Using him on the right made the most of his energy and stamina. And the relentless accuracy of his crosses was unbelievable. We already had fantastic options in central midfield with Keane, Scholesy and Butty, and with Giggs and Becks on opposite flanks we had a dribbler and a crosser. There were not two harder-working, more productive wingers in the world.

  We were already starting to develop the ability to wear out opponents. If we didn’t succeed in blitzing them early on, we’d keep moving the ball around midfield, making our opponents run and run without the ball. We’d keep at them, knowing that we had the penetration from Giggsy and the unfailing accuracy of Becks to make a killer blow when their legs had gone in the last fifteen minutes.

  We had won the league, and we had the FA Cup final to come. Except, just like for the title-decider, I wouldn’t be starting. By now I was a regular for my country but I couldn’t even get a place in my club team. And it was my brother keeping me out.

  It wasn’t the first time it had happened. When Phil made his debut at City the previous year I’d been told I wasn’t playing the day before. Tracey was at home, and she’d asked me who was in the team the next day.

  ‘Phil is, I’m not,’ I said.

  ‘What, he’s playing ahead of you?’ Like a sensitive sister, she burst out laughing.

  I got over it quickly – what choice do you have? – and Phil was brilliant in that game, as he was at full-back for the next couple of years, when I often played in the middle. It crossed my mind that he’d be the one who
’d keep me out long-term, but it only ever acted as a little spur to drive me on. We were only ever supportive to each other.

  We’d go round to each other’s rooms before games. We were a comfort to each other, a sounding board. We’d offer advice about a particular opponent. It was the same with Scholesy and Becks. When you are making these big leaps up, it’s great to have familiar faces around you. We’d travel in the same seats on the bus, all sitting together. We were like each other’s security blankets.

  Phil was brilliant, and there was no jealousy from me. That has never been our nature. We were too busy keeping up to worry about any petty rivalry. Phil was playing so well that he couldn’t be dropped. It was up to me to accept my place on the bench and not to mope as we prepared for the final.

  The Liverpool team we faced had talent but their professionalism wasn’t close to ours at United. We would let our hair down but only on rare occasions, when the time was right.

  They turned up at Wembley wearing shocking white suits, looking like they had done most of their preparations in the tailors. Their lifestyle even featured in our team talk. ‘Keep playing the ball around their area because David James will probably be waving at Giorgio Armani up in the directors’ box,’ the manager said.

  Fair or not, that’s the image they had, and the manager could claim, ‘I told you so’ when Jamo half-punched a corner from Becks to the edge of the area. Eric had been quiet by his standards, but he volleyed the ball straight through a crowded box. Now we’d won the Double with kids – as all the banners and T-shirts around Wembley reminded Hansen.

  I came on for a few minutes at the end and was on the pitch when we did our lap of honour afterwards. The fans were singing their favourite chant of the moment: ‘Cheer up Kevin Keegan, oh what can it mean …’ Full of joy, I joined in.

  I didn’t think anything of it until someone from the club pulled me afterwards to say it had been caught on television. I didn’t know Kevin Keegan, I’d never spoken to him, but he was an England legend so I sent him a letter of apology.

  Perhaps those Liverpool lads have no regrets from their careers. I don’t doubt they enjoyed themselves. But at United the time to party is when you’ve won something. There’s no denying that there had been a drinking culture in English football for decades, but the world was wising up, and our boss was one of the managers who would not tolerate boozing players.

  We’d go on the odd piss-up, though, and we always had a great Christmas party. December 1995 might be my personal best. A lightweight drinker at twenty, I knew I was in trouble when someone passed me a sixth pint of cider and it slipped straight through my hands and smashed on the floor. Later we staggered on to a Chinese and I ended up falling asleep on the pavement outside the Golden Rice Bowl. I was throwing up so badly that Ben and Casp had to put me in a cab. I could barely talk, but I managed to ask the driver to take me straight to hospital.

  He took me to the Royal Infirmary, and I was so terrified of being recognised that I checked in under the first name I could think of – Simon Brown. The lads got years of fun out of that. ‘Pass the ball, Simon.’ I crashed out on a bed and woke up in the middle of the night to find about fifty missed calls on my phone. I rang Casp to come and pick me up and he found me sitting in reception in a wheelchair barely able to speak. He could hardly push the chair for laughing.

  As well as Christmas, we’d celebrate the titles. And did we celebrate. After that first title we went to the Amblehurst Hotel in Sale, a traditional den for the United boys, and got bladdered. There’s a great photo of Phil sat outside the bus stop the next morning with his club blazer on, looking like Keith Richards.

  I think it was the following year when I surpassed myself by spewing all over the hotel reception. I was necking vodka straight out of the bottle, half a pint of the stuff, and I couldn’t stand up. About all I can remember is Keano pissing his sides and taunting me as I threw up everywhere. ‘Neville, you’re a shambles. I’m ringing Hoddle in the morning to tell him you’re a fucking disgrace.’

  My mum went berserk when Phil and my dad had to carry me into the house. ‘What have you done to my boy?’ Only a mum could be sympathetic in those circumstances.

  They’re the best nights, those celebrations. Absolutely the best. You’ve been under pressure all season with the expectations of the fans, the manager, everyone connected with the club. You’ve put yourself under pressure just to keep your place in the team. And then it all comes pouring out of you in a great wave of euphoria.

  I honestly don’t think you can appreciate the high unless you’ve been there and done it. Having a kid? Well, most people can do that. It’s a very small, privileged group who get to experience the thrill of winning a championship with their best mates, playing for United.

  But if I couldn’t handle my drink on those special occasions, it was because I rationed myself the rest of the time. Training and preparation were crucial to me – obsessively so. You could set your watch by my pre-match rituals.

  Week after week I’d go to bed like clockwork and eat the same meals. I didn’t want to take any chances. The day before a game, it was always the same:

  8 a.m.: breakfast of cereal and orange juice

  Noon: fish, potatoes and vegetables

  3.30 p.m.: cereal and a piece of toast

  7 p.m.: pasta with soup

  9.15 p.m.: lights out.

  I’d even take cereal and my own bowl and spoon on the train if we were going down to London. I’d sit there at 3.30 precisely munching my Weetabix as the train rolled through the countryside and the other lads pissed their sides. They could laugh, but these rituals mattered to me.

  Most of them started out as good professional habits – healthy diet, plenty of rest – but they quickly bordered on superstitions. It’s common enough among sportsmen. You are constantly looking for a little confidence booster, a reassurance that it will turn out all right on the night. Sticking to the same rituals offered me the comfort that I had done everything I could to be perfectly prepared, mentally and physically.

  At the end of the final training session before every match I would sprint off to the changing rooms. If you didn’t know my habits, you would assume I had a bladder problem. This was my last exercise before the game and I wanted to feel sharp (for the same reason, I’d always jump up first when we posed for team photos before a match). I’d hurtle off, leaving the rest of the lads cracking up.

  On match day, another strict routine would start with stretches at 9.30 in the morning and the ten o’clock call to my mum. Every game I ever played, I spoke to my mum five hours before kick-off. ‘Go stuff ’em,’ she would tell me, every single time, over twenty years.

  I’d always be early into Old Trafford, say 11.40 a.m. before a three p.m. kick-off. Well, who wants to be late? It used to drive me mad when players turned up for the team bus seconds before we were due to leave. I swear Louis Saha was never earlier than 11.59 and fifty-nine seconds if we had a noon departure. It would drive me crazy.

  After a noon lunch – Ribena, spaghetti with a bit of sauce, and a yoghurt – and the manager’s team talk, I always needed my private time. I’d grab a programme and head into the right-hand toilet cubicle. In the dressing room the rest of the lads would be laughing and joking. Someone would be kicking a ball around. But I always needed time on my own to think about the game or my direct opponent. I might be facing a lightning-quick winger with bags of skill, so to get some positive thoughts in my mind I’d say to myself, ‘Will he want it as much as me? Will he run as far as me?’

  Sometimes, if I was feeling edgy and nervous, I’d think about the meal I’d be eating later. I’d reassure myself that all this hullabaloo would be over in three hours and I’d be enjoying my salt-and-pepper spare ribs and my chicken curry in town with my family. People think you need to fire yourself up before a match, but it’s often about calming your-self down.

  Play for long enough and you get into some daft habits. I had a quick back massage once
when I was seventeen and played well. So that was it, a rub-down for every game after that, even though I’ve never had a bad back in my life. Walking out, I always insisted on being fifth in line with Becks just behind me. I’ve no idea why.

  Plenty of sportsmen have rituals like this. Mine were based on knowing that I had done everything to give myself an edge. The early nights, the 3.30 p.m. Weetabix, the pre-match stretches – I didn’t want to leave anything to chance.

  It doesn’t work for every player. A dressing room full of Gary Nevilles would be boring. But you cannot stay at the top in professional sport for very long without commitment and sacrifice – and there’s no doubt that, as a squad, we had good habits. Times were changing. Gone were the days when footballers could afford to get pissed in the week.

  There’s nothing worse than not making the most of your abilities. And that’s what the boss would remind us day after day after day. In the manager’s team talks, no one has been name-checked more times than a billionaire he knows. He’s got more money than he can spend, he can retire to the golf course, but, according to the boss, this bloke is still first into work every day. It was a speech we heard often: ‘Be proud to say you work hard.’

  You might think hard work should be taken for granted, especially with the millions that footballers can earn. But in a macho environment like a dressing room, it’s cooler to act like you don’t give a damn. And maybe that was the difference between the talented Liverpool squad of those days and us at United – they acted cool, and we won the championship.

  Terry

  SITTING ON THE team bus, we crawled through a sea of smiling England fans, all of them willing us on to win the European Championship on home soil. The whole country was buzzing. Stuart Pearce turned to me. ‘Enjoy it,’ he said, ‘because it might not get as good as this again.’