Red: My Autobiography Page 7

  Being young, I shrugged it off, thinking, ‘There’ll be plenty more good times to come’. But he turned out to be right. There weren’t nearly enough good times, not when it came to playing for my country. Euro 96 was the pinnacle.

  I loved playing under Terry Venables, although it wasn’t all plain sailing. Being a United player at that time was to be a target for some terrible stick at Wembley. People either loved us or hated us now that we were winning trophies every year. And in Hughes and Ince, then Keane and Cantona, we had a really hard, aggressive edge.

  England, not having to qualify for the tournament, played a run of friendlies with the old stadium half empty. Less than thirty thousand fans watched us play Bulgaria one night so you could hear every shout. ‘Munich bastard!’ ‘Red bastard!’ It was always at its worst down one side, across from the dugouts and the royal box. There would be groups of West Ham and Chelsea supporters, lads who had come not to cheer England but to get pissed and hammer a few United players on a Wednesday night. I’d be running up and down the touchline, playing my guts out for my country, then I’d go to pick up the ball for a throw-in and hear a shout of ‘Fuck off Neville, you’re shit!’

  I was delighted when that tired old ground, with its crap facilities and its pockets of bitter fans, got smashed into little pieces. I never mourned the Twin Towers, not for a minute.

  Still, I didn’t let the minority of idiots spoil the experience of playing for England or for Terry. I loved it right from my debut in the summer of 1995.

  I was out in Zurich for an end-of-season youth competition for under 20s involving some of the top European clubs when one of the United coaches came over.

  ‘Gary,’ he said, ‘you’ve been called up by England.’

  I couldn’t believe it. I was out there playing with youth players. But I rang my dad and he confirmed it. So I was on the first plane out of there to meet up with the senior England team.

  Gary Pallister was the only other United player in the squad so I travelled down with him to the hotel at Burnham Beeches. It was one of those nervous moments. I didn’t say much, which isn’t like me. I must have come over as someone quite shy to Terry and the rest of the players, and it didn’t help when Pally went home a few days later carrying an injury. I felt isolated, lonely for the first time in a football environment. I was used to being around my pals.

  Every time I went down to dinner I was already looking forward to getting back to my room without any fuss or bother. If I wasn’t training, I’d lie in my room watching telly or having a nap. The other lads, like Gazza, David Platt and Alan Shearer, weren’t unfriendly. I was just a youngster staying out of their way. Stan Collymore was in his first squad, too, but he had Liverpool teammates like Steve McManaman and John Barnes to hang around with. There was a big Liverpool contingent, but they were a different clique to me – a bit louder, a bit more outgoing and confident. If I was going to make an impression it would have to be on the pitch.

  At twenty, and after only nineteen Premiership matches, I made my England debut in a three-match series, the Umbro Cup, against Japan at Wembley – admittedly a low-key game, with a crowd of just 21,142 – playing in a defence that featured John Scales and David Unsworth at centre-back and Stuart Pearce on the other side. I acquitted myself pretty well, and though Warren Barton came in for the next game against Sweden, I returned against Brazil – a 3–1 defeat in front of a much bigger crowd and with Ronaldo, Roberto Carlos and Dunga in opposition.

  As a defender, I learnt so much from Don Howe, Terry’s assistant. He used to take the back four for sessions while Terry and Bryan Robson worked on the attacking side of the game. We’d split into different groups straight after the warm-up for half an hour before coming back together to work as a team.

  That was new to me. At United we’d always based training around small-sided games together. We’d go to ball-work quickly. Under Don it was much more about tactical shape and co-ordinating everyone’s movements. As a defence, we were drilled with military precision.

  Don’s attitude was that you had to get the foundations right in any team, and that meant building from the back. You could win a game 4–1 but if the goal conceded was a bad one, he’d be livid.

  Terry had a crane installed by the practice pitch so he could film the sessions from on high and then go back over the video to show you your movements. It’s common now to have that sort of analysis but at the time it was a novel approach, and very educational for me.

  Armed with those tapes, Don hammered us until we were as co-ordinated as synchronised swimmers. They were brilliant sessions, as good as I’ve seen. I learnt how to anticipate angled passes behind me, and to close down my winger. At that time, more than in later years, my job was mainly about stopping my opponent. It was a crime if I let him swing a cross in.

  One of the first things Don, astute as ever, said to me was this: ‘I’ve watched you, I like you and you defend quite well, but you don’t set up a lot of goals. You don’t go forward much.’ At that time, it was a fair observation.

  But my game suited him and Terry so, as Euro 96 loomed, I was firmly established as right-back in a four-man defence. I could also operate as a third centre-back, which was a big advantage because we’d worked on swapping between formations when necessary. Warren Barton wasn’t really Don’s type and Rob Jones had had terrible injury problems at Liverpool. So I was a regular, and Phil, precocious as ever, was my understudy, at nineteen.

  Before the tournament we went on tour to the Far East – a chance to warm up with a match against China and to bond together as a squad. In the interests of camaraderie, Terry gave us all a night off before we were due to fly home. I was up for a few beers, but David Platt sensed trouble brewing. As one of the senior pros, he approached me, Phil, Nicky Barmby and Jason Wilcox, the young lads, with some friendly words of advice. ‘This could be one to miss,’ he said. So as Teddy Sheringham, Alan Shearer, Gazza and the boys all went out to explore Hong Kong’s nightlife, the three of us sat in our hotel having dinner. We didn’t know what a riotous time we were missing.

  The first I knew about anything was when I came down for lunch the next day. I walked into the dining room and Gazza was lighting a cigar with something that looked like a Bunsen burner from a chemistry class. I swear it’s one of the funniest things I’ve seen in my life. The flame must have been about three feet long and Gazza, in the dining room of a five-star hotel, was almost setting fire to himself. Phil and I were crying with laughter. If anyone had done that at United you wouldn’t have waited for the bollocking from the manager, you would have just packed your bags and gone. I do know the boss wanted to bring Gazza to Old Trafford. It’s a real shame it never happened because I think Alex Ferguson would have been great for him.

  It was clear from Gazza’s state, and the sore heads among the rest of the lads, that they’d had a cracking night out. Part of me was kicking myself for not going, and I wouldn’t have missed it in later years. But Platty had looked after us younger lads and I can’t imagine how our manager at home would have reacted if we’d been all over the front pages. I wasn’t exactly a hardened drinker. A quick appointment in the infamous dentist’s chair having vodka poured down my throat would have finished me off for days. But I wished I’d been there to enjoy it.

  There was more mayhem to come. When we flew home all the players were upstairs in the bubble of the jumbo jet. Gazza was sat next to Phil and me. He’d been drinking for hours and Terry wanted someone to make sure he didn’t get out of control. Terry sent Doc Crane, the England team doctor, to keep an eye on him, but he liked a tipple himself and fell asleep.

  Alan Shearer came down to play cards. As he was walking past Gazza he slapped the back of his head. A big clout. Gazza woke up with a start and thought it was McManaman or Fowler because they were sat a couple of rows behind. Gazza’s revenge was to go and smash up their TV consoles.

  We got off the plane and didn’t really think much about the damage that had been left b
ehind, but the next day all hell broke loose. It had kicked off in the Sunday papers, with pictures of everyone getting pissed in the China Jump and a story about the wreckage on the plane.

  Back in the team hotel, Terry met the senior players and told them they’d better come up with a way out of this mess. Around the country there was a bit of impatience with our form so there wasn’t much credit in the bank with the media or the public. The wolves were out.

  We had a full meeting of the squad at Burnham Beeches. The senior players – Platt, Shearer and Pearce – had their say and came out with the line about collective responsibility. We’d all take the rap and give two match fees to pay for the damage and the rest to charity. This was another lesson that stayed with me through my England career: teams stick together. Never chuck your teammate overboard, or show divisions.

  Sharing the blame was going to cost me a lot of money. Our match fee was £1,500, which was a fortune to me at the time, and I had a moan to my brother. We hadn’t been on the piss-up or caused any of the damage. But looking back, it was the right way to handle it. We had to keep the group together. And the truth was that the players were willing to make allowances for Gazza because they knew what he could do for the team. He was our match-winner, and as popular a player as any in the squad. There was nothing to be gained by us hanging Gazza out to dry.

  We went into the tournament with a great team, as well as home advantage. We had David Seaman, Tony Adams, Platt, Ince, Gazza, Shearer, Pearce and Sheringham, all established and in their prime. You could have made a captain out of any of them. It was a joy for the young players like Steve McManaman, Darren Anderton, Nick Barmby and me to look around the dressing room and see all this talent and hardened experience.

  In the dressing room before matches, Adams would kick a ball against a wall or the door like he was ready to batter it down. I used to sit next to Pearce and he scared the life out of me the first time he warmed up for a match at Wembley. ‘This is our fuckin’ turf, this is my fuckin’ turf,’ he kept snarling.

  Even though there were big characters at United, the dressing room at Old Trafford was generally composed in the minutes leading up to kick-off. Not so with England. There’d be shouting, chest-beating, patriotic roars. I’d sit there and think, ‘This lot are wound up.’ I wanted to put on Football Focus and chill out. It was the opposite from what I knew at United where we had music, the telly on until half an hour before kick-off, lads laughing and joking.

  For a young defender, Adams was someone to look up to. Our manager once described him as a United player in the wrong shirt, and I can see what he meant. His intensity, his drive, his courage would have made him a legend at Old Trafford.

  Shearer was another who could – make that should – have played for United. I thought he was going to join us that summer of ’96. The club were sniffing around him when Becks and I bumped into him at a Bryan Adams concert. We did our best to talk him round but he chose Newcastle, and to this day I think of what might have been had he come to United. For all his achievements in the game, there will always be something missing from his career because he never played consistently at the top European club level. At United he would have done that and become adored every bit as much as he was at Newcastle. He could have been embraced like Charlton and Robson, two other United legends from the north-east. I thought it was madness for him not to want to come to Old Trafford, where he would have won countless medals. But then I’m not a Geordie.

  We also had Gazza, who’d been to a World Cup semi-final and who, despite his injuries, was still a world-class talent. He was everything you’ve heard – mad, hilarious, warm-hearted, and a match-winner.

  That squad had power, strength, experience, a proven goalscorer, depth and confidence. And thanks to Terry’s abilities, we had players who were better for their country than their clubs. Anderton was one, Barmby another, because they were bright and adaptable. Jamie Redknapp was a bit like that as well, although very unlucky with injury. These were players who weren’t in a rush, who could hold the ball, who could use it intelligently. McManaman was another. Just going through the squad makes me wonder what might have been.

  We began with a scrappy draw against Switzerland so we needed to raise our game against Scotland in our second group game. Everyone remembers the second goal, that brilliant individual strike by Gazza which he celebrated as if he was back in the dentist’s chair. But it was the first goal that gave me one of the most satisfying moments of my England career.

  It was a cross, just a cross, but I remember it as one of my best ever, landing right on Shearer’s head at the far post. He was never going to miss from there. I ran off up the touchline, pumping my fists, Gazza chasing after me. After all the stick at Wembley, it felt like the whole country was united behind every one of us, even Phil and me, the United lads. The atmosphere was fantastic.

  We’d not been great against Scotland, suffering a nightmare twenty minutes and needing Big Dave Seaman to make a big penalty save. But we were gathering momentum, which is what matters in tournaments. We were full of confidence going into our third game, against Holland, and both tactically and technically it was the best international performance I’ve been involved in, a real tribute to Terry’s preparations.

  Football is always going to be unpredictable, but under a top coach like Terry you would go out with a picture in your mind of how the game should unfold. And more often than not, and particularly in that match against Holland, it would happen as he had anticipated.

  He’d been working for months on the plans. When Big Dave had the ball in his hands, Terry had me and Stuart Pearce push high up the field, pressing Holland right back on their flanks. One of the midfield players would drop so we wouldn’t be exposed defensively, but, with one tweak, we had control of the pitch. We were playing a team you would expect to dominate possession, but it was as though England became foreigners for a night. That 4–1 victory is one of only a handful of England games when we looked a higher class than the opposition.

  It was a brilliant team performance, but we couldn’t match it in a really tough, tight quarter-final against Spain. I was as tired as I’ve ever been on the pitch. There was such a buzz around the country that I was barely sleeping at night, and I felt it in that game. We went through on penalties, Stuart Pearce providing one of the great England moments with his celebration, but I was booked for a tired tackle on the left-back Sergi which meant I’d miss the semi-final through suspension. I was gutted, and I’d probably have been even more upset if I’d known there’d be no more semi-finals with England in my time.

  Terry came up to me in the dressing room after the Spain game. ‘Don’t worry, you’ll be back for the final,’ he said. I had every reason to believe him. We were certain we could beat Germany to reach the final. We were on home soil, the team was packed with talent and experience, and the spirit was fantastic under Terry. Everything was in place. Germany weren’t great. We had the beating of them.

  The fans believed it too. There seemed to be a St George’s flag flying from every house. Everywhere we went there were thousands out on the streets.

  I felt the hairs rise on the back of my neck as I took my seat for the match and the whole stadium sang ‘Football’s Coming Home’. I’m not sure I’ve seen Wembley like that, before or since.

  It was heartbreaking to lose, especially the way we did. There would be a lot of self-inflicted disasters with England, but this was a genuine hard-luck story. We’d been the better team, with Gazza just inches away from converting one cross deep into injury-time that would have been an historic Golden Goal. And when we went to penalties, we’d actually scored them. All five had flown in when Gareth Southgate, my replacement, stepped up. You know the rest. We went out to the eventual champions, but by the narrowest of margins.

  The sense of disappointment was massive around the whole country, and among the players. If there was a consolation for me it was that the experience of a major tournament at the age of twen
ty-one was incredible. My performances had been very decent. I’d felt at home, whether it was at right-back, right centre-back or wing-back (I played all three positions in four games). It had been a joy to play because Wembley was right behind us. There were spine-tingling experiences sitting on the team bus on the way to games, with the streets lined with fans from Burnham Beeches right into London.

  I’d learnt so much from the older players, but mostly from Terry. People talk about his knowledge of the game, his tactical brain, and rightly so, but the thing that most impressed me was that he was never afraid to have really strong people around him like Don Howe and Bryan Robson. He’d encourage everyone, including the players, to join a discussion but never in a way that made him seem weak or indecisive. Don might come into the dressing room and contradict him. Don might win the argument. Maybe it showed Terry’s self-confidence and experience that he was able to be talked round without it seeming as though he was being undermined.

  The FA’s failure to give Terry a contract to take us on after Euro 96 remains one of the great disappointments of my career. I know there was a massive clash of personalities with Noel White, the chairman of the international committee, but only at the FA could it be the elite coach who packs his bags and the blazer who wins the day.

  Terry was at his peak. He’d had experience of being a club manager at the top level, he’d enjoyed success at Barcelona, where he’d expanded his vision of the game and his expertise, and he’d gained a fantastic knowledge of the players. Even if Terry was a bit stubborn in his dealings with the FA, it was a massive cock-up to let him go. It was a decision that undermined England for years.

  But that was the trouble with the FA. Too many suits, too many guys with agendas, too many people listening to the press and panicking at the first sign of controversy. So what that some of the media had it in for Terry because of his business dealings? So what if Terry used to invite us for a few drinks at his club, Scribes? So what if he wouldn’t bow before the international committee? The bottom line is that he’d not only restored pride in the national team after the Graham Taylor shambles but also put us within a whisker of winning our first tournament in thirty years. Tactically and technically, we had no reason to be afraid of anyone. We had good players and, thanks to Terry and his staff, we were a very good team.