The Second Half (10 page)

I loved everything about United. From the day I signed for them. I just think it suited my personality. I loved the team, I loved the way we played. I liked all the lads, I liked the training, I liked the way we travelled. I liked the pressure. I liked the United fans. I thought they were pretty switched on, even when we lost – they’d be going mad, but a nice mad. I liked the demands. The kit. The badge. The history. I liked living in Manchester. I got on well with the manager. There was trust there – a big word in football. I liked the staff. Everyone at the training ground. The groundsmen. The different coaches over the years. Brian Kidd. Jim Ryan. Steve McClaren. Walter Smith. Carlos Queiroz. Micky Phelan. And winning – I enjoyed the winning.

I still have that soft spot for United, and thank God I do. I took my son to the Champions League final, between Bayern and Dortmund, at Wembley, in 2013. He was going on about different teams, and I asked him, ‘Which team do you support?’

He said, ‘United.’

He would have known I still had that little bit of resentment.

So I said, ‘Why do you support United?’

And he said, ‘Well, I was born in Manchester and I’m not going to support City, am I?’

I said, ‘Okay.’

That was a good enough reason. And I thought to myself, ‘I’d better get us some season tickets.’

We went to see them recently, and I was going, ‘Come on—!’

Fuckin’ hell – come on.

I want them to do well.

When I moved to Celtic I used to get an early flight up to Edinburgh or Glasgow, and I’d hire a car and drive from there
to the training ground. I’d stay a couple of days up there. One morning, a taxi driver picked me up, to bring me from my house to Manchester Airport. I got into the taxi at about six. My flight was at seven. In the middle of winter. And the taxi driver asked me, ‘Do you miss being at United?’

It was six in the fuckin’ morning; it was freezing – black outside. I looked at him and I went, ‘What do you think?’

We laughed.

FIVE

I lay on the bed. And my hip – I’ve never known pain like it. My hip was fuckin’ screaming.

I was going for bike rides around where I live, trying to keep fit. I’d no one to train with, in terms of kicking a ball and twisting and turning – the type of work I needed after being out injured. I was even kicking a ball against my garage door. Inside the garage, striking the ball against the door. It was like being a kid again, back in Mayfield, kicking a ball against a wall. I’d a punchbag in the garage, too, and a skipping rope – I’d do some skipping. And I’d do a few press-ups. It was basic boxing training – anything to make me feel a bit better.

Michael Kennedy started ringing me; there were clubs interested in talking. I’d have choices. But, instead of enjoying it all, I was thinking, ‘I’m starting all over again. Back to the beginning.’

But another part of me thought, ‘A new dressing room; I’ll learn something a bit different.’

But I wished I’d had a few games under my belt. I hadn’t played for five or six weeks, and I couldn’t play again until January. It wasn’t ideal. People at a new club might think, ‘We’re signing fuckin’ Maradona’, because of what I’d done at United.

Real Madrid offered me a year and a half year deal. Everton,
on my doorstep, wanted me to go to them. I met their manager, David Moyes, at his house, and I was impressed by what he said. Bolton – also on my doorstep; I met Sam Allardyce, too. But I went to Celtic for fifteen grand basic a week. I know it was a lot of money but I’d been earning a lot more. It was a massive pay cut.

When a club is interested in you, the manager generally sells it to you: ‘Listen, we’d love to have you here.’ But I met Gordon Strachan, the Celtic manager, in London – I met him in the majority shareholder Dermot Desmond’s house – and Gordon told me, ‘I’m not really too worried if you sign for us or not. We’re okay without you.’

So I said to myself, ‘Fuck him, I’m signing.’

I think it
was
one of the reasons I signed for them – to prove Gordon wrong. To be fair to Gordon, they were doing well in the League and he already had Neil Lennon playing in my position, and Stiliyan Petrov; he had a good team. So I wasn’t sitting back, shocked, going, ‘Show me the love.’ I thought, ‘All right. That’s the game.’ He was letting me know they weren’t desperate for me; he was being a bit coy and I was fine with that. But there was a bit of defiance there, too; like, ‘You might be fifteen points clear but, if I join, you might go twenty points clear. You might even need me next year in Europe.’

Michael had been over to Madrid and he’d negotiated a deal with Real. They spoke to me, too. Butragueño rang me. Emilio Butragueño – what a player he was. Michael had given me a heads-up that Butragueño would be phoning, so I took my mobile everywhere with me. And – how’s your luck – he rang me when I was sitting on the toilet. He said, ‘Look, Roy, we’ll be glad to have you.’ The club’s board just had to sanction the deal; it was standard procedure.

I was going, ‘— okay’, hesitating.

Michael was going, ‘What are you doing, Roy?’

Then Real needed time to rubber-stamp the deal – this was a few weeks before Christmas – and I just ran out of patience.

I should have appreciated Real’s offer more. It was the most attractive challenge in front of me, but I didn’t accept it. With hindsight, I should have said to myself, ‘Go. Go to Spain, live there for a year and a half, learn a different language, learn the culture. You might end up loving it. You might even stay there.’

I took a negative approach, I think, instead of saying, ‘This is amazing, what a chance for me.’ It could have been great for my kids. The weather and the training might have given me another lease of life, another two years of playing; I might have picked up new techniques for my stretching. But instead – as usual – I was looking at what might go wrong. ‘Hindsight’ is a fucker of a word. At the time, it felt like the right decision.

I didn’t want to move to Spain. As much as anything else, it was fear that decided me – fear of the unknown. And I threw excuses in front of me – family, language, the kids’ education. I could imagine myself going to Madrid, and into the dressing room. I’d be starting all over again, and I was in no mood to be doing that. I’d had a tough career. Physically, I was struggling.

It’s no good playing for a club; or, it’s not just about playing for them. It’s about having an effect on the club, having a big influence. That was one of my concerns when I left United.

I was thirty-four, an experienced player. Real Madrid might just have wanted someone to do a job, sit in the middle of the park for a few games. But I wanted to go in and have an effect on a team. Yes, it was Real Madrid but, to me, football is still the same; it doesn’t matter about the level. Would I go back to Cobh Ramblers next week? No, because I wouldn’t be able to affect the team. When I hear people say, ‘I played for United’, or ‘I played for Sheffield Wednesday’; lots of men have played for
these clubs, but it’s about affecting them. Affecting their history. Having an impact. Some of the top players can do that. Rooney, Ronaldo, Messi. Or Cantona and, at Forest, Stuart Pearce – all top players who had an effect, in their different ways. I could affect games with my presence, by breaking play up, imposing myself, even in the tunnel, before we went on to the pitch. But I was thirty-four, and I played a hard, physical game. I’d watched older players going to new clubs and it hadn’t worked out.

Actually, it wasn’t really about which club I should go to. Forget about Madrid, Everton, Celtic, Barcelona, Inter Milan and the reasons I should or shouldn’t have gone to any of them. The fact is, the morning I left United I lost the love for the game a little bit. I could have had every club in the world ringing me but it wouldn’t have given me that buzz, that satisfaction, that ‘Here we go’.

I thought I could make a bigger impact at Celtic than I would have at Everton or Madrid. To be honest, I thought it might be a bit easier at Celtic. I knew they would dominate a lot of matches. ‘I’ll go up to Celtic, and I’ll maybe do a job for a year, a year and a half.’

But when I arrived, I still felt like I was starting all over again. Trying to prove people wrong.

I signed for Celtic on 15 December, although I couldn’t play until January. The press conference was chaotic the day I signed. I felt like putting a dampener on it. ‘Listen, lads, I am thirty-four, my hip’s hanging off.’

Outside Celtic Park, with the scarf over my head, for the photographs. Hundreds of fans on the steps of the stadium. They were really good to me. They gave me a great welcome – everybody at the club. And it was nice to get the Celtic kit on. I was glad to be there. They were letting me get back to what I
was about, playing football. And Gordon Strachan and his staff, Garry Pendrey, and, of course, Tommy Burns – there was a very good atmosphere, good banter. Tommy was a really good guy, God rest his soul. If I’d gone to Madrid, I would never have met Tommy. John Clark, the kit man, was one of the Lisbon Lions; he was part of the team that won the European Cup in 1967. The kit man is vital; he’s almost the hub of everything, a link to everybody. He has to be good-humoured and upbeat. You have to be glad to see the kit man in the morning. He reflects the club, in a sense. I think Clarkie got a bigger buzz out of me signing for Celtic than anybody else at the club; he appreciated what I’d done in the game. He couldn’t do enough for me.

I met great people up at Celtic.

Their training, particularly their warm-ups – it was all about rotational stuff, movement of the hips. First and foremost, there was always a ball. If there were sixteen players, there’d be eight serving the ball to eight players in the middle. You’d always be working on the ball, and your recovery was when you were the server; you’d be throwing the ball for somebody in the middle. It was all about flicking the ball back, with the outside of your foot or your instep. All rotational stuff. The stressful part for me was flicking the ball back – and that was only the warm-up.

After the warm-up, I felt like going in. I was thinking, ‘That’s me done. I’m struggling.’ But I actually liked it, getting a feel for the ball. And there was a bit of banter thrown in, because some lads couldn’t do it. So I enjoyed all that – but my hip didn’t. I hadn’t trained properly, with a ball and other players, in more than two months. Knocking a ball against a garage door is no substitute. We trained for an hour and a quarter or an hour and a half. I didn’t feel too bad immediately afterwards; it was all new – I had that extra bit of energy.

I got back to my hotel in Edinburgh. People had advised me
to stay in Edinburgh – ‘Live in Edinburgh, keep away from all the hassle.’ Rangers fans, even Celtic fans. It made sense; I’d have more privacy. But, really, I should have stayed in Glasgow. (Later on, I rented a small flat in the West End of Glasgow, and it was fine.) But anyway, I drove back to the hotel; it was about an hour’s drive from Glasgow. Lovely hotel – lovely suite.

I lay on the bed. And my hip – I’ve never known pain like it. My hip was fuckin’ screaming. Just from the warm-up, from the training. It was all that movement; I hadn’t moved properly in months. I hadn’t been twisting, holding other players off. And it wasn’t as if I could ease myself back to fitness. I’d be going back on the pitch in two weeks; I was going to be thrown straight into a game.

I lay there, thinking, ‘I don’t want to go back. But I need to – I have to.’ I was an experienced professional, I’d played more than six hundred games; I could deal with anything.

My hip was screaming. Not aching – screaming. ‘What have you done?’

I couldn’t budge. I thought to myself, ‘You should have retired. You should have just packed it in.’

But I couldn’t leave after my first day. Imagine how that would have looked. Celtic fans, with their scarves and jerseys. ‘No, I’ve got to go to work.’ Could I go in and tell them that my hip was at me? Would it be better tomorrow? I’d have a forty-five-minute drive the next morning, maybe an hour, back to the training ground. ‘I’d better leave a bit earlier – I’ll hardly be able to drive.’

It was my own fault. No one had forced me to stay in Edinburgh.

But the hip – fuckin’ hell. I should have just packed it in. I should have been braver. Sometimes you have to be courageous enough to say no. An Irish friend of mine once told me, ‘ “No” is a sentence.’ One of my strengths earlier in my career had been
my ability to say no to people. I’d be very clear about not over-doing things, and knowing the limits of my job.

Then there’s the shame. I was under contract. People had bought jerseys with my name on them. I didn’t want to let anyone down. And the feeling that I wouldn’t even be able to play. Not long before – less than a year ago – I’d been in the Highbury tunnel, imposing myself on the game before it had even started. Now I was lying on a hotel bed, wondering if I could get through training.

I had to go in the next day. Of course, I had. It was my job. I needed to train. I had that game coming up in a couple of weeks.

My attitude, throughout my career had been: you train how you play. I should have adapted. I should have taken it easy in training. I wasn’t going to win plaudits for training on Tuesday; I’d get them if I played well on Saturday. I don’t think I felt old, in football terms, but, physically, I was. My body was old. But I was new in the dressing room and I wanted to impress; you have to. The player’s job, every day at training, is to impress the manager and his coaching staff. Gordon had never seen me train before. Tommy Burns had never seen me train. They’d seen me play, but they hadn’t seen me train.

The training didn’t get any easier. Before he took charge of Celtic the teams Gordon had managed had always been up against it. Southampton, Coventry – always fighting for survival. His teams were always hard-working, and his training was designed around that. I liked it. I just wished that I could have coped with it better.

You’d get changed at Celtic Park, and you’d get in your car and drive to the training ground up the road. It’s different now, but this was when I played. The biggest challenge was – whose car were we going in. We’d be sitting in the dressing room.

‘Whose turn is it?”

Because after training you’d have to drive back and nine times out of ten the rain was pissing down, so a gang of players would be getting into your car, covered in muck.

I enjoyed that, the bit of banter.

‘Listen, lads, I’ve a Bentley. Nobody’s getting into it with their fuckin’ boots on.’

I got to know the lads in the car. I’d go with Dion Dublin, or Petrov. We’d only be in the car for five minutes, but we’d have the crack. I had the United car for the first few weeks, so I invited everyone into the back of it, boots as well.

I ended up leasing a Golf – to keep my own car clean, but mostly so I could get around discreetly in Glasgow.

At around that time I was asked by somebody in Celtic’s administration if I’d mind not being paid until after January, because I wouldn’t actually be playing until then.

I said, ‘But I’ve signed my contract, and I’m training, and you’re selling jerseys in the shop. I want my wages from when I signed.’

The glamour of it – the fuckin’ glamour of it.

Michael had begged me not to sign for Celtic. He wasn’t happy with the negotiations, or their ‘take it or leave it’ approach. But I still think that if I hadn’t signed for Celtic I would have regretted it. They’d offered me the least money of any of the clubs. I read somewhere that I went to Celtic for forty or fifty thousand a week, but it was fifteen basic they offered me. I wasn’t motivated by the money – or, just the money. I think there might have been a bit of guilt about that, when I left United – the amount I’d been earning there, and earning so much for something I loved doing anyway.

I’d said once or twice in interviews over the years, ‘I’d like to play for Celtic one day.’ I’d said it casually but now I felt I couldn’t go back on my word. And I wanted to play against Rangers, in an
Old Firm game. For the atmosphere, the buzz – the experience. I’d played for United against Rangers, and it was electric. I remember thinking, ‘If it’s as good as this when it’s Rangers against United, what must it be like when it’s against Celtic?’ I’d been up to see Celtic play Rangers several times, at Ibrox, too. They were massive games. Celtic were going to play in my testimonial at United the following May; it had already been agreed before I’d left United. So I wondered, ‘If I don’t sign for Celtic, will that be awkward?’ But, more than any other consideration, I just thought, ‘I want to treat myself here. I’m going to go where I want to go, and fuck the money.’ I wouldn’t have called it a dream, but I’d always liked Celtic. And the Irish connection would have been in the back of my mind; I felt a bit of loyalty to them. Usually, when you’re making a decision about your career, you consider everything – the challenge, family, location. But this decision was a purely selfish one. I just wanted to play for Glasgow Celtic. Celtic is a special club.