Always Managing: My Autobiography (18 page)

I’m lucky to be here. I try not to think about it. On the night of 30 June 1990, a minibus in which I was travelling was involved in a head-on collision on a road near Latina, in the region of Lazio, near Rome. I was sleeping in a passenger seat and had no idea of the horror that had occurred. My friend, Brian Tiler, was killed. So were the three teenage Italian soldiers in the other car. I woke up in hospital with terrible injuries. Apparently, a sheet had been placed over my face at the scene of the accident with the presumption that I must be dead. Another friend, Michael Sinclair, the former chairman of York City, had pulled me clear of the wreckage – I was soaked in petrol, and he feared an explosion. When people ask me about it now, I am afraid I plead ignorance. I have no memory of it and am happy for it to stay that way. All I know is that I lost a wonderful pal in Brian, and a moment of recklessness cost three young men their lives.

The accident happened on the SS148, one of those three-lane carriageways that are commonplace in Europe: a lane for traffic north, another for traffic south, and one in the middle for whoever
is brave enough. It was a bad road, notorious for accidents, and the three youngsters were on our side of it, attempting to overtake a vehicle at 90 m.p.h. when the collision occurred. Losing Brian really affected me. I have had good relationships with a number of my bosses at football clubs, but there was never anyone quite like him.

Brian was a fantastic character – what I would call a proper boy. He was Bournemouth’s chief executive, but his background was more football than business. In any disputes with the board, his instinct was to side with the football people, and he’d steam in for me at the first sign of trouble. He knew when to lay it on the line, and when to get out for a game of golf to clear our heads. And he knew the game. He would never interfere, never tell you what players to pick, but it was great to seek his opinion when there was a big decision to make. I liked his company and I miss our glasses of wine on a Friday night before the match. I couldn’t have had a better boss than Brian.

I can’t remember whose idea it was to book a trip to the World Cup in Italy in 1990, but I wouldn’t call it work. It was the holiday of a lifetime, really. There was no way Bournemouth could afford any of the players on show, so we just treated it as a summer break. The travelling party was Brian and me, Michael Sinclair and Eric Whitehouse, a big Aston Villa fan and Brian’s friend from way back. Some of the chaps took their sons with them, too, and we booked a beautiful hotel on the coast, spent the days around the pool and the evenings watching games. On the night of the crash we had seen Italy beat the Republic of Ireland, thanks to a goal from the local hero of the tournament, Salvatore ‘Toto’ Schillaci.

After the match we stopped for a pizza at a little square around the corner from the Stadio Olimpico, and some Irish fans joined
us. They recognised me as the manager of Bournemouth, and we struck up a conversation about Gerry Peyton, who was my goalkeeper and Ireland’s second choice behind Pat Bonner. Brian was anxious to go because we had to be up early the next morning to get to Naples, where England were playing Cameroon. I must have held us up about ten minutes, chatting to these lads. I often think about those ten minutes. If we had gone when Brian wanted, he would still be here today, and perhaps those kids would still be alive, too. I’m not saying I’m tortured. I wasn’t to know the consequences, I understand that. Yet when I play back what I remember of that night, there are so many little twists, things that were, quite literally, the difference between life and death. Brian nicked my seat. That was my punishment for keeping everybody hanging about. I usually took the aisle position, Brian sat by the window because I didn’t like the breeze. But when I got on board that night, he had switched spots. How fateful was that little wind-up? Sitting in that window seat was the last I remember of our holiday. I went to sleep and the accident happened. I woke up in hospital, not knowing a thing. I don’t remember seeing the car coming, I don’t remember the impact, not one single event after I nodded off. I just remember the hospital in Latina, coming around in bed two days later. I think it was about another two days on when I felt well enough to begin piecing it all together. That is when I found out Brian had died. I was still having lots of scans and doctors visiting, but was finally able to ask what had happened. It was then I was told the whole bloody nightmare.

From the recollections of the other passengers, I have recovered fragments of the events on the night. I had been thrown clear of the wreckage, and then dragged farther away by Michael, but the
paramedics on the scene thought I was already dead. The doctors shared that opinion when I arrived at the hospital, too. Somebody certainly thought I wouldn’t be needing any money where I was going, as my valuables, including my watch, were never recovered. I had fractured my skull and many other bones, and suffered a horrific gash to my leg that still bears a scar. I don’t think my life was ever in danger, although when I look at pictures of the accident scene I can hardly believe that any of us survived. Both vehicles were a write-off, there were four fatalities and our driver spent nine months in hospital. Incredibly, the rest of the passengers had only minor injuries. It was a miracle, really.

I felt so desperately sad when I heard Brian was gone. So sad for Hazel, his wife, and his daughter, Michelle. We had been through a lot together at Bournemouth, shared some great times, had so many laughs. He wasn’t my boss, he was a friend. Later that year, we organised a fundraising night to help his family, and I saw a side of one man that I never knew existed.

I didn’t get off on the right foot with Ken Bates, one of football’s most controversial chairmen. When Bournemouth played Chelsea in Division Two, he came down to the dug-out to have a word with his manager, Bobby Campbell. We were winning at that point in the match, and he didn’t seem too happy. After the game I was asked if I would allow my chairman to speak to me on the touchline while the game was in progress, and I gave a straight answer: ‘No, he wouldn’t do that anyway,’ I said. ‘He’s too busy.’ The next week I got a letter from Ken Bates, and you can imagine the contents. He absolutely slaughtered me. Put me in my place good and proper. Then, after Brian died, a director of Bournemouth called Brian Willis organised the fundraising
dinner at the Royal Bath Hotel. Ken Bates came down and bought everything in the auction. Quietly, though. He didn’t show off, he just pulled the organisers aside and said he would top every bid that night, whatever it was. When we sent the invoice off, he returned a cheque for double the amount. So I have never thought ill of him, no matter how much criticism he received at Chelsea and then Leeds United. That was a fantastic gesture and I’ll never forget him for it.

After the crash, recovery was difficult. The club paid for a company called Euro Assist to fly me home, because the plane had to travel low due to my skull fractures; I couldn’t afford to be subjected to significant air pressure. I have never regained my sense of smell, not a complete disadvantage in some dressing rooms, and I lost my sense of taste for about six months after the accident, although it has slowly returned over time.

Once home, I thought my life would change. I still felt a real sense of loss over Brian, and I determined never to get uptight again about football – but that new outlook didn’t last long. That’s the way I am, and it proved impossible to change. So, soon, I was back into it full-on again. As soon as I was up and able, I went to watch Bournemouth play at Reading, The doctors had said that under no circumstances was I to get involved with football until I had made a full recovery and been signed off, but a mate of mine took me in disguise. He drove, and I had a bobble hat on, a hooded top over that, a big scarf wrapped around me, and we sat up the back of the stand in the crowd. While I was ill, Stuart Morgan, my assistant, had signed a goalkeeper called Peter Guthrie from Barnet. He used to be at Tottenham Hotspur, who had bought him for a lot of money, but he didn’t do well there. Stuart knew him from one of
his earlier clubs, Weymouth, and rated him, but this afternoon he was useless. He didn’t come for crosses and we got beat 2–1. He must have got a bit of a shock when this mad bloke in a bobble hat suddenly burst into the dressing room at the end of the match and gave him a bollocking. Harry’s back! The doctor would have gone mad had he known.

Sadly, though, once Brian was gone it was never quite the same at Bournemouth for me. I’d had a great nine years there, I was back into it, and as committed as ever, but I missed him and the club was changing. It was difficult without Brian, and I felt quite low. We finished eighth in 1992, but by then I felt it was time to go. I had fallen out hugely with the latest chairman, Ken Gardiner, and there was no way forward from there. Our last home game of the season was against Reading. We won 3–2, and in the vice-presidents’ lounge Gardiner was about to make a presentation to a barman who was leaving having been with us for nineteen years. He was calling for order when Kevin Bond, our centre-half, came in and ordered a lager. Gardiner loudly put him down, in front of a lot of people and, after the presentation, I approached him about it. We had words at the end of which he made a very hurtful and disparaging comment about Brian Tiler. That was the last straw. I grabbed Ken by the throat and we had to be separated. The final game of the season, away at Hartlepool United, was plainly going to be my last for the club.

I’d had a great time at Bournemouth and absolutely loved it for the most part, but I wasn’t happy there any more. I knew the club had a manager lined up, too, in Tony Pulis, whom I had taken from Newport County as a player. Tony had retired from playing and was now part of my backroom staff, and I’m sure most of the
league breathed a sigh of relief when that happened. He was a monster, Tony – the toughest tackler I have ever seen. I remember the day we bought him, it took me about three hours to get to Newport, it rained all the way and, as I made my journey up the motorway, one by one every game was called off. Plymouth Argyle – gone; Cardiff City – gone. I arrived in Newport and sat down in this little wooden hut where all the scouts went for a cup of tea before the game. It must have been 7.20 p.m., ten minutes before kick-off, but the first person I saw in there was Tony Pulis. Terrible journey, waterlogged roads all the way, and the bloke I’ve come to watch has been dropped. The look on Tony’s face suggested he knew why I had travelled. He’d played against us earlier that year and had a blinder. He wasn’t a stylish footballer, but he made it bloody hard for those that were. You hear legendary stories about Ron Harris and Tommy Smith these days, but Tony would be up there with any of them when it came to the hard stuff.

Some of his stunts were unbelievable. We had our own tough nut, Keith Williams, a lad I’d bought from Northampton Town. Hard as anybody, a wicked tackler, he always did a great job for us. I didn’t know Tony Pulis from Adam, but ten minutes in he had sorted out Keith like nothing I had ever seen. He’d come in quick, sharp as a razor. He couldn’t actually play. He couldn’t pass it more than five yards, really, but when he set off for a tackle you wanted to dial 999 just to be on the safe side. And players would get away with it in those days. Times have changed but, back then, I’d rather have a lad like Tony in midfield for me than against me, and he knew he was the player I had come to watch. It gave us time to have a little chat, though, and he said he’d love to play for Bournemouth. He wasn’t getting on at Newport and was available
as a free transfer at the end of the season. Tony did a great job beside Sean O’Driscoll in our midfield and he eventually became my assistant. He was tough as a manager, too. After I left, he got in trouble for chinning one of the players.

Yet Tony’s experience and ambition helped me, because it meant Bournemouth did not fight too hard when West Ham United came calling that summer. By then, we had another chairman, Norman Hayward, and he was Tony’s mate. I knew they would do well together. I also knew then the sort of manager Tony would be. He was a very good trainer, always into his fitness, and I thought that was how he would prepare his teams. They’d be conditioned, ready to run all day and they would work for him, or else … His Stoke City teams were like that, too – they may not be easy on the eye, but they always give you a game. I’m sure Norman wasn’t bothered when West Ham offered me the job as assistant to Billy Bonds, because he had Tony to step in right away.

As for me, I didn’t have to think twice when I got the call from West Ham. I knew something was up when I heard Billy’s voice on the telephone, because Bill wasn’t the type for social chit-chat. West Ham had been relegated that season, and he wanted an assistant. That suited me perfectly. Those last two years without Brian at Bournemouth had taken a toll on me and I was more than happy just to get out on the training field and coach players. I’d had enough of being the bad guy. When you are the manager, you put up that team-sheet and, straight away, half the club hates you. Their wives hate you, too. At Bournemouth, Shaun Teale’s missus nearly ran me over after a row about one hundred quid. She marched down to the training ground over some minor contractual issue, gave me a mouthful, I told her to piss off, and the next thing I knew
she was reversing out of the car park so fast, she nearly took me with her. That was one side of the job I wasn’t going to miss. When you are the coach, as long as the results are going right, you can be everyone’s friend. I was looking forward to being able to relax during the week again. It didn’t quite turn out as I had planned.

West Ham were a shambles. It came as quite a shock. Bill didn’t need someone looking for a quiet life, someone who would just sit back. They had gone down for a reason, and that was apparent to me the moment I walked through the door. Bill was upset that I said it publicly, but the club was too easy-going. Julian Dicks was our captain, but didn’t return from his summer holiday until two days after pre-season training had started. His attitude was frighteningly poor at times. As for Ian Bishop, he had been with me at Bournemouth and I was appalled to see the state of him. He was 32 pounds heavier than he had been previously – and I had the evidence to prove it.