Always Managing: My Autobiography (30 page)

It was the last thing I wanted. Having managed in the Premier League with West Ham for seven years, why would I want to go back into management with Portsmouth? I had already turned down a better job at Leicester. I liked being on the south coast with my family, and I liked being with Milan, who had become a pal, but I certainly wasn’t itching to take on a relegation scrap in a lower division. I did everything I could to keep Graham at the club that season. If Milan had had his way, he would have been gone sooner.

All the urgency to get me in at the training ground came from Milan. His insistence had been growing since the FA Cup defeat by Leyton Orient, but I had resisted. ‘You’ve got to get involved with Graham,’ he would say.

‘It’s difficult for me, Milan,’ I told him. ‘I don’t want to get under his feet. I’ve been in his position – he won’t want me around.’

But the situation was worsening. ‘I spoke with Graham, he said he really wants you to help,’ Milan told me one day.

So I spoke to Graham, too. ‘Milan’s got the hump,’ I told him. ‘You need to start showing him some improvement.’

I felt sorry for Graham. He was a good coach but parts of the manager’s job were too much for him at this stage of his career. I took Graham to Bristol Rovers one night, tried to show him specifically what I looked for in a player, or the way a team was set out. We got on fine and I thought the atmosphere was improving, but then we lost at home to Wimbledon and Milan wanted Graham replaced again.

We would go around in circles. ‘You’ve got to be the manager.’ ‘I don’t want to be the manager.’ I even spoke to Dennis Roach, Graham’s agent, to warn him of the mood and see if he could get Milan to turn the heat down. In the end, I think Graham got a two-match stay of execution. We drew away at Crewe Alexandra and at home to Sheffield Wednesday, and that was it for Milan. He changed tack. Now it wasn’t Graham who was going – he was going. ‘I’m going to pack up, Harry,’ he said. ‘I’ve had it. I’m resigning. Unless you take over for the last five games, I’m leaving. I’ve given Graham the chance and we’re going down.’

So I took over for the last five games of the season.

Managing Portsmouth wasn’t something I ever saw as part of my future and those final five games did little to change my opinion. We didn’t win once. We got a draw against Burnley and another point away to Birmingham City, and stayed up by four points, meaning Graham could have remained in charge. We wouldn’t have gone down anyway, even if we had lost every game, as we already had enough points to survive – although Milan wasn’t to
know that. Still, it wasn’t a great start, and I still had ambitions of managing in the Premier League.

‘I’ve enjoyed it here, Milan,’ I told him, when he offered me the job permanently, ‘but it’s not what I want to do.’ He can be a very persuasive chap, though, and I did enjoy his company. We got on very well – as tight as I have been with any chairman. We went out for another dinner at Chewton Glen, Milan and his wife, me and Sandra, and by the end of it I was the new manager of Portsmouth. ‘I’ll give it a go,’ I told him. ‘I’ll do a year and see how I feel.’

It is fair to say it went better than either of us could have expected. We won the league by six points the following season. Incredible, really, given the circumstances. We didn’t even have a proper training ground: we used somewhere in Portsmouth when Graham was in charge, but the facilities were appalling. There was a big oak tree in the middle of the pitch and the changing rooms were derelict, and what remained had been vandalised by kids. There was an old hut that had been there since the war, which doubled as the dressing room, and the kids used to get in there at night and smoke. It was filthy. We would clean it out the best we could, but it was cold – no hot water there and no food, so we had to bring sandwiches or soup over from the club at lunch-time if we were going to train all day. I can remember driving around that summer looking for an alternative, and finding the Wellington Sports Ground, just by Southampton Airport. It was Southampton’s old training ground, not perfect, but better than what we had. I drove over there and saw the groundsman. He said it had been mainly used by Southampton university
since the football club built their own facility. That was all the encouragement I needed. The university weren’t keen at first, but they were struggling for money, so we struck a deal. We had to be off there by 11 a.m. on Wednesdays, out of the building and gone because it was needed for hockey, and there was a cricket square in the middle that couldn’t be touched. Sometimes we had to start training at 8.45 a.m. to accommodate the university, and the space we did have wasn’t big enough to mark out a full-size pitch, but what alternative was there?

Yet the players never complained. Steve Stone was an England international, yet he suffered it without a murmur. Do you think he had to put up with that at Aston Villa or Nottingham Forest? He could easily have moaned yet, like the rest, he was too professional. We had a fantastic spirit at the club. Every morning we’d mark out the little areas that we could use and, when it wasn’t raining, it was at least a good surface. Different when it was wet, mind you. The rain used to come pouring off the side of the hill and flood it completely. As for the changing rooms, they were stone cold with no heating at all. It was like playing in kid’s football again. If anything, the dressing rooms we used to get changed in over at Goresbrook Park in Dagenham were better than this.

There was no manager’s office at the training ground, and no secretary; all we had was a little canteen upstairs where we used to go and have a cup of tea. Eventually we got a Portakabin in the corner and one member of staff, and that was it. We had an old settee with all the springs sticking out of it, and that was where we would gather in the morning and discuss what we were going to do.

For the first six months we didn’t even have hot water in the showers because the university had trouble paying the bills, but it helped forge a fantastic camaraderie, with experienced guys like Steve or Shaka Hislop just shrugging it off. If they could handle it, I reasoned, the rest would follow suit. The Portsmouth team that came up were all good lads – not a minute’s problem to handle, any of them.

We turned the promotion-winning team around in one summer. I took Arjan de Zeeuw from Wigan Athletic on a free transfer, and he was a fantastic player for me. He’s a doctor now, specialising in forensic detective work. A clever man, very well educated, but as hard as nails: a proper, old-school, centre-half. I got Shaka from West Ham, so we had a good goalkeeper; but the biggest signing was Paul Merson from Aston Villa. Steve Kutner, his agent, called me to ask whether I would fancy taking Paul on loan. I said there was no way he would come to Portsmouth. ‘Well, he’s got to get away from Villa, Harry,’ he told me. ‘He’s got problems and he’s not happy there.’

‘We can’t afford his wages, Steve,’ I explained.

‘Not an issue,’ he replied. ‘They’ll pay nearly all his wages.’

I think we ended up giving Merson about £5,000 a week – and Villa were paying him £20,000. As soon as he walked in the dressing room, he had an effect. Linvoy Primus said to me, ‘I was three seasons at Barnet, Harry. I never in all my life thought I’d be walking out in the same team as Paul Merson.’ He was a great player for Portsmouth. He lifted everybody. The players just loved being on his side and I played him in a position, in behind the front, with wing-backs, so he was with two strikers and it freed him
to play, to score goals, to make goals, to make passes that no one else could see. He was a different class.

He was another one of those guys that needed handling on the training ground but would be terrific every Saturday. The rest of the time, Paul would always be moaning about something.

‘We’re playing two-touch.’

‘Why can’t we play all in?’

‘We’re playing all in.’

‘Why can’t we play two-touch?’

I loved him, though, even if he did nearly get me killed one afternoon at Millwall. He came into the dressing room that day with a big, brown bag full of readies. ‘Would you look after this for me, gaffer?’ he asked.

‘What is it?’ I said.

‘It’s thirty grand,’ he said. ‘It’s for a bookmaker, an Irish mob. They’re after me and I’ve got to meet them after the game. Will you look after it for me until then?’

‘Why don’t you leave it in your pocket?’ I asked.

‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘It’s Millwall. I can’t leave thirty grand lying about here. I spoke to their manager, Ray Harford, and he said they had a robbery last week. Nicked all the money out of the players’ jackets. If that happens today, I’m in big trouble.’ So I was lumbered. Couldn’t leave it in the changing room, didn’t know how I could keep it on me. I almost always wear a suit on the touchline, but that day I changed. I put a tracksuit on so there was more room to conceal these readies. I stuffed them down my trousers, I stuffed them down my pants until nothing was showing, and then I walked out for the game. We made a good start, Yakubu scored, but after about 20 minutes I needed
to hand out some instructions, so I sprung up from my seat on the touchline. As I did, I felt something move. As I was trying to get a message to the players I could feel Merson’s thirty grand making its way south along my trouser leg. I looked down and the notes were coming out the bottom of my trousers, all wrapped up individually because there was no way I could stuff one big envelope down there. I had £50 wads bound with elastic bands about to fall out of my trouser leg on to the track – at Millwall, of all places. There was going to be a riot. I edged back to my seat like a bloke who needed the toilet quickly. The staff were very concerned. ‘Are you all right, Harry?’ I was virtually doubled up, as if in pain. I slid into my seat and didn’t move, stuck in this awkward position in case the money moved again. What option did I have? I could hardly stick my hands down the front of my trousers and start sorting things out. Not with everyone watching. The staff kept asking if I needed to see the doctor, and I kept telling them it was nothing, I was fine, I just needed to be left alone. But I was rooted to the spot. We ended up winning 5–0 and Merson got cheered off by the Millwall punters, he was that good. It wasn’t the only result he had that day. He told me afterwards that the money he owed was nearer £100,000 than £30,000 but the bookmakers had decided to cut their losses.

Another time, Paul came to see me before we played a game at Brighton and Hove Albion. He said he needed to visit Tony Adams’s clinic for addicts, Sporting Chance. We had been knocked out of the FA Cup by Manchester United and didn’t have a match for thirteen days. ‘I’ve got a problem with the drinking and gambling again, gaffer,’ he said. ‘I need help. I think if I could get to the clinic I could sort myself out.’

If he insisted it helped him, how could I disagree? I was desperate to have him fit and firing for our promotion run-in. Paul said he would be back the Monday before our next game, against Grimsby Town, so I gave him my blessing. Milan thought it would be good if I could get a few days to clear my head, too, so Sandra and I flew to Michael Tabor’s house in Barbados, near the famous Sandy Lane hotel. Michael had been asking me to go for a while and it is such a beautiful place – even better than the five-star accommodation down the road. We spent the days sitting by the pool looking out across the beach, or having a game of golf or tennis. Fabulous.

And then one lunchtime, when Michael had a few friends over, a chap I’d never met before introduced himself. ‘Hello, Harry,’ he said, genially. ‘I’ve just seen one of your players, up the beach there, walking with his wife and kids. He must be on holiday, too.’

As far as I knew, most of the players were still in for training.

‘Who’s that?’ I asked. ‘Paul Merson,’ he said.

‘Merson? No, it can’t be,’ I insisted. ‘He’s back in England.’

‘No, it was definitely him,’ the man said. ‘I’m a big Arsenal fan. We even had a chat. Amazing, isn’t it? I don’t meet any footballers and then I see two in one day.’

The following Monday I was waiting at the training ground, and in walked Merson, one shade lighter than Linvoy Primus – I’ve never seen a white man so brown. It was the middle of January, he was meant to have been at a clinic in Hampshire, and here he was looking like he’d spent two months in Benidorm.

‘All right, Merse?’

‘Yeah, I feel a lot better, gaffer.’

I thought, ‘I bet you fucking do.’ But I had two choices: either have a big row with our best player, just as we reached a critical
part of the season, or let it lie and see if his unscheduled break had caused a problem. We beat Grimsby 3–0 and Paul was absolutely outstanding. ‘I’m glad you’re feeling better,’ I told him after the game. I did let him know what I knew eventually – but not until our title-winning season was over.

There was great quality in that team, but we patched it together, really. Steve Stone left Aston Villa on a similar deal to Merson, and I spotted Matt Taylor playing for Luton Town. I thought he would make a great wing-back, he could run all day, and ended up playing close to 200 games for the club. Yakubu had been scoring plenty of goals in the Israeli league, and we took him in the transfer window, through his agent Pini Zahavi. He had been on trial at Derby County but there was a problem securing a work permit. Suddenly, he had met this nice girl and got married, and his employment circumstances had changed. Now he had a work permit, a new wife, and went on to have a superb career in English football.

A week before the season began, however, I made what might have been my most important signing – and it wasn’t even a player. Bringing Jim Smith on to my staff as assistant manager was as shrewd a move as I have ever made. He was a hero at Portsmouth, having taken the club to the FA Cup semi-finals, where they were unlucky to lose a replay to Liverpool on a penalty shoot-out, and the fans warmed to our partnership straight away. His contribution was invaluable. He was one of those guys that could make you laugh and put you at ease, but he knew the game and would talk common sense all day when we needed to get serious. Jim was just a great man to have on your team, really, and with Kevin Bond I had a very strong staff.