Be Careful What You Wish For (28 page)

Worse than that, at 7 p.m. on transfer deadline day Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy offered the paltry sum of £1 million to buy this England under-21 star. An emphatic no was my response but this dragged on through the night with Levy offering ridiculously small increases, spending more money on his phone bill than he was upping his offer for Routledge.

At 11 p.m. and after the fiftieth time of saying no to Levy’s insulting offers he moved the fee to the princely sum of £1.25 million. I then said that even if I wanted to do this deal, which I didn’t, it could not be done as I didn’t know where the player was, and terms to be agreed with the player and medicals would never get done in time.

I need not have worried on Spurs account as my loyal, respectful player and his delightful agent were in a hotel 500 yards around the corner from White Hart Lane. I was given the distinct impression everything had already been done so with that new and treacherous information to hand, I concluded my conversation, told Levy where to go and asked Bob Dowie to advise Wayne Routledge to be in training the following morning.

The first game of the season was upon us. We were playing away to Norwich City, a team that had been promoted with us from the First Division. There was a feeling of anticipation as we expected to secure all three points on our first outing. I was also looking forward to seeing how the newly assembled group of players would acquit themselves.

Arriving at the home of Norwich City I encountered a new Carrow Road, one that had Premier League gold dust sprinkled all over it. The place was alive: a sea of yellow Norwich shirts with a splattering of the new white away kit of my team in amongst them. You could feel the buzz of expectation in and around the ground.

I went into the boardroom to see my dear friend Delia Smith, the owner of Norwich. I was taken aback by the crowd in there, not to mention the large number of good-looking women, which was a vast departure from the boardrooms I had visited in the previous four years, which had often been like working men’s clubs with Bernard Manning more likely to be in there than Linda Evangelista. Suffice it to say this ensured my attendance in boardrooms going forward was likely to be much more regular!

The atmosphere in the ground was electric, the game moderately exciting and it ended in a 1–1 draw to ensure we registered our first Premier League point. Andrew Johnson resumed where he had left off last season with our goal and of course a goal bonus,
and
I certainly liked the look of our new £1 million Hungarian national striker Sandor Torghelle, although I was to be in the minority on that one as this ‘must have’ player was soon deemed not good enough, and Dowie had no qualms about throwing away the £1 million I had spent on him!

Prior to the season I had a number of discussions with Iain Dowie about how we would approach the campaign. The idea being we would have a go from the first whistle and show no fear. Unfortunately in the five games that followed the exact opposite applied.

Our first home game at a packed, very excited Selhurst Park was against Everton. On a beautiful August day with the stadium swathed in glorious summer sun, the only thing hotter than the weather was the temperature of the fans’ enthusiasm. We opened the scoring through Mark Hudson and AJ should have increased the lead but was denied by the thickness of the post. It proved to be a costly miss as Everton went on to equalise in the first half and scored two further goals in the second to beat us 3–1.

Three days later we faced our second successive home game, against the mighty Chelsea managed by the much-lauded José Mourinho in only his second game in English football and attended by Sven-Göran Eriksson, fresh from being outed in the press for having talks with Chelsea about their manager’s job, and their multi-billionaire Russian owner Roman Abramovich and his heavyweight security guards.

A huge myth existed around Abramovich’s apparent lack of understanding of English. And that was absolute rubbish. Before getting promoted I had gone to St James’ Park to watch Newcastle play a Chelsea side at the time managed by Claudio Ranieri. After the game I went into the boardroom and chatted with Sir John Hall, Freddy Shepherd and Douglas Hall.

In the corner about five feet away, was Roman Abramovich talking to his American chairman Bruce Buck in English. This fact eluded Freddy and Douglas as they proceeded to insult Abramovich with their opinions of everything from his dress sense to their perception of his ‘Russian potato-peeling origins’.

I stood there with this almighty grin across my face. When they had run out of insults I delighted in informing them that Abramovich understood and spoke English. Most people with a modicum of decorum would have just shut their traps!

Not my Geordie pals, who carried on amusing themselves with another set of derogatory comments.

That said I had tried to engage Bruce Buck in conversation prior to the north-east abuse of Abramovich. Buck just answered everything I said with monosyllabic disdain, so I stopped in mid-sentence, looked him straight in the face and remarked, ‘You’re a pleasant fellow aren’t you!’ and turned on my heel and walked away from him.

Thus I was more than happy to condone Freddy and Douglas when they got bored with abusing Abramovich and started on Buck.

And people wondered why Freddy and Douglas frequently got into trouble!

Back to Selhurst Park. Abramovich spent most of the evening chatting to Eriksson – in English of course! Two gorillas that looked like they were going to shoot anyone who even dared to look in his direction flanked him.

Talking of murder, that’s exactly what Chelsea did to Palace on the pitch. Despite only being beaten 2–0, we were never really in the game and Chelsea barely got out of second gear. What disappointed me was we were now in the Premier League and I for one was not overawed in any way so I didn’t expect my manager or players to be, which appeared the case.

Our bad run continued, losing to both Middlesbrough and Portsmouth. We contributed to our downfall in each game by gifting an own goal to the opposition, as well as particularly inept performances by our new goalkeeper Julian Speroni.

The Portsmouth game resulted in a harsh assessment of Palace by the pundit Alan Hansen on
Match of the Day
. Not content with nicknaming our goalkeeper Speroni, ‘Spilloni’, the former Liverpool defender claimed that Palace were the worst side to ever grace the Premier League and had absolutely no chance of survival. His commentary was a bit over the top – had he not watched Mick McCarthy’s Sunderland side of 2003 get nineteen points, the lowest ever!

Was this the same Alan Hansen who claimed you don’t win silverware with kids? Not eight months after he regaled the world with that particular nugget Manchester United proceeded to do just that. Short of taking it personally and hoping Dowie was pinning up the reports in the dressing room for the players to see, we got on with the business of trying to win games and in the process making this ex-Scottish international, who knew a fair bit, in that respect, about playing in the worst teams, eat his words.

But still we continued to lose. AJ scored his third goal in six matches, but two strikes from Nicolas Anelka for Man City left us waiting to pick up our first points at home and rooted to the bottom of the Premier League.

The bad run came to an end with a 1–1 draw away to Aston Villa, one which we should have really won. At last we were off and running, following that draw with a 2–0 victory at home over Fulham. After the win Dowie dampened my spirits by publicly airing his views on me, saying that the club, i.e. me, hadn’t supported him in the transfer market. He had waited for a win so he didn’t look as if he was whining and normal service resumed between us with Bob in the middle.

We were back to our losing ways in the next game away, to Bolton, where I popped in to see my old mate Phil Gartside the Bolton chairman to let him know that in fact I hadn’t ‘bottled it’ and we were here for three points. Of course the fact that we lost gave Gartside the opportunity to tell me perhaps I should have done!

The disappointment of losing to Bolton was made up for by trouncing fellow promoted West Brom 3–0 at home, with yet again AJ scoring, this time twice. At half-time I spoke to Jeremy Peace the West Brom chairman, who was having well-publicised difficulties with his manager Gary Megson. I remarked to Peace, ‘How lucky we are to work for Megson and Dowie.’ That sarcasm brought a smile to his face.

On 27 October, after ten league games and now out of the bottom three, we took on local rivals Charlton Athletic in the Carling Cup. This game was to be the start of some significant hostilities, which rumbled through this season and into the future. There was of course bad blood between the supporters as it was a London derby and also, when Charlton had fallen on hard times, they had been tenants at Selhurst Park and the Palace fans had never let them forget it.

I was told that Charlton had aspirations to win this particular cup tournament, so it was no surprise to me when they put out a full-strength side. What was a surprise was that we put out a virtual second-string side, making eight changes from the team that beat West Bromwich a few days earlier. Even so, we completely outplayed Charlton and won the game.

Before the game an incident had occurred that I was unaware of as I was late. When the teams were read out over the tannoy the announcer called us Crystal PalARSE, childish really, but my ever-busy chief executive Phil Alexander made an unnecessary complaint.

I walked out at Millwall every time we played there to the Smokie song ‘Livin’ next door to Alice’, which the Millwall fans in unison had adapted to ‘Livin’ next door to Palace, Palace who the fuck are Palace’. I found this amusing, so I would have hardly been bothered by a silly announcement. But Alexander had complained and the silly sod announcer got fired and guess who got the blame for it!

I hadn’t seen a great deal of my mates at Birmingham since their promotion in 2001, but I was seeing them at St Andrews the following Saturday.

During the week I was interviewed by Ian Payne of Sky. We spoke about the game and he tried to get some derogatory comments from me, given our past, but I abstained. Even when he quoted some slightly caustic comments about me by David Gold, the joint Birmingham chairman, I just countered with ‘Empty vessels make the most noise.’

Upon arriving at Birmingham it was like the three years had never elapsed and I was greeted with a deluge of abuse from their fans/morons. By now the relationship with Steve Bruce had improved, and on walking into the stadium, despite the insults being hurled at me left and right, I received a big hug from Janet Bruce, Steve’s wife, and a big sloppy kiss from Karren Brady. I was not sure what was worse: the kiss or the abuse from the Birmingham fans.

Birmingham’s co-owner David Sullivan, resplendent in his trademark Cossack outfit but looking like a little Russian doll, greeted me. He remarked on the fact that Andrew Johnson was gaining a reputation for getting penalties, as he had been awarded four so far this season. Sullivan said, ‘I know what you boys are like. I hope we are not going to have any dodgy decisions today with all those bloody penalties you get.’

My mouth got the better of me. ‘Have you seen yourself, David?
The
only dodgy decision here today is the one you made, putting on that get-up. Are you doing the half-time entertainment, and is Karren the dancing bear?’

We won, my honour was upheld. Andrew Johnson scored and no, it was not a penalty! I still had to listen to the endless chants from the poet laureate-like Birmingham supporters of ‘Simon Jordan is a wanker, is a wanker,’ but this time I got to do it with a big grin on my face – no need to go in their boardroom this time!

This win was made more pleasing as I had bumped into Dwight Yorke in the Sanderson Bar in London the previous night, who by now was plying his trade on the bench at Birmingham. I had a £2,000 bet with Yorke that we would win.

The fact that a player was in a London hotel bar the night before a game probably explains where Yorke’s career was at that time. Anyway, returning from the Midlands that night I went again to the Sanderson bar for a drink with friends and in strolled Yorke. I reminded him that he had a bet to pay, which he proceeded to welch on, saying he would send me a Dwight Yorke cheque that I could pin on my wall as some kind of souvenir! I suggested he kept it and invested it in his wardrobe; judging by what he was wearing, he was the footballer that fashion forgot.

After the delight of finally getting one over Birmingham our next four games were relatively easy encounters – Arsenal at home, Manchester United in the Carling Cup, then Liverpool away and finally Newcastle at home. Judging by some of our recent performances I considered we had two hopes of getting nine points out of the three league games: Bob Hope and No Hope, and unfortunately for us Bob was dead!

Arsenal arrived at Selhurst Park two weeks after their incredible forty-nine-match unbeaten run came to an end at Manchester United.

David Dein, the Arsenal vice-chairman, came into the boardroom and reminded me in his inimitable way of what a fantastic favour he’d done me in selling me Julian Gray and how he had played an integral part in getting the club promoted the previous season.

Dein remarked: ‘I’m looking forward to seeing Julian play tonight and to see how he has progressed since leaving Arsenal.’

I replied: ‘If that’s the case why aren’t you at the Liverpool game tonight, David?’

Dein looked at me somewhat perplexed until I informed him that Gray had walked out on Palace, joined Birmingham and left us at the mercy of a rotten tribunal.

Arsenal out-strengthened us in every department, but on a heady late afternoon in November and after a difficult first half, despite falling behind we battered Arsenal and soon equalised. We should have won the match in the last minute when the Greek international winger Vassilis Lakis missed an absolute sitter!

Dowie captured the imagination of all and sundry including the press,
Soccer AM
and Alan Hansen, with his infamous ‘bouncebackability’ line.