#2Sides: My Autobiography (20 page)

In England, people at the top of the game have to come together and agree to create our own philosophy of football to benefit the players we produce. We don’t need to have an inferiority complex towards any football nation. We’ve got players who are as quick and as strong and able as anybody. Technically we have some good players but they need to be put in a system that works and which everyone understands and adheres to. At the moment, players have to go from Under 15s, 16s, 17s, 18s, 19s, 20s, 21s, to the first team and every coach at every level is doing something different. The FA is trying to make changes but the approach is nowhere near radical enough.

Look at the world champions. In Germany, over the last 15 years or so the clubs and the German FA have worked together on youth development and tactical systems because they all understand and agree that this benefits the players, and this in turn benefits the clubs and the national team. We don’t see things that way. The Premier League is completely detached from the ideas and the vision of the FA and vice versa. The barrier has to be broken down. The big clubs have very little interest in the national team. All they care about is what benefits them, and
they think mainly in terms of money. Each club develops its own identity and its own way of playing with no thought as to how it might fit with the national team. And the FA is not strong enough to decide on a policy and dictate from the centre. So what I expect will happen is what has always happened in English football. We’ll muddle along, tweaking a few things here and there. You don’t get results like that. You’ve got to be willing to upset a few people at the beginning but get people to buy into a long-term vision and wait for the fruits to grow. There are no short-term easy fixes.

We haven’t got enough facilities and good coaches at all levels and opportunities for the best young players to get experience playing at the highest level. The reason I joined Greg Dyke’s FA Commission was to travel and talk to people and learn more about what other countries are doing. The commission was always planning to issue two reports. The first got hammered for suggesting the creation of a new league to give young players at the top clubs more experience. But our intention was always to open the debate and I think it did that. Another report on more technical matters comes next, and we’ll concentrate on some very specific problems we have compared to other countries.

For example, in the whole of England there are just 639 3G all-weather pitches. Germany has more than 5,000. An FA survey of clubs at all levels found 84 per cent of respondents saying that facilities are poor. This directly affects how many teams and at what age-groups kids can play. We have too few coaches, and those we have are not as well qualified as they should be. Spain has 25,000 coaches with A, B and Pro Licences. Germany has 35,000. We have 6,000. Coaching is respected elsewhere and is more highly-valued. In Germany and the Netherlands a youth coach can earn £40,000 a year. It’s a profession. In England the equivalent pay is
£16,000. That’s a hobby. There’s a clear link between these factors and the quality of the national team.

Another part of our problem is cultural. We’ve got far too many coaches who tell talented young players how to play rather than letting them develop naturally. In other countries, everything’s about developing skills, touch, awareness. All I heard on the sidelines when I was growing up was about hard work and tackling. A good tackle would be applauded as much, if not more, than a great bit of skill. Tackling is a great part of the game. But, for me, the skill factor overrides everything else. The best players have the best skills because it’s something they’ve done all their lives in their own, original, unstructured ways. Look at Cristiano Ronaldo: unstructured street football as a kid. He just played and played because he loved to play. The Brazilian Ronaldo, Maradona, Wayne Rooney, Franck Ribéry … all these guys are street footballers and originals who did things their way.

I’ve often spoken about this with Wayne and Cristiano. Wayne told me a few times how coaches wanted him to play in one position and he refused, saying ‘No, I want to play here, because I’m the best and that’s what I’m doing.’ With guys like that, from a young age they’ve got their own ideas and they understand football and they know what they’re good at. Unfortunately, some coaches see that as a threat and won’t embrace it. At Everton, they left Wayne pretty much alone. They didn’t try to beat it out of him, but other clubs at other times might have done. Everton were wise enough to know they had someone with the potential to be a top player; they embraced that and let him flourish and grow.

I always talk and tweet about philosophy. What is the English football philosophy these days? I don’t even think we’ve got one. It’s still mostly about running a hundred miles an hour and working hard. For any footballer working hard should be a given. I
don’t understand why you even get praised for hard work by itself. People pay to come and watch so the least you could do is put in a bit of effort. What you need is hard work within a good structure and a good philosophy.

At the same time, when you get good individual coaches at top clubs who have a clear idea of what they want, things can change fast. Look how quickly Roberto Martinez turned Everton away from being a team that liked to get the ball in the box from the back or from wide areas to being a possession side good enough to pass Arsenal off the pitch at the Emirates. Brendan Rodgers completely transformed Liverpool in a season. That’s a different model: start at the top and hope it filters down to the Under 21s, 19s, 18s and all the different age groups. Maybe it can be done like that. But I can’t see the whole country adopting one club or one manager’s philosophy, however successful. A unified approach has to come from the very top. We need a clear direction and leadership. We’re producing good players. But what’s the point if no one knows how they can be fitted into the national team in a coherent way? What’s the point? I’d rather have a team like Costa Rica who over-achieve with players not deemed to be world class.

I knew I wanted to keep playing after I left Man United – but I didn’t know where. I had offers from clubs all over the world, many of them in places with beautiful climates. Premier League clubs wanted me too. I wasn’t sure what to do until I got a phone call from Harry Redknapp. Then everything became clear.

Places in Asia and the Gulf and America are great to visit on holiday. But would I really want to live and work there? I wasn’t sure. The more I thought about it, the more I realised I wanted to come home. I’m a London boy at heart. I made great friends in Manchester and I’ll always stay in touch with them. But London is where my family and oldest friends are. Added to that, I want my kids to get to know London and I’ve just built a house 15 minutes from the city by train.

In the middle of all this, Harry called and asked me to join him at QPR. Harry Redknapp. My first gaffer. A man I respect greatly. The manager who did so much to help me when I was starting. Suddenly my mind was made up. I realised that if I didn’t play in London I didn’t really want to go on playing anywhere. I’d simply retire. Harry said at a press conference soon after I signed that my
wages were ‘incredibly low’ but I didn’t see it that way. It’s true that I could have got double, triple or quadruple elsewhere. But I’ve never been motivated by money. I never get out of bed thinking ‘How much money am I going to earn today?’ I get up thinking, ‘What am I going to achieve today?’ The way I see it is that I’ve earned well during my career. I always believed that if I played well, then I was paid well. But the last thing I’d want would be to come to QPR and take liberties. The club has had that experience over the last few years with too-generous deals handed out to players. I didn’t want to be tarred with that brush.

Harry and the London connection weren’t the only attractions. I have loads of history with QPR. In fact the whole family does. My brother Anton played for QPR and my cousin Les played there. And it was my first club. When I was 11 or 12 I played a cup game for my uncle Dave’s team Bloomfield Athletic. A QPR scout called Sandy was there to see our opponents, Long Lane. But he ended up taking three or four from my team, including me. That led to me training at QPR for a couple of years, mostly with a terrific coach called Paul Haversham. One of the things I used to enjoy about the club was that we got free tickets to see the first team play. And they had good players like Ray Wilkins, Clive Wilson and Alan McDonald. After a while, as I explained in ‘Frankly’, Frank Lampard Senior persuaded me to join West Ham and the rest is history. But I always had fond memories of QPR because I had a good time there. One of my mates at that time was Nigel Quashie who was a year older than me, but came from the same area.

When I was a teenager at West Ham, Harry Redknapp gave me the confidence to go out, be myself and try anything on the field. He gave me freedom and convinced me I was going to be a first-team player. He had a unique style for giving compliments. In the changing room, he’d talk to someone else – but make sure I could
hear! He might be talking to one of the coaches and say of me: ‘He’s that skinny, but he’s gonna be some player, I’m tellin’ you!’ One time I’d had a stinker against Luton and after the game he was in the middle of the changing room talking to one of the coaches, going: ‘There’s nothing of him, look, nothing of him! But what a fucking player! He’s so fast. He’s some talent!’ A week later he sent me out on loan to Bournemouth. I was reluctant at the time but he said: ‘You go there, and when you come back you’ll be ready for the first team,’ and he was true to his word.

His friend, Mel Machin, was the manager there and he was similar to Harry. I was a bit nervous going into training the first time but afterwards, in front of a few of the guys in the corridor, he said to me: ‘I’m going to call you “Class” from now on! That’s your name. Class!’ That gave me so much confidence. I was only there two months and played 12 games but I made some good friends there and had good times and still keep in touch with some of the players like Jason Brissett. But it was all part of Harry’s plan to get me some experience. When I came back to London he put me in the first team straightaway and I never looked back. I don’t think some managers realise just how important it can be to encourage young players. Just a little comment can do so much good. For example, when Terry Venables was England manager I went, as a kid, just to train with the team during Euro 96. I walked past him after a training session and he said, ‘Oh, you were magnificent today, son.’ You go back to your room and your hairs on the back of your neck are standing up and you ring all your mates and say, ‘Terry Venables the England manager just said I was unbelievable. I must have a chance of getting in the squad!’

Harry encouraged all the skilful players. He loved them, embraced them. You’d hear him in training with Joe Cole: ‘Oh Coley! What have we got here? He’s a
magician
!’ Any piece of skill.
He loved it. That’s what he used to say to me, ‘Don’t worry about mistakes. Make mistakes. Just don’t make the same ones over and over. I wanna see you do what you do. You’re brilliant …’ We used to do one-on-ones all the time at West Ham, and he made me go against Paolo di Canio all the time … and you’d hear him: ‘Go on Paolo! Go on Paolo! Beat ’im! Beat ’im!’ He’d be winding you up, but in a nice way.

It’s important for managers to give their young players confidence – but they also have to know when to bring them back down to earth. Harry was brilliant at that too. It’s lovely that he’s still got all his old enthusiasm. My only reservation, looking back, was that at West Ham in the 1990s there was always a low expectation about winning trophies. That was more to do with the older players and the drinking culture, but the mentality was all about just avoiding relegation. If we’d had more of a winning mentality we could have gone on to do more at the club. And maybe if I’d had more of that mentality earlier in my career I could have gone further and achieved more. But Harry gave me a good platform to start from. He loved players to express themselves and, unlike some managers, he would never punish you for making mistakes on the field if you were trying to create something. So I grew up without fear of playing. A lot of players I know didn’t have that.

Harry’s disciplinary style was certainly unique. Whenever I was in trouble – it was never serious, but it did happen occasionally – he would call me into his office and point to the giant picture of Bobby Moore behind his desk almost the size of the whole wall. Harry would say: ‘Do you think
he
would do what you did? Would he have got himself in these situations? I played with that guy! That’s who you’ve got to live up. You’ve got a long road but you’ve got the potential to do something in this game. Look at him! What
would he have done? Think about that!’ He was always talking about Bobby Moore and referring back to him.

He doesn’t have that picture above his desk at QPR but in a way the club is similar to West Ham back then. It’s like I’ve come back to my roots. In fact it’s almost as if I’ve stepped into a time machine. The one obvious difference between the QPR training ground at Harlington and Manchester United’s Carrington is money. United spent millions and millions of pounds on their facilities. But I like the kind of rustic, old-school feel. I’ve known the QPR training ground since I was a kid. It’s got the evocative old smell. It’s got memories. Obviously, there’s nothing here like Man United’s swimming pool. But it’s not something that I thumb my nose at, it’s just different. We’ve got the basics, and that’s all you need as a footballer. We’ve got everything we need to make sure that we’re ready to go out and play football on a Saturday.

Another delight is working with Glenn Hoddle again. When he took his first coaching session I just couldn’t stop smiling. He was teaching us how to play three-at-the back and move without the ball to open up spaces for others to exploit. He explains things as well as anyone I have worked with. And then he did something casually brilliant that took me back to when I was 18 and training under him with England. There was a long kick from the goalkeeper and he plucked the ball out of the sky with the outside of his foot and carried on talking as if it was nothing! I just burst out laughing aloud because I remembered him doing exactly the same thing when he was the England manager: killing a high ball dead without even breaking his train of thought. What touch! What poise! What nonchalance!

As to my role, I’m not planning to go in saying this or that. Actions speak louder than anything else and if people want to take on board my work ethic, and the way that I play, my attitude and
the information I can give, then great. Harry knows what I bring and he hasn’t got to tell me to do things. If I see something and I think something needs saying, I’ll say it. But I’m lucky. I’ve come into a good changing room, with a good bunch of lads who all want to do well. And some of them I’ve known for years. Joey Barton, obviously, is a big tweeter like myself. I know Danny Simpson from when he was at Man United as a kid. I’ve played against and with Bobby Zamora, Rob Green and Jermaine Jenas over the years.

It’s a different type of pressure from what I was used to at Manchester United. But the pressure will still be on and I’m looking forward to seeing how I cope with that and how it affects me in different ways. Naturally, the first fixture I looked for was when we play United. When I saw it was the fourth game of the season, I automatically started working it out: ‘Yeah, it’s going to be hard, and they’re a good team, and I’ll be up against all my mates, and 0–0 would be a good result, but beating them would be even better.’

Harry helped me a lot when I was young. He gave me confidence and he believed in me. This season I’d like to help him. To finish off my career together again is like coming full circle. How will the story end? Hopefully, QPR can survive and stay in the Premier League. That would be a happy ending. That would be a
great
ending!