Always Managing: My Autobiography (27 page)

I was still assistant to Billy Bonds at the time and we had two pre-season friendlies arranged on the same night. One team went to play Billericay, and I took another group to play my old club, Oxford City. It was a beautiful summer evening and we were opening their new ground and floodlights, at the invitation of the secretary, John Shepherd. It was one of those nights when you can really enjoy being a football manager. No pressure, back among friends – just get out and play and have a good time.

We took a small squad, not many substitutes, but the minute the match started this bloke next to the dug-out started giving me earache. He wasn’t nasty. There was no foul language or abuse, but he did look a picture. He had a T-shirt on and a pair of shorts, and every spare inch of him was covered in West Ham tattoos. He had two Hammers up his legs, more on his arms and it quickly became apparent he didn’t fancy Lee Chapman, our striker, one little bit. ‘We ain’t got him up front again, Chapman, have we, Harry? Please don’t pick him again, Harry, he’s a donkey. He’s useless, that Chapman, Harry.’ On it went, all the way through the first half. Chapman. Chapman. He wouldn’t leave me alone. I made two substitutions at half-time, and one early in the second half, and now we just had the bare eleven. With that, we got an injury. I had no other option. I turned round to big mouth. ‘You’ve got some old bunny,’ I said. ‘Can you play as good as you talk?’

‘I’m better than Chapman,’ he said.

‘Right,’ I told him. ‘Get your gear on, let’s have a look at you.’ Now he went quiet. He thought I was joking. ‘Quick as you can, mate, you’re on,’ I said.

‘What do you mean?’ he said.

‘You’re playing for West Ham,’ I told him.

‘But I ain’t got any boots, Harry,’ he protested.

‘What size are you?’ said Eddie, our kit man. He found him some size nines and took him to the dressing room to get changed. He came back, kitted up, and stood on the touchline next to me.

‘Where do you play?’ I asked.

‘Up front,’ he said. ‘Right,’ I told him, ‘we’ll soon see if you’re better than Chapman.’ And on he went.

Oxford’s announcer came down and wanted to know who the substitute was. ‘Didn’t you watch the World Cup?’ I asked. ‘That’s Tittishev of Bulgaria. He scored three goals.’

‘Oh yes,’ he said, nodding wisely. ‘I thought it was him.’

Anyway, he scored. We couldn’t believe it. He ran around the field like he had won the World Cup, jumping, shouting – we were killing ourselves laughing on the touchline. The stadium announcer must have wondered why a star of the 1994 World Cup was making such a fuss about scoring in a friendly against Oxford City. At the end of the match, the lads all signed his shirt and he was photographed in the papers the next day wearing it, with the biggest grin you’ve ever seen.

And he was right, by the way. That night, he was better than bloody Lee Chapman.

They were good times at West Ham. So why did it all end so suddenly? Just two years before I left we had achieved what remains West Ham’s highest finish in the Premier League, ahead of clubs like Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur, with a squad that included Rio Ferdinand, Frank Lampard and Trevor Sinclair. We became an established Premier League club, we produced good young players and played open, attractive football. We qualified for the Intertoto Cup, won that, and went through to the 1999–2000 UEFA Cup – the first time West Ham had played in a major European tournament since reaching the Cup Winners’ Cup in 1980–81. And then, by the spring of 2001, I was out of a job. We had slipped back down the league to a disappointing 15th place finish by then but, even so, on the morning of 9 May when I walked into Terry Brown’s office to discuss a new contract, I had no idea I would be leaving it, unemployed, ten minutes later.

As I said, it was always an uphill struggle financially at West Ham and I think, in the end, that just placed me in conflict with the
chairman on too many occasions. Looking back, I think I created a lot of my own problems there, too. I was out of order at times. I would argue with Terry and the other directors in a way most other managers wouldn’t. If they uttered something in a board meeting that I thought was rubbish, I’d say so, and I was probably wrong to talk to them like that. It took me a while to learn to count to ten. Back then, if I didn’t agree, I’d jump down the directors’ throats. ‘What do you know about football?’ I’d tell them. ‘You haven’t got a clue.’ But Terry was the chairman. And you can only say that so many times before the chairman gets the hump and lies in wait for you. When we were fifth in the league, Terry couldn’t afford to lose me. But at 15th? ‘Right, I’ll show you what I know, mate. You’re fired.’

The tension that came out at the end of the 2000–01 season had been building for some time. Things got so bad financially in 1996 that Peter Storrie, our managing director, admitted we were struggling to pay the wages. He came to me after an away game. ‘Harry, you know a lot of people,’ he said. ‘Do you know anyone that would be interested in buying the club? We can’t pay the players. It’s desperate.’

I told him I knew of one bloke who was a West Ham fan and very wealthy: Michael Tabor, the racehorse owner. ‘He’s a West Ham man, but whether he’d want to get involved, I don’t know,’ I said.

Michael wasn’t at all keen, at first. ‘Harry, do I really need to sit up in that directors’ box, with all the fans chanting to put more money in?’ he said. ‘I love watching my team on TV, I go to racing all over the world; I’ve got the best horses, I go to America, Paris, Barbados for two or three months a year. What do I need that for? Leave it with me, I’ll have a think about it.’

But we were in real trouble. I rang him again and explained there would never be a better opportunity to buy the club. ‘OK,’ Michael said. ‘Arrange a meeting.’

The first get-together was just with me and Peter Storrie, to explain the financial side of it. That went well and Michael stayed keen. We arranged a second meeting, at Cheltenham racecourse the following week, and this one was to involve Terry Brown, our chairman. We were guests in Michael Tabor’s hospitality suite, the best on the course, three times the size of all the others and right on the finishing line. That day it was full of the top people from the world of racing and beyond. Famous owners, famous trainers like Vincent O’Brien, I think the Prime Minister of Ireland was there. We were all booked into a fabulous hotel nearby, the Lygon Arms in Broadway, for dinner and a talk, but first we would meet Michael and his partners at the races.

It soon became apparent that Terry Brown hadn’t done his homework. He didn’t know Michael Tabor from Adam. The box was full that day, but we were reserved places on Michael’s table, waited on by his personal assistant, Terry, who is about 24 stone. He is a lovely man, who has worked for Michael for years. He used to own a big hotel, but now he arranges Michael’s travel and looks after his guests; anything Michael wants, Terry does. He was the one who sat us down in our seats. ‘You go there, Harry; Mr Brown sit there …’ He brought us our drinks and when Michael wanted the food served, he gave Terry a sign. It was a crowded box and a nice, mild day. Terry was busying about in his blue shirt with braces, sweating like a lunatic. Michael sat opposite us and Terry disappeared to organise the waitresses for service. Terry Brown had been on the telephone the whole time. No sooner had his
conversation ended when Michael’s phone rang and he motioned his apologies and withdrew to take the call.

‘Who’s that chappy?’ said Terry Brown.

‘What chappy?’ I asked.

‘The one on the telephone,’ he said.

‘That’s Michael Tabor,’ I told him. ‘That’s the man you are here to meet.’

‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I thought that was Michael.’ And he gestured to Terry, wet through, bringing out plates of lobster, salmon, chicken and prawns for the starters. This was the bloke he was ready to open talks with over West Ham. He hadn’t even bothered to find out what Michael Tabor looked like. The chairman was a fish out of water that day.

When the racing began and Michael and his crowd were putting on serious bets, Terry Brown became quite alarmed. ‘Who are these chaps?’ he asked. ‘What do they do? Where do they get their money from?’ He was suspicious, as if he was surrounded by drug dealers or gangsters, rather than wealthy businessmen with a passion for horse racing. He had clearly never met people who gambled in tens of thousands of pounds and thought, instinctively, that they must be up to no good. Still, he couldn’t afford to be choosy with the club in such a precarious state, and we all ended up back at the Lygon Arms for the brass-tacks conversation. Dermot Desmond came with Michael and was very interested in the figures. They were well up for it by the end, and I really do believe it would have been good for the club.

Michael made an offer which Terry did not find acceptable, but before the usual rounds of brinkmanship could proceed much further, the Premier League signed its new contract with Sky for
mega money. West Ham’s crisis was over. The club could pay the wages and, suddenly, Terry didn’t need Michael any more. It was just bad timing, particularly for me.

I was now in the middle of an attempted takeover, having brought Michael to the table. A war of words between the camps escalated and it began turning quite nasty. The fans, obviously, were behind Tabor because they saw him as a rich West Ham fan who would increase the transfer budget. They besieged the lobby at Upton Park after we lost to Arsenal on 29 January 1997, and the unrest and poisonous atmosphere took its toll on the players and we began sliding down the table. At one stage Terry accused me of nepotism when bringing on Frank Lampard. He claimed I was trying to get his appearance money up. I was furious at the suggestion. I turned the air blue and told him he could stuff his job if he was going to question my motives. I still make no apologies for seeing the good in the Tabor bid. He is a genuinely wealthy man who loves his sport, loves his football, and is a great guy to be around. So, yes, I think he would have made an excellent owner of West Ham, and it was a shame his bid didn’t get over the line. In the end, though, it wasn’t all bad news.

I remain convinced that it was the upheaval caused by Tabor’s interest that persuaded the chairman to buy John Hartson and Paul Kitson that winter. He wanted the fans off his back and, from not being able to pay the wages, he produced £5.5 million from nowhere – and those two players kept us up. But did my relationship with Terry Brown ever recover? Perhaps not.

The beginning of the end was the sale of Rio Ferdinand to Leeds United in November 2000. I didn’t want him to go, and I told him that. I sat with him and Frank Lampard Senior in my office, the
pair of us pleading with him to stay. I’m not saying we could have kept Rio at the club for ever, but we were building something there with young Frank, Joe Cole, Michael Carrick, Jermain Defoe and Glen Johnson all progressing. Rio was our Rolls-Royce. I know many were astonished that Leeds broke the British transfer record by paying £18 million, but I was more worried about the message it sent to the other clubs. Pretty soon it would be open season on our young stars – but I was gone by then.

I think, quite simply, that our chairman miscalculated. The Bosman ruling had been introduced in the European Union in 1995, meaning clubs could no longer charge transfer fees for players whose contracts had expired, and Terry thought it would spell the end of big-money moves. He thought every player would run down his agreement and leave for nothing, and an £18 million offer, like the one we had for Rio, would be a thing of the past. He thought the bid from Leeds was exceptional, the last of its kind, and that if we did not take it we would lose him for nothing anyway. ‘Harry, you’ve got to understand,’ he told me, ‘nobody will ever see this transfer fee again.’

I couldn’t guarantee that he was wrong, but I always believed Leeds was the wrong move for Rio. ‘It’s not Manchester United or Arsenal,’ I told him. ‘You don’t need to go there. It’s not a good move for you. Stay here with us, you need another year or two here to mature and we’re building a great, young team. You’ll be at the heart of it. No disrespect to Leeds, but we could get ahead of them if we stick together.’

It wasn’t just talk – I truly felt that. Sadly, I think Rio got pressured into going. He knew the club wanted the deal to go through, and obviously there were middle men doing well out of
it. It was a big payday for a lot of people. Like many transfers it was as good a move for the agent as the player. I knew Terry wouldn’t be happy if he knew I was trying to kill the deal, so I asked Rio to keep our conversation secret. I didn’t want it rebounding on me if he stayed but, in the end, the money talked.

There has been a lot of subsequent controversy over a payment I received from the Ferdinand transfer, but if I was money-motivated I wouldn’t have fought so hard to keep him at Upton Park. My cut of transfer money was actually Terry’s idea. I think he knew we had the best young players this side of Manchester United and, with his thoughts on the consequences of the Bosman ruling, was always going to cash in if big money came along. He knew I would object and try to block any sale. So, earlier in the year, he had offered me a ten per-cent cut of the fee for any home-grown player. It was a way of keeping me sweet and could have been worth a fortune, but I refused. ‘I don’t want it, Terry,’ I told him. ‘I’m not going to sell players just to make money.’ And then he sold Rio anyway, completely against my wishes. I felt such a mug. Had I signed that deal Ferdinand’s transfer would have been worth £1.8 million personally. I didn’t want the money, I wanted the player – but in the end I got neither. In the circumstances, I thought I was due some compensation for being completely ignored. I never wanted that ten per cent – but if he was going to sell players behind my back anyway, I may as well have signed up and just taken the cash. In the end, Terry gave me a £300,000 bonus from Rio’s transfer. He said my stubbornness had forced Leeds to up their original offer by £3 million, so I don’t feel guilty for taking it. I could have collected six times that, if I was willing to sit back and say nothing while the club sold its crown jewels.