Always Managing: My Autobiography (28 page)

After Rio left, West Ham began going backwards and, trying to address the slide, I went back into the transfer market, with only partial success. I stand by some of the signings I made during that time. The Bulgarian striker Svetoslav Todorov moved on with me to Portsmouth, and was top scorer in Division One the season we won promotion to the Premier League. Technically, he was fantastic. He was another one of those strikers that, on his day, would just batter teams. Christian Dailly played 158 games for West Ham and the season after I left was on the field every minute of every league game. Other signings, I know, were a mistake. I’d heard very good reports of Rigobert Song and Titi Camara, the pair I took from Liverpool, but they were poor. Song’s first game for us was at home to Sheffield Wednesday in the Worthington Cup. Later, he told his old teammates back at Liverpool how happy he was that I had him in his best position as part of a back three. The only problem was, he was meant to be full-back in a back four. No wonder we lost that night. He was a decent player, though, and I still think he would have settled in given more time. Camara was a bigger disappointment. They loved him up at Liverpool, but he was ordinary for us.

It is very easy to criticise the manager when a transfer doesn’t come off, but people simply do not understand the difference between the top and bottom end of the market. With the money we had at West Ham at the time, there were no guarantees and no magic wands. You want to change the players because what you have is not good enough, but your available market isn’t exactly brimming with talent, either. The fear is that an ordinary team gets in a rut. How often do we see a group dragged into a relegation battle from mid-table? Once that losing mentality sets in, it is contagious. You see it now with a club like Wolverhampton
Wanderers falling through two divisions. Taking over a club can be even harder, and it is sometimes impossible to revitalise a team that is fighting relegation, as I found at Queens Park Rangers, but there are many reasons why a group of players struggle. At West Ham that season, Rio’s transfer had a demoralising effect and I sensed we had to change personnel or be in danger of relegation. The problem was we had sold an £18-million player – but we weren’t in the market for one. We had waved one of the best central defenders in the world goodbye, and were trying to pick up half a team in his place. That is not like taking Robin van Persie from Arsenal.

When Sir Alex Ferguson did that, he was not gambling. Taking from the top drawer isn’t hard. Every manager can tell you the certainties. I wasn’t taking a chance bringing Rafael van der Vaart to Tottenham Hotspur, either. Every manager knows what these players will give. The reason there is such a fuss if, for instance, a Manchester United goalkeeper doesn’t work out is because it is so unusual. Most times, money buys class.

Yet every player I bought with the money from Ferdinand had an asterisk next to his name – there was a reason they were in the market for a move to West Ham. Some proved they could do it in the Premier League, others failed. Put Ferguson or David Moyes in my place and they would have been gambling just the same. Even inside the elite every manager has a list of signings that haven’t worked out – but the further down the league you go, the longer that list gets. I still don’t think my later buys at West Ham were bad. Fredi Kanouté and Marc-Vivien Foé were sold on for a profit, Di Canio was a great buy. If West Ham had kept all of my players together, including the younger ones like Rio, I sincerely believe we would have ended up in the Champions League.

Ultimately, though, the end of my relationship with the chairman wasn’t over anything as meaningful as league position of transfer policy – it was an interview I gave to a West Ham fanzine called
Over Land and Sea
. It was run by Gary Firmager, a typical West Ham nut and a bit of a lad. I used to speak to him once a year on the record, and was probably a bit more open than I would be with a national newspaper journalist. Gary was a fan, and he was writing for West Ham fans, and that made me more relaxed. I thought he deserved straight answers to straight questions. You can probably see where this is heading now.

Gary started quoting some figures given to him by the chairman about the amount of the Ferdinand money that had been spent. I thought they were misleading. Instead of taking in the simple transfer fee, Brown had included wages, signing-on fees, bonuses, cars, houses, agents’ fees, every last penny of expense to make the deal seem as costly as possible. Fine – but then why not add the money saved on Rio’s wages, bonuses and other sundry costs to his £18 million transfer. You can’t have it both ways. As Gary reeled off these figures – and the chairman had said Davor Šuker’s free transfer had cost as much as the gate receipts from East Stand – I didn’t think Terry was being fair. I made a flippant comment. ‘Calls himself an accountant,’ I said. ‘He can’t fucking add up.’ It’s a mistake I certainly wouldn’t make now.

Until that point, while my relationship with the chairman was hardly perfect, I had no clue this was to be my last season at West Ham. We had been talking about a new contract and all the signs were positive. I had two years left on my existing deal, but Brown wanted me to sign a four-year extension. He had been waiting for me to put pen to paper for six months. It was me that had
been dragging my feet. Until we were mathematically assured of survival, I had more important things on my mind. Terry was OK with that, to be fair. Mick Maguire of the Professional Footballers’ Association was doing the deal for me and he kept calling to say Terry had been on wanting to get the deal done, but I’d put him off. ‘It’s no problem, I’ve got two years left,’ I’d tell him. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere.’ Shortly before the end of the season, I saw Terry in his office and we talked about the length of the contract. ‘Four years and that’ll finish me, Terry,’ I told him. ‘Another four years and I’m done.’ ‘Harry, I want you for ten years, not four,’ he replied. He could not have been nicer.

Sadly, I had more pressing problems immediately after that. My mum, Violet, died the week before we played at Manchester City on 28 April, and everything else went by the wayside. We’d had a house built in the grounds of our place in Dorset for Mum and Dad, because I thought the sea air would be good for her, but she wouldn’t move down. She died in Poplar, in the same place that we always lived.

As for the football, the way the league worked out, we were not mathematically safe until we defeated Southampton 3–0 on 5 May, the penultimate game of the season. Now was the time to clear my head and sort out my future at West Ham. I thought we would need a substantial investment again in the summer and I was going to talk it all through with Terry before the final game of the season at Middlesbrough. I was going to get that contract signed while I was in there, too.

On the Monday after the Southampton win, I was on my way home from training. Kevin Bond and Ted Pearce, our chief scout, were in the car and I was on my way back to Bournemouth. I had
stopped to refuel at a petrol station in Chigwell when the phone rang. It was Mick Maguire. ‘Hello, Harry,’ he said. ‘What you done? I’ve just spoken to Terry Brown about coming tomorrow to do the contract properly and he’s gone all the other way. Every time I speak to him it’s always, “Harry this, Harry that, Harry’s great, Harry’s the best.” Now he’s saying he doesn’t know if he wants to do the contract at all. He wouldn’t tell me why. He just says he’s not happy with you. What’s up?’

I told him I hadn’t a clue.

‘I think you’d better find out,’ said Mick.

‘Don’t worry, I’ll go and see him in the morning,’ I said. Mick offered to accompany me, but I refused. Whatever the problem was, I thought, it wouldn’t be anything that we couldn’t resolve.

I was wrong about that. In the time between the ten-year contract talk and Mick’s conversation, that month’s edition of
Over Land and Sea
had dropped, with my interview all over it. Terry read that stuff religiously. He didn’t like some of the language I used, and he certainly didn’t like being told he couldn’t add up. When I walked into his office, he had his speech prepared. ‘I’m not happy with one or two things,’ he said. ‘I think it’s time to call it a day.’

And that was it. Do I regret giving that interview now? Absolutely. It did for me, I am sure of that. Nothing else had changed between our two conversations other than the publication of some rather rash comments on my part. I don’t think Gary Firmager tried to trick me, either, I just believe it is very easy to fall into conversation sometimes, and not realise how different those words will appear in black and white. I didn’t mean anything by it – I was just defending my corner against what I saw as a rather unfair
appraisal of my record in the transfer market. I didn’t think Terry would take it personally, but that was me at the time – I always had to bite, I couldn’t let it pass.

It was a bolt from the blue, but I think I was most upset when Terry told me that he wanted Frank to leave, too. ‘What are you talking about?’ I asked. ‘He’s more West Ham than you’ll ever be.’ Managers get the sack, we all know that, but few give a thought for the staff, who are often shown the door having done nothing wrong. That was the case with Frank. As I said, he loved West Ham so much he used to work with the kids for nothing before becoming my assistant. If Terry was upset with me, fair enough, but what had Frank said or done to get the sack?

Terry got rid of Les Sealey, the goalkeeping coach, too, and that really saddened me. Les was one of the best characters you could hope to meet: trained with the reserve team, trained with the kids, trained Tuesday and Thursday night with the academy – absolutely lived for the club. His uncle, Alan, played for West Ham, as did Les. He was a club man to his boots and absolutely fantastic at his job. I’ll tell you the sort of boy he was. One night we were playing Aston Villa and I had two mates up from Bournemouth. I planned to take them home after the game, but we lost. I’m horrible when we lose: I don’t want to talk, I don’t want to socialise, I don’t want to do anything. I just wanted to go back to my flat up the road and shut the door. My pals were stranded. The last trains were gone and they were facing a night in a hotel. Les offered to take them home. He only lived up the road in Essex, yet he drove all the way to Bournemouth, and all the way back. That was Les. Just a great guy who would do anything for you. I couldn’t believe that West Ham got rid of him. He was the life and soul of the dressing room
and it hurt him terribly. I could have cried when he called me up and told me the news. He died of a heart attack, four months later, at the age of 43. His death came as a terrible shock.

Looking back, of course, Terry already had my replacement lined up – and just like with Tony Pulis at Bournemouth it was someone I had brought to the club. I had met Glenn Roeder at a dinner to honour Kenny Dalglish in London one Sunday night. He was a player I knew well. ‘What have you been up to?’ I asked.

‘Nothing,’ he said, morosely. ‘I’ve been out of the game for two years, Harry. It’s driving me mad. I don’t think I’ve got any option but to look for work outside football.’

‘Where do you live?’ I asked, thinking of some scouting work.

‘About five minutes from your training ground,’ he said.

‘Right,’ I told him, ‘come in tomorrow, bring your boots, you can do a little bit with some of the kids.’

We had a group – Jimmy Bullard and a few other teenagers who couldn’t get in the first team – that we called the development squad. ‘Come in and take them,’ I told Glenn. ‘We can’t pay you, but it’ll get you out of the house. Come to my office afterwards, we’ll have a cup of tea. See how we go from there.’

The next day, when Glenn arrived, Tony Carr and Peter Brabrook, our youth coaches, were straight over. ‘What you brought him here for?’ Peter said. ‘We’re doing well with the kids. Bloody hell, Harry, he’ll be after our jobs, won’t he?’

‘Don’t worry,’ I assured him, ‘he’s not after anyone’s job. The fella’s just sitting at home, nothing to do, so I said he could come in and work with us. Trust me, he’s a nice guy. He’s just going to take the little group that needs a bit of individual attention. He was a good player, maybe he can help them.’

Amazing, isn’t it? The job he ended up taking was mine.

After that, I got Glenn doing a bit of scouting so he could earn some money, then more coaching with the youth team, and we had a great year. We went on and won the FA Youth Cup and, as Glenn was a part of that, at the end of the season he received a full-time contract. Terry Brown was delighted with the appointment. Just how delighted, I later found out.

Yet Glenn could never replicate what we had at West Ham, and his second season in charge ended in relegation. He was sacked early in the next campaign after losing away at Rotherham United.

I felt for my friends, like Frank and Les, but I don’t hold any grudges against Terry Brown. He paid me every last penny of the two years that remained on my contract and, a number of years later, when I went to Southampton, their chairman Rupert Lowe said that Terry had given me a fantastic reference. I know there have been all sorts of dark rumours about the real reason I left Upton Park, but I think, in the end, it was just one argument too many. If I had done anything seriously wrong, the chairman would not have paid me up. It was a clash of personalities, nothing more sinister than that.

I do regret leaving the way I did. I was happy there, we had some great years, I worked with some finest players and loved it. Years later, the young players at Portsmouth and Southampton would ask me about coaching Rio Ferdinand, Joe Cole and young Frank, the way those players used to ask me about playing with Bobby Moore or Geoff Hurst. And while we had a bad year that last season, we had hung on, survived, and I think we could have moved forward again had I stayed. In the end, the way I spoke about Terry, in that interview and at other times, was wrong. I took liberties, I pushed
him too far, and I shouldn’t have done that. Even now, he’s not a popular figure at West Ham, but when I’ve seen him we’ve always shook hands and he’s been fine with me.