ambition from the age of eight. I never thought about anything but football. I knew I was good on Guernsey, but what about on the mainland? What was the competition like? Did I have any? It didn’t take me long to realize that the answer was ‘No’.
When news spread that I was moving away to join Southampton, I received a special presentation at the Guernsey FA annual awards evening. Former QPR goalkeeper Phil Parkes handed me a framed cartoon which had appeared on the back of the local paper. It said, ‘Best wishes Matt for a long and successful career in England—from all the Channel Island goalies.’
Was I confident? It was weird. I was on a high because I’d just enjoyed a great season and I had faith in my own ability, but I was stepping into the unknown.
3 KNOCKED INTO SHAPE BY THE HAIRDRIER
WE WERE ALL LISTENING OUTSIDE THE DRESSING
ROOM AS IT ALL KICKED OFF AND CHRIS NICHOLL THUMPED MARK DENNIS.
There was just one great big obstacle: I’d been suspended for the first two youth matches. All the bookings were for dissent and I had to appear before the Guernsey Island FA where we argued that a ban could harm my prospects at Southampton. Thankfully they voted by six votes to five to overturn the ban and give me a severe warning about my future conduct. So that obviously worked well!
I had always been quick to voice my opinion. I still remember one schools match which we struggled to win away. The ref was one of the teachers at their school and he did all he possibly could to get them a win. I was only 13 or 14 but I let him have it. As we came off the pitch the ref went up to our coach and said he needed to ‘Keep an eye on that Le Tissier, and tell him to calm down and stop arguing.’ I overheard and said to my mate, ‘He’s talking out of his arse.’ Too loudly. The next thing I’m being frogmarched to the coach’s car and he’s driving me straight home to tell my parents, but what he didn’t know was that my mum had been at the game and she’d seen that the ref was a disgrace. A cheat. She stuck up for me but made it quite clear I had to be more careful in future.
And I remembered that at Southampton. What was it like there? Now Saints have a well-run lodge where all the trainees stay, but in those days you had digs, and it was pot luck what sort of family you ended up with. You were driven to someone’s front door and told, here’s your new home. I was very lucky and stayed with Pete and Pat Ford. Pete is a massive Saints fan who has one of the biggest collections of autographs I have ever seen, and he had two football-mad sons, Martin and Stuart, who were then 11 and nine. I went from being the youngest of four to the oldest of three, so instead of getting beaten up the whole time I was suddenly the one dishing it out!
I was getting £26 a week with a £4 win bonus and £2 for a draw, which was quite good as a percentage of the wage. We also got £16 every four weeks to buy a monthly bus pass. The clever ones soon realized that the date was on the back and that drivers never checked it, so we didn’t bother renewing it and pocketed the £16. Most of my money went on fruit machines. They didn’t exist on Guernsey and the bright lights were one hell of an attraction. I ended up losing big time in the amusement arcades. I’d just signed as a professional on £100 a week but I was already £1,500 overdrawn. It sounds like it was out of control but I knew I had a £5,000 loyalty bonus coming at the end of the season and that I could easily pay it off. As addictions go this was nothing, but I can see why some players get hooked. You get such a big buzz on match days that you desperately feel the need to recreate that during the week, and gambling is a quick-fix thrill. And don’t forget footballers have plenty of time to kill. I played snooker. Straight after training I’d go to the Cueball Snooker Club where I became good friends with Warren King, the resident pro who got as high as Number 35 in the world. I thought I was pretty good until I played him. I’ll never forget him rattling off a 145 break against me. He used to give me a head start of 60 and it’d go up by 10 each frame until I won. I had a couple of century breaks in practice but the most I ever managed in a match was 89. I’d stay there until it was time for the last bus home.
On the playing side there were nine of us apprentices, of which five of us made a decent living out of the game. Andy Cook went on to play for Pompey and Exeter, Steve Davis had a long career at Burnley before moving into coaching, Allen Tankard played for Port Vale for a long time and Franny Benali became a Southampton legend. He set up my first goal as an apprentice in a 4-2 win over Reading. I missed a penalty in that match but got an easy tap-in when Franny crossed from the left. Bizarrely, for a man who only ever scored one senior goal, he started out as a striker. At 15 he was a big strapping centre-forward but then he stopped growing and, as the others caught up, he moved further and further back, first to midfield and then fullback. If he had been two or three inches taller he’d have made a top-class centre-back. He was an excellent man-marker and very disciplined, except when the red mist descended. Like many of the game’s hard men he’s quiet off the field, one of the nicest guys you could meet—articulate, kind and gentle—but hard as nails on the pitch.
The youth team coach was Dave Merrington, who was a terrific bloke and a huge influence on me, but he was terrifying. He was a teak-tough, no-nonsense Geordie. There are very few things in life which faze me but Dave in full flow was awesome. The original hairdrier-blaster, long before Fergie. He was actually very religious, which you’d never guess from his language, but he was wonderful, warm and infectious. We had some great fun but were terrified of him. When Dave blew his top we knew he’d have us running, running and RUNNING, and I hated that. He didn’t take any backchat or slacking but was absolutely brilliant, and even the likes of Alan Shearer still hail him as the biggest influence on their careers. He was brilliant for me, and never tried to stifle my talent. All the apprentices still keep in touch with him but, bloody hell, he was tough.
In those days they really made apprentices work for a living. It isn’t like that today, where many have agents and boot deals and cars. Our system was better, even though I hated it. Besides training we had to pick up the dirty laundry, sweep the floors, clean the dressing rooms and showers, and Heaven help anyone who slacked.
One day a PFA rep called in to talk to the players, including the apprentices. We were all summoned so we couldn’t finish cleaning the dressing room. While we were in the meeting, Dave walked past and saw some kit on the floor and went ballistic. He stormed into the players’ lounge with a face like thunder and ordered us all downstairs immediately. He pointed to the dirty kit and asked why it was there. We said we’d been told to go to the meeting but he just barked that we should have finished the cleaning first. He gave us 10 minutes to complete the job, and to get changed and ready on the running track. He ordered us to do 40 laps while he sat in the corner of the stand and counted them. We jogged round as a group while he ticked them off until he got to 36. When we completed the next lap, he called 36 again. No one dared correct him, so next time he called 37 and then 37 again, and so on, until eventually he reached 40, making us do four EXTRA laps. He made his point all right. I’ll never forget that, or the time one of the lads thought it would be funny to press the fuel cut-off button in the youth team mini-bus. No matter what he tried, Dave couldn’t start it. We all thought it was hilarious until he told us to run back. And in those days, before Saints bought their own training ground, we trained a good six miles from The Dell. We weren’t best pleased but it was one time we actually got the better of Dave. We’d gone no more than 400 yards when a truck drove past. We got a lift and jumped on the back. He dropped us off near The Dell so we waited a while then sprinted the remaining half mile to make it look like we were knackered, and I was.
DAVE WENTMENTAL, ANDORDERED US ALLIN FOR TRAININGAT 6AM THE NEXTDAY. UP TO THATPOINT I THOUGHTTHERE WAS ONLYONE SIX O’CLOCKIN THE DAY.
We had a good squad and won the South East Counties title both seasons I was an apprentice. In fact that was the last winner’s
