IN THE SAFE. IT WAS SETTLED. I WAS JOINING MY BOYHOOD HEROES. I WAS ABOUT TO BECOME A SPURS PLAYER.’
After those awards and those goals, people woke up to Matt Le Tissier. Especially Tottenham. I got a phone call from my agent Jerome Anderson to say Spurs were interested, asking if I’d speak to them. I wasn’t going to say no, not to the team I’d always supported. Though Terry Venables was the manager I didn’t speak to him, and the deal was done through their lawyers and their agent. We had a meeting at a solicitor’s office in north London a couple of months before the end of the season. Saints didn’t know anything about it, but I agreed terms and signed a contract which was locked away in the safe in the solicitor’s office. Then it’d be brought out at the end of the season, when the clubs had agreed a fee.
Ironically our last game of the season was away to Spurs. We’d played Arsenal away a couple of days earlier and, if we’d won both matches, would have finished third. Instead we lost both and ended up seventh, but that was still my highest ever finishing position. I was due to get married (for the first time) that summer and after the Spurs game my fiancée, Cathy, announced that she didn’t want to live in London, so I had a decision to make. Go or stay. I decided to stay with Saints and don’t regret it at all, even though we ended up getting divorced. I made the decision, no one else. It’s a waste of time thinking, what if? I phoned Jerome and told him, and he was good as gold and never tried to tell me I was making a mistake, even though he could see his commission going right out the window. He never put any pressure on me. He’d just put offers in front of me and let me make up my own mind.
I then got a message from Terry Venables saying he respected my decision, but that he’d still like to speak to me on the phone. I declined (as I did later with Glenn Hoddle) because I didn’t want to be put in a position where I might be tempted to change my mind. Cathy didn’t fancy living in London, so what was the point? I don’t know if Terry held that against me when he was England manager. It’s true he picked me, but not as many times as I think he should have done.
The good news was knowing what Spurs were prepared to pay me. So I went back to Southampton and negotiated a new contract just like the one I’d have got at White Hart Lane. I now got £1,100 per week in the first year, £1,200 pw in the second and £1,300 pw in the third, but I’d have stayed even if they’d said no. Maybe I’d have won more England caps by moving club, but I was happy where I was.
I had two other opportunities to move. The first came a couple of years later when Jerome rang and said one of the biggest clubs in Europe was in for me. He didn’t want to tell me about it over the phone so I had to drive up to London to meet him in a hotel. I went up thinking it might be Real Madrid or Barcelona but it turned out to be Liverpool. Graeme Souness was the manager but again I didn’t even meet him. The move never got off the ground because I didn’t fancy living up north. Nothing against the north—but I preferred to live where I didn’t need a translator. If I’d ever moved from Southampton then I wouldn’t have gone any further than London, so Liverpool was never an option.
The only other time I came close to leaving Saints was in 1995 when Chelsea came in for me. I had a lot of things to weigh up. At that point Alan Ball was manager at Southampton and it was a brilliant time for me. He brought the best out of me and made me feel good about myself. I was happy playing for him and for Saints, I knew I’d be playing every week and I was still in the England squad. And I was in the top division. If Saints had ever been relegated then I’d have been put in a tough position. If they hadn’t bounced straight back then I think I’d have been yearning to play in the top division and would have asked for a move, but fortunately none of that happened.
So did I lack ambition? That’s what they said. But listen—I’d set my ambitions high when I was seven or eight. I wanted to be a professional footballer and play for England. By the age of 25 I had done both. If any of my critics could claim to have fulfilled their life’s ambition by the time they were 25 then they’d be entitled to their say. But most of the negative comments were coming from people who didn’t know me or who had never played the game, and definitely not to my level. So it hurt me when people said I lacked ambition because they had no idea about where I had come from or what my goals were. They certainly had no idea about my background and what an achievement it was to break away from the Channel Islands. Unless you have grown up there, you cannot begin to understand what a sheltered background it is.
A LOT OFPLAYERS MOVECLUBS CLAIMINGIT’S BECAUSETHEY AREAMBITIOUS.DON’T LET THEMFOOL YOU; THEYARE USUALLYAFTER THE EXTRACASH.
Over the decades there have been very few professional footballers (Graeme Le Saux is the obvious example) from the Channel Islands, which have a combined population of only around 150,000. To come from there and play for England is a pretty big achievement in my eyes—particularly as I managed to balance that with personal happiness, which always meant much more to me than money. And it’s worth stressing that a lot of players move clubs claiming it’s because they are ambitious. Don’t let them fool you; they are usually after the extra cash. Nothing wrong with that, so long as they’re being honest. The fans aren’t stupid, they see through it—as they did when Lucas Neill chose West Ham over Liverpool claiming he was ambitious. Nothing against the Hammers, but how could he say that West Ham had more chance of winning cups than Liverpool? And look at the likes of Steve Sidwell, who was great for Reading. He was playing every week but then moved to Chelsea, knowing full well that he wouldn’t be a regular but he’d be paid more. Is that ambition?
Is a player better off getting silly money every week but sitting on the bench, or playing regularly, earning less and keeping his self-respect? I know what I chose. And earning less does NOT mean that you are being badly paid. You can’t blame the players for taking that sort of money if it’s offered, but there comes a time when you have to wonder how much more money someone can actually spend? If you are already on £30,000 a week, what else could you buy if you get £40,000? The only difference for the likes of Steve Sidwell is they’d have more time to spend it because they’re not playing! I know times were different during my career, but the most I ever earned was just under £4,000 a week. I could never have handled sitting on the bench, week after week, and being sent on as an ‘impact player’, just for the extra cash. It was bad enough when I was dropped—and every manager left me out at some point—apart from Dave Merrington and Alan Ball. At least at Southampton I didn’t have to worry about rotation because we never had a big enough squad for that. And I’d have hated being left out even when I was playing well simply to give others a chance. I never had a problem being dropped if I was going through a bad spell, and never went knocking on the manager’s door about it. I simply waited for them to lose a couple of games, then knew I’d be back in again.
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