Catch A Falling Star (24 page)

I must admit I have had great success over the last ten years. During that time many of the boys I’ve coached have moved on to train with some top clubs. One to look out for is Chris
Chantler
. He has got everything: he’s strong, quick, has great control and he is at
Manchester
City
now.

Another player who I had great fun with – with a left peg which was as good as mine – now lives in
Bolton
. I had him for three years at City and one day he drove me mad because he would not stop talking! So before we went out to the
City
Academy
I taped his mouth up with broad sticky tape and his mum and dad were in stitches! He was a great blond defender and his name is Tom Coyne or ‘TC’ as we christened him! I named him that because he reminded me of the great Tony Coleman who I played alongside at City.

He is now at
Preston
and they are very excited about him. He has a great chance to make it all the way. His mum and dad phone me every now and then for advice and also to tell me how he is doing which is very satisfying.

In fact I must have about ten boys now who have got places at professional clubs, scattered across the
North West
. Good luck to them all.

It’s like being on a different planet when I’m coaching, I like it that much. If I start at
10.30am
 then I leave the house at
9am
! Carmen goes mad about at that but she knows if I go that early I’ll take my wedge with me and I’ll practise my golf swing. I simply love being out in the fresh air, I could never tolerate an indoor job, I get claustrophobic.

I believe I’ve been successful at coaching because I become supremely confident when I put that tracksuit on. And to anyone reading this who is perhaps considering a career in coaching I would give the following pieces of advice. Do the simple things well at first before trying the more technical things later on. Be a friend to the kids, don’t be a sergeant major, talk to them as if they were your own kids, have a good attitude towards them. If you can have a laugh and a joke with them and if they feel relaxed in your company then I believe you have won the respect of the kids. That way you are halfway towards becoming a good coach.

One day I called Jim
Cassell
at City and asked him if I could play a match against his Academy Under-9 side and he agreed. This was a big thrill for me and a huge thrill for the lads. So I chose nine
possibles
to play a seven-a-side game. We drew the match 3-3 and Jim was thoroughly impressed. I was invited to coach at the Academy which I did for two years. I had great success there with my Under-9s and I felt I was starting to gain recognition again.

Boys used to spend six weeks with us, they’d come down every Sunday and after the six weeks were up we’d possibly keep two of them until we had a squad of players, about sixteen in total to form an Academy team.

What was super for me was that every Sunday morning I would go to the
Platt
Lane
Academy
the same way I used to go when I was a player. It is the same park I played in as a child growing up in
Fallowfield
. I could put a City tracksuit on again and feel ten feet tall. I was at the place I loved, back inside Manchester City Football Club. If you want, I felt as if I belonged here, just as I felt as a youngster looking out of my bedroom window at the stadium.

I was also doing the job I liked, helping boys improve their game. It was a lovely feeling. Looking back I was wishing my life away because I simply couldn’t wait for each Sunday to come around. It was like being a kid again.

I must have been doing something right because six of the boys who were on the Academy team on a Sunday morning came to see me at my soccer school on a Sunday afternoon to be given further coaching by me and many of them are still at City now.

The nice thing was that parents used to come over to me after my sessions at City and thank me personally, which was nice. I can’t tell you how many times when I’m coaching my lads the parents say to me: “I bet you get all your gear – footballs, nets, tracksuits et cetera all free off the club.” They don’t believe me when I tell them I have to buy them myself. It is
true,
I have never asked City for any training gear.

Like I say, to be a good coach you have to earn the boys trust. Most of my boys now hate it when I shout: “next goal wins,” because they want to play for at least ten minutes more. They feel they have got to leave that training field happy.

That is what makes them return week after week after week. I have got boys who have been coming for four or five years and maybe they won’t make the grade but they are happy and if they are then I am doing my job okay. I have heard coaches shout at kids which seems strange to me. You have to be their pal and that way they will respect you.

Even the then youth team coach at City came up to me one day and said: “I can’t get my seventeen-year-old lads to play like that!” I coached them in the same way that Malcolm Allison coached me. Perhaps the other coaches were a little afraid that I was after their job. I can tell them that I wasn’t.

I think that because I was taught by one of the best coaches in the world some of it must have rubbed off on me. I also think I’d make a very good chief scout because with the experience I have I know what makes a good player.

However I am afraid to say that sometimes in the world of football the wrong people get the jobs at big clubs because it’s not what they know, it’s who they know. This happens a lot in the game and it’s a shame because there are a lot of ex-pros who made it in football and they never get a chance to coach.

There are a lot of coaches now who have never played at the top level. All they have done is
go
on a four or five day course, picked up a certificate and become a coach. Then they phone a friend and get a job! That’s what happens. Then clubs moan about how there aren’t enough lads coming through to be full-time pros and they have to go abroad and buy players.

City have had Joey Barton and Shaun Wright-Phillips in recent times and Bradley Wright-Phillips looks to be good little player too. I’m sure that with people like Paul Power and Alex Williams behind the scenes the future looks good for us at least.

*

I’ve seen a lot change over the years in football and I feel I’m well qualified to give my opinions on the state of the game. I watch a lot of football on the television and there’s still plenty about this game which excites me and annoys me in equal measure.

They say players today get paid too much money – may be so, may be not. I say make as much money as you can, while you can because when you have finished playing you may find it very difficult without some money behind you. Certainly in my era, many like me were left struggling.

During my time at Preston, I played with a certain player, an Irish International, who told me that he would move to a different club every fifteen months or so and get himself a signing on bonus. That’s how he bought his massive house in St Anne’s. He said he did it that way just in case he didn’t get a testimonial game.

  I often look back and think: “Should I have gone about things like that?” On reflection though I don’t think I was mercenary enough to pull that kind of trick off. I am a very loyal person and my loyalties lie with City. They were the club that gave me a chance in the game and even though I think I paid the club back over the years, treating football purely as a way of making a living just didn’t sit right with me. It was also about wanting to win, about being part of the best team. How can you do that if you change clubs every five minutes?

Nevertheless I want to see players earn their money. Some of your big name, big wage players, and we’ve had a few of them at City over the years, loll about the pitch as if they don’t seem to care. When Joe was manager and you came off the pitch smiling after a defeat he’d go ballistic with you. That was one thing Joe said to us all: “Never let me see you laughing if we’ve just lost a game.” If we played poorly on a Saturday we would be hauled in on the Sunday morning to put it right.

At least I can go to bed at night thinking of the games I’ve played in. Then there’s the joy of putting a blue shirt on and being part of the last City team to win the Championship. Many people think we’re a club that’s always looking back but the championship is a special trophy and I think it was a shame there wasn’t a big thirty-year celebration in 1998. Perhaps we can have one in 2008 – unless we win the league before then! It would be a great occasion for the fans too, I’m sure.

Then there’s the absolute ecstasy of scoring a goal. It’s why we all took up the game as kids in the first place. There is simply nothing like it on earth. That’s why you see so many different players celebrating in all types of ways: cartwheels, somersaults,
a
fist in the air, a slide across the ground, taking their shirt off and running across to the supporters. In that short space of time when a goal has just gone in, the players are in paradise. It must be like when a mother sees their son or daughter for the first time.
Fantastic.

Then there’s the fact that you have 50,000 fans chanting your name – except for that clown in Row A, Seat 3 of the Main Stand who used to slate me every other Saturday as I ran down the left wing! What did he have against me? Let me say here and now, you do hear the negative comments from the crowd and it can distract you in a game.

But then when you score you get the adoration of your team-mates patting you on the back because you are winning a match for them. There is nothing better than praise.

When I think back over my football career the games I missed were not major ones, the results from those games didn’t matter as much as some of the others so I was quite fortunate in that respect. I would have been devastated had I missed one of our Wembley trips or the Cup Winners’ Cup Final in
Vienna
.

When you have left football, and I left it properly over thirty years ago, you still don’t forget what you have done in the game. So I’ve still a lot of my paper cuttings which mum collected for me and, at times, I couldn’t believe what I’d achieved, nor could I believe all the quotes from managers and players and what they’d said about me. It still makes me feel really proud to know that I have contributed to
Manchester
City
’s history and made the club that little bit more prestigious. I think the team I was so heavily involved in has helped give City the name and exposure it enjoys today.

I’ve seen a lot of clangers dropped during my time at City, for instance when the club parted company with Stanley Bowles. Also letting a great pro like Ian Bowyer go was a mistake. He signed for the late Brian Clough (not a bad judge of a player) and went on to win the championship and the European Cup with
Nottingham
Forest
. Those were two big clangers. The worst though, was letting Joe Mercer go to
Coventry
while he still had so much to offer.

Would you believe we had Ryan Giggs at City and let him go because the coaches did not like him? What a blunder that was. We didn’t know just how far he’d go at the time but we’ve seen now how he turned out to be a world-class player.

Then again the game is so different in so many ways today. It is played at a tremendous pace – the control, the pace and the movement is so fast – but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s at a higher standard, it just means it’s quicker.

You still need a good first touch which is a major factor in a player’s game. I suppose if you compare how we played at
City,
the best example is the present day Arsenal side who play a lot of two-touch football. We, too, were a good passing side.