If anything took the edge off it, it was when Palios came into the dressing room to congratulate the players. He wasn’t comfortable in there. He couldn’t even look me in the eye.
I don’t know if he believed that he had ‘won’ by keeping Rio out of the squad, by forcing the players to stand down. But it all came back to bite him on the backside a month later with the whole Alan Smith/James Beattie debacle, which emphasised just how right we had been to take him on – and how ill-suited he was to be the FA’s leader.
A month after the Turkey game we were playing Denmark in a friendly at Old Trafford. On the day the squad was due to meet up the FA suddenly announced that Alan had been dropped because he’d been arrested. ‘Arrested’ is a terrible word; it makes you think, ‘Something must have gone on there.’ But it was over nothing. A bottle of water had been tossed on to a pitch. He’d tossed it back. The police had arrested him for questioning as a matter of procedure, but it never came near a charge.
It was enough to get Palios back on his high horse. He deemed that Alan was no longer fit to wear the England shirt. So that was Alan out. But in his place the FA summoned Beattie, who was serving a drink-driving ban – something Palios didn’t know until it was too late. Cue red faces.
I’d told him he was making a rod for his own back when he waded into the Rio affair. He’d set himself up to be whiter than white, which is inadvisable at the best of times. And then he went and got himself all over the front pages over a private affair.
Under normal circumstances I would never suggest that someone should have to resign over a personal issue. But with his stance on behaviour, Palios had made his own position untenable. The man who had come to clean up football had given himself no real alternative but to resign. He’s not worked in football since.
Rio received a £50,000 fine and an eight-month suspension, which ruled him out of Euro 2004 as well as massively undermining United. I thought it was very harsh. It was definitely inconsistent: a lad at Manchester City, Christian Negouai, had also missed a drugs test but got a £2,000 fine and no ban. Rio had paid a high price for the case becoming such a cause célèbre.
He’d not been helped by his legal advice, going into the hearing with all guns blazing. Knowing that the FA were out to make a stand, I told Rio he should walk in with his mum and a simple handwritten apology: ‘Look, I’ve cocked up, I’ve done wrong, I didn’t realise how serious it was, I forgot.’ But he went for the expensive barrister and was punished for it.
I’ve never doubted that Rio was genuinely forgetful. I detest drugs, and if Rio or anyone had tested positive – and you’ve got to remember he did a hair follicle test which showed him to be clean – I would have been the first to argue for a lifetime ban. Personally, I believe football is a pretty clean sport. I’ve not had any reason to be suspicious about any of my opponents.
But I can also understand why there’s a need for testing. Thanks to Rio a shambolic system was overhauled, so at least one good thing came out of it. From that point on, players would no longer be able to leave the training ground through forgetfulness. We’d be the same as athletes, followed by the testers while you have a pee.
We saw the rigidity of the new system some years later when we played at Arsenal and conceded a last-minute winner. You can imagine the foul mood of the players and the manager even before we walked into the dressing room to find three drugs testers waiting for samples. They got a right ear-bashing from quite a few of us. It wasn’t fair on them – they were only doing their jobs – but it was an issue that always made emotions run high at United.
I’ve no regrets over the Rio affair, or any other time I’ve stuck my neck out – like another threatened strike in 2001 when the PFA was fighting for a share of the Premier League’s billions. Rightly so.
The league was trying to drop the share of payments paid to the PFA at a time when they were making more cash than ever. I was part of the management committee which decided that we had to show we were serious – and a strike was the only way. As I explained to the players at United, ‘I might never need the PFA, and nor might you. We won’t need the benevolent fund or community support. But there are plenty of footballers, and ex-footballers, who do.’
We weren’t arguing for Rooney and Neville but for the teenager whose dream is destroyed by injury at eighteen and needs retraining. Or a player from yesteryear who gave his all to the game but now suffers from ill health. We were seeking to protect a union going back a hundred years to Billy Meredith. It was a cause worth fighting for.
I was outspoken on that, just as I was over Rio, and just as I have been on a number of issues to do with the game. Not everyone seems to like it. Put ‘Gary Neville’ and ‘wanker’ into Google and you’ll get about ten thousand results.
I don’t understand the hostility, to be honest. We constantly hear about footballers being cut adrift from the real world, caring only about the money, but then we slaughter them when they have strong opinions. I’m not saying you have to agree with me, but I thought we wanted footballers who were passionate about their club, about the game.
It’s always been in my nature to stand up for what I believe in. I was brought up with a strong sense of right and wrong, and I’ve always been willing to argue my case – whatever trouble I’ve landed myself in.
I think it comes partly from being the older brother. I’ve always wanted to take responsibility. As a teenage apprentice at United, I was made foreman. Later, I’d be captain. I’d help the young players negotiate their contracts. I was the unofficial social secretary. I like to organise, to be in control. Or to stick my oar in, as my critics would argue.
When I am right – or when I think I am right, which might not always be the same thing – I will never give in. I’ll fight my cause to the bitter end. Sometimes that has got me into trouble. But I’d much prefer to be known for being loyal to a fault than for being flaky.
Occasionally I’ve stopped and wondered how it came to this, but I’ve never worried about it. I could have had an easier life but I’m glad that I stood up for people, for the club, for the things I believed in.
You grow a thick skin after a while. You need to if you want to succeed, particularly if you aren’t blessed with looks and talent. You have to brace yourself for a barrage of abuse, particularly if you’re a high-profile player for Manchester United and England. A fan will walk past you in the street: ‘You were fucking shit yesterday.’ You turn on the radio: ‘Gary Neville isn’t what he was.’ You pick up a paper: Neville, captain of the Ugly XI. Phone-ins, newspaper articles, TV shows … you are playing for one of the biggest clubs in the world and you are going to get that scrutiny. You have to learn to let it wash over you, pick yourself up and go again. That’s probably been one of my biggest strengths. I’ve never let anyone get to me that much. It’s the only way to survive. Being called bolshie Red Nev has never bothered me. Far from it.
To be honest, once the boss has ripped you apart a few times and you’ve had a captain like Keano put you in your place a few times, you can handle anything that comes from fans or media. There’s only a few people in the world you need to impress. That’s something very important that you learn with experience.
England Blow It, Again
NO ONE CAN doubt that Rio was punished severely, forced to miss eight months of football including Euro 2004 in Portugal. And we stood a really good chance in the tournament.
We had Wayne Rooney. He’d burst into the English consciousness when Sven picked him for his full debut against Turkey in April 2003 even though he’d only played a handful of times for Everton. But I’d already had a secret glimpse of the hottest young talent in the country.
Six months earlier, at the Halton Stadium, Widnes, of all places, I’d played against Everton reserves on my way back from injury. There was this stocky bull of a kid, just sixteen years old, rolling the ball under his feet like he was the main man. He was that good I came in at half-time and asked our coaches, ‘Who the bloody hell is that?’ It wasn’t just his skills but the physique and the confidence to throw his weight around. He sent one of our lads sprawling. I was tempted to ask for his passport. He couldn’t be sixteen.
As I said, he’d barely played in the Premier League when Sven called him up, but he took to international football like a veteran. That first game against Turkey was a difficult, feisty match, but he juggled the ball in the middle of the pitch, almost taking the piss. It was like seeing Gazza at his peak.
Wazza’s emergence was the joy of that England campaign, and although there had been some bumps on the journey, notably the 2–2 draw at home to Macedonia, we approached Euro 2004 believing we would be genuine contenders. Rooney had given us goals and unpredictability; Frank Lampard had emerged as a significant player at Chelsea; we had Becks, Scholesy and Steven Gerrard.
If I had a worry, it was that Sven had created a fixed first XI. Everyone knew the names: James, Neville, Cole, Ferdinand, Campbell, Beckham, Gerrard, Lampard, Scholes, Rooney, Owen. While it is always helpful to have a settled team, it doesn’t keep players on their toes.
The problem would be made worse by Sven’s reluctance to make changes and to trust the reserves. He was sticking with that first team, whatever the evidence. Of course he wanted his big names on the pitch, but he could have used the subs much better. Kieron Dyer played for seven minutes in the whole tournament. We had Joe Cole on the bench and he didn’t even play for one minute, even though he could have given us some variation. We needed him, particularly with Scholesy unhappy now that he’d been shoved out to the left wing.
We started brightly enough against France in Benfica’s Stadium of Light. A massive game against Zidane and Henry. A huge test. We were excellent in that first half, with Rooney giving Silvestre and an ageing Lilian Thuram nightmares. Lampard scored with his head and we had a great chance to go 2–0 up, but Barthez saved Becks’ penalty.
Then, being England, we committed suicide.
We conceded a needless free-kick, up stepped Zidane, and he caught Jamo out of position. 1–1. Then Stevie G made a blind backpass, and Jamo hauled down Henry. 2–1. Next thing I see, the French are being knobs, skipping around the pitch in celebration. We’d let ourselves down, again.
We’d still progress from the group. Wazza scored four goals in two games, the victories over Switzerland and Croatia, to cement his status as the rising star of European football. He was playing with a belief that anything was possible. He was magnificent.
But instead of cruising through, we ended up flogging all our best players in the group stage. I thought that was the wrong approach, and said so to Steve McClaren, Sven’s right-hand man. I thought we should rest players for the third game, against Croatia, especially key men like Becks, Scholesy and Stevie G.
It would be a risk, but we needed freshening up if we were going to beat Portugal, the hosts and a dangerous team under ‘Big Phil’ Scolari, in the quarterfinal. We were never a team to dominate possession and we’d wear ourselves out chasing the ball. We should have been brave and changed the team around, but my view is that England have never been brave enough in major tournaments.
The failure to rest players was not the prime reason we went out – losing Rooney with a broken foot after twenty-seven minutes against Portugal was the turning point – but it was a significant factor. Our match-winners were not fresh when we needed them most.
We started well enough against the Portuguese, but once Wazza had gone off it soon became a tired performance. Only Frank of the midfield four was at his sharpest. Scholesy was unhappy with his role out on the left, Becks had not enjoyed a great run-up to the tournament with Real Madrid, Stevie G has admitted that he was preoccupied with a possible move to Chelsea. We were undercooked in midfield.
As the game went on, we started to lose control of it and were forced to defend for our lives on the edge of the penalty area. Helder Postiga never did anything in the Premier League. He was the sort of player you wouldn’t even notice at club level. But we allowed him a free header for Portugal’s equaliser to take us into extra-time.
We’d done a decent job on their wingers. Luís Figo was hooked and Cristiano Ronaldo kept swapping sides, looking for a way through us. But we couldn’t see it over the line, just as we’d failed to do against France.
Scolari made three attacking changes – Deco ended up at right-back – while our substitutions were cautious. Owen Hargreaves replacing Steven Gerrard wasn’t going to help us take the game to Portugal, and my brother came on for Scholesy. As Phil won’t mind me saying, he’s not a game-changing player.
In the tiny margins of international tournaments we’d fallen short again – the familiar combination of not quite enough top-quality players, a few misguided decisions, and an inability to take penalties.
Becks and, fatefully, Darius Vassell were the players to miss as we went down 6–5 on spot-kicks. I was already pissed off when Steve McClaren came up to me afterwards. ‘Why didn’t you take the seventh penalty?’ he said. ‘Why didn’t you or Phil take it?’
‘Well, Steve, for one thing I’m not a centre-forward. If you want me to go up first next time, tell me and I’ll do it. I can handle scoring or missing but it’s not what I’m best at. Sticking the ball in the net – that’s a striker’s job.’
I’d never taken a penalty in my life. I had about five shots a season. Don’t get me wrong: if Sven had asked me, or ordered me, I’d have taken one. But as far as I was concerned, you can take bravery to the point of stupidity. You might say David Batty was brave taking one in 1998 against Argentina; he wasn’t a penalty taker, and you could see that when he ran up. Afterwards he admitted that he’d never taken one in his life. So what was he doing taking one to keep us in the World Cup?
Maybe I could have taken one better than Darius. But that’s easy to say afterwards. As I said, like Batty, I’d never taken a penalty in my professional career.
Scholesy retired from international football the day after Euro 2004, which I found a terrible shame for the English game. He came down in the morning and said, ‘That’s it, I’ve had enough.’ Typical Scholesy, no big drama. He’d thought it through privately and decided he wasn’t enjoying it.
He hadn’t been used correctly by Sven, and while he’d swallowed his frustration at playing on the left side of midfield during the tournament, he knew that wasn’t the best use of him. I also think he’d started to resent that England was increasingly becoming a huge media circus. The WAGs business was just taking hold, though it wouldn’t really be picked up by the media as a negative for another two years.
Scholesy can’t stand that stuff any more than I can. He hates all the showbiz frenzy. To him, there’s literally nothing that should be of any interest to fans apart from what he does on the pitch.
I tried to talk him out of retirement because he was exactly the sort of player who suited international football. If he didn’t perform as well for England as he might have done, that’s because the team wasn’t set up right. We should have played 4–3–3 far more than we did, and then Scholesy would have fitted in perfectly instead of being shoved out to the wing. We should have been playing a more compact midfield.
He was moved out to accommodate Frank, but, with all respect to Frank, Scholesy’s a higher class altogether. He’s got a vision that’s probably unmatched by any English player of the last twenty years. Ask the top players in the world, like Zidane or Henry, and they’ll tell you the same. We drool over Xavi and Iniesta, and rightly so. Scholesy could have fitted into that Barcelona team without missing a beat.
The classic English failing is an inability to keep possession and control the tempo of a game. Scholesy should have been doing that for two decades for England but we never found the right midfield combination. So he quit international football with seven years left in his playing career.
When he said he was going to retire, I knew there wasn’t much chance of talking him out of it. He’s tough like that. At United, he once refused to travel to a Carling Cup game because he thought the boss was punishing him unfairly. He turned the manager down flat. That takes balls.
I told him to wait a month with his England decision, but he wouldn’t be swayed. I was gutted. I wouldn’t just miss him in midfield but in the hotel, on the team bus and in the dressing room on those long international trips.
People think Scholesy’s shy and quiet but he’s one of the most cutting people I know. Example: the day Diana Law, who worked in United’s press department, was chatting with the players.
‘Gary, you remind me of my brother for some reason,’ she said.
‘Why?’ Scholesy replied, quick as a flash. ‘Is he a knob too?’
Scholesy has plenty of opinions – it’s just that he doesn’t waste words. Now that he’s retired from club football too, I have no doubt he’ll make a top coach, passing down his knowledge. He understands the game, he’s got a great eye for a player, and when he says something, it’s always worth listening.
He could be an absolute pain in the arse, though, constantly nicking your car keys, your wedding ring, your phone. The time I must have wasted looking for something he’d hidden.
Sven tried to talk him round, but he wasn’t having any of it. He wasn’t even thirty and he was walking away from England. He’d never come back, not even when Capello made a late bid to get him to go to South Africa.
Scholesy just didn’t want any further part in it. But I can’t say I’d lost my belief in England at the end of Euro 2004. I still had faith in Sven and we had a squad of very good players – great players in Rio, Becks, Ashley Cole, Gerrard and Wazza, and all at a good age. We could look at Wazza’s injury against Portugal and wonder how much was down to bad luck.
But, as it turned out, I was fooling myself.