We’d go round to each other’s rooms before games. We were a comfort to each other, a sounding board. We’d offer advice about a particular opponent. It was the same with Scholesy and Becks. When you are making these big leaps up, it’s great to have familiar faces around you. We’d travel in the same seats on the bus, all sitting together. We were like each other’s security blankets.
Phil was brilliant, and there was no jealousy from me. That has never been our nature. We were too busy keeping up to worry about any petty rivalry. Phil was playing so well that he couldn’t be dropped. It was up to me to accept my place on the bench and not to mope as we prepared for the final.
The Liverpool team we faced had talent but their professionalism wasn’t close to ours at United. We would let our hair down but only on rare occasions, when the time was right.
They turned up at Wembley wearing shocking white suits, looking like they had done most of their preparations in the tailors. Their lifestyle even featured in our team talk. ‘Keep playing the ball around their area because David James will probably be waving at Giorgio Armani up in the directors’ box,’ the manager said.
Fair or not, that’s the image they had, and the manager could claim, ‘I told you so’ when Jamo half-punched a corner from Becks to the edge of the area. Eric had been quiet by his standards, but he volleyed the ball straight through a crowded box. Now we’d won the Double with kids – as all the banners and T-shirts around Wembley reminded Hansen.
I came on for a few minutes at the end and was on the pitch when we did our lap of honour afterwards. The fans were singing their favourite chant of the moment: ‘Cheer up Kevin Keegan, oh what can it mean …’ Full of joy, I joined in.
I didn’t think anything of it until someone from the club pulled me afterwards to say it had been caught on television. I didn’t know Kevin Keegan, I’d never spoken to him, but he was an England legend so I sent him a letter of apology.
Perhaps those Liverpool lads have no regrets from their careers. I don’t doubt they enjoyed themselves. But at United the time to party is when you’ve won something. There’s no denying that there had been a drinking culture in English football for decades, but the world was wising up, and our boss was one of the managers who would not tolerate boozing players.
We’d go on the odd piss-up, though, and we always had a great Christmas party. December 1995 might be my personal best. A lightweight drinker at twenty, I knew I was in trouble when someone passed me a sixth pint of cider and it slipped straight through my hands and smashed on the floor. Later we staggered on to a Chinese and I ended up falling asleep on the pavement outside the Golden Rice Bowl. I was throwing up so badly that Ben and Casp had to put me in a cab. I could barely talk, but I managed to ask the driver to take me straight to hospital.
He took me to the Royal Infirmary, and I was so terrified of being recognised that I checked in under the first name I could think of – Simon Brown. The lads got years of fun out of that. ‘Pass the ball, Simon.’ I crashed out on a bed and woke up in the middle of the night to find about fifty missed calls on my phone. I rang Casp to come and pick me up and he found me sitting in reception in a wheelchair barely able to speak. He could hardly push the chair for laughing.
As well as Christmas, we’d celebrate the titles. And did we celebrate. After that first title we went to the Amblehurst Hotel in Sale, a traditional den for the United boys, and got bladdered. There’s a great photo of Phil sat outside the bus stop the next morning with his club blazer on, looking like Keith Richards.
I think it was the following year when I surpassed myself by spewing all over the hotel reception. I was necking vodka straight out of the bottle, half a pint of the stuff, and I couldn’t stand up. About all I can remember is Keano pissing his sides and taunting me as I threw up everywhere. ‘Neville, you’re a shambles. I’m ringing Hoddle in the morning to tell him you’re a fucking disgrace.’
My mum went berserk when Phil and my dad had to carry me into the house. ‘What have you done to my boy?’ Only a mum could be sympathetic in those circumstances.
They’re the best nights, those celebrations. Absolutely the best. You’ve been under pressure all season with the expectations of the fans, the manager, everyone connected with the club. You’ve put yourself under pressure just to keep your place in the team. And then it all comes pouring out of you in a great wave of euphoria.
I honestly don’t think you can appreciate the high unless you’ve been there and done it. Having a kid? Well, most people can do that. It’s a very small, privileged group who get to experience the thrill of winning a championship with their best mates, playing for United.
But if I couldn’t handle my drink on those special occasions, it was because I rationed myself the rest of the time. Training and preparation were crucial to me – obsessively so. You could set your watch by my pre-match rituals.
Week after week I’d go to bed like clockwork and eat the same meals. I didn’t want to take any chances. The day before a game, it was always the same:
8 a.m.: breakfast of cereal and orange juice
Noon: fish, potatoes and vegetables
3.30 p.m.: cereal and a piece of toast
7 p.m.: pasta with soup
9.15 p.m.: lights out.
I’d even take cereal and my own bowl and spoon on the train if we were going down to London. I’d sit there at 3.30 precisely munching my Weetabix as the train rolled through the countryside and the other lads pissed their sides. They could laugh, but these rituals mattered to me.
Most of them started out as good professional habits – healthy diet, plenty of rest – but they quickly bordered on superstitions. It’s common enough among sportsmen. You are constantly looking for a little confidence booster, a reassurance that it will turn out all right on the night. Sticking to the same rituals offered me the comfort that I had done everything I could to be perfectly prepared, mentally and physically.
At the end of the final training session before every match I would sprint off to the changing rooms. If you didn’t know my habits, you would assume I had a bladder problem. This was my last exercise before the game and I wanted to feel sharp (for the same reason, I’d always jump up first when we posed for team photos before a match). I’d hurtle off, leaving the rest of the lads cracking up.
On match day, another strict routine would start with stretches at 9.30 in the morning and the ten o’clock call to my mum. Every game I ever played, I spoke to my mum five hours before kick-off. ‘Go stuff ’em,’ she would tell me, every single time, over twenty years.
I’d always be early into Old Trafford, say 11.40 a.m. before a three p.m. kick-off. Well, who wants to be late? It used to drive me mad when players turned up for the team bus seconds before we were due to leave. I swear Louis Saha was never earlier than 11.59 and fifty-nine seconds if we had a noon departure. It would drive me crazy.
After a noon lunch – Ribena, spaghetti with a bit of sauce, and a yoghurt – and the manager’s team talk, I always needed my private time. I’d grab a programme and head into the right-hand toilet cubicle. In the dressing room the rest of the lads would be laughing and joking. Someone would be kicking a ball around. But I always needed time on my own to think about the game or my direct opponent. I might be facing a lightning-quick winger with bags of skill, so to get some positive thoughts in my mind I’d say to myself, ‘Will he want it as much as me? Will he run as far as me?’
Sometimes, if I was feeling edgy and nervous, I’d think about the meal I’d be eating later. I’d reassure myself that all this hullabaloo would be over in three hours and I’d be enjoying my salt-and-pepper spare ribs and my chicken curry in town with my family. People think you need to fire yourself up before a match, but it’s often about calming yourself down.
Play for long enough and you get into some daft habits. I had a quick back massage once when I was seventeen and played well. So that was it, a rub-down for every game after that, even though I’ve never had a bad back in my life. Walking out, I always insisted on being fifth in line with Becks just behind me. I’ve no idea why.
Plenty of sportsmen have rituals like this. Mine were based on knowing that I had done everything to give myself an edge. The early nights, the 3.30 p.m. Weetabix, the pre-match stretches – I didn’t want to leave anything to chance.
It doesn’t work for every player. A dressing room full of Gary Nevilles would be boring. But you cannot stay at the top in professional sport for very long without commitment and sacrifice – and there’s no doubt that, as a squad, we had good habits. Times were changing. Gone were the days when footballers could afford to get pissed in the week.
There’s nothing worse than not making the most of your abilities. And that’s what the boss would remind us day after day after day. In the manager’s team talks, no one has been name-checked more times than a billionaire he knows. He’s got more money than he can spend, he can retire to the golf course, but, according to the boss, this bloke is still first into work every day. It was a speech we heard often: ‘Be proud to say you work hard.’
You might think hard work should be taken for granted, especially with the millions that footballers can earn. But in a macho environment like a dressing room, it’s cooler to act like you don’t give a damn. And maybe that was the difference between the talented Liverpool squad of those days and us at United – they acted cool, and we won the championship.
Terry
SITTING ON THE team bus, we crawled through a sea of smiling England fans, all of them willing us on to win the European Championship on home soil. The whole country was buzzing. Stuart Pearce turned to me. ‘Enjoy it,’ he said, ‘because it might not get as good as this again.’
Being young, I shrugged it off, thinking, ‘There’ll be plenty more good times to come’. But he turned out to be right. There weren’t nearly enough good times, not when it came to playing for my country. Euro 96 was the pinnacle.
I loved playing under Terry Venables, although it wasn’t all plain sailing. Being a United player at that time was to be a target for some terrible stick at Wembley. People either loved us or hated us now that we were winning trophies every year. And in Hughes and Ince, then Keane and Cantona, we had a really hard, aggressive edge.
England, not having to qualify for the tournament, played a run of friendlies with the old stadium half empty. Less than thirty thousand fans watched us play Bulgaria one night so you could hear every shout. ‘Munich bastard!’ ‘Red bastard!’ It was always at its worst down one side, across from the dugouts and the royal box. There would be groups of West Ham and Chelsea supporters, lads who had come not to cheer England but to get pissed and hammer a few United players on a Wednesday night. I’d be running up and down the touchline, playing my guts out for my country, then I’d go to pick up the ball for a throwin and hear a shout of ‘Fuck off Neville, you’re shit!’
I was delighted when that tired old ground, with its crap facilities and its pockets of bitter fans, got smashed into little pieces. I never mourned the Twin Towers, not for a minute.
Still, I didn’t let the minority of idiots spoil the experience of playing for England or for Terry. I loved it right from my debut in the summer of 1995.
I was out in Zurich for an end-of-season youth competition for under 20s involving some of the top European clubs when one of the United coaches came over.
‘Gary,’ he said, ‘you’ve been called up by England.’
I couldn’t believe it. I was out there playing with youth players. But I rang my dad and he confirmed it. So I was on the first plane out of there to meet up with the senior England team.
Gary Pallister was the only other United player in the squad so I travelled down with him to the hotel at Burnham Beeches. It was one of those nervous moments. I didn’t say much, which isn’t like me. I must have come over as someone quite shy to Terry and the rest of the players, and it didn’t help when Pally went home a few days later carrying an injury. I felt isolated, lonely for the first time in a football environment. I was used to being around my pals.
Every time I went down to dinner I was already looking forward to getting back to my room without any fuss or bother. If I wasn’t training, I’d lie in my room watching telly or having a nap. The other lads, like Gazza, David Platt and Alan Shearer, weren’t unfriendly. I was just a youngster staying out of their way. Stan Collymore was in his first squad, too, but he had Liverpool teammates like Steve McManaman and John Barnes to hang around with. There was a big Liverpool contingent, but they were a different clique to me – a bit louder, a bit more outgoing and confident. If I was going to make an impression it would have to be on the pitch.
At twenty, and after only nineteen Premiership matches, I made my England debut in a three-match series, the Umbro Cup, against Japan at Wembley – admittedly a low-key game, with a crowd of just 21,142 – playing in a defence that featured John Scales and David Unsworth at centre-back and Stuart Pearce on the other side. I acquitted myself pretty well, and though Warren Barton came in for the next game against Sweden, I returned against Brazil – a 3–1 defeat in front of a much bigger crowd and with Ronaldo, Roberto Carlos and Dunga in opposition.
As a defender, I learnt so much from Don Howe, Terry’s assistant. He used to take the back four for sessions while Terry and Bryan Robson worked on the attacking side of the game. We’d split into different groups straight after the warm-up for half an hour before coming back together to work as a team.
That was new to me. At United we’d always based training around small-sided games together. We’d go to ball-work quickly. Under Don it was much more about tactical shape and co-ordinating everyone’s movements. As a defence, we were drilled with military precision.
Don’s attitude was that you had to get the foundations right in any team, and that meant building from the back. You could win a game 4–1 but if the goal conceded was a bad one, he’d be livid.
Terry had a crane installed by the practice pitch so he could film the sessions from on high and then go back over the video to show you your movements. It’s common now to have that sort of analysis but at the time it was a novel approach, and very educational for me.
Armed with those tapes, Don hammered us until we were as co-ordinated as synchronised swimmers. They were brilliant sessions, as good as I’ve seen. I learnt how to anticipate angled passes behind me, and to close down my winger. At that time, more than in later years, my job was mainly about stopping my opponent. It was a crime if I let him swing a cross in.
One of the first things Don, astute as ever, said to me was this: ‘I’ve watched you, I like you and you defend quite well, but you don’t set up a lot of goals. You don’t go forward much.’ At that time, it was a fair observation.
But my game suited him and Terry so, as Euro 96 loomed, I was firmly established as right-back in a four-man defence. I could also operate as a third centre-back, which was a big advantage because we’d worked on swapping between formations when necessary. Warren Barton wasn’t really Don’s type and Rob Jones had had terrible injury problems at Liverpool. So I was a regular, and Phil, precocious as ever, was my understudy, at nineteen.
Before the tournament we went on tour to the Far East – a chance to warm up with a match against China and to bond together as a squad. In the interests of camaraderie, Terry gave us all a night off before we were due to fly home. I was up for a few beers, but David Platt sensed trouble brewing. As one of the senior pros, he approached me, Phil, Nicky Barmby and Jason Wilcox, the young lads, with some friendly words of advice. ‘This could be one to miss,’ he said. So as Teddy Sheringham, Alan Shearer, Gazza and the boys all went out to explore Hong Kong’s nightlife, the three of us sat in our hotel having dinner. We didn’t know what a riotous time we were missing.
The first I knew about anything was when I came down for lunch the next day. I walked into the dining room and Gazza was lighting a cigar with something that looked like a Bunsen burner from a chemistry class. I swear it’s one of the funniest things I’ve seen in my life. The flame must have been about three feet long and Gazza, in the dining room of a five-star hotel, was almost setting fire to himself. Phil and I were crying with laughter. If anyone had done that at United you wouldn’t have waited for the bollocking from the manager, you would have just packed your bags and gone. I do know the boss wanted to bring Gazza to Old Trafford. It’s a real shame it never happened because I think Alex Ferguson would have been great for him.
It was clear from Gazza’s state, and the sore heads among the rest of the lads, that they’d had a cracking night out. Part of me was kicking myself for not going, and I wouldn’t have missed it in later years. But Platty had looked after us younger lads and I can’t imagine how our manager at home would have reacted if we’d been all over the front pages. I wasn’t exactly a hardened drinker. A quick appointment in the infamous dentist’s chair having vodka poured down my throat would have finished me off for days. But I wished I’d been there to enjoy it.
There was more mayhem to come. When we flew home all the players were upstairs in the bubble of the jumbo jet. Gazza was sat next to Phil and me. He’d been drinking for hours and Terry wanted someone to make sure he didn’t get out of control. Terry sent Doc Crane, the England team doctor, to keep an eye on him, but he liked a tipple himself and fell asleep.
Alan Shearer came down to play cards. As he was walking past Gazza he slapped the back of his head. A big clout. Gazza woke up with a start and thought it was McManaman or Fowler because they were sat a couple of rows behind. Gazza’s revenge was to go and smash up their TV consoles.
We got off the plane and didn’t really think much about the damage that had been left behind, but the next day all hell broke loose. It had kicked off in the Sunday papers, with pictures of everyone getting pissed in the China Jump and a story about the wreckage on the plane.
Back in the team hotel, Terry met the senior players and told them they’d better come up with a way out of this mess. Around the country there was a bit of impatience with our form so there wasn’t much credit in the bank with the media or the public. The wolves were out.
We had a full meeting of the squad at Burnham Beeches. The senior players – Platt, Shearer and Pearce – had their say and came out with the line about collective responsibility. We’d all take the rap and give two match fees to pay for the damage and the rest to charity. This was another lesson that stayed with me through my England career: teams stick together. Never chuck your teammate overboard, or show divisions.
Sharing the blame was going to cost me a lot of money. Our match fee was £1,500, which was a fortune to me at the time, and I had a moan to my brother. We hadn’t been on the piss-up or caused any of the damage. But looking back, it was the right way to handle it. We had to keep the group together. And the truth was that the players were willing to make allowances for Gazza because they knew what he could do for the team. He was our match-winner, and as popular a player as any in the squad. There was nothing to be gained by us hanging Gazza out to dry.
We went into the tournament with a great team, as well as home advantage. We had David Seaman, Tony Adams, Platt, Ince, Gazza, Shearer, Pearce and Sheringham, all established and in their prime. You could have made a captain out of any of them. It was a joy for the young players like Steve McManaman, Darren Anderton, Nick Barmby and me to look around the dressing room and see all this talent and hardened experience.
In the dressing room before matches, Adams would kick a ball against a wall or the door like he was ready to batter it down. I used to sit next to Pearce and he scared the life out of me the first time he warmed up for a match at Wembley. ‘This is our fuckin’ turf, this is my fuckin’ turf,’ he kept snarling.
Even though there were big characters at United, the dressing room at Old Trafford was generally composed in the minutes leading up to kick-off. Not so with England. There’d be shouting, chest-beating, patriotic roars. I’d sit there and think, ‘This lot are wound up.’ I wanted to put on
Football Focus
and chill out. It was the opposite from what I knew at United where we had music, the telly on until half an hour before kick-off, lads laughing and joking.
For a young defender, Adams was someone to look up to. Our manager once described him as a United player in the wrong shirt, and I can see what he meant. His intensity, his drive, his courage would have made him a legend at Old Trafford.
Shearer was another who could – make that should – have played for United. I thought he was going to join us that summer of ’96. The club were sniffing around him when Becks and I bumped into him at a Bryan Adams concert. We did our best to talk him round but he chose Newcastle, and to this day I think of what might have been had he come to United. For all his achievements in the game, there will always be something missing from his career because he never played consistently at the top European club level. At United he would have done that and become adored every bit as much as he was at Newcastle. He could have been embraced like Charlton and Robson, two other United legends from the north-east. I thought it was madness for him not to want to come to Old Trafford, where he would have won countless medals. But then I’m not a Geordie.
We also had Gazza, who’d been to a World Cup semi-final and who, despite his injuries, was still a world-class talent. He was everything you’ve heard – mad, hilarious, warm-hearted, and a match-winner.
That squad had power, strength, experience, a proven goalscorer, depth and confidence. And thanks to Terry’s abilities, we had players who were better for their country than their clubs. Anderton was one, Barmby another, because they were bright and adaptable. Jamie Redknapp was a bit like that as well, although very unlucky with injury. These were players who weren’t in a rush, who could hold the ball, who could use it intelligently. McManaman was another. Just going through the squad makes me wonder what might have been.
We began with a scrappy draw against Switzerland so we needed to raise our game against Scotland in our second group game. Everyone remembers the second goal, that brilliant individual strike by Gazza which he celebrated as if he was back in the dentist’s chair. But it was the first goal that gave me one of the most satisfying moments of my England career.
It was a cross, just a cross, but I remember it as one of my best ever, landing right on Shearer’s head at the far post. He was never going to miss from there. I ran off up the touchline, pumping my fists, Gazza chasing after me. After all the stick at Wembley, it felt like the whole country was united behind every one of us, even Phil and me, the United lads. The atmosphere was fantastic.
We’d not been great against Scotland, suffering a nightmare twenty minutes and needing Big Dave Seaman to make a big penalty save. But we were gathering momentum, which is what matters in tournaments. We were full of confidence going into our third game, against Holland, and both tactically and technically it was the best international performance I’ve been involved in, a real tribute to Terry’s preparations.
Football is always going to be unpredictable, but under a top coach like Terry you would go out with a picture in your mind of how the game should unfold. And more often than not, and particularly in that match against Holland, it would happen as he had anticipated.