May 2007

Golden oldies

Richard Whitehead catches up with football stalwarts Nigel Spackman and Chris Kamara on the eve of the Football Masters tournament in Dubai.

Richard Whitehead: Do you think players from your era would fit into today’s football?

Nigel Spackman: I think even if you look back to the likes of Bobby Moore and that generation, and George Best’s generation, anybody who was a good player could fit into today’s football. Although fitness levels, the diet and training regimes are completely different, the speed’s still there.

Chris Kamara: The class players will always come to the fore. You know, you have people like Cristiano Ronaldo now, who’s head and shoulders above anybody else playing in England at this moment in time. And he’s only the same as the Zidanes and George Bests of past eras. They always came to the fore. But there are a lot of players in the Premiership who wouldn’t have got a game in years gone by. If you ask Liverpool, Manchester United and Arsenal supporters to name their best-ever elevens, you wouldn’t get many of today’s players in it. For Arsenal, Thierry Henry would be there, but otherwise you’d be struggling. Wayne Rooney probably wouldn’t get into the best Man U eleven because you’ve already got Denis Law, George Best and Eric Cantona there. Cristiano Ronaldo, probably, has forced his way in because he’s played so well.

NS: The thing about this Masters football is that people who’ve grown up with football relate to the players who are here. A lot of the Liverpool supporters still relate to the glory days with John Barnes, Ian Rush and hangers-on like myself, maybe. I think in today’s football, even though it’s fast and furious and levels of fitness are so high, the likes of John Barnes would be able to stroll into the team. Even Steve Gerrard would have difficulty getting into the best-ever Liverpool side behind Graeme Souness. And who would get in ahead of Ian Rush, Kevin Keegan and Kenny Dalgliesh? I don’t see there’s any reason why anybody out of this lot couldn’t play in the Premiership now.

CK: It’s very different now because we didn’t know anything about hydration. The trouble was that we would get too hydrated after the match, but not with isotonic drinks. That was the problem – we did it the wrong way. Nobody told you then that you should be fuelling your body with water all the time and filling up on vitamins and health products. After a match we used to have six or seven pints. On a Sunday afternoon you’d do the same, and on a Monday you’d stick on a plastic bag to sweat it out. So we were draining our bodies the whole time and nobody knew – we didn’t have an absolute clue that all that was bad for us.

NS: And the training is different today – it’s much more scientific. I mean, everyone knows Chelsea don’t do any distance work or stamina work, it’s all short, sharp stuff these days. That’s the way things are going. We were running up and down hills and beaches and they don’t do that any more. I think it would make them fitter and stronger because they need to last 90 minutes. But also you look at when we played together and then went out together. I don’t know if today’s squads do that any more. What I’m talking about is the camaraderie we had in those days.

RW: What don’t you like about modern football?

Nigel Spackman

CK: The problem they have nowadays is that the media’s so intrusive. If they go anywhere and get up to what footballers – who are essentially a gang of lads out for a good time – get up to when they’re together, it’s a major problem for the team. It’s very difficult for teams these days. Look at all the camera phones that are out around footballers these days. As a manager now you should never ever take your team away because it can only cause problems.
European teams never did that, though, and so we’ve had to move on in that way. But that was what Spackers was saying: that’s what made us dominate Europe for years and years and Europeans couldn’t believe it. The top coaches in the world would go to Anfield to study and discover what they did to make Liverpool so good, and they would all come away scratching their heads at how they played so much five-a-side.

They didn’t see any coaching, they didn’t see any set plays, they didn’t have a full-time physio. They would look at Bill Shankley and Bob Paisley, or Brian Clough, and ask them straight out, how they did it? How they were the top men in their profession when they weren’t ever out there on the training ground. That’s the thing they could never fathom out, but time moves on and the game changes. We still have the Martin O’Neils of the world, who are man managers, just like Alex Ferguson. But what they do now is make sure that the things below them are all correct.
NS: But on the other side of the coin, take Alan Curbishley. Curbs is a coach. What you’ve got to remember is that Charlton had this thing with survival. Year-in and year-out, they were scrapping to survive. Every year, Curbs had to put together an organised team with not particularly good players and turn them into something that was difficult to beat so they would manage to survive.

But with West Ham, he gets a different perspective. He moves to a club that expected him to be successful, and the first thing he did – and I don’t agree with this – was to get rid of the Argentines[Tevez and Mascherano]. These were two quality players. If you had Harry Redknapp or Sam Allardyce, they would have built the team around them and allowed them to get fit by playing games. When Harry kept Pompey up last year, for the first month they didn’t get a result. Players like Mendez, the boys from Tottenham, Sean Davis, they were all unfit, they couldn’t win, but he just persevered and persevered because they’re footballers – they’re players who can turn a game for him. Not, you know, like me, who used to run and chase and work hard for the team; they’re quality footballers.

CK: That’s what, unfortunately, our English managers are like now. They look at guys like Tevez and Mascherano – even Alan Pardew did this – and say I didn’t bring these guys to the club, I don’t want to play them. But they are two world-class players. Mascheranho is one of the best midfielders I’ve seen in a long time. He’s head and shoulders above someone like Makalele because he can win the ball and pass it forward. So many others can only pass sideways. In England, we’ve got to be better as coaches, that’s why Harry and Sam have so much success, because they realise football and how it has moved on.

NS: It’s less about quality players and more about getting the balance of your team right. You know, you can’t have your team of touch footballers who stroke the ball around, you’ve got to have those who do the work. You’ve got to get the balance right. If you want to be successful as a manager, you want to get yourself some good players. Now, in the Premiership, you have to get world-class players to stay ahead of the others.

For the likes of Charlton under Alan Curbishley, they came up, went down and came up again. They worked hard and stayed up to become an established Premiership side until he left. But then when you leave a club like Curbs has done and moved elsewhere, you need to be given time to get the process right and standards in place to make sure the side stays up. But if they stay up, we don’t know, and if he’ll be given time, we don’t know either.

RW: What about Martin O’Neill’s comments that these days, managers have less time to make an impression than they ever had before?

CK: If you spoke to Martin O’Neill at, say, the end of September, his comments would have been different. Back then, he was the messiah; they [Aston Villa] started off fantastically, there was talk of them winning the league, they were going to do this, they were going to do the other, but all of a sudden he’s finding life difficult.

NS: But the thing about being a manager at any level in English football these days is the pressure of the coverage weighs on you. You’ve got what Sky do, you’ve got the papers, you have Setanta coming in next season as well.

Just look at Steve McLaren with the England job. Everybody’s got an opinion and not everybody can be successful; not every club can be successful. In reality you have four clubs who are successful in the Premiership, and maybe they are the four that get into the Champions League. But not every club can be successful.

Expectations with England are so high and McLaren gets a lot of stick from the media and the fans. When you’re at that level you have to take because you’re in the limelight. You have to handle the criticism and turn it round when you’re that high. Sometimes, managers aren’t given the time to turn it around.

Nigel Spackman after the Masters

RW: What about recent murky affairs in modern football, like the contracts of Tevez and Mascerano. Was there anything like that in your day?

NS: No, we didn’t have many foreign players in our football at that time, and that’s the key. A lot of our top players went abroad to Italy, but it didn’t really mix. I think that it started to change with the Bosman Ruling, when players started to come in from around Europe. In our time it wasn’t so prevalent, and now, you’re not talking so much about European transfers, but more about world transfers.

With Tevez and Mascerano, that sort of thing has always happened in South America where people actually own the players, not necessarily the clubs. That’s where it gets a bit murky. I think this is the first case we’ve actually had in English football, but hopefully they will try to nip it in the bud straight away and we won’t have this problem again. And West Ham, being taken over by two big consortiums at the same time, needed to have the two world-class players, and then a new manager came in and didn’t want them. It’s hopefully a mess which we won’t see again.

RW: What was it like to retire?

CK: I was player-manager at Bradford, running around like a kid in the reserves, slaughtering the youngsters. It was easy for me because I was like a Tasmanian devil because I was trying to help them and killing them at the same time. But I couldn’t handle the pressure of the two jobs so I retired from playing and went straight into management. But that life’s gone now, with my Sky work, and I don’t really think about it too much. [Kamara is now a regular on British satellite TV]

NS: I was lucky enough to play in the Premiership until I was 37 and then I had one more season at Sheffield United in what is now the Championship. I didn’t play very often, and then it was a completely different style of play to what I was used to. My last pro game was in the play-off final against Crystal Palace at Wembley. Unfortunately, we lost, but my last professional game was at Wembley and I thought there’s not a better place to go out than that. I still keep in with football, obviously, but I enjoy the chance to meet up with the lads at events like this.

RW: Have you been training for the Football Masters event?

CK: Not me, although I’ve been doing some training in this [raises his glass]. I think everyone does a little bit but we probably don’t do enough. Current footballers spend an enormous amount of time training.

Chris Kamara and Rod Wallace

RW: It’s a sizeable event for Dubai. Do the players involved take it seriously?

NS: I think it’s great – it’s only the second year so it’s only in its infancy – but I think it’s going to get better and better. The teams that are in it are very competitive and hopefully we’ll put on a good show. I know last year the lads found it difficult with the heat at the tennis stadium – I think now they know they have to be fitter. Back home, old players are getting fitter by the year, and in this tournament players are tending to be getting younger so it’s becoming more competitive. It’s a great honour for us to be coming out to Dubai, it’s a fantastic place to be, and they treat us very well. We just want to get out there, play football, enjoy it, and win, hopefully.

RW: Will it give you the chance to settle any old scores?

NS: Not really, because we’re too old – we know what we want to do but our bodies won’t let us do it any more. Seriously, I think everybody comes out and enjoys the event. It’s hard work when you’re running around on the pitch when it’s about 30 degrees.

RW: Do you worry about fitness?

NS: I worry more about fatness. We Liverpool old boys played a couple of weeks ago in a charity eleven-a-side for Geoff Thomas, and it was absolutely freezing cold in London. It was snowing and everything. Afterwards, we were talking and Barnsie [John Barnes] said, your head knows what you want to do but you can’t quite do it. You think to yourself, I should be able to pass this ball about 30 yards over there, but if I do, something’s going to happen like a muscle will tear. Your brain will tell you to just take it easily and not to over-exert yourself.

RW: How’s life out of the game been treating you?

CK: Obviously, from my point of view I do the presentations for Sky Sports and keep in with the game. But coming here and catching up with the lads is great for me. I’ve got the hardest job in the world, knowing what to say at all times.

NS: I’m leading a life of leisure at the moment. After the game I go over to Singapore to work for ESPN, doing some FA Premiership and Champions League, and then back to Dubai for holiday and then I have to play in Kenny Dalgliesh’s charity golf week at La Manga in Spain. So it’s tough at the bottom. When you come out here, you really do meet up with your old mates, guys who you played with or against. The banter starts straight away, which is great. So you’re networking while you’re here, and that’s good for Chris, in his line of work, because he’s always looking to get guests on his show.

CK: I used to play with Rod Wallace at Leeds and we haven’t seen each other for seven or eight years since then, but now we’re playing against one-another. You can’t do that when you’re playing – you’ve got your own teammates who you hang around with.

Once Masters Football was invented, it gave us new opportunities to have a laugh with old mates. It’s just good to socialise with them. Some players, you don’t know what their personalities and characters are like until you meet them in games like these. And then you find out they’re exactly the same as everyone else: they just want to have a laugh and a bit of fun.