Neil Lennon: Man and Bhoy. Neil Lennon

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СКАЧАТЬ in the squad, but Mel said at the time that ‘if they are good enough, they are old enough’, and it was only a few weeks before I did indeed make the starting eleven.

      On 30 April, we were going to St Andrews to play Birmingham City, and I was delighted to be told I was travelling with the first team. I just thought I was going along to make up the squad numbers, but then, half an hour before the game, Mel read out the team to start the match and I was named at right-back. I was completely taken by surprise, just amazed that only six months after leaving school, I was going to make my first-team debut for one of England’s best-known clubs. I also knew that I had been given a great chance by the manager to stake a claim for a place in the first-team squad for the next season as it was well known that veteran defender John Gidman would be leaving the club at the end of the season.

      I did not find out until much later that I was the second-youngest player to be picked by Manchester City for a first-team debut in modern days, the youngest ever having been Glyn Pardoe.

      Before the kick-off I was a nervous wreck, and shortly after the referee blew the whistle to start the match I was nearly a wreck of a different sort.

      I remember running about the pitch and savouring the atmosphere. I was determined to enjoy myself, but Birmingham’s Scottish player Andy Kennedy had other ideas. About a minute into the game I took a pass and was moving down the right wing when Andy absolutely flattened me, taking my legs away and thumping me right over the touchline. It was late and dangerous and he was yellow-carded.

      Our physio Roy Bailey and Mel Machin both came to attend to me and it took me a minute or two to get to my feet. Having been given a first-team opportunity, I was determined to carry on, even though I was still sore, and at least I showed I wasn’t going to be intimidated.

      At that stage of the season we already knew City were not going to make the promotion play-offs, but Birmingham were deep in relegation trouble and perhaps that is why they tried to kick us off the field. I thought I had played reasonably well and was comfortable with the pace of the game, but five minutes into the second half, Ian Handysides came through and hit me just as hard as Andy Kennedy. He caught my ankle and it was very painful, I can tell you.

      Handysides, too, was booked, which provoked the Birmingham fans into booing me. They appeared to think that the victim was guilty of getting their players booked, but then who says a football crowd is a thinking creature?

      By now the physical punishment was taking its toll on me so Mel Machin brought me off the field after about sixty-four minutes. We went on to win 3-0, with two goals from Ian Brightwell and the third from Imre Varadi.

      In the dressing room afterwards my ankle was swollen like a balloon, and indeed the injury prevented me from playing in any of the remaining matches of the season.

      Despite the ‘treatment’, I had thoroughly enjoyed a great experience, and I remember calling home to Lurgan that evening where my dad couldn’t believe that he had missed my debut.

      He never did get the chance to see me play for Manchester City’s first team, because that match at Birmingham turned out to be the one and only appearance that I made for the club at the top level.

      Of course I had no idea that things would turn out the way they did, in fact I reasoned that having made my debut at the age of sixteen, I could look forward to an exciting time.

      The sky was my limit, or so it seemed, because I was also back in the international frame. During that first season with Manchester City I was called up to play for the Northern Ireland youth side against the Republic of Ireland in Dublin, a match which ended in a no-scoring draw. It was further proof of how far I had come in a short time as it was only three years since I had been cut from the schoolboy squad. And there was more good news on that international front during the summer of 1988, when Billy Bingham, the manager of Northern Ireland, invited me to join the Under-23 squad and attend the Irish FA’s four-day coaching seminar at Stranmillis near Belfast.

      Gerry Taggart was there, and he had also made his first-team debut for City, so it seemed that life was going to be pretty good for the two boys from Lurgan. It was certainly a quiet life—on YTS wages we were not exactly Jack the lads at that time, and indeed we rarely had a night out in my first two seasons at Maine Road, as we simply couldn’t afford it. The funny thing was that all my mates back home thought that Gerry and I must be loaded because we were playing for such a big team. If only they knew that we were dependent on the government for our YTS wages, and the occasional rock concert was a big event for us.

      My second season at City turned out to be less than satisfactory, however. Mel Machin had added players to the squad, and I found myself further down the pecking order as the team made a strong bid for promotion to the First Division. Perhaps I tried too hard, but things just did not seem to work out for me, and I was stuck playing in the reserves and youth team. Looking back, I should have been less frustrated than I was, but I had had a taste of first-team action and I wanted more. When you’re seventeen and eighteen, you want to do everything in a hurry and rightly or wrongly, I felt that I was not making the progress I should have.

      Playing for Manchester City at any level was no great hardship that season. The senior squad did indeed win promotion as we youngsters won the Lancashire Youth Cup and embarked on a tremendous run in the FA Youth Cup, winning at Mansfield, Bradford, Tottenham and Newcastle before facing Watford in the two-legged final.

      With future England goalkeeper David James in goal, they restricted us to a 1-0 lead at Maine Road, and we eventually lost after extra-time in the return leg at Vicarage Road. It was a heartbreaker, especially as we had been so well supported by the City fans, 8,000 of whom had turned out to watch the first leg.

      The end of the season did bring some good news, however. I had concluded my YTS apprenticeship and the club now exercised the option of giving me a one-year professional contract, which at least earned me a bit more money. Mel Machin had confidence in half a dozen of the Youth Cup finalists and gave us all professional contracts.

      We also went on a wonderful summer trip to Italy, playing four games for City in a prestigious youth tournament in Bologna, in which we lost the final to Juventus. We then moved to Venice where Gerry Taggart, Michael Hughes and I played in the Northern Ireland Under-18 youth team which won a tournament that involved sides from Russia, Holland and Italy, who we beat in the final on penalties.

      I celebrated my eighteenth birthday back home in Lurgan where I decided that I would make a special effort to stay fit by playing Gaelic football. And in my ‘other’ footballing life, things could not have gone much better for me. My old teacher Seamus Heffron had been appointed coach of the Armagh county junior side, and he invited me along to train with them. As always, I enjoyed my ‘Gaelic’ and thanks to Seamus, this Manchester City player got to play for his county side.

      But all too soon it was time to return to City for my third season with the club and my first as a fully-fledged senior professional footballer. It would prove to be a season I would not forget, but not for the reasons I had hoped.

       CHAPTER FOUR Joining Dario’s Crewe

      It was not all work and no fun for me at that time. In a bar in Manchester I had met a lovely girl called Claire Whiteoak and I plucked up the courage to ask her out. A stunning blonde, she was slightly older than me and worked as a hairdresser. Soon we were ‘going steady’, as the phrase was in those days, and I met her folks and got on well with them. She was my first love and we were very serious about each other. All of a sudden I was a very happy young man with a terrific girlfriend and good prospects even СКАЧАТЬ