Neil Lennon: Man and Bhoy. Neil Lennon

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СКАЧАТЬ out of that I had to pay digs as these were no longer provided by the club. After tax and outlays, I had about £20-£30 per week to live on—it certainly wasn’t the high life at that time.

      Manchester City were back in the top flight, however, and good earnings would surely come my way if I could break into the first-team reckoning and City could stay in Division One. From the youngest apprentice to the manager and chairman Peter Swales, there was huge anticipation for the season ahead. You couldn’t help but get caught up in it, especially as City had bounced straight back after relegation. Personally I felt that, at eighteen, this could be my time to seal my place in the first team.

      Yet from the start of the 1989/90 season, things did not go according to plan. There were times when the first team played very good football, but in retrospect there were not enough quality players to sustain the effort over a whole season—you need strength in depth simply to survive in a top league, especially when you make a bad start to the season, as City did in 1989.

      There were some very good days, however. We had won only one of our first seven matches before we faced our great Mancunian rivals at Maine Road on 23 September 1989—a date emblazoned on every City fan’s memory. United had paid millions for Gary Pallister and Paul Ince to strengthen a squad which already had the likes of Steve Bruce and Brian McClair, but they were not going well either and the pressure was growing on manager Alex Ferguson. The atmosphere was electric at Maine Road that day, and by the end it was the City support which was celebrating, a record victory over their deadliest rivals, a feat which I know lives on in the memory of City fans to this day.

      I was not playing that afternoon but was in the stand to watch an unforgettable match as we ran riot, blitzing United with terrific attacking football. Two goals from David Oldfield and one each from Trevor Morley, Ian Bishop and Andy Hinchcliffe earned us a final result of 5-1. You had to feel sorry for Mark Hughes as he scored United’s only goal and it was one of the best I’ve ever seen, a hitch-kick into the top corner performed about five feet off the ground.

      We all thought that such a sensational victory would spark a mini-revival but it was not to be. By December we were deep in relegation trouble and had lost heavily on occasions, Derby County beating us 6-0 away, Nottingham Forest winning 3-0 at Maine Road and Liverpool also hammering us at our place, 4-1.

      Mel Machin then paid the price for the poor run when Peter Swales sacked him. Joe Royle, then manager of Oldham Athletic, was appointed in his place but changed his mind before Howard Kendall, who had managed Blackburn Rovers, Everton and Athletic Bilbao, took the job. Howard had but one aim, to keep City in the First Division, and that was going to be a tough task given our lowly position at the time.

      Not surprisingly, he sent for some of his Everton ‘Old Boys’ to help out, including Peter Reid, Alan Harper and Mark Ward. Every manager needs people around him he knows and trusts, but new signings also mean that younger players get pushed to the back of the queue while other players are sold or swapped to make way for the newcomers. My mate from Lurgan, Gerry Taggart, for instance, had made ten starts for the first team but in January was sold to Barnsley for £75,000. It was a very good move for my friend as he made such an impact at Barnsley that within a few weeks he was called up to make his full international debut.

      I knew I was going to miss Taggs and I also wondered what fate lay in store for me. For in truth, the reserves were not Howard’s priority, though I could soon see that he was a great coach, a very good man manager who knew how to build a team.

      He didn’t seem to notice me so all I could do was keep plugging away in the reserves where I hardly missed a game. However, I was soon spending more time on the treatment table than I would have liked, due mostly to a succession of niggles which affected my groin area in particular. Still, I played every reserve match and thought I was doing well, and I was quite confident of having my contract extended at the end-of-season talks with players which every manager held in those days before Bosman pre-contracts and transfer windows.

      Sometimes in the reserve matches you would find yourself playing against big-name players who were either coming back from injury or had been dropped to the reserves for some reason. I remember having a rare old tussle with Nigel Clough, for instance, and Viv Anderson was another famous player I faced on the pitch.

      Playing Manchester United was always a bit special no matter what level it was. Reserve matches were played more often at Maine Road than Old Trafford, which was probably just as well for my landlord and friend Len Duckett. He would come along to support his City lodgers, such as Michael Hughes and myself, and when we played United he would use his season ticket and find himself shouting for us while sitting among his fellow United fans. They would tap him on the shoulder and ask him, ‘Why are you sitting here with us and shouting for them?’

      Undaunted, Len would reply, ‘I’m a season-ticket holder but that’s my boys out there.’ That’s the type of character Len is—loyal to a fault.

      We went out of the League Cup at the quarter-final stage, beaten 1-0 by Coventry City, and lost in the FA Cup to Millwall after three games. First Division survival was all that mattered and the club spent £1m on Niall Quinn to see if he could provide the goals that would save us from the drop.

      He scored on his debut to earn a 1-1 draw with Chelsea and then we beat league leaders Aston Villa away which sparked a run of victories. Howard Kendall had managed to turn things around and by Easter Monday of 1990, City were safe from relegation. All that remained was for me to make it into the first team and get my contract extended.

      I thought I might get a run out in the first team in the end-of-season games but that did not happen. All the contracts were sorted out on one day shortly after City had ensured First Division survival. I remember being in the dressing room waiting to be called up. Another young player, Ian Thomson, and myself were the first to be called out. I thought it was not a good sign that only two of us were given the call, and I was slightly apprehensive when I was the first to be summoned to the manager’s room, though I still did not feel too worried at that point. Although I had only played for the reserves, I had done consistently well so I did not think there would be a problem.

      Howard had Peter Reid with him, as he was his assistant at the time. The manager got straight to the point. ‘This is the time of year when it is good news or bad news for players,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid that in your case it is bad news.’

      He proceeded to talk to me for at least another five minutes, but I’m afraid I can barely remember a single word he said. My mind just could not take in the enormity of the fact that I was being sacked, though football calls it by the supposedly nicer name of ‘free transfer’.

      There have been thousands of boys like me in that same position. I doubt if any one of us could really explain how it feels when you hear the dreaded verdict that someone thinks you are not good enough to make a career as a professional with his club. You really do feel as if it is the end of your world, and in a sense, it is. If you’re with a top-flight club as I was, then the only way to go is down, or even completely out of the game.

      Maybe Howard Kendall and Peter Reid advised me to look for another club down the leagues. At least that’s what I assume they said, but I was so deeply in shock that I really cannot recall much of what they said. I do remember Howard finishing by saying that he would put my name on the flyer containing the names of players who would be out of contract that went round every club. He added that he did think I had a future in the game but it just wasn’t going to be with Manchester City at that point.

      What really hurt was that the two members of the coaching staff who had worked most closely with me, Tony Book and Glyn Pardoe, thought otherwise, believing that I could have a future with City.

      I was angry and bitter for some time afterwards. I felt I СКАЧАТЬ