by Ian Holloway
So we’ve got Yates with a banged head, Dev’s driven off saying he’s never coming back and Dobson could have diffused the whole situation by dealing with it beforehand – it was a joke and he’s stood there blowing his bloody whistle like Ivor the feckin’ Engine! I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, but of course my observations made me public enemy No 1, and later he called me in and said, “You’re not allowed in training anymore. People who are not committed to this football club are not allowed to train with my lads.”
I was a bad influence, according to Dobson so I had to train on my own with an old team-mate, Tony Sealey, who was now with a non-league side, and he put me through my paces, kept me sharp and finally, Rovers accepted a bid of £230,000 for my services. I was pretty chuffed with that price because I was no spring chicken anymore. Kim and I went up to have a look around Loftus Road and it was fantastic. I was 29 and was finally going to play in the best league in the world and play at some of the best stadiums in the world, too. I’d served a long apprenticeship, paid my dues and even allowed myself to entertain the notion I’d earned this chance.
We had to find somewhere to live and went to see my old mate Keith Curle, who was at Wimbledon, at his house in Camberley. He was going to show us around the town because it was easy to get from there into London and then he gets a call from Manchester City to sign for them, which he jumped at, of course. Camberley wasn’t a million miles from Bristol, either. Curley said that now he was off to City, why didn’t we buy his house? It would be fine for our needs though it was a mock Tudor stereotypical footballer’s house and not one we’d have chosen ourselves. He was moving out the next week, so we could move straight in. It worked out a treat and all of a sudden we’d moved from having an old house in Bristol to a big new one near London, and it was a different world. We felt like the poor relations – a culture shock of sorts because we were just Kim and Ian in a world of millionaires. We were invited to Ray Wilkins’ house for a barbecue, and walking through his front door was like walking into an expensive hotel. He’d invited all the players and staff from QPR and I mentioned to Ray that he had a nice garden. “Thanks, yes I pay someone to do it for me.” It wasn’t a big thing, but it was one of a collection of little things that just didn’t happen in our lives. We’d never had a gardener and I couldn’t ever imagine having one, either. I wouldn’t say we had an inferiority complex, but it wasn’t what we were used to. The kids were with us and one of the wives asked where our nanny was? Kim wasn’t impressed and said, “Well we look after them ourselves, actually.”
I was chasing them around and changing nappies as usual and I think we caused a bit of a stir because you could tell it wasn’t the done thing, but it was all we knew. Worse still, I didn’t have anything to wear because we hadn’t had the chance to bring our stuff up yet and all I had was the club tracksuit. Everyone else was wearing expensive casual shirts and trousers and I think they thought I was some kind of freak. Who would have thought I’d end up as manager of Rangers one day? There were other things said that day that made me feel a bit uncomfortable. One of the lads said, “Oh I can remember the days when I used to buy my suits from Burton’s,” and I was thinking, ‘Christ! I’ve got one at home I got from Asda!’ I hadn’t progressed as far as Burton’s yet! Kim thought some of them were so far up their own backsides because of the things they were coming out with, and to be fair, she had a point. It was like they’d left Planet Earth and the people that lived there and had joined a new race of beings where you were judged on the label on your shirt and how many minions you had helping you along the way. I really liked Ray and his wife Jacqui, though, and they were a very nice, genuine couple and I certainly never felt they looked down upon us. There was no edge to them yet they had more money than anyone else at the party. I think the lads had just got suckered into something I called ‘a London thing’.
I’d missed out on the pre-season tour of Sweden but I was on cloud 9 about the move to QPR. I used to sit watching Match of the Day when I was at Rovers thinking ‘I can do that’ – I just didn’t think I’d ever have the chance, and had it not been for Gerry, I doubt it would have ever happened. Now I’d have the chance to prove it and when I looked at the fixture list, I had to pinch myself that I was in a team who’d be playing at Liverpool, Arsenal, Spurs, Manchester United and Aston Villa. Obviously I had to work my way into the team but, as ever, I had belief in my own ability and knew that Gerry would give me an opportunity at some point. When I’d signed, he said to me, “I want you to rub off on the others because you’re infectious – I don’t know if you’ll play but I want your enthusiasm to spread round the others, especially in training.” It wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear, but I knew what he meant and I was determined I was going to play, anyway. He knew how to work me, so he was probably trying to squeeze a bit more out because he knew I’d never settle for that. I was a good trainer, even if I say so myself, and I made other people try hard, too.
Gerry’s words were still fresh in my mind by the time our first game came around – defending champions Arsenal away – lovely jubbly! I thought I’d be watching from the stand and it would be a while before I got anywhere near the first team, but come the day and I’m actually sat on the bench. It was amazing, and I looked at the lads around the Highbury dressing room and just tried to soak it all in. There was Ray, Simon Barker, Andy Sinton, Alan McDonald, Dennis Bailey, Les Ferdinand, David Bardsley, Roy Wegerle, Clive Wilson – whom Gerry switched from midfield to left-back – and the squad was huge. There was competition for all positions, plus younger lads like Kevin Gallen, Danny Dichio and Bradley Allen coming through – completely the opposite to what I’d been used to at Rovers where we just about managed to field a team each week. I was just chuffed to be part of it all and to start my career at Arsenal was unbelievable. The kit man, Ron Berry, had come up to me during the week and said, “You won’t be needing your two tickets this weekend, will you?”
I said, “You’re joking! Two tickets won’t be enough!”
“Nah, all the new lads give me their tickets, son!” He was a typical Cockney – a lovable rogue and a right character – a typical kit man, in fact. I had played at Arsenal once or twice during my career, but to stand on that marble floor at 29 and be part of a very good side, was something else all together – a dream come true in fact. During the game Ray had to limp off with an Achilles problem that would keep him out for the next couple of months, and I came on as his replacement. My first touch was part of a move that almost saw Andy Sinton score the winner on a break away, but it finished 1-1. It had been everything I’d expected and a bit more – the pace, the skill – everything.
I came down to earth with a bump in the next game, though, when Norwich beat us 2-0 at Loftus Road on my home debut. It was a bit worrying because we’d been outplayed by an unfancied team and I hadn’t played very well, either. I was gutted to be honest, but when I went up into the players’ lounge, nobody was hurting – nobody – and I could understand why. They were all having a laugh and a joke and were totally relaxed. I got a bit annoyed and at training the next day as Gerry held a meeting to go over the previous night’s performance, I decided I had to say something. I hadn’t come to the club to take the money and forget about why I was being paid, so I said, “I can’t understand this. What the hell’s going on? Nobody seemed to be bothered last night after the game.”
Les Ferdinand said, “Well that’s how it is at this level, Ollie. You can win any week and you can get beaten any week, too, we’ll be all right.”I said, “Well I’m not used to that. I want to win every week.” I’d come from a team where we’d die not to lose and if we did, we were distraught. I thought it was a bit weird and I didn’t want to be in an atmosphere like that. I reckoned if we could adopt some of the same values and passion that we’d had at Rovers, we do all right. I was back in London and while not exactly the Crazy Gang, there was definitely a clique element to the squad, but I wasn’t abou
t to stay on the outside this time, but then again, I wasn’t going to be a shrinking violet, either. I don’t think speaking up the way I had at my first meeting had gone down particularly well, but I wasn’t going to let this pass me by, so if anyone had a problem with me, fine. I was here to win games and I think Gerry was quietly pleased I’d said what I’d said.
We drew our next game against Coventry City and then lost at Liverpool and Sheffield Wednesday, where I had a real stinker. It couldn’t have begun much worse and we were bottom of the league. We went another three games without a win and the pressure was growing on Gerry – from the media, not the fans, because they loved him. We’d gone eight games without a win and Luton were next up. Gerry had brought in Paul Walsh on loan and Garry Thompson by that time, and both players had absolutely worked their socks off to help us win 1-0. Our team had a habit of not grafting like that, but they’d proved what rolling your sleeves up could achieve. We had brilliant individual talent within the side with players like Roy Wegerle, but their attitude was more like, ‘Oh dear. Never mind,’ when we got beaten. They just didn’t care enough. There was no doubt we were missing Ray Wilkins because, let’s face it, I’m not exactly Ray’s replacement, am I? I started to play more like the way I could – and should have been doing – working hard and putting my foot in here and there, and Simon Barker started scoring goals from midfield, though the partnership still wasn’t anywhere near as fruitful as I’d hoped it might be. The potential was there, however. The win at Luton helped, but the QPR fans didn’t think much of me – our relationship was rubbish and I think I was no more than an annoyance and a nuisance for them because they loved flair players, not industrious little Bristolians who cared so much about getting beaten and giving one hundred per cent each time I pulled on the shirt. It didn’t really bother me, though, not after my experience at Brentford, and I was never going to lose my self-belief and confidence again.
One thing I did notice was the sprints and runs I used to win in a canter at Rovers, were a different league in every sense at Rangers. I’d be lucky to get in the early teens in terms of finishing. The longer distance stuff was still mine and Gerry used to do a training routine called ‘box-to-box’ where we’d do shuttle runs from one box to another, and I’d win them, too. The more we did, the further in front I’d go, and when we first started them, Les Ferdinand was useless and one of the slowest at the club. After a couple of months of hard work, however, he was miles ahead – he was so quick and strong, he was frightening. I’d been doing the same routine for more or less 11 years and believed in it and I’d been at Bristol Rovers, where they believed in it, too, but I wasn’t so sure this lot would. There was a lot of moaning and whingeing, but Gerry wanted us to be fit to play the way he wanted. I felt like one of Gerry’s soldiers and would have run through a brick wall for him.
During the poor run, he had to play 3-5-2 because of the players he had, and I was just praying he’d go back to 4-4-2 because he knew it like the back of his hand, and eventually, he did and we started winning again. So I’m holding down a place in the team, feeling reasonably settled in Camberley when our fourth child, Hattie, arrives. Within three months we had a hearing test done on her and it came up as exactly the same as Chloe and Eve – our third daughter was also profoundly deaf. We’d been told the chance of having another deaf child was akin to winning the lottery five times over, yet here she was. Hattie being deaf hit me even harder than the twins because I was not expecting the next baby to have any problems – we’d been told as much, hadn’t we? I didn’t take it very well, but Kim was totally the opposite, and she had an outstanding take on things, which was, “Well thank God for that. She’s come to us and we’re already a family who knows what they’re doing with deaf children so it was meant to be.”
I’d wanted another hearing child for Will because we’d been going to hospitals and clinics for one reason or another for the past few years and here’s this poor little mite having to spend hours on end in waiting rooms and not able to speak with his sisters. It was silly, really, and thank God for Kim being Kim. She drives me bananas because she’s so right, all the time. She sees things exactly the way they are and, well, I’d be lost without her – I just don’t like to say all that while she’s around in case her head gets too big to go through the door! In retrospect, that little baby coming to us was spot on, and where it had always been ‘poor Chloe and Eve’, with Harriet we had her ear moulds done from the off so she became used to people examining her ears, and in fact she still plays with ears today to help herself relax. The signing with Hattie was an absolute joy and she had none of the frustrations her sisters had had at all and she was a very happy baby, always laughing and smiling. She cried a lot – particularly with me – and she didn’t like me at all, but I think she grew into it! She was perfect – unplanned – but God-given.
I had the snip after that because I couldn’t be in the same room as Kim without her falling pregnant and from wanting two kids close together, we’d had four in four years, and Hattie was the perfect ginger bundle anyone could have wished for.
It all tied in with my life as a Rangers player and though we’d got off to a poor start that first season, I was still living every minute of it. It was so professionally run compared with Rovers – ‘Ragbag Rovers’ as we called them when I was there. The hotels were better, the food was better, the preparation was better, as I suppose you’d have expected. The volume of noise as we ran out in stadiums such as Anfield and Old Trafford was incredible and even arriving at the ground was different. Our coach would have to slowly make its way through a sea of people whereas at Rovers the driver would stick out his head as we neared the stadium and ask a bloke, “Can you move your dog mate? We’re trying to drop the lads off here.”
We even had a mid-season break at La Manga and in the past we’d have had to have won promotion to be rewarded like that. Everything you did was scrutinised and replayed so you daren’t put a foot a wrong, and the reports in the paper were twice as big.
Gradually the belief grew as the season went on but there were massive highs still to come. We were building up a head of steam and I was now often playing alongside Ray Wilkins rather than filling in when he wasn’t available, which was another huge confidence-booster. I was, as they say, in my element, and felt something like my old mate Andy Reece must have done when he joined Rovers from Goodyear Tyres. If that was the case, I was more than happy to tread the same path.
Chapter 12: Double Ham & Eggs
Pen signed for QPR and it was great to have him in our lives again. He arrived during my first season at Loftus Road after things hadn’t gone that well for him at Aston Villa and he moved just down the road from us in Finchampstead. A few of the QPR lads didn’t take to Pen at all. He won a sprint and did a forward roll in celebration and a few of them made comments that I didn’t like. I said to Simon Barker, who was moaning about him, “Look, you don’t know him yet. Give him a chance because he’s not the person you think he is.” Pen had always been straight with me and after a couple of weeks watching me train, he noticed I was doing things I’d never done before like step-overs and fancy flicks. The other lads could do it and I suppose I’d been trying to keep up with the Joneses. Pen pulled me to one side and said, “Ollie, what the hell are you doing?
”I asked him what he meant and he said, “That ain’t you – that’s never been you. He brought you here to do what you’re good at – don’t try and do what some of the others are doing, you idiot. You’ve got to stick to what you know – don’t try and change it. For Christ’s sake, sort your life out. It doesn’t make you any less important. Just do what you do and keep it simple and quick, and you’ll be alright.”
That really helped me, and it hadn’t been the first time he’d talked perfect sense to me, and it wouldn’t be the last. He made his debut against Leeds and though we won, he went to Gerry and asked what he’d thought, and Gerry said “That was shit.” Pen needed t
o hear that because he had to re-discover his old self again, and he came to QPR despite interest from Chelsea because he knew Gerry would get him playing again.
There were a couple of lads being bullied with banter and on one away trip, I think Pen and I turned everything around. We were having a right slanging match on the coach with him calling me big nose and I’d say he had wax ears and had worn a hot bowler hat once because his ears were turned over at the top. We knew each other so well that we could say anything to each other and not be insulted. Then Alan McDonald joined in, calling me something or other and Pen said, “Why don’t you shut up pizza arse? I can say that to Oll, but you can’t. Just because you sat on a pizza and it stuck to your arse, doesn’t mean you can join in.” He stood up for me after giving me all that stick and after that, a few of the lads who’d been on the end of some pretty cruel banter, started to fight back a bit, Rufus Brevett among them.
A couple of games later and things really came to a head for all of us, and I had to let rip at one or two of the lads. It was a horrendous day, but it was time to fire in one or two home truths because there still wasn’t the camaraderie and togetherness we needed to push on, and Gerry didn’t really have the dressing room at that point. We were away at Man City and Gerry had changed the system again, with Dennis Bailey and me among the subs. We went 2-0 down in the first half and in my opinion, Roy Wegerle, who could run like the wind when he wanted to, was hardly trying when he didn’t have the ball. So we go back to the dressing room at half-time. I was in the toilet and I heard one or two players moaning between themselves about the formation and tactics. They clearly hadn’t accepted Gerry yet and seemed to still be thinking of Don Howe, the previous manager at Loftus Road, which was understandable I suppose because Don was fantastic. I told them to shut up because I was trying to listen to the bloke. So Gerry changes to the tactics they like, we go out and score two goals to draw 2-2 and Wegerle is chasing everything and working his socks off.
