by Ian Holloway
Chapter 16: Dead Man Walking
I wasn’t a nice man to be around after we’d blown promotion and the house I’d built at Rovers began to fall in around me. Jamie Cureton came to see me moaning about his wages and ended up asking for a transfer. He’d finished one goal behind joint-top scorer with Jason Roberts who had won the Golden Boot for our division and it doesn’t take a genius to work out that he wanted more money, which I couldn’t really hold against him. Then Jason Roberts came round to my house with his girlfriend and we shared a nice bottle of wine. He said thanks for what I’d done for him and the next day he comes into my office, a totally different person and hands in a transfer request telling me he was never going to play for me again. Upset doesn’t quite adequately describe how I felt about that little episode. I’d had meeting after meeting with his dad, his uncle Cyril and his uncle Otis and they were talking about his future and his affairs. Jason had two years to go and Curo had three years left on his contract so Geoff Dunford tells me that he has no intention of giving Curo a rise, but he was prepared to try and sort something out for Roberts. We made him an offer which would have made him easily the best paid player we’d ever had, but he turned it down flat. We had a pre-season trip to Ireland coming up so I called in Curo and Roberts separately and told them they weren’t going on tour with us. I took Nathan Ellington and Bobby Zamora instead and I was fully intending to work with those two because I didn’t want anyone who wanted away near the other lads. Bobby Zamora was tripped in our first friendly, fell awkwardly and – unbeknown to us – he’d broken a bone in his wrist and consequently didn’t do very well because he couldn’t hold people off. On my return, the chairman asked how Bobby had done because he’d heard he was “rubbish”, which annoyed me no end because he’d obviously been fed misleading information by a board member on tour with us. Bobby still wanted more money, too, which the board would never sanction and as he was out of contract, Brighton came back in for him and offered £100,000, which the club predictably accepted. I could see his potential but the chairman was worried about the Bosman ruling and so Bobby was allowed to move on with a 35% sell-on clause.
Two clubs were fighting over Jason Roberts and he was adamant he wouldn’t play for us again to the point of arrogance. It wasn’t the same young man I’d got to know quite well during the previous two years but I felt he was being influenced by outside parties. Eventually he left for West Brom who paid £2m for him. I didn’t feel he was mentally ready to leave us, but he did. I told the board with the money they’d just got that they should reward Jamie Cureton for the goals he’d scored and I’d go and look for another striker as well as a younger forward to replace Zamora. To my Curo suggestion the chairman categorically said, “No, he’s got a three-year deal, I’m not doing that.”
I said, “Then I suggest you sell him because I can’t motivate him if you won’t pay him more.” He asked what I thought we could get for him and I said it would be what we paid, because nobody would pay more. He eventually went to Reading after the first game of the season for £250,000, the fee we’d paid when bringing him over from Norwich. We’d raised £2.35m from the sale of three of my best strikers and when I went to say I’d be signing replacements I was told that the club had no money and I’d have to bring in loan players instead! I should have known the writing was on the wall for me and that I was being blamed – or not forgiven – for the previous season’s failure. I was being set up to fail while cash was put aside for a new man to spend – that’s how it looked to me, anyway. I never smelt the coffee and didn’t even realise the kettle was on. I kept going, even though I was being set up. Pen said, “For Christ sake, Oll, can’t you see what’s happening?” But this was Bristol Rovers, my club and I didn’t think they’d treat me anything but fairly. So I managed to bring in Mickey Evans on loan from West Brom and we started with two draws and a 6-2 win at Brentford. We were still unbeaten as we prepared for only our second home game of the season against Wigan and as I walked towards the ground, an old adversary of mine, a local reporter called Richard Latham walked towards me and I thought, ‘here we go – he’s going to slaughter me for losing my best strikers.’ He was quite openly a Bristol City fan and we’d had some quite playful banter over the years about our club rivalry. When he got to me he shook my hand quite vigorously. I asked him what he was up to and he said, “I have to say that’s the best bit of management I’ve ever seen. To sell all those players, get all that money in the bank and still carry on winning is amazing – I thought you’d had it.” Little did I know I was the dreaded ‘dead man walking’ because you can’t sell three players of that standard and not expect to struggle. I reckoned I was 72 goals down with the loss of Roberts, Zamora and Cureton, but finally the board bowed to fan pressure and signed Mickey Evans on for £250,000 and I felt with a couple more faces we’d be OK. I was more concerned that we’d not won at home and after we’d failed to win any of our 11 games at the Memorial Ground going into the New Year, the fans were getting a bit restless. I took off Andy Thomson and then I was treated to a chorus of “You don’t know what you’re doing!” Cheers, lads! There’s an old saying in football that if you stay at one club too long, you end up smelling of fish and there was a definite waft of a trawlerman’s gloves about old Ollie by that point. Captain Birdseye couldn’t hold a candle to me! Their patience was starting to wear thin and after a narrow 1-0 defeat at Reading, I called the board and asked them to sort out my contract because I didn’t feel they felt I was the right man to take the club forward anymore. They had wanted stability and given me a five-year deal so I told them to write their own pay-off because I didn’t think that length of time was fair on the club and they came back with an offer which I accepted and within two or three days my Rovers management career was over. I wasn’t a happy bunny. Could I hold my head up in the town that I loved or with the people I loved? Had I done enough to get another job in football? Who knew the answers? I wasn’t good company, yet again, and I sat in my house, utterly gutted, wondering what was next for me. I thought it was going to be like the old adage, ‘when one door closes, another one slams shut in your face’, but, thankfully, somebody put their foot in before the door closed. A new chapter was waiting to be written within just three weeks and it was at somewhere I was already very familiar with.
I was a physical wreck towards the end of my time at Rovers, thanks to a cold sore virus I’ve inherited off my mum. Whenever I’m run down I get cold sores everywhere, but I’m the only person I know who gets them on his bugle or, in this case, on my eye. I wasn’t permitted to talk about the deal I’d cut with Rovers at the time so, needing a total break from everything, I went with Kim and the kids to Lyme Regis to stay at my sister’s place and it was one of the best weeks I’d had in years. I discovered myself again as well as my wife and kids and I started to feel human again. On the day of our return, my phone rang and it was Gerry Francis. It was weird because I hadn’t really spoken to him for a while and he said, “You alright? You’re not feeling sorry for yourself are you? You’ve got to get back in it – do you want to be a manager again? What’s up with you?” I wondered what the matter with him was and then he said, “Well you’d better get yourself sorted out and come and have an interview here.”
Gerry was QPR manager at that time, but he’d already told everyone he was going to leave at the end of the year. So he got me an interview and it was odd in a way because while I’d been on holiday I’d read a report in the paper where Iain Dowie said he wanted Gerry’s job. I read it thinking ‘Gerry won’t like that,’ and though Dowie was his assistant, I knew after working with Gerry as long as I had that he wouldn’t be happy with Iain saying that when he had. I agreed to go up and met Chris Wright the QPR chairman, but he was the opposite of the man I’d imagined him to be. Being the head of Chrysalis Records, I’d expected a big go-getter, in-your-face-type but he wasn’t – he was so quiet and introverted, but still a fantastic bloke. In fact, I liked him all the more
for the way he was. A few days later I was asked back for another interview with Chris at a different location but I felt he wasn’t really looking at my CV or listening to what I had to say. I felt he was thinking ‘how can you help me get out of the trouble I’m in with the QPR fans? You ain’t big enough, mate.’ He basically pointed out that I’d managed a club in a division lower than QPR. I told him to read the CV, look at my record in more detail and see how I’d had to continually sell my best players. As it was, I went back for a third interview and he still wasn’t paying much attention so I said, “You’re not listening. Have a look at my CV and get back to me if you want.” I think Chris just thought ‘to hell with it’ went along with Gerry’s recommendation in the end and I was offered the manager’s job, which I was delighted to take.
It’s funny how things work out, especially for my family, because the schooling back in Bristol hadn’t been right for the girls and we weren’t happy with the arrangements for their secondary education. Because of their needs, there were only a few schools in the country that suited them, so we had looked at every possibility and, while I was still Rovers manager, had been up to a deaf school in St Albans. It was perfect and we decided that was the school for them. We set the wheels in motion but the education authority told us that because of funding issues, they wouldn’t be able to help and instead they would make arrangements at a school in Bristol. That wasn’t good enough and we let them know. Like any parents, we wanted the best education they could possibly have. We believed St Albans was right for them because the school they were already attending had no secondary department and the girls wouldn’t have access to a full national curriculum with just one teacher for all the subjects. Then, by fate or otherwise, I get the QPR job and we move within just one mile from the school in St Albans! The education authorities could have no issue with the girls attending what was now their local school so things fell perfectly for once. It makes you wonder if there are bigger things happening that us mere mortals aren’t privy to, doesn’t it? They started in September and Hattie tagged along and went to a new deaf school, too, but poor old William had it tough. He was 13 and had to leave his mates and all the security and family that he’d had in Bristol and it’s typical of what happens to a footballer’s or manager’s family.
I liken it to being part of a travelling circus in that you bed down in one area for a while and then it’s time to pack up all your things and move on again, and the kids have no choice in the matter. It worked out brilliant for the girls but terrible for Will. It was hard on Kim, too, having to deal with the small print of our numerous upheavals as ever. She’d also left behind the support network of her and my family, which again shifted the onus entirely on her shoulders. So on I went, ready to face a new challenge, lovely jubbly and all that, but what about my family again? The move suited some of them, but not all. Again, I didn’t get the balance right and just sailed on into the next chapter.
To get a job like QPR was a bit surreal but a huge honour. They didn’t even tell Iain Dowie he’d failed the interview so it was a bit awkward when I bowled into the club on my first day and I had to do a press conference and then meet the players. As I went into the press call, Iain Dowie said, “Obviously it’s not your problem, but I had an interview for this job and they haven’t even told me how I’ve gone on so obviously you’re the manager are you?” He was totally respectful and fantastic about it so I asked him to call a meeting with the squad. I went in to see them and I looked around and there must have been about 25 lads sat down and as I was about to start, Dowie says, “We’ve just got to wait for the injured ones, Ollie.” I expected three or four but another 27 people walked or hobbled in! The room was packed and I thought ‘bloody hell – no wonder this place is in such a mess with finances.’ We had 51 pros and a squad within a squad. There was a youth team section that was running itself and they wouldn’t pass up their best players because they were trying to win the Under-19 league. They had an Academy, too – everything Bristol Rovers hadn’t had, in fact. All the staff were out of contract, which was how Gerry had wanted things to be left until I came in. He told me that, as Director of Football, he was still going to be around and would do any bits of scouting that I needed, but then added that I had to do this, that and the other and I had to say, “Gerry, with the greatest respect, I’m the manager, I can’t have you undermining me. Let me do it my way.”
It must have been hard for him, because he was QPR through and through and was desperate to keep us up. To his credit, he said, “Okay, but I’m not going to let you see any of the wages.”
I told him I needed to, but he said, “No, just try and keep us up because you’ll only get angry.”
I let Iain Dowie go, because I wanted my own coaching set-up and he handled things superbly and was very dignified throughout. Later, he’d tell me I’d done him a massive favour because he went into management after that and revelled in it. I’d had a wage budget of about £1m at Rovers and when I did eventually find out, I knew Gerry was right to keep it from me because I would have got angry at £5.3m worth of wages. As it was, I took over in February and I couldn’t stop the rot. I’d watched QPR lose 5-0 to Wimbledon the week before and for my first game in charge, I kept the same team. We were home to Neil Warnock’s Sheffield United and we were 1-0 up at half-time. Gerry told me I should have their midfielder George Santos man-marked but I said I didn’t want to do that. “You never taught me to do that, I’m not going to do it,” I told him. Santos scored twice in the second half and we lost 3-1! I hadn’t made a fantastic start but Gerry then left me to it and I decided to go back to the things he’d taught me as a player. I had to ask him not to come to training anymore because I needed him out of the way but the truth was, I only had 13 games to save us from relegation and we ended up winning just one of those games. We were too far gone, no matter what we did. I just wanted them to work hard and get stuck in, which they sort of did. I didn’t know exactly how our finances were or what the restrictions were so I called a meeting with Chris Wright to talk about the possibility of signing Marlon Harewood from Nottingham Forest. He wasn’t getting a regular game at the City Ground and he was my type of forward and at around £600,000, the price wasn’t bad either, so I asked Chris if there was any chance and there was a bloke stood behind him and he said, “No Chris, no more.”
Chris said, “I know, but I’d like to help Ian.”
“I’m telling you no means no – this has gone far enough and you’re not doing it any more.”
Chris turned around and looked at a painting on the wall. “What about that? How much is that worth?”
“The painting is valued at £800,000, but I’m not allowing you to do it.”
That impressed the hell out of me because he was willing to do anything – even sell a prized possession – just to help me and the club out. That told me all I needed to know about Chris Wright, who was being blamed by the supporters for all kinds of things which wasn’t fair because virtually everything he’d ever touched had been a success and it must have been killing him to see his beloved Rangers in that kind of trouble. We lost 1-0 to relegation rivals Grimsby Town at home and if it had been a boxing match, the game would have been stopped long before because we were all over them but just couldn’t score – then they nicked one in the 86th minute to win the game. Their manager, Lennie Lawrence, had a girlfriend who worked at Loftus Road and after the game, he came into my office and started giving me advice on what I should do. I said, “Len, do me a favour mate. We just pissed all over you there, how dare you come in my office when you’ve been so spawny.” I was a bit put out to say the least. The following Monday morning we had a really good positive session. We then went back to the dressing room and Nick Blackburn, our vice chairman was stood there with two blokes either side of him. He said I needed to get all the players into the food hall, which I did and then Nick said, “These two gentlemen are administrators. They have come in and we’ve got to l
isten to what they have to say.”
One of the blokes said, “This company has gone into administration. All the debts the company owe have been frozen and what that means is we are now the people who make the decisions. Are there any questions?”
The players looked shocked and I put my hand up and said, “Yes, could you just explain to us ordinary people what administration means? It’s a nice fancy word but what does it actually mean?”
One of them said, “Yes, I can. What it means is I’m in charge.” He pointed at Gavin Peacock and said, “You, young fella. I can send you home and say I’m not going to pay you because you’re on too much money. When we come out of administration, you’ll get every penny owed to you, but I can send you home and you’re not allowed to work, if I do.”
