Simp-Lee the Best

by Lee McCulloch

  I was to be given a signing-on fee of £100,000, split into two payments of £50,000 during the course of the year. I’d never had money like that in my life. It was an incredible feeling but also quite scary to be handed such a vast amount of dosh.

  I was also going to more than double my earnings to £4,750 per week. Or so I thought! I was told that was going to be my weekly wage but for some reason it later turned out that there was something different written in the contract. As this was all new to me, I had an agent helping me out to make sure it went smoothly. However, things didn’t exactly go as planned and somehow I ended up getting less than I’d expected.

  As I later discovered, the deal that was discussed with me verbally was not what was written into the contract. However, when I was given the contract to sign on the dotted line, I duly did. I trusted everyone involved. But when I took a good look at the contract in finer detail, I was on less per week than what I was originally told I was getting. I was on £4,500 per week. Maybe not a huge difference each week, but it all adds up. I don’t know how this happened but it was another lesson for me. You need to know exactly what you’re signing, read the fine print and trust your own judgement. It doesn’t matter what club or advisors or agents or whoever you’re dealing with, you need to personally make sure that everything is as it should be. Otherwise you only have yourself to blame.

  This lesson was to come up again at Wigan, when a London agent asked if I’d be interested in moving to Charlton Athletic and that he could sort it for me and double my wages. I told him I played it with a straight bat and told him I’d consider all offers if a club agreed a fee with Wigan. The next day at training the manager Paul Jewell called me in and ripped me to shreds. ‘You want the fuck out of here, do you? Well, there’s the fucking door.’ I was distraught. The agent went straight to the manager and repeated our conversation. He was out of order. He approached me, tried to drive it on, then twisted it and knifed me in the back. So, I’ve been turned over a few times. As far as agents are concerned, I’ve little time for some of them, although I totally accept there are good ones out there. Bottom line, I’ve learned to trust myself more than any agent, advisor or whoever.

  Many footballers like to have agents as some kind of security blanket, but too many agents tell players what they want to hear and it’s a great ego boost for the client, whereas, when needed, they should be telling their client a few home truths. Also, part of the job of an agent is to have good working relationships with as many clubs as possible – from the owner to the chief executive to the manager to the chief scout. That can help get his client a move to a particular club, a move that sometimes suits the agent more than the player. Many footballers have the talent to sell themselves and they will never be short of offers, but others are not so fortunate and need to be marketed by the agent. Some agents do it right and others can’t see any further than the next pound sign. I prefer my destiny to be in my own hands.

  Apart from the weekly wage, there was more upheaval on day one at Wigan. Bruce Rioch was the manager but he was sacked the day I signed. I never even got to meet him! In fact, I never spoke directly to him. The closest we came to dialogue was through a third party and that was about football stuff a few days before the move. Colin Greenall took over from Rioch for a few games and that was fine. He gave me my debut in a home match against Swindon Town on 3 March. The boys seemed to like Greenall, but Dave Whelan had grander plans and he enticed Steve Bruce to the club as manager for the final eight games of the season in the hope of securing promotion. We finished in sixth position and got to the play-offs but lost out 2–1 on aggregate to Reading. That was a major disappointment.

  Steve Bruce was a good man. I liked him as a person and as a manager. He was the kind of person that put the lads first. He arrived as a big hitter, not long finished in the game as a player and captain of Manchester United. He had a huge presence and had the respect of everyone at Wigan. He lost his temper with the boys once or twice after games and we were left in no doubt about what he expected and exactly who was boss. He could be intimidating when he wanted – and felt he needed – to be. He was also relaxed and funny, had a good sense of humour.

  Off the park, I found out it was a weird experience moving away from home. I’d hardly been out of Motherwell. I’d only ever been away abroad once on holiday with the family and that was to Portugal. I was useless on my own. My parents really worried about me when I moved away down south from their home in Motherwell. I found the first few weeks quite difficult, as did Stevie McMillan. We felt as though a number of the players were set in their ways and didn’t like ‘outsiders’ coming into their club. We’d also arrived for a huge transfer fee and they must have been wondering the type of contracts we’d been given. I think there was a little bit of resentment, but they were subtle about it; it was never blatant. But it was definitely there.

  It was good to have Stevie for company. We knew each other well and had each other’s backs covered. He was well aware of my faults and how naïve I could be. One example he was all too familiar with was when we were away on Scotland Under-21 duty in Austria. I was seventeen and, like I said, had only been on holiday to Portugal. At the team hotel we found visa forms in our room but there was no need for us to fill them out. I was sharing the room with Stevie and he told me to fill it in; it was stuff like passport details and any immigration stuff. It didn’t apply to us, but I got a pen and got on with it, at Stevie’s behest. I filled it in to the best of my ability and then phoned home to speak to Mum. I was excited to tell her I was in a great hotel with a beautiful, swish room. We had a huge double bed each, free shampoo, coffee and biscuits. I told her I felt like royalty. And then I said, ‘Oh, and another thing. I’ve just filled out this visa form. Will come in really handy if I get time to go shopping, eh?’ Stevie nearly fell off his bed and since then I’ve never lived it down.

  Stevie’s partner moved down to Wigan with him and they moved into a nice estate. I found a nice three-bedroom house only a few doors away. Ged Brannan and Matt Jackson, the Wigan skipper, were both a huge help to me in the early weeks. They took me around, showed me potential areas to live and places to go and the places to avoid in Wigan. But I still missed the comfort blanket I had up the road from my mum and dad. I’d get letters through the post and it would be asking questions about telephone lines, gas and electricity, direct debits and Council Tax bills. My head was thumping with it all. I hadn’t a clue, didn’t know where to start. It got to the stage where I’d phone my mum and read the letters out to her. She would then come down the following weekend and sort it all out for me. Goodness, when I think about it, two and a half hours on the train down for her just to read a letter out to me!

  I lived alone and felt as if I was in a mansion. I was lonely. I missed home. A lot of the time the only company I had was the microwave oven and the Dolmio pasta dish I used to throw in it. Nowadays, at almost every full-time club, you get breakfast and lunch at the training ground. We didn’t have either at Wigan back then, so it wasn’t unusual for me to only have one really good meal per week. I was living on microwave food and takeaways. It was either that or I starved.

  When Steve Bruce left after two months to go to Crystal Palace the job was given to Paul Jewell. He became the fourth manager in three months, but it all got much better under him. He got rid of a few players in the summer and brought a few in. One of the players that left was Roberto Martinez. He joined Motherwell on a three-year contract and it was very unfortunate for him and everyone else at Fir Park that the club went into administration in April 2002, just over a year after I had left. John Boyle had thrown millions at it and eventually had to hold his hands up and say enough is enough. It was horrible that nineteen players were sacked on the spot. Some of them were good friends. Other employees also lost their jobs. It wasn’t a pleasant time to be there and the uncertainty lasted for almost two years.

  With new faces in, the dynamics in the Wigan dressing room changed quite quickly.
It was like a fresh start for everyone, new friends to be made and all grudges buried. Jewell made it clear he would not tolerate any big-time attitudes and was very big on having a good harmony and togetherness. Peter Beagrie was one of the casualties. He’d had a good career at Everton and Bradford and had made a few quid. He wasn’t shy at telling the boys and he would often use his now legendary line to team-mates: ‘Hey, you got change of a million pound note!’

  We were regarded as a huge club in the Second Division because of the money we were paying and that meant most teams wanted to beat us, looked upon as a bit of a scalp. So, it was important we were all in it together. Nothing was going to be achieved playing and behaving as individuals.

  Yet, not everything had the air of money about it. The club’s training ground was far from what people would have expected. It was very basic. We used to share the JJB pitch with the rugby team and that made the surface heavy and not conducive to good football. We also shared the training ground with them. We had no canteen and no chef. We would have jugs of diluting orange and blackcurrant set out on a table and sandwiches with butter and jam, that kind of thing. We just helped ourselves and got on with it. We also had to wash our own kit. We didn’t have any laundry facilities. It was an eye-opener. Big time. I hated washing my kit every night. I used to do it in autopilot mode – forty-degree spin cycle and then onto the clotheshorse! It eventually made me a better person, helped me grow up and stand on my own two feet, but I didn’t see it that way at the time.

  But whenever I felt a little bit down, I had the consolation of knowing I had a few quid in my pocket to spend. In my first few months I changed cars a few times and seemed to never be out of the fancy showrooms. I felt it was crazy money for a twenty-two-year-old to have, but I loved it. I felt like a multi-millionaire, a proper Jack the Lad. I was often bored after training and in the evenings so I spent money to keep me amused. I bought an Audi TT then got a Jaguar and then a BMW. Honestly, Jeremy Clarkson wasn’t a patch on me back then. It was total daft boyness!

  But I was paid to be a footballer and help Wigan become successful, although it just didn’t happen for me in the first few months. In fact, my first full season was stop-start. I had one or two injuries and never got into my stride. My game lacked consistency. I was also moved around to a few positions and that didn’t help. The fans also looked upon me as a prolific striker. I signed as a centre-forward and they thought I was going to hit at least twenty goals and, being the club’s record signing, be the main man to win us promotion. But that was never my game. I was a link-up man, a target man for others to feed off of in the final third, in and around the opposition penalty box. I would chip in with at least ten or eleven goals but I would always get plenty of assists, but until the fans started to appreciate and understand what my game was about it was a difficult period for me. I felt they were on my back a little bit and didn’t really think I was an asset.

  As team-mates, we helped each other out and would try to gee each other up if and when required. After a few months we had a few Scottish players at the club and another few who were non-Scots but had played in the SPL. Big Stewart Kerr arrived from Celtic. He moved into the same estate as me and I used to drive him everywhere as he didn’t have a licence. He was a good laugh and we had a lot in common, like our love of boxing. He was also as daft as a brush and had good patter. Typical goalkeeper. His career was cut short through injury and I remember he collapsed in pain one day at training and an ambulance came onto the pitch to take him to hospital. Unfortunately that signalled the end of Stewart’s career. What a waste, as he was a very good keeper.

  Gary Teale signed too. We played Ayr United at Somerset Park in a pre-season friendly and Gary played very well. Wigan signed him a couple of weeks later. It proved to be a great bit of business. Gary and I have been close from the day he signed. A gentleman and a top footballer on his day. Michael O’Neill was there and so was Jason de Vos. Brian McLaughlin and Derek Stillie were also there. We had a wee contingent from Scotland down at the club and it was good. We kept each other going a lot of the time. We’d sometimes meet up to watch the Old Firm games and that was always an interesting afternoon. The allegiances weren’t long in bubbling to the surface. Andy Webster also signed for us but he only played a couple of games and then moved a wee while later to Rangers. We were a wee clique, to be honest.

  Paul Dalglish was a close friend from our time there. He came on loan when Bruce was manager and then stayed on for Jewell’s first full season. I was sorry to see him leave for Blackpool. He really looked out for me in my early days at Wigan. Indeed, he felt sorry for me at my first Christmas on my own and obviously didn’t want me eating microwave grub so he passed his mobile phone to me one day after training and his dad, Kenny, was on the other end of the line. Kenny asked me to their house on Christmas Day to join him and the family for dinner. It was an amazing gesture. Due to commitments at my end and at my own family’s end in Lanarkshire, we couldn’t spend Christmas together so I had to go to King Kenny’s residence for my turkey ’n’ trimmings.

  I wanted to look the part so I went out and bought a whole new outfit. Nice trousers, shoes with a glare you could brush your teeth in and a lovely shirt, one with a big collar and cufflinks. On Christmas afternoon I put a tub of gel in my hair and brushed my teeth at least half a dozen times and off I popped to the Dalglish house in Southport. I arrived with a bottle of wine for The King and a bunch of flowers for Mrs Dalglish. As I’ve said before, I’m naturally shy and I was very nervous about eating with them and being in their company. When I arrived at the house, I lost the power of speech for a wee while. Every time I went to join in on the conversation or start a new one, I froze. I was just in awe of the King. Or maybe it was because I was so full up with all the lovely food Marina (she insisted I didn’t call her Mrs Dalglish) put on for her family and guests. I was absolutely stuffed. Paul noticed my nervousness and had a wry smile on his face but there must also have been a part of him saying, ‘Come on, Jig, get a grip of yourself.’

  After dinner we watched Only Fools and Horses and then went to the bar in the house. It had a pool table, a dance floor and around 1,000 bottles of bubbly – I kid you not. I think they were all Man of the Match champagne! When I did find the courage to speak I asked Kenny about his career, the European Cup and League Championship successes and how they celebrated such victories. I’d also read his autobiography and asked him a few things about that. I felt much more comfortable talking to this footballing genius about football.

  It was a great day and I’m still grateful to them all for making me feel so welcome, but I cringed as soon as I got home and got ready for my bed – I had left the plastic cufflinks on my new shirt. I didn’t think to cut them off and get proper ones. It looked horrendous. I put it down to pre-dinner nerves!

  From the New Year onwards, we were expected to seal our move up to Division One but it never worked. We just never found a true level of consistency. On a personal level, I was disappointed with too many of my performances and the lowest point came in a home match against Tranmere Rovers in March 2002 when I was given a straight red card after just twenty-five minutes by referee Mike Riley for a disgusting and shameful tackle on Jason Koumas. I flew off the ground with both feet and was never going to get near the ball. Thankfully, I didn’t make contact with Koumas. We lost the game 2–1. I was just frustrated with myself and was hurting knowing we were really struggling to live up to the expectation levels and win promotion. Unfortunately season 2001-02 was a big disappointment and we finished in tenth place. Jewell wasn’t happy with a number of the players and I’m sure he felt too many Scottish players were at the club and down to enjoy the money rather than getting their sleeves rolled up and helping the club become successful. Although the Wigan fans were expecting more from the team and from me, they continued to support me and it’s something I’ll never forget. They were amazing.

  Changes were made for the following season and people within the cl
ub and the dressing room became more ruthless. The team prospered and we won the Second Division Championship in 2003 with 100 points. Jimmy Bullard signed for us for £275,000 from Peterborough United midway through that campaign and proved to be an important addition. He was bubbly and talented, great for the lads off the park and an asset on it, where it mattered most. But the main man was Nathan Ellington. He scored some phenomenal goals, and defences in that division just could not live with him. He signed on deadline day the previous season for £1.2 milllion from Bristol Rovers. He was the missing link we needed and he was an absolute bargain even though it was a lot of money to splash out. I genuinely believe we would have struggled to win promotion without him.

  We celebrated by going round the town in an open-top bus and it was nice to be able to do that.

  Shortly after that my career at the club took off. It all changed during the pre-season as we prepared for our first season in the old Division One, now known as the Championship. Jewell told me he was going to play me as a wide left midfielder with a licence to come inside and play almost as a central midfielder. He also wanted me making diagonal runs into the area to support the front two. I wasn’t to be an out-and-out winger, hugging the touchline. That was never my game. I would cut inside onto my right and play the ball down the line for the overlapping Stevie McMillan or Leighton Baines. Stevie was really unlucky with injuries and because of that his career at Wigan never got going as it should have. He was cruelly denied so much more out of football. I felt for him, I really did. Leighton was an outstanding full-back and got into the team as a seventeen-year-old, and from day one played with the brains of a veteran.

  In the forward areas we had Ellington and Jason Roberts. They were a formidable partnership. They had pace and power. They could take the ball into feet and didn’t mind a ball over the top. But we could also be direct. The pair of them loved to mix it up with the central defenders. They weren’t shy at leaving a bit on the opposition. We had Jimmy Bullard in the central midfield area and Gary Teale on the right.