Neil Lennon: Man and Bhoy

I was surprised to be thrown in at the deep end by being made to train with the first-team players and the rest of the senior squad. I was still a raw boy, and not physically up to the task of training like a full-time professional footballer. We would be taken to Strathclyde Park near Hamilton and made to run up steep slopes, then there would be all sorts of running and exercises that really were more suited to adults than a teenager. I was constantly getting it in the neck for my lack of fitness and I had to admit that I was struggling as I was overweight and had never experienced anything like the intensity of this training. After the senior players went off for the afternoon we apprentices would have to go back to Fir Park and do more cleaning and tidying of the stadium in preparation for the forthcoming season. Was it any wonder that I went back to my digs exhausted most nights?

I loved playing most of all and when I finally got the chance to play in a few warm-up games, I thought that I performed quite well. I definitely held my own among my age group, and went with Motherwell’s Under-16 side to play in the Milk Cup at Coleraine where I had happy memories. We did well in our first game, beating Newcastle United’s boys 5-2, before losing to Liverpool in the semi-final, the Reds eventually going on to win the tournament. Once again I was selected to play in the closing match, this time for the Rest of the World which beat a Northern Ireland select eleven 2-1. I must have set some sort of Milk Cup record having played for the Northern Irish select at Under-14 level and then for the Rest of the World at a higher age group—and I was on the winning side both times.

Back at Fir Park, there was just a chance that I might have made it into the reserves. The training was murder, however, and though I was determined to stick it out, I picked up a thigh injury and that set me back several weeks.

I was also suffering badly from homesickness. It did not help matters that for various reasons, I was shunted about from landlady to landlady, and I was in three different digs in three months.

The fact that I was the only Irish apprentice brought me some unwelcome attention. Not to put too fine a point on it, I was picked on and singled out to be the butt of a few jokes, usually involving ‘Irishness’, a subject beloved of the politically incorrect comedians of the time. I remember that my being a Catholic from Northern Ireland was also the subject of some remarks. On one occasion a senior player grabbed the broom I was using and showed me how to sweep up. ‘There,’ he said, ‘that’s bit more Protestant-like.’ I had never heard that phrase before and though I now know it’s a common expression in the west of Scotland to describe things being neat and tidy, back then at the age of sixteen, I didn’t know how to deal with this kind of banter.

I was very unhappy and couldn’t see me getting anywhere fast, and on a pittance for a wage I couldn’t exactly live the high life. Like quite a few clubs, Motherwell had taken advantage of the Government’s funding of youth training and my wage was set at the Youth Training Scheme allowance of £28.50, although the club, to be fair, paid for my lodgings.

The last straw came when I was moved into my third digs with an old lady who was perfectly civil but bordering on the stone deaf. We had nothing in common and conversation was minimal. My life consisted of cleaning boots, training, more cleaning, then going home to eat my dinner, watch some telly and go to bed. I was fed up and miserable, and something had to give.

Part of the contract I had signed entitled me to a couple of holidays during the season and by the beginning of September I decided to use up one of my breaks to go home to Lurgan. I had a long chat with my dad, during which I told him how nightmarish things had become. I told him that my brief flirtation with professional football, Scottish style, was over and that I wanted to come home and start my studies again.

My dad then had a long telephone conversation with Tommy McLean during which he told the manager in no uncertain terms that he was not happy with the way I was being treated. Tommy made it clear that he very much wanted me to stay and that things would improve, but my mind was made up and that was the end of my time with Motherwell. I don’t blame anyone for what happened and I’ve never held it against the club that I had a poor start to my career. It was just one of those things that happens in football, and at least I had shown enough potential for Tommy McLean to want to keep me on.

I returned a wiser lad to Lurgan and home, and also to St Michael’s School. I had only missed a few weeks of term, and I was sure I could catch up and eventually sit my ‘A’ levels. Despite my harsh experience at Motherwell, I also wanted to continue playing football.

Nothing better illustrates the topsy-turvy nature of football than what happened to me next. Within days of my arrival home I was invited to train with Glenavon, the local side who played in the Irish League. Their manager Terry Nicholson had heard of my return and moved quickly to sign me on professional terms, albeit for only a few quid a week. There were the usual complications over the cancellation of my registration with Motherwell, but the Scottish Football Association finally cleared me to play.

Glenavon played at Mourneview Park in Lurgan and it was there that I trained and played with the reserves. As part-timers, we trained on Tuesday and Thursday nights and the park was close enough to my home for me to jog there and back. I played a couple of reserve matches and scored twice, but as a sixteen-year-old schoolboy it looked as though I might stay in the reserves for a while. Glenavon’s first team had made a dreadful start to the season, however, so Terry Nicholson decided to give me a chance in the senior side.

I made my debut as a senior professional footballer for Glenavon on Saturday 26 September 1987, in an Irish League match against Cliftonville at Mourneview Park.

I played in midfield and did particularly well in the first half, hitting the bar with a long-range effort after seventeen minutes. I was enjoying myself being back at home and playing football, and the training at Motherwell had certainly made me fitter. In the seventy-seventh minute I went forward, picked up a pass from substitute Billy Drake, beat one defender and sent goalkeeper Bobby Carlisle the wrong way as I shot home with my left foot. Cue a great roar from the home fans and a jig of delight from me.

It proved to be the only goal of the game. I had scored on my debut and into the bargain I had ended an eight-game losing streak for Glenavon. I think I was a bit of a hero in Lurgan that night…and all the miseries of Motherwell had vanished.

The Lurgan Mail duly reported: ‘A debut goal is something worth celebrating and Neil certainly savoured the euphoria of it all. It was a score which may go down in history, marking the birth of a star.’ Just shows you, the press can get things right at times!

I was amazed at the reaction to my debut. I was congratulated by people I had never met, I had my picture taken in my school uniform by the local paper, and because it was an Irish League match, the national newspapers covered the game. I was even given a special mention in Ireland’s Sunday World column about football in the north.

I couldn’t wait to play again and the following weekend I did it again, scoring the first goal in Glenavon’s 3-1 win over Bangor in the TNT Gold Cup. I might have played a third game, but of all things I went down with ’flu.

By then, however, I had received the call which would put my soccer career back on track. I had turned down Manchester City for Motherwell, but they were a forgiving lot at Maine Road and within weeks of my arriving home the club contacted my dad through Peter Neill and said they would still like to take me. I needed no second invitation. In late October 1987, I put pen to paper and signed for City.

My friend Gerry Taggart had been signed as an apprentice that summer and was already over in Manchester, so this time, at least, I would not be the only Irish boy in the squad. I had to say goodbye to Glenavon but I would never forget the start they gave me as a senior player, and probably because of that experience and my feelings that things couldn’t go as badly as they had done at Motherwell, I packed my bags with a lighter heart.

City’s scout Peter Neill accompanied me on the trip to Manchester, which included ten hours on a ferry from Belfast to Liverpool—not fun, I can tell you—followed by a bus journey to Manchester. We arrived at my digs where the landlady warned me I had an early rise as I was wanted at Maine Road at 8.30 a.m. the following morning.

The guest house was just fifteen minutes’ walk away from the stadium in Rusholme. As I set out for the ground my first thought was that I had somehow woken up in the wrong country. I had seen maybe only a few brown—or black-skinned people in my life, and here was I now in the Asian quarter of Manchester. I think I probably stared goggle-eyed at women in saris and men in turbans with big long beards—sights I had only seen on television before. As I walked along the road to Moss Side, which is the Afro-Caribbean area of the city, I really did begin to wonder where the white people had gone. It shows you how naĭve I was when I arrived in Manchester, and it was to be the first of many culture shocks that I would experience over the next few weeks and months. It was a whole new world to me, yet I never found it intimidating. On the contrary, it was exciting to find new cultures on my doorstep, and I thoroughly enjoyed exploring Manchester.

I was back on the apprenticeship treadmill, having signed a two-year contract. Once again I was on the government’s Youth Training Scheme stipend of ?8.50 per week, but City did pay us an extra ?0 for travel expenses. I was also determined not to repeat the Motherwell debacle, and the main difference in my environment this time around was that within a few days of arriving at Maine Road, I was put into digs with an incredible, wonderful family called the Ducketts.

They lived in a rambling three-storey Victorian house in Stockport. Len and Jackie Duckett were the mother and father in charge of the household which included their two grown-up married daughters, a younger son and a grandson. Everyone in that house brought their own distinctive personality to a warm and supportive environment in which I was immediately made to feel at home. They were all hard-grafting people who contributed to the household income, and while you had to toe the line and respect their house rules, there was always plenty of humour and laughter around.

Len Duckett became almost like a second father to me, looking after me and making sure I knew my way about Manchester. I still talk to him to this day, and indeed I regret not keeping in touch more regularly because the Ducketts really were very good to me over a number of years. At City and later at Crewe Alexandra I would sometimes move into a flat with other players, for instance, but the Ducketts would always take me back if I needed somewhere to stay.

What makes their kindness and support of me even more astonishing is that Len was a season-ticket holder at Manchester UNITED. But he would often come to watch this City boy play, even travelling to Ireland when I started playing for Northern Ireland’s youth side. They are still a warm and caring family, and I will always be grateful to the Ducketts for the start they gave me in England.

In my first year with them I had the whole of the top floor to myself, but after that they provided lodgings for three more players, namely Michael Hughes from Larne, later a Northern Ireland international who is still playing, Mike Sheron who went on to become a prolific scorer at several clubs, and John Wills. We four had a great time together, and all played in the FA Youth Cup Final of 1989. Regular as clockwork, we would catch the bus to Maine Road each morning, and, unlike Motherwell, training was something I looked forward to.

Billy McNeill had left the manager’s job to return to Celtic in September 1986, and that had triggered something of a slide at City. During the summer before I arrived at Maine Road, Mel Machin had taken over after Scottish manager Jimmy Frizzell had taken over briefly and presided over the club’s relegation to Division Two. Jimmy was kicked upstairs to become general manager, while Mel’s job was simple—to get City back to the top flight as soon as possible.

It helped him that the club had a brilliant youth set-up producing some talented players, as evidenced by the fact that City had won the FA Youth Cup in the 1985/86 season. We apprentices were looked after by coaches Tony Book and Glyn Pardoe, and it is these two men that I credit for giving me the basis of my professional career.

Tony had captained the side in a vintage era for City in the late 1960s and early 1970s when the likes of Colin Bell, Mike Summerbee and Francis Lee were at their peak. He had also later managed the club. Glyn was an outstanding full-back who had been forced to retire prematurely. He had suffered some appalling injuries including a horrific broken leg in a tackle by George Best, but it was a knee injury that finally forced him to stop playing.

What these two City men did not know about football was not worth knowing. The quality of their coaching was superb. They concentrated always on teaching us the correct things to do on the pitch, such as passing the ball accurately time after time. As all good coaches should do, they tried to get us to develop good habits both on and off the pitch.

Our routine as apprentices consisted of making sure that the kit for the senior professionals was properly prepared for them. Each of us looked after two players, and at first mine were striker Trevor Morley and the big goalkeeper Eric Nixon. Trevor went on to play for several clubs and is now a scout, while Eric later became something of a living legend at Tranmere Rovers. He was a huge fellow, six feet four inches tall, who would happily give you a thump on the shoulder if his boots weren’t prepared exactly as he wanted them.

It was the sort of apprenticeship where, if you got sent for a pot of tea, then you went without argument and fetched it. Another of my jobs was to clean out the toilets and the baths. It may sound as if it was slave labour, but I didn’t mind as I knew I was getting a good grounding.

The coaching by Tony and Glyn more than made up for the more tedious aspects of the job. They always tried to keep things varied and interesting, though we concentrated a lot on retaining possession, playing hundreds of hours of the game called ‘keep ball’. We would also play small-sided games, while Tony would give me special coaching in the afternoon sometimes, working on my ability to trap and pass the ball. I think it’s fair to say that the sort of player I became was established under the tutelage of Tony and Glyn. Later, Dario Gradi and Martin O’Neill would add to my game but my basic grounding was at City.

There was one unexpected development for me right at the start of my time at Maine Road. I had spent most of my youth playing in the forward line or at half-back, but as soon as I got to City, they tried to turn me into a right-back. Is it any wonder that I struggled a bit at first in that position? The move came about because I was put in at right-back in one of the early trials that I played for City. I didn’t do too badly, and then the club became short of cover at right—and left-back so that was me stuck in defence for the next three years. Though I mostly played on the right, they also tried me at left-back and even centre-half. It wasn’t until I moved to Crewe Alexandra that I got back to playing in my favoured midfield position again.

Mel Machin took a real shine to me when I first started at City. Almost from the start of my time there, I was able to do what I loved best which was playing. Mel put me into the youth team but as the 1987/88 season wore on, I began to play a lot of matches in the reserves.

It was terrific experience for a youngster, as we would often be playing against top professionals. I recall one particular match against Liverpool reserves when their team featured the likes of Jan Molby, Kevin McDonald and Craig Johnston. I was credited with having kept Johnston quiet during the game, which we won 2-0.

The club was suffering an injury crisis in February and March 1988 and I found myself becoming a regular in the reserve team. We were due to play Hull City when Mel Machin told me that I was on standby to play for the first team. I was covering for Paul Lake but in the event he passed a late fitness test and my debut had to be postponed. There were some pundits who queried putting a teenager 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.