The Second Half Read Free Page B

the manager pulled myself and Peter into his office.
    He said, ‘The two of you were fighting.’
    He knew exactly where we’d fought – I think he mentioned the twenty-seventh floor. He told us that we were a disgrace to the club, and that we’d woken Bobby Charlton up, that Bobby had come out of his room and seen us.
    ‘Do you have anything to say?’
    Peter put his hand up.
    ‘Gaffer, I want to apologise. It was all my fault. I was waiting for Roy in the corridor. I take responsibility.’
    The manager went, ‘Oh, you’re a fuckin’ joke’, and kicked us out of his office.
    Peter took responsibility for the fight, which was good. I admired him for it. But Sir Bobby could have tried to break it up.

    Looking back at colossal career milestones, I remember many events very clearly, but quite often I don’t know what years we won the League. But I do know we’d nicked it from Arsenal the previous season, 2002–3.
    We were playing away to Tottenham on a Sunday in late April, and then at home to Charlton the following week. We were travelling on the day before the game, by bus to Stockport station, then train down to London. Arsenal were playing that afternoon at Bolton, and we needed them to slip up. I drove to the Four Seasons Hotel, in Manchester, where we were leaving the cars before getting on the bus.
    That bus journey from the Four Seasons to the railway station in Stockport became one of the highlights of my career. Arsenal had been two up when we got on the bus, so they were now ahead of us in the table. Then the news came through that Bolton had pulled it back to 2–1. Djorkaeff had scored for them. And just as we arrived at the station, Bolton made it 2–2.
    We still had games to play and win, but we knew on the bus – and it wasn’t cockiness; we were hopping around like a load of kids, hugging one another – we knew the title was ours that day. If you’d passed us at Stockport railway station, you would have seen a load of men on a bus, jumping up and down. We were back in it and we knew we wouldn’t let go.
    Finishing on top was never easy. It’s been said about the Liverpool team of the eighties that they had a drawer full of medalsand their coach, Ronnie Moran, would say, ‘Take one if you think you deserve it.’ It always looked easy for Liverpool, although I’m sure it wasn’t. But I watched them when I was a kid, winning all the time. When I became a player I learnt, quickly, that winning League titles is not easy. We had to fight for our success. But we were hungry. I don’t think we were ever blasé about previous successes. I never thought we could live off the past and switch off for a year or two.
    The top sports people aren’t content with a single victory or triumph. I was surrounded by players who were like that. We were all pushing one another along. The message came from the manager and the fans: ‘Don’t relax just because you’ve won a few now.’ You win something and you say, ‘It’s gone’, and then you move on. I can be critical of myself for not enjoying the experience of winning, but – it was part of my DNA – I just wanted to go on and win more.
    Arsenal were good. Arsène Wenger was reinventing the game, apparently. Sugar lumps at half-time. They were a very good counter-attacking team. The previous Arsenal teams, under George Graham and Bruce Rioch, had been a rigid 4–4–2. They would always have held their positions; you could almost predict where each player would be. Now, under Wenger, they had more pace, they had more movement; they were moving positions, interacting. They had people like Overmars, Bergkamp, Henry. They were changing not just the face of Arsenal but the face of the Premiership, too. Pace, players moving into different positions, away from the 4–4–2; brilliant on the counter-attack, and much harder to play against. They could hurt you much quicker now. I think Arsenal took counter-attacking to a new level. Not just away from