had a similar experience when we went to Portsmouth to play a testimonial for their long-serving goalkeeper Alan Knight. It’s no secret that there’s no love between the two neighbours. Most of the fans restrict it to heated banter but, for a small minority, it is pure hatred, even in friendlies. I remember one game at Havant’s ground when our goalkeeper Alan Blayney hung his towel through the back of his net only to turn round a few minutes later and find someone had set fire to it. The team coach had bricks thrown at it on the way home and that was just a Reserve game.
It might not have been a league game but the atmosphere for Knight’s testimonial was evil, even though we were there to do him a favour. They fielded a lot of ex-pros, 12 of them at one point. Despite their extra man we won 5-0. Afterwards I popped my head outside to see if I could find my uncle who had come to watch the match. There was a crowd of Pompey fans, most of whom were great and I was happy to sign autographs for them until one guy spat at me and threw a right-hander. I just saw it coming and dodged it.
A few years later, during Dave Merrington’s charge, we flew to Bahrain for a mid-season game. We were allowed to drink in the hotel and Dave was OK with us having a couple. He told us not to stay up late as we had a match the next day but he didn’t say don’t drink. Another Big Mistake. It was only an easy friendly against the Bahrain national side so a few of us had quite a lot to drink but the humidity was terrible. We’d have been struggling even if we had been in the right condition but we were all over the place. At half-time we were 2-1 down and Dave ripped into us saying, ‘I hope you lot haven’t been drinking.’ Lew Chatterley, the assistant manager, was standing behind Dave and his face was a picture because he knew what we had been up to. Dave was quite scary when he was in full rant and none of us dared look at him or at each other. He must have known by the way we were playing that we were still drunk, but we blamed it on the humidity. David Hughes literally couldn’t breathe because he had never played in such conditions and I risked Dave’s wrath by telling him he had to get David off the field. The gaffer was actually quite good about it and Hughesie has been grateful to me ever since because it was due far more to the alcohol than to the heat.
‘COME ON MATT, DO SOMETHING—WE DON’T WANT
TO BE GOING TO EXTRA TIME!’
The 1987-88 season was a bad one for me. I only got two goals, one in the FA Cup and one in the League Cup, and I got suspended twice and missed quite a few games. I got sent off in back-to-back Reserve matches and in those days that also meant you could miss first-team games. But, not usually, I blame the refs.
We had to play Millwall at the old Den on a Tuesday afternoon. It was always a horrible place and we got stuck in traffic so we had to get changed on the team bus. One of the coaching staff had to run to the ground with the team-sheet and we eventually arrived at 2.50pm. The ref kindly agreed to put the kick-off back—to five past three. So, that helped! By 3.15 I was back in the dressing room. I got dismissed for not retreating 10 yards and then telling the ref that he was stupid. Well worth all the time and effort of getting to Millwall then.
The following week I was sent off again, at The Dell, supposedly for elbowing, although I’ll never believe that a foul was committed. I was dribbling the ball when a player came in to tackle me. I stuck out an arm to hold him off and the next thing I knew the ref had produced a red card. It meant a double ban so, in all, I only started 10 first-team games that season with nine more appearances as a sub. I didn’t manage a league goal but scored at Reading in a 1-0 FA Cup win and in a League Cup draw with Bournemouth. It was a really poor spell for me and maybe I was spending too much time gambling and at the snooker club where I’d spend 10-11 hours after training.
Let me tell you about David Axcell. We got off to a great start in 1988-89. We actually won our first three games, which is unheard of for Southampton. We began by beating West Ham 4-0 at The Dell, I came on as sub and scored, and as of 2008 the club have still won only one opening fixture in the 20 years since then. It meant we were top of the table and full of confidence when we went to Highbury and I scored my first goal at a big club. I had previously netted on the road at Hillsborough, Elm Park and Vicarage Road but those were my only previous away goals. It was a surreal moment. When I saw the ball in the net I couldn’t quite believe I had scored at Arsenal—especially being a Spurs fan. There was a two-second gap before it dawned on me and then I went bonkers.
We played well and raced into a 2-0 lead, and were all over Arsenal but we hadn’t counted on referee David Axcell. First of all he failed to see Arsenal midfielder Paul Davis punch Glenn Cockerill off the ball, breaking his jaw. I must admit I didn’t see it either because I had been subbed. I twisted an ankle quite badly soon after scoring so I had to go off and, as Arsène Wenger will confirm, the view is terrible from the Arsenal dug outs. I only realized how bad the injury was when Glenn came off. He needed a plate inserting in his cheekbone and was out for about eight weeks, roughly the same length of time as Paul Davis who was hit by a nine-match ban. It had been a very sly punch but it was captured on TV and Davis was done by the FA in one of the first uses of video evidence. He also received more immediate punishment from Jimmy Case who ran over to Glenn and said, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll get him.’
And he did. David Axcell awarded the Gunners a very dodgy penalty when the ball hit Kevin Moore’s arm from all of half a yard away. There is no way he could have avoided it but the ref pointed straight to the spot. All eyes were on Brian Marwood as he ran up to score the penalty so no one noticed Jimmy standing a bit further back from the edge of the area. As players from both sides went to follow up, Jimmy took a long run-up as though he was also following up but instead he ‘collided’ with Davis, who went off two minutes later!
Having missed the sly punch, Axcell assumed that Glenn had been time-wasting and added an incredible nine minutes of injury-time. It was before the days of the fourth official holding up a board so it seemed as though he was just playing on until Arsenal equalized, which they did seven minutes after the game should have ended. And that point ultimately won them the title. Everyone remembers Michael Thomas scoring at Anfield to win the league for Arsenal in the last minute of the season, but if they hadn’t been gifted that undeserved point against us they’d never have been champions.
I reckon we were robbed of a win, not just by Davis punching Glenn but by the ref who punished us for time-wasting when he had missed the cause of the hold-up. It wasn’t the last time a David Axcell decision would influence a game I played in. In 1992 we played West Ham at The Dell in the quarter-final of the Zenith Data Systems Cup. It was the first week in January and it was bitterly cold. No one wanted to be there. That included the players, the fans and, I’m pretty sure, Axcell. With 10 minutes to go it was 1-1, and with no replays there’d have been extra-time and penalties, and the pitch was beginning to freeze.
Axcell jogged past me—I was running full tilt at the time. He said, ‘Come on Matt, do something, we don’t want to be going to extra-time.’ Next time I got the ball I dribbled into the West Ham box. Tim Breacker put his arm on me, and I went down like a sack of spuds. Axcell immediately awarded us a penalty. I can’t be sure how it looked to him, but I thought the ref was a cheat for giving the penalty; it never really occurred to me that I was the cheat for going down. After all, it was frosty and I was slightly off-balance and I was genuinely amazed to see him point to the spot. I scored the penalty and we all went home.
I THOUGHT THEREF WAS ACHEAT FORGIVING THEPENALTY; ITNEVER REALLYOCCURRED TO METHAT I WAS THECHEAT FORGOING DOWN.
That set-back at Highbury seemed to stall our season and we lost our winning momentum but had a resurgence in November when Chris Nicholl won the Manager of the Month award after we beat Aston Villa 3-1. I scored with a header which I knew very little about. Nigel Spink went to punch the ball which grazed his hand; it hit me on the head and flew in. I celebrated like I had known what I was doing. That win put us third in the table, but it was our last victory until April. We went on an awful run of 17 league games without a win, diving from third top to third bottom. We didn’t even look like getting a victory, apart from an away game at Newcastle