and sent Brian Horne the wrong way to get a point.
I also got a couple of hat tricks in quick succession. My first for the club came in the return game against Wimbledon at Plough Lane in a match when Francis Benali got a red card for launching John Fashanu into orbit. To this day I have never seen a player go that high. He came down with ice. Of all the people for Franny to pick on. We were losing 3-1 when we went down to 10 men, but we came back to draw 3-3. I scored another penalty after Rod Wallace fell over. It wasn’t even a dive. John Scales was nowhere near him but the ref pointed to the spot, it was really funny. It was my second hat trick but I never got the ball—typical Wimbledon. My first goal took a deflection off Eric Young so they wouldn’t give it to me.
Soon afterwards, against Norwich, I got my second hat trick at The Dell, which is still my favourite treble. The first goal was a tap-in from a Kevin Moore knock-down, but I really enjoyed the next two goals. I picked the ball up about 40 yards from goal and went on a dribble. I beat my old mate Andy Townsend but didn’t have the pace to get away from him. I found him back in my way so I beat him again and scored with a lovely low right-footer in off the post. Then Francis Benali nicked the ball off their winger and hit it up the left wing to me. Their defender committed himself and I nicked the ball past him. I was still a long way from goal and right out on the left touchline but I saw Bryan Gunn coming out a long way and wondered what he was doing. I didn’t have the energy to take the ball any further and I had the whole goal to aim at so I chipped it over him. The ball drifted and hit the inside of the far post and bounced in.
At the end of that season I won the Barclays Young Eagle of the Year award and the PFA Young Player of the Year award. The PFA was a huge honour, being recognized by my fellow professionals, even more so when I saw the previous winners. The worst thing was having to make a speech. I had an idea I might have won—or at least got close—because my agent had been told to make sure I attended. And he wrote a speech for me, just in case. I’d never done any public speaking so he offered to help—and I reckoned that if an agent offered to help free of charge I must have won. And the organizers getting Saints legend Terry Paine to present the award was another big clue. I found myself rehearsing the speech in the toilets 15 minutes before the announcements. When Rod Wallace came third it was a double celebration.
The Barclays Young Eagle award was a more low-key affair so I was able to wear an open-necked short-sleeved shirt with no jacket, although Chris Nicholl wasn’t too impressed by that. It was good of him to attend to support me, but I remember getting into an argument with him because I was convinced I could be a sweeper. That would have meant playing two hulking great centre-backs to win the ball and give it to me to ping around like Franz Beckenbauer or Glenn Hoddle, making me look like a world-beater. I was always cool under pressure so I felt I could do that—although I must admit part of me was winding Chris up, getting back at him for all the times when he’d kicked me in training.
8 WHY I TOLD SOUNESS, HODDLE AND VENABLES TO GET LOST
‘I SIGNED THE CONTRACT AND WATCHED AS IT WAS
LOCKED IN THE SAFE. IT WAS SETTLED. I WAS JOINING MY BOYHOOD HEROES. I WAS ABOUT TO BECOME A SPURS PLAYER.’
After those awards and those goals, people woke up to Matt Le Tissier. Especially Tottenham. I got a phone call from my agent Jerome Anderson to say Spurs were interested, asking if I’d speak to them. I wasn’t going to say no, not to the team I’d always supported. Though Terry Venables was the manager I didn’t speak to him, and the deal was done through their lawyers and their agent. We had a meeting at a solicitor’s office in north London a couple of months before the end of the season. Saints didn’t know anything about it, but I agreed terms and signed a contract which was locked away in the safe in the solicitor’s office. Then it’d be brought out at the end of the season, when the clubs had agreed a fee.
Ironically our last game of the season was away to Spurs. We’d played Arsenal away a couple of days earlier and, if we’d won both matches, would have finished third. Instead we lost both and ended up seventh, but that was still my highest ever finishing position. I was due to get married (for the first time) that summer and after the Spurs game my fiancée, Cathy, announced that she didn’t want to live in London, so I had a decision to make. Go or stay. I decided to stay with Saints and don’t regret it at all, even though we ended up getting divorced. I made the decision, no one else. It’s a waste of time thinking, what if? I phoned Jerome and told him, and he was good as gold and never tried to tell me I was making a mistake, even though he could see his commission going right out the window. He never put any pressure on me. He’d just put offers in front of me and let me make up my own mind.
I then got a message from Terry Venables saying he respected my decision, but that he’d still like to speak to me on the phone. I declined (as I did later with Glenn Hoddle) because I didn’t want to be put in a position where I might be tempted to change my mind. Cathy didn’t fancy living in London, so what was the point? I don’t know if Terry held that against me when he was England manager. It’s true he picked me, but not as many times as I think he should have done.
The good news was knowing what Spurs were prepared to pay me. So I went back to Southampton and negotiated a new contract just like the one I’d have got at White Hart Lane. I now got £1,100 per week in the first year, £1,200 pw in the second and £1,300 pw in the third, but I’d have stayed even if they’d said no. Maybe I’d have won more England caps by moving club, but I was happy where I was.
I had two other opportunities to move. The first came a couple of years later when Jerome rang and said one of the biggest clubs in Europe was in for me. He didn’t want to tell me about it over the phone so I had to drive up to London to meet him in a hotel. I went up thinking it might be Real Madrid or Barcelona but it turned out to be Liverpool. Graeme Souness was the manager but again I didn’t even meet him. The move never got off the ground because I didn’t fancy living up north. Nothing against the north—but I preferred to live where I didn’t need a translator. If I’d ever moved from Southampton then I wouldn’t have gone any further than London, so Liverpool was never an option.
The only other time I came close to leaving Saints was in 1995 when Chelsea came in for me. I had a lot of things to weigh up. At that point Alan Ball was manager at Southampton and it was a brilliant time for me. He brought the best out of me and made me feel good about myself. I was happy playing for him and for Saints, I knew I’d be playing every week and I was still in the England squad. And I was in the top division. If Saints had ever been relegated then I’d have been put in a tough position. If they hadn’t bounced straight back then I think I’d have been yearning to play in the top division and would have asked for a move, but fortunately none of that happened.
So did I lack ambition? That’s what they said. But listen—I’d set my ambitions high when I was seven or eight. I wanted to be a professional footballer and play for England. By the age of 25 I had done both. If any of my critics could claim to have fulfilled their life’s ambition by the time they were 25 then they’d be entitled to their say. But most of the negative comments were coming from people who didn’t know me or who had never played the game, and definitely not to my level. So it hurt me when people said I lacked ambition because they had no idea about where I had come from or what my goals were. They certainly had no idea about my background and what an achievement it was to break away from the Channel Islands. Unless you have grown up there, you cannot begin to understand what a sheltered background it is.
A LOT OFPLAYERS MOVECLUBS CLAIMINGIT’S BECAUSETHEY AREAMBITIOUS.DON’T LET THEMFOOL YOU; THEYARE USUALLYAFTER THE EXTRACASH.
Over the decades there have been very few professional footballers (Graeme Le Saux is the obvious example) from the Channel Islands, which have a combined population of only around 150,000. To come from there and play for England is a pretty big achievement in my eyes—particularly as I managed to balance that with personal happiness, which always meant much more to me than money. And it’s worth stressing that a lot of players move clubs claiming it’s because they are ambitious. Don’t let them fool you; they are usually