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