My dad was a north London barber who got up at six o'clock every day to open his shop and give people a shave for sixpence. We lived on a council estate. It was a very poor background. Everything I've got, I've made for myself.
All my family were huge Arsenal fans. I reneged on that and supported Newcastle because Newcastle beat Arsenal 1-0 in the 1952 FA Cup final — if you're a little boy of five, you support the team that wins. When I was in my prime as a lawyer I used to make it a precondition of anybody doing articles with me that for midweek games at St James' Park, they had to co-drive with me. I didn't care who they supported. We'd go up there in the afternoon and drive straight back after the match.
I wanted to do an English degree because I was always good at writing. But my mother said to me, "What are you going to do? Are you going to starve in a garret in Paris? Get yourself a law degree first and then you can do anything you want." And she was absolutely right, because I've been able to do everything I wanted. I write books and I'm involved in the industry that fascinates me.
One thing I've learnt in the world of football is that the one thing you won't be disappointed about is the fact that you'll be disappointed.
My training was in company commercial law. That was my background. But I'd got to know people at Newcastle and one thing led to another and I started acting for Chris Waddle, just as his lawyer. Then Chris decided he didn't want to have an agent and said, "You do everything for me." I brought my friend Len Lazarus into the loop, and we did it together. Then I was up there for a game against QPR on a wet Tuesday night and this kid came on as a sub and played ten or 15 minutes, and I thought, wow! I met him in the players' lounge and he said, "You act for Chris, will you act for me?" We got on really well. That was the start of my relationship with Gazza.
I loved Gazza, he was like a third son to me. I think we all thought the success was going to go on forever. I remember straight after Italia 90, Gazza, Chris Waddle, Len Lazarus and I were up in Newcastle in a hotel bedroom. Len and I had brought up 50 offers which we'd received for Gazza. It was astonishing — sponsorship, marketing, merchandising, personal appearances, you name it. Gazza turned to Chris and said, "How long is this going to go on for, Waddler?" And Chris says, "The rest of your life, Gazza." He went, "Naah." But I believed it. I thought it was going to end up with him marrying his local girlfriend, settling down at a big club, growing up. The trouble is, he never grew up.
When Gazza was cute, he was cute. When we were doing the Lazio signing I was in a big boardroom with all the Lazio hardhitters. Gazza's outside and suddenly a bare bum appears at the window. You think, well that's actually quite funny. But it's not funny when he's 30 and he's drinking hard. And it's not funny when his marriage is breaking up or when he hits his wife or the bad publicity means that he can't get any sponsorship deals. So somewhere along the line I think I began to say to myself, "This is not going to end happily."
I'm asked if players are paid too much. I think players are only paid too much by people who can't afford to pay them that much. I don't think there's such a thing as anybody being paid too much, because it's all about market forces. So if you've got a club that wins the Champions League or the Premier League and it's paying all its players £100,000 a week, it's not too much. But if you're Portsmouth, it's too much. I broke the bank for Chris Waddle when he went to Marseille and to Spurs and the same for Gazza when he went to Spurs and to Lazio and to Rangers. Nobody had heard of those levels of money. When Shearer went to Blackburn, he was the highest paid footballer in England. But the sums were nothing like the £100,000 a week that some Premier League players are on now. People say it's obscene. I say, "Would you say no to it?"
The general thing about footballers is that they expect everything for nothing.
I did wonderful deals for players who would just dump me afterwards, for no good reason. I had one player who I acted for during most of his career, and I got him a contract with a club that had a million pound golden handshake if he stayed until the end. He stayed there and he got the million quid and he still dumped me.
The modern generation of players, the youngsters now, there is no loyalty among most of them. 'Venal' is the only word to describe them.
Football has become a much more middle-class sport and that's something I regret. When I was growing up, working-class people could afford to go to matches. You try taking two kids to Chelsea, and it costs you over £200. How many people can afford to pay that? So the wrong people go to football. Somewhere along the line we need to let people afford to go back to grounds.
What's the secret of being a good agent? You've got to do everything you can for your client and not worry about your own interest. You've got to know the market and be realistic about the value of your client. And you've got to be able to persuade the player to be realistic — and, more importantly, you've got to be able to persuade the player's parents to be realistic, because everybody thinks that little Johnny should be playing for Manchester United. You've got to be able to say, "Do you know what? He really should be at Barnet." And that's quite hard sometimes.
Football Babylon is published by Pennant Books.
BY IT HERE: Football Babylon: Entertaining and Fast-Paced Anonymous Insider's Journey of a Fictional Premiership Club's First Season: 1
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