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When
you’ve played for three of the biggest clubs in the land, moved
for transfer fees totalling very nearly £5million, scored
something approaching 100 goals in senior football, and rubbed shoulders
with the likes of Kevin Keegan, Christophe Dugarry, Mohamed Al-Fayed
and Trevor Francis, people might think you’re a bit of a Champagne
Charlie. But as this two-part interview will prove, striker Geoff
Horsfield has got his feet firmly planted on the ground.
Not every footballer comes off an easy, measured and predictable
production line, delivered into the care of the senior squad after
years spent learning the ropes in a slick Academy set up. Many learn
the ropes in the lower leagues, at clubs without any real training
facilities, where you wash your own kit, buy your own boots and
muck in with all the odd jobs that need doing around a football
club. And great though those technical Academies are at producing
the gifted players we need to take on the best in Europe and the
rest of the world, there’s also a great deal to be said about
entering the footballing profession at the basement and working
your way up the ladder rung by rung. Geoff Horsfield is one such,
for while his last five or six years have been spent at the top
end of the English game, the early years for the Barnsley born striker
were anything but glamorous.
“I started off at Scarborough when I was a youngster, Tommy
Mooney was there at the same time as I was which was funny because
we teamed up again later at Birmingham. I was only young, and I
didn’t got that much of a look in in the first team. I had
12 games, scored a couple of goals, and then a new manager came
in and like at most clubs, once a new manager takes over, if he
doesn’t fancy you, you’re out the door pretty quick, which
is what happened to me. From there, I went into the non-league game
at 18 or 19 years old which was disappointing at the time but looking
back from where I am now, those years gave me a great grounding,
not just in football but in life.
“I had to get out the game as a professional and so I played
at Guiseley, Witton Albion and then Halifax which at the time was
the last non-league club I went to, a former league club at the
time. Facilities there still weren’t the best, and they didn’t
change much after we’d won the Conference neither!
“All the time I was playing non-league, I was working as well
because you can’t live off your football money at that level.
I was a bricklayer until I was 24, 25, which was when I turned professional
as a player, which was pretty late to come into the game really,
but there’s a few of us who’ve done that like Ian Wright,
Les Ferdinand and Lee Hughes as well, he was a roofer before he
got started, so we’re from the same sort of background. When
you’ve done that, when you’ve been out on the building
site in the pouring rain and the freezing cold, you get a bit of
perspective on things! I do appreciate what I’ve got from football,
the things it gives you, the life you get from doing something you
enjoy. I’ve always highlighted the fact that my friends are
out there all day on the site, day after day, but my working day’s
finished at one o’clock, so there’s a lot to be grateful
for.”
Geoff was the architect of his own success in every respect, because
he was the man who more than anybody put an end to Halifax Town’s
days as a non-league club. Thirty goals from him in the 1997/98
season was the catalyst for restoring them to the Football League
once more as they tore the Conference to shreds.
“I had a great season when we won the Conference, played really
well. Funny enough, we won promotion here in the midlands, at Kidderminster
Harriers, which was a fantastic day. We knew we’d won it with
a load of games to go, we were miles clear, finished off winning
it by nine points and that was a fantastic achievement for the club.
It was my first medal as an adult really to go with the things I’d
won as a young lad.
“Then the first season back in Division Three, I got seven
or eight goals early on and people started talking about a move
to a bigger club. I’d done well in the Conference, but there’s
always the question about whether or not you can cut it in the Football
League, and I think that’s what had held clubs back from putting
any money up for me. Mind, I did later find out from Steve Bruce
that he watched me when he was managing Huddersfield Town and he
fancied bringing me in then, but Halifax wanted too much money for
somebody playing in the Conference and he couldn’t take it
any further, so it didn’t come off.”
The fact that Huddersfield couldn’t follow through their interest
in The Horse did however leave the way clear for another club to
come in and make a move, a memory that stills brings a smile to
his face.
“I can always remember the day it happened. I’d phoned
George Mulhall who was the manager at Halifax to tell him that I
couldn’t get in for training on the Monday morning. I’d
had bad flu all over the weekend and I was really struggling, so
George just told me to get some rest and come in the next day. Then
about an hour later, I got a call from him – I thought he was
checking up on me! But I had got flu, I was stuck in bed, so I got
the call and he said, “Look, we’ve got a bid on the table
for you. Do you want to sit down?”
“I said, “Fine, just tell me who it is.”
“He said, “You’ll not believe it, but it’s from
Kevin Keegan, he wants you down at Fulham.”
“I was just shocked, I couldn’t really take it in at first,
none of it. I couldn’t talk to my mom and dad about it because
they were working, so I just got in the car, went straight down
to London, had a chat about things and signed pretty much immediately.
“I’ve been a Liverpool fan ever since I was a lad, from
since I can remember really, and as soon as I heard that Kevin Keegan
was after me, that was it, I wanted to sign straight away. Fulham
was a terrific club to go to, Peter Beardsley was there then, Paul
Bracewell as well, Chris Coleman was there, lots of big names, good
people, and I was delighted to go and join them. It was like joining
a Premiership club, even though it was in the Second Division at
the time, but we’d got all top class players and it was a delight
to go down and learn from all of them.
“From the Conference to playing for Kevin Keegan and playing
in London, it was a huge step, it was frightening really, but Keegan
was unbelievable to work with, changed my game and made me a better
player by 50% easily. His man management and his motivation was
just out of this world. You speak to all the England players, Alan
Shearer, Michael Owen, whoever, they say the same. He was incredible,
he made you feel 10 feet tall, you just felt that every time you
went out on the pitch you were going to get goals for him. It was
a delight to work for him.“We had a great run at Fulham, in
the league and in the cup. I can remember beating Aston Villa who
were going really well at the time, I think they’d had a great
start of the season, hadn’t lost a game until November, challenging
right up at the top of the league and we went to Villa Park and
stuffed them 2-0! That was a great day for all of us, marvellous
for confidence. We had good cup runs in both competitions, won the
championship, went on up to the First Division. It was a good side
to play in, we were taking the club forwards and they were brilliant
times, and who knows what would have happened for me there had Kevin
stayed on as the manager.”
That special brand of Keegan magic certainly turned things around
for Fulham, but it probably worked a little too well for their liking.
With Glenn Hoddle hounded out of the England manager’s job,
Keegan was the people’s choice to take the reins. He was reluctant
to leave what he’d left behind at Craven Cottage, creating
problems as he juggled jobs.
“It was odd because he was the part-time England manager for
a while and nobody was sure what was going to happen. I signed for
Fulham in the October and I think he took up the England job on
a temporary basis in February or March. He wasn’t going to
do the England job to start with but once he had a taste of it,
you can’t turn that down. I was gutted because I loved working
with him, going in to training every day, doing different shooting
drills, all of it, it was fantastic, but I was delighted for him
that he got the chance to manage England. Everybody in the country
wanted him to have it. It didn’t turn out how he would have
liked, but he had to give it a go and do it full-time.
“Paul Bracewell took over but he was always on a bit of a hiding
to nothing because how can you follow Kevin Keegan? It was very
hard for him but he did a good job. In his first year, our first
in Division One, we finished ninth, just off the play-offs on goal
difference, got to the quarter final of the League Cup and lost
to Leicester on penalties, got to the fifth round of the FA Cup,
and yet he got the sack at the end of the season because Al-Fayed
wanted a bigger name manager in.
“Jean Tigana came in that summer and I did the pre-season under
him. I think he’d watched a few of our games towards the end
of the previous season and he just said to me that I was too aggressive
and that he wasn’t the type of player he was looking for which
I found disappointing. But once Birmingham City came in for me,
that wasn’t a problem any more! They bid £2.5million
for me, I wanted to go, I thought it was a great chance for me to
play at another massive club. I didn’t want to be sat on the
sidelines, I wanted to keep on moving forward as a player, playing
regular games.”
The one phrase you can guarantee people will use about Geoff once
they’ve had chance to watch him properly is, “He’s
a better player than I thought he was!” There’s little
question that Tigana’s dismissive comments damaged the public
perception of Horsfield, but he’s philosophical about it all.
“I’m not really bothered about that. He had a certain
style that he wanted to play and he felt I didn’t fit into
it. I was too physical for his kind of game, not too physical full
stop if you know what I mean. He wanted to play somebody like Louis
Saha up front and that was okay, it worked out for Saha who’s
now at Man United, worked out for Fulham who got promoted straight
off while Birmingham lost in the play-offs, so it was good business
for Jean Tigana and Fulham made a hefty profit on me, though I think
that was the least of their worries! Like when I was at Scarborough,
a new manager wants his own players. I wasn’t too bothered
by any of those comments, and the move worked out for me in the
end as well because I played in a cup final and got to the Premier
League, so why worry?”
Read
part two here...
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