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It’s hard to believe now that Kevin Phillips was rejected
as a youngster, told he’d never make the grade and sent packing
back to a normal day job and to non league football. But that was
happened to him down on the south coast when he was a youngster
at Southampton - and this after doing a perfectly good job of cleaning
Alan Shearer’s boots as one of his daily tasks. Those were
the most testing times of his career.
“I was involved with Southampton as a youngster, I was an apprentice
there for a couple of years but they decided that I was going to
make it and they released me, so I was gutted. Through my time there,
I played at right-back. I went there as a centre-forward, got told
I was too small, and they shifted me into defence, which I suppose
was a bit of sign that things weren’t going to go smoothly.
“I think deep down in my heart, I knew I wasn’t going
to get offered a professional contract, but it still doesn’t
prepare you for when the decision comes. Any kid that’s an
apprentice, or a scholar as it is now, you’re there because
your dream is to play professional football.
To have that dream taken away from you as a kid, it really does
knock you about. But you get over it and I went out and got myself
a club at non-league level, Baldock, and then eventually worked
my way back into professional football at 19, 20. Seems a hell of
a long time ago now!
“The big thing when that happens to you is you have to continue
to believe in your own ability. I never gave up hope, but you have
to start doing something else. I came back home from Southampton
and my mom helped me get a job, she worked in the offices at a local
factory and she got me a job there in the warehouse, because you’ve
got to start earning a living after you’ve left the football
club. I sat down with my dad, and started writing letters to clubs,
saying I’d been released and asking if they’d be prepared
to give me a trial. I got no success from that really, just a few
vague promises that never came to anything, so from there, I decided
that the best route back was to go and find a non-league club, play
some games, score some goals and try to get their attention that
way.
“My dad was a big influence on me and we decided non-league
was the route back, scoring goals for Baldock, and I got to a point
where suddenly, there were a lot of scouts coming to watch the games,
so I could sense something was happening. My dad made sure I didn’t
go out on Friday nights before games, so I’d be at my best
the next day. That was harder because it’s tempting to go out
with your mates, but it worked. Eventually Glenn Roeder came along
to see me, he was manager at Watford at the time and he offered
me a week’s trial, and the rest is history as they say. He
offered me a contract which I was delighted with, and that gave
me all the incentive I needed to go on and achieve something.
“Looking back, it was a very long winded route to get back
into football, and obviously, like any kid, I’d have preferred
not to have been released, but I guess in the long run, it probably
didn’t do me any harm. Having to go away and do a “normal”
job, to see how your life could go, if and when you are given a
second chance, you’re just so hungry to grab it, without a
doubt. With the way youth football has gone, there are a lot of
plusses, but at the same time, there’s a lot of young footballers
out there who don’t know what it’s like to do a job in
a factory, getting up at six in the morning, getting home at six
at night. That’s a great experience looking back on it, but
the chance to get away from it was even better! I actually took
a pay cut to join Watford, I was on better money in the day job,
but there was never any doubt that I was going to take their offer.
It does make you appreciate the life you get as a footballer and
appreciate all the things you can achieve in that career. Since
then, I’ve really worked at it, tried to do the right things
and I’ve had a great career out of the game. I’ve appreciated
every second of it because my life could very easily have been completely
different.
“It took a little while to adapt to being at Watford after
non-leagues where you train a couple of nights a week. The big job
to start with was getting my fitness up, but when you’re young,
you’re hungry, you just get through, you do it, you work as
hard as you can. I just wanted to play games but I had to spend
three or four weeks just getting fit, playing reserve games and
then I got my opportunity in the first team.
“I was lucky with how well it went right from the start at
Watford. I signed just before Christmas 1994 and then in the second
half of the season, I got nine goals in 15 games, so I was off and
running, making a bit of a name, the supporters took to me and you
start to feel like you’re on your way. I had a nasty foot injury
while I was there that kept me out for about a year, but my goal
ratio was pretty good at a time when we struggled a bit. Graham
Taylor came in in February ‘96 but it was too late to save
us and we went down to Division Two. I played the following season
where we did ok, but didn’t quite get in the play-off frame
and then I left. But it was great to work with him, and with Glenn
Roeder. I owe Glenn a real debt of gratitude just for giving me
my chance first and foremost, that was the biggest break I ever
got.”
Without a doubt, Roeder’s intervention was the one that put
Phillips on the road to fame and fortune, but it was a move north
that really transformed his career, giving him the platform he needed
to show his qualities on the national stage.
“I came back in for pre-season in 1997 and I got offered a
new contract, but because we’d been relegated, it wasn’t
the best deal and I wanted some time to think about it. Ipswich
came in and made an offer for me, I went to talk to them, virtually
agreed personal terms, but the clubs couldn’t agree a fee.
Somebody was going to a tribunal and you couldn’t have two
players at a tribunal at the same time or something, so I came out
of Ipswich with that news, and sat in the car park with my agent,
talking about what to do next. From out of the blue, we got a phone
call from Peter Reid, asking if I fancied going up to Sunderland.
I had to make the decision on the spot really, but Sunderland seemed
an exciting opportunity, and I decided to go with it. It was probably
the best decision I’ve ever made because I had six fantastic
years up there.
“They’d just moved to the Stadium of Light when I joined
which was a fantastic thing, to be a part of the team in the first
season in that ground. The facilities were terrific, the stadium
is great, we were getting 35,000 people there every week in week
out in the First Division and it was just such an exciting year.
I was lucky, I’d been brought in to score goals and I grabbed
one on my debut and that was a massive weight off my shoulders.
I suppose in a way, there wasn’t that much pressure on me,
certainly not as much as when I went to Southampton, because I was
a bit of an unknown then. It was a case of if it worked out, that
was great, but if it didn’t, so be it. The fee was £325,000,
not a huge amount of money, so it wasn’t as if everything was
riding on me and my contribution in that sense, though obviously
it was vital I scored goals and we did well. If I’d been bought
for £6million, it might have been different, so that helped
in a way, I relaxed, played my own game and went on to score a bagful
of goals for them.”
The most amazing element was the way in which Phillips and Niall
Quinn clicked from the outset, understanding one another’s
game and scoring goals wherever they went. Understandably, Phillips
looks back on those days with great affection.
“It was amazing the way that things just took off for me and
Niall as soon as we started playing together. When I first went
here, Niall was struggling a bit, he had an injury, but once he
was fully fit, we just clicked, it just happened straight away and
we were off scoring goals. At that time, there weren’t may
other “little and large” partnerships around so we probably
were something a bit different and defenders didn’t always
know how to cope with us. You see it a lot more nowadays, partly
as a result of our success I suppose. The down side was I ended
the season with 35 goals and still we didn’t get promoted.
That was hard to take, that final day in the play-offs when we drew
4-4 with Charlton and then lost on penalties. We’d missed automatic
promotion by a point, behind Middlesbrough, but to lose out in the
play-offs was worse still, it was horrible. People have said it
was one of the best games Wembley ever saw, and I suppose it was
nice to be involved in that, to score at Wembley, but that wasn’t
much consolation I can tell you.
“It’s easy to have a hangover after you’ve had a
disappointment like that, it can cloud your pre-season and the way
you start the next one, but we decided we weren’t having any
of that. We came back, and one of the first things we did was to
have a meeting of all the players. We just said we were going to
put last year behind us, forget it, and go and do the same all over
again, get a lot of points, a lot of goals, we had good players
and we felt that if we were right in our attitude, nobody was going
to stop us. As it turned out, it was an unbelievable season, we
just stormed the league, 105 points, promotion was never really
in doubt, and that really set us up for two or three great seasons
in the Premier League.”
That truly was a golden season for Kevin because his goalscoring
feats not only got his side promoted, it got him a special call-up
too, to the England side.
“For me personally, getting the chance to play for England
was a fantastic thing, especially as I was playing in Division One
at the time. Michael Gray got a call up as well and I think that
was the first time anybody had been called up for their debut from
that division in ages. There had been rumours going around that
we had a chance, but when the moment actually came, it was such
a massive thing. I didn’t believe it because I wasn’t
in the Premier League, hadn’t played in the Premier league
even. But I was lucky, I got the phone call when I was actually
doing an interview live on Sky Sports, so they captured it on camera
which is something great to look back on.
“That was Kevin Keegan’s side, and people have said that
the way I played with Niall was a bit like the partnership he had
with John Toshack in his playing days. I never really saw that because
I was only 3 or 4 at the time, but I’ve seen tapes and things
since on television. Keegan was always somebody I really admired
when he came back to England later on in his career after he’d
been in Germany, he was a small player like I was. I’ve always
had people knocking me through my career for not being tall enough,
but it just goes to show that if you work hard at your game and
if you’ve got some ability, you can find a way to succeed.
“It was hard to really get a run in that team. Alan Shearer
did dominate up front for England and so Kevin Keegan was always
looking for someone to play alongside him. Michael Owen was coming
on the scene as well, so there were a few strikers like myself and
Andy Cole who didn’t get the opportunity to play as many games
as we needed. When I look back, yes, I was delighted and incredibly
proud to play for England, to put that shirt on, but it’s tinged
with disappointment because when I look back, at the time I was
flying with Sunderland in the Premier League, I didn’t get
a run of games that I’d have liked to try and establish myself
at that level, to get a first goal and build on that. Most of my
England appearances were ten minutes here, fifteen minutes there
and that makes it hard to really show what you’re about. So
it is tinged with a little bit of sadness but at the same time,
there are thousands of kids out there who would want to do what
I’ve done, so I’m not going to sit and cry about it.”
Given the ever increasing pace of the game, any player who reaches
the wrong side of 30 needs to be particularly careful with their
fitness, taking care of diet, training, getting the right amount
of rest and recuperation after games. But while there are obvious
physical issues to address, perhaps the key issue lies in a player’s
mentality, his hunger to continue, his ambition, his drive to succeed
and his willingness to make the increasing sacrifices after having
already played at the highest level and got the t-shirts that go
with it.
Phillips sets himself high standards, demands the best from himself
and has made the necessary changes to his game to ensure that he
can still be a significant force up front. He views his career as
an ongoing process, part of his constantly unfolding evolution as
a footballer.
“I’ve been in the pro game a good while now, and obviously
I’m a different player now, at 33, to the player I was when
I went to Watford at 21, I’ve learned the game, I’ve added
things to it and as you get older, you need to adapt a bit. I’ve
made mistakes along the way, because when it comes down to it, my
strength is scoring goals. I’ve scored over 200 senior goals
now, that’s my trade. I went through a phase in the last year
or so at Sunderland and then early on at Southampton where I probably
played too deep because I wanted to get more involved in the game.
I think my hold up play improved as a result but looking back, I
think I should have ditched that and probably carried on trying
to get behind defences and score goals. But sometimes, you have
to sacrifice one bit of your game for the good of the team, because
of the side you’re in, the players you’re playing with.
I think in the last four or five years, my all round game has come
on leaps and bounds compared with the player I was when I first
went to Sunderland.”
It was at the Stadium of Light that Kevin Phillips really made his
name, scoring the goals that fired them to promotion and which then
helped them thrive in the Premier League. They were pretty heady
days on Wearside.
“With Sunderland, once we did get up, we established ourselves
in the Premier League pretty much straight away, because we could
always score goals. I had a few great season there, scoring 20 plus
goals a year, Niall Quinn weighed in with his goals, we scored from
midfield, so we always had a chance of winning games. A lot of teams
that get promoted, they’re very solid, they can defend well,
but they can’t score enough goals and with the quality of opposition
there is at that level, you find yourself having played well but
losing 1-0.”
well up the table those first few seasons and then suddenly, it
just went off the boil. The first season we finished seventh which
could have been a one off, but then we went and did it again the
second season, and then we looked like we might be on the verge
of really breaking through. Sunderland is a big club, no question
about it. They’ve got fantastic support, great stadium, and
there were a lot of things going for it as a club.
“But that summer, after finishing so high up, we all thought
we’d be bringing in some big players but, for whatever reason,
we didn’t add the quality that we needed to kick on. I don’t
know if it was a question of finances, whether the manager thought
he already had enough with what players were already there, but
we didn’t really make that move, we didn’t progress. We
only needed two or three players, just to strengthen the squad,
a little bit of extra quality, a bit of depth, more competition
for places. If we’d done that, I think we’d have been
fine, we could have maybe really challenged for Europe, that kind
of thing, perhaps we could have gone on as the likes of Bolton have
done. But it never happened, and it fell away. A few players got
a bit disheartened, a few wanted to move on, and, from out of nowhere,
things suddenly started to go downhill and that third season, we
were only one place above relegation. That was sad because we had
added another tier to the stadium, we were getting 40,000 people
in regularly and everything was in place to really mark a mark in
the Premier League, but it all just dwindled away which was massively
disappointing.
“When
we did get relegated the following year, it was a huge blow and
I felt really sorry for the supporters. It is a massive club and
I had some great times there. That’s why it was so disappointing
to get the kind of stick I got up there when we went to Sunderland
in August. I know what the supporters are like, they’re very
passionate about the game and their club. I think it was probably
a bit raw because it was only a week or so since I’d chosen
to come to Albion instead of going back to Sunderland, so I guess
it was all a reaction to that. I think things have calmed down a
bit now and they respect the fact that my decision wasn’t a
snub to them, it was just that this was a better option for me in
terms of my family. I’ve got kids at school, I didn’t
want to move them, so Albion was a perfect choice. On top of that,
the quality of the squad we had here was a very exciting thing to
be a part of, I felt, and still do feel, that Albion had a better
collection of players, and that was the decision I came to. I expected
it up there, but I think we buried the hatchet so to speak when
they came down here and sung my name when I come off a few weeks
back. That was nice because as with any player, if you’ve had
a long time at a club and had some good times there, you want to
be able to have a good relationship with them.”
When
Sunderland were relegated, a few economic chickens came home to
roost, and there were immediate and stringent cutbacks. In addition,
money had to be raised from other sources and it was no great surprise
when they accepted a bid for Kevin’s services from a Premier
League club. Having let him leave for nothing as a kid, Southampton
had to find £3.25million to bring him back again. Returning
to the south coast probably exorcised a few ghosts, but it was also
a move that surprised Kevin.
“When
we did get relegated, Southampton came in for me and like going
to Sunderland in the first place, that was a bolt out of the blue
as well. A few clubs were interested, Sunderland obviously had a
lot of financial problems after getting relegated, so it was clear
that I was going to have to move on. I went down to see Gordon Strachan,
I had a long chat with him. He impressed me, I was excited by the
way he saw me playing alongside James Beattie, so I made the move.
“We
were in the UEFA Cup that first season which was a really exciting
prospect for me, but we were a bit unfortunate and went out to Steaua
Bucharest. I scored in the home tie, a 1-1 draw, the first Southampton
player in a long, long time to score in a European tie which was
a nice thing to have a taste of. It would have been great to go
a bit further but we lost 1-0 out in Bucharest, they scored late
in the game to kill it off, but it was something that I’m pleased
I did in my career.
“People
look at footballers and if you’re at the top of the game, you
get to play games in Germany, in France, in South America maybe,
people think it’s so glamorous. I’m not complaining because
we travel in comfort and all of that, but I can promise you, we
don’t see anything other than an airport, a hotel and a football
ground! Generally, if it’s in Europe, you fly out the day before
the game, maybe do a bit of training, back into the hotel, early
night, play the next day and then straight back to the airport.
You’re there to do a job, not to have a holiday or go sightseeing.
It’s a little bit different if you’ve gone away for a
week for pre-season, you get a bit more free time then, but again,
usually you’re away in some hotel complex so you don’t
see a huge amount then either.”
Things
started strongly for Kevin at Southampton, but he and the rest of
the team found themselves quickly caught up in a chaotic situation
as managers came and went, seemingly on a week to week basis, creating
an understandably sour mood among supporters that spilled over into
attacks on the players.
“I’ve
been heavily criticised at Southampton about the way I left and
that kind of thing, but I’ve got to say, over my time there
my goal ratio was one every two starts, I enjoyed my time there,
it’s a lovely part of the world to live, and I was very committed
to the club. Some people said that I never wanted to join, but that
was nonsense. You can’t be a lot more committed to something
than moving literally from one end of the country to the other.
You don’t do that on the spur of the moment. In the end, it
was a frustrating time, disappointing, because things didn’t
pan out as any of us had anticipated. Gordon Strachan left part
way through my first season, there was a lot of uncertainty about
the place, Steve Wigley took over, Paul Sturrock came in and got
sacked, Steve Wigley was put back in charge, then Harry Redknapp
came in later on from Portsmouth with all the fuss that that caused,
and that season ended in relegation, which summed up the way that
last year or so went.
“I
think from the point where Gordon said he was going to leave at
the end of the season, that was when things started to get difficult
for everybody. He announced it in January I think and everything
started to spiral down a bit from there. I was really disappointed
by that because he was one of the main reasons that I’d gone
down there in the first place, that and the chance to play alongside
James Beattie because I thought we were going to be a good partnership
up front. Gordon was on his way within a few months, James left
midway through the next season, it became all a bit of a struggle
and I’d seen that kind of thing happen at Sunderland where
there was a change of manager, where it wasn’t really settled,
where there was a lot of uncertainty, and that transmits itself
onto the field. That was a big factor in us ending up getting relegated
a couple of years ago.
“Pretty
much like Sunderland had, they needed to think about the finances
a bit and I think everybody was pleased when Villa came in for me,
because it put an end to a spell that just hadn’t worked out
for anybody to be honest. Playing at Aston Villa gave m another
crack at the Premier League but I had a few injuries last season
and I didn’t really get a run of games going. Then like Southampton,
off the field things started to interfere, whether or not Doug Ellis
was going to sell, whether David O’Leary was staying. It was
another awkward season and then when Martin O’Neill came in,
it was obvious he wanted to change things around. Fair enough, that’s
the nature of the game.
“Being
offered the chance to come here was really exciting. When I joined,
I felt it was a great opportunity. I’m 33 and I’m going
to give this a real go, try to score a lot of goals and help us
get promoted. That ambition hasn’t changed and the opportunity
is still definitely there for us. As you get older, you have to
work that bit harder, fitness is a bit harder to maintain, you have
to look after yourself more and I think I’ve done that. I had
a quiet spell leading up to the game against Crystal Palace, but
I scored in that game and now hopefully I can go on a run to the
end of the season. It’s a long season, especially in this division,
and maybe that took a bit of a toll on me in March, but the international
break came at a nice time, we’ve had chance to recharge the
batteries a little bit, and hopefully that’ll stand us in good
stead going forward.
“We’ve
played some great football this season, we were the best in the
division in January and February and I suppose it’s inevitable
that you have a little dip sometimes as we did in March. This is
the part of the season where it really counts and I think that the
people we have here are the sort of players that will respond to
that challenge and will get the result we need on Sunday to get
us into the play-offs. From there, it’s anybody’s game.
It’s as much a mental test as a football one and it’s
down to who can hold their nerve when they need to. I’ve got
a lot of belief in the players we have here, so if we’re in
the mix, I think we can have a big say in it all.”
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