Weâre going to do it
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Padraic Maher is a Leeds fan
Prince Andrew is also a Leeds fan
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Fully deserved
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Lee Bowyer allowed himself to linger, just for a while, on fond recollections of his playing days.
The talk down at Charlton Athleticâs Sparrows Lane training ground had turned to Leeds United, the club he had joined in his teens and where his career so flourished, ahead of a reunion this Saturday.
âThe memories I share with them are something very special,â he said, thoughts drifting back to European runs and those heady days spent in a young, vibrant side near the Premier Leagueâs summit. âI gave everything for that club over seven seasons after joining from Charlton so, at the end of the game, Iâll acknowledge their fans and show them the respect they showed me for so many years. They retain a big place in my heart. And theyâre the best team in the league, and should have gone up last season.â
Yet apart from that wave to an appreciative away support, crammed into the distant Jimmy Seed stand, Bowyerâs focus will be elsewhere. He is relishing the tactical challenge of taking on the decorated Marcelo Bielsa and, post-match, intends to invite the Argentinean into his office to sponge any advice he can from a figure who has spent over four decades in the game.
âIâll definitely ask him how the hell heâs got his team so fit,â he added. âThe running we do⌠our lads end up lying on the floor in bits, so Iâd love to know what they do, or the type of running he puts them through.â
Bowyerâs own senior coaching career extends to a mere 18 months, with a desire to learn from more experienced managers an admission his education to life in the dug-out is ongoing. But, with Charlton having mustered the best start of any promoted team in the second tier since 2011, the 42-year-old is already making a favourable impression back at the club where it all began for him, and in a corner of south-east London that has long been yearning for positives upon which to cling.
His has been a colourful journey to this point. Here, The Athletic charts the progression of Lee Bowyer: the player, as he establishes a new reputation â as Lee Bowyer: the managerâŚ
BOWYER THE PLAYER: PART ONE
Senrab Football Club pride themselves on the fact that they have produced enough England players to fill a full international team. It is no exaggeration. Founded in 1961 in the East End of London, Senrabâs famous alumni go back to the start, from Ray Wilkins to John Terry and on to Jermain Defoe.
âWe can reel a list of them off,â says Sharon Bennett, the clubâs secretary for the past five years, and Lee Bowyer makes it, just, by virtue of the one and only England game he played in. That single cap â enough in most instances to make a footballer smile â represents something very different for Bowyer; lost opportunities and a time in his life when he was on the outside looking in, a renowned black sheep.
Paul Mortimer was a team-mate of Bowyerâs at Charlton, on the scene as he took his first steps as a professional in the 1990s, and thinks the complexity of his career and personal life robbed England of one of the finer midfielders of that era. âI get that there were reasons for what went on,â Mortimer told The Athletic , âbut as a footballer, purely as a footballer, heâs someone this country should have celebrated. He should have played international football for years, or far more than he did. Itâs what I thought heâd do.â
Everyone who speaks about Bowyer separates the player and the man; or more truthfully, the athlete and the very real flaws which peppered his CV and his reputation.
It seems to Mortimer that Bowyer was born at the wrong time, that if Bowyer was a Premier League player now, football would find ways of controlling any âdemonsâ and managing him better. âOn the pitch was fine, he was like a mature adult, but at Charlton, he was a kid off the pitch,â Mortimer says, and some who got close to Bowyer agree that growing up was not his strength.
Bowyer turned professional with Charlton in 1994, his first club after outgrowing Senrab. Mortimer says he was a quiet boy â a word which, in spite of his track record, comes up repeatedly â and his progression into the first-team squad did not separate him from the academy completely. Mortimer says Bowyer preferred to âknock around with the lads his own ageâ and, as far as Alan Curbishleyâs squad were concerned, he was never a nuisance.
There were problems, though, and Bowyer was banned for eight weeks by the Football Association after testing positive for cannabis in 1995. The FA dropped him from Englandâs under-18 squad, a portent of things to come.
âHe had his scrapes, and I know that carried on after Charlton,â Mortimer says. âBut if weâre talking football, he was precocious and intelligent. Some of what he did was so good it made us laugh, like the training session where he scored from halfway, just like that. His confidence was funny.â
Bowyer was so accomplished that the players around him were quietly urging Curbishley to give him a go before he ever did. Bowyer once recalled how âCurbs didnât really want to play me because I was young.â
âCurbs always liked to take a breath before doing these things,â Mortimer says. âThat was just his way. But there was a clamour from us for Lee to get his chance. You couldnât see what he was doing in training and not want him to play.â
Bowyer had two years at Charlton but was always bound to leave before long. They were viewed as a selling club â Scott Minto went to Chelsea in the summer when Bowyer broke through â and Leeds, in 1996, had money to play with. The takeover by the Caspian group gave Howard Wilkinson an estimated ÂŁ12 million and almost ÂŁ3 million of it was thrown at signing Bowyer. Wilkinson likened him to Denis Law. âHeâs the best young player Iâve seen in a long time,â the Leeds boss said.
Tony Dorigo, Leedsâ left back when Bowyerâs transfer went through, knew next to nothing about him. The Bowyer who turned up was a slight, skinny 19-year-old with a schoolboyâs face but a âsteely determination in his eyesâ and pre-season was when Dorigo saw the trait which would define Bowyer at the peak of his time with Leeds: the stamina needed to run and run until defenders were begging him to stop.
âThe thing that stuck out about him was the style of his running,â Dorigo says. âHe had this loping style, which made it look like he wasnât really trying. Or, I suppose, to put it differently, like it wasnât taking any effort. Like he didnât need to try.
âIn that pre-season, Iâd be getting a long way into some of the runs and thinking, âIâm absolutely knackered.â Heâd be beside me looking like he could run all day. Itâs demoralising in pre-season, I can tell you that, but on the pitch, youâd kill for a player like him. Theyâre the guys you look for when things are getting difficult.â
Dominic Matteo, another Elland Road colleague, spoke to The Athletic about Bowyer last month, recalling his love of âBudweiser and fagsâ and describing him as âsix stone wetâ. Bowyer was skin and bone but made for the Premier League, a London lad who thrived on the cut and thrust. âThereâs this image of him as a player who put his foot in,â Dorigo says, and it should not be forgotten that Bowyer amassed 100 yellow cards in the Premier League, âbut anyone who focuses on that is missing the technical aspects of his game. My early thoughts were, âHeâs a bit special.ââ
Within months of signing for Leeds, Bowyer was fined ÂŁ4,500 by a court in London after abusing staff and throwing chairs in a McDonaldâs on the Isle of Dogs. There were accusations Bowyer also used racist language but the prosecution did not argue that the offence was racially aggravated. He pleaded guilty to affray and was told by the magistrate that he might have been jailed. Leeds, who also fined him, were already warning Bowyer that any more trouble could spell the end of his time there.
In the meantime, Wilkinson was sacked a short while after welcoming Bowyer and in his final game as manager, a 4-0 thrashing by Manchester United, Bowyer suffered a detached retina when the ball smacked him in the face.
George Graham succeeded Wilkinson and, while parts of Grahamâs management had a lasting effect on Bowyer the coach, his marriage to defensive football was no showcase for Bowyer the footballer. What would define him as a player, and define him as a public personality, was the appointment of David OâLeary in 1998; a brave new era in which Bowyer became one of the leading acts.
BOWYER THE PLAYER: PART TWO
Bowyer and Leeds United is a book in itself and towards the end of OâLearyâs tenure, in a move which upset his dressing room and severely weakened his authority, the Irishman wrote one.
Even that did not cover half of what went on; how Bowyer ducked out of a ÂŁ9 million transfer to Liverpool after getting cold feet halfway through his medical, how he rejected a five-year contract extension at the club who supported him through a more serious criminal case, or how he quit, finally, and joined West Ham United for a pitiful, nominal fee.
What OâLeary did write about, and what Bowyer inspires memories of, was the Champions League season of 2000-01, the unforeseen magic of the football and the damage done by the court proceedings which went on around it. Leeds became a circus, entertaining by night but all over the front pages during the day, a PR nightmare. And yet, in the thick of it all, Bowyer threw in the season of his career, perhaps the best individual season Leeds have witnessed in a generation.
The charges brought against him and defender Jonathan Woodgate, over an attack on an Asian student in Leeds in January 2000, had profoundly different effects on the pair. One of their former team-mates, who agreed to speak to The Athletic anonymously, remembers a shaken Woodgate looking like he had âlost two stone overnight, pale and thin. It hit him like a train.â Woodgate hardly kicked a ball while either the original trial or a retrial were ongoing.
âWith Lee, it was totally different. Iâd go as far as saying I donât think it affected him at all. The lads didnât speak about it (the court case) much in the dressing room, even though it was everywhere. And I mean everywhere . It was on every TV channel and in all the papers. But Lee just carried on. I donât know how. Sometimes footballâs your get-out, isnât it? The football probably let him escape.â
Bowyer and Woodgate were tried at Hull Crown Court and Peter Ridsdale, Leedsâ chairman, arranged for Bowyer to be chauffeured to night games in midweek. On occasions, a helicopter was hired to allow the midfielder to play on the days when proceedings would have made his inclusion impossible.
âIt was strange at first,â says Eirik Bakke, another of Leedsâ midfielders at the time. âHeâd turn up in a helicopter for some of the games but, over time, you got used to that. It became normal, if that makes sense. From a footballing perspective, we were happy about it because he was a big player for us, so we wanted him in the team.
âWe all tried our best to support him in that period. We didnât know how the court case would end or what had really happened but while it was going on, they were our team-mates. We stood by them. But Lee always seemed strong in his mind about it. He was a strong-minded player, even when he trained. He didnât mind fighting other players in training. I can think of a couple of times when the manager had to pull him out of it to stop someone getting a broken nose.â
Bakke, who now coaches Sogndal in Norway, told The Athletic that he got an insight into Bowyerâs upbringing when he went on a night out with the midfielder in east London. That was Bowyerâs manor, the Teviot Estate in Poplar, where he grew up. It was tough there, mostly white and working class, and Bowyer always held on to his roots.
âWeâd had a game in London and afterwards, me and Dom (Matteo) went for some drinks with him,â Bakke says. âHe took us back to where he grew up, to meet some of his mates in the pubs he drank in, and it was easy to see why he was a tough lad with a tough mind. Thatâs how he was brought up, I think. He fought for things then and itâs the way heâs always been.â
When the trial involving them ended, Woodgate was found guilty of affray but Bowyer was cleared of all charges. Bowyer later paid ÂŁ170,000 to settle a civil case brought by the target of the attack in 2000, Sarfraz Najeib, but accepted no liability for Najeibâs injuries (Najeib suffered a fractured leg, cheekbone and nose. He was also bitten on the face). Leeds and Ridsdale supported the pair rigidly throughout â some felt too rigidly, or in a way which ignored the seriousness of the charges â but at the trialâs conclusion imposed a fine of four weeksâ wages on them for a breach of club discipline (in effect, a punishment for drinking alcohol on the night of the attack).
Bowyer refused to pay and was transfer-listed. The following evening, December 19, 2001, he cast a lengthy shadow over a 3-2 win over Everton, watching from the Elland Road gantry having been dropped from the squad. The crowd chanted in support of him and paid little attention to a ÂŁ13 million Robbie Fowler scoring his first Leeds goals. Ridsdale, not for the first time, was cast as the villain.
Were the players more sympathetic with Bowyer or the club? âIt was difficult for us,â Bakke says. âIt was a hard time with so much going on and you have to say that the club did a lot to support him. Maybe it was wrong to fine him or maybe Lee thought it was wrong. But there was so much happening that most of us just tried to concentrate on the games. The rest was completely out of our control.â
For the duration of the court case, the FA banned Bowyer and Woodgate from England duty. Bowyer felt, and has since said, that the FAâs stance only seemed to apply to him, that other footballers in similar circumstances were treated differently. It would be hard for the FA to argue. Bowyer would win only one cap, in a 2002 friendly against Portugal. âIâd assume the FA was trying to avoid any embarrassment,â says Bowyerâs old team-mate. âBut was it more about him being the wrong player or maybe the wrong club? Iâve always wondered that.â
None of it prevented Bowyer from acting like a force of nature in the Champions League. He scored six times, played box-to-box from the right side of midfield, and made himself look like one of the best footballers in Europe. It became the story of a campaign which took Leeds to the semi-finals and eventual defeat in Valencia. âHe never played better than that,â Bakke says. âYou talk about players giving 110 per cent and itâs a cliche, we all know that. But with him, in that season, it was probably true.â At the end of it, Leeds named him as their player of the year.
Even the delights of Europe could not pass off peacefully. After the first leg of Unitedâs semi-final, a 0-0 draw at home to Valencia, Bowyer was cited for an alleged stamp on Juan Sanchez and banned for three games. UEFA called it an âassaultâ but Leeds protested bitterly, crushed by the thought of losing Bowyer for the return leg at the Mestalla, and insisted that the coming together was an accident.
Bowyer in action against Valencia (Photo: Odd Andersen/AFP/Getty Images)
Bakke, to a point, was the beneficiary of the suspension. OâLeary brought him into his line-up but in doing so, overloaded his team with three central midfielders. Leeds were outplayed and lost 3-0.
âYou had me, Olivier Dacourt and David Batty in there, with me on the right,â Bakke says. âI wanted to play but I wasnât good on the right. We missed something on the night and if Lee had played, there would have been a bigger chance. I canât deny that.â
Bowyer was never quite the same and neither were Leeds. Bit by bit, his popularity drained as it became clear that Bowyer was leaving and in January 2003, West Ham got him for only ÂŁ100,000. He blamed Ridsdale for the separation and claimed their relationship was beyond repair. Ridsdale was quoted as saying that he would not have signed Bowyer if he had known what he knew in hindsight.
The question as he went was whether anyone would see the best of Bowyer again.
BOWYER THE PLAYER: PART THREE
There were other Premier League clubs who wanted what Leeds had cultivated, albeit Bowyer the player rather than Bowyer the off-field headache. He went through Newcastle United, Birmingham City and Ipswich Town after West Ham but his star was fading, a footballer on the way down. It is often forgotten that when he and Leeds parted company, Bowyer was only 26.
Controversy was less willing to subside and there was time left for another career-defining flashpoint, the brawl with Kieron Dyer which, even now, provokes incredulous reactions in those who witnessed it.
Bowyer and Dyer were Newcastle team-mates and, it turned out, good friends but in April 2005, a team going nowhere under Graham Souness trailed 3-0 to Aston Villa at home and were desperate to get to full-time. St Jamesâ Park was on the edge.
According to Dyerâs version of events, Bowyer twice asked for the ball from him and twice saw Dyer pass to someone else. Bowyer began complaining and Dyer responded by telling him he was âshitâ. Match of the Day footage captured the pair having words as they run out of shot.
As a ball forward dropped over them, Bowyer walked up to Dyer and went head to head with him. Bowyer threw the first punch and Dyer responded, grappling near the halfway live. Villa captain Gareth Barry ran in and dragged Bowyer away, his No 29 shirt ripped. Stephen Carr got Dyer by the neck and pulled him in the opposite direction. Souness stood speechless on the touchline, ready to kill them.
Bowyer and Dyer clash against Aston Villa (Photo: Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images)
Both were sent off by referee Barry Knight but the blame fell on Bowyer, who was convicted of threatening behaviour by Newcastle Magistrates Court. He was fined ÂŁ600 plus costs. Newcastle considered sacking him but relented and fined him a further six weeksâ wages, totalling more than ÂŁ100,000. Dyer failed with an appeal to the FA against his red card but was essentially exonerated.
Steven Taylor had the distinction of being the first of three Newcastle players sent off by Knight that day, for the most blatant handball as Darius Vassell tried to stab a shot over the line. He was in the dressing room reflecting on his dismissal when, with eight minutes of the game to go, Bowyer and Dyer walked in and sat down on separate benches.
âI was there by myself, I got a shower and got my shirt on, and the next thing I know, those two come in,â Taylor told The Athletic . âIt had started a little bit in training the day before and it obviously carried into the game. In the dressing room they were still going backwards and forwards. Lee had his shirt ripped and the security guards were pulling them apart. They wouldnât shut up.
âWhen they first came in I thought, âLeeâs had a bust-up with one of the Villa players and Kieronâs helped him outâ â until I started hearing some graphic words. I went into the playersâ lounge, watched what had happened and said to myself, âThis has taken the pressure right off me!â
âBut the next day they were having breakfast together. That was the crazy thing. It was heat-of-the-moment stuff and they actually got on really well. But things werenât going well for Newcastle and it showed.â
Souness hung Bowyer and Dyer out to dry by ordering them to answer questions at the post-match press conference. They fronted up and looked suitably sheepish. âAlan Shearer and Souness went absolutely bananas,â Taylor says. âI went up to Al and said, âListen, Iâve got to apologise to youâ. (Souness) said: âForget that â you two, Lee and Kieron, get yourselves in the press room and explain yourselves.ââ
Football, for years, painted Bowyer as the polar opposite of a successful manager, too volatile and ill-disciplined to control or inspire a dressing room. Yet Charlton are finding him to be astute and switched on and his early work as a coach has not gone unnoticed in Leeds. They admire him at Elland Road and Taylor is not surprised at all.
âWhen he was at Newcastle I thought he would go into coaching. Heâs a very good talker. He was always talking to us â what he expects, what you should be. He was very good with us young lads,â he says.
âI played against Charlton for Peterborough (before Bowyer took charge) and they were nothing like what they are now. Heâs a phenomenal force and thatâs why theyâre doing so well.
âHeâs a winner. Some of the tackles he put in in training, Iâve still got stud marks on my shin now. Thatâs just Lee Bowyer. If you nutmegged him once, heâd tell you itâs your first and last time. He put it in your mind and youâd think, âIâm not doing that againâ. But when it came to him though, heâs âmegging everyone.â
Could things have been different for Bowyer the footballer? Or was his temperament bound to come at the cost of the chances which were sacrificed? Mortimer, his one-time team-mate, is unsure.
âIâm not making excuses or defending things you shouldnât defend but I think football would have handled him differently now,â he says. âWhen he was young and there were things going on heâd have had more chance of addressing them in todayâs culture. Thatâs how I see it.â
It would be cheap to ask where it all went wrong for Bowyer when memories of Europe still echo in Leeds. But his was not the career it might have been.
BOWYER THE MANAGER
The numbers alone expose the Bowyer Effect. Charlton have already sold 20,000 tickets for Saturdayâs visit of Leeds, guaranteeing them their biggest gate to date of this term, and anticipate a walk-up which could push the attendance closer to the 25,000 who were at the League One play-off semi-final second leg against Doncaster Rovers in May. The majority had squirmed through proceedings that night, the agony prolonged into extra-time, but they need not have fretted.
As was proved at Wembley nine days later, the management had everything under control.
At first glance, that this club should suddenly feel resurgent is incongruous. The kindest way of assessing the fanbaseâs relationship with the ownership would be to suggest they are tolerating the current status quo. Roland Duchatelet will never be welcome in these parts and Charlton, one of a quartet of teams in the Belgianâs portfolio, remain up for sale. All the familiar, grim issues that have blighted them for over five years rumble on in the background; proper progress will have to wait for regime change.
But in the context of a club where protest has become the norm, whether it has been plastic pigs or crisp packets raining down from the stands, or supporters marching on the Belgian embassy in Londonâs Belgravia seeking answers, Bowyerâs presence has been restorative. Even reassuring. He had delivered his wilder moments as a player, but the rookie manager has become a voice of sanity at The Valley.
âIt helped that heâs a Charlton lad, which meant we had the crowd on our side from the moment he took over,â said Johnnie Jackson, a veteran of 279 appearances for the club who was appointed Bowyerâs assistant once he took the reins. âBefore that, the fans had fallen a bit out of love with the team. Perhaps they couldnât relate to them. We needed to get them back on side and give them a team they could be proud of.
âThat was the first thing we did, recruiting the right types, all based on hard work, work ethic, intensity. That is the minimum requirement we want. Lee wonât accept anything less than that. We can accept lads making mistakes or having bad games, of course, but nothing less than 100 per cent effort. The fans want that: itâs a working-class, south London club, and they want to see a team giving their all for the badge. They want to see honest lads out there giving their all. Weâve delivered that so far.â
What makes their promotion and progress all the more remarkable is that Bowyer, whose playing career had fizzled out with relegation at Birmingham and a year in the Championship at Ipswich, had never envisaged returning to the game. He was through with football. Done with it all. The boy from Canning Town had ventured over to France and bought a 12-acre plot of land in Champagne-Ardenne which included two tree-lined lakes called La Fritterie, renamed it Etang de Bows (Bowâs Lake) and turned a longstanding love of carp fishing into a business. For three years, that had been enough.
Then came a request to help out his former Leeds team-mate, Harry Kewell, with Watfordâs under-23s and, over a six-week uncontracted spell on the coaching staff, all the old cravings returned. The busy hubbub of the training ground, the thrill of a match day, the adrenaline rush after a win, the thanks received from parents for the visible improvements his coaching had made on their sons: he was hooked once more.
It was Karl Robinson who brought him back to Charlton for two days a week to oversee the development of a crop of promising young midfielders, mentoring Joe Aribo and Ezri Konsa over âthe right times to make runs, the little triggers that should go offâ. That pair are now at Rangers and Brentford respectively. His influence can similarly be seen in the subsequent progress made by loanees such as West Hamâs Josh Cullen and Krystian Bielik, now at Derby. When Robinson left for Oxford United, it was as if Bowyer had sleep-walked into full-time football management.
He has reinvented himself from the snarling midfielder of his playing days in the period since.
âHeâs very detailed in his approach, very diligent studying opposition, and loves the tactical side of it all â coming up with different formations for certain opponents,â said Jackson. âHeâs a very good man-manager, knows the right time to put an arm round the player or give him a kick up the backside. Heâs not afraid to do that â if itâs needed at half-time or full-time â but never to excess. Heâs only lost his rag on the odd occasion, and only then when itâs been warranted. Heâs aware that overkill of that style can have a negative effect. Use of the hairdryer hasnât been over the top. He has a good feel for what needs to be said at certain times. His instinct is usually right.â
The mantra has always been collective responsibility. He demands feverish work-rate and has plucked attributes from all those managers under whom he served, an illustrious list, and used them to make his own impact.
He has cited the tactical acumen of Terry Venables and Sir Bobby Robson, their shadow play in preparation for specific opposition, their ability to judge the right time to lighten the mood or demand greater focus, and the way they protected the side in public after setbacks. There was a defeat at Rochdale early last season which might have had Bowyer: the playerâs instincts screaming to tear into his side, âbut I thought about Terry and took a step backâ. He felt the same about last weekendâs loss to Wigan Athletic, a second successive defeat to check momentum after a fine start to the campaign, âbut itâs been once in 18 months that weâve played that poorly, so I can allow them that.â
He pointed to OâLearyâs man-management skills as âexceptionalâ and key to âeking the best out of Mark Vidukaâ at Leeds. And then there was Graham, who had replaced Wilkinson at the helm at Elland Road shortly after his arrival back in the summer of 1996. âGeorge set about making us work hard as a team at Leeds, and Iâm the same with my lads here,â he said. âYou canât play with individuals. You have to play as a group.
âGeorge left me out. I was just getting forward, trying to score, and wasnât really doing the defensive side of the game. So he said, âYou ainât playing until you track back, tackle, help out. Basically until youâre better for the team.â He left me out for eight weeks, but I benefited. Thatâs what I do with my players. If youâre not prepared to put in a shift for the team, then you donât play. Thatâs what I drill into them. Team first.
âEverything boils down to hard work. Itâs not just about me, or the goalie, or (the forward) Lyle Taylor. Itâs about what we do as a group. I can say whatever I want but, unless they trust and respect me, they wonât give me what I want. Weâre as one here. We respect each other. If thereâs anything on their mind, they can come and speak to me and we have man-to-man or group conversations. They know Iâm firm but fair and treat them all the same, and all with respect.â
He and a small staff â Jackson, goalkeeping coach Andy Marshall, head of performance analysis Brett Shaw, head of recruitment Steve Gallen â are of a similar age and socialise together off the pitch. They have taken to spending Friday nights on the eve of away matches brainstorming over a meal in the team hotel. âItâs an open forum, talking about football, with Lee happy for everyone to throw ideas around,â said Jackson. âThatâs when we get a lot of our informal discussion done. Itâs a real open-door policy and everyone has their input. He encourages that massively. Weâre all learning off the cuff. But, considering we were all thrown together, itâs almost unique how brilliantly itâs all knitted.â
That said, his own invite to Etang de Bows must still be in the post.
There has been self-analysis as well, not least after the League One play-off campaign in 2018 culminated in anti-climax and disappointment. The staff were intent on learning from the mistakes made that spring â the timing of substitutions, when to rotate a squad to freshen up weary limbs, the tactical approach to certain matches â with their success last term evidence of improvement.
In truth, Bowyer will always struggle with losing. âWhether Iâm playing tennis or golf, or managing this team, I have to win,â he added. âThatâs the same mentality Iâve tried to instil here â that winningâs everything. We had a good taste of that last year, and at the start of this season as well. Weâre realists about what we can achieve. Talk of promotion is ridiculous. But we work, we work, and we see where that takes us.â
Now for Leeds, the âbest team in the divisionâ, a packed house and a reunion where victory might feel that little bit sweeter still.
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Outstanding read.
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I used to love Oliver Dacourt as a youngster, delighted to read that he is an alright sort.
âWhen I was at Everton my neighbour was Gerry Marsden. Do you know Gerry? We were good friends. We spent time together. Sometimes he would take me out to Wales to shoot⌠those little discs.â
Gerry Marsden is Gerry from Gerry and the Pacemakers and those little discs are the targets used in clay pigeon shooting. This is Olivier Dacourt, talking at Le Royal Monceau hotel in Paris, and what else would he have been doing in his spare time at Everton than clay pigeon shooting with Mr Ferry âCross the Mersey in Wales? An hour with Dacourt is plenty of time to pick his brain, and straight away you know itâs going to be good.
Dacourt loves to reminisce and the memories are what he values most about his career, the best links to the times football gave him. He has been asked many times to publish an autobiography but cannot see the point. Nothing he writes will convey the emotion, he says, or do justice to his experience. âYou donât touch people with a book. You touch people with what you do. I prefer to feel things in my heart, not to write about them.â
He has lots to talk about and in the swanky surroundings of Le Royal Monceau, a five-star hotel where piano music tinkles in the background and the restaurant drips with high-end fashion labels, he is happy to tell it all: his true feelings about Terry Venables, his love-hate relationship with Jose Mourinho, what three years at Leeds United did to him and his thoughts on the virus of racism in football.
âIâve heard someone say once that youâre not the son of your father but the son of the time you live in,â Dacourt says. âThe time you live in is what makes you and shapes you. When I look at what Iâve done, I understand what they mean.â
Marsden and Dacourt lived side-by-side in apartments on the Wirral, celebrities in their own right. Dacourt was new to England and the city of Liverpool when Everton bought him from Strasbourg in 1998, and he had no idea who Marsden was.
They made for unlikely companions â one a musician in his 50s and a dyed-in-the-wool Liverpool fan, the other a 23-year-old from France who was signing for their local rivals â but they said hello, got talking and clicked. Sometimes they would go clay pigeon shooting. On other occasions a round of golf.
âWhen I think about Liverpool I always think about this guy,â Dacourt says. âHe was very kind to me. He once sent me a signed (copy) of the book he wrote. Iâve still got it somewhere. Before we met, I didnât know anything about him. But by the end I loved him.â
Everton were an immediate attraction for Dacourt, and a transfer he jumped on. He wanted to play in English football and the scouting department at Goodison Park believed that, in the right team, he was tailor-made for the Premier League. Dacourt was tenacious and pitbull-like, a ball-winning midfielder made for his era. But there was subtlety in his play too and a tactical brain. Dacourt remembers the fee paid to Strasbourg coming in at â40 million francsâ; around ÂŁ4 million.
He fitted in nicely at Goodison but Everton were mediocre; devoid of goals, unenthused by manager Walter Smith and making up the numbers in the Premier League. Dacourt stayed for one season as Everton finished 14th and was gone the following summer. He let it slip in the French media that he expected to leave and made himself open to criticism by saying so publicly. He argues now that Everton were driving the sale.
âThey had problems with money,â Dacourt says. So he didnât force the move? âHonestly, no. I didnât want to go. You know thatâs true, because I came back to France and I didnât want to come back to France. Iâd gone to England because I wanted to play there, and not for one year, but Everton sold me. They made some money on me.â
As chance had it, Dacourtâs last-ever appearance as a professional was against Everton, on loan at Fulham from Inter Milan, in May 2009. âWhen I got the ball they sang my name,â he says, âand that was nice for me. I liked to hear that because when you leave a club, youâre not always sure what people think of you.â
Dacourt left Everton for Lens in a transfer which the French club could not afford. Their president, Gervais Martel, was a businessman and a gambler who liked to kill time and burn money in casinos â âhe was forbidden from going in eventually,â Dacourt laughs â but did everything he could to make Lens competitive, at a high cost to himself.
âHe lost so much because of his passion for the club. When I signed for Lens, they didnât have the money to buy me. They couldnât afford my wages. And I thought, âNo chance, thenâ. But this guy, Martel, he was a gambler and he found a way. He said to me, âI want you, so Iâll sign youâ and he did. I love people like that. I love the passion. So I went there.
âI told him I was coming to Lens for him but I also told him that, when it was time for me to leave, Iâd come to him again, give him my hand and go. I want people to be honest and I want to be honest with them. Thatâs why I liked David OâLeary as a manager. He was honest with me. Itâs the best thing in football â to always be clear.â
It was OâLeary and Leeds who got Dacourt to quit Lens 12 months later, for a club-record fee of ÂŁ7.2 million. He had other options, including Bobby Robsonâs Newcastle, but was drawn in by Leeds pushing the boat out to break their transfer record and by the raw, electric squad OâLeary was putting together. To a degree it was a risk, a punt on Leeds delivering on their promise.
âI was sure they would become what Manchester United had become,â Dacourt says.
And, for a short time, so were the rest of England.
The same criticism is always levelled at OâLeary and his Leeds squad: that for all the talk and all the hype, and for all the waves they made, they won nothing. Dacourt regrets that, and accepts the point of view, but he touches again on something he said at the start of the interview. Football is about emotion. And not every successful football team stirs your emotions.
âWe didnât win anything,â he says. âThatâs true and itâs a pity. I wish that we had. But as a team, we stay in the memory, donât we? And maybe the memories are more important than trophies. Maybe theyâre the best.
âYou can laugh at me but you have teams who won trophies but nobody remembers them. Only the proper fans remember anything about them. If you say Leeds, everyone knows the Champions League. Everyone knows it. They know Leeds, they know 2001, they know what happened. In France, in Italy, people remember that team. I can tell you this for sure because I still have those conversations.â
Robson watched Dacourt shine, and score twice, against Atletico Madrid in the UEFA Cup fourth round in 2000 â a year when both Leeds and Lens reached the semi-finals of the tournament. Newcastle tabled a bid, and Dacourt was told that Chelsea and Aston Villa would meet Lensâ valuation too. But Leeds looked fresh and vibrant. OâLeary had the salesmanâs knack and the offer for him felt ambitious.
âIt was a record signing and that meant something to me,â Dacourt says. âIt told me how much they wanted me. But more than that, it was the players. So many crazy players. No one says too much about him but the best player I saw? Stephen McPhail. His left foot⌠it was so good. You ask me who I want to play with most, itâs him.â
There was a chemistry at Elland Road which worked, even if some of it was peculiar. Dacourt formed a midfield partnership with David Batty â full metal jacket in the centre of the pitch and the supply line to Harry Kewell, Mark Viduka, Lee Bowyer and Alan Smith â but for two years they hardly spoke; not because they disliked each other but simply because they didnât speak. Batty was a little older and famously aloof. Dacourt saw no need to try to manufacture a close relationship.
âIt was strange because we played in the same position and we didnât have any problem,â Dacourt says. âFor two years, we just didnât talk. I canât really say why. But what I liked was this: he doesnât want to talk, I donât want to talk. Fine. Weâve both got our habits. But when we get on the pitch, look at how we play. Look at what we do. At work, youâve got people you love and some people you donât say much to, but you get on with your job. That was us.
âI saw Batty after I left (at Lucas Radebeâs testimonial in 2005) and I was very happy. Honestly, I wanted to give him a big hug. Heâs one of the guys I respected most, even if we didnât say much. Heâs a good man and he gave me happy memories.â
He describes OâLeary as âtough but very fair with me.â They would cross swords when OâLeary tried to rest Dacourt during the Champions League season but he can now see where the Irishman was coming from. âIâd be pissed, really angry, because I wanted to play in all the games,â Dacourt says. âI used to go to his office and ask âWhy? Why do you do this?â He thought I needed to take it easy sometimes and you know, he was right. When youâre young, you can be a bit stupid. I just wanted to play.â
OâLearyâs backroom team were appreciated too; Eddie Gray was âgreatâ and Roy Aitken, the No 2, âa really cool guyâ. The connection Dacourt felt with them was why he took it so hard when Venables replaced OâLeary out of the blue in 2002, changed the tone and began butting heads with Dacourt immediately. Their dislike of each other became so intense that Dacourt found himself sitting in the stands, an elite player watching Leeds try to fend off relegation.
âIf you donât like me, you donât like me,â he says. âJust be honest about it and be fair about it. I had so much respect for David. If you ask me about Terry Venables, I donât like him. I donât like him and I donât care about saying it because I was a professional and I wanted to play. If you leave me out in the way he did, I canât be cool with you. Thatâs football and this is my job.â
It was stretching credibility to suggest that Dacourt, one of the fulcrums in an epic European adventure, needed to prove himself to the former England manager. The footballer Venables inherited from OâLeary had already made his name in the Champions League campaign of 2000-01. Dacourt remembers it like a daydream. âThe Champions League road⌠there was nothing like it for me. Sometimes when I think about it I donât know what to say.â
Dacourt knew what to say after the earliest rounds of the competition.
In Leedsâ first game, a qualifier against 1860 Munich, he was sent off for two bookable offences. In their opening group game, against Barcelona in the Nou Camp, OâLearyâs side were battered 4-0. Rivaldo went to town and Dacourt was run ragged.
âThe pitch was so big,â he says. âIt felt huge. Iâd played a lot in the UEFA Cup but that was my first proper Champions League game and it was a big step up, too big on the night.â
A red card and then a 4-0 defeat. âWelcome to the Champions League,â Dacourt jokes. What was he thinking? âI was thinking âFuck!â What else could I say? Nobody remembers any of that now and it isnât talked about but that game at Barcelona, it was terrible.â
Nobody fancied Leeds to do anything in Europe, even after their UEFA Cup exploits the previous season. Dacourt is not sure how far the players themselves expected to go. He liked the crop OâLeary had created but it was rash to predict a long Champions League run from them. âI knew it was a good team, but not that good. You donât just get to the semi-finals of the Champions League like that ,â he says, clicking his fingers.
What developed was a serious of incremental surprises and ultimately, the story of the campaign. AC Milan were beaten at Elland Road, albeit as a result of a horrible mistake from Dida. Leeds put six unanswered goals past Besiktas and Barcelona needed an added-time equaliser by Rivaldo to nick a 1-1 draw in Yorkshire. But the games that stand out for Dacourt are the back-to-back fixtures against Anderlecht in the second group stage the competition had at that time and the verbal sparring which went with it.
Anderlecht lost the first game, 2-1, but their coach, Aime Anthuenis, picked a fight afterwards by belittling Leeds as the worst side left in the tournament. âI was angry,â Dacourt says. âWe were all angry. I said to the other players, âCan you believe what this guy is saying?â We didnât play well in that game, but even so.
âThe next game, we went over there (to Brussels) and beat them 4-1. Afterwards, I made sure I would speak at the press conference. I said to the journalists, âFor the worst team theyâve played, thatâs not too bad for us tonight.â I wanted to have the last word and show everyone that he was mad.â
Leeds, in 25 years, have never played better than they did in the first leg of their quarter-final against Deportivo La Coruna, sweeping to a 3-0 victory. The Yorkshire Evening Post gave Rio Ferdinand a virtually unheard-of 10/10 in their ratings. Dacourt remembers the last 25 minutes feeling âlike for ever, because they were a strong team, they had lots of names, and we didnât want them to score. I donât know if it looked easy to you but I was dead at the end of it.
âAfter, I went out with my wife and Rio and his wife. We were travelling in our cars, one behind each other, maybe driving a bit too close, so the police stopped us.
âThey saw it was us and I remember what the police guy said, âEnjoy tonight and donât do anything silly. Youâve done special things for us and we wonât forget it.â He was so happy for us and for the club. If you ask me now, itâs still the thing I think about most at Leeds, the police officer looking so happy. Money doesnât buy you that and nothing feels better. Thatâs what David and the team did â they made people happy.â
A semi-final defeat to Valencia did not lower those levels of appreciation. Dacourt cried after the second leg at the Mestalla, something he never usually did. âI knew we were close, so close to winning (the European Cup). At the end of that game I had tears. You didnât think it was going to be over.â
It was a high peak with a steep drop beyond it.
Leeds were in the middle of the criminal trial involving Bowyer and Jonathan Woodgate, and Dacourt has no doubt that the mood in the dressing room decayed because of it. Woodgate had been firm friends with Michael Duberry but the pair fell out when the latter gave evidence against Woodgate following a city-centre attack on an Asian student.
âI feel that process killed the atmosphere,â Dacourt says. âDefinitely after a while. Maybe not at first but when they started the process (of the trial) properly, it got difficult.
âYou could see it in the face of guys like Woody and Dubes. Thatâs the example I think of. They were always together before that. They were like best friends. Very, very close. But then the process starts and no, not anymore. They didnât speak. Everyone found it tough.â
Dacourt says he paid little heed to the book OâLeary wrote at the time, a publication which reflected on the trial and caused friction with players behind the scenes. He has never been tempted to read it. He liked OâLearyâs management and grew under him to be rated among the best defensive midfielders in Europe.
It shocked him in the summer of 2002 when he heard that OâLeary had been sacked. OâLeary had lost the faith of some of his squad but more so the faith of chairman Peter Ridsdale, which is where the bullet came from. âI didnât expect that,â Dacourt says. âI was surprised by it, really shocked. And it wasnât something which solved a problem, thatâs a fact.
âWhen he went, I was sad. He made me come to Leeds, he played me, he made me a better player. But you know what itâs like â the club, they donât even ask the players about it. They didnât come to me or anyone, I donât think. I canât see why anyone would have been happy.â
Ridsdale wanted Leicester Cityâs Martin OâNeill, a clear first choice. But when an appointment materialised, Venables walked through the door. Dacourt did not realise it at first but that appointment was the beginning of the end of his Elland Road career.
Venables is not the only coach who took a dislike to Dacourt. Jose Mourinho was never a fan and saw no place for him at Inter, who Dacourt joined from Roma in 2006. Mourinho kept him on the fringes but, compared to Venables, Dacourt felt less resentment.
âWe had times that were worse than my times with Venables,â Dacourt says. âBut I had a lot of respect for Mourinho. He won things. And in training, even at 35, I was learning every day. It was amazing. I could be happy, even though I knew he would never pick me on a Sunday.
âWith Mourinho, maybe I donât like the man but I like the manager. I respect the manager, because the manager is great and I canât ignore that. With Terry Venables, I donât like the man and I donât like the manager. Terry Venables, I donât like.â
What it was about Dacourt that Venables took issue with has always been a mystery. Dacourt accepts he has a challenging personality â âwith me I donât care, and I say what I likeâ â but OâLeary never struggled with that and Leeds, under Venables, were not good enough to disregard a midfielder so capable. Venables preferred Paul Okon, an Australian with none of Dacourtâs class who looked badly out of his depth. Dacourt sat and watched as Leeds struggled and dropped down the Premier League table.
âWhen he came, I didnât know who (Venables) was,â Dacourt says. âHeâd been at Barcelona, sure, but that was a long time in the past. I knew nothing about him.
âFor his reasons, he told me he wouldnât play me. I never asked why. For what? Whatâs the point? A manager can tell you whatever he wants. He made his choice. But if youâre going to bring players in, they have to be better than the players you have. Paul Okon, he was a really kind guy. Itâs not his fault and Iâve got nothing against him. You canât be angry with other players. My problem was with the manager.â
Juventus had been looking to sign Dacourt in the summer when Venables was appointed but Edgar Davidsâ proposed move from them to Roma fell through and Dacourt was not keen on acting as the Dutchmanâs understudy. Then, Roma began talking about taking Dacourt on loan and Venables â by now sick of the Frenchman and sick of being asked about him â famously said he would âpersonally drive himâ to Italy.
âIâd joke with my friends, âItâs OK, Iâll pay for my own flight,ââ Dacourt says. âBut I said to Venables, âI know one thing. Iâve got a five-year contract and Iâm sure Iâll be a Leeds player longer than youâre manager.â Thatâs why I went on loan to Roma, because it might be that Iâd come back to Leeds, and I was certain Venables would be gone by then.
âI always say the truth is on the pitch. He played me in a game against Manchester United, we won 1-0 and I was man of the match. After that, nothing. You can talk, you can say what you like but the truth is always on the pitch.
âIf I saw Terry now, Iâd say hello. Because, actually, he helped my career. He didnât mean to but I had great times in Italy. As a manager I know itâs not easy but you still have to be fair. Iâm a Catholic and the Bible says that if you do good things, good things will happen to you. Youâve got to be fair and respect people. I say this to my children. Respect is a passport for life.â
Dacourt was loaned to Roma in January 2003 and, by the time the loan ended, Venables had indeed been sacked. The transfer to Italy became permanent anyway. Leeds had lost OâLeary and many of their Champions League players, and were now not even treading water. âI didnât go to Roma for the money,â Dacourt says. âThey were in trouble, they had no money, and I didnât get paid for the first seven months. Can you believe that? But I got to play with players like Cafu and Gabriel Batistuta. It was a new experience.â
The mention of Batistuta brings to mind the coach who left the most lasting impression on Dacourt, Fabio Capello. Strict and hard, Capello was a headteacher type as intolerant of insubordination as any manager in the game. âOh, he was good,â Dacourt says. âHe had big balls. A few weeks after I got to Roma he argued with Batistuta and said, âIf youâre not happy, get out.â Batistuta! Just like that, heâs gone. Capello didnât care. âWe found a solution and this is it. The end.ââ
If there is a trace of bitterness in Dacourtâs comments about Venables, he doesnât feel it. Not any more. Italy was an adventure and he was happy to embark on it. But Leeds were the club he could never forget. âThis is what I think,â he says. âI won nothing at Leeds and at Inter, we won lots of trophies. But my time at Leeds was the best of my life. Because everyone felt alive.â
Dacourt is almost 10 years on from his retirement and five years short of his 50th birthday â enough to make any Leeds supporter feel their age. He looks the same as ever though and seems at peace with himself, relaxed in a black T-shirt and cap. He lives near Monaco but has made a second home of Le Royal Monceau. Staff and guests give him regular nods as we sit and chat.
The French TV station Canal+ employ Dacourt as a football pundit but, in the past two years, he has stepped into the world of documentary making. His first production, Ma part dâombre (My part of the shadow), was a series of interviews with high-profile footballers about stress and trauma in their lives. Franck Ribery addressed the car crash which disfigured him as a toddler. Thierry Henry revealed the extreme pressure he was put under by his father. Dacourt could relate to the problems which players cope with in the background. When he was young, one of his best friends in Strasbourgâs academy took his own life.
Last year Dacourt was sitting with friends watching a Serie A game between Juventus and Cagliari when Juveâs Blaise Matuidi was racially abused. Matuidi carried on and the referee did nothing. âMy friends asked me, âWhat is he feeling? What must be in his mind?ââ Dacourt says. âAnd to be honest I really didnât know because that never happened to me in football.â
Dacourt is the son of a black mother and a white father; âmixedâ as he calls himself. In everyday life he experienced racism from both sides: taunted as white when he visited the Caribbean but targeted for his dark skin in France. When he was a youth player at Strasbourg, right on the border with Germany, people called him âSchwarzkopfâ; black head or black face. âIt was like ân****râ,â he says. âThatâs what they meant. I was there to play football so at the time, whatever you say, I donât care about you. But the older you get, the more concerned you become and the more you want to do about something.â
Dacourt decided to make a programme called âJe ne suis pas un singeâ â âI am not a monkeyâ â and asked black players to speak about their experiences. Some were reluctant â âItâs one thing to talk about discrimination but when you use the term racist, itâs much stronger and more scaryâ â but some big names signed up: Mario Balotelli, Patrick Vieira and Samuel Etoâo.
âIt wasnât for me or about me,â Dacourt says. âIt was for other people. I wanted to do something and to say, âStop thisâ.
âI remember the goalkeeper, Joseph-Antoine Bell (who played in France in the 1980s and Nineties). They used to throw bananas at him. Then a few years ago someone threw a banana at Dani Alves. Whatâs happened between Bell and Alves? What have we missed and what have we done? Because nothing has happened in 30 years.
âRacism is everywhere and the problem is bigger outside the pitch. In football, people are mostly kind to you. You get a few idiots but most people were cool with me because I was a footballer. Donât ask me how bad racism is. Ask the average guy who works eight hours a day. Thatâs how you find out. Football is not real life.â
Racism resurfaces too often in Serie A and Dacourt says nothing will change until UEFA or FIFA beginning hitting clubs whose supporters abuse players with fines which do genuine damage. âThen you will see that the clubs find a solution. But most likely (the governing bodies) will do nothing.â
He can feel himself shooting from the hip but, in his opinion, the only thing worse than saying too much is saying nothing at all. He has been this way for a long time, wanting people to see him as he is instead of second-guessing what is on his mind.
It was hard to dislike Dacourt the player and it is hard to dislike Dacourt the man.
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Lovely quote.
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I was nodding my head reading it, I could nearly name that Leeds team and their subs off the top of my head. Not many teams I can say that about.
Also Paul Okon 
Itâs no wonder Veneables never got another job after Leeds
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I was at that 3-0 game. He was outstanding.
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100 years old today. Happy birthday Leeds United.
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Did no one tell Johnny the dress code?
Is Robbie Keane in there too?
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Is that Frank Gray ( or Eddie ) in the kilt ?
Robbie Keane a Leeds legend.
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Eddie
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Donât you know pump it up, the whites are going up. Donât you know pump it up, the whites are going up 
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On boardâŚ
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+1
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