Mick McCarthy tells a story going back to his time at Sunderland and that difficult period after the chilly fingers of relegation had settled around their neck when they were trying to deal with all the stuff that comes with dropping out of the Premier League. In Sunderland’s case it involved 80 people being laid off. The letters terminating their contracts went out in one batch and that day McCarthy was sitting in his office, feeling absolutely awful, when he heard a roar outside. It was his captain, Michael Gray, pulling up in a spanking new Ferrari.
It is the kind of story that would not look out of place in Mario Balotelli’s portfolio and no doubt it will pain all those pros who are not totally wrapped up in the football bubble and probably grow weary of being lumped into the world that I heard Roy Keane call a “cartoon” during two hours with an audience at Lancashire County Cricket Club earlier this week.
Keane was taking exception to his own caricature – the “madman”, permanently on the point of explosion, little black puffs of toxic smoke coming from his ears – and the way it missed the other layers to his personality, and maybe he had a point judging by a little story that does not actually make it into his new autobiography.
It goes back to his days at Nottingham Forest when he shared digs with Gary Charles. Both had great futures ahead of them. Both played in the 1991 FA Cup final, when Charles had an unwitting role in one of Paul Gascoigne’s more self-destructive moments, and it is fair to say they liked a night out. Brian Clough once described Charles, an elegant right-back, as covering the ground like a “gazelle”. He won two England caps at the age of 21 and probably should have finished his career with an attic’s worth. Except it never turned out that way.
In 1992, now at Derby County, Charles was driving a car in an accident that killed a teenage cyclist. The experience of seeing the boy’s face on the point of impact and the family’s grieving had the profound effect you can imagine. His career continued at Aston Villa, Benfica and West Ham, but he was spiralling into alcoholism and along the way there were some pretty ghastly episodes that could fill his own book. His life become one long mess of prison, court appearances and drinking to the point that he was eventually told he was going to end up killing himself.
Then a letter arrived for him at Rutland Prison and it was Keane reminiscing about the good times and what good friends they had been. Keane told him he wanted to help and “but for the grace of God, what’s happened to you could have been me” and he was true to his word. When Charles was released, he moved in with the Keane family. Keane took him to training at Sunderland and let him take a few drills himself. Charles is now signed up for his coaching badges and working as a part-time scout. Keane’s part in that rehabilitation would probably be unreported were it not for the former BBC journalist Simon Austin, a friend of Charles, writing a blog about it, on the simple basis he “thought it was a story worth telling”.
This is not an attempt to deify Keane – introduced on stage with a roll call of his honours followed by the tribute “and, latterly, scaring Adrian Chiles” – but it is a reminder sometimes how we should not just automatically think the worst of people because of what they have done.
This is where Balotelli comes back in, too, after a week that is probably best epitomised by the back-page headline in the Liverpool Echo – APOLOGISE – to single him out the morning after Real Madrid and Cristiano Ronaldo had left their calling card at Anfield.
Balotelli is not an easy man to defend sometimes. His offending is of the serial type and, let’s be blunt about this, if thoughtlessness were a crime, Mario would be No1 on the sport’s most wanted list. He can give his entire industry a bad name in the worst moments and, looking back, I still think Roberto Mancini, his former manager at Manchester City, might actually have been serious when he dropped into conversation that Balotelli should move in with him and his family. Balotelli had just returned to city-centre living after a relocation to one of Cheshire’s millionaire villages ended with his rented house nearly burning down. Mancini’s opinion was that Balotelli needed 24/7 supervision. “I would keep him in the cellar,” he said.
Yet Balotelli does not need to issue an official apology to Liverpool. He needs to start scoring and reinventing himself and, more than anything, to show that he is a better player than he has shown so far.
Against Madrid, he misread the etiquette at Anfield, that’s all. He didn’t think – classic Balotelli – but it is still bemusing to see his half-time shirt-swap with Pepe being described as the “most heinous” of all his misdemeanours and the disproportionate coverage that has followed. Seriously, it is not even in the top 100.
It was certainly bemusement on Carlo Ancelotti’s face when he was informed in Anfield’s press room that Brendan Rodgers was planning to discipline his player. Ancelotti had already been asked by Sky Italia whether “we’ve completely lost Balotelli” and his eyebrow went north to that one as well. Balotelli, he said, was “the player in the first half who attacked the space the most and tried to create problems for us”. Gazzetta dello Sport’s verdict was: “Help! is the right Beatles song for Mario. This time, however, he wasn’t the worst.” He was given five out of 10, which was a lot more sensible than the zero rating in a couple of Spanish newspapers.
Balotelli plainly does need help. He looks embarrassed and at least that shows a level of professional pride. None of us can be sure whether or not he has the personality to put it right but maybe Liverpool are not going about it the right way either if we compare what happened to Peter Crouch when he started his Anfield career.
Crouch went four months without scoring and flicking through the relevant chapter – “Eighteen Bloody Games” – in his autobiography the thing that leaps out is how extraordinarily grateful he is to Rafael Benítez for his constant support. Game No15 was against Portsmouth, one of Crouch’s old clubs, and he fluffed a penalty in front of the Kop. Crouch put on a front but inside he was “broken up”. He remembers the criticism from outside Anfield was “too personal, over the top, unpleasant” and not wanting to leave his flat because he thought people were laughing at him. Yet Benítez always backed him. “That meant so much to me,” Crouch wrote.
Balotelli has not had the same kind of care and it is strange to see when one of the great things about Liverpool is that they are usually so protective of their own. So many of Rodgers’s press conferences have chopped the Italian down and it is almost as if Liverpool are genuinely taken aback that he is so high-maintenance. Yet when the deal was being put in place Kenny Dalglish took a call from one his contacts – someone high up in football and with experience of Balotelli – telling him that Liverpool should run a mile. Balotelli was not worth the hassle, he was told. Sign him and you will regret it.
Balotelli will certainly know what Keane means when he talks of a “cartoon” persona. One of the more publicity-ravenous bookmakers had a stand outside Anfield before the game against Hull offering a swap-shop if anyone wanted to get rid of their Balotelli shirts. It was a cheap stunt but the truth, equally, is that nobody – maybe even the man himself – will be wearing that shirt with great pride right now.
Ferguson’s memories of Moyes are blurred
Sir Alex Ferguson seems awfully keen to spread the responsibility for Manchester United’s appointment of David Moyes, writing in his updated autobiography that it was “nonsense” to think he had simply picked his own successor.
He will have to forgive me for being dubious about that one given that when the announcement was made United put out a statement with the Glazer family admitting “the search for a new manager has been very short, Alex was very clear with his recommendation”.
Even more puzzling is Ferguson’s recollection of how he found out that Moyes had been sacked, which is in direct contrast to every other piece of information from the highest sources at Old Trafford that all the directors had been consulted.
Ferguson was in Aberdeen on the Sunday the decision was made and recounts how the first he knew of it was the next day, flying back to Manchester, when he found himself “sitting next to a lad with a newspaper with a headline that ran: ‘David Moyes to be sacked’”.
Again, sorry to be pedantic but the story was not broken until 2.15pm on the Monday by several newspaper websites. It was not on the back pages until Tuesday. Roy Keane reckons Ferguson is now on his “20th book, I think it is”. Maybe we will get a different version in No21 but, until then, his memory seems a little jumbled.
Redknapp has had worse than Taarabt
Harry Redknapp’s description of Adel Taarabt as the “worst professional” he has ever known is some claim given that he signed Marco Boogers and Florin Raducioiu for West Ham and was also in charge at Upton Park on the day Paulo Futre realised he had not been given the No10 shirt and flew into such a rage he left in a taxi 45 minutes before his supposed debut at Arsenal.
Taarabt might be lazy and possibly a few pounds overweight but Redknapp remembers Raducioiu breaking down in tears during a couple of pre-season games because he did not like being tackled and the diminutive Futre (having bribed John Moncur to swap shirts with the promise of a fortnight at his villa in Portugal) prodding the Romanian in the chest and calling him a fairy.
The encouragement didn’t work and Raducioiu’s final act was to go awol for two days before a trip to Stockport County in the League Cup. West Ham were knocked out while Raducioiu was apparently shopping with his wife at Harvey Nichols in London. It is no wonder Taarabt feels offended.
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