COLUMNIST PAUL TRAILL

Breakfast with Big Nev!

By Paul Traill   ::  25/02/2012 I was delighted to have the opportunity to attend a Media Breakfast courtesy of ToffeeWeb to launch the as-yet untitled autobiography of one Neville Southall. With holidays left to take from work, what better way to use one than meeting one of our best ever players and one of my favorite ever players. Needless to say I was very excited to attend.

Excitement turned into frustration en-route as a crash in the Birkenhead Tunnel played havoc with my time-keeping, though luckily I made it well in time for Big Nev to plough up the escalator and greet the assembled media. We took our seats with sausage and bacon sandwiches, tea and coffee. Big Nev in the centre. James Corbett of deCourbetin Books, the book publishers, got things under way, explaining we can ask anything we want to Neville Southall for 40 minutes. I doubt I was the only one a little overawed at first, but I soon settled down such is Neville?s kind, relaxed persona. He?s the sort of fella you feel at ease talking to. A really good bloke.

Onto questions and one of the first was I think regarding the red jersey he had to wear at in the 1985 European Cup Winners Cup Final. He explained the reasoning behind that, being that their keeper wore yellow so he couldn?t wear that. Rapid Viena played in green and white so those colours were out of bounds, he couldn?t wear blue because the rest of the Everton team of course wore blue, so he was left with red.

He spoke passionately of the work he?s currently doing with the Neville Southall Community Foundation. The project involves working with young teenagers who fall out of the system, who leave school with no or minimal qualifications. It seems a fantastic cause. ?Kids will do anything for you if you show them respect? he said. Somebody asked if his leadership skills as a goalkeeper have helped with the work he?s doing now. He agreed it helps. ?You need an analytical mind to be a footballer. As a keeper you have to know what players are like to get the best out of them. You need to know which ones you should bollock and which you have to put an arm around?. Tailing from this the question was asked about having some mad defenders in front of him, such as Kevin Ratcliffe and Pat van den Hauwe. ?Pat wasn?t mad? he said. ?You look at everyone he fouled, every one of them was smaller than him?. He discussed reputations with footballers, highlighting that only about half of Pat?s yellow cards should have been bookings as most of them were born out of his reputation.

I asked him if he regretted the ?sit down? protest in the 1990-91 season. He bluntly replied ?You call it a protest, I didn?t. It wasn?t a protest. I did it once before at Plough Lane away at Wimbledon and I?ve only ever met one person who remembers that. It seemed perfectly natural to me. It?s about winning. I?d had a shit first half, there was all sorts of shit going on in the dressing room so I wanted to clear my head. For me sometimes the best place is the quietest place so I stayed out there. I asked what Colin Harvey said about it. ?He didn?t know until after the game. I got a call at seven o?clock, Colin shouting ?What the fuck are you doing???.

I enquired about the rumors of him handing in a transfer request that season. ?I didn?t hand one in. I asked. I wasn?t getting anywhere and wasn?t going anywhere. I love Colin Harvey to bits but he?s the most frustrating man I?ve ever met. He wanted the team to do well but couldn?t put his finger on why it wasn?t working. He?s a proper Evertonian and wanted success. People only saw him in press conferences and in the dug-out. Nobody saw him when he was in the office chewing nails. It was massively frustrating because he couldn?t get what he wanted?.

Neville went on to talk about the methods of bringing players in to a club, citing the problems Andre Villas-Boas has inherited by bringing in too many players at once. He said Howard Kendall was clever, he?d bring in one or two at a time. ?It?s a fine judgement between how many you bring in or don?t?. Neville was asked about Sir Alex Ferguson?s rumoured interest in signing him when he was playing for Everton. ?Sometimes you wonder what it?s like somewhere else. I went to Stoke and it was a fucking disgrace!? was his reply.

When asked about walking out at Wembley, he said there is so much happening on the day it?s difficult to know what you?re doing. He said that going to the FA Cup Final in 1984, the team knew they would win as they believed more once they?d been to the Milk Cup Final and losing the replay to Liverpool. They knew they could be successful after that.

On playing Manchester United at Wembley in 1985 Neville said the worst thing that could have happened was the game going in to extra-time but that Manchester United were shit compared to Bayern Munich. He spoke very glowingly of our fixture at Goodison Park with Bayern Munich. ?The match with Man United could have been anywhere, Wembley, the moon, but nothing was as good as Goodison that night. I?ve never seen a crowd as involved as that night?. He also spoke of scoring a penalty once when it was either he or 17-year-old John Ebbrell to take it in a penalty shoot-out. He made everyone chuckle with his take on Tim Howard's goalkeeper jersey. ?It?s camouflage. But you can still see it. What the fuck?s the point?? Indeed.

I asked what the favourite club he played for was after leaving Everton. ?Torquay? he instantly replied. ?I played 27 games in the first season there and got Player of the Year without doing a day's training which I was quite happy with to be fair. If you were injured at Torquay they?d just give you a bucket of ice!?

He was quite philosophical about collecting his MBE, saying they had to give it to someone Welsh and it was probably a case of ?Who?s Welsh and has done something??. He said it was quite humbling collecting an MBE alongside some Gurkhas. ?They?ve driven in tanks to save their mates, I?ve kicked a football around?.

He says he doesn?t really have a favourite save as he always thought the next one would have to be better until he one day realized he weren?t going to make any more. He encapsulated probably a lot of people?s thoughts and frustrations on the modern game. He says the biggest cheer is for a good tackle and that many of the red cards now are ridiculous. ?A 16-stone man getting knocked over by Ashley Cole? When I was a kid you?d be embarrassed but you see kids behaving like this now?.

?Last question please? said James Corbett. There was a bit of a pause so I asked ?What do you think of David Moyes???an interesting response:

?He?s done a brilliant job but he?ll always have one question mark over him ? can he spend money??. He thinks this could stop him from getting a good job. He said that Moyes has done a ?ridiculous job with peanuts? but that it could be easier for Moyes to work within a tight budget. He thinks Mancini is doing an incredible job keeping check of all the egos at Man City and being top of the league and that Manchester United, Manchester City, Arsenal, Tottenham and Chelsea would never go for Moyes because they don?t know if he can spend money or not.

If Harry Redknapp gets the England job, he doesn?t think Tottenham will want Moyes as he?s quite a cautious manager whilst Spurs are more flambouyant. He thinks Moyes has the top job he can get as Villa is a step down and there?s a lot of other clubs who don?t spend any money either. He thinks David Moyes moving to Aston Villa would be a joke. He said if perhaps the Newcastle United job, if that came along with some money to spend, he may take it. ?Where else?? he said. ?Celtic? You only have two games a season!?

He moved on to the possible future under David Moyes. Neville feels that there will be a breaking point somewhere along the line when either Moyes will run out of patience with limitations or the board will run out of patience with lack of trophies and that something will give. He went on to speak about season ticket sales, saying that if we sign another Phil Neville type player, it?s difficult for the fans to get excited though, if we sign a Gazza, people will be excited and more will attend. ?Evertonians will always turn up though, because they?re Evertonians?.

So that was that. A really enjoyable, fantastic meeting with one of the best goalkeepers to ever grace the planet. Neville Southall is a truly nice bloke. Very straight talking and very witty. You get the impression he?s highly intelligent. Certainly more intelligent than I expected him to be. It was a really riveting insight into a truly great man.

I think it?s going to be quite a book.

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