NOTHING beats sitting top of the league with my mates at Millwall
SOUNESS LEFT A PROLONGED DARKNESS OVER MY CAREER, I WAS LATE FOR KING KENNY AND ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE AT ARSENAL, BUT...
Jimmy Carter had a good excuse for being late but still felt jinxed as he rang Liverpool manager Kenny Dalglish to explain why he would have to delay their first meeting.
Carter, then 25, was in his prime as part of millwall’s greatest team when Dalglish made his move in 1991 to the winger.
‘Kenny told us to get up to Lime Street station,’ recalls Carter. ‘the cab arrived to take me to Watford Junction. my missus came out to give me a hug and then the little feller (two-year-old son, Luke) shut the door behind us to lock himself in the house.
‘With the taxi still running, we spent the next half-hour trying to coax Luke through the cat flap. He was small enough to fit but too scared. eventually he came out but i missed the train.
‘i had to ring Kenny from the station to apologise and ended up catching a later train to Preston where he picked us up. Looking back, it was a perfect forecast of how my time at Liverpool went!’
the £800,000 deal went through, but Carter was stunned four weeks later when Dalglish resigned.
‘We turned up at anfield on the Friday to catch our coach to Luton. ronnie moran (Dalglish’s assistant coach) came into the dressing room and said the boss had decided to walk away. there was total silence,’ says Carter.
‘We were in shock. Nobody had an inkling. For me, the consequences turned out to be severe. Graeme Souness came in and made it clear i wasn’t part of his plans. it left a prolonged darkness over my career.
‘Graeme even subbed me as a substitute against Chelsea. i was embarrassed, humiliated and locked myself in the hotel room. i wouldn’t come down for dinner until Peter Beardsley was concerned enough to call my room and convince me i shouldn’t hide away.’
that was perhaps the lowest point of Carter’s remarkable career in which he escaped poverty in Hackney to play for two of england’s greatest clubs.
Carter always saw football as an escape from being a ‘street urchin’. ‘Dad was a disciplinarian who’d pull the sheets off the bed at 6am during the winter and tell me to run twice around the park.
‘On the way back, if someone had four pints of milk outside, i was to grab one so we had something for our corn flakes.’
even when Crystal Palace offered him professional forms at 18, it was not plain sailing.
‘i went up to £70 a week and thought i’d made it,’ he says. ‘i grew my hair, got an earring and went clubbing in the West end.
‘i got married and took on a second job at night as a doubleglazing canvasser for extra money. i’d get home at 1am and be late for training the next day. Palace’s manager alan mullery said he wouldn’t pick me as long as i had a hole in my a***!’
Palace eventually ripped up his contract. With a mortgage and no job, Carter wrote to all 92 league clubs begging for a trial. the PFA put him in touch with a scout called Paddy Sowden who was mates with QPR boss Jim Smith. ‘rangers played on artificial turf which was great for a winger because defenders didn’t want to slide in. they got burnt to the bone,’ says Carter. ‘if you had a good first touch you were laughing.’
millwall boss John Docherty signed Carter for £15,000 in 1987 after watching him give Neil ruddock a runaround for the reserves. it began a special love affair.
‘i identified with millwall straight away and it helped that teddy (Sheringham) was there. We’d been team-mates for Beaumont Juniors at 13.
‘as a kid, he sometimes turned up on a Sunday with a black eye or bruised ribs. teddy’s dad was a policeman and if anyone said something bad about it, he’d stand up for himself.’
in 1988, millwall were promoted to the top flight for the first time. ‘i’d never seen grown men crying before. that’s how much it meant,’ says Carter. ‘We hired a room in a Hull hotel and partied
there. Some lads ventured out afterwards. When they got back at 3am, Doc was waiting, puffing on a cigar. He put them on a minibus to play for the reserves in London the next morning.’
Millwall had a fab four up front — Carter, Sheringham, Tony Cascarino and Kevin O’Callaghan — and hard-men Terry Hurlock and Keith Stevens at the other end.
On October 1, 1988, a 3-2 win against QPR sent them top and they finished 10th, above Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United.
‘We were still on £250 a week,’ says Carter. ‘We’d asked Doc for new contracts after promotion but he said we still had to prove ourselves. After we went top, there was a queue outside his office on the Monday!
‘We were only given a crowd bonus. We’d all be looking around in the warm-up after that to see how many were in.
‘Teams didn’t like coming to play us. You could see them lining up, fearful, wanting to get out of the old Den as soon as possible.
‘Brian Clough was clever. He made his Nottingham Forest players walk to the ground so they were used to the abuse before kick-off.’
Finances dictated Millwall’s team would break up. Sheringham joined Clough at Forest, Cascarino went to Aston Villa, Chelsea, Marseille and Celtic. Carter got a big move too but after only four starts in 10 months at Liverpool, he signed for Arsenal. The move was better for him, but he was never a regular.
In 1993, Arsenal won the FA Cup and League Cup. Carter played in the semi-finals but come the big days at Wembley, he was left out.
‘ George Graham was the dominant presence. If he wasn’t around, all hell broke loose,’ is Carter’s way of describing the dressing room.
‘We were on a pre-season trip to Norway when George flew back for his daughter’s wedding. Stewart Houston was put in charge but couldn’t keep the discipline. It turned into a jolly-up.
‘ Ian Wright went bungeejumping against Houston’s orders and tore a hamstring. Stewart’s face went white when he realised he’d have to explain to the boss.
‘There was a boat cruise with the Mayor of Oslo. It was meant to be teetotal but turned out crazy, everyone on the karaoke. I remember Tony Adams doing Wild Thing.’ After spells at Oxford and Portsmouth, Carter returned to Millwall before retiring in 1999. He played alongside the club’s current boss, Neil Harris. ‘I didn’t see Chops (Harris) becoming a manager,’ he admits. ‘When I first knew him, he was a 20-year- old kid who was a bit of a fruitcake on a night out! ‘He’s mellowed and knows what playing for Millwall supporters means. They would give their right arm to wear the shirt for five minutes and players have to understand that. Some good players turn into trembling wrecks.’ These days, Carter, 52, works as Millwall’s commercial sales executive. He is ambassador for another company that gives discarded players a second chance. He recently became a grandad. As a player his hobby was doing up properties and it became a successful business. ‘I’d buy the cheapest house in the best street, live there, do it up, build an extension then sell it,’ he explains. His most unusual home was a Grade A-listed castle near Edinburgh purchased from renowned Scottish painter Jack Vettriano. ‘ It was built by a guy called William Thomas who later died in the grounds. ‘My son is convinced he saw his ghost a couple of times.’