How I managed to cajole Dawson into move
FORMER Nottingham Forest favourite Andy Reid has lifted the lid on his less than smooth move to Tottenham Hotspur.
The one-time Reds winger, now on the City Ground coaching staff, handed in a transfer request with team-mate Michael Dawson in August 2004 ahead of their double £8m deal to White Hart Lane in the January 2005 transfer window.
Speaking to The Last Word On Spurs podcast, the 38-year-old has revealed how he cajoled a “wet behind the ears” Dawson into going to see Forest’s CEO to tell him they wanted to leave, how the pair swerved training on transfer deadline day and got lost in a field before turning up at Tottenham for their medicals covered in mud.
“It was a strange time because I had such an affinity with Forest, I really did, and I was promised that if I stayed until the end of the season that I’d be allowed to leave for a reasonable figure,” said Reid, who enjoyed a playing career with the club spanning 10 years across two different spells, making his breakthrough in professional football at the City Ground before returning in 2011.
“It got to the end of the season and there was no real investment in the squad. The chairman, Nigel Doughty, god rest him, was kind of scaling back the finances he was putting into the club and he had put so much into the club already.
“I didn’t feel the squad was going to get any better and be able to challenge at the right end of the table, so I felt it was the right time. There was decent money on offer and yet still I was being denied to go and leave.
“There seemed to be a bit of a stand-off between Daniel Levy and Nigel Doughty, so I ended up handing in a transfer request, which I feel sad that I ended up having to do that. But I felt there was no other action I could have taken. I felt I wanted the opportunity to go and play in the Premier League.
“I was a young, hungry player who really wanted to be successful. It wasn’t something I took any pleasure in and it’s a club I still love to this day.
“But I felt I was left with no other option at the time.”
As for how he actually broke the news to the club, the Republic of Ireland international, who made
290 appearances for the club, said: “I can laugh about it now but Mark Arthur was the CEO at the time, and a really good one as well, and I said to Daws we have to go and tell him that we want to leave.
“So Daws is at my side and we march up to his office, open his door and say ‘Listen, we really want to leave’ and I look at Daws and say, ‘don’t we Daws?’ and he just nods.
“He said OK and we walked out and it was the most meaningless two minutes of our lives because he just looked at us as if to say ‘what are you guys doing?’
“Daws was still wet behind the ears at this stage, only two or three years down from Yorkshire and thinking ‘Reidy, what are you dragging me into here?”
Spurs showed their interest and Reid explained: “It was transfer deadline day and I got a call from my agent to say we needed to get down to Essex to be close in case we got called in for the medical.
“But the fee still hadn’t been agreed and I was due in at training. The manager was Gary Megson and there was an agreement that if the deal didn’t get done and I was fined for missing training then that fine would be paid by someone.
“So we get down there and we’re in a hotel near the training ground and I am getting a little bit itchy, so I said to Daws ‘let’s go for a walk’.
“And this is another example of how I got Daws into trouble. So we walk out the back into these fields and realise after a while that I haven’t really got a clue where I am. We’re in the middle of this field, mud up to our knees and the phone rings and it’s my agent who says we’ve agreed the deal, so get yourself back. “We looked at each other and we hadn’t got a clue where we were and Daws said ‘Reidy, you better not ruin this move for me!’
“He had a little bit of an injury as well so his medical was probably going to take longer than mine but somehow we managed to climb over a wall and through some gardens and out onto the street where my agent picked us up and we turned up at the training ground with mud all over our trainers and stuff and they must have been thinking ‘what are we signing here?’
“But it all went through. It was a double deal and finally got done after 11pm, I think.”