KEV: MY CARDIFF HIGHS & LOWS
MCNAUGHTON’S BRILLIANT STORIES FROM NINE YEARS AS A BLUEBIRD
AFTER more than 250 games, every single one of them totally and utterly committed, Kevin McNaughton has firmly established himself as a Cardiff City legend.
Few players have become such a big fans’ favourite as Super Kev. ‘I want silver hair too,’ the Bluebirds supporters used to chant.
Having arrived under Dave Jones in 2006, McNaughton was part of the fabric of the club for nine years before heading back home to Scotland where he plays for Inverness.
He returns to south Wales this weekend for a much deserved testimonial game. A raft of big-name former Bluebirds will play at Cardiff City Stadium on Sunday (kick-off 3pm) when a Bluebirds side managed by McNaughton takes on a ‘Rest of the World’ XI bossed by Craig Bellamy.
No-one is better placed than McNaughton to discuss Cardiff’s incredible rollercoaster ride, which included the highs of promotion to the Premier League and two cup finals, and the lows of twice missing out in the play-offs.
He was there during the Sam Hammam era, played under Dave Jones and Malky Mackay – and saw from close up how things imploded under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
Here, in this compelling Q&A, McNaughton shares some of his behind-the-scenes memories with the fans...
So Kev, bet you never thought upon signing for Cardiff you’d be staying for the best part of a decade? Super Kev:
Definitely not. When I came down from Aberdeen, one of the first things I remember was seeing the Ninian Park sign hanging off the wall!
Then I was taken into a tiny little office tucked away in the back of the stand. I was introduced to Sam Hammam, went to shake his hand, and instead he did a double high five and then proceeded to put me in a headlock.
‘Welcome to Cardiff’, he said. I thought to myself ‘What is going on here?’ It was certainly a bit different to what I might have expected.
Anyway, I was quickly bowled over by Sam’s enthusiasm for the club. I met Dave Jones, he took me around the city and showed me the blueprint for the new stadium the club were hoping to build.
The training ground, in those early days, wasn’t up to much. That’s probably putting it politely.
I guess everything was a bit like the group of players Dave was putting together at the time. Some had struggled at other clubs, yet we kind of just grew together as a force at Ninian Park.
When I look back on it today, I think it was part of the charm. Let me tell you, I was absolutely blown away by the atmosphere at Ninian Park.
There was something very special about playing at that ground. It was kind of like a real force coming together, the fans and the team, and we made it so difficult for opposition sides.
I remember Arsenal and Tottenham coming there for cup games in the early days and neither seemed totally comfortable with it.
Your first season, 2006-07 was the start of something incredible, but perhaps typical of the Cardiff rollercoaster ride in how it ended?
I think that year saw us play the best football of any team I’ve been involved with.
Michael Chopra was absolutely unstoppable up front. Stephen McPhail and Ricky Scimeca just ran the show in midfield. Young Joe Ledley was coming through and was part of that mix.
We were top of the table, winning eight and drawing two of our first 12 matches. We were playing freeflowing football, the goals were going in for fun, the fans were right behind us.
I still don’t know to this day why we didn’t kick on and win promotion, to be honest. We finished 13th.
We just kind of hit the skids. Steve Thompson and Michael Chopra had forged a fantastic partnership up front, but Thommo got injured. He was out for five weeks with a groin problem, came back, but it flared up again. That seemed to affect the balance of the team.
I remember going to play Wolves at Molineux in January and being absolutely battered. Yet Jason Byrne, making his debut, grabbed a winner for us and I thought ‘Maybe the luck is with us, we can still do this’.
We had a bit of belief from that win and went on another run, but then we dipped away come March (Cardiff failed to win any of their last nine games).
During my entire time there we experienced highs and lows, but it was one heck of a journey. Even if we weren’t challenging for promotion, like 2007-08, we still got to the FA Cup final. There always seemed to be something riding on it for us.
Of course, the fans reserved a special chant for you? ‘Oh Kev McNaaaaughton...
Ha, I don’t know what my missus made of that one to start with! She was a wee bit perplexed at first, but quickly realised it was a bit of fun.
Let me tell you a strange story. When we got back into the dressing room the night we clinched promotion to the Premier League, half the players were singing it.
I guess it’s a kind of catchy tune and I may even have sung it myself with them!
Look, I feel humbled the fans made up a song about me. I guess it helped that I had a half decent start there. Maybe it was the way I went about things straight away that they liked – no messing, tackling as hard as I could, fully committed.
As for the silver-haired bit of the song, well let’s just say Thommo called me ‘the grey squirrel’ back then.
So, if you had to name one, who was the best player at the club during your time? Super Kev:
That’s such a hard question to answer because there were so many fabulous signings, but I think I’d have to say Chopra when he first joined us in 2006.
I’d never seen a forward quite like him and I’m not sure I have since.
He created so many goals for himself with his own speed and ability, and then there were the others set up by his team-mates on top.
To be honest, I was kind of in awe of him during that first season, thought ‘This is definitely the guy to get us promotion’.
But there are lots of others I could pick, too.
Stephen McPhail, on his day, could be head and shoulders above any midfielder in the league. If you were on his team during training you were buzzing because he simply never gave the ball away. You knew you wouldn’t have to be chasing after it here, there and everywhere.
Craig Bellamy, of course, was incredibly impressive. His attitude to training particularly rubbed off on me. I learned so much just looking at the way he went about things and thought I needed to be doing them as I got a bit older.
So what was your high spot of the nine years? Super Kev:
I have to say two. The first was the 2008 FA Cup final against Portsmouth.
Okay, we lost, but being part of that experience was surreal. I used to watch the TV build-up on cup final day when I was younger and to be part of the whole day, walking out onto the Wembley pitch and seeing the FA Cup there, was simply incredible.
Then, of course, there was the promotion in 2013. We had come so close so many times, yet this time we got over the line against Charlton. The emotions poured out from everybody, mainly because of the past failures, I guess. That’s why it felt so very special.
We seemed to have one big party after another towards the end.
First we won promotion, cue party. Then we won the title, cue party. Then it was the end of the season and the open-top bus parade. Another party. It was a wonderful time for everybody in the city.
And the low point? Super Kev:
The play-off defeat to Blackpool in 2010. That’s the one game of football I play again in my head at times. Should I, or we, have done this, or that?
To this day I still think we had better players than Blackpool, but they had an awkward system to play against which caused us problems and we couldn’t combat it.
Myself and Chris Burke, who was in front of me, got dragged out of a position by Seamus Coleman, who was their right-back.
Charlie Adam pulled the strings from midfield. They were better than us on the day, yet we were still in the game and I remember thinking as we were 3-2 down we just needed someone to pull off a bit of magic.
Trouble is, Jay Bothroyd had gone off injured after 15 minutes and everything seemed to work against us. It took a fair time to get that game out of the system, I still haven’t completely, I guess.
It happened again in the play-offs against Reading the following year? Super Kev:
To be honest, given the shattering experience of Blackpool, I think we did well to bounce back and get into the play-offs again.
That said, we had such a good squad that season we really should have gone up.
We went to Leeds in October and battered them 4-0 at Elland Road to go top. I thought we would go on to win the league, we were full of confidence.
Jason Koumas had come in to bolster us, next to him we had Seyi Olofinjana. He was a man-mountain, had a spell of five to six games where I thought he was a true world-beater. He was that good.
But Seyi’s legs went a bit as the months wore on. Perhaps, in hindsight, he needed to be taken out and put back in again when he was fresher.
It was a strange season because again we tailed away towards the end
and finished fourth. Perhaps thinking we’d go up automatically and dipping away played a part when it came to that play-off semi-final defeat to Reading.
QPR and Norwich went up, they deserved to, as did Swansea via the play-offs.
But to this day I’m convinced that man for man we had the best squad in the league.
How would you rate the managers then, Dave Jones, Malky Mackay and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer? Super Kev:
I feel Dave was the best because he kind of just let us get on with it and the football was definitely the most enthralling for the fans.
Malky wanted a more regimented style. It proved successful, but probably didn’t really suit me, if I’m honest. He wanted me playing high up the field, whereas I’m a more old-fashioned kind of full-back who mainly wants to defend.
But I can tell you that under Malky, the work ethic was incredible. When Ole came in he tried to change things too drastically. We were accustomed to a system that was working for us. It may not always have been great to watch, but it was effective.
Ole’s changes didn’t work, unfortunately. I went away on loan for a few months and got used to what I thought was a decent dressing room at Bolton. When I came back to Cardiff I thought ‘Woah, what’s happened here?’
I’d been used to a fantastic team spirit during my years with Cardiff, but I could see the players were deflated and that spilled over onto the pitch.
What’s the best nickname? Super Kev:
There aren’t too many that stand out, to be honest. Jon Parkin once called Craig Conway ‘The Bull’ after a pitbull and it kind of stuck. I was the ‘grey squirrel’ or just OAP because of my hair.
Actually, this may surprise fans and my old Cardiff team-mates, but my nickname from youth was actually Sammer. After the German sweeper Matthias Sammer.
I used to be a centre-half as a 16-year-old with Aberdeen and liked to dribble out from the back. One of the older pros said one day ‘Who’s that youngster who thinks he’s Matthias Sammer?’ and it kind of stuck from there.
If I see my old mates at Aberdeen, they still call me Sammer. But it never filtered down to Cardiff.
So, what about Sunday’s testimonial, the very reason we’re having this chat?
I felt so honoured that the club decided to give me one and it’s unbelievable that so many of my old team-mates are coming back for it. Lots of them said they had things on, but wanted to be involved. I will manage a team against a Craig Bellamy managed side which should be interesting!
But perhaps the best thing for me is the fact that I can see the Cardiff fans again. I never got the chance to say goodbye to them properly, so for me to come back and do that is a brilliant opportunity.
The Cardiff people have always been fantastic to me and I will always be grateful for that support.