I’d never have imagined I’d be rapping for 2000 fans – but I did it!
SAYS BILLY REID
Billy Reid is looking forward to having a wee blether with Arsene Wenger on Thursday week.
But there’s a problem. It’s not that the former Hamilton Accies boss is worried the Arsenal manager’s notorious reluctance to clink glasses with fellow gaffers after games will travel with him to Ostersund, the small Swedish club where Reid works as assistant to Graham Potter.
“No, it’s just I’m not too sure he is going to know who I am!” he said.
The 54- year- old Glaswegian chuckles after he delivers the line. Small wonder.
As the pictures of him sporting an impressive Viking beard at an earlier Europa League tie in Bilbao this season illustrate, much has changed since his years in charge of the Accies.
Nevertheless, the notion Wenger – a man whose first match in charge of the Gunners back in 1996 came 19 days before Ostersund were even founded – would go into the match ignorant about his team’s opponents is ridiculous enough to be laughable.
Not least because Reid is an integral part of a tale so remarkable, it has attracted media attention from across the continent.
That of a club who, six years ago, languished in the fourth division of Swedish football and have since managed to win three promotions and the Swedish Cup.
One who, off the back of the lastnamed success, have already delivered victories over Galatasaray, PAOK Salonika, Hertha Berlin and Ukrainian side Zorya Luhansk in their debut European campaign.
All off a budget of £5m, equivalent to that of K ilmar nock, using “development project” players who they pick up from lower- league clubs and improve out of all recognition.
“Yes, we are doing amazing things here,” said Reid, who insists his team will beat Arsenal next week at the tiny Jamtkraft Stadium, where the capacity for Europe is only 5092.
“I know full well there were a few eyebrows raised back in 2013, when I decided to quit Scotland to go to a Swedish lower-league club.
“I had a few other options open to me at the time, so this one was a bit out of left field.
“It is a small place. The population of the town is just over 60,000, and it gets bitterly cold.
“At this time of year we can go down as low as –25C.
“But I just felt there was something special going on here, a different way of thinking, which I wanted very much to be part of.
“Gra e m e Jo n e s, my former assistant, had set up the interview because he thought Graham (Potter, the former Southampton and York full-back) and I might make a good working partnership and I felt it, too, straight away.
“So then the question was, do I really want to do this?
“I was 50 years old, my kids were grown up and away from home. If I was going to have a wee football adventure, a life adventure for myself and my wife, then this was the perfect time.”
There’s a well- worn saying – Be careful what you wish for.
And, five years on, it would arguably appear fitting for Reid who, as part of his club duties, has found himself performing rap songs in front of a crowd of 2000 locals.
Not strange in the slightest, he argues.
“That is one of the big things at Ostersund. They have this Culture Academy where the players and the coaches do creative stuff outside of the football,” Billy continued.
“And I mean all sorts – singing, plays, dancing and even ballet. We did Swan Lake, with the manager taking a leading role!
“I’ll admit I wasn’t at all sure about it at the start.
“At the very first meeting, there was talk about an art exhibition we were all going to be doing for the town.
“So I was sitting listening to this chat, and all the time I was thinking, ‘Painting? I can’t paint!’
“That is the whole point. To take us all out of our comfort zones. To show us we can achieve things we would not believe we were capable of.
“Because that is the life we live in football. When you are out there on the pitch, you are not usually going to be comfortable.
“You are going to face challenges, find yourself in situations that are difficult, and have to try and find out a way to come through them.
“If you can do it, if you can succeed, then you will take yourself to another level in terms of your selfbelief and confidence.
“I have witnessed it at firsthand. I have experienced it myself.
“If you take the singing challenge for an example. At one of the first sessions, the tutor might ask for a volunteer, and all the players will be silent.
“A few weeks in, though, the same request will be made. By this time a few of the guys will have had a go and thought: ‘Hey, I am not actually a bad singer’. So their hand will go up in the air.
“I would never for a second have imagined myself performing rap songs, far less in front of a couple of an audience of 2000. But, you know what, I have now and I feel good about it.
“The crowd are always with us, the town love it and turn out for everything, and the boys are always together.
“Could I see it happening in Scotland? Maybe, with small steps. But it definitely works here. I have not the slightest doubt it helps our play – and the results back it up.
“They do incredible things on the pitch, they give everything and through that they deliver miracles.
“For example, when we held Galatasaray to a draw in Istanbul – to put them out in the qualifiers – the home fans at th e Tu r k
I know eyebrows were raised when I quit Scotland to go to a Swedish lower-league club
Telecom Stadium stood up and applauded us as we made our way over to our small band of supporters.
“All their people told us that was unique. It just never happens.
“We de served it, though, because we had been courageous.
“To be a tiny Swedish team and go into a game like that, into a pressure situation like that – where we were trying to protect a lead – and show the belief to dominate possession takes real guts.”
As impressive as their results have been so far, Arsenal, Reid acknowledges, are a club on a different level.
“Listen, they are one of the huge names and, as such, have all the advantages and firepower you would expect,” he said.
“They have Mesut Ozil, Jack Wilshere and Alexandre Lacazette. These guys, on their day, are world-class and can blow anyone away.
“The beauty of this tie, though, is that Arsenal do have a vulnerable side to them.
“If you were up against Manchester City, Chelsea or Manchester United under Jose Mourinho, you’d think: ‘ This lot aren’t going to open the door for us, even an inch’.
“Arsenal are a different matter altogether, because they are not always at it. They do struggle at times.
“Their fans will tell you it and, believe me, every other person in Sweden seems to support them.
“That’s a legacy of Gunners legend, Celtic cameo turn and Calvin Klein underwear model, Freddie Ljungberg.
“Nottingham Forest showed it when they beat them in the FA Cup this season, Swansea did likewise in the Premiership just there.
“Can we upset them and Arsene Wenger, who I believe to be one of the greatest managers ever. “Of course we can.” That a home win would pretty much guarantee a memorable post- game chat with the away manager is, Reid insists, a laugh not far away, merely a bonus.