You get used to the abuse... but I won’t forget, I will never forget
EXCLUSIVE GLENN HODDLE TALKS TO FORMER IRELAND FAVOURITE CHRIS HUGHTON ABOUT HIS CLUB BRIGHTON’S RISE AND RISE AND HIS OWN BATTLE AGAINST RACISM
THEY greet each other with a hug. It has been six months since they last met but the bond between Chris Hughton and Glenn Hoddle, who first met as schoolboys at Tottenham 45 years ago, is unbreakable. Hughton gets his banter in early, complaining that Hoddle is 10 minutes late. Hoddle recalls that would have been a £10 fine back in the day. ‘£100 nowadays,’ Hughton replies with mock severity. With that, they sit down to reflect on old times and new triumphs. ROB DRAPER listened in.
GLENN HODDLE: I’ve been so impressed with what you’ve done here. After missing out on promotion to the Premier League in the way you did in 2016, getting pipped by Middlesbrough to automatic promotion and then losing to Sheffield Wednesday in the play-offs, you came back last season to get automatic promotion. That was a massive thing. To have that dreadful feeling and then to go again is the sign of a great club and is a fantastic achievement.
CHRIS HUGHTON: Did I know we would respond? The answer is no. We had had a huge disappointment. And especially because of what the Championship is. You look at teams that have spent [money] like Aston Villa, Norwich and Derby — and Newcastle were coming down. So I didn’t know. But there were some good signs. And it didn’t take long. We had recruited well and once we got into a rhythm there was a good feeling. The owner has been very good and was again this summer. But we’ve chosen this season to get promoted at a time where the transfer market, because of Neymar, has gone to another level. It’s difficult to fathom. We were looking at players that were £7million-£8m and they ended up £14m-15m!
GLENN: I covered your first game against Manchester City and I was impressed. And I would guess that you’ve come out of these first games and thought: ‘We can survive this.’
CHRIS: When you look at City’s form and the six they put past Watford, you know that there were more positives than negatives from that [2-0 defeat]. From the two spells I’ve had in the Premier League, the big difference is those clubs that you would regard as newer clubs — Burnley, Watford, Bournemouth — are developing and spending, which raises the level. Sometimes it feel like three leagues within the Premier League — and that bottom league has got better.
GLENN: When would we have first met? Back in the days of Noah’s Ark….
CHRIS: I think I was playing and you were on the subs’ bench!
GLENN: If I remember, you were signed as an amateur...
CHRIS: Well, I went to Tottenham at 13 with six of us from Newham Borough. I’d grown up at Upton Park, 10 minutes from West Ham.
GLENN: Is that what it was? When we were apprentices, I remember saying to Maxy [Paul Miller]: ‘Why have we got to do all the f ****** g cleaning jobs and Chris hasn’t?’ I thought you still had to work in those days.
CHRIS: I did! I was a lift engineer. I would have been very average at school but, if you weren’t a footballer, you got an apprenticeship. So I stayed on as an amateur and did a four-year apprenticeship as a lift engineer. At 18 they offered me full time as a pro which I turned down, and stayed on as an amateur to finish my lift apprenticeship. But then I signed pro as a 20-yearold and shortly after that made my debut against Manchester United in the League Cup in 1979. And someone scored a mis-kick that day [Hoddle scored the goal of the season that day, a sumptuous volley from just inside the box].
GLENN: I thought that was your debut! That’s my favourite goal!
CHRIS: I signed full time in the summer and — this is the lucky part — we’d bought in Gordon Smith [from Aston Villa] to play left-back. After three games, he done his hamstring and I ended up making my debut and that was it. I stayed in.
GLENN: I think in that era the 1981 FA Cup final win against Manchester City, when we won in the replay 3-2 with Ricky Villa’s goal, was our best moment. The pressure had built up a bit and that final was very special.
CHRIS: It sparked everything. Because everyone was from different types of background, we had the Argentinian players. [Ossie Ardiles and Villa]. When you look at that team, it had a bit of everything and it was a Cup team. But four yesars later, 1985, was our best chance of winning the league, we were top of the league just before Easter. But before 1981, the last trophy the club had won was the League Cup in 1972. So to win it on such a special final...
GLENN: And we were rubbish in the first game. We all went individual, didn’t play as a team because it was the cup final. Before the replay, there was this recognition that we had all fallen short and gone selfish. We all said: ‘When you come through the tunnel, don’t wave to your parents, don’t wave to your wife.’ Only Stevie P [Perryman] and Ossie had been in a final. We had to learn it wasn’t an occasion. We were here to win a game, to win the cup.
CHRIS: For most of us it was the first time winning at senior level, apart from Ossie and Stevie P. Steve Archibald might have won in Scotland but for rest of us, Maxi, Robbo [Graham Roberts], TG [Tony Galvin], Garth [Crooks], Milija [Aleksic], me and Glenn, it was the first time.
GLENN: For me, when Chris came in, not disrespecting other players, it gave us a new dimension. We had some shrewd defenders but we lacked pace and the times he used to get round the back and cover was an unbelievable asset for the team. The thing I used to love about Chris is that you and me had something...
CHRIS: [smiles] Oh yeah! The amount of times I’d play it inside to him and I’d just keep going...
GLENN: Chris was unique in that he was right-footed, quick as lightning and wanted to get forward. He
wasn’t that full-back who wanted to stay on the halfway line. He could go by people. And we had this thing because we’d played together in the youth team where he’d stick it to me and he knew it would come back. Sometimes I’d look in the opposite direction, as though I wasn’t going to play him in, because I knew exactly where he was. I didn’t need to look. And he’d be on his bike thinking: ‘Glenn’s going to play it.’
CHRIS: But you always knew that Glenn had that kind of ability to find you. And with [fellow Ireland international] Tony Galvin you knew he’d fill behind me!
The conversation moves on to race and the issues Hughton faced as a young, black player in the Seventies and Eighties.
CHRIS: At the time when I was first in the team, I would have been the only black player. I think I was the second black player to play for Tottenham. Then Garth would have come in 1980. These are the eras when there would be things I would be conscious of that others wouldn’t. And there would have been particular places — I’ll let you guess them — that were worse than others. As a player, I was always conscious of that. And things around you that weren’t right or what you felt had racial overtones. But the only way to cope with that was to get on with it. It was the only way to cope.
What happened over the years, stakeholders and clubs became more aware of it. No, sorry: they paid more attention to it. Some of the organisations in the game have worked tirelessly and they’ve been listened to. It’s not something that has completely gone, but it’s a far healthier environment now. I remember when I was at Tottenham and Anthony Gardner asked me about the old days and how it was and he just couldn’t believe it because it was so different. You had to be thick-skinned. It was a different era then, Seventies Britain, for a black family or a young black player trying to come through the system.
GLENN: In that era, did you feel the team was like an umbrella for you and that you were under that?
CHRIS: I think the team was an incredible focal point. You were desperate to do well and what you wanted to do was to get all the goodness out of what you had, even though there might be wrong parts of it. Because you knew, you couldn’t do things by yourself. You had to rely on team-mates, on the bond, on strong characters. There might be certain people you don’t get on so well with, or see eye to eye with but you need that focal point to be able to achieve what you want. Sometimes it’s difficult to describe. It’s all about personalities; some that might be quieter, that go about it a different way. You get the one that wants to scream and shout about it, or the one that wants to deal with in a completely different way.
GLENN: Chris was just my teammate. You never saw it any other way. Chris and I had played together as team-mates through juniors. I can remember once when it hit me at West Ham, when they gave Crooksy a really hard time and it was horrible. And it riled me up to try and play better. To me, the team were a family. But if I’m honest I probably should have been more aware of what Chris and Crooksy were experiencing.
CHRIS: Well, we were all about 21. And it was the era. I haven’t got a massively good memory. But I remember enough. And you had to get on with it.
GLENN: I never ever heard you say anything or ask for support. You kept that to yourself.
CHRIS: Well, it was a mechanism. In that era, I would have been the only black player in the team. And I was the first black player for the Republic of Ireland. But I never experienced anything [racist] in Ireland, itself. Going abroad, yes. But people [in Ireland] were wonderfully welcoming. So, you got used to that mechanism. But not forgetting — because you don’t.
There have been things that have stuck in my mind. But you had to be able to move on from it. What you wanted most of all was to be successful in what you do. And to do that you can’t do it by yourself. And you need a good team around you and good people.
GLENN: As a manager, you’re something of a flagbearer for black coaches. Are you happy with that?
CHRIS: I am happy with that. There is an imbalance between the amount of black and ethnic players playing the game and for those that have gone into management and coaching. What has changed is that there are certainly more black and ethnic players coaching in academy football. Transferring that to elite is different and reasons for that are a bigger conversation. But I’m happy with the role because there are a lot of black and ethnic coaches striving to see that happen. If I can help in any way I’m happy to do so.
GLENN: For any British or Irish manager, to get a Premier League job these days, you’re probably going to have to get promoted because not many get appointed.
CHRIS: The figures say that. Generally if there’s a big job going, you tend to feel that it’s going to go abroad. And I think we’re going through a period where we have some very talented home-grown managers. Not just in the Premier League but the leagues under that. But it’s getting tougher.
GLENN: Brighton is an example of a British owner in Tony Bloom but those are few and far between now in the Premier League, which means more foreign managers.
CHRIS: Yeah, the environment in football club ownership has changed dramatically. And what owners feel, with a foreign manager, is that from a recruitment view they can bring in players from their country. There are lots of reasons why. But the global nature of the ownership of clubs is not going to change, is it?
GLENN: Do you feel this is your chance to establish yourself as a Premier League manager? You were so unjustly dealt with at Newcastle. You were 11th when they sacked you! And at Norwich where you were 17th, five points clear of relegation. This is why I want you to succeed, not just because you’re a mate of mine, but because you deserve it.
CHRIS: I appreciate that. But for me there’s more a desire to keep this club in the division than for me to stay a Premier League manager. I feel more responsibility. I’ve been there before and you want to manage at the highest level. I’m delighted to be manager again at Premier League level. And that really pushes me on. It’s big. But what is bigger is the club.
I’ve been here two-and-a-half years and it’s taken a lot of time even before that. They had two play-offs before the one we lost. A lot of heartbreak. So the responsibility that I have here is what drives me on more than anything.
There were particular places that were worse than others. And things around you that weren’t right