Sheringham: I’ve healed the rift with Cole
Teddy Sheringham, who came on and inspired United’s amazing Champions League glory 20 years ago, admits…
TEDDY Sheringham turns up straight from Camp Nou. Not the stadium. His house in Essex. When he built the property in 2005, it was the obvious name.
‘You’ve got to call it something and Camp Nou seemed quite apt,’ smiles Sheringham.
Twenty years on from his heroics in Barcelona, the former Manchester United striker is clearly happy to indulge in a little nostalgia.
This weekend, he will join former team-mates at Old Trafford to take on Bayern Munich in a re-run of that momentous 1999 Champions League final.
Sheringham doesn’t look like he has aged a day or put on an ounce of weight since then, despite turning 53 last month. ‘I’ve had a bad knee and I’ve been trying to get it sorted out before the game so I don’t embarrass myself,’ he says. ‘My calves go when I do a little bit too much and play three games of tennis. I’m falling to bits.’
The anniversary game will be an opportunity to relive former
glories with old friends he doesn’t see as much as you might think.
Surprisingly, one of the players shaking hands with Sheringham will be Andy Cole after they ended a feud going back two decades, he reveals here for the first time.
Theirs was one of the most infamous fall- outs in football history. A perceived slight when Cole made his England debut as a substitute for Sheringham against Uruguay in 1995 and a bust-up over a goal conceded at Bolton when they were team-mates three years later meant the pair didn’t exchange a word as United swept to the Treble in ’99.
‘I’ve just loathed him personally for 15 years,’ Cole wrote in 2010.
‘We never got on as players,’ admits Sheringham. ‘You get on with some people in the workplace, but some you don’t like and don’t want to be around. That was the case with me and Andy. We just didn’t click. But we’ve made our peace.’
Even so, Sheringham really wasn’t sure what to expect when Cole approached him in a nightclub. Was his old teammate going to bury the hatchet or swing a punch?
‘I was out with my mates and he was with his wife Shirley. I saw him walking towards me and I thought “Hold up”,’ recalls Sheringham. ‘He’s got quite a deadpan face. There wasn’t a big smile. I thought: “Here goes. Maybe after all these years...” I had my guard up.
‘He came towards me and I could see Shirley looking at me thinking, “F*** ing hell, what’s going to happen?” He put his hand out and said, “let bygones be bygones and put everything behind us”. I said, “Wow, I didn’t expect that. No problem”. I shook his hand and that was that.’
While Cole formed a dynamic partnership with Dwight Yorke, Sheringham and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer offered Sir Alex Ferguson a very effective Plan B that paid off spectacularly on a muggy night in Barcelona.
The ribbons in Bayern’s colours were already on the trophy and the German players thought they had it won, much to Sheringham’s annoyance as he warmed up on the touchline, so desperate to get on the pitch he didn’t want the comeback to start without him.
‘I think it was (Mario) Basler taking a corner and he was shouting out to his fans in the corner. It was a proper casual walk down there. “Everything is going fine, we’ve got it under control”.
‘I was warming up right in front of them. It riled me. Cheeky f***. It was a bit naughty that.
‘Fergie told me at half-time that if the score stayed the same I’d be on after 10-15 minutes. That’s my abiding memory, thinking, “Let’s hope the score doesn’t change”. It wasn’t jealousy but I wanted to be part of the winning show. I didn’t want us to make a comeback and win without me getting on.’
United’s No 10 got his wish. He replaced Jesper Blomqvist in the 67th minute and equalised a minute into stoppage time, redirecting a shot from Ryan Giggs into Oliver Kahn’s net. ‘Giggsy’s hit some thunderbolts with his right foot but he’s hit a lot of bad shots, too. This happened to be a bad one. It came bobbling towards me and I scuffed it. I tried to hit it as hard as I could on the turn but it missed my foot and hit my ankle. I sort of pulled it in.’
Having been left out of the starting line- up, Sheringham and Solskjaer — an 81st minute substitute for Cole — were relishing the prospect of extra-time before the Norwegian’s winner changed everything.
‘Me and Ole had that conversation going back to the halfway line after I scored. “Brilliant. We’ve got another half hour in this unbelievable arena on a special night, let’s enjoy it”. Forty seconds later we’re up the other end and Ole wins a corner. Hold on a minute we’ve got a chance to win this.
‘I like corners. I’m good at getting across people at corners. I’m fresh, I’m buzzing, I can jump 10ft tall. Get that ball in the air, Becks knows where I like it.
‘I got up a little bit too early and felt that if I had headed it for goal it was going over the bar, because I was coming down slightly. The only thing I could do was flick it into an area and hope someone was there. That’s what I did and Ole took the chance with glee.
‘I’ve never seen the game right through. I sat on the bench watching it once and that was enough! We weren’t the best that night.
‘How many times have I watched the last couple of minutes? About 20. People show me it every now and then, as if I haven’t seen it. But relived it? More so.
‘I’ve done a couple of Q&As recently. Twenty years is over 7,000 days and I reckon I’ve spoken about it 7,000 times since that night. But I don’t mind.’ IT SEALED an historic Treble and was the perfect riposte to all the Tottenham — and Arsenal — fans who mocked Sheringham for leaving north London in search of trophies only to finish emptyhanded after a disappointing first year at Old Trafford.
There was little sign of the success to follow in his second season, either, as he struggled with injuries to both knees. Ferguson sent him away on holiday twice, to Spain and Barbados, but was less understanding about an unauthorised excursion to London.
Sheringham should have been in Manchester working on his fitness for the Champions League group match in Barcelona while United were playing at Sheffield Wednesday, but claimed to be sick.
Typically, Ferguson found out and it cost the striker a week’s wages and the chance of playing at the Nou Camp, at least for another six months. Was it the only time Sheringham fell foul of his manager? He smiles.
‘Playing golf with Yorkie on a Thursday afternoon. Wednesday is OK but two days before? It’s like going out on a Thursday night. One of those things.
‘The following weekend we won and both played well. Fergie came up to us in the dressing room and asked if we had played golf on Thursday. He knew and you know he knows. If you’d said no it would have been two weeks’ wages.
‘We walked as well. It wasn’t like we had golf buggies. We turned up in shorts and had to buy long socks to play, so we looked like a pair of idiots, then got fined a week’s wages.’
Ferguson’s foresight helped Sheringham through a difficult season. ‘I struggled injury-wise and form-wise at times,’ he recalls. ‘The abiding memory is him coming to me at the end of February and saying, “I know you’re having a rough time and you’re injured again, but don’t race to get back. Make sure you’re fit for the end of the season because it’s going to be a big end to the season and I need you to be part of it”. It made me relax a little bit.’
Still, Sheringham didn’t realise just how unpredictable the end of the season would be, as United won the Treble in the space of 11 days. He was surprised to start against Spurs on the final day of the Premier League season, only to be substituted at half-time for Cole, who scored the title clincher.
‘At first I was like, “F*** it, I’ve blown my chance”,’ says Sheringham. ‘But we won the game anyway and I felt part of it. I thought I might be starting the Cup final on the Saturday. But on Thursday I was told that I wouldn’t
TEDDY ON MAKING UP WITH ANDY COLE .... Andy came to me, put his hand out and said ’Let bygones be bygones.’ I said: ‘No problem’
be playing. That was my comedown. Deflated. That’s the end of my season then.’
Sheringham was on the bench against Newcastle at Wembley and was called into action when Keane was injured after six minutes.
‘Three players start getting ready to go on as sub. Fergie turns around to me and says, “Ted, get ready, you’re going on”.
‘I leaned forward as if to say, “But that’s Keaney, I’m not a midfield player”. Then I thought, “What am I doing trying to dissuade him — shut your mouth!”’
Sheringham scored United’s opening goal five minutes later and set up the second for Scholes to complete the second part of the Treble.
‘Man of the match in the FA Cup final and it was like, “Wow, I must have a chance of playing in the Champions League final now”. But I know now he already had his regime worked out for who he was resting because it was a massive game.
‘He thought he had enough to win against Newcastle because Keaney and Scholesy were out of the Champions League final.
‘On the Tuesday, the deflation came again. I wasn’t playing, get yourself ready for being involved — if you get a chance. It’s great that all 29 of the squad will have a different story to tell about what went on in those 11 days.’ SHERINGHAM has heard the story that Ferguson felt reassured about signing him so late in his career because he noticed the lack of body fat on his father Paul, an East End policeman.
It was a wise call. In his final season at Old Trafford, Sheringham was voted PFA Player of the Year at the age of 35 after finishing as United’s top scorer. At West Ham, he became the Premier League’s oldest outfield player at 40 and retired 18 months later following a spell with Colchester.
Longevity has been harder to come by in management.
Sheringham was sacked by Stevenage after eight months, a decision that led to him returning to the League Two club in disguise to watch the next home game.
‘Just to get a vibe of whether it was better without me there. If there was a freshness about them like, “Thank God he’s gone”.’
An even bolder move to Atletico de Kolkata in the Indian Super League followed and was equally brief. If the job was precarious then, so too was driving around India on a Harley Davidson.
‘Pretty much all the cities we went to play, Jamshedpur or Mumbai, I would get a bike while the lads were sleeping in the afternoon and drive round to see the city and what India was all about.
‘They aren’t the safest roads in the world, by any means. You could be driving down the road and there could be a metal gate put in to stop you being in a lane. No signpost 500 yards away, you just have to swerve out the way.
‘If it wasn’t that, a herd of cattle might be walking down that particular lane. Are you serious? There are cows walking towards me. Health and safety goes out of the window in India.’
You sense Sheringham is in no hurry to get back into management. He is enjoying life at home with his wife Kristina, 33, and their three children — George, seven, Lucy, six, and one-year-old Ruby. Teddy’s older son Charlie, 31, is a striker for Dartford.
‘I’ve had two goes at management and I’m glad I’ve done it,’ he says. ‘I’m not saying I wouldn’t do it again if something unbelievable came up. Before I had a go at being a manager, I thought it was easy. Just get your team and tell them to pass it. It ain’t that easy.
‘Even if you don’t want it to, it takes over your life. You’re constantly thinking about how you want to make things right, what you’re going to do with your squad, agents to speak to. It’s so timeconsuming. Everything else stops.
‘I’ve got a family life again that I love being around. I wasn’t there as much as I would have liked for my first child.
‘I love taking the kids to school and being around them on a dayto-day basis. When you’re a young man, you don’t see that as a buzz, but it gives me a buzz seeing the kids every day.’
Talking of which, duty calls. Being a father has its demands, too. Sheringham has to go because he’s needed back at Camp Nou, still a happy place after all these years.
TEDDY ON HIS NOU CAMP GOAL.... After I scored me and Ole were excited about extra time. Forty seconds later, he won a corner...