An exclusive interview for The Mag with Lee Clark.
This interview took place over zoom on Wednesday 23rd September.
We began by talking about Lee supporting the Toon from the terraces.
Before moving on to his memories of playing for the club he loves.
(ED: This epic interview covers a lot of ground and has been split into three parts. This is the second of the three, you can READ PART ONE that was published on Friday, with then PART THREE to come on Sunday. Our thanks to The Armchair Fan for this top quality interview with Lee Clark)
Which players influenced you the most during your time at Newcastle United?
Probably the players who I played alongside in my position so, in the early days, Kevin Dillon was a big mentor for me. I was Micky Quinn’s apprentice so I became close to Micky. He’s different class, he loves the club and loves coming back up to visit, Quinny’s a great guy.
Then further down the line, Paul Bracewell was a big influence. Playing alongside Paul after he had won some of the biggest honours and was an England international, a really good player, really good pro. Barry Venison was another leader in the group so those types of players. And then, obviously, we had the likes of Rob Lee, when he moved from the wide position into centre midfield, he became a big influence on me as well. Rob was a fantastically gifted footballer. David Batty, I loved playing alongside Bats. He was top, top draw at what he was doing, what he was about. So, I was lucky enough that I had lots of them.
Peter Beardsley was always going to be someone I looked up to, because he was someone I’d just adored from the terraces. There were many, there’s probably people I’ve left off that list because in my younger days I was a little scallywag and I needed putting in my place now and then and we had great senior players who were prepared to do that.
Issue 89 – May 1996
Who was the best striker you played with at Newcastle – Andy Cole, Les Ferdinand or Alan Shearer?
Wow! Are we not putting Beardsley as a striker!? Because that would make it a lot easier for me because even though you’re talking about Shearer, the best number nine of his generation, and his statistics give you that, Ferdinand – a phenomenal footballer, even better bloke as well, Cole’s goals-to-games ratio was just ridiculous, he was an easy player to play with, just play that ball down the side of center-halves, and he was off like a shot. But if I’m going to label somebody as the best ever player, in my opinion, to wear the black and white strip, he has to then become the best striker, and that’s what I’ll label Peter Beardsley.
People might say, “oh, you didn’t see Millburn live, or Hughie Gallacher” you can go back and go back, and that’s one hundred percent right, I’ve seen a lot of footage of those guys. My opinion is that the best player to wear a black and white strip is Peter Beadsley, and every time I’ve been in that conversation with people, nobody’s disagreed and that’s people who are even older than me who had seen different players from different eras. So if you’re labeling Peter as a striker, and I’m labelling him as the best ever player on a black and white strip, he has to take that accolade as the best striker.
Where does Micheal Owen rank on that list?
(laughs) Quite far down! Micheal will be the first to admit, he never hit the high levels of his career while he was here and didn’t endear himself to the fans and me having my fan hat on, it was disappointing. When he burst onto the scene he was one of the best prospects in world football, he went on to win a Ballon d’Or, but he never bought into playing for Newcastle.
What did you make of Tino Asprilla when he made his debut away at Middlesbrough?
When he made his debut, that was a sign of things to come! When he signed, he didn’t think he had his international clearance through. We played Middlesbrough away and when we were coming down for a pre-match meal, Tino was having his little bit of pasta and a couple of glasses of red wine with it! We all assumed that he wasn’t going to be involved. Tino maybe thought that himself but the gaffer put him on the bench and he ended up coming on and making the winning goal for Steve Watson, it was just unbelievable. Not only was he a superstar in football terms, and some of the things he could do were just breathtaking, he was a great lad, a great, great lad.
We love seeing him still. He has a bit of a laugh and a joke with me because I’ve put on a few pounds since my playing days so he’s always laughing at that. It’s great to see him back, I love being in his company. I was also close to him when he played here, he’s a sensational footballer and a really top guy.
Do you think it’s a myth that Kevin Keegan was tactically naive?
Absolute garbage!
You don’t get the results on a regular basis if you don’t know the game. You don’t play for the clubs and your country as many times as he does, and win the accolades that he did if he didn’t understand the game tactically.
What he was, was a manager who only worried about his own team. He wasn’t bothered about what the opposition could or couldn’t do. He just wanted to have the best possible team available to him and give us the enthusiasm and desire to go and play for him in a way that he wanted us to play and that was to express ourselves. That was to play high-tempo football, that was to play passing and moving, one and two touch.
It’s the biggest myth ever. It only gets brought up because of some of the high-scoring games we had and it’s absolute rubbish. What are you meant to do if someone scores three, you’ve got to go and score four or five to go on and win, that’s the way it is. As I mentioned earlier, Derek Fazackerley was a fantastic coach, both on the technical and tactical side. Kevin brought in players who understood the game. They didn’t need to be flicked into position like Subbuteo players, they knew what they needed to be doing in their position.
With the best teams in the world right now, you talk to the top coaches who get the chance to work with them, they don’t need to give a lot of technical information to these top players, because they already know what they’re doing. They’ve just got to make sure that the players are fit, happy and ready to go on match day. I listen to that myth, I hear it many, many times but it just cannot be possible. You cannot win as many games as Kevin did and have a team in the positions we finished. I think the lowest we ever finished in the Premier League under him was sixth. We finished third in ‘94 and second in ‘96 but back then that wasn’t enough to get into the Champions League. The players that have done it over the past few years have done great and I’ve loved going to watch those matches but we were finishing in similar league positions and it wasn’t enough to get in back then.
What was the reaction amongst the players when he made his famous ‘Love it’ speech?
It was funny because we were on the bus back from Elland Road, he came on and said “I think you’re going to have a bit of fun with me over the post-match interview guys.”
The next few days after that, everything that the lads were doing, they brought it up. If they’re asking for certain food at the training ground – “I’d love it” or “I’d love it if you could do that” and it was great, because even though he had that manager-player distance, he still liked to have camaraderie with us so we had great fun with that. That’s who he was, he wore his heart on his sleeve. We could tell what mood the manager was in within a couple of minutes of seeing him in the morning, whether he was in a happy mood and feeling positive, whether something had upset him, whether he was angry with something, he was easy to read. He just wore his heart on his sleeve. I think one of the main reasons why me and him had a strong relationship is because I believe I’m a similar sort of character, I cannot hide my emotions. That stuff, for me, was brilliant. Passion. It’s genuine passion, it’s not fake. It’s your emotions straight after the game, and that’s him being who he was and he was never going to change. I remember seeing an interview in and around his passing, and he talked about, for all the great things he achieved in his career as a player and a manager, the things he’s remembered for is the perm and the I’d love it speech. They’re the two things that he’s most remembered for and then when you look back at all the unbelievable things he’s done as a player, it’s weird.
© 1993 The Mag. All rights reserved.
It is and I think, for me, the speech that he should be remembered for is when we sold Andy Cole. A lot of fans weren’t happy. We felt we were going back to being a selling club and Keegan actually got out onto the steps of St James’ Park and met hundreds of fans and explained his decision. As a supporter, that’s what you want – The figurehead of the club to come out and say “look, I’ve made this decision, I know you’re not happy with it, but you’ve got to trust me on this one.”
Unbelievable! Which other manager? Only him or Alex Ferguson would have done something like that. He had such a bond with the fans, he loved them, it was genuine. It wasn’t just talk, it wasn’t just “I love the fans, blah blah blah, I want to do it for you” because the odd times where we didn’t play well, the main sticking point for him was that we were short-changing the fans with our performances.
So when he made that unbelievable decision about Coley, and that shocked everybody; the board, his staff, the players, he knew what he was doing with it. He wanted to refresh, he wanted to go in a different direction, he knew he had the replacement lined up already but it was going to take a little bit longer to get that replacement in. In Les Ferdinand, he knew that Les could take the team in a different direction. He was going to be able to use a substantial amount of money in those days. It doesn’t sound like a lot of money now, but back then six million was a lot. We also got Keith Gillespie into the bargain as well, who was a very young player, he came into the club and got in with us lads and our young group straight away, a tremendous character. He was a great player and it worked but it could have easily not and Kevin was prepared to explain the reasons to the fans like you say.
It was weird for me, because I’m a player and I’m in the dressing room. I used to always listen to him but also think like a fan as well. So when he went out and did that, you were like, wow. How many other people would come out to explain the exact reasons why he’s done it? He knew that if it didn’t work, he’d be under pressure, because his exact words were something along the lines of – if it doesn’t work, I know the consequences, I’ll be gone.
Kevin Keegan said it would have revolutionised football if Newcastle United won the title in 95/96, do you agree?
Well yeah because of the way we went out and played the same every game, not worrying about the opposition. We didn’t treat any opponent differently, didn’t matter who they were, whether they were home or away, whether we were going to Old Trafford, whether we were going to Anfield, whether it was our first occasion in Europe. It was the same message all the time about what we had to do, how he wanted us to play. There were loads of times where we’d look like we were going to lose a game, and we’d come back and win it, we had all the characteristics of a winning group. We were never going to change. There’d been the dominance of Man United, and here was a team that had just got promoted three years earlier to come in and then win the Premier League would have never been known at that time. I think he’s probably right in what he’s saying but unfortunately it didn’t come to fruition.
Did you feel it unfair that you were on the bench for a crucial match against Man Utd (March 1996) so David Batty could make his debut?
Absolutely, of course I did! It didn’t matter who took my place, every time I was left on the bench or was dropped it felt unjustified but when you look back, sometimes you deserve it and sometimes you don’t. I think the key is that, and I do have respect for David both as a player and a teammate, he played a different role to me because I was attack-minded so I would play the position from an attacking point of view whereas he was more defensive so he would do things from a defensive point of view.
Issue 95 – December 1996
Is it a c0incidence that the results didn’t go our way when that change was made? That’s an easy thing for me to say but I guess I’m always going to say that. We were actually battering Man Utd in the first half of that match, if we had gone in 3-0 up which would have been completely deserved, then all of a sudden it’s completely different and we’re seven points clear at the top of the league rather than having the lead cut to one. That first half performance was as good, if not better, than when we beat them 5-0. It was difficult because we stopped winning as much and they were coming up close behind us, it becomes human nature to look over your shoulder and all of a sudden they’ve gone past you.
We were the entertainers playing on live TV on Sunday or Monday and we’d watch Man Utd who would be playing before us. For a lot of those last nine games, Man Utd didn’t play that well but they had Schmeichel in unbelievable form at one end and Cantona scoring goals at the other so they were nicking results by the odd goal. Peter was pulling off some wonderful saves and producing some top-level performances on a regular basis so they were getting points whilst we would get a win but then a draw and a loss and it wasn’t a horrendous run but when your opponent is getting win, win, win by the odd goal then performances become unimportant, it becomes about the points tally and that’s what happened.
How did the players feel when we signed Alan Shearer for a world record fee after Euro ‘96?
It was weird because we were on our way to a pre-season tour of the Far East and were already on the plane. Kevin had already met Alan but so had Fergie. It looked like Alan was leaning towards Man Utd and Kevin was on the flight with us just about to set off. He quickly jumped off the plane as he wanted one more meeting with Alan to try and convince him and he must have worked his magic as usual because when Kevin came out to meet us in Bangkok for the second leg of the tour, he sat us down and said “If you didn’t realise that you were playing for huge club then you will now! We’re breaking the world record transfer fee to bring Alan Shearer home, the best number nine in the business!” and we thought ‘Wow! That is a statement!’ The rest is history in terms of his career. When he arrived we thought ‘yeah, this is the guy who can do it for us’ he’d already won the league with Blackburn, his goals and overall play were at the highest level but then we had the bombshell six months later when Kevin left the club so things didn’t work out the way we’d hoped.
How big of a shock was it when Kevin Keegan left?
It was a huge shock but just to elaborate on what I said earlier, Kevin wore his heart on his sleeve so we knew when his mood wasn’t great. We’d drawn 1-1 in an FA Cup game away at Charlton and when he got on the bus he hadn’t taken his black and white hat off, he hadn’t taken his big coat off and he was really quiet, we knew something wasn’t right but certainly didn’t realise we were on the verge of losing our manager.
© 1997 The Mag. All rights reserved.
We went in for training the next day and Kevin wasn’t there. Terry Mac and Arthur Cox called a meeting and relayed the message that the gaffer had quit and it was the quietest the group has ever been. I’ve talked about the camaraderie in the group and the craic we used to have but it went really quiet. It was a gutted group of players. We’d lost our leader, we lost someone we respected so much so it was really tough for us, really tough. We’d lost something big, not just the players but the club lost something big.
(ED: This epic interview covers a lot of ground and has been split into three parts. Above is the second of the three, you can READ PART ONE that was published on Friday, with then PART THREE to come on Sunday. Our thanks again to The Armchair Fan for this top quality interview with Lee Clark)