Читать книгу Legacy: The Autobiography of Tim Cahill - Tim Cahill - Страница 16

I WAS STILL A CHILD when I made the trip to England in late-1997. I remember saying a tearful goodbye to my parents at the airport, but I was also filled with excitement.

I’d never been on a flight alone, even a short one within Australia. My trips to Samoa had always been with Sean or Mum and Dad. During that long flight from Sydney to London, I had no idea how to occupy myself, given all the excitement I felt. I watched movie after movie after movie. Between films, I read football magazines about the Premiership. I read the statistics of every team and player from the First Division and Second Division, trying to memorize the details as if I had to pass an examination upon my arrival in London.

Halfway through the flight, in the middle of watching Meet Joe Black, my mind started racing again. I wasn’t even in England and I was already feeling homesick. I suppose it was only now beginning to sink in—the massive leap into the unknown I was about to make.

When the plane landed at Heathrow, Glen and Lindsey Stanley were there to meet me. They were so welcoming that not even for an instant did I feel like a stranger. Glen immediately treated me like a son—gave me a big powerful hug—and straightaway I felt his warmth. Lindsey’s from New Zealand, a Kiwi girl—just brilliant. We drove to their home in Dartford and met their kids: the boys Ben, Michael and Sam, and their youngest, daughter Olivia.

Everyone who knows me can tell you I’m never happier than when I’m surrounded by a bunch of kids. That’s another very Samoan trait. Throw five kids in a room with me, and a baby in my lap, and that’s when I’m most relaxed. Had the Stanley kids been older than me, who knows? Perhaps I might have felt a bit ill at ease—but now, in this house with three boys and a girl all various ages, and all younger than me—yes, I felt right at home.

The Stanleys lived in a three-storey terrace house. Space was pretty tight already, with two parents and four kids—now five, including me. There was a small kitchen and lounge room, a sliver of a backyard. I shared a room with the boys—double bunk beds—and Olivia had her own room.

Soon as I sorted things out, I called my mum and dad. I couldn’t have sounded happier, and I remember hearing the relief in my mum’s voice.

“Yeah, I’m running around with the kids,” I said. “No worries, Mum. Glen and Lindsey are fantastic, they’ve welcomed me with open arms …”

Looking back on it, I can see how lucky I was to be in that Samoan atmosphere, in that communal island-style environment. There was never a moment of isolation. Breakfast, lunch and dinner, we were together. It was a bit like being in camp on Samoa during the build-up to the tournament in Fiji, where we all ate together and helped out with the cleaning up and doing the chores.

Finally, after a day or two settling in, I made the call to Allen Batsford, the former Wimbledon manager, whom my dad had been talking to about coordinating my trials.

“Heard good things about you already, Tim,” Allen said when I rang him. “Just give me some time. Could take weeks, could take months, but we’ll get you sorted.”

Months? Months sounded like an eternity to me—I was so eager to get on with things—but I’d been well warned by my dad that nothing was guaranteed. I hoped for a trial with a professional club, but things had to run their course, in their own time.

I’d come so early, it wasn’t even pre-season yet for the professional clubs. That was over a month away, so what was I going to do? I needed to stay fit.

The Stanleys, like a lot of Samoans, were a big rugby family. Glenn’s brother, Joe Stanley, is a legend in New Zealand rugby and is also known as Smokin’ Joe. He was the centre in the All-Blacks side that won the Rugby World Cup in 1987. He and his brothers and cousins are sometimes called the “Stanley Rugby Clan”, which includes Joe and Jeremy Stanley. Michael, Ben and Sam all played for the local youth rugby team. In fact, all three boys would go on to have distinguished careers playing rugby at youth, club and international levels.

When I’d go out to watch them play with their local rugby clubs, it didn’t take long to catch the bug. No way was I going out and getting into a scrum with some of those giants, but I decided to join the touch-rugby team.

Touch rugby—it’s mainly known in Australia as “touch football”—is a variation of rugby with six rather than fifteen players. Its rules are similar to standard rugby league, minus the scrums and hard tackling. As soon as you’re tagged with two hands you stop running and put the ball on the ground just as if you’d been tackled.

I joined up for touch rugby as part of my fitness regimen. Being so much older than the Stanley kids, I ended up playing with Glenn on the adult touch team, and soon made some friends. We’d all hang out in the pub, muddy and sweaty, after running around the pitch for a couple hours.

For the first time in my life, I wasn’t in school during the academic year, so when the Stanley kids left in the morning, I’d wake up with them, eat my breakfast and get to it. No way was I going to sit about the house reading magazines or watching TV. My dad always told me that being a professional footballer was a job—no different from being a bricklayer, teacher or doctor. I had to treat my training as serious work. I’d get my football, head out to the local park—about a five-minute jog—lace up my boots, juggle the ball, do some laps, then some sprints. I’d pretty much follow the set routine I’d followed since my assessment by the Institute of Sport.

I felt like Dartford was in the middle of nowhere. While everyone my age was off at school, there I was alone in that little park running wind sprints and juggling the ball and taking practice free kicks.

Truth be told, it was miserable. Coming from Sydney’s hot climate, my first weeks in England seemed so bloody cold. Many days the skies were completely grey or filled with a cold, lashing rain. It made me realize how lucky I’d been growing up in a city like Sydney, with its green landscape and beaches.

It was more than cold—the atmosphere of that season and the park itself felt almost eerie. The park was immense—it had eight training pitches—but none of them were in use in the middle of a work and school day. I was completely alone out there, and sometimes I’d get this otherworldly feeling, picturing what I must have looked like to a plane passing overhead: a solitary figure practising football, lost in a sea of green.

Day after day, that was my routine. Even to the housewives and postmen in the neighbourhood, I must have seemed mad.

I can tell you, if it had gone on much longer, I would have been.

I realized how important it was for me to have more in my life than solitary training. I needed to be part of a community. I was doing what I had to do, yes, but it was vital for me to have the Stanley kids, as well as Glenn and Lindsey and my new mates on Glenn’s adult touch-rugby team.

After six weeks, football pre-season started in earnest, and at last I got a phone call from Allen Batsford.

“Lad, it’s time,” Allen said. “You ready? Can’t promise you anything but let’s have a look at you.”

Allen made a phone call to Bob Pearson, the head scout of Millwall at that time. Because I was so nervous that day, I wore the socks and shorts of two different clubs, and my favourite Manchester United jersey—such a crazy look. I was a ball of energy.

I got picked up to meet Allen and Bob for the first time face to face.

“Son, nice to finally meet you, what’ve you been up to?” Bob asked.

I described my daily regimen of training solo, jogging down to the park, even some of the more advanced exercises I’d learned back home at the Institute of Sport in Sydney. And keeping up my cardio fitness with the touch-rugby league.

That was all well and good, but they both wanted to know about my footballing. When was the last time I’d played in a match?

“I suppose it’s been … well, nearly three months ago.”

“You think you’re fit for trial?” Bob asked, looking a bit concerned.

“I’m fit,” I said. “I can run all day. I’ve been training hard. No doubt in my mind I’m match-fit.”

“Alright then. We’re going to take you to the training facilities in Bromley, throw you in with a few of the new boys. Some of the older boys as well. You’ll have a run around. We’ll see where you’re at.”

It seemed all very matter-of-fact to them, but for me this was one of the biggest mornings of my life. I knew my future—at least whatever career I might have as a professional footballer—was dependent on what I did in the next sixty or ninety minutes. What they’d casually called a run around …

Millwall’s home is the famous South London stadium known as the Den. But the Millwall first team, reserves, youth team and academy all trained at a facility six-and-a-half miles further south, in Bromley, right near Beckenham Place Park.

As we drove up that first time, I saw it was a beautiful area: there was a glade up the road, a nice shopping centre, and little well-kept family homes across the street on Calmont Road. The training ground itself had four or five pitches in use and clubhouses, with one whole side fenced in by the car park, the other side open to the forest behind us.

I’m not going to sugar-coat it. The first morning of my trial was bloody scary.

Here I was—an unknown face, some teenager from Australia. Why on earth were these English kids going to give me a chance, trying to take one of their spots?

I knew that on the park I could play to the best of my ability, but if the other lads wanted to make me look bad, it was easy enough to do. Just don’t pass me the ball properly or send in a high cross for a header that no one could reach. Trust me, skilled players can make any