I had to laugh this morning, when I read Bobby Gould’s version of the famous “secret ballot” which led to Vinnie Jones’ appointment as Wales captain. Sorry Bobby, but that isn’t the story that I’ve heard.
More than one member of that Welsh squad has since confirmed to me that while there was indeed a secret ballot held to choose the man who would replace Barry Horne as Wales captain, the announcement of Vinnie Jones as winner surprised everybody. A quick straw poll among the players quickly revealed that nobody had vote for Vinnie, and that Dean Saunders was the most popular candidate by far.
Bobby Gould has pulled off a few tricks in his career. He is the Derren Brown of football management. He bewitched the FAW committee into the job in the frst place. Who knows what magic he pulled off in that job interview that persuaded the men in suits that he was the one for the job?
In some respects, Bobby Gould’s charm won me over too. Some time after the debacle of his Wales’ career, he was appointed manager of Cardiff City to the surprise and dismay of almost everybody. I was employed by the club at the time (August 2000) as “Information Manager,” and I would work closely with Bobby as we tried to force club news releases through official channels, as an exciting new deal with the Football League promised untold riches for those clubs who adopted the new technology early on.
As soon as he arrived, the employees were quickly won over. He was a very likeable man, who made everybody feel part of the club. He worked hard too. I would often arrive at Ninian Park very early in the morning and Bobby would already have completed his daily run up to the top of Leckwith Hill and back.
One of the first things that we did when he arrived was to run a poll where fans could choose the runout tune for that season. The most popular choice was “You love us”, by the Manic Street Preachers. When I went to confirm this with Bobby he almost spat his tea out. “That lot! We can’t have that lot. Did you know they wrote a song about me?”
During his tenure as Wales manager, the Manics had publically denounced him, and had reworded one of their tracks as “Bobby Gould Must Go.” Their management had tee shirts printed too, and I was ready for Gould to refuse the fans’ choice. But to my surprise he laughed. He thought it was all a great joke. It was then he sat me down and quietly confided in me. “Look, I know that this lot don’t want me here after what happened with Wales. You know them, what can we do to win them over?” I advised Bobby that the best thing he could do was to lay low, keep out of the press, and concentrate on managing the team. And from that day, I would often ghost Bobby’s press releases, phoning him up to read out what he had said to the press just in case he disagreed with me. He never did. I made his statements so bland that he couldn’t.
From then on, Bobby was on my side. He’s got a sharp mind and understood the potential of the internet far better than most other people in football in those days. I had an awful time trying to win over Billy Ayre, who would deny a story to me, the official club press officer, before telephoning the regular press with an opposite story. On one memorable occasion, on his instructions I had issued an official flat out denial of a rumour at 5pm, only to hear Billy Ayre confirming the story to Rob Phillips on Radio Wales as I drove home.
But Bobby was different. He fought the internet’s corner, and within weeks we were controlling the club’s news output as much as we could. The official website traffic was up 5,000%, (from a figure of almost zero, admittedly), and Bobby was keen to keep up that progress.
He told me a great story which explained his working relationship with our new owner Sam Hammam. When Gould took over at Wimbledon, he had written the usual piece for the matchday programme and had finished off by saying, “all I ask is that my team give 100%” in today’s game”.
After winning the game, Gould was called into Hammam’s office, where he expected a glass of whiskey and a slap on the back. Hammam simply threw the match programme onto his desk. “Read that!” “Read it out loud to me.” A confused Gould was made to read out loud what he had written.
“all I ask is that my team give 100%” in today’s game”.
At that point Hammam burst into a rage. “Your team? Your fucking team? It’s MY team and don’t you ever forget that!” He never did.
We had a good working relationship. When Bobby found that I was making a trip to north Wales, he asked me to watch a game between Rhyl and Connahs Quay, and report back with my notes on two of Rhyl’s players; Danny Barton, and Lee Trundle. I told him that Trundle was skillful, but overweight and easily provoked. He was keener on Barton, but nothing came of it.
But then something happened which changed everything. Cardiff had been rumoured to be chasing a tall centre forward called Leo Fortune-West. We knew this because it was all over the internet. The unofficial websites were full of the news for days before we could announce anything officially.
The story petered out though, and it was reported that the deal was dead. But one Friday morning, Bobby burst into my office. “Quick, we’ve just signed Leo, and I’ve had Rob Phillips on the phone already. Get it out on the official site before anyone else gets it.” I wrote a quick story confirming the signing and published it within minutes.
Sam Hammam went apoplectic. He had been walking around the Brecon Beacons when a phone call told him of the press release. The following day, before a game against Blackpool, he called me into a meeting in front of a dozen other administration staff where he intended to humiliate me in front of my colleagues. It was his customary man management technique.
He accused me of releasing the news unilaterally. After a 5 minute rant about the “interweb” and “leaking stories,” I calmly told him that I had been authorised to publish by somebody at the club. “Who is it?”, he screamed. “Who authorised you?” In my peripheral vision I could see Bobby Gould looking at me, and I expected him to jump in to back me up. He didn’t say a word. And that was the day I lost my respect for him. I knew that I could no longer work alongside him, or that particular owner. The following day I cleared my desks and walked out of the club.
Ffwtbol 