At the time Alan Knight made his debut against Rotherham I was a nineteen year old unemployed no-hoper youth living on the borders of Leigh Park.
An age where as an avid Pompey fan despite having grown out of the autograph hunting stage I still wasn’t too old to revere the figures I watched from the terraces every week and regularly saw on the back of newspapers.
I remember being yards from Knightsy one day at The United Services Ground in the days Hampshire still played cricket there and his presence still had the effect of making one stare in his direction for long periods. The fact that I was now older than one or two of the players who were now playing failed to detract the reverence and mystique I still treated professional footballers with.
Therefore these days I still sometimes have to pinch myself when I’m sitting next to him as he’s chauffeuring me to various northern outpost for an away game. Or when he helps carry my beer to his car and graciously permits me to have a can or five of the amber nectar either on the way up or on the way back. Usually both. And there is the rub. Now approaching old age and senility I have never forgetten the days when I came to Fratton Park as a wide eyed kid and there is an element of that which I have consciously maintained and clung onto tenaciously. For in doing that so it ensures I never take things for granted in my own position or in dealings with others.
For instance far from considering it a right I just felt tremendously privileged and somewhat humble watching Pompey win the FA Cup from the Royal Box, staying in the team hotel the night before, residing in many other top hotels over many years and flying over all parts of Europe with the team just for starters.
Likewise the stories that have emerged from these years, some that have been recounted in this column, are all part of the treasured memories rather than ones I am conceited about or recount through any misplaced self-importance.
Mistakenly ordering a Chinese take away from Harry Redknapp instead of the intended Havant Chinese shop has almost been done to death. But then there was still that kid inside me that marvelled at being in the position to just dial up Harry mistakenly or otherwise. It is the retaining of that wide eyed kid-like mind-set which distinguishes things from being a privilege as opposed to a right. That provides me with the opportunity for another story relating to Harry which occurred over in Asia where I was over on a private holiday in Singapore before joining the rest in Hong Kong for the Asia Trophy.
One afternoon to dodge a tropical rain deluge and with a couple of hours to kill I disappeared into an Orchard Road cinema. It was a bit of a fruitless exercise as the film was Malaysian speaking with what looked like Chinese sub-titles. I was just about to depart when a familiar cockney voice filled the cinema with “Yeah I like him as a player for sure. “I don’t know if he’d come here because we’re not Arsenal or Barcelona but we will see what we can do. It’s miles away at the moment.”
Cue a cinema full of Asians looking round for the intruder as horror gripped me when it suddenly dawned that the familiar sounding voice was coming from my pocket. My Dictaphone had switched itself on and was playing an interview I’d done with Harry regarding pre-season transfer targets. I beat a hasty retreat following this discovery which had admittedly livened up what appeared to me to be a pretty pointless boring film.
But whenever I narate such stories it is still with the childish innocence of the wonder of having something that contained a personal and confidential interview with Harry. Well confidential till it was broadcast to about one hundred cinema going Asians.
Also whilst over there I was entertained to tea by the Sports Editor of the Straits Times, the national and biggest paper of Asia about providing a monthly column from Harry which would be read all over the Asian continent.
Again this arose because of where I had progressed to but sitting in the Singapore taxi coming back from the meeting that wide eyed kid had returned to keep me grounded
There was another time where on the Friday evening of the pre-Wigan Great Escape match I was invited out eat with Milan Mandaric, Peter Storrie, Harry, Joe Jordan and Kevin Bond.
To be entirely accurate they all ate and I just drank and that was purely down to my roots where from the age of sixteen Friday nights were drinking nights. No amount of esteemed company were going to divert me and I wasn’t going to change to more eloquent social graces as eating the finest cuisine.
I remember the small detail such as Harry being unduly worried about the Birmingham v Newcastle match the next day which had the Brummies won would have potentially put Pompey back in the relegation spot with only Liverpool to play.
I also remember us all glancing furtively at each other when we got in a rather tiresome hotel lift which when you pressed the button chimed out ‘Going Down’ which was not what you repeatedly wanted to hear going into a relegation battle on the penultimate day of the season.
But it was illuminating to be in such company and listen to the conversation that unfolded that night and a far cry from knocking them back in the Star Pub at Havant with my drinking mates.
Yet it was The Star that my mind kept harping back to because the thought of ever being in this esteemed company in these circumstances back then would have been too ludicrous to contemplate.
But here I was and if only those in the Star who had foretold when I was twenty five that I’d be dead by the time I was forty could see me then at forty seven. In fact how ironic that forty had been the age where it all took off with regards to the club.
But there was no triumphant defiance at proving people so wrong just an immense gratitude at the
complete diverse fork life’s path had taken. The sort of access and experiences I could never dream of having gone through when I watched Knightsy make his debut.
And again it is this wide eyed kid element that has always helped in the job I do as well.
Having unlimited access to dressing room and stadium areas that are still considered inner sanctum areas can make you blasé. But I retain the moment I first went down the dressing rooms or walked up those steps towards the pitch to know how magical it felt. So to help others replicate that magical feeling through their own eyes especially on a match day is magical because I understand exactly how it felt myself. I try and take half an hour each day to walk round a silent and totally empty Fratton Park pitch-side and do four or five laps.
It always invariably takes me back to when I first entered as a wide eyed eight year old and would have yearned for such unlimited access. To anyone that spots me it must look a bit bizarre but there are so many memories stored within and that is what I live by when dealing with others.
Never forget your roots and you will never get above yourself in a job where at times it would be easy to do so given the circles you mix even down here in League 2 but certainly when we were up far higher.
It is a bit ironic that these days when Alan Knight picks me up it’s either from the car park of the Curlew pub, another watering hole I drank at when he first played. Or around the corner from where I first signed on after leaving school.
Both are from another time in life when I revered people like Knightsy and subsequently those who were to follow him.
It’s important that I remember those starting points. For they were from times when I could only dream about the experiences that yet had to manifest, and now they have I continue to marvel at the privilege I’ve been granted.
I’ve talked about those Harry stories and in other columns have spoken about being stuck on a German runway with the team, driving to Liverpool with Tony Adams, of having a one to one with chat into the night with Tony Pulis and striking up a lasting friendship with Trevor Birch a man who effectively did the deal to bring Roman Abramovic to Chelsea.
To this day I remember all that and much more with affection and gratitude. And this one time no hoper from the border of Leigh Park who some reckoned would be dead at forty tries and uses that to give back as much as he can as a token of appreciation. The day I stop having that appreciation will be the day I bow out.