Читать книгу Taking le Tiss онлайн

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One day a PFA rep called in to talk to the players, including the apprentices. We were all summoned so we couldn’t finish cleaning the dressing room. While we were in the meeting, Dave walked past and saw some kit on the floor and went ballistic. He stormed into the players’ lounge with a face like thunder and ordered us all downstairs immediately. He pointed to the dirty kit and asked why it was there. We said we’d been told to go to the meeting but he just barked that we should have finished the cleaning first. He gave us 10 minutes to complete the job, and to get changed and ready on the running track. He ordered us to do 40 laps while he sat in the corner of the stand and counted them. We jogged round as a group while he ticked them off until he got to 36. When we completed the next lap, he called 36 again. No one dared correct him, so next time he called 37 and then 37 again, and so on, until eventually he reached 40, making us do four EXTRA laps. He made his point all right. I’ll never forget that, or the time one of the lads thought it would be funny to press the fuel cut-off button in the youth team mini-bus. No matter what he tried, Dave couldn’t start it. We all thought it was hilarious until he told us to run back. And in those days, before Saints bought their own training ground, we trained a good six miles from The Dell. We weren’t best pleased but it was one time we actually got the better of Dave. We’d gone no more than 400 yards when a truck drove past. We got a lift and jumped on the back. He dropped us off near The Dell so we waited a while then sprinted the remaining half mile to make it look like we were knackered, and I was.