Читать книгу Taking le Tiss онлайн

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Four days later I scored my first league goal but it counted for nothing as we got thumped 3-1 at Sheffield Wednesday. I was sent on when we were already 3-0 down so I was never likely to have much impact, but Jimmy Case chipped one through for me to run on to and lob over Martin Hodge. I was on a high. With three goals in four days I thought it was the start of something good but Chris didn’t put me in the team for the next game, home to Arsenal. Maybe he was trying to keep my feet on the ground, but I have always believed in picking your best players and the ones in form. In fact it was a good one to miss because we lost 4-0, but I got a big boost from an article by Saints legend and record goalscorer Mike Channon who described me as the new Ian Rush. He called me deceptively quick and said my football brain would take me a long way and that Liverpool should try to sign me. So on the one hand my ego was soaring but on the other I spent a lot of that season on the bench, usually being sent on with the instruction to try and rescue the game. I very rarely got on when we were winning. But I do remember having fantastic support from the crowd. Whenever we were drawing the Milton Road end would start chanting ‘We want Le Tissier’. Chris Nicholl was quite stubborn; the more the fans chanted my name, the more reluctant he became to put me on. I was never one for doing much warming up but I knew if I jogged up the touchline the crowd would start singing my name—and it used to wind up the manager no end—so I did it even more!