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Authors: Craig Bellamy
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up.” It was great to have that kind of support from a pro like him.
He was 33 and I was a raw teenager but he would invite me round to his house and I’d have something to eat with him and his wife and his two kids. I thought that if I could train as well as him and look after myself as well as him, knowing that I had more ability than him, then I could have a good career. He said that, too. He said he had got the maximum out of what he had. He told me that if I could apply myself, I would be able to go wherever I wanted to and achieve whatever I wanted to.
I had Claire and Ellis with me by then. After I signed my new contract, I bought an apartment and moved them over. It was a fantastic feeling to be all together at last although it was daunting, too. We were still kids and we had a kid to look after. Everything I had went on that apartment and all my focus was on trying to provide a good life for us.
I was a lot happier once they arrived and I went from strength to strength, even though we were struggling as a side. Between January and April 1998, we went 14 games without a victory and slipped to within three points of the relegation zone. The atmosphere around the club was grim and even though we staged a minor recovery to finish 15th, Mike Walker was sacked just before the end of the season.
It had been hard for Walker. He had been forced to blood a lot of young players and at the same time, some of the older players, stalwarts of the club, were moving towards retirement. Being exiled from the Premier League was really taking its toll financially by then. It had felt like a cutting edge club when I was coming up through the ranks, full of new ideas and optimistic about the future. That had gone.
Players like me were thrown in at the deep end. I benefited from that but he probably didn’t. I’ll always be grateful to him for giving me my league debut but did I learn anything from him? Not really. Did I learn anything tactically? No. Did I learn anything about how to motivate players? No.
Maybe that was partly because I was still very close to Steve Foley. I was still learning in the game and I was always aware of that. When training with the first team finished, I would still go back with the reserves in the afternoon. I didn’t need to but I wanted to improve. I didn’t settle for just being a first team player. I wanted to play at the top and I knew there was a lot of work to be done.
Foley was my motivation. He watched every game. He was on my case if I did stuff wrong but he was encouraging, too. Walker was sacked at the end of April 1998 and Foley took charge of the last game of the season. It was Reading away and I scored the goal in a 1-0 victory. It was the last game at Elm Park, I think.
Bruce Rioch took over for the start of the 1998-99 season, with Bryan Hamilton as his assistant. It was clear immediately we got back for pre-season training that improvements had been made. That summer, the club had created a new sports science department. We had heart monitors, there were finger pricks to take the bloods for fatigue, there was a new emphasis on diet with a nutritionist. Instead of buying a player for three or four hundred grand, you might as well spend the money on that kind of stuff and get the club right. It felt like the cutting edge was back again. Everything was very professional.
I liked Rioch. He knew the game. He had an army background and was very strict. He struggled to warm to people and some players struggled to warm to him. But he was always willing to try and improve you as a player which was right up my street. He was a sharp observer of the game, too, so when we went on pre-season tour to Ireland and he saw me playing centre midfield, he knew immediately I wasn’t a natural fit there. He had been a pretty good central midfielder himself, which helped.
After we got back from Ireland, he called me into his office the day before another pre-season game against Spurs. He said he
He was 33 and I was a raw teenager but he would invite me round to his house and I’d have something to eat with him and his wife and his two kids. I thought that if I could train as well as him and look after myself as well as him, knowing that I had more ability than him, then I could have a good career. He said that, too. He said he had got the maximum out of what he had. He told me that if I could apply myself, I would be able to go wherever I wanted to and achieve whatever I wanted to.
I had Claire and Ellis with me by then. After I signed my new contract, I bought an apartment and moved them over. It was a fantastic feeling to be all together at last although it was daunting, too. We were still kids and we had a kid to look after. Everything I had went on that apartment and all my focus was on trying to provide a good life for us.
I was a lot happier once they arrived and I went from strength to strength, even though we were struggling as a side. Between January and April 1998, we went 14 games without a victory and slipped to within three points of the relegation zone. The atmosphere around the club was grim and even though we staged a minor recovery to finish 15th, Mike Walker was sacked just before the end of the season.
It had been hard for Walker. He had been forced to blood a lot of young players and at the same time, some of the older players, stalwarts of the club, were moving towards retirement. Being exiled from the Premier League was really taking its toll financially by then. It had felt like a cutting edge club when I was coming up through the ranks, full of new ideas and optimistic about the future. That had gone.
Players like me were thrown in at the deep end. I benefited from that but he probably didn’t. I’ll always be grateful to him for giving me my league debut but did I learn anything from him? Not really. Did I learn anything tactically? No. Did I learn anything about how to motivate players? No.
Maybe that was partly because I was still very close to Steve Foley. I was still learning in the game and I was always aware of that. When training with the first team finished, I would still go back with the reserves in the afternoon. I didn’t need to but I wanted to improve. I didn’t settle for just being a first team player. I wanted to play at the top and I knew there was a lot of work to be done.
Foley was my motivation. He watched every game. He was on my case if I did stuff wrong but he was encouraging, too. Walker was sacked at the end of April 1998 and Foley took charge of the last game of the season. It was Reading away and I scored the goal in a 1-0 victory. It was the last game at Elm Park, I think.
Bruce Rioch took over for the start of the 1998-99 season, with Bryan Hamilton as his assistant. It was clear immediately we got back for pre-season training that improvements had been made. That summer, the club had created a new sports science department. We had heart monitors, there were finger pricks to take the bloods for fatigue, there was a new emphasis on diet with a nutritionist. Instead of buying a player for three or four hundred grand, you might as well spend the money on that kind of stuff and get the club right. It felt like the cutting edge was back again. Everything was very professional.
I liked Rioch. He knew the game. He had an army background and was very strict. He struggled to warm to people and some players struggled to warm to him. But he was always willing to try and improve you as a player which was right up my street. He was a sharp observer of the game, too, so when we went on pre-season tour to Ireland and he saw me playing centre midfield, he knew immediately I wasn’t a natural fit there. He had been a pretty good central midfielder himself, which helped.
After we got back from Ireland, he called me into his office the day before another pre-season game against Spurs. He said he
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