Looking after Number 2

I’VE ONLY been in the Crest Forte Airport Hotel for two minutes and I’ve already managed to get the newest member of the Ireland squad into trouble with the gaffer, my supremely generous offer to buy Jeff Kenna a Ballygowan prompting Big Jack to hare over and inform him in schoolmasterly tones that the bar is out of bounds.

Retiring to the alcohol-free sanctuary of the lobby, the Southampton full-back laughs off the chastisement and jokes that, “Jack reckons because I'm a Dub I'm going to hit the Guinness.”

I consider making a witty aside that involves Paul McGrath but seeing as a certain Aston Villa player is standing within right-hook distance and looks a lot bigger than he does on the telly, I decide to keep my one-liners to myself.

If Jeff’s nervous about the possibility of making his Republic debut in 24 hours time it certainly doesn’t show in his demeanour which is so relaxed you suspect that maybe he has managed to sink a few crafty stouts.

“No such luck,” he deadpans, “Maurice Setters breathalyses us every day before training, so we’re on the dry till 9 o’clock on Wednesday night! I was actually far more tense before the ‘B’ International against England because I realised if I made a mess of that I was out of the set-up for good. I’ve also had the benefit of playing in the Premiereship for the past three seasons – when you’ve been to Elland Road and survived the stick they give you there, a full house at Landsdowne doesn’t seem quite so daunting although, of course, playing for your country is that extra bit special.”

Another advantage of regular first-team football at The Dell under Alan Ball is that the 24-year-old Dubliner gets to sharpen his defensive skills every week against the likes of Alan Shearer and Jurgan Klinsmann. Without casting aspersions on Ireland’s Endsleigh League contingent, it seems better preparation for the international stage than journeying to Blundell Park for a blustery mid-week encounter with Grimsby Town.

“You can watch a player on the telly until your eyes go square but you’re not entirely sure what he’s capable of until you come up against him on the pitch. You mentioned Alan Shearer – well, you’re never going to completely shut someone like him down but after he’s run you ragged a couple of times, you learn how to minimise the dangers. If I was in the First or Second Division he’d petrify me but, as it is, I’ve reached the point where I respect the bloke rather than fear him.”

Correct me if I’m wrong but I haven’t noticed Liam Daish, who plays his football among the Crewe Alexandras and Wycombe Wanderers of this world, donning brown shorts for international duty.

“That’s probably because I’ve stolen them off him,” Kenna laughs again. “No, you only have to look at Birmingham’s performances in the Cup against Liverpool to see that when an Endsleigh League side’s firing on all cylinders, there’s not much difference in the skill level between the lower divisions and the Premiereship. Liam’s a quality player who I’d imagine is in no hurry to leave Birmingham because they’re a big club with prospects. It’s the same with Jason McAteer – he’s happy at Bolton, they’ve as good a chance as anyone of winning promotion this season, so why go elsewhere?”

Unlike, say, Roy Keane or Gary Kelly who navigated their way to the Premiereship via-Cobh Ramblers and Drogheda United, Jeff Kenna’s experience of the League of Ireland is limited to the odd afternoon on the terraces with his dad at Dalymount Park and the now sadly-deceased Milltown. His big break came at the tender age of 12, his junior team Palmerstown Rangers journeying cross-channel for a tournament organised by Southampton: one of the coaching staff there recognised his fledgling talent.

“I got asked to stay on for a trial and then I used to go back every school holiday so they could assess me,” he reminisces. There were no guarantees that it would lead to anything but at 15 they offered me apprentice terms and after talking it through with my family, I decided that Leaving Cert or not, I’d be mad to pass up on the opportunity. Obviously it was a bit of a gamble – if I hadn’t made the grade, I’d probably be back here now on the dole.”

“Actually, I was very fortunate having a well-organised club like Palmerstown Rangers on my doorstep because the Christian Brothers school I went to, O’Connell’s, was geared towards Gaelic. They made me play a couple of times but I moaned so much that they eventually abandoned me to the football team.”

So, there you go kids, if you want to extricate yourself from a lifetime of hurling-induced misery, all you have to do is effect an annoying nasal whine and pretend you’re Eddie Vedder.

As for Southampton, I don’t think the local tourist board will have me up for libel if I say that the port is to visceral thrills what Prince Charles is to marital fidelity. How did Jeff cope with the culture shock of moving to a sleepy south-coast backwater while his mates in Dublin were getting their teenage rocks off?

“There was the odd twinge of jealousy when I heard they’d been clubbing and I’d been in bed at 10 o’clock because I had a match the next day but if you’re serious about being a professional footballer, you can’t go out boozing and womanising until the small hours of the morning. And when you consider the rewards that are up for grabs, it’s not much of a sacrifice. I don’t know about other players in my position but I’ve made a point of keeping in touch with the lads I grew up with and that’s one of the big thrills of being here for the England game, knowing that my mates are going to be in the crowd cheering me on.

“As for moving away from home for the first time,” he continues, “I’d been travelling backwards and forwards to Southampton for three years, got on well with the other lads and it seemed the logical next step. I’d probably have had a lot more trouble settling in at one of the ‘glamour’ clubs but Southampton has a relatively small staff and you soon get to know everyone else including the senior players who, in my experience, were genuinely supportive of the youngsters.

“I was also fortunate whilst still an apprentice to be selected for the Under-21 tournament in Toulon. Alan Kelly, Gary Kelly, Steve Staunton and Niall Quinn were in the same squad and afterwards when they came down to Southampton with their clubs, they’d make a point of saying ‘hello’. That’s an enormous boost when you’re not even holding down a regular place in the reserves.”

Talking later on to Paul McGrath, he observes somewhat ruefully that even the lowest paid player in the Premiereship gets more money nowadays than he did at Manchester United. There’s still a huge gulf, though, between the sort of wages Jeff Kenna’s earning and the £15,000 a week that goes into Eric Cantona’s Armani back-pocket. How overriding is the desire to get to the half-dozen or so clubs that have a bottomless bank-balance?

“We’re not like other people who can learn a trade and then keep going until retirement age,” he explains. “Professional footballers have, at best, 15 years to make sure that themselves and their families are financially secure, so you have to be aware of money and where your career’s heading. At the same time, you don’t come off the pitch thinking, ‘I played well today, maybe that means Man U or Liverpool will put a bid in for me’. There’ve been games where I haven’t put a foot wrong but I still go home depressed because we’ve only managed to draw. Tiss is really bad in that respect – everyone will be clapping him on the back after one of his spectacular goals and he’ll be going, ‘will you ever fuck off lads, we didn’t get the three points!’”

Forget the Bermuda Triangle and Boyzone’s international success, modern life’s biggest mystery is how on earth Southampton have managed to retain Matthew Le Tissier’s services whilst players only half as gifted have been swapping hands for seven million quid. Does Alan Ball have compromising photos of him with the club mascot or something?

“You only have to see the fans at The Dell wearing their number 8 shirts with ‘God’ on them to realise how much of a hero Tiss is in Southampton and because his family are settled in the town and he’s not a money-oriented person, there’s a good chance he’ll see out his career there. If he was to go, there’d be a few players – myself included – who’d wonder just how serious the club are about winning trophies. Realistically, the Premiereship’s out of our reach but there’s no reason why in the next couple of seasons we shouldn’t challenge for a cup. That’s definitely something that takes on added importance as you get older – I’d hate to think that I’d end my career without playing in Europe or having a couple of medals to show my kids.”

Apart from ripping the heart out of what looks an increasingly classy team, packing Le Tissier off to one of the northern giants is guaranteed to have the normally mild-mannered citizens of Southampton rioting in the streets. Ian Branfoot effectively sacked himself as manager when he committed the heresy of leaving ‘God’ on the bench and past murmurings of the Channel Islander departing to sunnier financial climbs have seen Alan Ball deluged with hate mail.

“To be fair to Ian Branfoot,” Kenna reflects, “when he dropped Tiss, neither himself nor the team were doing the business. He wanted 11 workers hard-grafting up and down the pitch and that’s not part of Matt’s game, he just strolls around and pulls off his strokes of genius. Of course, it went down like a lead balloon with the fans but the fact is as soon as he forced his way back into the team, he started scoring goals. Those four or five games that he missed might’ve given him the little kick in the arse he needed.”

In the past, the general rule of journalistic thumb has been that players turn into Trappist monks at the first whiff of controversy. Managerial rows may be blazing and boardroom battles raging but you’ve about as much chance of getting the inside story from the star striker as you have of winning the Lotto, scooping the pools and bedding the entire cast of Fair City, all on the same day. Now, though, with the advent of quality footie magazines like Four-Four-Two and When Saturday Comes, professionals are starting to loosen up and Jeff Kenna is happy to talk about virtually any subject that doesn’t involve bringing the game into disrepute.

“It’s incredibly easy to put your foot in it with the F.A. and there’s also the worry – particularly with the tabloids – of being misquoted or taken out of context. You eventually get to know who to trust and I’ve never personally had any problems with the media. I felt kind of uncomfortable during the ‘Branfoot Out’ campaign – supporters are entitled to criticise if they’re paying £15 to £20 for a ticket and the team are playing crap but some of the stick they gave him was way out of order. It’s fair enough to have protests and demonstrations inside the ground but when somebody’s at home or out shopping with the family, you respect their privacy. After all, no manager or player loses matches on purpose.”

According to The Daily Mirror they do.

“Yeah, the Bruce Grobbelaar thing,” he sighs. “As soon as he came in there was the usual banter round the dressing-room but he denied it and still does. I don’t believe that someone who’s guilty would be able to carry on as if nothing’s happened and Bruce has been his usual relaxed, jovial self throughout. It’s all going to blow up again now that the bloke who made the allegations, Chris Vincent, is back in England but I’m sure Grobb won’t let it effect his performances on the pitch which have been as eccentric as ever recently. He’s a great ‘keeper but he doesn’t half put the wind up you when he comes out the box, takes it round the centre-forward and then tries to pass it rather than leathering it into touch!”

So, can we take it that the Southampton dressing-room is an oasis of tranquality blessed with good karma, positive vibes and yin that matches yan?

“You wouldn’t be asking that if you’d heard some of Alan Ball’s half-time team talks,” he chuckles. “But, you know, you’re playing flat-out, the adrenaline’s pumping and things get said in the heat of the moment. Apart from that, the only stick flying around is the sort of mickey-tacking you’d get in any male-dominated environment. We had one lad at the club, Nicky Bainger, who’s the spitting image of Elvis and wears his hair like him, and he got a terrible going over.

“Part of it was that some of the – how shall we put this? – more weather-beaten members of the squad were jealous of the attention he got from the female fans. There’s also a bit of national rivalry – myself and Tiss have been winding each other up about the game tomorrow and I have to admit I gave Ian Dowie and Jim Magilton an awful slagging over the last Republic v. Northern Ireland match.”

Armchair fans might find this hard to believe after the ultraviolence which blighted last week’s so-called ‘friendly’ but the atmosphere nowadays at your average league match is no more or no less threatening than you’d find at any other sporting event. Besides better policing, the main reason for this is that the 99% of decent supporters won’t tolerate the Cro-Mag contingent dragging their club’s name through the mud. There are numerous personal experiences I could recount to illustrate the point but perhaps the best is the occasion last season at Griffin Park when a dozen Brentford regulars surrounded a group of racists and told them in colourful terrace vernacular that they really ought to be on their way home.

“When you consider the hundreds of thousands of people who go to football every Saturday,” Jeff stresses, “the number of arrests and incidents of violence are negligible. It’s unfortunate that they pushed the price of tickets up but the good thing about all-seater stadia is that they’ve encouraged more women and families to go to games. When I was younger, most the girls at matches had been dragged there by their boyfriends but now you get groups of them going together and it’s not because they want to ogle Ryan Giggs’ legs, they really understand and appreciate the game.

“There’s been a lot of discussion in the wake of the Eric Cantona incident as to what abuse players should or shouldn’t have to put up with. Anyone chanting rascist slogans deserves to be banned for life but if 20,000 people want to chant ‘Kenna You’re Shit’, fair enough, they’ve paid their money and they’re entitled to voice their opinions. In fact, I was delighted the first time I got stick from the Southampton fans because it meant they knew my name.”

Jack Charlton told me pre-match at the Crest Forte Airport Hotel that he was anxious to get a proper look at Jeff Kenna and though his chances of making his full international debut were scuppered by the mindless few, chances are he’ll be there or thereabouts next month when the Republic take on the North again in the European qualifiers.

“The best I can realistically hope for at the moment,” he concedes, “is being brought on for the last 20 minutes as a substitute and playing well enough for the boss to keep me in mind for the European Championships. We’ve a very experienced squad and I’m under no illusions that I’ll just be able to walk into the team and make one of the jerseys my own. There’s a lot I’ve already learned from being in the Ireland set-up – Jack pushed me out onto the left for the ‘B’ international, even though I play at right-back for Southampton, and that made me realise I can operate reasonably effectively on both sides of the park.

“The training sessions have been interesting because whereas with Alan Ball it’s short passes to feet, Jack likes to get it up the channels and it helps you adapt to different systems. Purists may argue but I reckon the Wimbledon way of playing football is just as valid as the Manchester United one. You maximise your strengths, minimise your weaknesses and go for the three points.”

I’ve been exercising great self-control for the past half-hour but, I’m sorry, the question has to be asked. Doesn’t Jeff feel a prize prannet having to turn out for Southampton every week wearing one of those godawful Rugby League-style shirts?

“Yeah, they are pretty brutal,” he admits. “I don’t know if it’s anything to go by but the last fella who organised the strip has since been sacked. We’ve had a word with the new commercial manager and warned him of the painful consequences if he doesn’t change the design for next season.”

What foul and heinous fate awaits him if he fails to comply?

“Well, we’ve threatened to chip in and buy him an Arsenal season-ticket.”

That should do it!