Advice for Ipswich in the Premier League

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I I feel I'm coming out of of the other end that and um feel ready to go back to work. So um yeah things are good. Um football is coming to an exciting sort of climax I think um obviously for Ipswich it's all done and dusted. They are there for Middlesbrough where I live and uh the team I supported as a boy. Um I suppose we waiting today to see the outcome at all come out, the outcome of um spygate I suppose but um it looks I I would assume they're gonna allow Southampton to play in the final against Hull but um still exciting things going the Premier League, still not quite finished, Arsenal still not over the line, Champions League. You know, it's um it's exciting end to the season, as it as it was for Ipswich of course, and the fantastic scenes at Portman Road a couple of weeks ago. So um yeah, good. And I as I say I miss it badly and want to get back in and hopefully this summer I will be back at work. Definitely, mate. Yes, I'm sure it's been a rare sort of season where this is your probably first full season, you're not sort of been on the touchline and stuff until you've got itchy feet . Yeah, I I think couple of things. Obviously, my illness for your for your family, really. When you're ill and you've you hear the word cancer, you know, I the the word death in my mind comes to to mind with cancer. It's it's it's been a tough couple of years. And um for me just to get well, to get ill, that's to to get myself back for my family, really. You know, I've got young teenage boys um you know, I th I look in their eyes and they uh they want me to still go out and play golf with them and kick the ball in the garden with them and um do the things that dads do, go on nice holidays and so yeah, I've been um getting myself in a strong position, you know, mentally, but um physically as well and and I feel I'm at that point now ready to go back to work and um so yeah ever everytythinghing 's fine. As I say I miss football a lot when I'm not doing it. I've done it all my life since I left school at the age of sixteen. I'm sixty two now. But I still feel I've got the energy and the drive to do it and um so let's wait and see if the opportunity comes. That'd be good. And um is it okay if you can share us some insight on your you know the bowel cancer and stuff like that? Yeah. Sort of let people know what sort of involved in it. Um, yeah, well I basically a change in your bowel movement is what first started me. I was figured I was managing Sunderland, we were doing extremely well, we were at the top end of the table and we were you know, competing with with town really with Ipswich to try and get out of that league. And um there was a change in my bowel movements really. It's you know it was seemed to be a blockage, and it you know, without going into too much detail, I um I went and um and had a colonoscopy, um, which is basically a camera to check, and it's you know, a little bit unpleasant, but it's it's what was required and with that colonoscopy through the League Managers Association, um Yeah, they discovered there was some cancer deposits in my bowel that needed operating on um think they developed from being polyps for a for a while, polyps sometimes in your bowel, but then it it they develop into cancerous polyps and um so they needed removing I had a major operation um to get that done. It's a recovery time. I don't know, four or five months it took me to recover from that. I had chemotherapy over that period as well, which is very unpleasant. Just drains your body of energy and drains you're you know you you're not the same person you were you you you laying in your bed constantly you needed to lay down it was hard to even stand in a shower it was lots of lots of really negative things chemotherapy really takes everything out of your body . Um so you know my main goal, my main aim was really to get fit for my family and I went through all of the treatments I needed to go through. Actually , yeah, felt pretty good for a spell and then um had to go back at at at West Brom and um yeah West Brom didn't went well for a while. It was good to go back. I've been at West Br om eighteen years earlier and won the league with West Brom and um got to the Premier League and had some great times with a very good team. A bit different going back. Um American ownership, um, wanting to do use a lot of data as as an uh as all clubs do these days, a lot of data, a lot of artificial intelligence, you know, trying to um aid the manager, I suppose, but um sometimes it doesn't always aid the manager, I would suggest. But anyway, for whatever reason that didn't really work out for me and um and I discovered um I needed a second operation. Um I went for a scan as you do after you've had cancer. You go for three monthly scans and uh showed an another deposited come into my groin area. Um I had another major operation, removed again, didn't have any chemotherapy, they just removed it. Um and I've been through that process the last what six months, sort of a bit longer probably of um of recovering. And here I am feeling full of energy again playing golf with my kids um I've just I've told you I've just been coffee shopping in Yarm High Street here on Teaside with Gary Pallister talking about all things football Middlesbrough what's going on there, what's going on at Manchester Unit ed? Um, you know, I as people all around Ipswich will be in their coffee shops talking, what is the what is the town going to do this year? Are they going to spend how much money they're going to spend? How are they going to stay up this season and the season coming? Sorry, and how's it gonna um how are they gonna look this next year? Funny enough, that is actually one of our questions we got from a fan, but we'll get into that later on. Um, but I want to ask Tony where the nickname Mogga comes from. Um maybe I should know this, but it's just good to hear from your site. You know, when you get a nickname, it it sticks and it stays it sticks, you know, ever since. Well mine stuck from from junior school really. So under the age of 11 I think probably eight nine ten um I was well like a five a side team we had and uh at school really I lived on a council estate on Teaside in red car. Um , and I was the goalkeeper, strangely enough, for that team. I think it was generally older kids, really. So maybe a year or two. So you go to junior school. What is that from the age of what six six or seven till eleven, isn't it? So um I was pr I was the goalie. I was chucked in goal. I lived on a council estate in Red Cat and went to Lakes Estate School and I was the goalie in that team and yet they called me Mog like a cat because they couldn't beat me. Nobody could get the ball past me. And I was throwing myself everywhere. And so Mogger became a name from the age of maybe six or seven. Um, and everybody called me Mogger, even my parents call me Mogga sometimes. And um yeah, I'm not sure. I've had car registrations with Mogger on it and things like that. And yeah, and it seems a bit daft at sixty two, people call you Mogger, and yet as I walk my dog on the beach here at Redcar or in a park in Middlesbrough . Everybody calls me Mugger. All right, Mugger, how's things? How's your health, pal? All right, go blah blah because you the butter match on Saturday. What's going on? Blah. You know, everybody stops and calls me Mogga. And and yeah, so it started from the age of five or six, basically, because I was a goalkeeper and the reference of being like a cat. And um, and that was Mogga, and here I am still today being called Mogga. Yeah, I'm sure it's um interesting maybe when you went to doctors and they're calling you Tony or Mr. Tony Mowbray or Mr. Mowbray and then difficult, yeah. Yeah, I listen, that does happen. It's it's because most uh as I say, I I've been to my coffee shop this morning, five or six, Lenny Lawrence in there, Gary Pallister's in there, Rie Dee Vivash, the assistant manager at Middlesbrough. You know, look football people talking football in the coffee shop and and they all call me mugger. Um it's uh it's but that's fine. It's that's part of my life. I'm trying to think. I don't think my mother calls me mugger, she calls me torn . Um but apart from that, everybody calls me mugger, really. Yeah. I love it. And um I wanna sort of tell you back always like I'm always intrigued on sort of early life of footballers, you know, how they first got into football and the first memories, who who sort of got you into it. Yeah. Well, uh who got me into it? Um just living on a council state with loads of walls to kick the ball against, really. And and you know, I'd say to my kids now half of Christmas all I ever got was like a a bag of nuts, an orange and a football. That was it, that was my Christmas presence. You know, when the kids are opening their 30 presents every Christmas, it's um and I'd get a ball every year and a bag of nuts and a and a packet of smarty, something like that. But um but yeah, uh the the environment that I grew up really, football was everywhere. Um, my dad did take me to the Borough matches at Airson Park as a kid. Um, maybe shouldn't say this, but we used to do a squeeze, so I'd only pay for himself and I'd squeeze in as the little kid next to him, and he just pushed the gates as the rotating gates they go through to and um yeah so I would get a squeeze with my dad and go and watch butter at Essen Park. Football's always been there. I was I talked to my players about their inner child, find your inner child. Because when you're a child and you're a football good at football in the school, I I never used to pass to anybody. I'd used to dribble and score loads of goals. And basically I I think when you're a young footballer, uh you're the you're the best player in your school, you're the generally the best player. This is the inner child I talk about to footballers of today. Um find your inner child because when I was that young footballer, dribbling, scoring goals, enjoying the ball. Um it was football was such a joy really when you're such so young and you are you are better than the other kids at school who don't practice like you do every time you go home. I used to take a ball to school every day of my life and just either keep it up or bounce it off all the walls or play it off the curbs and control it off my chest. The ball was always at my feet every day of school and um yeah and and as I felt as if I was the the best player at school. And that's I don't say that with any arrogance other than I was the guy who all I ever did was have a ball with me. Everybody would see me and and I never didn't have a ball. Um, and I I I feel as if most footballers that make it to be professional footballers, in whatever route they go down, whatever route they've come from, um have probably been the same, lived with the ball all their life and and had it at their feet and can manipulate it and can do whatever they want with the football. And I and I had a career as a big centre half. And so it's amazing to think about all the talented footballers, all the attackers and the dribblers who how how they've toned their skills really and honed them to to be the professional players they are. Because as a young guy, I just lived with the football. Uh went to a secondary school that didn't play football, only played rugby, but uh I played for maybe three teams, one on a Saturday uh Saturday afternoon or a Saturday morning and probably two on a Sunday. I was always playing football. My dad encouraged it. Um and when I left school at sixteen I went to be an apprentice. Uh I don't know whether this recorded before, but um looked after David Hodson and went to Liverpool, Craig Johnson went to Liverpool, they were all at Middlesbrough when I was a young boy. Mark Proctor went to Brian Clough's Nottingham Forest. I was look I was looking after their kids at Middlesbrough when I was young. Grim Sooness was there when I was very young. Um but yeah, but but it was a great upbringing for me, a working class upbringing. A a young apprentice at Middlesbrough, had to do all of the kit, had to clean the stands, had to mop the dressing room floors um and learn to be a footballer. My youth team coach was Bobby Murdoch, who won the European Cup in 67, and so he just loved the football, Bobby. And um I felt as if I had an amazing upbringing. Made my debut in 8 2 as an 18-year-old, away at Newcastle, Kevin Keegan and Mickey Shannon. Um, yeah. And I was off and running, really, and and the thing you always dreamt of as a boy to play for Burr, to play at Essen Park, it it all came true for me. I'd like to think through hard work because, you know, I wasn't the super talented footballer. I was built on personality, character, steel really, Teesside's a steel area, and I feel my dad worked in the steel industry all his life and I think he gave me those values and and the honesty and integrity that that I hopefully carry with me today . Yeah. And you know, what a journey at Barra, you know, from a local lad to a club legend. I don't know how you feel about the legend word. I know that gets chucked out a lot, but I'm sure. Um what's that like as a sort of player manager, you know, when a legend gets going about ? Yeah, yeah, it's it's again it's like an out of body experience. You don't see yourself as a legend. Obviously you you deal with with who you are, what you are. I'm a family man really. I've got as I say three three boys, 21, 19 and and 16, and try and be as good a dad and a husband as I can. And um leg end it it hits home when whenever I walk my dog it's um I get stopped fifty times in the park or on the beach every day. People shouting All right Mogga, come on butter, how's it how's it going, Mogga, how's your health? It's um I live that every day and that's that's fine. Um the club invite me back to watch their games as you know I I can go in the nice lounges and watch games at at the riverside and um yeah, I I don't see a legend. Well I think the legend bit came because in '8 6 I'd I'd been playing for the team for three, four years, and it was a tough time because the all of those players I'd mentioned, Hodgson's David Armstrong went to Southampton, Proctor Wenters, Forrest, Craig Johnson went to Liverpool. Lots of they all sold the team and the team became a really struggling team. And I was a young 18-19-year-old boy playing in a really struggling team. And football is hard when you live in a town with a football team and that isn't winning and looking to survive every year, every game. Life's tough. And in eighty six, eighty se,ven the club actually went into liquidation. Um they padlocked the gates at Ears on Park. Nobody could get any training kit. We had no training ground. Everything was sold. In fact, we didn't play our first game of the season at Essen Park as the gates were paddled up. We went to Hartleypool to play the first game of the season. This was in what is now League One, because they got relegated the year before. And what happened , the the youth team basically, myself, Gary Palester had had signed, Bernie Slavon had been signed for a bag of balls from from um from Scottish second division team. Uh, but basically the youth team, Stuart Ripley, who went on to win the Premier League with Blackburn, came out of the youth team. Colin Cooper got an England cap, came out of the youth team. Um, it was thrown together and with Bruce Rioch's guidance, we we won back-to-back promotions as similar to what Ipswich did recently, you know. It uh we we got promoted um finishing second to Wigan in our in our first year in what was League O ne. And then we won the second ever playoffs in the second year to get promoted. We beat Chelsea in a two-legged affair where we went to Stamford Bridge. And even though we got beat one-nil in that second leg, we won two-nil in the first leg , and so we got promoted and put Chelsea down. Um and that team from being in the the depths of despair of of almost liquidation to actually within two years being back in the top flight of English football playing Liverpool and Arsenal and and all the the big clubs. Um I think that team sort of acquired this legend status and Teesside. And whilst we try not to um util ise it too much, it's there and as I say, people remember that team probably more fondly than that amazing team of Janino and Gascoigne and Merson and and Rav anelli, that you know that team was amazing for Burr who got to a European final, and yet the eighty-six, eighty-seven team seems to be more revered a little bit on T side. Yeah, and um I'm sure was was it hard to leave because you went on to sign for Celtic? Well the managers the manager changed, Mr. Uh Bruce Rioch left, um Lenny came in. I've I've sat and had coffee with Lenny Lawrence this morning in Yamai Street. And uh what happened, I think I'd had 12 years in the first team playing Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday, Wednesday for 12 years non-stop. And I left around Christmas time in Lenny's first year. I thought it was the right time. Bruce had left. The team would Pallister had gone to Manchester United two years earlier. The team was breaking up a little bit. And I I I basically asked Lenny if I could go and he the very next I didn't know where I would go. I felt as if I was getting tired, almost bored of playing another game, another game, another game with the same team, the same fans, the same they were top of the league when when I left. So around that Christmas time, um Celtic, the day after I asked Lenny, he called me back in the office the next day. Celtic offered a million pounds and um I went up to watch them play that midweek in a European game against a Swiss team in in a Europe it we c would be called Europa League, it was UE FA Cup then. There was sixty odd thousand in the stadium when it was still standing and stuff like that. And um oh, it was just an amazing atmosphere, the colour, the noise, the excitement. It was just it sort of rekindled the the fire in my belly really and I signed for Celtic. Um left was it a wrench to leave? Yeah, of course it was a wrench to leave, but but it was a Celtic is an amazing football club with amazing fan base all over the world and I went there for four years. Um sorry about these noises, mate. That's all right. It's the doorbell. But um yeah, so I signed for Celtic four years. I'd had a difficult time at Celtic because Rangers were on top and and if you know anything about football in Glasgow, if you're not number one, you might as well be nothing. You might as well be bottom. So um I I played at Celtic. I I had an amazing time. Some amazing players. John Collins, Paul McSteer, Peter Grant, uh Charlie Nicholas, Frank McAveny, Gary Gillespie. Lots of you know it was an amazing time and uh great experience for me um i lost my wife uh my first wife i lost her to breast cancer and uh i spent six months you know going to every breast cancer charity event and stuff, and and around that time, George started phoning George Burley. He'd obviously seen I wasn't playing, uh, I'd had a loss in my life, um, it was difficult. I'd I'd spent three months sitting in a on a bed, sitting in a a chair by bed in a hospital watching my wife wither away really and um and I think George did phone me I don't know he phoned me every day almost for a fortnight um and in the end he wore me down, I would suggest, because I didn't want to leave this environment. I felt as if I was leaving the the situation I'd found myself in really, not the football, but my personal situation. I didn't want to leave. Um but George persuaded me to get on an airplane and come and have a look and and again um I suppose I was seduced by the club the history I love football and my managerial career. Well you, know, why did I sign for Covenant? Because I watched the eighty seven Cup final, I saw the diving header of Keith Ouchin against Spurs. Why would I go to Wipswich? 'Cause I'd I'd seen if I saw Roger Osborne score you know, in the in a Wembley Cup final, I'd seen them, Tyson and Muir and I loved the romance of it really. And um and so I signed for Ipswich. I got as far away from the west of Scotland as I could and went down south east and went to Ipswich and um it was tough for me at the start again. I hadn't played for six months. Um I picked up an injury or two. You know, I I remember driving home from training one day in a rented house down at Cable St. Mary and uh the local radio saying Mowbray it'll be a cold day in hell when I think Mowbray's a good player. Get rid of him. And I you know I heard it. It hurts really. It's um um but it as I talked earlier on, I I feel as if I'm built from the stuff of the Northeast, the steel industry. I feel as if I've been given the right ingredients by my family, my my father. Um integrity, honesty, hard work is is is is my core beliefs really and um and I dug in and kept going and and I'd like to feel that my period at Ipswich it turned into nine years at the end, you know, after a difficult start, I felt as if I I played my part in in helping the club get to where it wanted. George was an amazing manager, amazing enthusiasm for the game and love of the game. Obviously, being a part of Bobby Robson's era and um I went for lunch a few times with Sir Bobby and and with Charlie Woods and sat and moved the pepper and salt pots around and moved about where the back four should play and when how high they should be and stuff. And I used to love them occasions sitting with Bobby and talking about football and sitting with Charlie and George. You know, when Dale got ill, of course, I I sort of stepped in and and um and helped in the coaching and and sort of it was a very smooth transition from me from playing to being a player coach to actually coaching. And um yeah, it it I had an amazing time. When I, you know, when I when I look back at the whole ipswitch thing for me over nine years whilst the start was very difficult um i I think it was I think it was positive I think it was good. I I look back on a an amazing time at Hipswich and been fortunate enough to have worked with George Burley, an amazing enthusiastic football coach who drove his players, you know, every drop out of them and um and felt fortunate to have played with so he George was brilliant at signing good footballers and I don't say that because he signed me, I say that 'cause he signed McGilton and he signed Matty Holland and he signed Jermaine Wright and he signed Mark Venus and he signed John McGreild. You know what I mean I signed because of them. And then that we had the fortune of Kieran Dyer coming through and Titus Bramble. You know, I mean it's it was an amazing time and we had an amazing team. The four years I actually played for Ips, which we got to the playoffs every year, lost in the three of them in some heartbreaking moments. But um but got there and got over the line in that last ever game and um my last ever professional game at Wembley in 2000 . Fortunate enough to score. Somebody actually, strangely enough, before I left the coffee shop this morning, somebody actually showed me a picture of me holding up a man of the match um trophy in the tunnel with my medal around my neck and um I don't know why that they did that today it um fun enough it was basically I was asking fans for questions and that was the picture I used so maybe that was that's that's what it that's what it that's what it was the lad showed me on his phone he said you you because he said you're going to do something with it today aren't you and I said yeah because he'd he must be one of these people who know at everything on the internet. I don't do any socials or social media or anything like that. But he knew and he showed me the picture. Yeah. So um yeah, that was my last ever game of professional football. It wasn't intended to be. I was ready to start the week we played Tottenham, I think, was it the first game of the following season in the Premier League? Uh I was in the team up until Friday and um I was so poor in training. We had a full eleven v eleven walkthrough sort of thing on the on the Friday on on Portman Road and after training I went to see George and George I think was thankful I'd come to see him 'cause I said, Listen, we gotta I I can't do it, George. You know, we've he was talking about the Premier League. I was thirty seven, I I I was struggling to turn and run, as I always would do, but but still, I could always use my brain and hold the line and play offside. And but we were going to the Premier League and we agreed that Herman should play. And that was off they went. Herman played with Eno and John and um and yeah, I was happy as can be. I I was thirty-seven, I couldn't go on forever, and um and it was a great way to go out. Kevin Keegan and my debut and Wembley scoring a goal to finish my career and uh all the years in between it was pretty special. Yeah, and um I want to give some more insight on that. Um I want to call quickly get your memories of the the playoff games against Bolton. I know we we lost against him in the the previous year, but those games, you know, had the Marcus Stewart Day with these two great goals and then of course the Jim Majilton knight scoring at Hatrick. What was that like playing in it as a defender? Because yeah, you got the town players attackers scoring the goals, but as a defender, there was goals conceded and it was just mayhem . Yeah. Well, I I came off in the first game, didn't I? I was concussed. I got smashed really in the first game. I think I don't think it might have even been 2-0 down, were we? And then then the goals got the equalisers. But um yeah, the first game was tough. I mean Bolton had a good team then Sam Allardyce was on the on the up wasn't he and his team were there was a bit of investment there. Ida Good Johnson and people like this were they were good footballers and um you could feel them their hunger they'd been driven. And again that's what I go back to George really drive and we had a team that were so tightly knit and so ready for it. And yet you played against a team that you felt were were warriors and would kick their granny to get any to get over the line. I w and you know they had a few sending offs didn't there and we had a few penalties and that second game, you know, it it it lives long in the memory. I only be for me, only because I managed to get ahead around knocking one down for Jim to volley in, didn't I? And um but yeah, it's an amazing. It would been a tough them three years previously of of losing them semifinal playoff games is not easy to take. You work hard so hard all season to get into that position, and then for it to be taken away for two matches, um it was tough. And yet all made up for on that and that day at Wembley, really, and um yeah it was it's uh it it it when I think back of my Ipswich time I I I think of Wembley, I think of that game, I think of the celebrations afterwards and going back to Ipswich in a big a big marquee in the celebrations. And and all of them lads from that team are um are still close. You know, it it's like anything it's like the team of 86, 87 here at Borough, the team of that 200usand um 'll always be good mates and always be in touch with each other and um yeah happy times. Football's an amazing sport that can bond and gel people together for lifetimes. Yeah. I love the goal scorers that day as well because you know Marcus Stewart um had a had a great you know just signed then Richard Naylor came off the bench and you know had a great time. Um and then you know Mark and Martin Royce's score on that goal, you know, Royce the premiership, but I want to focus on your goal because what a header. Um, you know, leaping like a salmon. Um well listen, heading it I I I said right at the start there, my dad who worked in the steel industry all his life. He in my back garden at home where we lived, he'd he got a scaffolding tube and bented in the the heat of the iron works and um and we ran a football through it on a and put it in a net, and I had it hanging off the washing line very high up, and then I could drop the ball to whatever height I wanted it. So I practiced heading all my life um from the age of maybe 10 um where that tron traption was put onto the washing line and if you can picture it it bends up and then bends around and the wire was put in and the ball was dropped and we could adjust the height of the ball . And um, so from the age of 10, I felt heading was something I was good at and could do. And and I think back to the last ever game of my football career and think all of that work I put in through from the age of 10, every day going home. Even when I was a professional, I would still go round my mum's and head that ball. It all paid off on that last day for me. That ball coming in again. McGilton put it in, I think, didn't he, Jim? And uh and um yeah, and it was all there for me to timed my jump, timed my run. You use a bit of leverage off a defender, and I bullied it into the corner and um all of that practice, all of that work paid off and yeah. It's great memories, happy days, you know, great for Bam Bam to score, great for Martin Royce at a score. You know amazingly different characters, different people. Stewie is a is a we love uh everybody loves Stewie, you know. It's obviously he's going through his own issues at the moment as well. But um it was a great day, great team seeing George and seeing Dale celebrate, seeing the chairman Mr. Sheepshanks so happy afterwards in the marquee and it was just great to be together, really, all the families together and um all that work that I felt that for four years I left Glasgow for all came and all culminated on that day and was back in the Premier League. And yeah, and uh, you know, the last ever competitive game at Wembley. I know they played a few other games after that, but that must have been amazing as well. You know, the old Wembley, the archers, everything. Um yeah, what a way to end your career. Although I know you said earlier in the chat that it wasn't gonna be your last game, but in the end it it was. It was, yeah. Um, yeah. I've I've no, I've I feel for me it it's fitting really. It that it's um I enj I enjoyed my whole career and finishing it at Wembley was was yeah, well they put in the c the the cap on the head really. It it ended it perfectly, book ended it. You know, using Kevin Keegan as a in for my debut as you know, eighteen year old playing against somebody who'd won the European Footballers Footballer of the Year and and won won everything. You know, watched him as a kid growing up and an iconic captain of England uh felt like an amazing start to my career and the end was was just as amazing if not greater. And um yeah, yeah, I I really I yeah, I can sort of bookend them really. That is that was my career from eighty two to two thousand and uh and everything that went on in between. Definitely. And did you always plan to go into coaching? Was that always something in the back of your mind? I know some players don't weren't interested in it, but there's some that are like, yeah, that's what they want to do. Yeah, I I think within the age of twenty two, Bruce Rio coming to Middlesbrough and 'cause that's as I said to you there, football had been really hard them for three or four years for me. Millsburg were the bottom half always of the what is is the championship now, and it was always a struggle to stay up. Um they'd sold all their in my eyes were great players, you know, as I say, David Hodson, Proctor, Craig Johnson, David Armstrong, the players I'd watched growing up as a kid, they'd all gone, all moved on. And um Middlesbrough were downsizing. They could weren't paying the salaries. We were taking loans and frees, and it was the team was just thrown together really. It was really hard to win football matches. And it was only like the rebirth of through eighty six, eighty-seven of of all the youngsters being thrown in and Rioch arriving that sparked this love of the game for me really. Um Bruce was the first coach ever who talked to us where the space on the pitch was , you know, if the if the right winger comes inside, can the can the right back use the space that he's leaving? Can you arrive in that space and and how the midfield so you know Ipswich do it brilliantly well down their left, don't they? With with Clark and Philogene, with your left back like a rocket flying down there, and sometimes the wide place stays wide, and the fullback drives inside, of course, but it's it was about space and and when I was twenty-two, first time a coach had ever talked about where the space was on the pitch and how you could fill it and how people would move into positions to create space for somebody else. And so from twenty-two year old, I used to watch football differently from from how I'd ever watched it. And then when I was playing, I felt as if I could almost coach on the pitch, really. You know, at Ipswich, I know they had a song about sorry. They had a a s song about uh arm up flag up your offside, but it was only built on how to press the ball and how to condense the pitch really. You know, and it helped me as well because I didn't have to turn around and sprint 50 yards back, chasing long balls over the top. You know, bring your goalie out of the box a little bit. Um , and you know, you don't have to turn and run because if you bring your goalie out and all that, you you're killing the space, and the strikers have to stay on side. It um it worked and and and so yeah I I knew pretty early on from the age of 22 that I wanted to coach and wanted to be a football coach and um yeah, and and it it panned out my life, my career panned out, and here I am as I say at 62, hoping to go back to work this summer. Yes, and so many great clubs. And uh there's a question that I think a lot of town fans want to ask: that did you ever come close to becoming a town manager? I know you had a caretaker spell, but was there any you know no I don't I don't think so. I don't I never had any conversations around it. I think football management's all about timing isn't it it's if you're in a job and you're doing all right and then Ipswich job comes up. No, it I never had an inquiry of taking me out of a club to come. You generally them jobs I feel sometimes if you're out of work manager um and the job comes available then maybe I might have come at some stage and had an interview or a chat or whatever. But the timing was never really worked for me. Um no. I I don't think Ipswich ever did come close. I and I I can't remember ever having a conversation with with anybody from Ipswich about the the manager's job. Um and that's okay. Listen , and I look at my career. Um I and I know I had four games as like an interim manager, didn't I? And um so so realistically, I've I've managed all the teams that I played for. I only played for three, Middlesbrough Celtic and Ipswich. So I had four games at Ipswich. And mm there was a romantic side of me a few years back that thought that what what a great job Ipswich would be and yet obviously Kieran's gone in and done an amazing job over the last few years and uh it's great to see them once again back in the Premier League and and um you know, 'cause I I don't feel as if I ever really managed it, switch. I just took the team for four games and um it's uh it was an amazing experience, but it gave me the confidence to know that I had a voice when you talk. So if you're gonna be a football manager and you're sitting in front of 20 players in a dressing room, you either know whether you can do it or you don't know whether you can do it when they need picking up, they need shouting at, they need talking to, they need cajoling, they need some um sympathy or whatever it might be, you don't know whether you can do it until you're in the moment. And um and what it showed me is that I can talk to a group of players, I can tell them that this isn't good enough. This isn't hard. You think you're working hard? You need to do this. You know, how do you get a at half time? How do you know you can say the right things? Uh the truth is I found that I my personality , whilst it's generally empathetic to footballers, because I want them all to work hard, to love the game, to want to get better every day. Um when I see them not running, not working, shaking their heads, putting their hands on their hips, sulking, they they can then find a different side of me. But that doesn't mean the next day I don't put my arm around them and love them again. But then they decide which route they want to take. They want to take the route that they know the manager, the coach wants to go down. Hard work, honesty, integrity, graft for the team. You're just one of 11 out on that pitch. Um, or do they want to be selfish and sulky? And if they do, generally they're not at the club very long, uh, however talented they are. Um but again, every manager does it differently. Every manager's got their own way of doing it. And what them four games at Ipswich told me was that I can use my own emotion and be myself in the dressing room when you need it to um to do the job . Very much so. And uh yeah, I think a lot of town fans wish you could have had at least one other spell, but um I said performing did work out and stuff like that. Um but we've got some you know, some fan questions I wanna sort of chuck at you and you've you've sort of covered one already, and that is your your chant, um, the song about the okay koke, but uh do you remember the the full name? This is from Peachy. Can you remember the full chart? I think so, but I don't want to do it to you now. I think um I think it's pretty much Okie Kog, isn't it but arm up flag up your off side, all you do is Tony I've sang it to my kids actually. They because they've they weren't born when I was at Ipswich, and um so yeah. Um I'm not sure. I do remember games, you know, George would say to me at half-time, listen, Tony, you you've got to be careful with that offside. I remember going away to Stoke once, and literally they must have been offside twenty-five times in the first half, you know, because they obviously had a game plan to to run in behind the big slow centre half. And um and yet I d the I always feel as if celebrally I'm a bit cleverer than the striker I'm playing against. I tell myself I'm clever. So I start to as if we're gonna have a foot race, but knowing that he's way faster than me. So I turn and sprint and stop, arm ups, glare at the referee or the giv or the linesman, and generally the flag goes up. And he thinks he's gonna win the foot race, you see, because he's a f little flying machine, woof you're gonna beat me to get the ball. But I make him think he's gonna be in a race and literally I remember George saying, Listen, d 'cause we spent the whole game in their half and every time they got in out half they, were offside and they didn't get anywhere near our box. And it's but that that's how I did I take it to extremes. It's some games maybe, but I think it was right for this football team because you know Jimmy Gilton was an amazing footballer who could attract the ball and move it around the pitch. Wasn't brilliant legs, didn't want to run up and down the pitch, wasn't Matty Holland who could get up and down the pitch all day. You know, Jammer didn't want to do that really. Jim Ainne was a footballer with the ball at his feet and um so I felt let's play the game in one half of the pitch rather than end to end. You know, you attack, we attack, you attack, we attack and um and I didn't feel we had Marcus was never super fast. And so if we'd have played deeper and played, I could have played on the edge of our box, of course, and won headers and defended, but we didn't really have the speed at the top end of the pitch to break away and score transitional goals with speed. We needed to play, in my opinion, with Marcus Stewart at the type of footballer he was um we needed to play in the opposition half and so I held high lines and played offside and um and I hope it helped the team I think it helped the team um and I think listen when, you're a football manager, you have to up you you have to think about all of those things. What's the makeup of your team? Have you got fast defenders where you can play high lines, or have you got slow defenders who are organizers and can keep clean sheets by heading it out of the box? So play a bit deeper. But if you're going to play like that, you've got to have fast wingers or fast strikers who can break away and use the space at the other end of the pitch. Um, and then you need people who can put the ball in in front of them, of course. Your midfield players need to pass it. And so you're alwa thinkysing about how your team sets up and how you're going to play. Um yeah. Listen, it's it's football. It's what you do. You go into a football club, you assess the group of players you've got. And if you've got no money, you have to get the best out of the group. You've got if you've got money, you can go and buy some fast wingers or a centre forward or or super fast defenders who can make sure you play high up the pitch and press the ball really high. But um yeah, that's that's how I see football. Um, look at what you've got, assess the players, um, where's the talent, where's the speed, where's the quality? Um and hopefully you've got some of that and then you just you you make your football team into the team that suits the playing style. And when I was in George's team, I was an organiser and I could uh hold lines and defend and and uh make strikers think that they were in a foot race and they never were really, and they were offs ide. Yeah, I think that's why fans sort of they they noticed that and went, We're gonna put that into a chart, and then it's what it's part of, which is fantastic. And um we've got another question here, and this is actually a maybe a bad memory. This is when you're playing for Borough. Uh this is from Zonder Man 1974. What does he remember of the borough mooning in the late 80s when Daly and Atkinson scored a hat-trick? Yeah. So yeah, it's not great. Yeah, I do remember that. Yeah, no, I do remember it. I was with Pally this morning having coffee. Pally played alongside me that day. Daley and Atkinson. He I'd have to say he's he he scored them from 25 yards or 30 yards. He rifled them in. Um and they weren't, you know, sticking it through our legs and beating us and and bullying us and scoring. He whacked them in from twenty five yards, uh definitely one or two of them anyway. Um yeah, it's not a bad memory. Listen, I it them sort of things have got to happen in your career to to make you better and to help you really and yeah I d we do Polly occasionally brings it up Dalian Atkinson um God love him God rest his soul as well but uh I think um just power, pace, a rocket of a shot. Um and I don't I don't ever sit and I played against some great players, you know. I've played against Kenny Dalgalician, Ian Rush, it's they they um great players are great players and and Dalien at the time was on the upward spiral, I think, and um scoring goals and doing well and um yeah, I I I'd have to say I didn't really follow his career. Yeah, I know he went to Villa, I'm not sure where else Dalian Atkinson played, but um he went abroad as well. Did he go abroad? Did he? Okay. But um listen, on that day scored some amazing goals and and I remember thinking, wow, what a player this kid's gonna be. Um but yeah I don't sit here and think, God, that's embarrassing. You know, you we've all as footballers we've all lost matches and we've lost matches to amazing goals that other people score and good luck to them. Definitely. And um this is actually a bit of a random one, actually. This is from Bloom, who's one of our friends of the show, and he said, Does uh do you remember that he reenacted his Wembley goal for me in this sky blue lodge when I worked comms at Coventry while you're a gaffer in 2015. Complete the arms and laugh celebration. What a guy. Listen, I I when I go into football clubs I try to um create an environment where people enjoy life enjoy the work they want to come in they want to go to work every day and so whilst i do it with my kids um i obviously do it i do it with the players at the teams and other the staff and I'll be randomly talking about some and I say, have you ever told you about the goal I scored at Wembley? Just just to break the ice and make people laugh. Oh Gaffy, you've you've what you haven't told us that one, no. But s somebody in the room will have heard it fifty times, 'cause I've said it fifty times. Ever told you about the goal I scored at Wembley. Yeah, well, I don't know, McGilden put it just a lobbed it in the box and I rose like a salmon at the back stick and bullet headed it. You know, I mean I'll I still do my kids here. I've I scored an amazing goal for Butler against Norwich actually in the top it it I hit a I hit a 30 yarder in the top corner. You'll have to Google it. Millsburg, Norwich and um at Erson Park. And it's like it it can't be me, 'cause it was a goal that some like Glenn Orrell would have scored, and yet it rifled right past Brian Ginn, right in gun, right into the top corner, and I keep saying, Do you ever see that goal at Erson Park? I scored against Brian Gunnwell. He's still trying to catch it, but it flew past him in the top corner. It's it's just banter, really. And so when I was at Coventry talking about a goal I scored at Ipswich, he's just it's my personality. I'm trying to be lighthearted. I'm trying to say, you know what, I played football once, um, as if way back decades ago I did I scored this goal at Wembley. But um, you know, you might be able to find it on Google, have a look, and and it just lighten hearts it and and and and people think the gaffers all right, he's not a bad lad, you know what I mean? He's he's having a bit of banter with us, a bit of chat, and nothing, everything has to be serious all the time. Anyway, that's that's why them th ings happen really. I don't do it through arrogance. I did score a goal at Wembley. I do it to break the ice sometimes with staff and with players and uh yeah, I think it's fine. Yeah, I think our bloomers who is part of the the the show? he He''ss a literature fan. He was working on commentary at the time. And I think when you came as many, he was like, Oh my god, this is like a hero of mine coming out. And he just said it was great to sort of reenact that. So fantastic. Um this is from James, and he said, uh, when you work and play for so many clubs over the years, do you still support them all and where does it which rank in the list of those clubs for you? I know it's a hard question because you know, it is it is a hard question. And listen, you do have a feeling for for for m all of the clubs you've worked for because generally there's been good times in those clubs. There's been bad times because you lose your job sometimes. And I haven't been sacked from every job. Sometimes I've left, sometimes I left a club to go to a different club because they've bought me basically as a manager but um yeah I've I I I don't ever um look back and think um of negative things um what was it tell me what what did he want me to what was the question again exactly? Ipswich Ipswich listen Ipswich I I I had that dilemma this year really, I think, because Ipswich and Middlesbrough were both vying for that second spot in the league. I grew up at Middlesbrough. I told you my dad my dad used to get me a squeeze at the at the in the Algate end at Ess and Park. I I I am a Buddha fan at heart and always will because it from the age of five, six, seven. My first ever game at Erson Park, my dad took me out of my school class at the when I was six or seven. It was during a coal strike of nineteen seventy to go and watch George Best on a Wednesday afternoon. I was at school and my dad came and took me out of school because the floodlights weren't working. It was the cold strike and there was no electricity. So the game was on a Wednesday at three o'clock in the after noon. And so he just came into the classroom, just picked me up and took me to watch George Best. Um so Middlesbrough is my club, my team um and so what they're going through at the moment with this spygate thing of course is um is really interesting but i i i I always go back to the sporting situation. Ipswich deserve to get promoted this year. They got the points they got. They played the way they did. And and um congratulations to Iptris and I'm delighted. It's amazing to see them back in the in the uh in the Premier League. I've been there recently and and being at the dinner or two. It's just great to be associated with Ipswich and and the success they've had and feel that, you know, Matty Holland obviously a teammate is still, you know, non-executive director there, I think, isn't he? So um it's great to have connections. Um but I don't I I don't think it's wrong to say that, you know, Middlesbrough is my first love and always will be, uh, 'cause that's what I grew up. It's where I still live now. My kids grew up in this on Teesside. And so that's that's fair enough I think my wife's from Ipswich all her family are massive Ipswich fans and so um is that you that's how you met was um obviously when you played yeah well well I m my wife was a hair hairdresser in John Olivers in Ipswich and uh Richard Wright's wife also worked there. And Richard said I needed my haircut. Strange little things like that. You go to a new football club and I was looking like Wurzel Gummage and so um I needed a haircut and so right he said this now my uh my girlfriend she was at the time um works in John Oliver's so he took me to John Oliver's and Amber cut my hair. She cut it every three months then, she cut it ever y four weeks, then she cut it every two weeks, then she cut it every week, and then we went out for dinner and and here we are twenty five years later or thirty years later it's um yeah, still going.. That's brilliant And I've got actually funny enough when you first signed, got a picture of you here . So um I don't know if you would have got your hair picture there. Yeah, gosh. Have I got a green tie on there? Have I? Yeah, I was wondering what yeah where'd that come from that's my Celtic I can't I wouldn't have worn a Celtic tie to come to issue just I had a green tie on that's strange yeah I should have worn a blue tie I but you you get to learn them things as you get older . Definitely, yeah. And um a few more questions before we wrap up. I don't I don't want to take too more much of your time up, but um this is a question from Andy, and it's sort of links to sort of town being in the Premier League and recruitment. And he said, I hope you're doing well. Uh Mogar, thanks for all you did for Richards Town. Um, if you were our manager now, what type of player and positions would you recruit at another crack in the Prem? You know, what do you think Town's approach should be? Um, last time we we signed really good championship players you know jack clark we we signed we sort of struggled in those early times and yeah you know we didn't be get stabbed what I would say what I would listen um I'm I've done it I've tried it you know when I when I got promoted uh uh West Brom um we we spent four million quid. I think the I think when getting promoted back in w whatever year that was, two thousand six, um you got you got sixteen million off the Premier League and we spent four of it and uh we did get relegated last year, the season against Liverpool. But um Um I th is Sunderland Sunderland spent a hundred and eighty five million pounds last year. The team that I had at Sunland the year before they got promoted. There's only Trey Hume and Dan Ballard really who survived that that squad the, rest all moved on. Jack obviously he's back in the Premier League with Ipswich now, but you know, Patrick Roberts, I'm a Diallo was on loan, he's obviously united. But um yeah, they it is Ipswich the model sorry, is is is Sunderland the model that Ipswich will look at? Will they spend all that two hundred million pounds that they're gonna get from getting promotion? I don't know. My good feeling as a manager is is to have the respect for the players who got them there and add to them a little bit, you know. So do you buy a uh a Premier League um ready central defender? Do you buy a midfield player? So do you go through the core of your team and and put Premier League experience in there? So Sunland signed Jacker, of course, didn't they? And I think he undoubtedly has been their best player, their most influential pla yer um and he's obviously played at Arsenal all them years and and got huge Premier League experience . I would never tell Kieran what to do because he's shown what a brilliant football manager he is. but is is is it this time round to bring in some genuine Premier League experience um that has been there, seen it, done it and played I don't know a dozen years in the Premier League um to give them the know-how the when to calm it calm it down some days when we have to put the foot on the gas um when you have to play defensive when, you have to commit more men forward, you know, are you going to play with two wingers or do you have to play with uh you know a narrower midfield? All of those things are questions that I think the football department we'll sit and talk and discuss and um how are we gonna stay up. Maybe this time it's it's a bit more experience of Premier League experience rather than somebody who's had one year in the Premier League, you know, f three years ago or something like that. Maybe it's um I it appears to me that's the way Sunderland have done it. They they bought Premier League experience, they bought some size and physicality as well. You know, Brobby had never played in the Premier League and what a physical specimen he is who can deal with the Premier League. Because I think it is a physically step up from the championship as well as as well as technically stepped up. So without telling anybody anything of how to do their job, it seems to me that um get some players who know what playing in the Premier League and and make sure you stay in the Premier League for at least a year or two and then and then you're off and you're doing what Bournemouth have d one and and Brentford have done and you know before you know it you've had ten more years in the Premier League and it's just the norm for you is um because I think them first two years are are the most difficult to to stay there because because of the mentality of the Premier League teams, look at the newly promoted teams and see them as three points or six points, because we've got better players than them. They were in the championship last year. Whereas I think if you start putting some Premier League ready, know that they're ready footballers into your team and can handle it and have handled it for five, six, seven years, you're gonna have a better chance to win them games where the other teams psychologically think they can run over the top of you. Yeah. What do you reckon? Do you think town can stay up on a still early days, you know, the season. Yeah, well I think they'll they will definitely learn from the the s season before last. Um and I and I again it it does come down to recruitment in my opinion. You've you've got to have players that can handle the league. And uh you know, you would have watched every game uh of of the their relegation season Were they that bad? No. I remember watching the Liverpool game early in the season at uh you know they were okay and yet Liverpool ran away and won the game. I don't know what the score was three or four one was it something like that. But um Um you know, you have to you have to s it appears to me that Sunderland have been in every game just about nil-nil, nil-nil, and then they've scored from a corner and one and they've won one-nil . And you know, uh you have to stay in the games more, you can't go, I don't think, and think you're gonna dominate teams like you did in the championship, run over the top of them, just let Clark and Philogene score at will. That's not gonna happen, it's gonna be so hard for them. Um so I my only suggestion is that get some Premier League ready, knowledgeable, experienced players. You don't have to change the whole team, but put two or three down the spine of your team and um and then trust the players who got you there, but but they need help, I think. Definitely. Well, um Mauga, thank you so much for your time. This has been an incredible conversation. Um sort of final sort of message to the fans uh who are listening 'cause I'm sure they've enjoyed this conversation as well. Um and yeah, there's one message that just said legend. I know once again you you go back to what we had a conversation earlier, but you are a true town legend and uh yeah, just follow thoughts No, thank you. Listen, I I I had nine amazing years there. At a time when I needed some help in my life, really, I'd as I said I'd I'd lost my wife. Um I came and found a family really. It it's and the people of Suffolk helped me so much i um yeah and the team of course that that team that George built George himself um all of the people you know Pat Godbald, all the people that made Ipswich Town what Ipswich Town is really, um the directors, it it felt like a family and that's just what I needed at that stage in my life, even though it was a tough start for me. I I hope that the people of Ipswich felt that I contributed in some way um along the way. Um that was all. Because I love football, I love footballers, I I loved to be a part of a football environment and um and I feel quite proud that I've I've as as a footballer only I had three teams, Middlesbrough, I spent twelve years at Celtic, I had four years in Ipswich ultimately four years playing and five more years helping with the coaching and stuff before I went off on my own managerial career. And um hips are very, very close to me. I know I'm probably just behind Middlesbrough in where I if I'm gonna look at all the clubs that I've had and you know, Celtic is an amazing football club, but I didn't have the greatest time there both as a player when we were coming second and when I went back as a manager, Walter Smith was in charge and they were still winning leagues after league and it was tough and it's tough to come second in Scotland but um but yeah Middlesbrough's probably my first love and then then I think Ipswich nine years my wife and all her family are from Ipswich it's uh I I go to Ipswich a lot. I I'm in Ipswich quite a lot and um and I just like the people and I like the area and it feels like home and I go back. Love it, my friend. Well Margaret looking forward to seeing you back on the touchline um during the summer as we can and uh thank you so much for joining me. Thank you very much. God bless mate. Lovely to talk to you. Take care .