IT IS 10 years ago this month that Arsenal went to play Liverpool needing a two-goal win
IT IS 10 years ago this month that Arsenal went to play Liverpool needing a two-goal win in order to take the First Division championship. I said, 'You've got the hopes of the nation on your shoulders now; I've just got a few Walsall fans to please.'". He had to spend wisely and handle those players."Kevin was very complimentary and I wished him well. "It was unbelievable coming from Kevin, I was terribly flattered on behalf of my team." Yet, he maintains that Keegan didn't have it so easy as the pounds 12m outlay might have suggested "I've seen people who have had a lot of money and wasted it His problems have been completely different from mine. We've also gone away to play cricket and had a pint or two afterwards and gone paint-balling."On Tuesday, Kevin Keegan's Fulham formed a guard of honour as the Walsall team ran out before their match Graydon thought it was a wonderful gesture. I said, 'No, we're going to train.' They came in, but instead I took them to a hospice up the road and we sang carols We had a wonderful day. Before we went out for our Christmas party, the players, as normal, asked for the following day off.
"Why should women who may be passing have to listen my players swearing?" he says.Graydon would not claim to be a David Copperfield, so how does he explain Walsall's remarkable rise? "It's all about teamwork and togetherness," he says "I'm so strong about everybody working together We've had some strange moments, too. It's improved, but if they are noisy they are quickly knocked down or made to do some runs round the field." They are also fined, with the culprits having included himself. I think they thought I was joking when I said I didn't want any swearing on the training pitch. I played him the next game, but I said, 'You step out of line again and it's curtains.'"Graydon, whose playing career also took him to Bristol Rovers, Oxford and Washington Diplomats, had previously been content with his role as coach "I made clear what I wanted when I started.
Either you go - or I go.' We went to Lincoln the next game and I left him out He should have been playing He was distraught, but I said, 'I'm sorry, that's how it is You're ruining everything we're trying to do' Fortunately, we won. I said, 'Unless things improve, you will have to leave this club I can't work with you. "He's a winger and gets kicked, but he has not learned about keeping it defused I crucified him in front of the players. Just because other people get upset with referees, why should we? Why don't we set our own trends? It's helped our football because they stay focused and are ready to react quicker, but I'd still have done it if we'd been bottom of the league."Graydon regards sendings off and bookings as a stain on his own character and on occasion he has threatened the ultimate sanction against offenders, even if by doing so he spites himself Jason Brissett has been sent off three times. I can't afford to have players suspended."It's not a question of me fighting them every minute of the day, or being overbearing I've just asked them to be leaders, not followers.
They just say the referees are at fault and I have never once said that. "It is an emotional game and you can't ever stop that," he says "But you can improve things by continually working at it A lot of managers and coaches don't. I don't ask any of them to like me."His attempts to reduce cautions against his players might have produced mutinous mutterings in some quarters, but the Graydon gospel appears to have been heeded. We've had the odd couple of up and downers, but they generally knuckle down to work, and I wouldn't get that without respect. "I think in every club, players will speak about their manager in a derogative manner, but I'd be genuinely surprised if they didn't have some respect for me. I just call it common sense and the way I was brought up."Is there just the faint possibility, you have to ask, that behind his back there is some sniggering, in the way that pupils regard an eccentric teacher? There is a fleeting smile from the man who scored Villa's winner against Norwich City in the 1975 League Cup final. It's almost as though I've made a stand against declining standards in the world.