Tony Cascarino's football lessons: No 1, time-keeping

Each week, our expert, Tony Cascarino, will react to a real-life issue from the professional game and relate it to the rest of us. This week, Tony discusses the importance of time-keeping after Roy Keane, the Sunderland manager, transfer-listed Liam Miller because he kept turning up late for training.

“Professional or amateur, it shouldn’t matter – you should be on time for your club. It’s basic good behaviour in any walk of life. In football, it helps the camp to feel united if you know everyone’s abiding by the rules.

I’m a great believer in discipline. If you don’t have it, two minutes late becomes five minutes late, becomes ten minutes and so on. There’s always a player willing to push things a little farther. If you are badly-disciplined in one aspect of your life, such as time-keeping, there’s a good chance you’ll be disorganised in others, too.

It’s particularly important to be on time if you’re a young player. Others will think: who’s this kid strolling in late, what’s he achieved in the game? Of course, you’re unlikely to get dropped or transfer-listed if you’re a brilliant player.

Keane’s attitude to time-keeping has obviously changed a lot. He’s gone full circle, from laid-back and late to ultra-disciplinarian. When he was a young player with Ireland, I remember when he turned up late once and the bus was kept waiting. Jack Charlton, the manager, was steaming but Roy just said to him: “I didn’t ask you to wait for me!”

At Chelsea, Gavin Peacock and I travelled together to training round the M25 from East to West London and we were sometimes late – anyone who’s been on that road knows how bad it can be. Glenn Hoddle, the manager, told us to try going round the motorway the other way, north instead of south. It was an extra 20 miles so we left really early and got in a half-hour early.

We didn’t want Glenn to enjoy the satisfaction of being right so we phoned up from our car, inside the training ground car park, and told Peter Shreeves, Glenn’s assistant, we were going to be late. We could hear Glenn standing next to Peter, going mad.

We walked in a minute or so later, to Glenn’s astonishment. He was both angry and pleased that he’d been proved right. So from then on, we drove the longer route – and were late every day. The lack of traffic that first time had obviously been a total fluke. Still, unlike our team-mate, Frank Sinclair, we at least knew what “orbital” meant. He didn’t realise the M25 went all the way round the city.”

Comments

[paulo maldini]

Too true Tone. I'm sure you were never late for those Milk cup crunch games against Leyton Orient even though you had been out on the razz, had three punch ups with disgruntled fans, played poker for 15 hours straight, eaten 4 portions of fish and chips and rolled your Daimler on the way to training. Yet you probably still banged in a hat trick a game and were better than Maradona in your day...

[Peter Hughes]

I would welcome Tony Cascarino's thoughts on the motivational harangue given by the Sheffield United coach and picked up by TV prior to extra time at the Riverside. Is it any wonder players take extreme measures to obtain a victory at all costs ? The man concerned should be charged with bringing the game into disrepute.