THE CATFLAP CHINWAG WITH…

Les Ferdinand

 

What did the team think of Keegan’s live break down at the time?

Like everybody else, we were a little bit shocked. We didn’t see it at the time because we were sitting on the coach while he was doing the interview. But obviously we got back and that was the talk of the town that night. When we saw it we all had a bit of a chuckle about it like anybody else!

 

People were saying that Ferguson had won the mind games with Keegan and won him over psychologically and I thought no, as a supporter if a player wears his heart on his sleeve, we all love him. Kevin Keegan unfortunately was a manager that wore his heart on his sleeve, and because of that got slated. I took it as a positive, I took it as, this means something to Kevin Keegan, and it really does, and I think it rallied the troops to be honest.

 

So what contributed to losing that title?

The main factor was that, barring Peter Beardsley, there weren’t many other players in the dressing room that had won anything in their time, so we perhaps didn’t know what it would take to win the title. Had Man Utd been where we were and they’d lost three points, there would have a big inquest into it within their dressing room. In the Newcastle dressing room at the time we were like “It’s ok we’re still nine points in front, with a game in hand.” It was almost like it was going to happen, rather than us making it happen.

 

What was it like playing with Tino Asprilla? Was he as mad as everyone said?

Yeah he was brilliant, usually foreign players come into the Premiership and British players will adapt to them if they learn the language and try to integrate themselves into the team. He’s one of the first foreign players that came in and wasn’t bothered about learning a language and the lads took him wholeheartedly.

 

How dull is Alan Shearer in real life?

He was a real pain around the training ground and in the dressing room, always pranking around with David Batty. Then he’d get on the TV and he’s got this stone-faced persona that he doesn’t have a laugh, he doesn’t have a joke but he was one of the funniest lads in the Newcastle dressing room.