HOME AND AWAY: GAVIN CUMMISKEYtalks to the Crystal Palace striker who believes his ambition to play in the Premiership can be attained under Neil Warnock
ALAN LEE is well past the middle-aged crisis a professional footballer tends to experience. Life at Crystal Palace is pretty good nowadays after 15 years toiling in the English Championship and some rich runs of form were rewarded by inclusion in Brian Kerr and then Steve Staunton Republic of Ireland squads, yielding 10 internationals caps.
At 31, Lee’s career-long aim of playing Premiership football remains in his sights but he no longer waits for the big move. A three-year deal with Palace, under the colourful Neil Warnock, is his best route now into the bright lights.
“It’s something I’d dearly love but my aspect of thinking has changed. I don’t look to make that move anymore. It’s not going to happen. It will be down to hard work at the right sort of club. That was a big part of taking the Crystal Palace deal when it came up. Neil Warnock has a history of doing it with Sheffield United. I still think that’s my best chance.”
Born in Galway, Lee departed a stable family environment and education at Blackrock College to sign professional terms with Aston Villa as a 16-year-old. A big, powerful and industrious centre forward, meandering stints at Torquay United, Port Vale, Burnley, Rotherham (where he attained cult status), Cardiff City (the supposed “big” move under Sam Hamman), Ipswich Town and Norwich City on loan (and with it the experience of relegation) eventually brought him to Palace and the settled life.
He marries Catherine in 2011, having lived in the quaint medieval village of Dedham in East Anglia these past few years.
“To be honest, I see myself living in East Anglia for the rest of my life. I’ve put down roots. We’re getting married in the local church and it is very important to me what I have here, friends, and my little brother is going out with a girl from the village. My family spends a lot of time over here and we love it.
“I like going back to the West. I had a lovely time in Galway, in Cong, during the summer and I really enjoy that feeling of getting away but this feels like home to me now.
“There is a good local pub, four or five great restaurants, great butchers, greengrocers. The kind of things that are disappearing in a lot of places. A fantastic Irish lady up the road, Fiona, looks after us with Sunday lunches.”
The spectre of old age (a footballer’s mid-30s) can play tricks on the mind. Lee dealt with these fears a while back and is safe in the knowledge that football will provide opportunities to do whatever he wants when the reaper calls time on a career harassing centre halves.
“I don’t worry about it anymore. I will have the time to do whatever I want. I want to take time out at the end to do my (coaching) badges and have a look at what other parts of life are.
“As a footballer, I’ve never spent a day doing work in my life. I’ve never had a job and been paid at the end of it. I don’t know what nine to five is like. But I know what it means to work hard. With that ethic I don’t have to worry.
“I’ll have time at the end of my football to do whatever I want but you’ve got to find what you enjoy in life. Maybe coaching or management or a total change of direction.”
We suggest he seems suited for a role in the media.
“I wouldn’t rule it out but I’m not sure if I would like the aspect of still being in the public eye and criticising or giving your opinion on others. I’d probably err more on the side of coaching or management than media.”
This is a far more sensible Alan Lee than the one we first encountered. He has always been astute, once stalling (scandalously unprompted) in a post-match mix zone to ask reporters what their general mood was! The stunned response was a shuffling of feet and some mumbling.
Now so obviously comfortable in the present we ask about the past. And a life in the footballer’s bubble. Leaving home as a teenager, is rapid maturity an essential part of survival?
“A lot of footballers sign and have everything done for them. Your digs are sorted out. Very often you can go on, especially at a big club, without lifting a finger. Someone will sort out everything.
“I know players in their mid-20s who don’t know how to pay a gas bill. When I was at Aston Villa I moved in as a lodger in a house where I had to cook and clean for myself, which I felt helped a lot.
“It is as much the clubs to blame. They will try and mollycoddle them as much as possible and sometimes it doesn’t have the desired effect. It is more of a challenge, more of an ordeal to move to another country.
“There is lot said about footballers. I know some who are the most independent, sensible people but there are some absolutely daft ones. You get the full range of society.”
Right now, Palace are mid-table and Lee has three goals from eight starts. Giovanni Trapattoni has promised to cast his net should Ireland qualify for South Africa. That could include Lee should he add another, say, 15 goals and Palace make the play-offs.
“To be honest, I look at (Robbie) Keane and (Kevin) Doyle; they are such good players and Ireland have done so well in this campaign it has been brilliant. It’s something I don’t worry about. If there were injuries and there was a place for me it would be a huge honour but my priority, for someone in my position, realistically, is my club football.”
We congratulate him on an improved disciplinary record of late but the memory dims on reminding of the opening seconds of his international career when yellow-carded for colliding with a defender. Looked like you were going to get sent off?
“You and my Mum. Wishing me congratulations she said ‘watch your elbows’.
“I don’t do myself any favours but I play better when I’m angry and sometimes, as you get older, you realise you have to get angry. You have to argue with your team-mates, with the centre half or the referee. Sometimes it has cost me but if it makes you play better you got to do it.
“If you are a tall centre forward and you jump with your arms into people there is a certain amount you can’t help. You are going to be sent off two or three times in your career for an elbow you didn’t mean. It is more head to elbow.”
Having left Ipswich Town early last season, we seek some insight into the current crisis under Roy Keane.
“Going back to the season before last we had the best footballing team in the division. We missed out on the play-offs by a point. We had built on the team spirit and the understanding amongst the lads was second to none but then there was a lot of money being thrown at players.
“When you change such a good team dynamic and bring new players in, I’m not saying it is the players’ attitude but they can’t possibly fit into a really close-knit team. I felt that destroyed what we had and it was a real shame.
“There has been another influx of new players and it is a very difficult job Roy has there to build a team spirit. You get a bad start, heads go down a bit and it is very hard to turn things around. It is such a tough division.
“As a centre forward at Ipswich I scored a goal every three games and had a fantastic assist record but it didn’t count for anything. When I saw the other centre forwards the manager was signing I said to Jim Magilton, ‘Where are you going to get another centre forward who works as hard as I do and scores the goals that I have?’ He agreed with me but we didn’t exactly see eye to eye. He felt he wanted more and in the end got less.”
You seem to be enjoying your football these days? “Right at this moment things couldn’t be much better but the bad times could be right around the corner but I got a smile on my face right now.”
It’s a fickle old game.
'Most bizarre decision I've ever come across in football'
CRYSTAL PALACE’s season began in bizarre circumstances last August. They lost their opening game 1-0 to Bristol City but the match will be remembered for the decision to disallow Freddie Sears’ first-half goal.
Alan Lee provides an eye-witness account: “It was the most bizarre decision I’ve ever come across in football. It was the first half and nil-all and the ball was flicked on by a midfielder and Freddie Sears got away from the defender and just tapped it in past the ’keeper. It went in about a yard from the post and there was a bar at the back of the net, a good yard and a half over the goal line, but it hit it really slowly. The ball bounced up and out, slowly.
“We went off celebrating and their defenders were arguing. The next thing the linesman is motionless so the referee (Rob Shoebridge) walked over for confirmation. Because the ball bounced up he got confused. It would defy the laws of physics to go anywhere, but the back of the net. Next thing the referee goes ‘no goal. Goal kick’. I went over to him and asked what he was at.
“He said, ‘Alan, free-kick. There was a push’. I said ‘who is the push on?’ He said, ‘Aw, Alan, please, I don’t know. You know you have put me in the shit here’.
“I said to the linesman ‘why is it a goal-kick if it was a push?’ Then he goes ‘Goal kick, it’s a goal kick’. “It was farcical. I don’t blame the ref. I’d say the linesman just switched off.”
See for yourself – www.youtube.com/watch?v= EpZTFJGrZ_kfeature=related>feature=related
Here’s hoping Palace don’t miss the play-offs or promotion by the point they lost that day.
