Les Ferdinand interview: ‘Top clubs don’t have the patience to find players like me any more’

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
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James Olley6 February 2020

Not many have walked the path taken by Les Ferdinand. A career spanning two decades, 10 clubs, 149 Premier League goals, two major honours, one PFA Player of the Year award, 17 England caps and his reinvention as a director of football demands the 53-year-old stands out as a leading figure in English football.

It is why Ferdinand will be honoured at the 2020 London Football Awards next month with the ‘Outstanding ­Contribution to London Football’ prize — the shortlists for the other nine gongs are announced tonight — but he looks back on his achievements with typical self-deprecation.

“I always feel like I could have done more,” he said. “I’m happy with the way it went but I look back and I think ­‘trophies’. Didn’t win that many.”

The 1989 Turkish Cup — from a loan spell at Besiktas — and the 1999 League Cup with Tottenham do not begin to tell the story of a player who started to get serious as a footballer through his latter teenage years at part-timers Southall.

Ferdinand supplemented his income as a painter and decorator, wavering in his belief he would make it as a ­footballer even after climbing a couple of divisions to join Hayes — a move that would earn him a switch to QPR as a 20-year-old in 1987.

“I caught people’s eye at Hayes because the step up hadn’t stopped me scoring goals,” he said. “As you step up, things happen quicker. It is the same transition for players now but the game at the top level is even quicker.”

Ferdinand is now the director of football at QPR Photo: Carl Fox
Carl Fox

Ferdinand feels his journey through the divisions to the summit is an increasing rarity. “Lots of supporters ask ‘where’s the next Jamie Vardy?’ he said. “People like myself, Ian Wright, Stuart Pearce, Alan Devonshire — so many have come through that route.

“But we are in a phase where that avenue is not as closely examined as it was. If you aren’t ­spending £20million on a player, you aren’t competing.

“If you aren’t winning and look to sign someone from Dulwich Hamlet, the fans will say ‘what are you talking about?’ Yet they still ask ‘where’s the next Jamie Vardy?’ The talent is there. But is the patience around for that person to come through? Probably not.”

Ferdinand scored five goals in 17 appearances for England Photo: Getty Images
Getty Images

Ferdinand required patience of his own. After a brief loan at ­Brentford, he tried his luck in Turkey “to better myself” and broaden his ­horizons.

A first senior trophy followed and he returned to establish himself at QPR — scoring 20 goals in the inaugural 92-93 Premier League season — prior to a £6m move to Newcastle in the summer of 1995, a deal which saw Hayes earn £600,000 and build The Ferdinand Suite at their stadium in his honour.

It also came at the end of a season in which Manchester United tried to sign Ferdinand only for then manager Ray Wilkins to block the move until the end of the season. United opted for Andy Cole. Ferdinand replaced Cole at St James’ Park.

I probably stayed at QPR a bit longer than I should have. I think I could have got where wanted to go had I left earlier"

Les Ferdinand

“I probably stayed at QPR a little bit longer than I should have,” he said. “I felt like I was learning under Gerry Francis’s tutelage. In hindsight, I think, ‘could have got where I wanted to go if I left a bit earlier?’”

Newcastle finished as runners-up in both of Ferdinand’s two seasons, the first of which he was named PFA Player of the Year despite blowing a 12-point lead to United, a collapse made­ infamous by Kevin Keegan’s “I’ll love it if we beat them” live TV interview.

“I watched it late at night after getting in from playing,” said ­Ferdinand. “I called [team-mate] Warren Barton and said ‘have you seen this?’

“All people want from players is to wear their hearts on the sleeves and give their all. That’s what Kevin did in that moment. But from the media’s perspective he’d lost the plot.”

Ferdinand formed a formidable partnership with Alan Shearer at Newcastle United Photo: Getty Images
Getty Images

Ferdinand scored 50 goals in 84 games on Tyneside but remained largely in Alan Shearer’s shadow — a problem which extended to England. He would go to Euro 96 and the 1998 World Cup with but not play a minute at either tournament.

He was already suffering with an Achilles problem by that stage which would wreck his move to Tottenham. Ferdinand said: “I was there for six years. They had five different managers and a change of board. But I picked up an ­Achilles problem which manifested itself time and time again.

“Nobody could get to the bottom of it. An operation didn’t resolve it and another physio spotted a cyst on the opposite side. I had two more operations but lost three years of my career.”

Ferdinand (right) won the 1999 Worthington Cup with Tottenham Photo: Getty Images
Getty Images

Spells at Leicester, Bolton — where Sam Allardyce talked him out of ­retirement — and Reading preceded a pre-season at Watford in which he knew it was time to hang up his boots at the age of 39.

“The first game of the season, the team were playing away and were ­heading down the driveway in the coach,” he said. “I said to myself ‘I’m glad I’m not on that’. I’d had the realisation I couldn’t do what I wanted to do any more and if that was the case, I couldn’t benefit the club.”

15 December 2001 | Les Ferdinand of Spurs celebrates after scoring the 10,000th goal in the Premiership Photo: Getty Images
Getty Images

Media work followed before joining Harry Redknapp’s coaching staff at Spurs where he finished his badges prior to taking courses in management at Warwick Business School and governance at St George’s Park.

Nothing quite sums up these polemic times as the admission that while some QPR fans refer to Ferdinand as ‘Sir Les’, others deem it appropriate to target him with racist abuse as he seeks to make a success of the director of football role he assumed in February 2015.

“I’ve experienced it [racism] from my own fans,” he said. “But I understand. Football reflects society and we need greater diversity in ­positions of power. There isn’t much BAME [black and minority ethnic] ­representation in director of football roles.

“Michael Emenalo was at Chelsea, Brian Tevreden was at Reading for a while. There are people out there, it is just getting the opportunities. I speak to some people who say ‘you are in a really good position and flying the flag for a lot so you’ve got to stay there’.”

Ferdinand continues to plough a lonely furrow.

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