Roeder still searching for his first win

Ken Dyer13 April 2012

Ask Glenn Roeder to reminisce about his five and a half years at Newcastle and he will talk willingly about the club, the passion, the intensity and what it was like to be in the same team as Kevin Keegan, Peter Beardsley, Chris Waddle and Paul Gascoigne.

Roeder will even reluctantly mention the time, in April 1986, he was in the Newcastle team which travelled to Upton Park and lost 8-1. On Sunday, though, when Alan Shearer and company arrive in town, any sort of win will do for the man who took over as manager from Harry Redknapp in the summer.

It is a daunting challenge for West Ham, bottom of the Premiership with two draws, two defeats, two points and only one goal, a Paolo Di Canio penalty. Newcastle, by contrast, are unbeaten and will be brimming with confidence following their 4-3 win over Manchester United last Saturday.

Newcastle are a free-spending club these days but it was not like that when Roeder played for them. ?Then it was sell, sell, sell,? he said. ? Beardsley, Waddle, Gazza. They all went. It wasn?t right for a club the size of Newcastle.?

When QPR manager Terry Venables agreed to sell Roeder to Newcastle, the defender thought it would be a short-term liaison.

?I saw it as a good chance to play in the same team as Keegan, twice European Footballer of the Year and a top England star,? he recalled.

?I thought I?d have a season up there and then say I couldn?t settle in the north and come back to London. After a few weeks, though, I had changed my mind and decided I wanted to stay as long as I could. I hadn?t realised how big the club was potentially.?

Newcastle won promotion that season and when Jack Charlton succeeded Arthur Cox as manager he made Roeder captain.

?There?s not too many cockneys who have captained Newcastle,? he said. ?It was a great honour.

?There were some good players at the club then who went on to become great players, people like Waddle and Beardsley. They both worked in factories as youngsters but had the determination to succeed. They?re an example to young players at academies because the best boys don?t always make the best players.?

A 16-year-old named Gascoigne was also beginning to break through and the pair quickly forged a close friendship.

?I suppose it was because we were opposites as characters, if you like,? said Roeder. Gazza was a real extrovert while I was the opposite. I didn?t need telling when I had played well and I didn?t need lambasting when I was poor. But you had to tell Gazza when he played well and particularly when he was bad.

?I haven?t talked to him for almost a year but I expect to see him in a week?s time when we go up to Everton. He has a God-given talent and has produced a number of worldclass performances down the years.

?Unfortunately, due to injuries and other factors, there haven?t been enough of them from him.?

Roeder and West Ham?s first-team coach, Paul Goddard, who also spent two seasons as a player at Newcastle, were recipients of Gazza?s impish brand of humour.

Goddard recalled: ?He used to wake Glenn and me up at 4am and ask us to go fishing with him. Once, when it was my daughter?s birthday, he arrived on the doorstep, completely out of the blue, with a rabbit and a hutch as a present. It was a nice thought but my family spent a lot of time in the south and there wouldn?t have been anyone there to feed it.?

Roeder also has a store of Gazza stories, one involving a squirrel and an airgun which he glosses over swiftly in case it proves too distressing for any small furry animals which may be listening.

?Once, about a year after he joined Lazio, he called to tell me he was giving his boat to me,? Roeder went on.

?I told him I wasn?t into boats but he insisted. In the end I thought I would drive out to where the boat was moored, perhaps put it up for sale and send him the money. When I arrived all I could see was a mast. The boat had sunk and I suspect he knew.?

On Sunday, there will be no Gascoigne in Newcastle?s team but Shearer will be there, as dangerous and as strong as ever.

?I had an opportunity to work with Alan when I was part of the England set-up,? said Roeder.

?I would call him a real man. If you were in trouble and wanted someone to stand shoulder to shoulder with you, it would be Alan.?

Roeder is also well aware of the menace of Newcastle?s £10 million Frenchman Laurent Robert, who scored from a spectacular free-kick in Newcastle?s win over United.

?I saw Robert play a few times for Paris St Germain last season,? he said. ?I saw him play very well and I also saw him have a couple of quiet games.?

Roeder, however, is more concerned with his own team. ?We?ve only had Freddie Kanoute for 53 minutes this season and he is so important to us because he can cause havoc.

?It is important we win our home games but, as yet, we?ve only had one, against Leeds. After Sunday?s match we?ve another two away matches which means, of the first seven Premiership games, we will have played five away.

?It?s something we have to get on with. Talk is cheap, it?s action that counts.?

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