Alan Devonshire interview in the Telegraph

[Any Old Iron]

Alan Devonshire recalls the day he was tapped up by Sir Bobby Robson and could have become British football’s first £2m player – eight years before that mark was reached when Paul Gascoigne joined Tottenham Hotspur.“We didn’t have agents then but John [Lyall, West Ham United manager] said to me that every big club in the world came in for me at one stage or another,” Devonshire explains.“But the only one I really found out about was Bobby Robson [then manager of Ipswich Town] because he tapped me up in the West Ham dressing room. He was asking me how long I had on my contract and I was taken aback.“In the end West Ham turned down a lot of money for me. Ipswich offered more than £2m and that was straight after the [FA] Cup final [in 1980]. And then the first £2m footballer [between British clubs] wasn’t until Gascoigne in 1988.“But I wouldn’t have gone. They [Ipswich] were second in the league but I loved it where I was. I felt I owed them [West Ham] because they took me from non-League and I enjoyed my football. You see people leave for money and their careers go downhill. But I was happy at West Ham.”To put the scale of that proposed deal in perspective, Trevor Francis became the first £1 million player only a year before and here was Robson offering double that for Devonshire. Goodness knows what he would be worth in today’s market. Certainly more than £100m.The story, not one Devonshire has talked about, is all the more remarkable because four years prior to the approach he was bought by West Ham for £5,000, having been picked up playing for non-league Southall in west By day, Devonshire earned £80 a week working at Perivale’s Hoover factory, having been released by Crystal Palace and overlooked by others because he was “too skinny”. The same scouts said Cyrille Regis, picked up from nearby Hayes, was “not mobile enough” and both went on to play for England. Brentford missed out Devonshire as they would not cover his wages to skip work and play a trial match.That non-League upbringing is so crucial to Devonshire. It has defined his life. “I come from non-League and I find it better. It’s where I started and it’s where I learnt more than any coach could ever teach me,” says the 69-year-old, who has managed for 31 years “non-stop” at that level. He has taken charge of 1,400 non-League games, including more than 800 in two spells at Maidenhead United.It is during a break from training with the ambitious Conference League South club, in the sixth tier of English football, that Devonshire walks over to discuss the career of one of the game’s most elegant and loved players – and one of the most striking.With his flowing dark locks and moustache, the former midfielder looked like one of the Three Musketeers and played with that swagger and panache as he glided across the boggy, rutted pitches of the 1970s and 1980s.The moustache has gone – “It went when I was about 46, 47 because it started to go grey!” – but he remains as passionate as ever about the game.“Dev” is also not short of an opinion as he criticises the FA coaching courses, the academy system, talks of how players are now “like robots” and laments the dying art of dribbling. And that was a skill he was one of the best at.Making of a club legendHe played for two great West Ham sides, including the last one from outside the top flight to win the FA Cup, and made a courageous recovery from a knee injury that robbed him of almost two years. He never played for England again. There is also the painful way he left West Ham in 1989 which remains difficult to talk about. “It was sad because I was never given the chance to say goodbye to the fans and that rankles with me. Still now,” Devonshire says.Three weeks after quitting that factory job in 1976, Devonshire was in West Ham’s first team for a League Cup tie against Queens Park Rangers, who he had grown up supporting. “Someone got injured and John asked Trevor [Brooking] and Bonzo [Billy Bonds] ‘what about Dev?’ and they said ‘yeah, chuck him in’. Coming from them…” Devonshire says. He went on to forge life-long friendships with those two. All three are West Ham legends.“It was natural. We were totally different but our brains worked the same way,” he says of an almost telepathic on-pitch understanding with Brooking. And Bonds? “Unbelievable,” Devonshire says. “I learnt in my career that the best players are the best people. Some people you think ‘they’re okay’ but they were very arrogant and I found that hard to accept. I went with England a few times and I thought all the Liverpool lads were the best players and they were really good lads.”West Ham were in the old Second Division at the time but reached the 1980 FA Cup Final, beating Arsenal 1-0 with Brooking scoring the only goal. Devonshire, who scored the opener in the semi-final, says: “The night before there was greyhound racing at Wembley Stadium. Imagine that now? “If we were playing away at Stoke, Sunderland, if there was dog racing on, Bonzo, myself and Trevor would go there to relax. Wouldn’t be drinking. Just to kill a few hours of being away. It’s funny, we were looking at the pitch, thinking ‘we’ll be playing there in a few hours’.”One banner at Wembley for that final read: “Devonshire cream” and it summed up his class. He was the cream of the crop. And to win it? “I was brought up in Perivale, Acton way so as a kid I was always dreaming of the FA Cup Final. Back then, it was the biggest game,” Devonshire says. “The season had finished. You’d have a week leading up to the final, you were in the papers and doing interviews all week. Then to win it and beat the Arsenal was great. For the fans, I just felt for them, they were just unbelievable fans. Even when I smashed my knee up, they understood. I took to them straight away and that’s the reason I never wanted to leave.“At the end of the day he [Lyall] knew I was happy. We won the FA Cup, we were doing well in the league. I was playing for my country. What else could I ask for? Money’s never been a motivation. I just loved playing at West Ham under the lights at Upton Park. It was fantastic.”It was after that cup final that he was tapped up by Robson, called up for England by Ron Greenwood and West Ham were promoted. Devonshire was flying. He, Bryan Robson and Glenn Hoddle were the young midfield tyros for England but he narrowly missed out on the 1982 World Cup squad, picking up an injury in the last warm-up fixtureTwo years later, he was an England regular and West Ham were third in the league behind only Liverpool and Manchester United. Then came the game he cannot forget. “I was playing the best football of my life,” Devonshire says. “And what happened really hurt. I remember it like it was yesterday. It was January 7, 1984. Wigan in the third round of the FA Cup. I played a few days before and John said to me ‘Do you need a rest? It’s only the third round’. I said ‘no, John. I missed two games the year before. I want to play all the games’.“It was about seven minutes in. I played a one-two with Alvin [Martin], it bobbled up, I chested it down and I just got whacked. I got hit one side and as I was falling all my weight was on my left leg, then my right leg was smashed as I was halfway falling. I felt my knee come out and go back in before I hit the ground.”Three ligaments had snapped. “I wasn’t in any pain and club doctor Brian Roper came in, looked at my knee, lifted it up and it was all floppy. He said: ‘you need an operation straight away’. I said: ‘it feels all right’ and went to get down and the leg totally collapsed,” Devonshire says. “When he did the op he said ‘it was like someone had got a pair of scissors and cut right through’. “They transferred the hamstring to the middle of my knee. They drilled a hole and pulled my hamstring to the front. It has never given way for me since but I only have a 90-degree bend. I had it bent back in hospital so many times because of the movement. And it was like a spring, because of the hamstring. It would go back under anaesthetic, then it would just fly back.“So when I was running up to three-quarters pace I was fine. But when I went to sprint I didn’t have the movement. I had to adapt and change my game completely. That hurt. I’d played four England games on the trot. I was only 26. That’s the one day of my life I wish I could turn the clock back. I knew how good I was at that time and I was getting better and suddenly that was taken away from me. And I never played for England again.”He earned just eight caps.Incredibly that injury led to Brooking’s retirement. “He said to me he was going to stay another year [at West Ham], but he stopped because I got injured. It was a hell of a compliment from a top, top player,” Devonshire says.There were five operations but he was determined to return. Devonshire had to reinvent his game, having lost his pace, and was integral to the West Ham side that came close to winning the title in 1985-86. Third place remains the club’s highest-ever finish. “We should have won it. We were the best team,” Devonshire declares as he reels off the names: Paul Goddard, Frank McAvennie, Tony Gale and Mark Ward. “I played in two great sides,” he says. Unfortunately there would be another serious injury – a ruptured Achilles that kept him out for another year. By then Lou Macari was West Ham manager. “Not a meeting of minds,” Devonshire says. “Because of my knee I couldn’t train. Thursday was the last day I could train and then I had to rest the knee up. John Lyall knew that but he [Macari] wanted me to train and play and I said ‘I can’t. It’s one or the other’. So we fell out big time.“Macari went and then Bonzo was manager. It was ‘89 and I said ‘we’re friends. I’ll be leaving at the end of the season. I don’t know where I will be at injury-wise’. So, I made that easy for Bill. I made that decision because I didn’t want him to have to. I took it out of his hands.“My contract was up and I wasn’t going to play for anyone else but I did go to Watford for a season and that was it.”After four years out of the game, Devonshire became joint-manager, initially, at Maidenhead. “I just enjoyed it,” he says.Has he ever thought about managing higher up? “I haven’t got my badges,” he says. “I went on a course once and I found it a bit embarrassing. Just because of the people who were doing it. I played the game for a few years, so I’d like to think that would help. It didn’t. I just said ‘I don’t need this’. And it wasn’t enjoyable.“When you played the game, I’m not being big-headed, you’ve been around players, you’ve been around top coaches, top managers. So you’d like to think you know what’s right and wrong. Some of the things they were saying, I didn’t agree with. So, I just thought, ‘no, it’s not for me’.“It’s about 40 players have gone into the leagues who I’ve helped along the way. So that’s my buzz, that’s my kind of thank you. What gets me going is seeing a boy go on and playing at the highest level.“Attitudes have changed a bit with young lads. And now they come with agents and I don’t really get on with agents because of the way they talk. According to them I’m signing Lionel Messi for Maidenhead every week.”‘Academy players are more like robots’Which brings us on to the academy system. Fair to say, Devonshire is not a fan. “I don’t like it at all. They’re more like robots now. They’re telling them how to pass the ball,” he says. “I’ve never been coached. No one’s ever told me to do this and do that. All John ever said to me was ‘what you see, you see, and you play. All I say to you, you’re playing on the right, on the left, just drop in when we haven’t got the ball’. That was all he ever said.“This ‘pattern of play’ now, it’s more like a chess match than a football match. I’m pleased now that the long throws are coming back, it’s part of the game. I love to see people dribble. They don’t dribble any more. I used to get the ball wide and my first thought was to carry the ball 50 yards up the pitch, going past people. I see people on the edge of the box and they pass the ball back. It infuriates me. It’s more possession-based now. But the quicker you can get it from A to B, the quicker you score.“We were very direct at West Ham. I’d never pass the ball back unless I had to. I’d be putting balls down channels for the forwards to run on to, getting crosses in for them to score. I’m not giving the ball back to a full-back or a centre-back and I don’t see it for another 10 minutes. “I find it boring now. I look at football and good luck to them, what they’re earning and all that. But I don’t get it. I just don’t get it. People want to be entertained. People want to be off their feet. I want to see people dribbling and it’s a dying art. Centre-halves, they don’t head the ball any more. They’re all ball-playing centre-halves. Hang on, your first thought as a centre-half is to defend, surely? Pass when you should pass and defend when you have to defend. I don’t get this pure football stuff. Everyone knows what they are going to do.”The thread of Lyall’s influence runs through this interview. “Without a doubt and he’d let me get on with it,” Devonshire says of West Ham’s most successful manager, who spent 34 years at the club, 15 as manager. “I would talk to him every Monday after the game, just go through things, what I could do better.“He should have managed England. Him and Ron Greenwood, even before I joined in ‘76, used to go to Holland and watch all the coaches in Holland when the Dutch were the best and they learnt a lot from that and they brought it over to us.“The 4-5-1 – we did that in the cup final. Everyone thinks it’s new, that someone did it 10 years later, but we did that in the cup final and we didn’t even work on it. It was just on a bit of paper. And the players were just good enough to know. That’s what I’m trying to say now – people are not thinking for themselves. It’s too directed and if you don’t do it, you’re out.“Coaching should be encouraging people’s talent and then it’s up to the manager to get the best out of that talent, out of that player in the framework of the team. I get them here and they’ve been at an academy for five, six years and they’ve got bad habits. And it should be the opposite.”It is not a rant. Far from it. It comes from the heart and a love of the game and is said with feeling. There is also no bitterness – even if injury deprived Devonshire of what could have been so much more.“I had a hell of a great time,” he says. “I played for my country; I reached the pinnacle. I wish I’d played in the World Cup. But I’m happy with what I achieved. I loved every day of it.”

[ragingbull]

Never heard of him.

Don't blame you, who's going to remember a £5000 Southall purchase.

[ragingbull]

Unbelievable talent.

[Helmut Shown]

I remember his debut against QPR. Nobody in the crowd knew who he was but after about ten minutes you knew they had found a diamond. He was one of the most talented footballers I have ever seen. He would go past players like they weren't there. It was such a pity that the useless referees didn't protect him from the agricultural thugs from Wigan. (No change there, I hear you say). 

[Helmut Shown]

I remember his debut against QPR. Nobody in the crowd knew who he was but after about ten minutes you knew they had found a diamond. He was one of the most talented footballers I have ever seen. He would go past players like they weren't there. It was such a pity that the useless referees didn't protect him from the agricultural thugs from Wigan. (No change there, I hear you say). 

[Tomshardware]

The 2 West Ham players my dad always talks about being the best he saw were Brooking and Devonshire.  

[Takashi Miike]

[dm]

Was he into Rush at all?  With the long hair and moustache I did wonder if he modelled that look on the late Neil Peart.  

[zico]

Probably the best compliment you can give him is that Trevor decided to retire when he did partially down to the fact Dev was injured. Frank Mac said Dev was the best player he played with and that was after his injury! There is a good video interview somewhere on You Tube, one of those Canning Town Len ones that were doing the rounds a few years back. That 80/81 side surely must be the best team to play outside the top flight.

[BoleynGone]

Jerico
Same here. Moore was my hero as a kid. People ask me why I West Ham and it was because of him. But watching Dev and Brooking together was sublime. Had a better understanding than Torvill and Dean plus better to look at. Many a move never resulted in a goal but it didn't matteras the build up was so good to watch.

[twoleftfeet]

The man didn't need to run - he would simply glide.

A truly sublime player - amazing to think somebody as good as him was playing non-league football.

That's exactly what he did " glide ".  I swear to god his studs never touched the ground when he was running with the ball.

[eusebiovic]

The man didn't need to run - he would simply glide.

A truly sublime player - amazing to think somebody as good as him was playing non-league football.

[twoleftfeet]

Probably, in my opinion anyway, the best West Ham player of the last 50 years.

[Iron Duke]

Never heard of him.

[Monsieur merde de cheval]

Was no better sight, than watching Dev pick up the ball outside our penalty area, then go off on a run down the left hand side in full flow, bloke was a genius for us before he got crocked by that Wigan prick. 

Dev and Trev, we were spolit back then wasn't we

Even when he played again after coming back from that horrific injury, although slower, still had that elegance and grace, and that goal in the 4-0 win at Chelsea, will live in the memory for ever.


A top bloke as well, as humble as they come, definitely in my top 3 players of all time

I remember trevs  final game against Everton ..EVERYONE STAYED BEHIND  in the south bank and chicken run..
Trev likely thought we were all cunts ...but it matters not 
GREAT GREAT TIMES .

[Monsieur merde de cheval]

Bonds, Brooking and Devonshire are my top 3 Hammers I have seen in the flesh, I did catch Bobby Moore, but that was towards the end of his career with us, I started going in 71/72, and to me as a kid, it was absolutely magical

I think for all that were born after or to young to remember the club legends who won the world cup..
.Brooking /Bonds /Dev were the closest thing to that  Trinity.

[Monsieur merde de cheval]

Yep, Trev and Bonzo had that connection, if someone kicked Trev, you could guarantee the bloke who kicked him, got it back with interest from Billy moments later... He was Trev's on field minder

[Jericho]

Bonds, Brooking and Devonshire are my top 3 Hammers I have seen in the flesh, I did catch Bobby Moore, but that was towards the end of his career with us, I started going in 71/72, and to me as a kid, it was absolutely magical

[Jericho]

Yep, Trev and Bonzo had that connection, if someone kicked Trev, you could guarantee the bloke who kicked him, got it back with interest from Billy moments later... He was Trev's on field minder

[Monsieur merde de cheval]

Was no better sight, than watching Dev pick up the ball outside our penalty area, then go off on a run down the left hand side in full flow, bloke was a genius for us before he got crocked by that Wigan prick. 

Dev and Trev, we were spolit back then wasn't we

Even when he played again after coming back from that horrific injury, although slower, still had that elegance and grace, and that goal in the 4-0 win at Chelsea, will live in the memory for ever.


A top bloke as well, as humble as they come, definitely in my top 3 players of all time

Yea Dev and Trev had a special connection... Just like Trev and Bonzo had similar in a different way.
that move against Everton in the FA cup semi was a perfect example.

[Monsieur merde de cheval]

just a brilliant player, would be worth well over £100m these days with the protection players get, and have had the honour to meet dev numerous times. I could just imagine him in that Ipswich team with gates, muhren and thijssen

That was some Ipswich side mate ...class kit as well

[Jericho]

Was no better sight, than watching Dev pick up the ball outside our penalty area, then go off on a run down the left hand side in full flow, bloke was a genius for us before he got crocked by that Wigan prick. 

Dev and Trev, we were spolit back then wasn't we

Even when he played again after coming back from that horrific injury, although slower, still had that elegance and grace, and that goal in the 4-0 win at Chelsea, will live in the memory for ever.


A top bloke as well, as humble as they come, definitely in my top 3 players of all time

[Takashi Miike]

just a brilliant player, would be worth well over £100m these days with the protection players get, and have had the honour to meet dev numerous times. I could just imagine him in that Ipswich team with gates, muhren and thijssen

[Monsieur merde de cheval]

Apologies for the lack of spacing between paragraphs but for some reason it all got condensed together when I pressed send. 

No probs...cheers for taking the time to post it

[Monsieur merde de cheval]

My favourite Hammer of all time...still follow how he's getting on in general..
 

[Any Old Iron]

Apologies for the lack of spacing between paragraphs but for some reason it all got condensed together when I pressed send.