A Life in Football: My Autobiography by Ian Wright

Author:Ian Wright [Wright, Ian]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781472123572
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Published: 2016-09-21T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

No Chalice at the Palace

I was invited to Palace for a two-week trial in August 1985, and at the end of it, on the Friday, played in a Crystal Palace XI against a local semi-pro outfit called Kingstonian. I must have done well because on the Saturday we played a behind-closed-doors game against Coventry and I was signed right before that game. On the Monday I reported for training. I was training with the first team straight from the off, which was quite surprising for me but I felt OK among them, mostly.

Steve Coppell gave me a deal for three months, which was actually the best thing that could have ever happened to me. I think if he’d signed me for a year right off the bat, I would have had a different attitude to it. It was long enough to give me a taste of what life could be as a footballer, but short enough to make sure I kept working and didn’t get complacent.

That was either a masterstroke by Palace, or they literally could not afford a longer contract until they could see exactly how they could use me. They needed to tie me down quickly because they knew that Luton were interested – they’d asked me to come up for two weeks after the Palace trial.

One of the first things Steve Coppell said was that I looked like I needed some food, and after I signed I had to eat potatoes, steaks and bananas. This was a good example of how they were looking at my potential as much as anything else and were prepared to invest in me.

That made me feel good, but I was left wondering why Brighton couldn’t have done that. Down there I played against their first team and scored goals, so what would it have cost them to have given me longer? If they’d offered me twenty-five quid a week I would have taken it.

As it was, after being given just three months I was convinced Palace would send me back to the building trade at the end of it so I was determined to have a blast before that happened. I played with pure freedom, didn’t care if I was playing in the reserves or against the first team, and it was enough to get me taken on even though I would be twenty-two that November.

Technically, the three-month contract was the beginning of my life as professional footballer, but it wasn’t something I fully came to terms with for quite a while.

After that Coventry game I was on the bus going to Morden to get the train to Forest Hill, thinking, ‘Is that it?’ I phoned my mum and said, ‘Yeah, I’m a professional now’, but after wanting so badly to be a footballer for fourteen years since the age of eight, it now all seemed to happen too quickly. Maybe I felt like that because I’d been waiting that long. For me there was no build-up to it where you go away and learn to be a professional footballer and focus on it.

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