Did winning trophies feel different as a captain? What qualities does a captain need? Graeme Souness, Gary Neville and Eddie Howe reflect on their careers with the armband
Wednesday 15 April 2020 12:48, UK
Graeme Souness and Gary Neville reflected on what makes a good captain and why they were given the armband during their playing careers on The Football Show.
Souness won 23 major trophies as a player and a manager, and one of his strengths has always been his leadership qualities, while Neville made over 600 appearances for Manchester United in a career that spanned over 20 years.
The two Sky Sports pundits were joined by Bournemouth manager Eddie Howe to discuss what it takes to be a captain, and their experiences leading from the front.
Graeme Souness: "I have no idea. I remember when Bob Paisley asked me. I said I'd love to be captain. I thought there were candidates in the Liverpool team before me, one of which was Phil Neal. Bob told me he wanted me to be the captain.
"Why did he pick me? I think being a midfield player is a good place to be a captain because you're involved in all parts of the game, but unfortunately he's no longer alive to ask him why he chose me. Along with Sir Kenny and Alan Hansen, we were the most vocal people in the dressing room. I was the right age, in the right position and I was prepared to offer an opinion up.
"During my time in football, and perhaps it follows me now... some people think I'm an arrogant person. If that's some people's interpretation, there's nothing I can do about it. I have come across as confident and arrogant, and I'm sure I wasn't very pleasant - especially when I was a player.
"I've always been confident. I've been asked many times where I came from... I'm the youngest of three boys, I came from a very stable, reliable family. That confidence came from having a comfort blanket put around me from when I was younger."
Gary Neville: "The way I decided to go about captaincy was to be true to myself, I'd been the PFA union rep since the age of 23, I believed in players rights, as Roy (Keane) and Sir Alex (Ferguson) drummed into us.
"It was either going to be myself or Ryan Giggs as captain and I think the reason Sir Alex chose me was purely one thing, and that was Giggs was in and out of the team because he liked to rotate his forward players while I was playing every week as a defender.
"Over the five or six years I was captain, I would say me, Giggs and Paul Scholes were captains in the sense that we worked together to set the tone and standards in the dressing room.
"It was certainly a different approach to what Keane, Robson and Bruce had, we didn't have that type of influence those characters had. Roy was the most influential person I ever saw on a football field, and off a football field, we simply couldn't replicate that."
Eddie Howe: "The ability to talk to players is always a big thing. You're looking for your leader to inspire you, to make you, in effect, want to go into war. I was always looking for someone to follow as I was coming through; I had some captains where I thought, 'I want to be a bit more like you'. For young players that's absolutely crucial.
"I always remember Tommy Elphick was a fantastic captain in our rise through the leagues. He was an inspirational figure for the club; he'd come to us with a very serious injury playing for Brighton but he immediately had the respect of the players, and now we have Simon Francis, who, at a time of crisis all over the world, has led the team really well."
Souness: "If I was a manager now, I'd be looking for my captain to a) be a good player and b) someone who was respected both on and off the pitch. He has to be someone who can speak and who gives off an aura and a belief.
"The number one thing that makes a successful captain is having really good players in your side. Gary and I both had that. I'd hate to think I became a different person when I became captain. It's just an armband, nothing changes."
Neville: "I had two or three in my very early years in football that helped shape my thoughts on how to look after players in a dressing room.
"The first was Bryan Robson, he would look after our contracts for us, he would make sure the young players weren't having the mickey taken out of them and were looked after and got the right things. That daunting thing of having to go and knock on the manager's door was bridged by the fact Bryan would look after us and that it was done with ease.
"The second was when I didn't go on a team day out when I was 18 because I didn't drink at the time. The day after on the training pitch Steve Bruce came up to me and said I would never do that again, and I never missed a team day out after that and understood the importance of team spirit and coming together.
"The third thing was the biggest one. When Gazza smashed up the plane on the way back from Hong Kong, the FA wanted someone out of the squad, they wanted to know who it was so they could have a scapegoat. Terry Venables told us this and Tony Adams stood up and said no one was a scapegoat in this room, and we all went out and took collective responsibility.
"We all paid the fine and for the damage to the plane and we all said we did it, that gave me the lesson of sticking together and what to do when someone is in trouble. That's how I've always approached it, you never stitch your team-mate up, you never throw them overboard, that's something really important."
Neville: "It did feel different. The thing with me was that I got injured a year after taking the captaincy and that became really difficult for me. I felt as though I wasn't contributing as a captain should do in the last four years of my career.
"I remember going to see Sir Alex one pre-season, I think during my third season as captain, and saying I didn't feel worthy of keeping the captaincy because the team had shifted onto a level I couldn't compete at.
"It was obvious then, we had an amazing team - Ronaldo, Rooney, Tevez, Giggs, Scholes, Carrick, Ferdinand, Vidic, Evra, Van der Sar, great players and great personalities. Sir Alex said, 'you'll keep that armband, son!'
"He said me and Giggs would rotate the captaincy because if he gave it to Ronaldo, Rooney would kick off, if he gave it to Vidic, Ferdinand wouldn't be happy, so we kept it for three or four years purely for the camaraderie in the dressing room.
"We were the policeman, the old statesmen in the dressing room that would see the example and Sir Alex wanted to make sure the team came first, despite me feeling unworthy of the captaincy at that stage."
Souness: "When I got to 18, I felt I was ready to be in the first team at Tottenham. When the team sheet would go up on the Friday after lunch in the dressing room, I would quickly go in there and when if I saw my name wasn't on the sheet, within 10 minutes I would go down and knock on Bill Nicholson's door asking why he hadn't included me again.
"At the time, the captain was Alan Mullery, who was also the captain of England. We also had Martin Peters, a World Cup winner, and Steve Perryman who was a couple of years older than me. They were the three who were in front of me, and I told him he had to include me! I said I was better than them.
"It sounded ridiculous to him, it sounds ridiculous to me now, and I fully understand why he sold me, because I was driving him mad. He wanted to sell me as far away as possible which he did as I went to Middlesbrough.
"He did me an enormous favour, as it was the first time in my playing career where I took a punch on the nose from someone who thought I wasn't good enough for them. It was a wake-up call for me and it's something I remembered for the rest of my career."
Neville: "Roy was my captain for 10 years, and you felt safe when he was at the front of the line. Everybody felt comfortable, even towards the end where he maybe wasn't playing as well as he had been previously.
"It was the same when I played under Steve Bruce as a young right-back, you just felt secure and looked after, there was the feeling of experience around you.
"What me, Ryan and Scholesy gave to the players in the dressing room was that feeling of security, that we had been there and done it, knew how to win and succeed and wouldn't panic at the end of a season. That is what a captain would do in football, settle the rest of the team down because they had seen it and done it before.
"[When Roy left] it was a changing landscape in football and I knew I couldn't all of a sudden take over from Roy Keane, be Roy Keane because, quite simply, I'm not Roy Keane, not in character, personality or influence."
Neville: "Captaincy is a different job now, but we have seen great examples. Vincent Kompany at Manchester City has been an absolute shining light, Jordan Henderson over the last few weeks has galvanised a group of players that were attacked by the Premier League.
"We are still seeing great shows of leadership in the game in the modern era, but I do think it is different. You can no longer be a dictatorial leader or captain in a dressing room, you have to be more collaborative and bring them on the journey with you."
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