MATT Le Tissier chuckles as he looks back at the situation Saints found themselves in when Alan Ball became manager in January 1994.
“Very challenging,” Le Tissier says, understatedly.
Led by the deeply unpopular Ian Branfoot, Saints had spent virtually the entirety of the 1993/94 campaign in the relegation zone and seemed destined for the drop.
A 1-0 victory against Coventry City with Dave Merrington as caretaker boss provided some hope, but the real hope was about to arrive at the Dell in human form: the form of football legend and England World Cup winner Alan Ball.
“My first meeting with Alan was when he walked into Southampton Football Club as manager in January of 1994," Le Tissier tells the Daily Echo on the 16th anniversary of Ball's death.
"I always knew Alan was a fantastic player and I was very excited when he joined as manager of Southampton Football Club. To have a World Cup winner as your manager was pretty special.
“I think that win against Coventry lifted us off the bottom of the table but we were still in a helluva lot of trouble at that point. So yeah, it was a very challenging time but one that Alan met head on with a great deal of passion and a great deal of enthusiasm for the job.”
For those who had the pleasure of knowing Ball, passion and enthusiasm are unavoidable adjectives used to describe him - as a player, manager, and person.
Facing Newcastle United in his first game in charge, that was what Ball asked of his players in the dressing room at St James' Park: ‘play with pride and passion for the shirt.’
They certainly stepped up in that regard as Neil Maddison handed Saints into the lead after just five minutes. But Newcastle were chasing those at the top of the table for a reason and Andy Cole equalised for the Magpies seven minutes before half-time.
Going down to the wire, there was only ever one player likely to decide the contest in Ball’s mind, someone he dubbed as ‘maybe the best player in Europe’ after the maiden game.
While spirit and passion were central to Saints’ recovery under Ball and the effective 18 months he oversaw, the manager made sure that Le Tissier was the other central component - from his very first training session.
“Alan and Lawrie McMenemy, the pair of them were on the training ground setting up the team to go and play Newcastle and they set out the team with ten players in the shape of a 3-4-2,” Le Tissier recalls.
“And at this point I thought ‘jeez, I’m not in the team!’ And then I realised there were only ten players. He came to me, popped me in the middle of the pitch, and said to the other players ‘this is our best chance of getting out of the trouble we’re in. When you get the ball, your first option is to try and pass to Matt Le Tissier.’
“And that was like wow - a manager who really believed in me. Ian Branfoot didn’t really believe in me very much and now to have a manager who thought that highly of me, was just amazing.
“Alan for me and my career, the 18 months that he was my manager was the best 18 months of my football career by a long stretch. It was just incredible - the effect he had on me as an individual.”
The introduction to that epic 18-month period came after 83 minutes in Newcastle when Le Tissier won his side a free-kick roughly 22 yards from goal. Of course, he stepped up to take it, rifling over the wall and into the back of the net for Ball’s first three points.
Le Tissier went on to score 15 goals in the 16 league games he played under Ball through the rest of the campaign as Saints avoided the drop on the final day of the season. The following campaign Le Tissier notched 20 league goals as Saints finished a commendable 10th under Ball’s stewardship.
“He instilled a belief and a confidence in the team,” Le Tissier explains. “All of a sudden we started playing a very different brand of football. We were very one dimensional under Ian Branfoot, very direct, there wasn’t a lot of football being played.
“But Alan came in and completely reversed that and wanted us to keep the ball on the deck, he wanted us to play proper football, and he wanted the team to get the ball to me as much as humanly possible.
“And that was obviously a massive boost to my confidence - that a manager thinks I’m that good, that every other player should look to pass the ball to me at every possible opportunity.
“From my point of view, the belief that he instilled in me took my game to a level it had never been at before. I’ll be forever grateful. And very sadly he was taken from us far too young.”
After periods at Manchester City and Portsmouth following his Saints exit, Ball settled in the Hampshire area before his sudden death from a heart attack aged 61 in 2007.
It’s a loss that was and continues to be felt heavily both around Southampton and the football world - owed to the concrete achievements Alan Ball collected - but even more so due to the person those around him grew to know and appreciate.
“I loved spending time with Alan, not just on the training ground,” Le Tissier says. “After he left Southampton he was still in the area and we had dinner a few times. I just loved being in his company.
“It wasn’t only football he was passionate about, he was passionate about horse-racing, passionate about his family and you could feel when he spoke, there was a real love there, a real excitement.
“He loved life, that was the biggest thing I took from Alan. I absolutely adored spending time in his company.”
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