McPhail on your side: FA Youth Cup final, May '97
The team you play in is the players you play with, and who better on your side than Stephen McPhail.
Sky Sports took some risks with their coverage of 1997's FA Youth Cup final.
After a couple of Crystal Palace tackles go late and over the ball into Leeds United ankles, commentators Martin Tyler and Paul Walsh remind viewers that we're watching children, as if here was a pack of wild dogs and scenes of a distressing nature. They add that Leeds substitute Gareth Evans sat exams that morning before travelling down, as if he'd been getting in some last minute study on tibia-snaps.
Danger calls again when Leeds lift the trophy. The camera goes close and the microphone is on, broadcasting the triumphant yells of captain Alan Maybury — "Yeeeeees!", Damien Lynch — "Get in!", Andy Wright — "Love it, yes!", Jonathan Woodgate — [unintelligible], Harry Kewell, "Oh yeah, that's the one!" It's like the slow climb of a rollercoaster towards a deadly drop as Tony Hackworth waggles his tongue suggestively and shouts, "Yes!", but some sensible director cuts away before any of the lads shout something coach Paul Hart might have to give a detention for.
Then there's the post-match interview. Lee Matthews has scored the winner, a tall striker from Middlesbrough with short and curly black hair around his ecstatic moon face. All the business of the season has been given up for joy of the game won and the night ahead and the holidays to follow: "We're off home tomorrow morning," he says, "So we should have a good laugh." He can't stop giggling. "It's the best team I've ever played in," he says, with the enthusiasm of a teenager about to ask them to autograph his shirt. "The Irish lads are absolutely top class."
'The Irish lads' must be Matthews' modest way of acknowledging the man of the match standing next to him, Stephen McPhail, who just ended his part of the interview by blurting out "Thank you," like a kid calling the teacher 'mum'. Even the other Irish lads — Maybury, Lynch, back-up keeper and future back-up singer Nicky Byrne, Wesley Boyle from the North — would accept their debt to McPhail for the medals in their hands.
What a joy it must have been to be young and playing football with Stephen McPhail. Tonight the Leeds team are eleven varied talents, some with Premier League experience, some becoming world stars, two stopping to argue about a misplaced pass like they're in a playground, forgetting the cup final carrying on around them. McPhail elevates them all, not giving them passes but dreams come true.