Coming down to earth with a bump after experiencing the ecstasy of success is a problem for many sportsmen, but few can have such an understanding of the process as Steve Morrow. The Arsenal man had just scored his first senior goal to win the 1993 League Cup final against Sheffield Wednesday when captain Tony Adams decided to celebrate by hoisting Morrow onto his shoulders. Unfortunately the 22-year-old fell to the Wembley turf, breaking his right arm and dislocating his shoulder, leading to long-lasting nerve damage.
As has been well chronicled in his autobiography, Addicted, Adams carried many regrets from his Arsenal days. But the guilt felt for Morrow’s injury was something that cannot be purged from his memory. “You do some silly things in those spontaneous moments in football when the adrenaline is flowing,” said Adams. Forgiving as Morrow is in retrospect of the accident that forced him to miss the FA Cup final, also against Sheffield Wednesday barely a month later, and had a lasting effect on the remainder of his playing career, he can only concur.
Almost a decade and a half on and with 39 Northern Ireland caps as well as a Cup Winners’ Cup medal to his name, Morrow reluctantly admits it is the incident most people remember him for. Like so many before him, he headed across the Atlantic in search of a fresh challenge and the newly appointed head coach of FC Dallas in America’s Major League Soccer (MLS) is intent on establishing a winning reputation in his adopted Texan home.
Recalling the Adams incident, Morrow says: “I was totally devastated at the time but it was such a freakish incident. Tony just came up to me at the final whistle and I was so elated I had scored the winning goal. He picked me up and I lost my balance, went over his shoulder and the rest is history. I put my arm out to break the fall; it locked and snapped in two. Straight away there was a numb feeling but before I looked at my arm I saw other people’s faces and they were clearly shocked by what they saw. I remember Paul Merson, Kevin Campbell and David Seaman and they were obviously horrified, because my arm was pointing the wrong way.”
While the rest of the Arsenal team climbed the Wembley steps to collect their medals, Morrow was stretchered off wearing an oxygen mask. “The only thing in my mind at the time was an acceptance that I was going to miss the FA Cup final, and while most players who leave the pitch after scoring a winning goal are elated, I just felt a huge disappointment,” recalled Morrow. “There was nerve damage and I had no power in my wrist at all for a long time. It’s fair to say the whole thing interrupted my career.”
Morrow became the first player to receive a winner’s medal before a cup final when he belatedly was presented with his prize as a curtain-raiser to the 1-1 draw which preceded Arsenal’s 2-1 replay win over Wednesday, thanks to Andy Linighan’s 119th-minute winner. However, he missed most of the following season, returning for the Cup Winners’ Cup final, again playing a heroic role in the win over a Parma side that included Gianfranco Zola.
Nevertheless, he was never a regular during the remainder of George Graham’s reign, failed to win favour under Bruce Rioch and only started two matches during the first six months of Arsène Wenger’s Highbury tenure before initially being loaned out and ultimately sold for £500,000 to QPR. Things never worked out for Morrow at Loftus Road and after a brief loan period at Peterborough, he began to explore other avenues to end his career. Unexpectedly, an approach came from his former Northern Ireland teammate Colin Clarke, who was coach at Dallas, and so Morrow headed for Texas.
Eventually he became Clarke’s assistant and last season Dallas won the Western Conference of the MSL, but after they were beaten in a penalty shootout in the season-ending playoffs, the former Southampton, Portsmouth and QPR centre-forward was relieved of his duties. After a spell as interim head coach, Morrow’s appointment was made official at the start of the month.
Currently back in England to take in a few games and check on the form of prospective players, Morrow made one of his first ports of call the north London headquarters of his long-term agents the SEM Group, who handle such world renowned stars as Thierry Henry and Rio Ferdinand, as well as one of the Premiership’s most sought-after properties, Manchester City’s Micah Richards. “People like (the SEM Group’s) Jerome Anderson and Jeff Weston had a great influence on my career,” says Morrow. “They helped me through a lot of tough times and I know their great contacts in the game will be a tremendous help in my new post.”
Every manager or coach has their obvious influences and Morrow is no different. Clearly Graham made a lasting influence on him in terms of discipline, structure and maintaining a fighting spirit. Pat Rice, a youth coach during his emergence as a young player at Arsenal, is another but, surprisingly, given the fact that Morrow only started two games in the six months he spent under Wenger’s management, he admits that he learnt a great deal from the cerebral Frenchman.
“It was all so educational,” he reflects. “I was lucky enough to be there when Arsène first came in and he really did have a profound effect which lasts to this day. He was very single-minded in his approach but was not afraid to make a very drastic change to what the players at the time were used to in the previous regime.
“He paid such attention to detail, changed everything and put things in place that he believed were going to be of benefit to the team and the club in the long run. Initially it was a major shock but his methods definitely prolonged the careers of a lot of players.”
When the MLS kicks off again next April, Morrow will be one of three British head coaches, alongside the former Liverpool stalwart Steve Nicol at New England Revolution and his teammate in the Scotland team Mo Johnston, in charge at the newly franchised Toronto FC. In addition the former Chelsea striker John Spencer is assistant coach at Dallas’s main rivals, Houston Dynamo. And Morrow is insistent the standard of play is worthy of respect.
He cringes at memories of the long since defunct NASL, based on celebrity and fostered by teams such as the New York Cosmos and Tampa Bay Rowdies, and insists things are far more structured today. “People ask me to compare the standard between the United States and England,” says Morrow. “One of our best teams, at full strength, could easily compete in the Premiership. And I back that up with results. A lot of Europe’s very top clubs come across to America for pre-season games and find the opposition very competitive. Two years ago I was coach of the All Star team who played Fulham when they came across and we won 4-1.”
Traditionally, football is a high-school game in America, but Morrow is hopeful that new initiatives, plus what is becoming known as the Beckham Rule, will propel the sport to new levels of acceptance. “Perhaps that name is a little presumptuous,” he says, referring to the fact that the former England captain is rumoured to be heading for the MSL when the current $2.2m salary cap on teams is modified. “A more accurate term would be the Designated Player Rule, which they have been talking about for a few years,” he says. “It’s going to open the doors to bigger-name players with higher salaries coming into the league.
“Equally important, there are going to be youth development set-ups at each team. All over the country and especially where I am in Texas, kids at high school are playing soccer more than any other sport and I include the big sports such as baseball, basketball and American football in that assessment. When it gets to a certain age level, they go on to college to play something else but these new measures might keep many more in the game and raise our standards.”
