Chris Baird Reveals All

[White Noise]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/fulham/article7100781.ece


London Calling: Chris Baird flourishing in SW6

Defender reveals truth behind Roy Keane's taunt and explains why Roy Hodgson succeeded where Lawrie Sanchez failed at Fulham


Paul Rowan


"Harrods? I don't think we have been there once. We're not mad on shopping. We live with what we have got and that is enough for me."

Chris Baird is amused. Amused rather than affronted when it is put to him that his career path has been decided by the WAG culture and all it entails.

It was a charge laid at his doorstep by Roy Keane and one that threatened to define his career at one point, along with the distinction of playing in an FA Cup final on his second senior club appearance for Southampton. Keane publicly scorned the player when Baird turned his back on Sunderland in 2007 and arrived at Craven Cottage in London SW6, a postcode where designer bags means Chanel rather than Umbro and the green paste behind the counter is guacamole, not mushy peas.

"We have had a player this summer who didn't even ring us back because his wife wanted to move to London. He didn't even have the courtesy to pick the phone up to us. And shopping was mentioned. It might astonish many people, but it is true," Keane said back in August 2007, with devastating timing — it branded Baird as lacking ambition and God forbid, being servile to his wife's wishes. But is it, was it, true?

"My wife and daughter are from Southampton originally," Baird explains. "I didn't want them to go as far away as Sunderland, because my wife has her family there and she is close to them. I knew a lot of people at Fulham as well, with the Irish connection. We moved not far from Southampton, so my wife could continue to see her family. I know Roy Keane said otherwise, but this is me telling the truth. I have no regrets about turning down Sunderland."

And the phone call? "My agent phoned him, but me personally — I didn't."

Damien Duff is another player who found what was on offer in west London more attractive than the north-east. Further evidence that Baird made the right choice comes on Thursday night, when he will line out for Fulham in the Europa League semi-final against Hamburg, the latest game in a steady but exhausting trek over Europe's foothills which has led many to hasty reappraisals of what is happening at the west London club.

Part of that process involves a look at Baird himself. He grew up in the Co Antrim village of Rasharkin, "in the middle of nowhere" as he puts it. Gaelic football and hurling competed for his family's affections and won over his brothers, but Baird's outstanding promise was best demonstrated when it came to association football and after a successful trial at Southampton he was offered a professional contract there.

His big break, or so it seemed, came at the age of 21 when Gordon Strachan surprisingly drafted him into the starting line-up for the 2003 FA Cup final, where his defensive heroics were ultimately in vain as Southampton lost by a single goal to Arsenal.

His performance against Robert Pires was hailed as that of a rising star, but with a succession of managers coming through the doors as the south coast club descended into chaos, Baird found his chances limited, until George Burley put his faith in him.

Baird was an outstanding performer for Southampton in the 2006/07 season when they reached the Championship playoffs and that was enough to have Fulham and Sunderland competing for his signature. After snubbing Keane, he moved to Fulham for a fee of just over £3m in June 2007. There was a time when it did look like he had made the wrong choice. Baird was signed by Lawrie Sanchez who was sacked six months later and for a long time under Roy Hodgson it looked like he was surplus to requirements. "Up until a few months ago I wasn't even getting in some of the squads, never mind the team, which was hard to take. At one point I was thinking the time had come to move on.

"I was patient and I have been working hard and I think Roy has made a lot of us better players because he has got all that experience."

Baird, whose versatility allows him to play at centre half, right-back or in midfield, got his chance as Jonathan Greening and Danny Murphy struggled, respectively, with suspensions and injuries. Hodgson says he always featured in his plans even when the player himself didn't believe it. At last, given a run at the start of the season, Baird has been identified by Fulham fans as the club's most improved player and when the teams line up in the HSH Nordbank Arena later this week, he will not be far short of his 50th appearance in Fulham's lengthy season.

The manager, as he recently stated, recognised that Baird was in a situation where "the team was being tarred with a somewhat negative brush and a lot of the tar stuck on him." This was a clear reference to a time when Craven Cottage was known as "Little Belfast", with a former Northern Ireland manager in Sanchez who had gathered around him the likes of Steven Davis, David Healy, Aaron Hughes and Baird, players who had performed beyond all expectations at international level, but found the complexities of Premier League football far more difficult to deal with.

"The style Lawrie had was more from the time he was international manager — a lot of long-ball stuff — and that is what killed him, whereas Roy Hodgson has got us playing some really nice football. On the floor and pass and move."

Drafted in on a caretaker basis in April 2007 while still managing the national team, Sanchez did enough to keep Fulham in the Premier League that season but with the team back in the relegation zone the next season, and being booed off by their own fans, Sanchez was sacked at Christmas.

"Lawrie was a very quiet man," says Baird. "He would just deal with things with his staff and not come to players and speak to them one to one, as much as what Roy Hodgson does. Roy Hodgson would do it every day. He comes out, he shakes your hand, says good morning and all the little things like that.

"It makes a big difference. If you have any problems as well you can speak to him and if you are not doing well he will speak to you.

"His man management skills are a lot better. Still, you've got to give respect to Lawrie and not slag him off."

Arm-around-the-shoulder management. It really is just as well he didn't play for the other Roy.

Northern Ireland players in Premier League 2009/2010

Aaron Hughes, Fulham 32 appearances (0 as sub)
Chris Baird, Fulham 28 appearances (3 as sub)
George McCartney, Sunderland 25 appearances (5 as sub)
Jonny Evans, Manchester United 16 appearances (0)
Maik Taylor, Birmingham City 2 appearances (0 as sub)
David Healy*, Sunderland 3 appearances as sub
Damien Johnson*, Birmingham City 1 appearance as sub

*Now out on loan or left