Yorkshire Evening Post 30/4/11
Gradel wins back fans after ‘mad’ moment
By Phil Hay
The votes cast for Max Gradel in this year’s YEP player-of-the-year poll all carried an identical theme.
To quote one specific comment: “Never before has a player owed so much and delivered so much more.”
An apology to Sir Winston Churchill is due, but the point still stands. The player of the year for 2010-11 is an improbable winner.
When I meet Gradel at United’s training ground, it is the first thing he says. “The fans voting for me is not what I imagined. Not this time last season.”
Gradel would prefer not to talk about last season, or the way it finished for him. But when he starts, he can hardly stop himself. Crazy, mad, stupid and horrible – his self-analysis is scathing and he does not attempt to spread the blame.
“It felt like the end of the world,” he said. “I’d like to never think of it again.”
The story of the red card shown to Gradel on the last day of the 2009-10 season does not need revisiting in full. All 38,234 spectators will remember his rash attack on Daniel Jones, the Bristol Rovers left-back, his attempt to confront referee Graham Salisbury and the combined struggle of Jermaine Beckford, Michael Doyle and two security staff to escort him from the pitch.
That some of those same spectators named him as their player of the year this month, in preference to other high-performing members of United’s squad, says everything about the reconciliation between Gradel and his club.
“The award means so much to me,” he says. “It says to me that the fans have forgiven or forgotten what happened – that I’ve repaid some of what I owed.
“That moment was crazy, like hell really and I’ve worked so hard to come back from it. I let a lot of people down and I always felt that I had something to prove. It’s about repaying people who could have said ‘get rid of him’. Maybe I’ve done that now.”
Gradel has looked like an indispensable asset this season, scoring 17 goals while playing predominantly on the left wing.
At the end of last season he looked like a liability. His dismissal after 34 minutes of Leeds’ win over Bristol Rovers jeopardised their promotion from League One, invoking a desperate act of salvage from a team of 10 players.
Gradel risked their entire season, but goals from Jonathan Howson and Beckford rescued it at the moment when second place seemed to be lost. You can only wonder how Gradel felt while he sat in United’s changing room, isolated and in tears.
“It was like the end of the world,” he said. “I wouldn’t wish that moment on any player ever. The feeling I had was like being empty – like you don’t exist any more. I couldn’t look anybody in the eye and I couldn’t speak – I just sat in the changing room, crying and regretting everything.
“When Becks scored, it was like being born again. I don’t think I’ve been so happy or so lucky. From then on, I knew I had to play in a way which said ‘yes, I made a horrible mistake but I’m sorry and I want to make it right’. I didn’t want anyone to think that I didn’t care or didn’t realise what I’d done.”
To expect indifference in Gradel is to misunderstand his personality and his background. There is no wider smile than his amongst United’s players but his life has been difficult and trying; hard enough to make him appreciative of his career.
Three-and-a-half years ago, the death of his mother burdened Gradel with a sudden responsibility for the well-being of family in both the Ivory Coast and Paris. He was a teenager at the time, on loan at Bournemouth from Leicester City and too young in the eyes of Bournemouth manager Kevin Bond to be in such a pressurised position.
“No one of his age should ever be asked to deal with that,” Bond once said. “I don’t know how he coped.”
Gradel agrees. “Losing my mum and going to look after my little brother and sister – it was too much pressure for me,” he says. “I had family in Paris and in the Ivory Coast and I felt like I was responsible for them. That was very hard.
“Coming to the last game of last season, I look at a moment of madness like that and wonder if it was everything coming out. I don’t mean it as an excuse but maybe all the hard times give you a bit of a madness – sometimes it has to come out.
“For years I’ve had frustration in me and you saw that side of me on that day. It didn’t look good, but I really think it’s gone now. I crossed a line and opened my eyes.
“I’ve only had four yellow cards this season and that’s a good sign. I told myself to stay in control and the coaches did too – they’d say ‘discipline, discipline, discipline’.
“People at this club maybe don’t know where I’ve come from or what my life has been like. It’s been good and it’s been tough, but that doesn’t matter.
“When you play for Leeds United you have expectancy and responsibility and, whatever happened in the past, you’ve got a duty to your club.”
Gradel wondered last summer whether United manager Simon Grayson would ostracise him completely. He would have accepted that decision with good grace.
But Grayson’s repeated use of him in pre-season friendlies – in spite of the fact that Gradel was to start this term with a four-match ban – gave the most forthright answer to questions about his future.
If Grayson needed that judgment to be vindicated then the 23-year-old’s immense form over many months has done so. It was telling that two of United’s most revered former players, Eddie Gray and Peter Lorimer, both selected Gradel as their choice for player of the year.
The winger will receive the Jackson Trophies-sponsored award before today’s match with Burnley.
“This has been the best year of my career and in the Championship too,” he says. “I know that a lot of people weren’t sure if I was good enough but I’m pleased to have proved them wrong. I’ve shown that I can play in this league and maybe in a division higher.
“I’ve always felt like a goalscorer and if I get opportunities then I think I can take them. Seventeen goals is great, but at the start of this season I wasn’t thinking about goals. I was thinking about getting in the team.
“The manager was asked so many times in the summer ‘will you play Max’? and ‘is he in your plans’? Everyone was asking the question and I couldn’t be sure of the answer myself.
“At one point, I was worried about what could happen. I’d have understood his decision if he wasn’t going to play me or didn’t want me any more.
“I let him down. I don’t blame anyone else – what I did was crazy, totally crazy and the reason I’m in good form is because of his faith. If I deserve any award this year then it’s down to him – the manager transformed me by picking me.
“He played me in pre-season and played me lots of times, even though I wasn’t going to start the campaign. That told me that I had a second chance.
“He stood by me when a lot of people wouldn’t have done. I heard people say ‘Max shouldn’t be playing after what he did’ but you can change opinions. If someone hates you or thinks you’re no good, be a better player and make them think again. It’s amazing how things change and you can always change – I needed to.”
There is a story from Gradel’s loan spell at Bournemouth in 2007 which sums him up perfectly – the night when he returned unexpectedly from his mother’s funeral to play and score in an FA Cup victory over Barrow.
“I hadn’t played for two months,” he recalls. “Everyone was surprised but they had a game and I wanted to help.
“I walked into the changing room and said ‘put me in the team’. I was just happy to be on the pitch again, a bit like the start of this season.
“When you’re back on the pitch, it’s a chance to move forward – to go on to happier things and put the hard times behind you.”
Gradel wins back fans after ‘mad’ moment
By Phil Hay
The votes cast for Max Gradel in this year’s YEP player-of-the-year poll all carried an identical theme.
To quote one specific comment: “Never before has a player owed so much and delivered so much more.”
An apology to Sir Winston Churchill is due, but the point still stands. The player of the year for 2010-11 is an improbable winner.
When I meet Gradel at United’s training ground, it is the first thing he says. “The fans voting for me is not what I imagined. Not this time last season.”
Gradel would prefer not to talk about last season, or the way it finished for him. But when he starts, he can hardly stop himself. Crazy, mad, stupid and horrible – his self-analysis is scathing and he does not attempt to spread the blame.
“It felt like the end of the world,” he said. “I’d like to never think of it again.”
The story of the red card shown to Gradel on the last day of the 2009-10 season does not need revisiting in full. All 38,234 spectators will remember his rash attack on Daniel Jones, the Bristol Rovers left-back, his attempt to confront referee Graham Salisbury and the combined struggle of Jermaine Beckford, Michael Doyle and two security staff to escort him from the pitch.
That some of those same spectators named him as their player of the year this month, in preference to other high-performing members of United’s squad, says everything about the reconciliation between Gradel and his club.
“The award means so much to me,” he says. “It says to me that the fans have forgiven or forgotten what happened – that I’ve repaid some of what I owed.
“That moment was crazy, like hell really and I’ve worked so hard to come back from it. I let a lot of people down and I always felt that I had something to prove. It’s about repaying people who could have said ‘get rid of him’. Maybe I’ve done that now.”
Gradel has looked like an indispensable asset this season, scoring 17 goals while playing predominantly on the left wing.
At the end of last season he looked like a liability. His dismissal after 34 minutes of Leeds’ win over Bristol Rovers jeopardised their promotion from League One, invoking a desperate act of salvage from a team of 10 players.
Gradel risked their entire season, but goals from Jonathan Howson and Beckford rescued it at the moment when second place seemed to be lost. You can only wonder how Gradel felt while he sat in United’s changing room, isolated and in tears.
“It was like the end of the world,” he said. “I wouldn’t wish that moment on any player ever. The feeling I had was like being empty – like you don’t exist any more. I couldn’t look anybody in the eye and I couldn’t speak – I just sat in the changing room, crying and regretting everything.
“When Becks scored, it was like being born again. I don’t think I’ve been so happy or so lucky. From then on, I knew I had to play in a way which said ‘yes, I made a horrible mistake but I’m sorry and I want to make it right’. I didn’t want anyone to think that I didn’t care or didn’t realise what I’d done.”
To expect indifference in Gradel is to misunderstand his personality and his background. There is no wider smile than his amongst United’s players but his life has been difficult and trying; hard enough to make him appreciative of his career.
Three-and-a-half years ago, the death of his mother burdened Gradel with a sudden responsibility for the well-being of family in both the Ivory Coast and Paris. He was a teenager at the time, on loan at Bournemouth from Leicester City and too young in the eyes of Bournemouth manager Kevin Bond to be in such a pressurised position.
“No one of his age should ever be asked to deal with that,” Bond once said. “I don’t know how he coped.”
Gradel agrees. “Losing my mum and going to look after my little brother and sister – it was too much pressure for me,” he says. “I had family in Paris and in the Ivory Coast and I felt like I was responsible for them. That was very hard.
“Coming to the last game of last season, I look at a moment of madness like that and wonder if it was everything coming out. I don’t mean it as an excuse but maybe all the hard times give you a bit of a madness – sometimes it has to come out.
“For years I’ve had frustration in me and you saw that side of me on that day. It didn’t look good, but I really think it’s gone now. I crossed a line and opened my eyes.
“I’ve only had four yellow cards this season and that’s a good sign. I told myself to stay in control and the coaches did too – they’d say ‘discipline, discipline, discipline’.
“People at this club maybe don’t know where I’ve come from or what my life has been like. It’s been good and it’s been tough, but that doesn’t matter.
“When you play for Leeds United you have expectancy and responsibility and, whatever happened in the past, you’ve got a duty to your club.”
Gradel wondered last summer whether United manager Simon Grayson would ostracise him completely. He would have accepted that decision with good grace.
But Grayson’s repeated use of him in pre-season friendlies – in spite of the fact that Gradel was to start this term with a four-match ban – gave the most forthright answer to questions about his future.
If Grayson needed that judgment to be vindicated then the 23-year-old’s immense form over many months has done so. It was telling that two of United’s most revered former players, Eddie Gray and Peter Lorimer, both selected Gradel as their choice for player of the year.
The winger will receive the Jackson Trophies-sponsored award before today’s match with Burnley.
“This has been the best year of my career and in the Championship too,” he says. “I know that a lot of people weren’t sure if I was good enough but I’m pleased to have proved them wrong. I’ve shown that I can play in this league and maybe in a division higher.
“I’ve always felt like a goalscorer and if I get opportunities then I think I can take them. Seventeen goals is great, but at the start of this season I wasn’t thinking about goals. I was thinking about getting in the team.
“The manager was asked so many times in the summer ‘will you play Max’? and ‘is he in your plans’? Everyone was asking the question and I couldn’t be sure of the answer myself.
“At one point, I was worried about what could happen. I’d have understood his decision if he wasn’t going to play me or didn’t want me any more.
“I let him down. I don’t blame anyone else – what I did was crazy, totally crazy and the reason I’m in good form is because of his faith. If I deserve any award this year then it’s down to him – the manager transformed me by picking me.
“He played me in pre-season and played me lots of times, even though I wasn’t going to start the campaign. That told me that I had a second chance.
“He stood by me when a lot of people wouldn’t have done. I heard people say ‘Max shouldn’t be playing after what he did’ but you can change opinions. If someone hates you or thinks you’re no good, be a better player and make them think again. It’s amazing how things change and you can always change – I needed to.”
There is a story from Gradel’s loan spell at Bournemouth in 2007 which sums him up perfectly – the night when he returned unexpectedly from his mother’s funeral to play and score in an FA Cup victory over Barrow.
“I hadn’t played for two months,” he recalls. “Everyone was surprised but they had a game and I wanted to help.
“I walked into the changing room and said ‘put me in the team’. I was just happy to be on the pitch again, a bit like the start of this season.
“When you’re back on the pitch, it’s a chance to move forward – to go on to happier things and put the hard times behind you.”
