Zat Knight: Impressing Keegan, arrested before Villa unveiling, beating Chelsea

Zat Knight just wanted to get away from football when he retired.

He moved out to Los Angeles, California, after an 18-year professional career that started at Fulham, where he went on to become the club’s first player to win an England cap since George Cohen, a World Cup winner, in 1967, before spells at boyhood club Aston Villa, then Bolton Wanderers, Colorado Rapids and Reading. At 35, he wanted to break his 24/7 football existence. Six years later, though, the itch has returned, and he has a desire to jump back in.

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“I’d played football for a long time,” the 40-year-old tells The Athletic from the United States. “Coming over here, it was just a break. I’ve enjoyed the break. Last year, I wanted to come back and do my badges, that’s still something I want to do. I’m just in limbo with COVID.

“I have done some coaching, I was lucky enough to do a bit at LA Galaxy, which I enjoyed. I definitely want to get back into football. I miss it. I’m up at 4am, 5am, 6am on a Saturday, watching games. The passion is definitely there.”

Knight fell in love with the west coast of the US during his career when he, Shaun Wright-Phillips, Ashley Cole and others would fly out on vacation. He admits he has stayed out for much longer then he expected, but he has kept himself busy in the meantime. He invested in property and runs a fragrance line, which, in his own words, he “stumbled into”. “I invested a little bit into a company at first and ended up owning it,” he explained. “I’ve got a few people working for me. It wasn’t something I planned!”

But it is evident during an hour-long conversation that Knight’s love of the game hasn’t left him. His son Kai is set to sign for a second-tier club in Denmark after a scholarship at Birmingham City and, like his father, is a centre-half. “I tell him my love for football was just the football,” he says. “It wasn’t about all the flashy things. I remember my digs lady, Pat, and her husband, Ron, in Cheam (west London), giving me the opportunity to live in their home, to have a comfortable place for me. It was training with the first team Monday to Thursday, then playing with the under-18s at the weekend. It was watching the first team win the Second Division under Kevin Keegan, who signed me, and travelling with them — not playing, it was just the experience. And then being part of Jean Tigana’s success, in the First Division, winning the Intertoto Cup. Just being part of that. I have proud, proud memories.”

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Knight had a quite a jump when he joined Fulham. He arrived from non-League Rushall Olympic for a week-long trial that saw him train with the first team and concluded with Keegan asking his squad during a lunch: “What do you think of the big man?”

“I remember Chris Coleman, Geoff Horsfield, Alain Goma singing my praises,” says Knight. “I was so happy about it. The manager then pulled me in and offered me a three-and-a-half-year contract. It wasn’t about the money, it was just getting in the door.”

Knight did not play under Keegan but he would travel with the senior squad to matches. “One minute I’m at Rushall, and then I’m travelling with the first team for their FA Cup quarter-final against Manchester United and standing on the pitch at Old Trafford. It was whirlwind crazy. I never realised what was going on. Looking back at it, it was a dream come true.

“I tend to get a little bit jealous of camera phones, they weren’t around back then. So I understand when, as soon as players hit a milestone or an achievement, the phones are out because it’s memorabilia for yourself. Back then, technology wasn’t as advanced. It’s making me feel old!”

Knight feels indebted Keegan for his show of faith, but it was Tigana that he saw as a “father figure”. “A lot of players say it, but I had that with Tigana,” he says. “He would get upset with me but then there were other times where he would wrap his arm around me and talk to me and say, ‘Zat, you can do this, you can be the best’. He just gave me so much confidence.”

With an eye on a future in coaching, not many will rank higher in influence for Knight than Tigana. One of “le carre magique”, France’s famous midfield quartet (or “magic square”) of the 1980s, he had a transformative impact in west London as manager 20 years ago. His Fulham side stormed to promotion in the First Division, scoring 90 goals and breaching the 100 points barrier.

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“We had a period when we felt invincible going into games under Tigana,” says Knight. “It was a great feeling. The whole division admired us. We had coaches come down, I remember Steve Cotterill coming and standing under a tree. He would probably come to our training ground once a week. It would be pissing down with rain and he would just watch our training. Everyone just admired our passing style.

“Tigana was very tactical. Before training, we had a 20-minute skill session where you would go in and out of the cones and then pass the ball off the boards, go around poles. Just for 20 minutes. Left foot. Right foot. That felt quite intense. From there we would go into high-intensity passing. Then we would start the actual training session. It was different from the usual ‘going for a jog then stretch!’. Everything was precise and timed.

“He used to pick something out in training that you did two weeks ago on a Saturday that he’d never told you before. He’ll pin you and say, ‘Ah, Zat, two weeks ago you lost concentration here, and now in training you’re messing around’. It would wake you up — he’s got a memory! He kept you on your toes.”

Knight made his first-team league debut under Tigana in 2001, starting a 0-0 draw at Filbert Street against Leicester City in the Premier League. He became a first-team regular, and even played as a central midfielder. “I played there against Arsenal, against Patrick Vieira and Emmanuel Petit at Highbury,” he says. “Against Derby and Sunderland. Tigana said, ‘You’ll go in there and play and then after that, I’ll put you back in defence’. It was just an idea for me to see different angles.”

It would be under Tigana’s successor, former team-mate Chris Coleman, that Knight then picked up two England caps, a historic moment for player and club.

“It was massive, and a shock,” he recalls. “I remember it was end of the season. I went to Marbella with a few of the players, there were about eight of us — myself, Lee Clark, Mark Crossley. We went out there for three or four days. I got a phone call from England to say, ‘Zat, Sven-Goran Eriksson wants to select you in the squad, there’s been a couple of injuries and we want you in’. I know everybody says the same old cliche that I thought somebody was messing around, but I really thought someone was messing around! I shed a little tear, phoned my mum then jumped on the next plane back to England. It was just unreal to be around some of the best players in the country, and to train with them and to see the level of focus and the level of training. I believe when you’re around better players, if you are that good, you’re going to step up your training.”

Knight joined up with England and made his debut as a substitute against the United States in May 2005, coming on as a half-time substitute for an injured Sol Campbell. “My heart was just racing 100mph,” he says. “I couldn’t believe it. When you’ve got those players in front of you, you don’t think you’re going to get on! I blinked and the half went.

“I remember we flew from Chicago to New York. I bumped into Eriksson in an elevator and he said, ‘Oh, you’re starting against Colombia’. I said OK! With that game, I was nervous because I was starting but I wasn’t as nervous — I had time to prepare. I had a couple of call-ups afterwards against Wales and Northern Ireland. Never on the bench, just with the travelling squad. But then the big boys came back, Rio Ferdinand, John Terry… but just to know that I had been around them during that era, with a really strong squad, just to be thought about, was an amazing achievement. It was a proud moment for myself, and for Fulham to know that they had a youth team player that reached the England stage. Hopefully, that can happen again, and someone can replicate myself and George Cohen.”

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Knight made more than 170 appearances for Fulham during his eight-year stay, before an exit that was not without drama. The defender recalls deflecting an Ashley Young shot past his own goalkeeper, Kasey Keller, in a 2-1 defeat for Fulham against Aston Villa. The next day, he recalls speaking to manager Lawrie Sanchez who revealed Villa had made a bid for him. They were Knight’s boyhood club, so agreeing to the move a no-brainer. But it would be far from straightforward.

Before his unveiling as a Villa player, he stayed at his mum’s house in Birmingham. That morning, armed police raided the property to arrest his brother, Carlos. Knight takes up the story.

“I was nervous, excited, I’d never gone into a new club as an established player,” he says. “So there was a mix of emotions. I couldn’t sleep!

“Then I heard my mum scream. I don’t know why the house was raided that morning. It was in my name, I bought it for my mum, and my brother doesn’t live there, he’s got his own house. The police raided the house for my brother, who has been in trouble with the law before. He stayed there that night because he was excited for me. He just wanted to be around me for that night.

“My brother was arrested, I got arrested as well. I was in the cell for all of three minutes! I can laugh at it now but at the time, I was scared and fearful that my Villa dream wasn’t happening. I knew I hadn’t done anything, but it doesn’t look good for the same day you are signing that you’re in trouble with the police. I got released straightaway, my brother owned up to whatever he had done. The police let me go. I was late for my press conference.

“I phoned my agent and he said: ‘Zat, where the fuck are you?!’. I told him what happened, he just said get there. I went to the manager’s office (Martin O’Neill), and he said, ‘Zat, what’s happening?’. I told him the truth. I just said: ‘Listen, gaffer, I’ve never been in trouble before. I’ve got a clean record at Fulham’ — I hadn’t been in trouble for anything. I said: ‘I love my brother to death. But you can’t pick and choose who your family are. I could be the richest man in the world but I’d still have a brother doing whatever he is doing. That’s his choice in life’. The manager said, ‘No, Zat, I understand, it doesn’t shine a light on you. I will stick with you’. I signed a contract and then two days later, Curtis Davies signed on loan, but I knew it was a view to permanent. I thought, ‘Am I in shit here?’.

“My debut was against Chelsea. And I scored. We won 2-1. In my celebration, I ran over to the gaffer and gave him a high five. The boys laughed and called me a teacher’s pet! But they all knew what it was for. I definitely give Martin a lot of credit. I’m so thankful, because he could have taken my dream away. But I signed, scored on my debut and my manager was supportive and stuck by me.

“Saying it now, I do have goosebumps when I talk about it. It all comes back. It was so up and down. One minute, you feel like you’re the happiest man in the world, to go to the team that you supported as a kid, the team I remember running on the pitch for against Inter Milan and car minding to save money for a ticket. To then having it all pulled from underneath your feet as if it’s not going to happen any more, and then it happens again. Then you start your first game and score.”

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Knight’s brother Carlos was jailed for six years. “I love my brother to death, there’s 18 months between us,” says Knight. “He’s my biggest fan. But he went to jail and he’s out now. He’s got a business, he’s doing well for himself.”

Knight has fond memories of facing Chelsea, something that applied in a Fulham shirt. They will face their west London rivals in a fixture that has rarely offered much joy from a Fulham perspective with one win from their last 38 meetings, a run of games that dates back 41 years.

That sole victory, a 1-0 win, took place nearly 15 years ago on a fractious March afternoon at Craven Cottage, a match Knight started. “We scored early, through Luis Boa Morte and it was backs against the wall after that. On a defensive note, to keep a clean sheet against Chelsea, with the strike force and attacking power that they had, was an achievement in itself.”

Knight faced Hernan Crespo and then Didier Drogba from the bench. The latter put the ball in the net but his goal was ruled out. “I remember watching Italian football in the ’90s and you’re watching Crespo play for those teams and then you’re playing against him. Drogba had everything. You have to get tight, you can’t let him turn. He was a handful! Our fans dragged us through it.”

A red card for William Gallas saw matters come close to a boiling point, and at full-time, fans ran on the pitch, where there were even skirmishes between rival supporters. But for Knight, it was all about the win, which stopped a run of four straight defeats. “It was amazing,” he says. “That’s the thing about football, that’s why it’s worth it. Some people don’t understand it, the highs and the lows and the rush that you get from it. I was buzzing for Chris (Coleman) because I had a friendship with him, I had played alongside him and then seen him go through his ordeal with the accident, then becoming a coach under Tigana and then the manager, I felt for him in a big way. It was a memorable day.”

It is those rushes of adrenaline that have meant Knight has never quite fully detached himself from the game. Once he makes it out of his US limbo, he hopes to return to the UK and possibly the Cottage as a coach, too.

“I love that place,” he says of Craven Cottage. “I can’t wait to come back. I can’t wait for COVID to be over and we can get some normality. Hopefully, I can get back there while we’re in the Premier League.

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“It would be a dream to go back to a Fulham and do coaching in some type of capacity. They hold a special place in my heart and always will.”

(Photos: Getty Images; design: Sam Richardson) 

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