The Ex-Files: Tommy Miller Wednesday, 12th Feb 2014 12:53 In the 13th part of our regular series, The Ex-Files, Blair Ferguson catches up with Tommy Miller, a man who just couldn't stay away from Portman Road. Tommy Miller, along with Blues legend John Wark, is amongst a very select group of players to have three spells at the same club. The Shotton Colliery-born midfielder’s first stint at Town came as a schoolboy in the Blues youth set-up in the mid-1990s but ultimately ended in disappointment when he was released for being too small. “I didn’t make the YTS programme,” he recalled. “I was only 5ft 3in tall when I left school as a 16-year-old, but I’ve grown a bit since then, I was a late developer!” Miller’s youth team at Town included Kieron Dyer who “went on to bigger and better things”, but he thinks some players are let go too soon with clubs not giving them enough time to develop. With the decision to let him go having been made, the journey home to the North-East was painful: “I remember getting the train home and being gutted, I came back with the chief scout and I thought that that was it, I was devastated.” But he wasn’t out of the game for long: “I was all set to go to college and do a leisure and tourism course at the time but a friend of my dad’s, who worked at Hartlepool, asked if I wanted to come down and join in training. “So I went down to train with them and they applied for an extra player and I got on board.”
Having made 155 Hartlepool appearances and scored 44 goals by the summer of 2001, Miller was chased by four clubs. He explains: “There was a bit of interest from a few clubs and Chris Turner, who was the Hartlepool manager at the time, came round my mum and dad’s house, I was still living back home then, and said bids had been accepted from three of them. “Middlesbrough wanted me to sign but they wanted me to do a week’s training with them first. Chris Turner said ‘no, if they want you they’ll have to buy you’. So that didn’t go through so it was down to Coventry, Ipswich and Crewe. “I went to see Dario Gradi and at Crewe first. At the time it would have been a record deal for them, they aren’t big spenders, they rely on their youth team a lot. “I met Ipswich a few days later and I was supposed to go to Coventry in the afternoon after Ipswich. I’d seen George Burley and obviously I knew the area from when I was down there previously and I knew bits about it and the club so it just felt right. “After that I phoned Coventry and said ‘thanks for the interest but I’ve decided to sign for Ipswich’.” The lure of Premier League football also had a part to play for Miller who thought he might never get another crack at the England’s highest league. But having been given the opportunity he knew the challenge he faced having been playing in what’s now League Two. “It was a big jump, a massive jump,” he says. “I think now there’s not too many players going from the lower leagues to the Premier League straight away. You see some go from their division to the Championship but it’s a big jump.”
Miller only featured 13 times for Town that season, mainly as a sub, but he was “well aware that was going to be the case”. His main aim was to learn given that he knew he “wouldn’t go straight into the team because they had done so well previously,” but as Town battled relegation in their second season in the top flight, Miller made his full Premier League debut against Chelsea in a 0-0 draw as the season moved into its final month. “I got my first start against Chelsea, and we should have won really, I got man of the match so it was a fantastic experience and great opportunity.” Although that was his first Premier League start his debut in a TXU Energi-sponsored Town shirt came in the UEFA Cup, away to Torpedo Moscow. Miller remembers: “That was my first game, I came on as a sub. I still remember Mark Venus saying ‘there’s not many teams win in Russia’ when we’d won the game. The pitch wasn’t great but the game was good and it was a great experience.” Despite the disappointment of going down, Miller became a regular over the next few seasons as Joe Royle’s Blues fought to get back into the big time. In 2003/04 they narrowly missed out on the play-offs, but made them the next year before exiting to West Ham at the semi-final stage.
The following year, 2004/05, the Blues went close to the top two but were ultimately beaten to the automatic paces by Wigan and Miller’s soon-to-be-employers Sunderland. When asked about that season the 35-year-old’s reaction was immediate. “Gutted. Devastated. To this day I still think about how we didn’t do it. That season we played some great stuff and scored a lot of goals, we were up there all season in the automatic spots and then Sunderland and Wigan got them, it was disappointing. “We were up there all season and then we had that spell where Shefki got injured, which for me was a massive part of that season. “On a personal level it was good because I think I scored 15 goals that season, it was great for me but it was still very disappointing when I look back it could have been and should have been us.” The second successive play-off defeat to West Ham led to an exodus with Miller leaving to join Mick McCarthy’s Sunderland, a club that was close to his heart.
He explained: “Sunderland got promoted that year and it was a great opportunity to move back to the North-East to a team that I had supported as a kid. I went to a lot of the games, I used to go with my dad, so it was an opportunity that I couldn’t turn down. “Joe Royle kept saying we needed to see which league we were in before we could do contracts, which was fair enough, but when Sunderland came calling it was an opportunity I couldn’t turn down.” Shortly after signing for the Black Cats Miller met McCarthy outside of work in unexpected circumstances. “When I first moved to Sunderland I bought a house but it wasn’t ready for five or six months so I thought I’d get an apartment. I’ve gone into to look at one and I’ve parked the car in between two spaces. “I’m looking at the apartment with this woman and all of a sudden there’s a big bang on the door and the woman’s gone ‘that’s strange’, but they kept on knocking. “As she opened the door it was Mick McCarthy and he shouts in his Barnsley accent [Miller does a good McCarthy impression] ‘do you mind moving your fu**ing car!’ “And I said ‘sorry gaffer I didn’t realise you lived here’, and he said ‘I do, so move your fu**ing car!'. So that was a great start because I’d only just signed! “He’s a top bloke, a real honest bloke and what you get with Mick is true. There’s a lot of managers who bulls**t their way around but he’s straight, on the die and a top man.” After two years with Sunderland - during which a certain Roy Keane took over as boss following McCarthy’s departure after their 2005/06 relegation - in the summer of 2007 Miller found himself on the look-out for a new club. It was an old friend that helped sway his decision to return to Suffolk. “It was a tough time when Sunderland got relegated. Mick McCarthy didn’t get the money he wanted to bring in players. It was tough but I don’t regret going to Sunderland. "I had had such a good time at Ipswich that I thought ‘yeah, I want to go back’. And my mate Jim was ringing me and thought I want to go back.
“I nearly signed for Leeds, Dennis Wise was the manager at the time and I went to see him and possibly it would have been the easier option, I wouldn’t have had to move house. “But Jim Magilton was the manager at Ipswich and I’m good friends with him and because of the time I had had before, I decided to go back.” During his career Miller has played under a host of managers, amongst them Joe Royle, George Burley, Paolo Di Canio and Roy Keane. Unsurprisingly he had more to say about some than others, the breakdown started with the least controversial, Joe Royle. “You’ve got Joe Royle, who was very relaxed and got his point across and he was fantastic for me.
“Then George Burley, who signed me and gave me my opportunity, I owe him a lot. Then you’ve got Di Canio, who I played for at Swindon, who’s a very, very fiery coach. Not a lot of people know that he is a good coach on the training ground and has a lot of good ideas. “Obviously his man-management is questionable but I didn’t really have any problems with and he was fine with me. I just kept my head down and worked hard.” Miller delved into Di Canio's management style a little deeper: “At Swindon he was critical of the players, when he subbed keeper Wes Foderingham off in the first half, for example, but that was his style. “If things weren’t going right then he wasn’t afraid to make a decision, as ruthless as it could be. He told the players in no uncertain terms that if they weren’t doing it he would make changes. “I always thought that with bigger players and bigger stars it would be a problem and he’d have to change but I knew he wouldn’t because that’s not him.” Were there any moments that Miller stood back and thought ‘I can’t believe what I’m seeing!’.
“There were lots! But that was his style, he was completely different to anyone I had ever seen before in the game. “We didn’t get many days off, he didn’t like the English mentality of having a day off, we were in six to seven days a week, if we got Sunday off it was a bonus. But it was paying off on a Saturday and we were winning games and top of the league so you couldn’t question it.” With Di Canio covered there was one more manager left to discuss, Roy Keane. Miller encountered Keane twice as a manager at Sunderland and then briefly again at Ipswich, the Irishman letting him go on both occasions. We start at Sunderland. “He came in and I had done my ankle ligaments so I was out for six weeks, I was in the physio room and I think he signed six players. I think four of them were midfielders so I knew from then my time was going to be hard. “I went to Preston on loan and I actually played for Preston against Sunderland. That was a typical Roy Keane thing, he wasn’t bothered, he didn’t care, he just said ‘yeah, of course he can play’.
“And for me going to Sunderland as a Sunderland player playing for Preston was difficult and we beat them 1-0. Afterwards he said I was the best player on the pitch and he recalled me a week later which was something.” Miller continues: “Jim sort of had an inkling that if Ipswich didn’t get in the play-offs in 2008/09 he was more or less out. I was coming to the end of my contract and he said ‘listen, if you can look after yourself then do it’. “So I spoke to a few clubs before we finished and obviously Roy Keane came in and I knew he wouldn’t fancy me, but that’s football.” When quizzed on what he thought was wrong with Keane the manager Miller was quick to point out his admiration for Keane the player. “He’s different, he was my favourite player growing up. When Ipswich played Manchester United I got his shirt and he was one of my heroes. “Maybe the standards he set when he played were too high as a manager, maybe the expectations of the players he managed were too high.” With the bosses he has come across Miller would be forgiven for wanting to give that side of the game a miss, but his enthusiasm and desire to go into management is there for all to see, having had a brief spell as a joint-caretaker manager alongside Darren Ward following Di Canio’s Swindon exit last season. He said: “I’d love to go into managing one day and I think I’ve had enough experience and come across different characters since I’ve been playing and obviously played under. “I’ve always wanted to be a manager and what I did at Swindon didn’t put me off. I still want to play as long as I can and I still feel fit enough to play but in the last ten years I’ve said I’d like to be a manager and nothing’s changed, I do want to do it. “There’s a difference between being a manager and a coach as well. I want to go into the managing side rather than the coaching side. I want to make decisions and I want to pick teams, I don’t really want to do all the coaching but I appreciate you have to do so much of it. “I’m doing my badges now actually, I’m hoping to get them done in the summer and take it from there but I still want to play because I know that I will miss it.” He says the experience as temporary boss at the County Ground was both good and bad: “It was kind of tough because we were still players and were still playing at the time and both of us were in the team. “It was tough because we had friends and you had to tell them what to do. They were good as gold the lads and they responded and reacted well but it was quite hard with substitutions and things like that but we had Jamie Pitman in the dug-out helping out. “I was trying to take the training as well but at the same time I didn’t want to miss any myself because I was in the team. “It was quite hard because after we trained we would go into the office and go over the team shape for Saturday and scouting reports, and all of a sudden you’ve got people ringing saying they’ve got this player and that player and we were only caretaking so we couldn’t do anything about that side of things. “It got to the point when we went to the new owner and said ‘listen, this is not for us at the minute’, and that’s when they got in Kevin McDonald.” Having gone over his own experience in going straight from a player to becoming a manager Miller reflected on how difficult it would have been for Magilton at Ipswich. “Very hard. He would probably say this himself but he would sort of question the manager but then when Jim was manager he saw it from the manager’s side and he would do things that he didn’t appreciate as a player. “It’s hard and you have to change but he had a shot at it and he did quite well, but there’s a lot of pressure as a football manager and it’s a tough job. You’ve got to have a lot of character, and he’s definitely got that, he’s out of the management now but if an opportunity comes up I think he’d take it again.” Miller now wears the number eight shirt for Bury in League Two, alongside Town loanee Frederic Veseli, who he believes has started well.
“He trained once and all of a sudden he played at Hartlepool and he played sort of right wing-back that day and did well and since then he’s played right centre-half. “I don’t know what his best position is because I haven’t spoken to him about it but he’s a strong lad, a very fit lad and good on the ball, he’s fitting in well.” As the interview comes to a close we begin to cover the loose ends, including his almost international career. “We played Derby on the Saturday and I had been called into the Scotland squad who were meeting on the Sunday night. Against Derby I got a knock on my ankle and I went to Scotland on the Sunday and I was struggling and I had to come back to Ipswich. “It was disappointing because it was a good opportunity to play international football through my gran who was Scottish, it dematerialised after that.” Although a disappointment for Miller he may now consider himself lucky to have avoided the quick plummet of the Scotland national team under Berti Vogts, which was almost epitomised by Miller’s first team meeting with the German. “When I went up we met Berti Vogts and his first words to the team were ‘right lads, on behalf of the German FA’ and then he stopped. And I thought ‘what I am doing here?’. It wasn’t a great time for Scotland.” Talk moved on to the current Scotland side and one of the most painful ‘what if’ stories in Town’s recent history. “They’ve got Jordan Rhodes now!” he pointed out. “He’s a goalscorer, no doubt about it. I was with him when he was coming through at Ipswich and then at Huddersfield and anything around the box he’ll score. If you give him the service then his finishing is second to none.” When asked if, like the rest of us, he was surprised to see Rhodes controversially depart Portman Road to join the then-League One Terriers in the summer of 2009 — Miller was reunited with the striker in 2011 after two years at Sheffield Wednesday — his answer was obvious, but still worth hearing. “I was, but that was Roy Keane. I had him at Sunderland and then he came to Ipswich but that was Roy Keane, he just didn’t care [what other people thought]. “If he wants to make a decision he’ll make it and he’ll still say to this day that it was the right decision and maybe it was, I don’t know. “He had Connor Wickham there as well and maybe he thought he was a better bet, but I’m sure Ipswich fans will disagree and if Ipswich still had Jordan Rhodes who knows where they would be, maybe in the Premier League.” Miller is still in touch with John McGreal, Jamie Clapham, Shefki Kuqi and Pablo Couñago from his time at Town and considers the Spaniard the best player he played with at Ipswich as he felt they “were on the same wavelength”.
One question remained, of all his memorable goal celebrations while at Town, which was his personal favourite? After a moment of laughing he said: “I quite liked the snooker one with the corner flag. "I used to play a lot of snooker with Shefki and it was something we had sorted out and I got the corner flag out and used it as a snooker cue. “But I loved every one of them and they were fantastic times at Ipswich. I loved every minute of it, I made some great friends and it was a good time.” You can read all the previous Ex-Files here.
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