Hello,
After reading this topic I phoned a friend over in the Netherlands who was friendly enough to translate the whole interview with Poortvliet. The interview was done by football magazine Voetbal International.
(he apologises for some of his English)
VI: How do you look back at your time in England?
JP: It was an awful time. At the start it sounded great, I had always dreamed of being a football trainer in England. Though from day one I was in an awkward situation. It started with the court case against Helmond Sport, where I was working at the time. Its sad it all went that way. I had a great time working at Helmond and I hoped they would let me go, sadly they didn’t. However I decided to fight the case because Southampton really wanted me. I had hoped the club would have supported me throughout the case, regardless of the verdict. The verdict was that I had to pay Helmond 75 thousand euro. When I signed my contract in England, the small letters in my contract stated that I had to pay the amount myself. The contract wasn’t what I expected, it was a rollover contract, that after every year there would be a option for the next. This was after we had agreed on a 3 year contract.
VI: Why did you sign?
JP: It all came very sudden to me. I was there in England on my own without a manager or anything. I didn’t know any better so I just signed.
VI: What else went wrong at Southampton?
JP: Southampton is a den of vipers, I soon found out. It’s a club going in all different ways. Over the last few years many people have been in charge of the club and still have influence on the organisation. The chairman at the time, Rupert Lowe, was hated by almost everyone. He signed me, but he was soon pressured to sack me. Lowe got very restless, he started interfering with everything. He started moaning about the fact that our goalkeeper, Kelvin Davis, didn’t join in with the football. Davis has been a goalkeeper for 20 years, I cant teach him in 1 day how to play a ball I would say. We started having all that kind of pointless arguments. They started doing all kinds of strange things. At the end I there all on my own. The goalkeepers trainer and the assistant manager were sacked, both for no apparent reason. It was a madhouse. No one at Southampton has ever heard of working together, everyone wants to be in charge. It drives you mad.
VI: You would function in a tandem with Mark Wotte, who was appointed at the same time as you as academy director. What was his position?
JP: He has never done anything at all to support me. He was out for just one thing, my job.
VI: The rumour has it he was critical about you to the board.
JP: That was what I heard as well. I constantly heard rumours how he was trying to nick my job. Officially he was appointed as academy director, however on Saturdays he was never at the youth games. He was always in the directors box watching the first team, home and away. That’s Mark Wotte for you. When you see him its obvious, in his suit with his chin up. He thought he was above me and that he deserved to have my job. Eventually he got what he wanted. After I had been sacked he took over right away. His mission was accomplished, well done.
VI: The combination Poortvliet-Wotte was impossible.
JP: It was a mistake to put us two together. We are completely different people, but I did my best to make it work. I wanted to include him in everything and I didn’t mind working with him. But for Mark that wasn’t enough. He had his own agenda. Eventually are working relationship got that bad that one of us had to go. He or me. I then tried to get rid of him, I am honest about that. But the club didn’t want to sack him and I was sacked. At the start I was upset about it, however eventually I was delighted, I lived under huge stress for 6 months, I was glad to be home.
VI: Southampton had some bad results whilst you were in charge. You were sacked, when the club was second to last in the Championship.
JP: The squad was very young and almost all the players were between 17 and early 20. Fiscally we were poor and we missed a natural goalscorer. But I did what I had to do, develop young talented players and sometimes we played some very good football. Eventually I sacked due to poor results, that happens. Mark thought he could do a better job. In the end Southampton were relegated. Very sad for the club but I was happy they did. I felt done by Mark and when he was relegated it was a relief for me. Under Mark they reverted to playing the English game. He played the older experienced players. The transfer value of the younger players went down again. He ruined all the work I did at the club.
VI: Was the adventure financially interesting?
JP: Don’t be daft, I had a basic salary and had to pay Helmond Sport. It has cost me money. It was one big fiasco.
