1982: DON REVIE's Life in DUBAI | Nationwide | Classic Sport interviews | BBC Archive

foreign Y is the great Enigma of British football a man of fierce loyalty and patriotism yet he brought on himself an onslaught of criticism when he deserted his post as manager of England at a critical moment and took a highly paid job in the Middle East he has now lived there since 1977 in seemingly contented exile with a luxurious house servants the financial well-being his starting life so conspicuously lacked Dubai is one of the tiny oil-rich Emirates on the Persian Gulf where traditional Arab ways of life are fighting a rare guard action against the arrival of vast wealth and the Western influences that have followed it it was never like that when Don reevy was a boy I'll live for nothing else we're in back-to-back houses with Clover cloth balls in the streets for the tennis ball or something else to play with I went to Middlesbrough Football ground with my father from being six wolf might as well Margaret Idols but really really at the rough it uh in the days in the Northeast when I was a kid I wanted to be a great player way to play for England and fortunately I did unfortunately I got football of the year and many things as a player and then when I was thinking about the end of McCree when I was 33 34 I wanted to be a manager and I want to be the best in the game when I talk about professionalism I talk about not having sex there two nights before a match and the players used to laugh at me but that was the way I used to think and the right food and the right sticks and the right greens and they want to learn every day something new and that's where we're at least United that's why they're such a great side and that great ability too I loved every one of them we would have died for each other during that period of 10 years the staff the players everybody in the club it was such a bond nobody could break it because seeing you on the um on the touchline in those days you seem to be suffering with them almost every ball every tackle everything for 90 minutes are suffered with them Don now looks back on his departure for the Middle East as the low point of his life I think that was a saddest day uh we will try and they were trying and we got on the plane we didn't what we were coming to we'd been out and visit the place but um we never really knew what the life was going to be like or how long we've been or what the football was really going to be like and what kind of a job I was taking and we left on this tremendous barrage of criticism from the press and [Music] um it was a day that um will live with me the rest of my life um sadness on me to leave our children like that to believe in England just after all I mean he's been I'm proud of it um it was a bad day [Music] Don River's reputation soon took another knock when the Daily Mirror ran a series called the rivi file which made allegations about the way he ran Leeds United Donna served a writ on The Daily Mirror and on his lawyer's advice he declines to discuss the allegations together with his treatment over the England managership they've made his relations with the press anything but cordial some of your Stern critics said that you are a very upright honorable man in every way but you have a weakness for money and they and that you sold out um well the people who were saying that about me gems are possibly people that don't know me I'm only concerned really about family children grandchildren and my friends and I think if you had them on your program they tell you a completely different story about the other side of donrive have now lived in the Middle East for nearly five years regular visitors to the spectacular reevy home in Dubai include their son dunk with his wife and children the strength of Don Reeves Family feelings is clear to anyone who knows him he puts his satisfaction at their successes higher than any of his own triumphs in football with the proudest moment of our life is when I went to Cambridge to say doing at his degree to seem qualified in law and go through all the schools Repton and Leeds grammar school and things like this and they're saying that day um get his degree was absolutely fantastic well even more than some of the great traps yeah more than anything that I've ever had yet at leisure land created at a cost of millions in the desert outside the capital there's the kind of poo with wave machine you'd hardly think necessary with the warm Blue Waters of the Persian Gulf only minutes away a skating rink is another matter that's something only technology can supply when the temperature outside is over a hundred in the chef leisurland is linked to the al-nasa football club which Don reevy has managed since leaving the Emirates National side though the players are all amateurs al-nasa's facilities are Way Beyond what English professional clubs can expect against another Dubai team played on Synthetic Turf the crowds here are as partisan as you'd find anywhere Don's commitment to the game is as wholehearted as ever excitements of English Saturday afternoon football um the thing I miss most of all I think is um is the Saturday afternoon when the ground used to be crackling at least United at two o'clock and it was all this excitement and Buzz and um you know the old tumor used to rule of it and but you knew you got good players and a good team and the old place used to be electric and I missed that it was not to be al-nasa's day they lost 3-1 and in the dressing room afterwards Don did what he even had to do sometimes at Leeds put the heart back into a beaten side I've lost three one that you've got to be honest with yourselves we give three goals away didn't we let's be honest we're given three gold stars really bad bad goals the thing about what you did you went to the second half and you picked it up and you kept on Batman and fighting you've got one back and you might have had two or three back you might have got to draw the game finished on penalties but it just didn't work out that way so if you all have a couple of days rushed now come and chat tonight with a lot to talk about many things because next year with a lot of work to put in with a lot more to learn and the people that want to do it will be all right Don's lifestyle is now that of an active man who no longer has to strain every nerve in the search for success after several years in the Middle East he has the kind of financial Independence he must have dreamed of in his poverty-stricken boyhood in Middlesbrough there's only one thing to spoil the ideal the memory of not seeing the England team through to The Bitter End of their World Cup campaign Looking Back Now that was a big mistake um in my life I think if I was doing it all over again I'd do it completely different I would say the Arabs um would you please wait six months I thought that the offer might not be there in six months time to help my family and kids and no grandkids um and I'd made the decision to um to move and I did it and um I think I got a lot of sticks and I think a lot was deserved because it was my mistake that I shouldn't possibly left until they qualify matches were over at our felt and there's a lot of people inside the Football Association um that I couldn't work with and it was hard work for the three years I was there battling certain people in certain committees that um if I didn't qualify then I would have got the status like Alf Ramsey and right in the middle of that period where things weren't going too well and it looked as though it was going to risk solely on goal difference with Italy which it did at the Finish only three goals difference they both had the same number of points this offer came along um and I decided to take it Don really gives every impression of thoroughly enjoying his palatial Exile on the Persian Gulf as for his reputation back in England probably the football establishment will never forgive him for leaving the country as he did but with few exceptions players and managers have perhaps conceding that they might well have done the same themselves Don is undecided as to when he's finally going to come home but he has no plans and no need ever again to face the pressures of top-class English football I think I've worked very hard um in football and in life and I've put a lot of time and a lot of dedication um I haven't seen the family grew up Duncan and Kim were brought a biology and educated by all saying I didn't see them I was too wrapped up in being successful with Leeds United at that time and I would like to go back and see the children and the grandchildren and Celebrity Golf and got to some big sporting occasion but I think I'd like to have an interest in football and try and give something back at the law level um where there was no pressure involved to give me an invest four to five nights a week so we might see you back in in a few years time yes in a nice quiet place just enjoying myself [Music] thank you [Music]

Channel: BBC Archive

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Keywords: bbc, archive bbc, classic tv, british tv nostalgia, bbc archive, archive, the bbc archive, nostalgia, legendary television, retro tv, vintage, lost interviews, interview, infamous tv interviews, celebrity interviews, bbc interview, classic celebrity interview, bbc sport, sport bbc, classic bbc sport, sporting icons, classic sport, sports archive, don revie, don revie leeds, don revie interview, don revie uae, don revie dubai, dubai football, al-nasr sc, al nasr dubai, uae

Id: I-o5PlEissY

Length: 9min 53sec (593 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 31 2023