THE LAB | 30 Minutes With Ledley King

0:00This podcast is part of the Sports Social Podcast Network. Welcome back to The Lab. For this episode, I sat down with someone who means an enormous amount to this club and to all of us who support it. His name is Ledley King. An academy graduate, our captain, a one club man and now a member of Tottenham's Hall of Fame. On a personal level, I'm incredibly grateful to be given this opportunity. We spend so much time talking about Spurs and the people who have shaped our lives supporting it. to get this opportunity to have a conversation with Ledley was really special. We spoke about his bond with the fans, the years when Spurs started believing again and what it took physically and mentally to keep pulling on that shirt.

0:42A huge thank you to Ledley for his time and I hope you enjoyed this conversation.

1:02Hello, Lennie. How are you doing? Very good, thanks. It's a wonderful occasion because you've been inducted into Tottenham's Hall of Fame, which I'm sure you've answered this question many times over the last week or two, but it's a wonderful thing for fans to have players enter the Hall of Fame. But what does it mean for you? Yeah, first of all, it's extremely humbling. I feel a great sense of pride. makes me actually think back to being a young kid, what I wanted to achieve in the game. And, you know, when it's all said and done, to be in this position now with some of the greats that I've represented the football club is an amazing feeling.

1:44So, yeah, it was really humbling. It's interesting because I wanted to ask you about when you was a kid because I've done a lot of reading about Senrab as a club and what an incredible pool of talent that Sunday. So there'll be lots of our American listeners who listen to this that won't know what Senrab is. And it's a Sunday League football club that's probably the most famous Sunday League football club in the world. Because of the incredible amount of players that came through that club and went on to play in the Premier League. You had John Terry, you had yourself, Jermaine Defoe, Esri Conta played there.

2:18There were so many, wasn't there? J-Lo Samuel. How did they do that? I have no idea. I just think it was just the club to go to. So if he was a good player, somehow you ended up at Senrab. And yeah, my team, as a group of seven or eight-year-olds, we ended up with five of us that went on to play in the Premier League. Yeah. Which is incredible. Bobby Zamora. Was it East London? Paul Koncheski, yeah. Paul Koncheski as well. Was it East London-based? It was East London, yeah. We used to play at One Stead Flats. So yeah, it was just, as you mentioned, Jermaine Defoe was a couple of years younger.

2:53But, yeah, even before my time, there was many players, Lee Bowyer as well. That's right, yeah. I think Alan Kyrbysh, he actually played for them as well. So, yeah. Oh, wow. So, what happened? You was around 15 years old when you joined Tottenham. Is that right? Yes. How did that come about? I was 14. I was very fortunate to have my best friend, you know, at the time growing up. His dad used to take me to football with his son everywhere. where the first club we went to was Leighton Orient, when we was about seven or eight. That was a local one to where we played. Leighton Orient took on loads of the players from Centre Abbe.

3:34Slowly but surely, we all kind of left and went to different places. We had joined Tottenham at 14, along with my best friend and another friend at the time. So there was three of us. And I always said, I always joked that I never knew if I was part of their deal or they was part of my deal, but three of us had been up at Tottenham together. and yeah, I mean, I think they lasted, one of them lasted about four years, kind of went through the academy, didn't get his professional contract and one lasted a year or so and yeah, I'm the one who's still here. Did you? Yeah, because you made your first team debut.

4:08In 18, yeah. So that was only, you know, four years after you joined the football club and obviously it's an incredibly difficult thing to do. Was the standard huge jump up or did you always feel quite comfortable that you could do it at every level? I always felt comfortable I could do it. I mean, I represented England under 16s, under 18s at that point, under 21s at that point, actually, as well. So I knew I was on the right path. But I would say that not until you actually kind of experience it and go through it, do you really kind of get a feel for it and the understanding of what you can achieve in the game?

4:48And the first game, you know, I found it difficult. We were two new up. When I came on, we was down to 10 men and, you know, everything felt so fast. We ended up losing the game 3-2. And yeah, you do question yourself a little bit after that. But, you know, I think with time, you know, I think I was able to kind of just trust the process, trust my ability. and I think once you get to a kind of comfort level, then you're able to see the best version of yourself. Yeah, because people often, footballers often talk about the pace of the game and obviously as fans, we can see it to a certain degree when you're watching football, the pace of the championship is different to the pace of the Premier League, but is it that?

5:29Is it the pace when you step up to first team men's football? Is that the thing that's different? How quickly the ball moves, how constant people are sprinting and running? What does that mean, pace? Yeah, I mean, even back in our day, you know, it's still a quick game when you're first kind of stepping into it. And I would say the physicality as well is something that goes up another level. But yeah, the pace, the ball just moves quick, you know, when you're playing with top players and against top players. You know, they're able to do things so quickly. And it's funny because I remember when I was coaching a few years back and we signed a player, Vinicius.

6:06Yeah. I remember his first training session, he couldn't believe how fast the ball was moving in the training session. It's true, in the Premier League, the tempo of the game is just, it takes some getting used to. I suppose being a young kid, kind of making your way, it takes a while to get adjusted to that. I remember, because we're a similar age, actually, so as you were coming through, I was 19, 20. But I remember watching you play from very early days. I used to go Spurs with my brothers and my dad. There was five of us in total. And we'd remark about how comfortable you looked on the ball and how it was almost like a duck to water, to use a horrible cliche.

6:54It felt like you belonged on that pitch. And there was obviously a lot going on at the football club. there was a big gap left in that centre of defence for someone to fill without going into any more detail. And it felt so good to not only have someone coming through to you, Franks, to be our starting centre-back from that point onwards, but also the way you played with such grace. I think that would be a fair way to say it. Was composure and grace something you put into your game, or was it a natural way to do it? No, I'd say it was natural. you know, from a very young age. Although I played defence, you know, I wanted to do the finer things in life on the football piece as well.

7:41Do you know what I mean? I wanted to take players on. I wanted to use skills. Defending, just defending, didn't feel enough for me. I wanted to do things that got, you know, people excited as well. So that was always my kind of thoughts from a very early age. obviously as you kind of develop you realise the importance of being able to defend properly that comes first and foremost but yeah I was able to kind of have a game that I always felt I wanted to be more than just a defender as I say the players that I looked up to in that position were composed, they were calm they made things look easy and that was the kind of defenders that I enjoyed watching and that's the type of defender I wanted to be You played in midfield and you played in midfield for a hand, I think, didn't you?

8:28Yeah, funny enough, I was always a defender. But when I got into the first team, George Graham, my first manager, saw me more as a midfielder. So I was playing midfield at first. It wasn't until Glenn came in, played a back three, and then I was left side at a back three. And then David Pleat, took over from him for a few months, put me back in midfield. and it wasn't really until Jack Santini came in and we played a back four for the first time and yeah, I felt at ease playing in the back four for the first time really. So it kind of took a while for me to actually play in my favourite position.

9:09Did it, was it a, did the satisfaction that perhaps you didn't get from being able to take people on and dribble through the back line and maybe crack a shot at goal. Did the satisfaction eventually come then from the amazing defensive moments where you had to excel? I'm thinking of the obvious one, the Iron Robin. Like that was, for us watching that, was like scoring. It was like if you'd have scored a 30-yard screen with it, it felt as good as that tackle you made on Iron Robin. Yeah. Well, I will say when I was training, I was doing them things in training. I was taking players on and scoring goals.

9:44But yeah, kind of, leaving it on the match day, just in case. But yeah, of course, you know, as you kind of develop, you realise the importance of defending. And you're still looking for moments. When I was on the pitch, I was looking for moments to kind of make fans happy, get them out of their seats. And yeah, as a defender, you have to kind of try to find their moments where you can do something where people... That was crazy, though. You're kind of playing it down and being pragmatic. That tackle was insane. Yeah, I mean, listen, I was always taught just to run back as hard as possible. It always drives me crazy when I see people jogging back.

10:22My thinking was the ball was in the air. You had to wait for it to come down. Paul Robertson might have made the save. Can I be there to clean up the second ball? Or maybe he was going to take too long to get shot off. That's what he did. It took a little bit too long. I gave myself a chance.

10:42Luckily, as I say, he took too long and I was there. It was incredible. to this day on the 26th minute your name still gets sung by supporters by supporters that were too young to see you play some of them what does it feel like to have your connection with Spurs sort of passed down through families is that a difficult thing to articulate yeah it is it's funny actually you know when I see I meet a dad and his son and he's telling his son you know what a good player I was and you know the son's just looking at me like they do that they do that they do that they do that but I would say most of the young kids know me from FIFA these days because I'm on FIFA and that's normally where they know me from and they think I'm pretty good on FIFA so they think I was pretty good in real life as well now I think there was a moment in during your playing time at Spurs and I don't know as a player if this felt different but it felt like generally when after Santini left and Martin Yol sort of took over him from him, because he was his number two, if I remember rightly.

11:49Frank Arneson was the director of football at the time. It felt like at that moment and the couple of years that followed, there was a shift in the club. On a playing level, there was investment of players coming in, but also on the style of play and how we would attack games. I'm thinking specifically about games against Arsenal or Wild Lane, the famous one. We lost five or four, but the spirit that was shown. Was there a shift at that time? Yeah, well, I think there was. The shift was that under Glen Hodder, we had an experienced team. I think by the time Santini and Martin took over, it was a younger team.

12:28By now, I'm kind of captain of the team. I've been there at the club the longest. And yeah, we just felt we was moving in a new direction. And we had the young, excited talent. And that was kind of, yeah, that was the way it was. We seem to add sort of exciting names as well. I'm thinking of Edgar Davids, my favourite player at that time. I always loved you, obviously, and Defoe and Robbie Keane. But I always had a thing for me, though, because he turned up. And I have since interviewed him, actually. But it just felt like we were being a little bit more aggressive in the transfer market and things were happening.

13:05And in Martin Yowie, did he set you up to play? How did he get those performances out of you? I think he trusted us, but he realised that we were young, we were energetic. He loved to go down the wings. We had one kind of winger in particular at the time that was kind of making his name for himself in Aaron Lennon that could cause defenders nightmares. So that was a big part of us. He always used to speak about getting to the byline. He used to have a saying that it's half a goal if you can get to that byline and cut the ball back is half a goal. And we kind of used to think of it, just what's he talking about, half a goal.

13:47But when we did get into the positions and cut balls back, we did create a lot of chances from that. So, yeah, it just kind of set us up to attack and play on the front foot. So, yeah, it's something that we really enjoyed.

14:06And Edgar Davids joined the side and that at the time was a superstar signing. You know, a player who played for Juventus, I think he'd won Champions League. He played for every massive club on the world pretty much. And he entered the dressing room like 32, maybe 33 at the time. What was he like? Because I've heard lots of stories since, nothing from the source. I don't know how much you can say or are willing to say, but what was your experiences with him like? No, no, no. It was way for us. I think, you know, as you say, he come in, you know, he was a global superstar. I think he'd just been a Barcelona before that and he'd been there on loan and helped them to I think they won the league and yeah, when he came into the training ground for the first time it was, you know, even us as good footballers it was a big thing for us to see, as I said, a global superstar kind of come into our training ground and one that we're going to play with now so yeah, I remember the first conversation I had with Edgar and it was at lunch and he asked me, you know, what can we win?

15:11And, you know, that was his mentality. He had been at big clubs, he'd won trophies and he said, do you think we can win things? And I said, I think we can, I believe we can. And, you know, one thing I always remember about Edgar was that he always spent time on a training pitch with the younger players after training, developing their game. And, you know, he was great for us in terms of, realising what it's like and what it takes to kind of get to the top of the game. Does it elevate you when a player with that reputation has achieved things when he walks into the dressing room? Does it make a difference?

15:49100%. For one, we want to show him how good you are as players. And two, you don't want to let him down. He knows what it takes to play at a very highest level and I'd say everyone raised their game. It was always funny for me to line up in the tunnel and see the opposition looking at him. That was something I always remembered. I always looked around and you could see all the eyes were looking at Edgar because he was, as I say, he was a global superstar and it just felt weird that he was now in the Premier League and playing for Tottenham. So yeah, it was a huge sign. one of the performances that stood out for me if I remember rightly I think he got sent off in the game actually and it was I might be remembering this wrong it was a long time ago but Highbury 1-0 Robbie Keane scored do you remember this the ball come across Robbie Keane scores we go 1-0 I think or it was 1-0 and Martin Yohan Wenger at Loghead on the side I think we didn't kick the ball out or something like that was that what it was?

16:56well they said we should have kicked the ball out, but we kind of played and called him out. So, yeah, I think that was it, yeah. Ledley, when you were playing, your presence as a captain was always a calming, it appeared from the outside anyway, like a calming impact on your fellow players. You had some, I'd say the more sort of archetypal or traditional English captains would be a certain type of, you know, vocal and kind of like, your captaincy always came across as sort of like a calming influence. Was that intentional? Was that even true? That was just the way I played the game. You know, I always preferred to have a cool head when I was playing.

17:42You know, didn't want to talk to the opposition. You know, I think I used to play against some strikers that were friends of mine, you know, growing up. Bobby Zemore, Peter Grouch. and they would often try and talk to me during the game and I didn't want to talk to anyone. I wanted to 100 % focus and concentration. And that was the way I felt I played at my best when I was kind of in control. And that was just me. It was just the way I was. I wasn't one of them ones trying to array or wave arms around and my job was to do my job to the best ability. and that's the way I coped. I've always loathe to bring it up because I'm sure you're sick of talking about it but I just wanted to know, obviously given your injury problems, did that enable you to develop mentally or what impact did that have psychologically on you?

18:41Yeah, difficult, very difficult time. You go from... I was 26 when I had my last big operation and it's kind of put to me that if you've got a thousand steps left, how are you going to use them? You can use them almost using 75 % up, training 25 % in the games, or you can kind of maximise the games because money would just blow up. So, sorry, would that happen directly after a game? It would just blow up, swell up, and it would take days to come down? Yeah, that's right. so yeah it was tough you go from realising that you're not going to be able to be the player that you hoped to be I would say that 26 is kind of you're moving into your prime years as a player, as a defender for sure and to miss out on that was difficult but I quickly had to accept that I had to kind of play a different role and that role was now to you know it wasn't so much about my game anymore it was about the whole team in totality in terms of making us a better team when I'm on the pitch helping everyone through the game uh and yeah I kind of took pride in that and making sure that we're a better team when I'm on the pitch and undoubtedly we we were and I remember Harry Redknapp talking quite, because I think it became much more of a talking point for Spurs fans, because we were suddenly aware, because Harry Redknapp kept talking about, he couldn't believe that you weren't being able to train, and then you would be able to get onto the pitch and perform at the level you were, how was that relationship with Harry Redknapp?

20:27Yeah, no, it was lucky to have a manager that allowed me to do that, but Harry used to make it sound like I'd just turn up on a match day and play it. He did, yeah. I was in the gym every day, I was in the swimming pool every day kind of do my own thing, kind of monotonous work just to get onto the pitch. But yeah, you've got to be lucky to have a manager that's going to allow you to do that. I think Ramos, when he first came in, he said that everyone has to train. And then he changed his tune and allowed me to kind of play without training. And then, yeah, I was lucky to have Harry, you know.

21:04But the main thing for me was that the performances had to be, you know, the team had to be a better team. There's no point in me not training, trying to play the games and not making a difference. You know, I had to make sure that... Because in a way, you feel guilty when you're not able to train and be on the training pitch. You feel guilty. So, you know, match day was my time to try and play my part and give back. I always feel like... I feel like, you know, when players have big injuries and obviously Spurs have had a fair share but in the long term they have to train on their own. They're isolated.

21:39You're in a room and obviously you are because they're on the pitch and where else are you going to be but it always feels like just so unfortunate. Can't they chuck a couple of the players in there with you in the pool? There's always one or two players playing around in the changing room but generally they come back, they go out after a while and someone else and you're the mainstay after five years How many lengths did you put in during that period do you reckon? So everyone thinks I should be some amazing swimmer but I'm still not great I'm still not great One game and there are many games but probably the most important game of that era under Redknapp was the it wasn't a playoff it was a league game between Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City but whoever won that game secured Champions League football and that would have been the first time that we'd had it since a long, long time, certainly since the Premier League was formed.

22:38And you were in a back line of Kabul, who played full-back that game, if I remember, at Dawson, yourself, and Benoit Asuokoto. And in front of you, you've got Modric, you've got Tom Hodgson, Aaron Lennon, Gareth Bowe, Peter Crouch and Jermaine Defoe. And you're looking at Crouch and Defoe, you're friends for a long time. and then you've got Dawson who no doubt became a great friend and what was that evening like? It was a special, special night for us. You know, I think we went into the game believing our edge was our team spirit that we had. You know, we had a good group of lads that cared about the club and, you know, wanted to do really well for the club and we felt that that was going to be our edge.

23:29They had some world-class players, but they'd kind of put them all together. And we felt that we had an edge on them in terms of the team spirit. And yeah, I remember the game itself. We played really well. The first half, we should have been two or three up easily. But yeah, second half, we kept going, kept chipping away. And eventually, yeah, when Crouchy scored that goal, I'll never forget the fans in the corner. Yeah. going mad with the team. Once we got that goal, I think we firmly believed that that was it. We were going to see the game out. I don't think... Sometimes you have certain games where you just believe that you're not going to concede.

24:12I think we had that feeling in that day. Obviously, the celebrations after the game were memorable. I remember David Bentley really enjoying the moment. At what point did everyone realise Harry Rednard didn't find that a joke. Yeah, when he couldn't get the changing room after. It's funny because I've never thought, I don't know who came up with the idea, but everyone wanted to be part of it. Everyone kind of went out of the changing room, went to where Harry was, and then once we got there, everyone kind of took a step back. Yeah, yes. And David loved it. Yeah, Pat, I've spent some time with David Bentley and it doesn't surprise me.

24:59at all. And all of this, all of that, that confidence that you're going to win from being in, from 1-0 up and I think we all felt the same even though there was an incredible disbelief at the end that we'd finally managed to achieve Champions League football having knocked on the door, you know, you could go back to the lasagna gate at West Ham and, you know, the other moments where we came really close but we finally got over the line and like I said, from that sort of 2005, 2006 going through to that point, it felt like Spurs were genuinely on a forward momentum, a forward upward trajectory and it just wasn't going to stop and it just continued and continued into the Champions League.

25:42Did you find there was a massive jump up in Champions League football from Premier League or was it comparable? What was different? Not so much. I mean, I only played two games in the Champions League. I had a grand problem. So I played the first one again was it 20? And then I played Bremen away, I think it was. So I missed the rest of the campaign, but we took two. Like I said, Dr. Walter, we were fine. We had an attacking style of football and yeah, we didn't change. And if we went at teams, obviously had some really big games with Inter. I was in the San Siro that evening. And at a while late in the week later.

26:27Yeah, yeah. Probably the most memorable. I think we gained so much confidence from the second half performance at Inter. Yeah. And that kind of took us to the home leg. You know, obviously Gareth was, you know, we all knew Gareth was quality, but that was when the rest of the world kind of took notice and realised that he was something special. But yeah, we ultimately lost to a very good Real Madrid side. So yeah, you know, as I say, we felt pretty comfortable there. Yeah, we were great. It was probably the most exciting era because of just the way Harry had you guys paying. It was just so exciting to watch.

27:06And just on Gareth Bale, because I was in the San Siro, we lost for three, but we were down to 10 men, 4-0 down. And it felt like we won. I didn't care that we'd lost. It felt like there was that attitude and then the performance. And it wasn't just Gareth Bale, although he was the main part of it. Lennon had a big chance as well. It was just an effort throughout it. And the inter-game at home, I don't know if you remember it, but I've never been part of an atmosphere as loud as that. That was the loudest I've ever heard. The old White Hart Lane, it was incredible. Yeah, there's been some incredible nights, but especially ones that we seem to come under the floodlights.

27:47I know, mate. Yeah, that was a special occasion. A wonderful thing. so during your career was you never approached by any other football club were there ever opportunities for you to leave or did it just no there was I mean I was never close to leaving there was always there was rumours at times but you know my agent never really you know he knew that I was wasn't going anywhere so you know there was nothing even worth talking about so yeah no There was stuff that I would read in papers, but whether it was true or not, I had no idea. And because of that, you're now formally a Hall of Famer, but you've always been a legend to us as supporters.

28:33It just felt right that you became a club ambassador. What does that entail? What does it mean to you? Yeah, well, actually, when I retired, I wasn't too sure myself. but I will say it's been really good for me because it's always a difficult time when you retire and for me to kind of move into a new role straight away, kind of a new sense of being was important for me. And, yeah, but, you know, now I get the opportunity to travel quite often, you know, engage with our fan bases across the world as well as sponsors and partnerships that we have at the football club as well as working with the foundation very closely and working around the Tottenham area.