Matt Le Tissier: how a Prem legend went tin foil hat (part two)

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1:10Marvel Television's Wonder Man. An eight-episode series. Now streaming on Disney+. A superhero remake. Not exactly what we'd expect from an Oscar-winning director. Simon Williams audition for Wonder Man. I'm going to need you to sign this. Assuming you don't have superpowers. I'll never work again if anyone found out. My lips are sealed. Marvel Television's Wonder Man. All eight episodes now streaming only on Disney+. Welcome back to the thought-provoking tale of Matt Letizia, the everyman in the tinfoil hat. George and Zach still here? Hi, yep. Certainly are. Hello. So at the end of part one, Matt Letizia was, he was very much le god at this point in Southampton.

1:56Local hero, scoring 25 to 30 goals a season, keeping him up all the time. But, away from the pitch, his empire of filth had crumbled after a four-year police operation. Finally cracked the crime of the century, which was the strippers selling five-pound dances at Matt's nightclub. So his nightclub shut down. he's single and a bit chaotic and he's forced to get back on the dating scene isn't he Zach he certainly is and naturally he heads straight down to Southampton Panto where they're doing Goldilocks of course did he went with John Beresford did he probably from Ro holding hands you should have seen the look on their faces should have seen the look on Daddy Bear's face John Beresford was the pantomime dame do you he just went to oh yeah we were chatting about this before like I mean John Beresford that does make a lot of sense actually we were wondering like has he gone with his kids do people go to Panto without children I think of people who do that I think Matt Letizio is one high on the list yeah I reckon it's probably frowned upon yeah I think if you're old it's fine but if you're just a man in your early 30s like Matt Letizio if you're the guy who runs the sex club down the road the man who's literally just been busted yeah yeah yeah well he does end up getting a bit of special treatment because in the pantomime he sets eyes on emily simmons and so she's this australian soap star she's in home and away she's for people who watch this she was marilyn in home and away marilyn i remember her well yeah uh but at southampton panto she's she's hit the big time now and she's she's playing goldilocks the lead role okay and matt is instantly fortunately was just right she's just right yeah surely there was a tabloid story along that side yeah i'm sure yeah it's uh he was he was besotted are you saying i'm a hack jack is that what you're saying no it was a good hack yeah besotted by her luscious locks and perfectly heated porridge and they start dating after this after the show and actually get engaged she moves to the UK to be with him but he breaks it off a year before they're due to be married so that's the second the jilting I guess third no well okay he left his wife he's already married but that's the second time he's got oh does the jilting have to be pre-wedding yeah yeah I guess or like why does he keep proposing to everyone yeah it's interesting because obviously now you think like football Footballers often have very attractive wives.

4:35But I thought in the 90s... Yes, it's going. It's going to make sense. But it's quite a partridge thing. Footballers, you know, they're footballers. They often have very attractive wives. Wives and girlfriends are quite easy on the eye. I'm not worried it's not going to make sense. I'm worried it's going to be deeply misogynistic. I didn't think that Matt Letizia would be able to bag himself a honey back in the 90s. Yeah. But even then... Yeah. I mean, he's a big name in Southampton, right? Right. Like, but what does that mean to Marilyn from Home and Away? Yeah. It's not a Yabby Creek sack. Yabby Creek's 3 ,000 miles from Southampton.

5:09Do you get where I'm going with that? She's quite glamorous. Yeah, but sadly, sadly it doesn't work out. I don't know. I haven't really spoken yet about Matt's brief England career, which he always says that it was his biggest dream to play for England. Although, look at his record. He didn't always do himself that many favours. so he got called up once to the under 17s training camp which you know for most players that's you know it's a stepping stone to the first team you really knuckle down Matt describes it as an opportunity to fiddle the expenses and make a few quid you've got to fund the fruity habit somehow he was on kickoffs was he straight to KFC so he said we were able to claim the train fare food and taxi fares when of course I actually got a lift.

6:03Cheeky bugger. Yeah. And then 1987, he gets picked for an under 20s tour of Brazil. Again, exciting trip. But he gets his manager to write a note saying that he's twisted his ankle because he'd already booked a holiday to Tenerife. I'd rather go to Brazil. Yeah, that's so much worse. Yeah. Yeah. It's hard work though in Brazil, isn't it? Yeah, it is. Give me training.

6:28so yeah he's not doing himself that many favors coming through the youth team ranks but he does get his first senior call-up under terry venables in 1994 and you know at this point he's he's playing his best football he's banging in goals for southampton apparently javi the barcelona legend idolized matt letizia in his youth wow i mean he was so good yeah like yeah he can't pull maryland from home and away i just didn't think footballers had that draw yeah yeah well matt he certainly did um and there's this this massive public pressure to to pick him like we said similar to greelish uh in his day uh and this i would say more yeah yeah maybe more so um sorry what's your point well i just think like it's it's hard because everyone thinks because everyone thinks about this conspiracy theorist now it's hard to remember like how fucking good he was and how like every man romantic hero he was yeah there was there was there was a real clamor for him this southampton band which has a nice name the valley slags uh released a novelty single called bring him on for england i was gonna say we got we got a clip of that oh should we have a look actually yeah the valley slags what is there a valley near southampton they're referring to?

7:48Nothing springing to mind. There must be one. I actually preferred The Valley Slugs early work. Yeah. Seminal debut album. There's no other English footballer that can touch Matthew Letizia in terms of skill, technique, natural ability. He's had a gift from God. Get John Barnes out and then just stick Letizia in. The miracles don't stop there. This crop circle has just appeared in a puncture field. It's also demanding Letizia for England. Have you had any idea who did that? Well, I think it's the aliens, actually. The aliens know something Mr. Venables doesn't, quite obviously. So Matt's support isn't just Earthbound?

8:28No, it's well up there. There's a lot to unpack there. That's fucking awesome, that news report. I don't know if it should be on the national news. Well, should we start with that? I like the news reporter just clearly looking so far down his nose at Southampton. it looks like they've tried to pick parts of the city that look as shit as possible no one in Southampton is saying it's the Miami Beach of Southampton they call it their Miami Beach it's like a gas works spewing pollution out of the sea this is their equivalent of the French Riviera the fucking slugs so Richard Chorley, the lead singer and writer he was wearing a leather beret yeah, and on drugs, would you say?

9:12he's quite out of it, I would say Yeah, I'd say that's libelous, Jack. I know what you mean. Also quite heartbreaking when he said he was optimistic that this would be their big break. Haven't heard of them before. I was with a kid. Get fucking John Barnes out of the team. Yeah, Barnes catching his days. Yeah, every kid they interviewed looked sort of eerily similar as well. There were only about 100 people there, I would say. but also going on in that news report there was a crop circle a crop circle popped up I think that might have been the promoter for the song just to be no I don't think so and then he's like that's the aliens the aliens want Letizia for England but Mr.

9:56Venables doesn't you alright mate it's actually quite a good bit of PR I'm surprised more people don't do the old crop circle that was class all of that yeah that was brilliant do we know how the song performed in the charts um don't know don't know it's not a very good song either by the way also it's not even that ambitious it's just like bring him on bring him on for the last 10 minutes bring him on get him on the bench Terry play San Marino next week play anyone he'd be grateful for a 5 minute run around yeah does he play? well he actually gets his first start shortly after this I think Terry Venables had this on his Walkman this track and decides to start Matt in a friendly against Romania.

10:44Yes, I know you didn't want to play him, but we've got really bad news. The Valley Slugs have released a single. Get him on now. We can't have this sort of publicity. There are crop circles, Terry. I reckon if that had been Glenn Hoddle, he might have listened to the... The aliens, Glenn. what a crop circle said we should pick it well Glenn wouldn't probably he wouldn't pick Matt Latisse because he's got a floppy arm he probably thinks he's done something evil in a past life

11:24but yeah so this when he does eventually get this call up he starts against Romania but it doesn't really go that well his match which he has some theories for so he says at times I really did think that some of the more established players saw me as a threat given their occasional reluctance to give me the ball. Okay. Makes you think. So this is already he's a bit of a conspiracy theorist about like people's motives. Who do you think he's referring to? So Shearer, Platt, John Barnes. I guess John Barnes has seen that video. Terry does stick with him though. and he gets his second England start against Ireland in Dublin in 1995.

12:05It's actually a pretty infamous game. It gets abandoned after 29 minutes because of rioting England fans. Fucking hell. Or aliens. I'll be the aliens. He, yeah, he didn't play particularly well in what time he did have on the pitch. And Terry opts to take Gaza to Euro 96. I mean, good call. Yeah. He lit it up. Yeah. But I guess this is the thing. with Letizia, it's like when you're in a team where everyone's not just passing it to you all the time, it is a bit harder. Yeah. And he doesn't track back. Yeah. Letizia, he says, many felt Terry didn't give me a fair chance. Couldn't possibly be because I turned him down at Spurs when he tried to buy me.

12:48Could it? Or could it be because you had two starts, you played shit in both of them? So he just thinks everyone's out to get him. He thinks everyone is like trying to remove parts of his elbow or keep him out of a football team and just pollute his mind. Yeah. Yeah. There is maybe a chink of hope for his England career, though, when Venables is replaced by Glenn Hoddle and Glenn picks him for a World Cup qualifier against Italy in February 1997, which England end up losing 1-0. But Letiz blames his injury for that. So he says, I needed a hernia operation. I also torn the tendon from my heel to my toe.

13:28Glenn asked if I wouldn't mind going to see his faith healer Eileen Drury can't keep her off this pod kindred spirit really because she might be able to help I said I'd prefer not to because that wasn't my sort of thing and that was the last full England squad I was in any connection? literally every opportunity although in that sense with Terry Venables I'm like he's reaching there but with Glenn Hoddle he does seem like the type to if you don't believe in Eileen Drury you're out but didn't a lot of them not believe and sort of laughed at her yeah and i think quite a lot of them got dropped dropped i think yeah yeah that's right i heard a story about um terry venables actually from david baddiel he said that i think later when matt starts doing a lot of his twitter conspiracy theories david baddiel said around you know 95 he met terry venables at like an event went up to him and said you need to like base the england team around matt letizia and apparently tenu venables said something like um yeah that's that's one opinion like have you met matt because you'd think terry would quite love i mean he loved gaza and got the best out of him so i saw it'll be similar but i think maybe behind the scenes he was already also gaza worked really hard in a way that letizia didn't and he never gets a run of games under glenn huddle either he does actually pick him for an england b match ahead of the 98 world cup um which you know these this these b squad matches are basically a last chance saloon for any fringe players who are hoping to make the world cup squad and leticia he had a blinder scored a hat trick um and you know he's thinking maybe this is this gives me a chance did glenn pick me no way maybe we got on so badly because I didn't sign for him at Chelsea.

15:21Sorry, every time he doesn't get picked it's because of a motive outsider. Maybe he just didn't fit. Maybe if you're that paranoid about it, maybe you should have taken the time to speak to them instead of just turning them down. I actually listened to that England B match on the radio live. I used to listen to England B matches. It's not a thing anymore. No, it's quite fun. It's actually quite a good idea. There were some pretty average players playing that match. but it's kind of fun for them so is that the end of his England career yeah so he never plays another game for England after that eight caps altogether that does feel like too few you'd think amazing player to have on the bench if you're just like not in the game or whatever 20 minutes to go just like go and do some magic yeah but you would have to make it the Matt of the TCA show which and obviously they all hate him because he didn't sign for them yeah there are ulterior forces at play and well you know the rest of the team might pass to him.

16:19Do you change all of them? Yeah, because they don't trust him. I think he's trending there. Everyone's against him. But you can see even then he had this like outsider mentality then of himself. Anyway, given all their history, Matt wasn't exactly over the moon when Southampton named their new boss in 2000. It's Glenn Hoddle. He's coming. Eileen's coming for you. That is unlucky though, isn't it? Yeah. It must be so annoying when you already hated them. When you'd already turned down the faith healer. I actually think Matt Letizia today would see Eileen Drury. Yeah. He does some pretty fruity stuff.

16:52We'll come on to later. He's even less excited when Hoddle calls him into his office and tells him, I want you to see a dietician. It's not quite a faith healer, but it's annoying. So Letizia goes and sees this dietician and she's like, can you keep a food diary for me? Just write down everything you eat this week. Comes back a week later and it's just like burgers, chips, fry-ups. You just lie on those things though, don't you? I feel that. Have you ever like gone into a doctor's and actually said how many units you drink a week? Yeah, any of those questions. Yeah, well, he's honest. I think he's probably kind of reveling in it.

17:25This is also the era where like pasta would have been considered quite healthy food. So he said her jaw hit the floor. She was so astonished by how bad his diet is. And that might explain why his career starts to taper off after the turn of the millennium. He only lasts a couple of seasons after that. Hampered by injury. Although there's still the odd magic moment. He comes off the bench to score the last ever goal at the Dell against Arsenal in 2001 at the end of the season. It's quite a story. That's a nice story. Yeah, he's still popping up with these moments of magic, but you're not getting the like 30 goals a season thing.

17:59Yeah, yeah. And that goal actually meant the Southampton finished two places higher. They ended up 10th, which earned them an extra 500k in prize money, which was a decent whack for a football club back then. Matt is actually quite unfortunate for Matt because he just agreed a new contract, so he couldn't milk some of that prize money. And instead, the owner, Rupert Lowe, left a crate of 12 bottles of Malibu and 24 bottles of Coke on his doorstep. It's not quite the same, is it? No, it's a five grand. It's quite a thoughtful present because Matt's all about his Malibu and Cokes, isn't he? Is it?

18:33Yeah. It's one of those things that when people get you something that you really, you just have all the time. I think Matt considers it a nice touch. isn't Rupert Lowe the reform MP now well he's now independent I think he was too controversial for reform yeah he fell out with Farage he's the one who Elon Musk loves Elon Musk was like Rupert Lowe should be prime minister Bacardi and Cokes for everyone Malibu and Cokes for everyone anyway Matt Letizio in his secretary of state to be fair to Matt I think he this is like the one nice thing he says about Rupert Lowe oh he hates him he hates him yeah interesting because i think he obviously was not good for southampton he also he's the one that brought in the um what's his name the rugby oh clive woodwood yeah he's the one that brought clive woodwood into southampton fucking disaster yeah and he also says so i think rupert lowe came in when graham sooness was still manager of saints and uh sui was basically like no one called rupert should have anything to do with football and latisse is like that's the only thing i saw right to eye with Graham he didn't get on with Graham Sooness either no I can't see them getting on apparently they were alright until there was one incident towards the end of whatever season Sooness was in where he gathered every Southampton player into the canteen and he went by every one of them one by one and just went do you think Latisse does enough for the team and apparently every one of them was so scared of him they just went no because he's like disciplinarian wasn't he Sooness that was mental I think if you've got Matt Latisse at your club you should just do the Alan Balls thing just like give him the fucking ball let's get on with 100 % yeah actually so after that season when they finished 10th loads of his teammates ended up getting wage rises bonuses but not him and actually the most he ever earned was 4 grand a week and that was for one season at the end of his career so he never got the big bucks that is mad isn't it also like the Sun in all their articles calling him like millionaire Lattice yeah well maybe his strip club was very lucrative yeah how many people were paying for five pounds for something extra rude.

20:38He's making 200 grand a year in football. I guess sponsorships and all that shit. Maybe you're making... Yeah, but think how much of that is going down the arcades. Yeah, down the one abandoned. Yeah, it's pretty... KFC bargain buckets don't buy themselves. They're not cheap. But it's pretty mental because you think of him as like a Premier League legend. He scored... Yeah. He ended his career with 195 goals. It must be quite galling having retired at that point and then seeing the silly money that people are on now. But surely even that... I reckon like Shearer was probably on like 20, 30 grand a week at that point.

21:06Like if he'd moved club, he could have made a lot of money. So it was his choice. I think the prize money per place you finish in the Prem was introduced like around this time. And I think after that, that's maybe when like certain players... But like he could have gone, offers from Blackburn and Man United, he would have been making like four times as much. But I think like everyone at Southampton was earning about that much until after this season and suddenly some really shit players were getting a lot more than him. The start of the next season, he gets injured before the start and he only makes one sub-appearance at the new stadium, St Mary's, and then retires in 2002.

21:44So he's very much the old Southampton era. It's quite nice. He got one appearance at the new ground. Well, Valley Slag's had a single. Bring him on. Bring him on. So he finishes, I think he played 500-odd games, 195 goals, including 47 penalties from 48 attempts. So he's one of the best Leathorne spot kick takers ever. Cole Palmer-esque. Would have been quite useful for England in that era, had he? Had a few shootouts. He does do a little bit of non-league football after that, so he plays, I think it's Eastleigh. Eastleigh, I think, yeah. And then 10 years later, he played a game for Guernsey as well, just a sort of one-off sub-appearance.

22:17Yeah. But that's really it. Yeah. Yeah, and after retiring, he quite quickly gets a gig on Sky Soccer Saturday, which he thinks is perfect because it just means he can play golf all the times. A lot of time off. He also finally married Angela. They got back together, which is sweet. Shows he's not just a shagger. No. If someone proposed to you a second time after, I would be distrustful. I'd like some money put in an escrow. There needs to be a deposit of some kind. Yeah, I think he sort of says that she was always the one. He describes her as a wonderful wife who also allows me to play as much golf as I like.

23:00God, that's depressing. He actually proposed to her at a golf club. I don't know if she's into golf. Almost certainly not. He said, I played in Ronan Keating's charity golf day at the K Club. I was so enamoured with the venue that I took Angela there for her 30th birthday and proposed to her without a ring. That's quite partridge. Lucky, lucky. And then you go to a second proposal and there's no ring. That's the deposit, the ring. I'm not trusting it. Yeah. Or is it like you've already had one? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You've still got that ring, haven't you? yeah it feels quite impromptu yeah he just shot a really good round on the course have you ever been that enamoured by a golf club where you've just had to propose but you can imagine she was already disappointed enough it's like it was my 30th birthday and you're taking me to this golf club where you played with Ronan Keating last week I don't care, we like golf is Ronan going to be here today?

23:50shouldn't have thought so shit enough for a 30th birthday and then he gets down on one knee with no ring I don't think he even got down on one ring I think it was like we could get married if you want yeah vibe yeah well she she does say yes um and after that like playing golf and doing soccer saturday was pretty much matt's life up until 2020 uh when sky suddenly announced his sacking from the show so they didn't explicitly say why they'd let him go he suspects that it's because he refused to wear a black lives matter badge on on air during all those protests because he wore it the first time he said they asked me like 30 seconds before we went on and i said yes and then the second time i said no and then how long after that is he sacked not long uh not long i don't think yeah so they don't give him that reason no yeah that that's that was his his suspicion is that uh i'm not sure if i believe him i think it might have had something more to do with his reaction to covid lockdowns so he uh he shared number of tweets around this time condemning the government's overreaction to the pandemic, including one that drew comparisons to the Holocaust.

25:01It seems excessive. So he basically replied to this video of a police officer getting someone off a train for not wearing a mask with a picture of Anne Frank captioned, the people who hid Anne Frank were breaking the law. The people who killed her were following it. That does make you think. Yeah, and could be a justification for ignoring any law. I was going to say that's a good way to get off the hook for anything. PC Steve Smith comes knocking at your illicit strip club Just remember Steve The people who hid Anne Frank were breaking the law This is by the way the beginning of his regular device Which is like Matt Letizia doesn't share His own really colourful ideas so much As just be like this will make you think Yeah it's a lot of sharing Yeah and it's like come on Think about it It's all quite unspoken wink wink It really is because he never explicitly says anything does he No that's his Could it be come on you know what I'm talking about I'm going to mount on defence of him at this point I don't think you should lose your job for this no at the time it was a big deal though wasn't it I guess the argument is like it was a moment where public safety was really important and people are learning it but I think you should be allowed to hold these views and work on soccer Saturday who fucking cares if anything it's a bit more colourful to have some slightly odd as long as he's not chatting about that shit during Soccer Saturday.

26:23Yeah. Which probably was the logical conclusion. I don't think he should have been sacked. I don't like what's the badge. If he doesn't want to wear the badge. I wonder if off air he'd been spouting some pretty fruity theories to his colleagues. Yeah. Getting quite tired swimming the WhatsApp group. Yeah. You can also see why maybe other people were getting sick of him at this point. Wake up sheeple. Poor Chris Kamara is just trying to enjoy his day. The following year he also posted suggesting that Christian Eriksson's on-pitch heart attack was a result of the COVID vaccine. Which, Erikson wasn't even vaccinated.

26:57Oh, really? Did he do that thing of just going, vaccinated, question mark? Yeah. That was how, yeah. Just asking questions. I guess he's already been sacked at this point, but when it is encroaching on football, you're like, can't. But was it, yeah, he's already been sacked. I don't think he would have done it on the, he wouldn't do that to Soccer Saturday. It does also depend how he's sacked, because like, around this area, there are a lot of, Sky sacked loads of pundits across all sports, because they were just cutting costs. This is very much what they said it was. Like his contract, I reckon for Soccer Saturday your contract's maybe not even a year and much of a rolling.

27:26But I think, yeah. Because they've just got in cheaper pundits across every sport. Yeah, and you're also just getting like a new generation. Younger. Like he'd been on it for like 15 years or something. He had a pretty good run. It's in the same way they got rid of like Mark Lorenton and Alan Hansen on Match of the Day. But I do also think he's slightly feeding his perception that everyone's against him by doing it, which is a tricky game. but anyway the theories keep coming because now he's got nothing to lose sure so he does an interview with the Times in which they're talking about COVID patients in Italy you remember at the start of the pandemic it was in Italy and all these videos of people like dying in corridors and he said some of those were actors by the way which is fucking mental yeah at least he's explicitly saying it yeah this one he's going a bit further isn't he so he's saying that the news actually employs actors to pretend why because they're in league with the government and the government wants...

28:21They want to do a lockdown as a pretext to start a totalitarian society. Got you. I think. I might be filling in too many plans. No, that makes sense. And now I'm on board. Yeah, now you've woken up. Yeah. He also... He also... You know how we were saying, like, even from an early day, he quite likes the idea that he's this maverick outsider. And so he's in the same interview. He basically implies that his rejection of, like, conformist ideas in society began in his playing days with his choice of tipple. So he says, I drank Malibu, something that came in for a lot of criticism in a dressing room full of butch, macho footballers.

28:5614 pints of lager and a Malibu and Coke, please. You have to be quite a strong character.

29:04He's lost his mind at this point. Yeah, well, you know, he's a, yeah, all the great Mavericks. You've got to start somewhere, don't you? That laid the foundation of his challenging of, you know, authoritarian governments. Yeah, it's such a funny journey from having a rum and coke thinking that the news employs actors for the state. Anyway, he then, he sort of becomes this guy who pops up with a mental opinion at moments of like sort of national conversation, including Gary Lineker's suspension by Match of the Day. So I think everyone remembers, Gary Lineker shared some political views, I think.

29:40I can't remember what it was. He gets suspended by Match of the Day. and Ian Wright then refuses to go on Match of the Day. It's like a solidarity boycott, which does not go down well with Matt Letizia, who feels like Ian Wright is a bit of a hypocrite because where was he when Matt Letizia was sacked by Soccer Saturday? Here's Matt talking about it on GB News. Makes sense. What's really interesting about it is if you go back three years and have a look at the reaction that Ian Wright had to the sacking of myself, Phil Thompson, and Charlie Nicholas. And you will see that that reaction is completely contradictory to the way he reacted to this.

30:24So, you know, it's all very well, you know, taking this stand. But, you know, let's show a bit of consistency in this writing. If you're watching, you know what I'm on about. What I love about that is when he goes, righty if you're watching it's like I don't think Ian Wright's sitting at home watching fucking GB news to be honest with you mate and also if he was like what do you mean he knows what he means like you've made it very explicit yeah but he loves that I mean the look on Letizia's face through that whole interview is amazing I mean also the other point to make is Ian Wright has never been on Soccer Saturday or been employed by Sky yeah quite hard to boycott would have been a tricky one for him to do what's the deal with Charlie Nicholas and Phil Thompson were they They were also let go at the same time.

31:08And I think it was just like they wanted some fresh blood. Why is Ian Wright going to strike? It's going to strike. Don't think you can strike when you're not working for that company. First, they came for Charlie Nicholas and you said nothing.

31:28Yeah, sometimes he does get quite specific. So we talked about how he just does a lot of like, I'm just asking questions. but in July 2023 he finally decides.