“It was just a case of, right, here's a load of money, deal with it on your own. Without no real expertise in handling money and things like that and outside distractions, you know,” Dozzell tells Tribalfootball and leaves the rest to our imagination.
We hook up with the Ipswich Town legend because of his new autobiography, “Follow the Thunder”, from which you get the feeling he spent more time nightclubbing than on the pitch during his four-year stint with Spurs. He took full advantage of what London had to offer and gave little thought to what would come later.
When “later” came, Jason Dozzell found himself in a very dark place. It could have ended badly was it not for the sudden help from an unexpected source as Dozzell describes in “Follow the Thunder”. The book leaves no doubt that while the football-career was great the downfall hurt like hell.
He managed more than 300 games for Ipswich Town and nearly 100 for Spurs, which very few people do after all, but did he really make enough of his career? He acknowledges the viewpoint, but comes at it from a different angle.
“I was a starry-eyed kid living a few 100 yards from Portman Road. Maybe I could have done more but I've seen loads of kids coming in 16-17 years of age, make a few games and then they're gone. I played more than 300 games for the club I supported all my life. I captained them, I played in the Premier League, scored nearly 100 goals. I'm satisfied.”
Youngest ever goal scorer
Dozzell burst onto the scene in February 1984 when he scored on his debut for the “Tractor Boys”. To this day he is still the youngest ever player to score in the top flight on English football with Ipswich legends Terry Butcher and John Wark setting up the goal.
“I still remember it like it was yesterday. It started as a free kick just inside our half, Wark knocked it down and there was a race between me and the defender. I got there first and hooked it into the top corner,” says Dozzell, who tried to soak it all up as best he could.
“I started going to their matches when I was six years old and got to see some great teams. I was at Wembley when they won the FA Cup final in 1978. I was standing on the terraces following the team in 1981 which is still my favourite Ipswich side. If someone had said to me then I’d be playing with those lads in three years’ time, I’d have said, you need locking up.”
Ipswich Town was a force back then fighting for titles each season, but seasoned pros like Russell Osman, Terry Butcher, Frans Thijssen all took good care of the young lad making his way in the world. So did John Lyall, when he came in as manager which Dozzell remembers as a particularly good time to be around Portman Road.
“We were playing in front of 8,000 or 9,000 in the first few games when Lyall came in, and that's not Ipswich Town at all. It was in such a dark place but by Christmas, we were top. Then the fans started to come back in. I've always said we didn't have the best team in that league, but we had the best manager.”
McKenna was the best signing
Speaking of the best manager, Dozzell is in awe of how Kieran McKenna has transformed the club, bringing it back in limelight.
“We made a lot of good signings in the summer, but the best one was Kieran McKenna signing that new contract. Back-to-back promotions in this day and age is very, very hard. For the opening game against Liverpool, there were seven players who were also playing in League One two years ago.
“He's improved every player that has come here and who's been here before. There were some players who were struggling before he turned up and now, they're playing in the Premier League. I can't give a big enough compliment. Improving every single player is hard but he's managed it.”
The success of the football team has had a instant effect on the whole town as well, according to Dozzell.
“We've had 25 years of suffering, not just the club but our town as well. It's lovely to see the young kids walking around in Ipswich Town shirts again, rather than Chelsea, Man United and things like that. We've got our town back, you know. Back-to-back promotions has the town absolutely buzzing.
“Coming down to Portman Road now, it looks like a different arena. For 25 years, this place was unloved. Everything was old but now, coming down Portman Road on a Saturday for a Premier League game is just magical,” tells Dozzell while crediting the American owners.
“They've been brilliant. Even in League One, we weren't acting like a League One club. We were acting like a Premier League club. Everything was put in place for this to happen. It's happened quicker than a lot of people thought, maybe a little too quick, but we're just going to have to embrace it.
“From top to bottom, everyone's on side with the football club at the moment and it looks a proper football club again. They've cleaned this place up, given Kieran McKenna money to spend, the supporters are happy, there’s good communications between the board and their supporters. It's just been great.”
Caught with cocaine
Great wasn’t exactly how Dozzell was feeling when the football career was one and the low-point arrived when he was arrested.
“They took me to the station and did the tests. They found 800ug of benzoylecgonine, a compound found in cocaine, in my bloodstream. That put me 16 times above the 'accidental exposure limit',” Dozzell writes in his book of the dark days where suicide wasn’t an alien thought.
Good people came to his rescue as he finally acknowledged and opened up about his mental state. It’s good to talk, as a chapter of “Follow the Thunder” is called. Working is not bad either, and Ipswich Town was there for him, when he needed it, just as writing the book has been “therapeutic” as he describes the process.
“I actually starting writing it when we were in League One and it came out when we were now in the Premier League,” he says with a big smile as the uprising of the club coincided with Dozzell rediscovering that life isn’t too bad.
“It’s finally time for the clouds to break”, as Dozzell writes in the book, which can be purchased in assorted bookshops, on the Pitch Publishing website or right here.