From learning under Bryan Robson to playing with Paul Gascoigne and against Steven Gerrard, it takes some effort to impact Craig Harrison.
But the record-breaking manager of the New Saints still fondly remembers a Simon Jordan gesture when his world collapsed at 24.
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Injury prematurely ended Harrison’s playing career while at Crystal PalaceCredit: Getty
Harrison, who was Middlesbrough‘s Young Player of the Year in the club’s 1997/98 promotion-winning season, had the opportunity to become a Premier League regular upon moving to Crystal Palace two years later.
However, a bad tackle in a reserve game led to him suffering compound fractures to the tibia and fibula in his left leg.
Initial surgery failed to correct the problem, and further tests approved by then-Palace chairman Jordan discovered the fibula, the smallest bone, had healed before the tibia.
A bone graft was among the additional operations Harrison then underwent, but he never played another match again.
read more football featuresSimon Jordan ‘really supported me’
The Gateshead-born defender reunited with his old chairman on talkSPORT in 2023, and the mutual respect between them was clear.
“Simon was fantastic,” Harrison exclusively told talkSPORT.com. “I got a lot of time for Simon.
“There’s a lot of people, especially back then, who had a lot to say about Simon. But from a point of view, he was excellent with me.
“He really supported me and had a really tough time when not a lot of people in football do that. Especially all that time ago.
“Obviously, now it’s a lot different. There’s a lot more player welfare, player care, etc.
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Jordan broke out in a smile when Harrison addressed him as ‘Mr Chairman’ on talkSPORT
“But from the owner of the football club, to give as much support as he did when I had to retire through the injury, it was very kind of him at the time,” Harris added to talkSPORT.
“And he’s not forgotten me. And I’ve certainly not forgotten the impact he had on me.
“Obviously, it was not a great time in my life. But he had a huge impact on how to treat people.”
That life lesson has served Harrison now he’s a manager working under another large-than-life chairman, Mike Harris.
The 48-year-old was delighted recently to see TNS midfielder Leo Smith make his first senior appearance in 262 days after suffering an ACL injury during UEFA Champions League qualifying last July.
Harrison revealed: “I’ve kept in close contact with Leo, making sure he’s all right. He’s been a fantastic professional, and he’s been brilliant in the gym, because that’s the biggest and the hardest part, when you’re alone with your own feelings.”
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Harrison has now won 11 Cymru Premier titles with TNS over two spells in chargeCredit: Getty
Harrison can speak first-hand to that experience, having had to build up his mental strength even before his crushing injury.
He remarked: “On a daily basis, I used to work hard and probably well before my time, really, think about the mental and physical side of the game.
“I remember ultimately leaving Middlesbrough with Christian Ziege coming in to play left-back.
“I was never going to be as good as Christian Ziege, so it’s just little things that I still speak to my daughter about.
“She’s a good netball player, and she’s a real avid netball player.
“What little things that make little differences, how can you control the things that you can control?”
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Harrison admitted he always had a base of mental strength, but worked really hard to make the best of what he could as wellMoyes is ‘a top-drawer manager’
Ziege’s arrival saw Harrison head out on loan to Preston North End, where a young David Moyes taught him the real art of defending.
He said: “We were defending every single day with David. Just 20 minutes every day, we’d be getting good habits, defending little things, body position, opening your shoulders out, looking for signals with people on the ball, open bodies for defenders, running, et cetera, et cetera.
“All the things which probably aren’t taught very much these days, because we all live in a possession-based world, that I’m not too sure young kids get taught these little things.
“Just little things like that, David Moyes was brilliant, absolutely fantastic.
“It’s no coincidence that every team he’s been it had been a solidly defensive unit, first and foremost, and then built from that.
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Moyes led Preston to the Division Two title in 1999–2000Credit: Getty
“You look at how well David did at West Ham, and obviously, they didn’t appreciate that, and he moved on, and he’s doing fantastic.
“He’s a top-drawer manager, top Premier League manager, and you could always tell when I worked with him at Preston.
“He was only probably three, four years into his managerial career, but his drive, his ambition, his dedication was second to none.”
Brian Robson was absolutely unbelievable
Harrison already had a high bar for what he could expect from a manager, with the iconic Bryan Robson his boss at Boro.
The former England captain was at the tail end of his legendary career as Middlesbrough’s player-manager in the mid-1990s.
“When you get up close to him, he’s not a big guy, five foot nine, maybe, slightly built, but his aggression, his tenacity, and what I don’t think he gets enough credit for, he’s an absolutely unbelievable footballer,” Harrison continued.
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Harrison played with some of the best that England has ever produced
“He could handle a ball in any situation, anywhere on the pitch, predominantly left-footed, but both feet in the air.
He could play one-touch, two-touch, he could dribble, he could step past people, he could pass 60, 70 yards.
“He was just so much better than I ever thought he was, and he must’ve been late 30s, early 40s when I played with him.
“It was such an honour because what an unbelievable, unbelievable footballer, and what a guy, by the way, as well.
“One of the most humble guys you’ll ever meet, one of the best that England’s ever produced. One of the best midfielders in the world at the time.”
Harrison recalled one reserve game where he saw the usually quiet and mild-mannered Robson showcase his ‘sky-high’ demands.
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Robson masterminded two promotions to the Premier League with BoroCredit: Getty
The pair were playing alongside one another when ‘Captain Marvel’ was snubbed by the then-academy graduate while asking for the ball.
He said: “I haven’t given it for whatever reason, and then he’s come and had a right go at us at half time, ‘just give me the ball when I ask for it, I’m experienced enough to know when I can handle the ball, and when I can’t.’
“‘I won’t be coming asking for it if I don’t want it. So you give me the ball when I ask for it’, very, very politely.
“That’s the other thing as well, he’s such a quiet and quite mild-mannered, but when you got in the football environment, then his demands were sky high.
“Even at that age, his fitness as well, he used to train with the first team every day, even when we got promoted to the Premier League.
“He wasn’t playing still, but his training, he’d be at the front of the group when we’re doing long-distance running. He was just excellent.
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Robson, right, was there when Man United ended a 26-year wait for a league title in 1993Credit: Getty
“I’ve not seen anything like it in my life, and that was the back end of it – So goodness knows what it was like when he was in his mid-twenties.”
Part of Gascoigne ‘not many people know’
Perhaps just as surprising was that Paul Gascoigne proved a match for Robson at the front of the distance running as well as on the ball.
Gazza, who recently joined us at talkSPORT Towers, was also in the tail end of his career at Boro after his heroics at Rangers, Newcastle and Tottenham.
Yet, Harrison said: “He could hit a 60, 70-yard ball either foot, one round the corner, no problem at all. Everything was just unbelievable.
“He just lost a yard of pace when I played with him. He couldn’t quite step past people like he used to.
“I’m not too sure how many people know that, but another one, [at] the front, running, any running session, any long distance at the front, at the front, working hard.
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Harrison played with both Merson and Gascogine at MiddlesbroughCredit: Getty
“He used to work hard every single day. Unfortunately, we knew the demons he had, and that must have been a real battle for him on a daily basis.
“We see the repercussions now, but from a football point of view, he was amazing, what he couldn’t do with the ball.”
In a similar vein, Arsenal legend Paul Merson, who has also struggled with off-the-field issues, was named as one of the most underrated teammates of Harrison’s career.
Fittingly, underrated is also a term that can be used for Harrison’s achievements since returning to football in the dugout.
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Former England international Merson was ‘right up there with the best’
His New Saints side won the Cymru Premier for the fifth consecutive season at the start of March for a record 18th league title.
The latest was Harrison’s 11th with the club over two spells, while last season, TNS became the first domestic Welsh club to win a non-qualifying match in major European competition following a 2-0 victory over Astana in Shrewsbury.
Speaking of his success, Harrison said: “I must be close to 650 games I’ve managed, but still, the hunger, drive, desire is still hugely burning. I’m relatively young.
“Where I lost out on a playing career, I gained on a coaching career and gained on a managerial career, and it’s been a real sort of journey.
“It’s been tough along the way, but that’s been part of it.
“At the back of my mind all the time, which keeps driving me whenever we hit a tough patch, whenever I have a tough patch personally, professionally, is that, the pain and the anguish and the heartache when I come out of football at 24, 25 maybe feel sorry for myself for a little bit and then move on quite quickly because nothing, and I mean nothing in football, could be as bad as what happened then.
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New Saints played three European Conference home ties at Shrewsbury Town’s Croud Meadow homeCredit: Getty
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Harrison hopes to reach a major UEFA competition once again this summerCredit: Getty
“I got through that. I live to tell the tale and being successful in the back of it.
“It’s a real barometer of where mixed-up and down feelings can be, but it brings you back down to earth quite quickly and jolts you over.
Read More on talkSPORT
“Stop feeling sorry for yourself and crack on and move on!”
Mike Harris stars in The Road to Europe – The Mike Harris Story, a football documentary like no other, which is available to buy or rent now on Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV.