Porterfield the miracle worker on and off pitch He is the FA Cup hero
who is battling cancer but managing to create history in
Armenia. Simon Turnbull reports
The Independent
10 June 2007
For all the countless words that were said and written about David
Beckham’s contribution for England in Tallinn on Wednesday night, the
most uplifting story of rehabilitation on the international football
stage was unfolding 1,580 miles away, beyond the other side of
Russia. At the Republican Stadium in Yerevan, Ian Porterfield stood
next to the home dug-out, urging and inspiring Armenia to the most
famous victory in their football history – a 1-0 success against
Poland, the leaders of Group A in the Euro 2008 qualifiers.
Today, Armenia’s head coach undergoes six hours of chemo-therapy at
the Saint Grigor Lusavorich Medical Centre in Yerevan, the country’s
capital. He is booked for another six-hour session tomorrow.
On 7 March Porterfield had an emergency operation to remove a
cancerous tumour from his colon. "I’m still having treatment," he said
on Friday, speaking from the Yerevan apartment he shares with his
wife, Glenda. "I’ve got two chemotherapy sessions left, on Sunday and
Monday. I’m trying to keep things low-key because I think I’m going to
be OK. I’m going to get through this. Bobby Robson’s had it three or
four times and he’s still kicking around."
Sir Bobby, in fact, has had cancer five times and is still alive and
kicking at 73. Porterfield is 61, and he has survived a
life-threatening scare once before.
Back in 1974 – the year after he scored the Wembley goal that caused
one of the biggest upsets in FA Cup final history, securing
Sunderland’s 1-0 victory against Don Revie’s mighty Leeds United – the
gifted midfielder came perilously close to losing his life in a car
crash. He suffered a badly fractured skull and a broken jaw. "I was
very, very lucky to come out of it," he reflected.
The accident cost Porterfield an international playing career – he was
on the brink of a Scotland call-up at the time – but he was back in
training within two months and helped Sunderland to the Second
Division title the following season. Thirty-three years later, his
fighting spirit is shining through once again.
As a head coach, the Fifer has made his mark before. He happens to be
the last man to replace Alex Ferguson in club management, at Aberdeen
in 1986. He was also Chelsea’s first manager in the Premier League and
became a national hero in Zambia when guiding the African nation to
within a goal of the 1994 World Cup, after the previous head coach and
his playing squad had perished in a plane crash.
Armenia is Porterfield’s fifth overseas posting as a national
coach. Since August last year, the man who won the cup for Sunderland
has been nurturing the international underdogs from the smallest of
the former Soviet republics – a country recovering from the
devastation of genocide, earthquakes and mass migration. In the most
trying of personal circumstances, he has managed to gain international
respectability for Armenia.
In the European Champion-ship qualifiers, there was a draw against Roy
Hodgson’s Finland and unlucky one-goal defeats against the Finns,
Belgium and Poland before the heroics of the last eight days. With
Porterfield back at pitchside and half-a-dozen first-choice players
unavailable, Armenia won 2-1 in Kazakhstan a week yesterday and then
beat Leo Beenhakker’s Poles 1-0 in Yerevan on Wednesday, thanks to a
second-half free-kick from a veteran striker called Hamlet Mkhitaryan.
"This is history for Armenia," Porterfield said. "They have never ever
won two games in a row. They’ve beaten teams like Andorra but never a
big team like Poland before.
"It was incredible in the stadium. We were playing a team who lost
their first qualifying game but then won their next six
matches. Poland have got some great players. They’re an outstanding
team. And as the game went on, Armenia got better and better and
better. We were far, far the better team.
"We scored a wonderful free-kick. Hamlet, the guy who scored, is
33. He was quite magnificent. So were the rest of the team. We’ve
played some really good football in the qualifiers but we’ve not
played as winners – until now.
"I changed the mindset. I sat the players down and explained what they
had to do to win games. Give them credit: they were inspirational
against Kazakhstan and against Poland.
"It’s wonderful for the people here. The flags are out in the
street. The president came to see me. Och, it’s lifted this country so
much. It’s just what this country needs.
"And I have to say the people here have been marvellous to me. The
football federation have been tremendous. They’ve given me the best
medical stuff you can buy. They’re not shirking anything, no matter
what the cost."
As well they might. As the good people of Sunderland would testify,
you can’t put a price on Ian Porterfield, the worker of football
miracles.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress