Hadji’s Gonna Party Like It’s 1999: The Year That Morocco Came To Coventry

However, the sale of Dion Dublin to Aston Villa chopped the campaign off at the knees and City staggered through the year. The loss of Dublin had stripped the club of its talisman. Ahead of 1999/00, some star power was needed. Even so, few could have expected who was about to walk into the club.

On 28 May 1999, Moroccan international Youssef Chippo joined from Porto in a £1.2m deal. Less than two months later, his compatriot Mustapha Hadji followed him through the doors at Highfield Road, making a £4m switch from Deportivo La Coruña.

The sight of an African Footballer of the Year turning up in sky blue was a surprise. Least of all to his new teammates.

‘We were over in Germany for pre-season camp and we heard the rumours that he was signing,’ Richard Shaw recalls. ‘All of a sudden, he comes walking through the canteen where we were with about six agents or whatever it was, he had with him.

'We were like, “Wow”. For us to get Hadji, that was incredible. It was absolutely crazy that we ended up with [Hadji and Chippo]. Whoever was in the recruitment at the time, they needed a massive pat on the back for that one, that is for sure.’

Ray Clarke was City’s European scout at the time. The Belgium-based talent spotter had previously been key in bringing George Boateng to the club and would later be the man to find Cedric Roussel.

Clarke travelled to Arnhem, meeting up with Gordon Strachan and Bryan Richardson along the way, to run the rule over Hadji and Chippo as Morocco faced the Netherlands in an international friendly on 28 April 1999. The trio were suitably impressed.

However, the pursuit of Chippo began a year earlier. Strachan was taken by the industrious midfielder during Morocco’s clash with Scotland at the 1998 World Cup. He kept tabs on Chippo from there, having him scouted several times while playing for Porto in the following months.

During the chase, it became apparent that a deal for Hadji could also be in the offing. Strachan and co came away from the Netherlands friendly with both in their sights and armed with the knowledge that Hadji was unhappy at his current club.

‘They came to watch me and they knew I was arguing a little bit with Deportivo in Spain,’ Hadji says. ‘I had a little argument with the manager. Strachan heard about it and asked me if I wanted to have the experience of playing in the Premier League. Of course, I said yes. I wanted to come to the Premier League.’

Having been his country’s standout player in the World Cup just 12 months earlier, it’s little surprise that Hadji wasn’t short of options come summer 1999. However, despite interest from some of the biggest clubs in Europe, Strachan did a fine job at selling Coventry to Hadji.

‘I had opportunities to go to Milan, Marseille, Paris-Saint-Germain but I wanted to go to the Premier League,’ Hadji says. ‘I knew he was also looking to bring Youssef Chippo, my mate from the national team.

'I knew about players like Gary McAllister as well and Gordon Strachan was telling me what he wanted to do and that he wanted to build a team for the top six of the Premier League. It was exciting.’

The season began slowly. Defeat to Southampton on the opening day was followed by a loss to Leicester and a draw with Wimbledon. It would take time for Coventry’s Moroccan experiment to click. Perhaps it was naïve to expect the new recruits to hit the ground running. A period of adapting to a new style of football and a new country was required.

On the latter count, it seemed that both Hadji and Chippo quickly felt at home in Coventry.

‘When I arrived at Coventry, I knew that it was a family,’ Hadji recalls. ‘It had an atmosphere like a family. I really appreciated that. Even people working for the club, the ladies in the kitchen, they were all amazing. They made me feel welcome and I really appreciated all of them.’

Chippo too was quickly taken aback by the Highfield Road faithful.

‘Coventry was the best time in my career,’ he says. ‘I enjoyed my life in Coventry. The fans were fantastic. Even when we lost, they believed in us.’

If the Moroccans were taken by Coventry, the feeling was certainly mutual.

‘They were both so humble,’ Shaw adds. ‘There was nothing superstar about them. They were two polar opposites, though. Mustapha was just out there.

'There was a couple of times when he was out in Birmingham, and it was one o'clock in the morning and he’d be phoning me saying, “Are you coming out?” I’d say, “No Hadj, it's one o'clock in the morning so no, I'm not, I'm not actually coming out!” With Youssef, you would never get anything like that from Youssef.’

We would soon come to realise that their characters were a fair reflection of their playing styles. The magnetic Hadji brought unpredictable flair both on and off the pitch. Chippo was more of a workhorse; reliable and hard working. It’s a comparison that isn’t lost on their teammates.

‘Mustapha was that maverick; I don't see mavericks anymore,’ Shaw says. ‘He was that kind of person that would unlock the opposition's defence. He was quick, he could go around, he could go outside, he could go inside. He had the ability to hold the ball and the ability to make the final passes.

'He was just outstanding, whereas Youssef was the sensible one, a humble one and just did the basics really, really well. I'm not going to compare him to Makelele but that was how he played. No one really got the better of him.’

After a stuttering start to the season, the feeling that ‘no one got the better of him’ really started towards the end of September. By now, Robbie Keane had joined in a £6m deal (breaking the transfer record that Hadji had set just weeks earlier).

Carlton Palmer had also made the move to Highfield Road and it was this transfer that really allowed the Moroccans to weave their magic. To appreciate the job of 1999/00 Carlton Palmer, see 2026 Frank Onyeka. Palmer became the midfield enforcer and a vital defensive shield in the middle of the park.

‘At Coventry it was set up for me to be the holding midfield player and to block off areas so that if Hadji went and left a hole or if Chippo went and left a hole then I would fill that hole,’ Palmer says. ‘That was my job.’

His presence allowed McAllister, Chippo and Hadji to get forward. Chippo remained somewhat-defensively minded and able to put a shift in around the pitch, while Hadji was suddenly given the kind of freedom that he would revel in.

‘Playing for Coventry was easy for me,’ says Hadji. ‘It was easy in my position because of the way that we played. When we played, I had Carlton Palmer, McAllister and Chippo all behind me. I had a free role on the pitch.

‘Gordon gave me the responsibility to be close to Cedric Roussel and Robbie Keane. He wanted us close to each other all of the time. He wanted me to make those assists and score goals. To be that free on the pitch was different to anything I had known on the pitch before.

‘I talked a lot with Gordon about my position on the pitch. When you have players like McAllister, Chippo and Palmer you know that you have guys behind you that are going to do the job. With those guys behind me, I was able to just concentrate on my offensive game. Like I said, it was easy for me.’

The ease with which Hadji could play in sky blue seemed to begin with a 1-0 win over West Ham on 25 September. It was a day on which he scored the only goal of the game, a close-range header from a McAllister centre. It started a run of seven matches unbeaten and Hadji would score three in his next five appearances.

Chippo was also revelling in his role. At times an unsung hero of the side, the former Porto man was invaluable for many reasons; he had an enviable engine, an eye for a pass and a definite bite to his challenges. He was also adaptable enough to play anywhere across the midfield four.

‘At Coventry, I played wide midfield, sometimes the left, sometimes the right, sometimes in the middle,’ he says. ‘The gaffer liked me to play on the wing because physically I was good so I could attack and defend. I could press. I could give power to the midfield. I could pressure the opponent from out wide and I could launch attacks and make crosses.

‘When Carlton Palmer joined us, he played in the middle with McAllister. I would play left and Mustapha would play either behind the strikers or out wide right. McAllister was an absolutely fantastic player. He was a captain. He was always encouraging us and gave us the power to work harder when we lost the ball.’

The undoubted highlight of the season came on Boxing Day 1999. Arsenal were the visitors to Highfield Road. The Sky TV cameras were in town, presumably expecting to catch Arsene Wenger’s men deliver a Christmas hiding to the Sky Blues. Instead, the visitors left on the wrong end of a 3-2 scoreline.

‘Beating Arsenal at home, they were the best team in the league at that time,’ Hadji recalls. ‘We prepared for that game with a lot of concentration. We were so motivated by Gordon but we also knew that we had a great team and great players. Right through that team was strong and we had that family atmosphere.

‘We surprised them on that day with the quality that we had in the team. We had players like Robbie Keane and McAllister, Chippo as well. We had a lot of good players. That day was just our day. It was very hard to beat Arsenal in those days. We had that quality in our team. People still talk to me about that game when they meet me. That was an incredible day and a great game.’

There were many more great games that season, admittedly exclusively at Highfield Road. This was, lest we forget, the campaign in which City would win 12 of their 19 home games but none on their travels.

Nevertheless, fans were treated to a raucous Monday night 2-1 win against Aston Villa under the lights, a victory over Sunderland in which a rampant City burst into an early three-goal lead and thumping wins over Bradford (4-0) and Sheffield Wednesday (4-1).

When pressed on what (at home at least) clicked that season, Hadji pinpoints two key factors; the first of which being the gaffer.

‘Gordon was exceptional,’ he says. ‘At first, my English wasn’t great and his English was him talking as fast as he could so it wasn’t easy to understand him in the beginning.

‘Gordon is actually very easy going and a lovely human being. He was fantastic. He gave us all confidence. He was a great player as well so when we would talk tactically we would listen. He knew football and it was very difficult to go against him because he had been a great player himself. I loved the time that I spent with him. We had a great relationship, it was amazing.’

‘Gordon was a fantastic manager and a fantastic player,’ Chippo adds. ‘I remember him in training he was better than all of us with his passing, his attitude and his will to never lose. He didn’t even want to lose small training games.

'We learned a lot from him. ‘Sometimes he would be very angry if we didn’t play well but he was a good, honest person. I enjoyed my time working with him and I learned a lot from him. He wasn’t just a manager; he was a friend, someone who cared about us.’

While Strachan’s presence was huge, Hadji notes the team spirit around the club as the biggest single driver in a season in which Coventry City were known as The Entertainers.

‘We were like family and friends,’ he says. ‘We were enjoying meeting each other at training every day. When you have that kind of atmosphere and respect for each other it is amazing. It doesn’t always happen. Having that feeling will bring you results.

‘You can have great players but that isn’t enough sometimes. If you don’t have friendship and good relationships between the players then it is difficult to win. We would go out together a lot. We would go out for drinks and for dinner. That dressing room was incredible.

‘Everything about the dressing room in that first season was positive. My biggest regret is that we lost so many players ahead of the second season.’

Ah yes, the second season. Hadji’s first campaign would end with great optimism for the future. The loss of Robbie Keane and Gary McAllister ahead of the 2000/01 season completely gutted the club. Leaders off the pitch and goals on it were lost and shortly began the Sky Blues’ 25-year top-flight exile.

But if we may just focus on that single season when Moroccan magic swept through Highfield Road, a year when Hadji, Chippo, Keane, McAllister et al provided some of the most entertaining football that the old stadium had ever seen.

Oh, and remember earlier when Richard Shaw called Hadji a maverick? Just wait until you hear the unorthodox way in which Hadji dealt with playing while suffering from a broken toe.

‘I got a very fine piece of meat and wrapped it around my toe so I could play,’ he says with a smile. ‘It helped a lot. Gordon Strachan just laughed when I told him what I was doing. I was a size nine boot but I had to play with a nine and a half so the meat would fit and so that my toe didn’t touch the end of the boot. I played with it for a while and it worked because it meant I could play without having an operation.’

Even a subsequent move across the M6 to the Villa couldn’t dampen the love that Hadji felt from Coventry fans. It is, therefore, fitting that he signs off by recognising the Sky Blue Army.

‘There is one thing that I will never forget; my relationship with the Coventry fans,’ he says. ‘I played for the Sky Blues for two years and I enjoyed every single day. When I would go shopping in the city or going to a restaurant, the people of Coventry made me feel like a part of their family.

‘Coventry is still in my heart. I’m still a fan of the Sky Blues. I wish them and the fans nothing but the best and I would love to see them back in the Premier League. I will never have the words to thank the supporters for the love that they gave me.’  

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