Hayes, Martin

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Fullname: Martin Hayes
Born: 21 March 1966
Birthplace: Walthamstow, London
Signed: 29 May 1990 (from Arsenal)
Left: 7 Jan 1992 (free); 6 Jan 1993 (Swansea)
Position: Midfielder
First appearance: Ayr United home 3-0 League Cup 22 August 1990
Last appearance: Saint Mirren away 2-0 League 12 March 1991
Internationals: none

Biog

London-born midfielder Martin Hayes was a £650,000 buy from Arsenal in May 1990. It was rumoured at the time that Arsenal had been about to sell him for around £150,000 to a lower division English club and that Celtic had come in with what was then an absurdly high bid. No evidence for this story was produced however but few seem to doubt its truth taking in how Martin Hayes’ time at Celtic panned out.

Hayes had been a steady if unspectacular performer for the Gunners and was most frequently used from the bench. He did have one golden season in 1986/87 when he finished Arsenal’s top scorer with 24 goals albeit 12 were from the penalty spot. Overall he did chip in with some fine and important goals during a near 7-year professional career with the Highbury club.

He had first come to the attention of the Celtic support with a double in Arsenal’s 5-1 destruction of the Hoops at Parkhead in the summer of 1987. His next performance at Celtic Park would be his Bhoys debut when Celtic defeated Ayr United 4-0 in a League Cup tie on 22nd August 1990.

However, despite being part of a Celtic squad thin on real quality, he was unable to cement a first team starting spot and his appearances became increasingly rare. He is viewed as being another flop from the early 1990s and when someone can’t get into a Celtic side that bad it is a fair assumption to make. However, in truth, with only 10 appearances to his name Hayes never really was given many opportunities to show what he could do. Taking in the outlay on him (then a large amount) he could have been tried out a few more times. Then again he probably just didn’t have much to show in any case and already action was being taken to try to bury this big transfer mistake.

One anecdote that reveals exactly how much out of the picture Hayes was at Parkhead. One time he arrived an hour early for training, and with time to spare before the session began Hayes got changed at Parkhead and drove the short distance to the training pitch at Barrowfield. He pulled up in the corner of the car park and decided to have a quick nap before his team-mates arrived. Unfortunately for the player he fell into a deep sleep and awoke only just in time to see his mud covered team-mates and boss Liam Brady walking off the training pitch. A panic stricken Hayes rushed out of his car and over to Brady and desperately tried to explain his absence. A slightly bewildered Brady turned to the player and said matter-of-factly: “To be honest Martin, no one even noticed you were missing“. With friends/managers like that who needs enemies?

It was the end for him at Celtic, and his name is still often brought up as a big-money failed signing and has been the main reference point to highlight the poor state of Billy McNeill’s tenure as manager in his second spell at Celtic (in jest as much as in all seriousness).

Martin Hayes was released in January 1992 and after a short spells at Coventry and Wimbledon he went on to sign for Swansea in the first month of 1993. He eventually played non-league football for many teams ending up with Bishop’s Stortford where Martin Hayes became the Manager and held that post for 9 years.

In February 2009 he took up the position as Manager of Wingate and Finchley a team in the Ryman League. He later moved to Dover Athletic and Waltham Abbey for spells as manager.

We wish him the best.

Playing Career

Honours with Celtic

none (the barren years)

Pictures

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Perplexed Hayes

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/12759684.Perplexed_Hayes/
22 Aug 2009

MARTIN Hayes is living proof that Arsenal players don’t always get the breaks at Celtic Park. The England Under-21 international was carrying a hefty £650,000 price tag and a First Division league winners’ medal when he swapped north London for the East End of Glasgow in the summer of 1990, but a paltry seven starts in three seasons left him with a place alongside Wayne Biggins, Tony Cascarino and Rafael Scheidt in the pantheon of Parkhead pariahs.

The best part of two decades later, Hayes will be at the Emirates Stadium on Wednesday, commentating for Arsenal’s in-house online TV station as Celtic attempt to overturn their two-goal deficit in the Champions League play-off round. A lot of water has passed under the bridge, but there is still an undercurrent of raw emotion.

Hayes doesn’t hide the fact that he started his Celtic career poorly, unable to recreate the form which had seen him score 24 goals in a single campaign at Highbury. But he does feel he deserved more time to settle in, having abandoned the only footballing environment he had known since leaving school. Instead, before six months had passed, he was informed in no uncertain terms by under-pressure manager Billy McNeill that he had no future at the club.

His anonymity during his time there is best summed up by the tale which has entered folklore of the Englishman sharing a car with John Collins to Barrowfield, finding himself locked in, and the best part of half-an-hour elapsing before anyone noticed he was missing from the training field.

Even the arrival of his former Arsenal colleague Liam Brady as manager wasn’t enough to save him as he soon found himself farmed out on loan spells to Coventry City and Wimbledon. Being a prolific goalscorer in the Parkhead reserves wasn’t much of a consolation.

“I found working under Billy McNeill totally different to working under George Graham,” Hayes said. “I had gone from a very well oiled tactical machine under George to a Celtic where it was very much off the cuff and free spirited. You would do one thing all week and then it would be changed on Friday.

“We had a bad start in the first three or four games. The team weren’t fluent, and I wasn’t playing very well. I didn’t look like scoring a goal, which was what I always used to do. Me and Billy had a couple of disagreements about a couple of things, and the manager told me after six months don’t bother buying a house because you won’t be staying very long’. After that it was let’s see out the season and see what happens. From what I was told there was supposed to be a swap deal between me and Rod Wallace at Southampton, but Billy and Chris Nicholl at Southampton both got sacked on virtually the same day, so that was that.”

Celtic proved to be the turning point of Hayes’ career. And not in a good way. Hayes never managed to resurrect his career, spending two years at Swansea City before entering non-league football, first as a player, then manager for the best part of a decade at Bishop’s Stortford. With hindsight, moving to Celtic was a mistake, but he still feels goodwill towards the place and the fans. Even if it is tinged with disappointment.

“I never really showed what I can do, which is still a regret for me,” Hayes said. “Obviously if I was good enough to perform at Arsenal there is no reason you can’t do that elsewhere but for one reason, or maybe two or three, it just didn’t happen. I don’t look back too much because you can beat yourself up and make yourself paranoid about that.

“Take nothing away from Celtic – it is a great club and the support up there is brilliant. I spoke to a lot of people and really enjoyed living up there, but I went to play football and try to further my career and that didn’t happen. Players can go places and you can get labelled a misfit or a flop, but sometimes you can be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or be under the wrong manager.

“I think most of the fans I came across were pretty fair, to be honest with you. It was very much a case of well we never saw you play enough to make a fair judgment on you’. The jury has been out on me for about 20 years.”

The same, in some senses, now applies to Hayes’ former team-mate Tony Mowbray. Hayes is as surprised as any one that his fellow Englishman – “very much the old Terry Butcher type of player, a roll-your-sleeves up centre half” – has materialised as an ethereal, passing coach. His personal history makes him uniquely qualified to comment on Wednesday night’s game and Hayes for one does not subscribe to the widely touted theory that the tie is done and dusted.

“It really depends how Celtic approach the game coming down here,” Hayes said. “If they go all guns blazing then that will suit Arsenal. They don’t like it in the Premier League when sides don’t necessarily go at them, that can cause them a problem. They are not a big side who can resort to the ball into the box, even when they had Emmanuel Adebayor in there. But if sides do come out, Arsenal are very good at counter attacking. If Celtic get a goal then it is game on, while if Arsenal get a goal early, then it is game over.”

If both teams play the same way as last Tuesday night, then Arsenal will surely prevail. But as Hayes knows only too well that a lot can change when travelling between the east end of Glasgow and north London.

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