In-depth with Dons fans’ favourite Chris Perry on Plough Lane pomp and Charlton Athletic feeling like home
BY RICHARD CAWLEY
richard@slpmedia.co.uk
Chris Perry has lived the dream when it comes to football. Right from the very start.
The 51-year-old, who is now joint-manager of Millwall U18s, came through the playing ranks of his boyhood club Wimbledon – playing six successive seasons during their Premier League heyday in the 1990s.
Perry went on to become a club record £4million signing for Tottenham and also had three top-flight campaigns with Charlton Athletic.
But the beginning of his career was special with the Dons as he lived in Haverlock Road, just five minutes walk from Plough Lane.
“My grandad and his mum – my great grandma – supported Wimbledon in the 1920s,” said Perry, who was spotted by scout Clive Staines playing in the West Surrey Boys League at the age of 11 and joined the club’s Centre of Excellence.
“My dad was a supporter and I was about three years old when I went to my first game. I supported the club and I watched them every game they were at home. Back then they were still Division Four and had the likes of John Leslie, Ray Goddard in goal and Steve Galliers.
“For me it was the only place I wanted to go. I didn’t know about any other club. It was an incredibly proud moment. Nobody built it up because I think they thought it might not happen.
“Joe Kinnear gave me my debut – Liverpool at home (in April 1994) – with about 20 minutes to go. I can’t remember who was at right-back, but they got injured. I was a centre-back all the way through – so didn’t like playing right-back – but was told I had to go and mark Steve McManaman.
“We finished off the season really well and went seven or eight games unbeaten. We were seventh in the league and my second sub game was against Tottenham, at home as well, and that was playing against (Jurgen) Klinsmann.
“It was a great experience but it was a long journey to there because I felt I was ready to play in the first-team a little bit earlier than that. But because I’m not the tallest I think people didn’t really want to give me the opportunity.
“It was only once I got the chance that I never really came back out.”
Perry picks out the 1996-97 season as his favourite as a footballer.
Kinnear’s team, groundsharing at Crystal Palace’s Selhurst Park, finished eighth in the Premier League and reached the semi-finals of both domestic cup competitions.
They cruelly went out on away goals to Leicester City in the League Cup and lost 3-0 to Chelsea, a Mark Hughes brace and fine individual goal by Gianfranco Zola.
“We were so close to going on and achieving something,” said Perry. “We fell at the final hurdle, probably too many games for such a small squad. It left us a bit short at the end of the season.
“The League Cup was really hard to take and then we had Chelsea – by that time we had played 55-60 games – and we were well-beaten. It was a brilliant experience to get that far with the club you support and a lot of friends who came through from the same youth team.”
Kinnear, who passed away aged 77 in April 2024, plugged the Dons back into their Crazy Gang roots which had initially been fostered by Dave Bassett during their remarkable rise up the football pyramid.
Perry says that social media makes it far more difficult for clubs to replicate that enviroment now.
“I could tell you some of the stories – but you wouldn’t be able to print them,” he said. “You can’t go out as a group of players now, have a few drinks and a laugh like that, because it will be all over the press and social media.
“We had Vinnie (Jones) and he is very well-known for that sort of thing (the pranks). There were some very big characters in that group. I was one of the quieter ones – not really my thing – but you had to go. If you didn’t go then you weren’t in the group.
“We were very close. We used to drink together, go out together – everyone was in it for each other. It was very much a siege mentality – we’d use the fact we were little old Wimbledon and everyone didn’t really give us any hope of doing anything. We fed on that. We knew as a collective we were really, really strong.
“New signings would come in and after they went out to training their clothes were on fire in the changing room.”
Perry earned the moniker of ‘The Rash’ for his close-marking of strikers.
“It wasn’t a nickname the players used – I got it from the press,” he said. “It’s not a nice nickname, as such, but the reason I was given it I should take as a compliment – that I was all over the opposition.
“I never took it as derogatory. I do want to be all over these centre-forwards. I want to be tight and nick the ball off them – make sure they can’t do what they want to do.”
Perry describes his height as “five feet eight – and a little bit”.
He talked during his career about needing to pick and choose when to jump early against opponents.
“When I came through from the U18s to the U21s I never went out out on loan, I only every played in the reserves, because no-one wanted to take me,” said Perry. “It was ‘he’s too small’.
“I felt ready for the first-team two years before I did it. It only happened because there were a couple of injuries and I played a League Cup game at Torquay.
“People have a perception you can’t play centre-back at my height but you can – you’ve got Lisandro Martinez at Manchester United now and Fabio Cannavaro was one of the best centre-backs of all time.
“It’s a case of someone giving you an opportunity.
“I had a good spring, I had good timing, I was quite athletic and I read the game pretty well. I had the tools. I’d lived with it all my life – I was always quite skinny and I wasn’t very strong, so you have to work out how to play and how to be successful. Even from U12s onwards I came up against bigger and stronger centre-forwards who would expect to beat me. You work out ways that they can’t.”
Perry is quick to select Thierry Henry as his toughest opponent, describing the former Arsenal man as “literally unplayable for a couple of seasons”.
“He was on a different level because he had everything,” added Perry. “Pace, strong and he was clever. He had great technique and used both feet. He was just sensational. There is no-one like him now. He is very different to (Erling) Haaland. He could make you look silly.”
Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson backed Perry as good enough to play for England, such was his admiration for the way he subdued Andrew Cole and also scored in a 1997 encounter at Old Trafford.
“He is the greatest Premier League manager of all time so it is a fantastic compliment,” said Perry. “I had a few phone calls where people had heard whispers I was going to be in the next squad. It never quite happened.
“It probably comes down to being at an unfashionable club at the time – my best performances were probably at Wimbledon from 1995 to 1998 and then at Charlton.
“It just wasn’t the right time or right manager to take a chance on someone who is five feet eight and going to play centre-half for England. Someone has to take that risk – no-one wanted to do it.”
Wimbledon were used to selling prize assets to balance the books – the likes of Keith Curle, John Scales and Warren Barton – and it was Perry’s turn in July 1999.
“It felt like it was the right time to move on because the club’s Norwegian owners were coming in – with Egil Olsen – and it didn’t have the same feeling of Wimbledon any more,” said Perry, who went on to partner Sol Campbell at Spurs.
“My time at Tottenham was generally good. I also played against Sol when he came back and that was interesting because I’ve never seen a player so strong, in terms of mentally, to get through what he went through on that night – his first time back with Arsenal.
“That was an incredible experience, that one game, and Spurs certainly improved me in possession.”
Perry initially signed for Charlton on loan in September 2003 before making it permanent that November.
“There was never a problem between me and Glenn Hoddle but he wanted to play a certain style at Tottenham with people really comfortable playing out from the back,” said Perry.
“I was okay doing that but never the most comfortable stepping out into midfield. He brought in two or three centre-backs and I didn’t really want to sit on the bench at that stage of my career. I had played virtually all the time from when I got into the first-team.
“The chance to go to another Premier League club in London was a great opportunity. I jumped at it.”
Perry was part of Alan Curbishley’s Charlton team which came seventh in the 2003-04 season – their highest-ever finish in the Premier League.
“We started absolutely on fire and were fourth at Christmas and then we lost Scott Parker to Chelsea in January,” said Perry.
“The amount of ground he could cover, he was an incredible player to have in front of you as a defensive midfielder. He would mop up most of the danger before it got to you.
“It was a small squad, again like Wimbledon, and we picked up injuries. It was a pity because had we held on to Scott I think we’d have finished in those Champions League spots.
“It was the one club I went to that felt very much like Wimbledon. It was a group of players that have been thrown together – great team spirit – who would go out and do a lot together, very friendly off the pitch. It was all about family. I felt really at home there.”
“Fair play to Alan Curbishley, because he was the one who sort of fostered that.”
The £100,000 fee paid looks an absolute snip with Perry playing 84 times for the SE7 club.
He said: “You see the promotions they had won and how far the team had come but he (Curbishley) wasn’t the best coach I ever worked with. And he wasn’t the best man-motivator I ever worked with. But what he did do was sign a group of players who could manage themselves on the pitch. There was enough experience in those teams about what needed to be done without him almost having to intervene. There is an art to that, I think.”
Perry went on to represent West Brom, Luton and Southampton, his final pit stop being in the latter’s 2009-10 League One season.
He lived in the Wimbledon area until he was at Tottenham, commuting for the first year, before moving to Loughton in Essex, which is where he still resides.
“I was away from home – driving up and down the motorway – and my kids were young,” said Perry, discussing his retirement. “If I carried on playing I wanted to join a team that was going to allow me to be at home with them all the time, be more of a dad to them.
“Unfortunately nothing really came up that matched that. My last ever game was at Wembley, winning the Football League Trophy, so it wasn’t a bad way to finish.
“I felt I’d had a good career. I was ready to maybe have a little rest and then go on to another challenge.
“I hadn’t been doing any coaching courses at the end of my career. I probably wish I had, to be honest.
“I had planned on taking a year off and enjoying myself. My golf handicap came down to 12, which was nice.
“I did my level two coaching badge and had the opportunity to go into Dagenham & Redbridge to coach there. I enjoyed it so much that the bug grew.”
PICTURES: PA AND BRIAN TONKS