Life on the edge yields tense future

As a boy at school in Bangor, Co Down, it seemed a fair assumption that Keith Gillespie would retain some memory of an Irish history textbook called The Narrow Ground. Wrong. Despite joyously proclaiming an A grade in his history O-level, Gillespie could not remember the book.

The subject arose because of Gillespie's past eloquence on the narrow ground of the winger, a space he has inhabited since swapping a grammar school education for professional football seven years ago, but also because the public perception is that the 23-year-old now stands on shrinking ground at St James' Park.

When his name is mentioned people talk of crossroads rather than crosses and it is understandable, for since that O-level Gillespie has been part of the Ferguson youth squad at Old Trafford, the Andy Cole transfer, 165 games for Manchester and Newcastle Uniteds, the teams of four fab managers and 22 internationals for Northern Ireland.

That was on the field. Off it there has been the acquisition of an expensive gambling habit, the Dublin pavement incident with Alan Shearer, a broken curfew, the injury and the non-move to Middlesbrough. Always claims, always denials.

An outsider might think that with a past imperfect and a future tense Gillespie might be nervous or introspective. Wrong again. He is not cocky either but there is self-assurance and the reason for that is not something learnt under Alex Ferguson, Kevin Keegan, Kenny Dalglish or Ruud Gullit. It is because of Jean-Marc Bosman.

Bosman has made Gillespie and the generation of footballers to which he belongs the authors of their own careers. This means that Gillespie, on the fringes of Gullit's Newcastle and under a contract that expires next June, can relax and consider the future carefully rather than fret on the sidelines in the manner of powerless players in the past.

Gillespie knows that if he is not sold by June he can walk away from Newcastle and negotiate terms elsewhere.

Middlesbrough would be one - Bryan Robson rang Gillespie to express his regret the day the Boro transfer collapsed - and Gillespie's situation may explain why Newcastle have now offered him a new four-year deal. However, while it seems implausible that Gullit would not have some say in this, Gillespie said yesterday: "I've been offered a new contract by the board, not Ruud Gullit. I haven't accepted it yet.

"At the minute I don't want to do anything because I'm not in the team and I don't want to sit on the bench every week. I have been a bit disappointed about starting only once but then the manager would expect me to be disappointed. So I don't want to do anything hastily."

Gillespie's single start came in Newcastle's 5-1 victory at Coventry but he has had no one-to-one talks with Gullit before or since about where he stands in the Dutchman's plans. "Everyone is still uncertain but it was always going to be like that once Kenny went. People are trying hard to understand Ruud and the way he works. We are just at the getting-to-know-you stage."

It is a stage Gillespie had gone beyond with Dalglish and the player has gone out of his way to thank Dalglish "for standing by me" during the Middlesbrough affair. "Loyalty to players was Kenny's strong point," he said, "and the players appreciated that."

Loyalty is all very well but what Gillespie needs most is 90 minutes' football and he may even volunteer to play for Newcastle reserves to get it. At least today in Belfast he is assured of a game against Finland as Northern Ireland try to put last month's 3-0 stuffing by Turkey behind them. "The mood is good" under Lawrie McMenemy, said Gillespie, despite the Irish having "fallen to pieces" after Turkey's second goal in Istanbul.

Today Northern Ireland need to score if optimism is not to be extinguished after only two games, but then scoring has long since been the problem. Iain Dowie has his assets but he is no Shearer. Shearer's strength, of course, is familiar to Gillespie. He has, it could be said, first-hand experience of it, but Gillespie is insistent that the two men are good friends. "There is no problem between us whatsoever. It was just a drunken day in Dublin and Alan would laugh if he heard that other people thought there was a problem. We're in the same card school and we have a laugh together. Anyone who says otherwise is way off the mark."

Talk of cards brought up the subject of gambling - Gillespie once lost £40,000 in a day - but his last bet was a social one, on the Derby. His horse lost. Maybe it was the narrow ground.