As part of our Brits abroad series, Adam Bate speaks to Alan McInally about his time at Bayern Munich.
The Scottish forward spent three years with Bavarian giants Bayern Munich, winning the Bundesliga title and falling just short in Europe. Adam Bate caught up with the
Sky Sports pundit to find out more about his time in Germany.
How did the move to Bayern Munich come about?
I was obviously at Villa and there was still a year of my contract to go. At the time, I was playing for Scotland. The first time I knew of it was when we beat Chile 2-0 at Hampden. I had an agent at the time but not in the way people are involved now and this guy said to me, 'Bayern Munich are interested in you'. I was genuinely flying at the time with Villa and although the team wasn't brilliant I knew they were going to spend some money the next year under Graham Taylor. And I just kind of left it at that.
I remember the last game of the season I knew they were coming over and we drew 0-0 with Coventry and I thought that's that done - they won't be wanting me after a 0-0 with Coventry! But it was a typical end of season game. I was playing against big Brian Kilcline, whose nickname was Killer at the time, and we'd both said to each other that this is the last game of the season so don't be doing anything silly. And I said, 'Well don't be kicking me because I've got somebody watching me'. And I couldn't even score!
But it was two weeks after that I got contacted and they said they wanted to meet me. So I met them with my father in Glasgow and it wasn't so much, 'We want to sign you' as 'would you be interested?' It was Uli Hoeness, Jupp Heynckes and the president. Although I was obviously still under contract, I said I'd be very interested but it was a big move.
Going abroad wasn't really the thing at the time. When it did happen there were only two moves that year - Chris Waddle went to Marseille and I went to Bayern. It was kind of unheard of back then, even though it had been done before it hadn't been done massively successfully.
By the time Graham Taylor heard about it he threw a massive hissy fit and wasn't speaking to me for two weeks. But eventually the deal hit £1.5million, which was obviously a few quid back then. They flew me to Munich right away and I had a medical.
First impressions?
It was one of those things where they fly you over to see the Olympic Stadium and show you the training facilities. It was mind-bogglingly good and I mean mind-bogglingly good. It was an amazing place. The next thing I knew I was getting a medical which is as full a medical as I've had for anything ever in my life. And I knew right away that if I'm going to take the plunge this is one of the best places in Europe to be going so I decided and that was it.
So you felt it was clearly a step up from Celtic and Aston Villa?
It was a massive step up with the greatest respect to Aston Villa who I love dearly and always will. I kind of wish I'd stayed another year as I think we'd have won the title that year if I'd stayed because they finished second.
But I always remember Gordon Strachan when he took the Celtic job and me being surprised as he had no real affiliation to the club and was always a player the Celtic fans didn't really like that much. But I'll never forget Gordon Strachan saying to me, 'It's a job where if you get asked to do it you can't turn down - it's not even an option to turn it down'.
And I think at the time it wasn't really an option for me with Bayern Munich to
