‘An Evening with Stuart Pearce’ continued
07/08/05 | by Rich Fisher

Those of you who have picked up a copy of the first issue of the LTLF Fanzine will have seen our feature about the excellent ‘Evening with Stuart Pearce’ that was held recently at Nottingham nightclub Cabaret. On the night, Psycho had so much to say that it was difficult to decide what to include and what not to include in the magazine. Here are some of the great man’s pearls of wisdom that didn’t make our ‘final cut’...

What’s your favourite memory of Brian Clough?
Well there was a time when we were playing Derby and myself and the other players arrived in the dressing room before the game to find the big fella in the bath. Nothing wrong with that, you might think – but he had all his clothes on and a big shovel by his side! Everyone just left him to it and went to get warmed up ready for the game – but when we reconvened in the dressing room just before kick-off, there was no sign of the gaffer. We asked Liam O’Kane where he was, and he said, "He’s in the sauna now, trying to get his clothes to dry out!"

Everyone obviously knows about your infamous penalty miss for England. Now you’re a manager, has there ever been a time when one of your players has missed a spot-kick, and you’ve had a go at them about at only for them to turn round and say ‘Well at least I didn’t miss by as much as you did!’?
No, no-one ever says that to me! [Said with a glint in his eye that suggested the consequences for such insolence would be severe!]

Another famous incident from your international career was when you were head-butted by Basile Boli when England played France in the 1992 European Championships. Did that piss you off?
I probably had the hump with him a bit! And straight afterwards I took the free-kick and hit the underside of the bar, which gave me the hump even more! But afterwards, I did a press interview – and you know what it’s like with the press. If I’d said "Yes, he head-butted me", they’d have turned the tables on me by dragging up details of some of the dodgy tackles that I’d done in the past. Ted McMinn springs to mind! So I played it down – I said that Boli just bumped into me. And to his credit, he faxed me at the hotel that night to thank me for my sportsmanship because he knew that if I’d taken it further, he’d probably have ended up being banned for the rest of the tournament.

Your story is obviously quite unusual isn’t it, in that you actually came into professional football very late?
Yeah, I started out as a non-league clogger. I played for five-and-a-half years for a non-league side before I was picked up by a professional team. Most people in here probably know my story already – but I’m an electrician by trade, and worked in a warehouse before that for a year. So I know what it’s like to go out and do real work. I think when I became a professional footballer, I quickly realised how privileged a life it can be – you basically earn good money to keep fit. It certainly pisses me off when I see players bellyaching about this and that.

So how did you get your break into professional football?
Well I was playing for Wealdstone in non-league and one of the coaches there got some work as a scout for Coventry. Coventry’s manager at the time, Bobby Gould, asked this coach who the best left-back in non-league football was. Straight away, the guy mentioned my name – and that was my break.

What do you remember from your time at Coventry?
Well I’m certainly pleased I went to Coventry before trying to take on Brian Clough! It gave me a decent grounding in professional football before I went on to work with the great man. We had a few relegation scraps at Highfield Road – one season we had to win our last three matches to stay up. And we did it. We won 1-0 away at Stoke – they had a penalty to equalise in the last minute, although it hit the underside of the bar, bounced on the line and then came out. We then won 1-0 in a home game, can’t remember who it was against... and then finished by beating Everton 4-1. Everton had actually just finished as champions – I think Peter Reid and the boys had been on the piss the night before! That was probably my best moment at Coventry.

Coventry have obviously just moved to a new ground – a scenario you’ll know all about from Manchester City’s recent move to the City of Manchester Stadium. Can moving to a new ground cause problems for a team?
Well normally at football grounds, you get people who have been sat next to each other for donkey’s years – and this obviously helps generate camaraderie in the stands. But when you change stadiums, people are suddenly sat in different places and surrounded probably by people that they don’t really know – and that changeover can be a bit of a problem. We certainly found that at City.

How did it feel when Ruud Gullit took over as manager of Newcastle a few years ago and banished you to the reserve team?
It’s difficult – I was 37 years old at the time, so obviously he saw me as a fella who was ‘past it’ and no good to Newcastle any more. He called me in and said ‘You know don’t you that you’ll never play for this club again?’ I totally respected that – but one thing I did learn from it that’s stood me in good stead now I’ve gone into management was that when you leave players out of the team, it’s important to carry on talking to them and explain to them the decision behind why you’re not playing them. This is something Ruud didn’t do with me, and also a number of other players. Now I learned a lot of things from Ruud – for instance, his organisation and training were very good. But his man management was shite in my opinion. And man management is key in football – if you haven’t got those skills, then you’re going to have a big problem with your squad. As it was, although Ruud didn’t think I was good enough to play for Newcastle, eight months later Harry Redknapp thought I was good enough to play for West Ham – and then shortly after that, Kevin Keegan thought I was good enough to play for England!