Pearce: ‘I applied for the Forest job’
20/05/04 | Exclusive by Alex Walker

Nottingham Forest legend Stuart Pearce has revealed to LTLF that he applied for the Forest manager’s job after Paul Hart was sacked. The 41-year-old is currently a coach at Manchester City, but at a signing session for Wonderland Memorabilia and LTLF last month, he said that he was looking for the right job to take him into management.

Pearce says: “I’ll probably carry on with what I’m doing here, unless a manager’s job becomes open.”

And when asked whether he was interested in becoming Forest manager when Paul Hart was sacked in February, he said: “I applied for that job.”

It seems that the Forest board had already decided on Joe Kinnear as the new man in charge before they received Pearce’s application. He was many fans’ choice to take the helm at the City Ground, along with former team-mate Nigel Clough. Many fans expect him to eventually return to Nottingham after leaving for Newcastle in 1997.

As well as coaching the first team at Man City, Pearce is currently studying on a course in football management at the Warwick Business School, in which Tony Adams is one of his class-mates. However, he is wary of following Adams into lower league football, saying “it would have to be the right offer” to tempt him to take such a “big risk” and move away from his current job.

Peace was manager of Forest for a brief period in 1997, during which he was awarded the Premiership Manager of the Month Award. He was signing shirts and photos at an exclusive signing session for Wonderland Memorabilia and LTLF at City’s state-of-the-art training centre at Carrington. During the session he reminisced about his career.

He said: “I remember doing one of these [signing sessions] after the 1991 FA Cup final. They got the whole Forest team and the whole Tottenham team to sign 2,000 video covers. But they found out that Gazza had paid some kid to sign them all for him, so the company refused to pay us.”

You can now buy items from our collection of quality framed photos and rare shirts, autographed by Pearce and his former manager Brian Clough direct from LTLF – at prices well below what you would normally pay for personally signed memorabilia from this pair of Forest legends.

Click here to see the items available exclusively online from LTLF