Stuart Pearce

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Stuart Pearce
Personal information
Full name	Stuart Pearce
Date of birth	April 24, 1962 (age 44)
Place of birth	Hammersmith, London, England
Nickname	Psycho
Position	Manager (former Defender)
Club information
Current club	Manchester City
Professional clubs*
Years	Club	Apps (goals)
1981-1983 1983-1985 1985-1997 1997-1999 1999-2001 2001-2002	Wealdstone Coventry City Nottingham Forest Newcastle United West Ham United Manchester City	n/a 52 (4) 401 (63) 37 (0) 42 (2) 38 (3)
National team
1987-1999	England	78 (5)
Teams managed
1996-1997 2005-present	Nottingham Forest (caretaker) Manchester City
* Professional club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only.

Stuart Pearce MBE (born April 24, 1962 in Hammersmith, London) is an English football coach, and manager of Manchester City, having been appointed as permanent manager after a period as caretaker following the retirement of Kevin Keegan.

As a player, Pearce had a long and distinguished career, becoming one of the most highly regarded defenders his country has ever produced, best remembered for his time at Nottingham Forest and his England international duties.

Contents 1 Club career 2 England career 3 Coaching career 4 Personal life 5 Managerial stats 6 External links

[edit] Club career

Born in West London, he failed a trial at Queens Park Rangers and then rejected an offer from Hull City, instead settling happily into a career in the non-league game with his local side, Wealdstone while training and working as an electrician and plumber. For almost five years, he was the first choice full back of a highly successful team, then amongst the biggest names of non-league football.

In 1983 Wealdstone received an unexpected offer of £30,000 (then a huge sum for a semi-professional player) for Pearce from top-flight club Coventry City. Manager Bobby Gould had been to watch Wealdstone, and was hugely impressed by Pearce's determination and combative attitude. Pearce agreed to the move excitedly - making his professional debut for Coventry immediately. Quickly establishing himself as an uncompromising left back who played hard but fair, he was then bought by Brian Clough for Nottingham Forest two years later, as the make weight in a £300,000 deal which also saw Coventry's centre back Ian Butterworth move to Forest. Indeed, so unsure was Pearce of his footballing future that, after the transfer, he actually advertised his services as an electrician in Forest's match-day programme. However that determination and combative attitude made him an all time fans favourite and earned him the nickname Psycho.

Pearce spent more than ten years at Forest, most of it as club captain, becoming by far and away the supporters' favourite player, and briefly also became player manager, a caretaker role he held while the club found a long-term boss. This short period in charge saw him win the manager of the month award, although ultimately resulted in Nottingham Forest's relegation. During his eventful playing career he won two League Cups and the Simod Cup, while also scoring from a free kick in the 1991 FA Cup final, when Forest were beaten by Tottenham Hotspur.

When Nottingham Forest suffered relegation from the FA Premier League, Pearce left for Newcastle United and reached another FA Cup final, though again he emerged on the defeated side. He went on to play for West Ham United, after being left out of the Newcastle side for over a year by the then manager - Ruud Gullit. Pearce subsequently moved to Manchester City in 2001 as player-coach (see "coaching career" below).

[edit] England career

He made his debut for England against Brazil in 1987 (the 999th player to receive an England cap) and, from 1988 onwards, became the first choice left back for his country, in so doing wrestling the number 3 jersey away from Kenny Sansom prior to Sansom's thirtieth birthday. Injury robbed him of a place as Sansom's back-up in England's squad for the 1988 European Championships, but after the tournament, coach Bobby Robson decided to make Pearce his first choice left back. He ultimately became Forest's most capped outfield player and ended up with 78 international appearances to his name.

At the 1990 World Cup, Pearce had a goal ruled out from a free kick during a group game against the Netherlands, but played well through the tournament, setting up a goal for David Platt in the quarter finals and operating as a more attacking left back than normal as England deployed a sweeper system. England progressed to the semi-finals, and Pearce was one of two unfortunate players to miss a penalty in the shoot-out which took place against West Germany after the match had ended in a 1-1 draw. Pearce left the field in tears, though was never blamed for England's defeat as his penalty was saved by the goalkeeper and was on target for the goal, unlike the one which followed from Chris Waddle, which ballooned over the crossbar.

Pearce played in an unsuccessful Euro 92 campaign for England, when they failed to win any of their group games. He had a thunderous free kick strike the underside of the crossbar and bounce away from goal in a drawn game against France. Moments before taking the free kick, Pearce was headbutted by French defender Basile Boli, leaving a gash on his cheek. When England won the free kick Pearce immediately disregarded his injury and rushed to take it. The referee insisted on Pearce having the blood wiped from his face first, but Pearce soon returned and unleashed his thunderbolt, which failed to go in. England's failure to qualify for the 1994 FIFA World Cup in the USA included a personal nightmare for Pearce, when his underhit back pass allowed forward Davide Gualtieri to score for San Marino (who at the time had never won an international game) inside the first eight seconds of their qualifier. England still won the game 7-1, but qualification was already impossible.

When Terry Venables became England coach later in 1994, Pearce lost his place to Graeme Le Saux but then regained it after the Blackburn Rovers defender suffered a broken leg. Pearce stayed in the side into the Euro 96 competition, laying his ghosts to rest with a successful penalty in a quarter-final shoot-out against Spain, which England won. His forceful, emotional celebration before an ecstatic Wembley crowd became one of English football's most celebrated images. He repeated the feat in the semi-final shoot-out against Germany but once again the Germans emerged victorious.

After the tournament, Pearce joined fellow England penalty missers Chris Waddle and Gareth Southgate (who missed in Euro 96) in a light-hearted commercial for Pizza Hut in which they poked fun at their own misfortunes.

Pearce played only briefly under Glenn Hoddle and seemed to have completed his international career with 76 caps by the time he scaled down his career at Newcastle and then West Ham. However, the appointment of Keegan to the England job prompted a recall for a 36 year old Pearce for two qualifying games for Euro 2000. Pearce's broken leg later put paid to further international chances and he ended his international career with 78 caps, which for a time put him in the all-time top ten appearance makers for England.

[edit] Coaching career

Pearce's last club was Manchester City, where he spent one season as a player-coach. Pearce scored on his league debut for the team, a 3-0 victory over Watford. He was a rock in the City defence for the 2001-2002 season helping the team earn promotion back into the Premiership for the 2002-2003 season. In his last game he missed a penalty in his final game as a professional footballer, even though goalkeeper Dave Beasant had promised not to attempt a save. Had he scored, Pearce would have achieved 100 career goals.

He remained at Manchester City as a coach, and was appointed caretaker manager of the club on March 10, 2005 following the departure of Keegan. He expressed his wish on appointment to get the job permanently, though accepted that this would depend on the results he achieved during his temporary period in charge. On May 12, after 15 points from his first 8 games, it was announced he would be appointed on a permanent basis. His first full season in charge was mixed; a reasonable opening three months, plus some good publicity thanks to Pearce's eccentricities on the touchline, was tempered by a poor ending to the campaign as City lost nine of their last ten games of the season. For City's current league position in the 2006/2007 season see this link.

There has been recent speculation in the media that Pearce could either resign or be sacked after City took only four points from the first five games of 2006-07 and had an early second round exit from the Carling Cup.

[edit] Personal life

Pearce is a known devotee of punk rock, and, indeed is visible as one of the members of a frenetic audience featured on the cover of a live album by one of his favourite bands, The Lurkers. Additionally, he has met The Stranglers nearly 30 times, and has had a record label named after him by the band, (Psycho Records). He also enjoys reading, going to the theatre and owns racehorses with his wife, Liz.

Throughout his career, he was given the affectionate nickname of 'Psycho' for his unforgiving style of play. This was initially a tag afforded to him only by Forest fans, though later it was adopted by England supporters too. A compilation of computer games was released as Psycho's Soccer Collection in 1992.

Although Pearce, with 78 caps, stands currently as the 12th most capped player for England, he did not even emerge as the most capped left back - his predecessor Kenny Sansom achieved that with 86 caps, which places him seventh in the all-time list. However, in a 2000 poll to find England's greatest XI, the public voted overwhelmingly for Stuart Pearce to take the left back spot. Sansom and Ashley Cole, the other candidates in the poll, trailed well behind.

His autobiography, Psycho, was released in 2001 and became a Sunday Times best seller.

In 2006, Pearce's seven year old daughter Chelsea insisted that he took her toy horse Beany on to the touchline with him when Manchester City were in action. Pearce resignedly did so, stating it was impossible to tell a small girl why he shouldn't, but after City won the match, superstition took over and Beany ended up alongside him in the technical area for several games to come until City were defeated.

[edit] Managerial stats

Team	Nat	From	To	Record
				G	W	L	D	Win %
Nottingham Forest		December 20, 1996	May 8, 1997	23	7	7	9	30.43
Manchester City		March 11, 2005	Present	70	25	30	15	35.71

[edit] External links

• Stuart Pearce career stats at Soccerbase
• Stuart Pearce management career stats at Soccerbase
• Stuart Pearce profile at the League Managers Association

Preceded by Frank Clark	Nottingham Forest F.C. manager 1996-1997	Succeeded by Dave Bassett
Preceded by Kevin Keegan	Manchester City F.C. manager 2005-Present	Succeeded by Incumbent

	England squad - 1990 World Cup
1 Shilton | 2 Stevens | 3 Pearce | 4 Webb | 5 Walker | 6 Butcher | 7 Bryan Robson | 8 Waddle | 9 Beardsley | 10 Lineker | 11 Barnes | 12 Parker | 13 Woods | 14 Wright | 15 Dorigo | 16 McMahon | 17 Platt | 18 Hodge | 19 Gascoigne | 20 Steven | 21 Bull | 22 Beasant | Coach: Bobby Robson

Manchester City F.C. - Current Squad
1 Isaksson | 2 Richards | 3 Thatcher | 4 Jordan | 5 Dabo | 6 Reyna | 7 Ireland | 8 Barton | 11 Vassell | 12 Weaver | 14 Dickov | 15 Distin | 16 Onuoha | 17 Sun | 18 D. Mills | 20 Samaras | 21 Hamann | 22 Dunne | 24 Beasley | 25 Hart | 26 M. Mills | 27 Trabelsi | 28 Sinclair | 30 Corradi | 33 Johnson | 39 Laird | 43 Miller | Manager: Pearce