On 30th October, 2000 Alan Pardew was one of the guests on Mark Bright's Football Show on Radio 5 Live, joining Charlton defender Chris Powell and Radio 5 commentator John Murray (who is not the John Murray who used to play for us, even though they both come from the North-East).
One of Alan's first comments was to say that he was at the Arsenal-Lazio Champions League game with Martin Allen, and that they were both impressed by the workrate of the players on view. No doubt disreputable websites will now be linking us with a selection of players from those two clubs (or linking our management team with the vacancy apparently about to arise at Lazio).
The panel was discussing the pressure of the media with all the extra media coverage that football gets now compared to ten years ago. Alan said that it didn't apply at our level as our division hardly got a mention in the national papers. Interestingly, he added that Reading had recently contacted a tabloid over the amount of press coverage.
A question later posed to him was "Can you buy your way to the Premiership?" He never really answered the question although he did talk about the need to build up a set of players, and also said that it was possible to make it with a smaller squad if you avoided injuries. Alan added that he had recently watched the video of the 1995 play-off final - I think that this is excellent, because it means that he is trying to understand how the club works at all levels. He's obviously heard plenty of people refer to that match, and decided to look at it for himself. (I bet Tommy Burns never did anything like that.)
The next question was "Would he have gambled on Stan Collymore, if he was in Bradford's shoes?" This was interesting because of course there were lots of rumours about Collymore being seen at Madejski Stadium earlier in the year. - after a bit of a pause, Pardew said that it was "worth a gamble" from Bradford's point of view, which doesn't really tell us whether there was a chance that the depressed woman-beater might have been seen in a Reading shirt.
At this point, the discussion was massively disrupted by a report from Italy that Sven-Goran Eriksson had accepted the England manager's job, so we will never know whether Mark Bright had intended to steer the conversation around to an in-depth analysis of Division 2 this season.
The programme then reverted to a phone-in, and as a consequence immediately became much less interesting, with particular reference to the exceptionally boring callers who supported Rangers and Spurs. Some of the questions were fielded by Alan Pardew, as follows:
Q: "Should Middlesbrough use a sports
psychologist?"
A: "I think that psychology plays an important role in
management and coaching today. There is a role for it, as long as
it's aimed at footballers so that you don't lose the players. I
don't know about Middlesbrough."
Q: "What difference does the England manager
make to a club like Reading in terms of feeding knowledge down to
lower levels" (asked by Stuart from High Wycombe who had a
son he felt wasn't getting the right coaching)
A: "The FA assesses our Academy structure but they only look
at the facilities - size of dressing rooms, quality of pitches,
and so on. They don't look at the quality of the coaches, which
is really the important thing. This means Reading are forced to
spend extra money on facilities, and consequently some of our
Academy coaches are part-time or working for nothing. Reading's
Academy coaching can be improved but we don't have the resources."
That question ended with the caller's son being offered a trial, because he lived in the area covered by our Academy. Why did my father never try that one?
Q: "There were a lot of high profile people
linked with the Reading management job. Why did they give it to
you?"
A: .Alan Pardew avoided answering this question!
Q: "As a big club in your division, do you
get special treatment from referees?"
A: "I wish. Referees are human." (Actually, I'm not
sure I agree with him on that one.)
Q: "Who will win the Sheffield derby in the
Worthington Cup 3rd round?"
A: "Wednesday."
First Team . Opposition . Reserves . Academy . Where Are They Now? . Columns . Kingsley . MadStad . Interactive . Links . Site Map