Sitting near the great Stuart Pearce
It’s been a while since me and Sam have been in South Africa Road. We were pleasantly surprised at how civilised it looked on this side of the stadium. There seemed to be more toilets for a start and it just felt friendlier for some reason, but perhaps this was just an illusion?
We happened to be sitting fairly close to Stuart Pearce, which came as something of a surprise to me. What a cracking player he was and an absolute legend for England.
I looked over at him a couple of times and the memories of him playing when I was a kid came flooding back. I still remember his tears from Italia ‘90 and in many ways, feel like I lived through his nightmare until that memorable penalty he scored in the shoot-out against Spain in Euro ‘96.
I don’t think I’m alone when I say I feared for his safety when he stepped up to take that penalty. It was the third of the five and the courage and bottle he showed was above anything I can remember in football. You could feel just about every English fan pausing collectively for a moment and hoping everything would be okay. For a split second, I didn’t care if we lost that shoot-out, I just wanted him to score and bury the ghosts that haunted him for so long.
Of course, he did score that penalty and wow, the way he celebrated is still one of the best and most passionate memories I have of supporting England or football, ever. I’ll never taste that type of euphoria again for England and in fact, I can’t stand the national set-up anymore.
I wanted to go up to him and shake his hand and tell him how much joy he’s brought to peoples lives over the years and how much I respected him as a player. I wanted to ask him what the hell was going through his mind and what it was like when he took that penalty?
In the end, I just sat there, kind of in awe, but also wondering why the rest of the fans were not flocking around him wanting to do the same. Perhaps we’ve all forgotten just how much good he has done, or maybe they were all in awe too! He seemed humble and approachable though and just a regular guy that I probably wouldn’t have noticed in the street, but that’s what makes him what he is I suppose.
Of course, as he’s the England Under 21 Manager, he was probably here to watch some of the youngsters. Dexter Blackstock and Michael Mancienne would be featuring for us - so I was really hoping they’d put in a good shift and get on his radar.
That got me thinking… I wonder what he makes of the modern day players? There’s not many around these days that were like he was or your David Seaman’s, Tony Adams, Paul Gascoigne’s or Alan Shearer’s of this world and it must get up his nose somewhat, it definitely gets up mine!
