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Stuart Pearce on being dropped for first time in career by Ruud Gullit at Newcastle United

4 years ago
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Stuart Pearce is a class act, both as a person and as a player back in the day.

England’s best ever left-back in my opinion, certainly from the modern era 1970s onwards that I have seen.

Sadly, it was Forest fans who saw his best days in club football.

Newcastle supporters seeing him in his later days, Kenny Dalglish signing him as a 35 year old in 1997, along with John Barnes and Ian Rush.

However, Stuart Pearce did still put a real shift in at St James Park.

Playing mainly at centre-back he gave it his usual everything, only to be then dropped by Ruud Gullit.

As the new manager felt threatened by experienced big name players.

Ruud Gullit even sending England legend Stuart Pearce to train with the kids.

The former Newcastle player recalling what happened…

Stuart Pearce has been talking to Eamonn Holmes on his new Heineken podcast ‘A Pint with Eamonn and the Gaffers’ and was asked about being dropped for the first time in his career, Ruud Gullit leaving out a then 37 year old Pearce:

“I was 37 years old at the time and I’d never been out of a team, never.

“From the day I started playing non-league and broke into the team, I never came out again.

“At the age of 37, I was put out of the team and not just out of the team; I was thrown in with the young kids.

“The young kids’ mentality was that the manager (Ruud Gullit) doesn’t give a sh.. about us.

“He (Ruud Gullit) got younger player who he thought was better than me.

“To be fair, at the time I was a different animal, Ruud used to join in training and I used to say to Rob Lee and Shearer, ‘leave one short between the pair of them’, I used to give him everything I had.

“To be fair to Ruud, he never said once, ‘watch your tackling in training’. It was all in the nature of it!”

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