Paul Tisdale - Ex-Bristol Rovers Manager to Col Utd now Stevenage

[iscalad]

Tis and Perryman still in touch, plus a couple of (imho slightly snide) City references

‘Tottenham brought José Mourinho in to win trophies – even if it is the League Cup’

Steve Perryman is on the mend after contracting Covid-19 and is looking out of the window of his Devon home at the snow, and at a car that has not been driven f

www.thetimes.co.uk

Behind a paywall

 

[Spoonz Red E]

Behind a paywall

Who pays the Perryman?

 

[Egg]

Tis and Perryman still in touch, plus a couple of (imho slightly snide) City references

‘Tottenham brought José Mourinho in to win trophies – even if it is the League Cup’

Steve Perryman is on the mend after contracting Covid-19 and is looking out of the window of his Devon home at the snow, and at a car that has not been driven f

www.thetimes.co.uk

I didn't see any snide City references, though I did bulk at the suggestion he told a group of City youngsters they had to get one in on their opponents before they got one in on them, or, as Mourinho puts it, be 'a bunch of c***s'. Not quite sure how he reconciled that with Tis' proper-chap philosophy.

 

[jase 07]

If he’s still living in Lympstone then I’m not sure where he was looking to see snow outside his window.

I read somewhere that he moved to Wiltshire a few months ago

 

[Egg]

I read somewhere that he moved to Wiltshire a few months ago

There's a clue in the first line of the story... ;-)

 

[RedPaul]

Behind a paywall

Here goes - it's quite long!! [The Times 4th Jan]

Steve Perryman is on the mend after contracting Covid-19, and looking out of the window of his Devon home at the snow and the frost and at a car that has not been driven for three weeks. He is considering driving to watch Bristol Rovers train, as the team is managed by his good friend Paul Tisdale. “My wife has just needed to point out it was sensible not to go,” the 69-year-old, who made a club-record 854 first-team appearances for Tottenham Hotspur, says.

Perryman is, to say the least, stoic. A life-changing collapse, a seven-hour heart operation and three-week coma eight years ago was not, for him, life-changing at all. Perryman suffered an aortic dissection while watching Exeter City, where he was director of football, in action. “If it had happened at home the same morning I would not have been surrounded by people and St John Ambulance,” he says. “An air ambulance was available, a surgeon was available to do a seven-hour operation. Only 40 per cent of people with an aortic dissection make it to hospital and of those 40 per cent only 5 per cent survive.” Did the trauma of it all not change him emotionally? “No,” he says, “I’m the same person. I was told it was hereditary rather than lifestyle. My physical prowess helped me get through the pain barrier. I was a player who preferred to play tired than play rusty.”

Tottenham face Brentford tomorrow in the semi-final of the Carabao Cup and there is a case for the tie to be labelled “the Perryman derby”. The former Spurs captain grew up in Northolt, west London. His mother’s family was from Ealing and his father’s from Hounslow, with Brentford located in between, and Perryman would cycle aged seven with his brothers to see Brentford play. He played for and then was manager of Brentford for three years up until 1990, but he will always be regarded as a Spurs legend and he had planned to spend 2020 on a worldwide tour to promote his book, Steve Perryman: A Spur Forever.

His old club have done well to hire José Mourinho, according to Perryman. Many Tottenham fans were worried that the pragmatism of the Portuguese would jar with the Spurs philosophy but “deep down I was thinking, ‘This man has won so many things’. I thought when he first came to England he was unbelievable. Everything he touched was perfect. Every manager has highs and lows and even with his lows he was interesting. I was sorry to see Mauricio Pochettino go, he had a lot about him as a man, a personality and leader of people. “Maybe it was time for a Mourinho-type character to come in. When it came out [via the Amazon documentary All or Nothing] that he said we had to be a bunch of c***s, it reminded me of my time at Exeter, where you are trying to make it with no resources. “I had a meeting with young players and asked them what they think about their next opponent. You have to get one in on your opponent before he gets one in one you. They might be different words to Mourinho’s but I know exactly what he meant. “Confidence comes from winning trophies and even if it’s just the League Cup, winning one leads to the next. Winning a trophy is a justification of what you are and what you stand for. The League Cup is a lesser cup, but the fans go to Wembley and see you pick up the trophy, are you telling me that’s not important?”

Perryman will have no split loyalties while watching the semi-final as he has few happy memories of his time in west London. Frank McLintock wooed him to be his assistant, while playing at the same time, at Griffin Park in the old Third Division and when McLintock was sacked Perryman was made manager. McLintock warned him off taking the job, but he accepted it, only to fall out regularly with Martin Lange, the club’s chairman, whose assessment of the value of players was, in Perryman’s view, eccentric. “I could have made something of that club,” Perryman says, “but you need support and backing.” His best relationship with a chairman by some distance was with Jack Petchey at Watford, who bought the club from Elton John, where Perryman was manager after resigning from Brentford. “Jack said: ‘If I give you this job we’ll be in bed together. If you drive to work thinking I’m a person you’re not going to work properly for me. We need to be up front on how we are thinking,’ and I said, ‘Jack, I love it’.

“The biggest mistake I ever made was leaving Jack to work with Alan Sugar [at Tottenham]. He’s the only man in the world that can say he sacked Steve Perryman.” Perryman had joined Ossie Ardiles, who became the manager at Spurs in 1993. “Ossie called in a promise we had made years earlier that if either of us got the job to manage Spurs, they would take the other one with him. He called that in on me. I did nothing for three weeks, but he wore me down. “It was a chance to return to my club where I’d spent 19 years. But then I realised it was a completely different club, not the one I knew and loved. Ossie got the sack, and I was caretaker for one game. I should have been sad to leave, but I was actually delighted. “I didn’t expect us to win anything in the Sugar years because to win anything you have to be together. It was not a successful environment. Of course, you have to look out for the bottom line and I’m not suggesting you send the players’ wives flowers every other week but there has to be an environment of all helping each other. “I get invited a couple of times a year to Spurs, which is very nice. Devon is a long way from London so I judge from afar. They pay me a lot of respect. It looks like they want to put Tottenham back on the big stage.”

Spurs fans love stories of how it used to be, he says, and a favourite anecdote relates to when, aged 21, he walked into the office of the great Bill Nicholson, the former Spurs player turned manager.
Nicholson asked him what he wanted. “My contract is up,” Perryman replied. “What do you want?” Nicholson retorted. “Well, a new contract,” Perryman said. “Last chance, what do you want?” Nicholson said. “I was earning 28 quid a week,” Perryman says, “and I told him he’d been picking me every week and Alan Gilzean was getting £95 a week. I know he’s a Scotland international, I told Nicholson, but after 3½ years I was close to his level. “How many people do you think turn up and pay to see Steve Perryman?” Nicholson asked him. Perryman by now was reduced to a mumbling wreck. “Have you ever seen yourself play?” Nicholson asked him. “This was in the days before video,” Perryman says, “and what he was saying was, ‘Whatever you think you are, you are not.’
“I eventually suggested, ‘Th. . .’ and before I could finish the word, he said: ‘Thirty! Thirty quid a week. You want 30 quid to play for Tottenham Hotspur?’ “He was one of those managers who thought you should pay to play for them,” Perryman says. But he did get a £2 pay rise.“If anyone had played for money,” Perryman says, “they would not have played for Tottenham Hotspur.”

Before I finish asking who the critical player for Spurs right now is, Perryman has the answer. “Harry Kane. Because he’s homegrown. I was homegrown. Homegrown players are not second-class citizens and should never be treated as such. Where would Spurs be without Kane’s goals. It’s almost a fairytale. A homegrown player never leaves, and becomes the captain, as I did. John Terry [at Chelsea] and Tony Adams [at Arsenal] were homegrown and they knew what was expected, from terraces to the pitch. George Best [at Manchester United] was the greatest player I faced, and he was homegrown. “I hope Kane stays for ever and breaks my record as the club’s longest-serving player. He’ll have to play a lot more games to do so, but I hope he does. If you judge players on whether they score goals, create goals and defend goals, Kane’s got all three covered. “I remain a Tottenham fan and will be rooting for them tonight. I have had no contact with Brentford, other than selling them Ollie Watkins, when I was at Exeter, who is doing great things with [Aston] Villa now. As an ex-Brentford manager I assume I would get an invite to the opening of the new stadium.”

Has he really retired from all things football? “I could be involved,” he says hesitantly. “I would need to work for someone face-to-face and I’m not in any position to dictate that, so I am better off not being involved.” As Spurs captain, Perryman had helped Ardiles and Ricky Villa, the Argentina imports, settle at Spurs, which was the start of a great friendship. “I knew where the conversations were going even if I didn’t understand the words,” he says. Feedback from the book has been particularly warm about the tales of his adventures in Japan, which began when he was Ardiles’s assistant at Shimizu S-Pulse in Shizuoka. “We agree we had three of the best years in our footballing lives there,” he says. “There was so much respect and a thirst for knowledge.”

 

[Alistair20000]

Thanks for putting that up RP.

Where are the slightly snide City references please ?

 

[RedPaul]

Thanks for putting that up RP.

Where are the slightly snide City references please ?

"it reminded me of my time at Exeter, where you are trying to make it with no resources"
"I have had no contact with Brentford, other than selling them Ollie Watkins, when I was at Exeter, who is doing great things with [Aston] Villa now."

Maybe snide wasn't the right word, I'm in a Williamson-Johnson-lockdown hating grump!
"Cursory" perhaps is the right word. Didn't seem especially warm, put it that way. Must be all that Exmouth snow

 

[Alistair20000]

"it reminded me of my time at Exeter, where you are trying to make it with no resources"
"I have had no contact with Brentford, other than selling them Ollie Watkins, when I was at Exeter, who is doing great things with [Aston] Villa now."

Maybe snide wasn't the right word, I'm in a Williamson-Johnson-lockdown hating grump!
"Cursory" perhaps is the right word. Didn't seem especially warm, put it that way. Must be all that Exmouth snow

Yes Mr Rumpole, I think I understand now

 

[jase 07]

There's a clue in the first line of the story... ;-)

Well he posted this on his FB early November and was packing boxes at the time, either poor Journalism or his plans have changed