A manager once used a hypnotist to create team unity before facing Blackburn Rovers in the League Cup.
Throughout my years leading teams, I often looked beyond traditional methods to push players toward their peak performance. I wasn’t afraid to bring in outside voices to inspire the squad before key matches, as long as their message resonated. This wasn’t limited to football figures—once, during my time at Stoke, I invited boxing legend Sugar Ray Leonard to address the team. The goal was always the same: find the right voice at the right time to keep the group focused and driven.
In the 1993-94 season, my Bournemouth side faced Premier League giants Blackburn Rovers in the League Cup second round. Before the first leg, I arranged a surprise visit from a hypnotist who led a session in a pitch-black room. After turning the lights off and on again, he discovered all the players had slipped out through a side door, leaving him alone. Though the players mocked the exercise, their laughter on the bus to the match eased pre-game nerves. Blackburn, led by Kenny Dalglish and featuring Alan Shearer, won 1-0 on aggregate, but my team’s fearless performance owed much to the hypnotist’s lighthearted disruption.
During the 2007-08 promotion push at Stoke, we compiled a video highlighting our season’s goals before an away trip to Coventry. The clip ended with a clip of Al Pacino’s motivational speech from Any Given Sunday, delivered in his iconic locker-room scene. I expected the players to channel that energy into victory, but at halftime, Coventry led 1-0 and we were lifeless. My assistant Dave Kemp met me at the door and bluntly said, 'Put those toys away and get back to being you!' We regrouped in the second half and won 2-1 to climb to the top of the table.
Motivation often requires adversity, and in a sport awash with wealth, real hardship is rare. To spark passion, I sometimes fabricated critiques about our team or individual players. One example stood out: a young centre-half had ignored our striker in a 1-0 home loss, prompting the opposition manager to praise the defender and criticize us. Within weeks, we faced the same team again. I ensured our striker heard every insult from the first match and knew all the praise the defender had received. We crushed them 4-0, with our striker repaying the earlier slight. I avoided criticizing other teams because it only helped them—being the underdog had its advantages when used wisely.
Superstition runs deep in football, from foreign owners changing club colors for luck to managers wearing the same tie during winning streaks. My worst habit involved magpies: if I saw an odd number on the way to a game, I’d drive around until the count evened out, convinced it would decide the match. As a player, I only sent my boots to the cobbler twice in 1987—the year Bournemouth won Division Three—because I believed those boots brought fortune. I clung to routines for home and away games, carrying that discipline into coaching. Though I’ve retired, the habits lingered, even if my superstitions faded.
My early football diet taught me harsh lessons. At 16, playing for Bristol Rovers reserves at Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge, I devoured a three-course pre-match meal—soup, steak, and rice pudding—on my first away trip. Proudly telling my father about the steak, I later learned we lost and felt sluggish during the game. That day reinforced that diet could make or break performance. Later, I read Martina Navratilova’s book Eat to Win, which reshaped my views on meals, hydration, and rest for athletes. Not all advice sticks though—Charles Hughes once claimed pasta explained Serie A’s dominance, prompting Jim Smith’s sharp retort: 'Do the teams at the bottom of the Italian league know about pasta? And if so, how are they at the bottom of the league?'