I let my kitman give half-time team-talk – he told stars they were crap and we ended up winning, says Sam Allardyce
SAM ALLARDYCE has revealed that he once let a kitman take a half-time team-talk.
The English football boss has an enormous amount of experience in management having a career spanning over 30 years.
In all his years he has taken charge of 537 Premier League games as well as more in the lower leagues of English football.
Allardyce, 69, would have given an uncountable amount of team talks during his career.
However, he once relinquished control and allowed kit man Pete Williams to take over while he was managing at West Ham.
He had been at the club for a long time and was a fan of the Hammers and was less than impressed with the team’s first half performance.
Pete did not hold back as he laid into the West Ham team, calling them “crap”, and it worked as Allardyce claimed they went on to win the game.
He told William Hill and Footy Accumulators’ podcast, No Tippy Tappy Football: “When I was at West Ham we had the kitman, Pete, do a team-talk for us.
“He’d been at West Ham for a good 15 years and it was half-time in a game where we hadn’t played too well – one or two of them were moaning about the fans getting on their backs.
“Pete was asking me what they were on about and he wasn’t too happy about it so I just said, ‘you tell them Pete’.
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“Not in the slightest chance did I think he would then turn around and walk into the dressing room.
“I was stood at the back completely amazed.
“Pete was in the middle of the changing room tearing into them saying, ‘who do you think you are? Get out there and give the fans something to cheer. The only way they’ll start cheering is if you play better, they’re only booing you because you’re playing crap’.
“It was unbelievable.
“I think we even ended up winning the game!”
It is not the only time Allardyce took time for a kitman.
During his short tenure as England manager, he gifted a shirt and captain’s armband to Martin Bohunicky, the kitman at Spartak Trnava.
He had requested the shirt with a letter to Allardyce’s office ahead of England’s clash with Slovakia.