Crystal Palace's Alan Pardew putting leadership qualities to good use as he targets record Premier League finish

Legendary status: Pardew was not universally praised as a player but this semi-final winner against Liverpool in 1990 assured him of a place in Palace folklore
Steve Bardens/Getty Images
James Olley7 August 2015

EXCLUSIVE

It has been a year of homecomings for Alan Pardew. Seven months after returning to Selhurst Park as the manager of a club for whom he made 168 appearances as a midfield spoiler between 1987 and 1991, the 54-year-old was this week back at the school where his sporting love affair began.

Southfields Academy has changed since Pardew last passed through its doors in 1978. In September 2012, it converted to become a Specialist Sports College and Chelsea hold twice-weekly sessions for 11-19-year-olds as part of the Premier League’s Kicks programme.

Pardew spies a picture of himself on the wall, as part of a line-up in the 1972 ‘first year football team’.

“I haven’t changed my personality much since then,” he told Standard Sport, tapping on the image of a young boy on the back left row of a team line-up, one of only two boys to forget his kit..

“I was Games Captain then. I had that kind of leadership way about me. I loved football and was always playing. I can see a bit of me in that 14-year-old when he was here. The school was a new comprehensive at the time. It was a tough school.

“I left here not with the best marks you would want, certainly not enough to get into university. It was a different era then. You had to be really, really bright to become a doctor or go to university and those opportunities were very, very slim. I can’t think of one of my school friends who went to university.

“My father worked at a glazing company so I went straight to another company and learned a trade. I made the transition into football from playing non-League football at a good standard. I ended up at Yeovil which was as close as you could get to a professional club outside the leagues and then I moved to Crystal Palace from there.”

Leadership qualities: Alan Pardew is pictured as a 14-year-old alongside the 1972 first year football team

His life has come full circle. Pardew resisted declaring an interest in the Palace job before this year, not least out of a fear he could jeopardise his cult status with Eagles supporters; he was not universally praised during his playing days but a dramatic winner in Palace’s 1990 FA Cup semi-final victory over Liverpool earned him a permanent place in the club’s folklore. He said: “It was right this time because the Newcastle project wasn’t working. It seemed that it might be the time to leave Newcastle for them as well as me. I was probably coming to the end there in my own mind, let alone in everybody else’s.

“This opportunity arose and I knew enough about the team and the club. I thought they were underperforming and that I could turn it around. In the end, a great relationship with the chairman [Steve Parish] came quite quickly once I met him and he convinced me that they weren’t in it just for a short-term joyride, that it was a little bit more serious than that.

“Palace, really and truly, have been that over the years — a joyride for a year or two and then out. That really didn’t appeal to me.”

Pardew’s impact was immediate. Palace were lying in 18th when he took over on January 2 but 10 wins from 18 matches propelled them up the table to 10th, their highest ever Premier League finish.

Yet the weight of history continues to sit heavily on his shoulders. “I don’t want to sour my relationship with the fans and this football club and also my ex-team-mates and everybody who has come through this club,” he said.

“From Ian Wright and Hayden Mullins to Chris Coleman, Gareth Southgate and Stevie Coppell — they have all come through this football club so I don’t want the stain of this going wrong on me when I look at them.

“So far, so good. I can look them in the eye because I know I am looking after their club and that is important to me. Also, I live in the area and so there is a dynamic involving my family to a degree as well. Obviously there is a lot of pressure to keep it where it is and then make it better.” Expectations that Pardew can indeed make things better have been raised by a summer of shrewd spending, not least the eye-catching £13million acquisition of former Newcastle midfielder Yohan Cabaye from Paris St Germain.

Coup: Palace landed Cabaye for a club record fee last month
Gallo Images/Getty Images

Pardew views that move as a game-changer. “I told the chairman at the end of last season that we needed to make a statement to these players, to our rivals north of the river and further afield that we are not here to scrap for points because you can’t keep doing that,” he said.

“For two years we have scrapped for points. We are pretty good at it and we are going to need that this year — we can’t lose it because that is a trait of this particular team and a lot of Palace teams. But I wanted to have a bit more control and power in the team.

“Signing Cabaye was that statement. A cultured player who has a great technical ability and someone who nobody really expected us to get. We needed to break the mould of getting players that had been rejected elsewhere.

“Cabaye, you could not say has been rejected in any way. It was a huge move to PSG, possibly the richest club in the world, and to get him out of there and for him to want to come was a statement to everybody that we can match anybody else in the Premier League other than those top four or five.

“I knew him from working together at Newcastle and we kept in touch. During his time at PSG, I could tell he was frustrated. He didn’t want to sit on the bench. You have to remember some players don’t mind that. They are quite happy to take a huge amount of money and sit on the bench.

“Yohan isn’t that type of player and I knew that. I don’t think every manager probably knew that he was available. I had an advantage in terms of that because I knew the personality of the player and an allegiance forged from working together before.

“He played very well under me and I think he trusted me. I told him why I thought it was an important signing for him and he had the intelligence to take that on board.”

Nobody lost more home games in the top flight than Palace did last season (10) but Pardew believes Cabaye’s presence will help his side overcome opponents intent on nullifying the most obvious attacking threats of a team looking to achieve another top-10 finish.

“We have got momentum and we have got to keep it,” he said. “Our fans will expect us to have better home form and not have to scrap in every game. Most of our wins were where we were scrapping, apart from a few like Liverpool where we ran away with it.

“We’ve got the ability to do that so we don’t want to go away from that pace and power in the team. I am not going to alter our style too much but Yohan will give us a level of intelligence when we need a different way. The Hull and West Brom games, when teams came and said ‘we are not going to let you use your pace and power — what are you going to do then?’ We didn’t really have an answer to that. But we have now.

Crystal Palace in training

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“A successful season for us would be maybe the same place but maybe a more controlled season. We can’t have any kind of period of the season as bad as the first half of last year but I do imagine we are going to have a difficult start because our fixtures are really, really tough. If we can survive that and keep ourselves away from the bottom for the first six or seven games, I think we can have a good season and maybe even finish higher than last year.”

Should Palace achieve that feat, Pardew’s stock will be high at a time when the England manager’s job could become available. The Football Association remain happy with Roy Hodgson but his contract expires after Euro 2016 and a positive season would put Pardew in with a chance.

“Listen, this job changes very dramatically,” he said. “When I was at Newcastle, I don’t think anyone asked me about the England job in the first three or four months of the season. Then I’m asked about it [at Palace] and, of course, your flag needs to be up the pole when the England job comes around. Do I think I have got the ability to do it? Yes. Have I got the experience? Yes. Am I an Englishman? Yes.”

But wouldn’t it be nice to come back and walk through these classrooms here in charge of England?

“Yeah, maybe one day,” he added. “But for now I’m quite happy to come back here as Crystal Palace manager.”

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