I talk to the players and for me you’ve got to make players confident. They’ve also got to believe in what you’re asking them to do. They’ve got to see that it works. Do we want to see football that’s pleasing to the eye, or do we want to watch some winning football?
(Read more)
It sounds yucky, but we made decency popular. You could watch Fix It with your 80-year-old grandma, or eight-year-old daughter, and you’d not be embarrassed.
(Read more)
Subbuteo I used to commentate on, to the state where no-one would play with me. My parents used to send me up to a room in the attic to play it. I then took it to university.
(Read more)
Bernard Manning was the first person to ring me when he found out I had cancer. Everyone thinks we’re rivals. We’re not. These are my people, my peers, the people I admire. The people I think are funny.
(Read more)
The worst was in Newcastle. On a New Year’s Day, against Wolves, it was. We lost at home 4-1. It started a bit from the yobbo end, like.
(Read more)
“Doo-doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo-doo-doo, ba-ba-bum-ba-bum.” New Order bass guitarist Peter Hook is explaining how the bass line went in Joy Division’s 1977 track “Leaders Of Men”. “That was more Barney, that,” Hooky is quick to point out. “It’s got a great chord in it – dern-ner-ner-na-newww”
(Read more)
The first time 808 State played Top Of The Pops in 1989, the producer asked to speak to ‘Bob’. Bob State. Perhaps those Beeb producers were among the 40,000 who watched 808 play in Manchester a few weekends ago.
(Read more)
Bass guitarist with Primal Scream, once with the Stone Roses, Gary ‘Mani’ Mounfield looks like a coalminer who has won the Lottery. He’s got a rugged face but a posh gent’s haircut. Mani was out in London last night filming the Beta Band for his show Nu Music on Play UK. As he bowls through the revolving door into the hotel, he looks on the pale side. ‘Shall we do this over a beer?’ Mani is asked. ‘You’re talking my language, ha-ha-ha!’ he replies. He laughs a lot, does this Mancunian, but when you were an integral part of one of the best albums ever made – The Stone Roses – there’s much to smile about.
(Read more)