13 STUART PEARCE
REPUTATION: Known as ‘Psycho’, Pearce
was practically celebrated for careering
into tackles at any opportunity. Roy Keane
described him as “a man among boys” at
Nottingham Forest; at Newcastle, Pearce
thrilled colleagues by booting unpopular
boss Ruud Gullit up in the air at training.
RAZOR SAYS: “I absolutely smashed him
in a challenge near the start of my career,
when he was playing for Forest and I was
at Southampton. And he’s never let it go
- every time I see Psycho, he comes up
behind me and punches me in the ribs.
It f**king hurts! At West Ham, he’d try to
do me in training – all of it from that day
I smashed him. It was all worth it, but
Stuart, please: you’ve got me back tenfold
now – we’re both in our 50s, let it go...”
REPUTATION:Thetargetmanwassentoff
six times in the Premier League, but his most
notorious incident came in training when he
kicked Hammers team-mate Eyal Berkovic –
caught on camera to make headlines. “If my
head had been a ball, it would have been in
the top corner of the net,” claimed Berkovic.
RAZOR SAYS: “Big John was a gentle giant
until he lost it – he had a short fuse. There
were plenty of centre-halves who wouldn’t
mess with him, and he left many a mark on
them down the years. A wonderful man,
a wonderful human being, and a wonderful
hard man. I was there when he booted Eyal
Berkovic – his fuse went, then two seconds
later he was back to normal. Eyal was fine –
it looked quite harsh on telly, but he didn’t
catch him as good as it looked. It was only
a kick in the face – I mean, come on!”11 PAT VAn DEn HAUWE
REPUTATION: The Belgium-born Wales man
named his own autobiography Psycho Pat.
One tackle from the Everton stopper ensured
Vince Hilaire left Goodison Park on a stretcher;
on another occasion, he ran 50 yards to deck
QPR’s Simon Stainrod. He gained admiration
from one of the Krays – declining an invite to
visit them in prison – and later held a gun to
a man’s head because he was owed £100.
RAZOR SAYS: “I used to call him Pat Van Den
Mad Eyes – they were really close together,
and whenever those eyes went, you thought,
‘Uh oh.’ I played with him at Tottenham and
he had a wicked sense of humour – he was
either laughing or wanted to tear your head
off. The things he’d say were just nasty...”12 JOHn FASHAnU
REPUTATION: ‘Fash the Bash’ developed
a cuddly persona on Gladiators, with his
regular shouts of ‘Awooga!’ (25 years on,
still no idea what that means). But things
were different on the pitch – the striker
was a pivotal part of Wimbledon’s scare
tactics. His elbow left Gary Mabbutt with
a fractured skull and eye socket in 1993.
RAZOR SAYS: “I was Fash’s apprentice at
Millwall, and he was so lovely to me – but
he had sharp elbows, massive feet with
massive studs, and he’d trample all over
you to score. He would elbow the post to
score if he had to. If you stood up to him,
you had a better chance – if you showed
any frailties, then he’d get the better of
you. He was a tough man, a fair man, an
over-the-top man, a used-to-lose-it man,
a nice man, a crazy man. He had it all.”JOHn
HARTSOn
Above Guns, gore
and objectionable
invites for Van Den
Hauwe: are you
not entertained?HARDEST
PLAYERS
EVER“EYAL WAS FInE
- IT WAS OnLY
A KICK In THE FACE.
I MEAn, COME On...”