Tony Pulis raised his hand. “This is great, but do you have any evidence in football?” the former Stoke City and West Brom boss asked. It was a fair question from a man who has gone on to take charge of more than 1,100 matches.
Dr Ian Mitchell, a senior lecturer at Cardiff Metropolitan University, was teaching the psychology modules on the UEFA Pro Licence and A Licence courses for the Football Association of Wales (FAW) at the time. With not a huge body of research in the game to go at, Mitchell was predominantly citing examples in American sports such as ice hockey and basketball on coaching retreats like the one Pulis was on. Something had to change
Osian Roberts, who served as the FAW’s technical director and manager of the under-16s, 18s and B team, duly appointed Mitchell as an assistant coach to work with the Wales Victory Shield squad. Mitchell, an A-Licence holder, soon had a bank of evidence to point to when it came to developing resilience and robustness in young footballers.
Bellamy arrived at St James’ Park in the summer of 2000 as Sir Bobby Robson managed to sign the striker at the second attempt. The Wales international would go on to forge a partnership with Shearer on the pitch, and played his part for Newcastle in their Champions League campaign.
However, Sir Bobby was dismissed in August 2004 following a poor start to the season, and Souness was brought in from Blackburn Rovers as his replacement. The Liverpool legend has later revealed he was tasked with being the ‘lion tamer’, with the ‘young bucks’ in the squad such as Bellamy requiring discipline.
Souness had initially asked Bellamy to fill in as a winger, and the striker agreed until he read a report which suggested the club would ‘listen to offers’ for him. The future Celtic and Liverpool attacker explained a remark in the canteen with his team-mates around was later relayed to Souness by Shearer.
Bellamy told The Overlap: “It was a big conflict, self-inflicted as well. Terrible, I look back now and you talk about the Sancho and ten Hag problem, this is nothing! This could be solved very quick, ours was gone! I went on telly calling him a liar! You couldn’t apologise, what was I thinking.
