The Brilliance of Bill Nicholson - Part One With Steve Perryman
It Was What It Was : The Football History Podcast
The Overlap
4.9 • 667 Ratings
🗓️ 14 January 2025
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Welcome back to It Was What It Was.
This week, Jonathan and Rob are joined by Steve Perryman, Tottenham Hotspur’s record appearance holder, to talk about legendary Spurs manager Bill Nicholson.
From transforming Spurs into serial winners - to hilarious changing room stories - Steve takes us behind the scenes of one of the most successful sides of the 20th century.
Join us on Friday for Part Two!
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to It Was What It Was with me, Rob Draper and with Jonathan Wilson. |
| 0:11.5 | This episode is on The Great Bill Nicholson, the Tottener manager who won the double in 1961, |
| 0:17.1 | the first manager to win a European Cup with the British team |
| 0:21.1 | and to discuss this titan of the game. |
| 0:24.4 | We have, I think, perhaps the best person to talk about him. |
| 0:29.0 | Someone who's a veritable Tottenham legend, |
| 0:31.3 | he played 866 times the club. |
| 0:34.8 | A record, of course. |
| 0:36.7 | He won two FAA Cups, two league cups, two UAFAC cups. It is, of course. He won two FA Cups, two league cups, two UEA for Cups. It is, of course, |
| 0:41.1 | the great Steve Perriman, who not only trained under Bill Nicholson, but became a friend of |
| 0:47.1 | his, I think, in later life. Steve, welcome to the show. It's fantastic to have you here. |
| 0:53.3 | Thank you very much. |
| 0:54.8 | My pleasure. |
| 1:00.5 | And Steve, you have a great book out which I've just read the complete Bill Nicholson's story which you compiled with a legend of R-Trey, Norman Giller, a Fleet Street |
| 1:05.2 | journalist, which is called Sir Bill. |
| 1:07.6 | And I think you have that feeling that Bill Nixon is such a fibrill great, |
| 1:11.1 | that really he deserved a knighthood, like many of the contemporaries, like Alf Ramsey and others. |
| 1:17.2 | Very much so, yeah, he was, for me, he was ahead of his time. |
| 1:22.7 | He, what a manager should be, setting the tone of the whole club |
| 1:28.4 | from the bootroom to the boardroom |
| 1:30.7 | and led by not fear, but by respect. |
| 1:37.4 | You cared so much for him |
... |
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