Author: martin

Mark Hateley’s new autobiography Hitting The Mark brilliantly defines the extraordinary career of a truly great British centre-forward.

In part one of an in-depth, fascinating Big Interview, Mark tells us how trying to better his late father Tony – himself a successful striker – was his major motivation as he relentlessly drove himself to improve.

His father was furious that Mark chose a move from Coventry down a division to Portsmouth. But the gamble paid off with 24 goals in his first season at Pompey, and he also enjoyed success with England including a winning goal against Brazil in the Maracana.

Welcome to our Big Interview Icons series where we shine a light on a legend whose name has lit up some of the conversations I’ve had with my guests over the years. This episode focuses on Pep Guardiola.

Rio Ferdinand reflects on Manchester United’s two Champions League final defeats to Pep’s Barcelona and is bighearted enough to wax lyrical about Pep’s genius. He is gutted that he was not brought in to manage at Old Trafford.

Germany midfielder Ilkay Gundogan loves playing for Guardiola at Manchester City. He’s not an easy man all the time, but ultimately you know that he has got your back, that he adheres to an almost familial sense of personal loyalty.

Namesake and Liverpool assistant manager Pep Lijnders considers Guardiola as one of the best coaches ever, because he is a master at drilling teams to their maximum potential in training, but does so while never impeding the individual class of great players.

When Guardiola took over at Barcelona, experienced Catalan coach Domènec Torrent was one of his trusted lieutenants. They endured a sticky start but the golden Barca era soon dawned, and Domènec gives us engrossing insights into what it was like behind the scenes.

Scot Gemmill is currently a very successful manager of the Scotland under-21 team. In part two of this absorbing Big Interview, you’ll hear how he hadn’t planned a transition from playing to coaching, and got there through his own initiative, effort and a little slice of luck. He expanded his coaching brain by observing how it was done at Barcelona, Espanyol… and Paisley. And we hear how Scot nurtured Scotland’s most brilliant young talent, Billy Gilmour.

Being the son of Scotland and Nottingham Forest legend Archie was normality for Scot Gemmill when growing up, but having Brian Clough critiquing your performance for a Sunday youth side was downright surreal in anyone’s book.

Despite his initial self-doubt, Gemmill jnr. went on to play for Cloughie at Forest and nowadays he realises the spell the great man cast on him when he coaches footballers. He learned to play like you mean it, like you are competing in the last game you will ever play.

Also in part one: indie gigs and New York, New York.

Here’s another chance to hear my interview with Ander Herrera from season three.

Classy midfielder Ander is now at Paris Saint-Germain where he was recently a Champions League finalist. I caught up with him when he was still a Manchester United player and he waxed lyrical about his earlier footballing life helping his beloved Real Zaragoza survive in Spain’s top flight. He liked his time at Athletic Bilbao under the footballing romantic Marcelo Bielsa, but he describes losing two cup finals due to the team’s sheer exhaustion. There’s also great stuff about why Ander wouldn’t become a manager, and he makes his case for David de Gea being the best goalkeeper in the world.