The Big Interview

When Jocky was at Gothenburg he got revenge on Romario for the 1994 World Cup semi-final defeat by silencing him in two Champions League legs against PSV. That was a good Gothenburg side – they roundly defeated Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United, too.

At Valencia, Jocky enjoyed an amazing Copa del Rey triumph, thrashing Barca and Real on the way to a convincing final win against Athletico Madrid. Jocky also speaks about the first of Valencia’s consecutive Champions League final defeats. He was on the bench that day but he offers a brutal analysis of why his side were overrun by Real – they had believed their billing as favourites.

And did you know that Jocky is a keen cricket fan? He even names his best XI for us.

Thanks, Jocky.
Graham.

By the magic of telephony, I chatted with Joachim ‘Jocky’ Björklund, my erstwhile fellow media pundit and now Hammarby assistant manager. His son Kalle plays for him there, just like Jocky once played for his dad at Brann.

We had a simply fantastic conversation, discussing Jocky’s rapid rise to the Sweden first team and beating England at Euro ’92. There’s also in-depth stuff about Sweden’s incredible third-place finish at the 1994 World Cup in the USA and we chat about Henrik Larsson, an Old Firm rival but a friend who was a player with the intelligence to evolve and improve to the peak of his abilities. There was also Tomas Brolin, his nation’s rock star footballer who is actually a truly humble guy.
Jocky says that the best two players he played alongside were Brian Laudrup and Paul Gascoigne when he was at Rangers, and he speaks insightfully and movingly when he describes Gazza’s troubles.

Utterly brilliant, sparkling stuff.

Graham.

Last season, our Socios at patreon.com/grahamhunter got an exclusive interview with Matt Jansen. For the first time, here’s the full episode.

In part two, you’ll hear more about the psychological damage Matt’s accident inflicted on him. With the best of intentions, Blackburn got him back playing but his sense of invincibility had given way to fear, and he didn’t want the ball any more. He was on medication and drinking heavily. Psychiatrist Steve Peters was a great help, but he couldn’t be with the footballer all of the time. Matt eventually quit football, but a phone call from his old pal Garry Flitcroft kicked off a spell playing and managing in the lower leagues.

There’s light-hearted chat in this interview too, such as why Matt’s Beatles-mad father nicknamed him ‘Maxwell,’ and how his Crystal Palace team-mate Hermann Hreiðarsson arranged to have him ‘kidnapped’ in Iceland. There’s also great stuff about the ordeal of having to knock back Sir Alex Ferguson, and what it was like to play alongside the wonderful Andy Cole.

What a life story Matt has. What a privilege it was to speak with him.

Graham

Last season, our Socios at patreon.com/grahamhunter got an exclusive interview with Matt Jansen. For the first time, here’s the full episode.

In part one, you’ll hear how Matt was a thoroughbred centre-forward with a cultured left foot – and no little courage. After spells at his hometown club of Carlisle United and then Crystal Palace, he signed for Blackburn. He scored the first goal and set up the winner in Rovers’ 2-1 League Cup final victory over Tottenham Hotspur in 2002. Everything was going brilliantly, until he was cruelly denied a place in Sven-Göran Eriksson’s England squad for the 2002 World Cup.

Instead of heading to Japan and Korea that summer, he went to Rome with his future wife. England could wait – he felt invincible, the happiest man in the world. And then disaster struck. Matt was so seriously injured in a scooter accident that the paramedics thought he had died. After six days in a coma, he began his rehabilitation and made a full physical recovery. But when he went back onto the pitch everything he had previously done automatically became laboured. The sound of the crowd sighing added to the agony.

Thanks for sharing, Matt.

Graham

Here’s another chance to hear my interview with Slaven Bilic from season three.

We hear about Bilic the Croatia centre-back, a member of the side so many of us adored at Euro ’96 and which nearly won the World Cup two years later. The manager, Miroslav Blažević was a master tactician and psychologist, but boy did he have the tools: Boban, Šuker, Bokšić and Prosinečki.

At Euro ’96, the players were ambassadors for a new country and lost the final to Germany at Wembley. They were christened ‘Croatian knights’ by their country’s president at France ’98 when they beat the Germans, but Slaven insists it was not a revenge mission. They won because they had more maturity, more self-belief, their usual incredible team spirit and also a slice of good luck. That luck didn’t hold in the semi against the hosts, and surely the Croatians would have prevailed in a final against a troubled Brazil.

A brilliant, passionate Big Interview.

Graham