A JOURNEYMAN PLAYER, MANAGER AND TROUBLE MAKER?

Alan Pardew was in charge of Crystal Palace today when Spurs sneaked a win at White Hart Lane. The game went largely without incident, though this was mainly the fault of the two teams who did not present a particularly exciting spectacle. Pardew played for Spurs briefly whilst on loan to them in 1995, when he and a number of “older”players made up a Spurs XI that helped Tottenham contest ties in the Intertoto Cup. I think Spurs were “resting” their real squad, but were obliged to play fixtures in what was to them a meaningless tournament.

Pardew was a decent midfield who held the season's goalscoring record for Charlton once, scoring 10 goals. He did not add much to the Spurs' total that day they played FC Coln when the Germans drubbed Tottenham 8-0.

Pardew's beginnings were humble, playing at Whyteleaf in Surrey, Epsom and Ewell, Corinthian Casuals, Dulwich Hamlet in the Ryman's (or equivalent in those days) and then on to greater things with Yeovil, Palace, Charlton, Barnet and Reading. He has been around a bit! He also made the English Semi-Professional team. He made 484 full time appearances.

In 1990 he went to the FA Cup Final with Palace and lost, he took West Ham to the Cup Final in 2006 as manager and lost but he did get three promotions with Palace, Reading and the Hammers.

In 2011-12 he was awarded Premier League Manager and League Managers' Association Manager of the Year for his efforts with Newcastle United-a challenging period in his career.

He had previously been with Reading, West Ham, Charlton, Southampton and after his trip to the north-east he is now with Crystal Palace!

Since 2003 he has experienced several incidents including a High Court injuction served by Reading FC when he resigned from managing the club, wanting to go to West Ham. It was eventually dropped.

He had a dispute with Arsene Wenger for not picking an Englishman in his Arsenal team for a European Championship match, and Wenger accused him of being of xenophobic (Pardew is married to a Swede), he also provoked Wenger on the touchline after a West Ham league win against Arsenal, he “came between” two players fronting up on the pitch between Charlton and Hull and made matters worse, used the word “rapes” describing a coming together between Essien and of all people Ched Evans on MOTD2 (Pardew claims he said “rakes”), pushed an official on the touchline, alledgedly abused Man City's manager, Pelligrini, describing him as a “f** old c**, and finally head butted Hull's David Meyler.

He's a colourful character.