Happy 46th Birthday Ian Pearce
Ian Pearce was born in Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk on 7th May 1974. He started his career at Oxted & District before signing for Chelsea during the 1991/92 season. Pearce was part of the England Under-20 team that came third in the 1993 FIFA World Youth Championship in Australia, playing in all six matches and scoring one goal. He was capped three times for England at Under-21 level in the mid-1990s but would never make the senior side. Pearce moved to Blackburn in October 1993, scoring the winning goal for Rovers in a 2-1 win at West Ham in April 1994 before winning the Premier League title the following season.
The 23-year-old Pearce joined Harry Redknapp’s upwardly-mobile West Ham United for a fee of £2.3m in September 1997. He made his Hammers debut in a 1-0 home defeat to Newcastle on 20th September 1997 and quickly forged a young, promising central defensive trio alongside Rio Ferdinand and fellow new boy David Unsworth. Pearce scored his first goal for his boyhood club in a 1-1 FA Cup quarter-final draw at eventual Double winners Arsenal on 8th March 1998. He scored his first league goal in claret and blue in a 3-0 win over Leeds at Upton Park on 30th March 1998, a match which saw Pearce playing at right wing-back. Pearce made 39 appearances in 1997/98 as the Hammers finished eighth (their highest position for 12 years) and reached the quarter-finals in both cup competitions.
Pearce made 36 appearances and was runner-up to Shaka Hislop in the Hammer of the Year voting in 1998/99 as the Irons finished fifth and qualified for the InterToto Cup. He scored in a 2-1 home win over Nottingham Forest on 13th February 1999 and bagged his second of the campaign in his next home game, a 2-0 win over former club Blackburn two weeks later. Pearce played in both legs of the InterToto Cup semi-final against Heerenveen in the summer of 1999 before injuring knee ligaments 37 minutes into the opening day of the Premier League season in a 1-0 win over Tottenham – he was to be ruled out for 14 months.
Making his comeback in October 2000 in a 1-0 home win over Newcastle, Pearce made 17 appearances in 2000/01, scoring his only goal of the season in a 4-1 home win over Manchester City on 11th November 2000. He was injured again in April 2001 and would be out for ten months, making only nine appearances under new manager Glenn Roeder in 2001/02 – he did, however, score a stunning and dramatic last-minute equaliser at White Hart Lane on 13th April 2002, lashing home a left-footed piledriver from distance. His second goal of the season was the final act of the campaign, a late winner in a 2-1 home triumph against Bolton on the final day of the season.
Pearce made 33 appearances in 2002/03 as the Hammers were ultimately relegated from the top flight. He was sent off in a 3-2 defeat at Tottenham on 15th September 2002 for a professional foul on future Hammer Robbie Keane and was forced to play as an emergency striker in a winter which saw the Hammers deprived of Paolo Di Canio and Frederic Kanoute. He scored two goals during his stint up front, in a 2-2 draw at Middlesbrough on 7th December 2002 and in a 1-1 home draw with Bolton two weeks later. Pearce was red carded for the second time in a crucial and infamous 1-0 defeat at Bolton on 19th April 2003 – his late tackle on Pierre-Yves Andre led to a melee and, minutes later when the match had ended, a subsequent fracas in the tunnel.
The first half of the 2003/04 First Division campaign saw Pearce make 26 appearances under three different managers – Roeder, caretaker Trevor Brooking and Alan Pardew. His final goal for the club was the winner in a 3-2 home win over Sunderland on 13th December 2003, completing a Hammers comeback from 2-0 down. He made his last appearance in claret and blue in a 2-1 home defeat to Preston on 10th January 2004 – after scoring ten goals in 163 appearances for West Ham United, the 29-year-old Pearce returned to the Premier League, signing for Fulham with £1m and Andy Melville heading the other way to east London. All of Pearce’s ten goals in claret and blue can be viewed in my video below:
After just over four years with the Cottagers, Pearce joined Championship side Southampton on a month’s loan in February 2008. He returned to the club where it all began for him, Oxted & District, in the Surrey South Eastern Combination League in August 2008. He signed for Isthmian League Premier Division outfit Kingstonian in August 2009 but joined Lincoln as player-assistant manager to former Blackburn team-mate Chris Sutton two months later. He left when Sutton resigned in September 2010 and returned to Kingstonian in March 2011; he also played for Surrey-based Lingfield later that year. Pearce, 46 today, joined Brighton as a scout in 2014 and is currently Head of Recruitment at West Brom.
West Ham 2-1 Tottenham, 7th May 2006
Let’s also travel back exactly 14 years, to the 7th May 2006 – Mission: Impossible III topped the UK box office, Gnarls Barkley were number one with ‘Crazy’ and Middlesbrough manager Steve McClaren had just agreed to become the next England manager after the 2006 World Cup. FA Cup Finalists West Ham United, meanwhile, secured a 2-1 victory over Martin Jol’s Tottenham Hotspur in front of 34,970 at Upton Park.
Paul Konchesky, Teddy Sheringham and Bobby Zamora all lined up for the hosts against their former club. Calum Davenport, Michael Carrick and Jermain Defoe were all returning to the home of their old club – Davenport would return for a second spell with the Hammers. Robbie Keane would also go on to represent West Ham later in his career.
The game is, of course, famous for most of the Tottenham squad suffering from food poisoning after a dodgy lasagne at their hotel the previous evening; there were even fears on the morning of the game that the match wouldn’t go ahead. Tottenham and Arsenal were locked in a final-day fight for fourth place and the final Champions League position, with the Gunners needing to better Spurs’ result to leapfrog them in the table. The Hammers started brightly with Nigel Reo-Coker flashing an effort wide via the head of team-mate Anton Ferdinand. With ten minutes played, the hosts took the lead, Carl Fletcher (pictured below) winning possession before striding forward unchallenged and fizzing a firm strike from distance beyond the dive of England goalkeeper Paul Robinson and into the net. Spurs were level ten minutes before half-time though when two former Hammers combined to fashion an equaliser, Michael Carrick threading a pass through for Jermain Defoe to turn and fire an exquisite finish beyond Shaka Hislop. With Wigan holding Arsenal 2-2 at Highbury, Tottenham were in the Champions League box seat at half-time.
West Ham had a great chance to regain the lead six minutes into the second half when Bobby Zamora was brought down for a penalty. Sheringham, however, saw his spot-kick saved by Robinson low to the goalkeeper’s right. The game’s deciding moment came with ten minutes remaining – Reo-Coker’s backheel found Yossi Benayoun, who sidestepped Michael Dawson and fired into the top corner. With Arsenal winning 4-2 against Wigan, Tottenham’s Champions League dreams were dashed – Hammers fans have “laughed ourselves to bits” over Lasagne-Gate ever since..! The goals from this match can be viewed on the WHTID social media pages.
West Ham ended up ninth at the end of the 2005/06 season; Tottenham finished in fifth position. Danny Gabbidon was voted Hammer of the Year, with Marlon Harewood runner-up; Harewood was leading scorer with 16 goals in 46 matches. Chelsea were Premier League champions and Liverpool beat the Irons on penalties to win the FA Cup.
West Ham United: Shaka Hislop, Lionel Scaloni, Anton Ferdinand, Danny Gabbidon, Paul Konchesky, Shaun Newton, Carl Fletcher, Nigel Reo-Coker, Yossi Benayoun (Kyel Reid), Teddy Sheringham (Marlon Harewood), Bobby Zamora.
Tottenham Hotspur: Paul Robinson, Stephen Kelly, Michael Dawson, Anthony Gardner, Lee Young-Pyo (Lee Barnard), Aaron Lennon, Michael Carrick (Andy Reid), Edgar Davids, Teemu Tainio (Calum Davenport), Robbie Keane, Jermain Defoe.