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Pardew sat down with Jason Burt to relive his involvement in four famous FA Cup matches - For the Telegraph/David Rose
The FA Cup has helped define Alan Pardew. Three times, first as player, then twice as a manager, he has been dramatically denied in the final after extraordinary campaigns to get there.
Two of those finals – and an iconic semi-final when he scored the extra-time winning goal against Liverpool – are considered among the greatest ties in the competition’s illustrious 153-year history.
Now 63, Pardew is running his own consultancy to work with club owners, technical directors and managers. “Will I go back into football management? I don’t know,” he says. “I quite like this role. There is so much money in the game that is being wasted and maybe a bit of re-focusing with someone who has been there, when you look at my experience, is good.
“I’ve no reason to pull my punches and can say it as it is and look at them a bit more objectively. When I look at older managers, I don’t think they are used enough and this is a way to tap into that experience.”
Before Crystal Palace’s semi-final against Aston Villa on Saturday, Telegraph Sport talked to Pardew, the former Palace midfielder and manager, about what happened in 1990 and 2016 – the only other occasions when Palace reached the final – and when he managed West Ham United in the 2006 final.
Super Al is born
1990 semi-final: Crystal Palace 4 Liverpool 3
First the semi-final, against Liverpool at Villa Park. Palace won 4-3 after extra-time with Pardew scoring the winning goal with a rare header.
“They had beaten us 9-0 in the league in September,” Pardew recalls. “Wrighty [Ian Wright] had broken his leg and Steve Coppell set up the team with a five-man midfield with Brighty [Mark Bright] up top and I thought, ‘This is going to suit me’ with three quite physical midfield players: myself, Andy Gray and Geoff Thomas.
“We felt we were more solid and would be OK. It wasn’t going to be four, five-nil. We thought we were going to win. The 9-0 was a motivation and we thought, ‘We’re going to get into these’. The first half unfolded and I gave the first goal away, with Ian Rush scoring. I hardly got a kick. I was doing my best but at half-time I thought, ‘I could get subbed here’. We were really struggling.
“Steve was clever and just said, ‘You are going back out there but you are not going to be the same team. That team was not us. It was not what we are about. That is not Crystal Palace. We are going to have a go’.
“Fortunately we got a goal straight away and suddenly the game was alive, the stadium was alive and it was chaotic. It looked like we had won it, then they came back. When you think about it, it’s very unusual for a team that had beaten another team 9-0 to take the lead twice and not win.”
The second-half was bedlam, with the tie ending 3-3 as Palace twice came from behind. Then extra-time with, in the 109th minute, Palace winning a corner. Andy Thorn flicked it on and Pardew was there between Alan Hansen and Ronnie Whelan to power home a header. “Somewhere out of the crowd came Pardew,” BBC commentator John Motson famously declared. For Palace, a cult figure was born.
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Pardew wheels away after scoring the winner against Liverpool - Getty Images/Professional Sport
“My moment arrived,” Pardew says, smiling. “Up until that point not only was I a journeyman player but I had never really had any headlines. It was always ‘take Pardew out of the team. Maybe this team needs a replacement there’. Like an Adam Wharton, for example.
“It was a set-play we had worked on with a flick-on at the near post. We thought Liverpool were a bit static and watched the ball a bit and I stole in. Suddenly I was the hero. I have only watched it back a couple of times and at the end you can see the camera panning to me and I don’t know what to do. I am looking around thinking, ‘What’s happened there?’.
“I can honestly say this: If I hadn’t scored the goal I wouldn’t have been a football manager. Even though it was in me and I was always good in the dressing room and interested in tactics and motivation, I don’t think I would have had enough profile. It raised awareness of my name, and my performances improved after that.”
Pardew had only turned professional approaching his 26th birthday, an impossibility nowadays, signing from Yeovil Town for £7,500. He had previously combined playing non-League with being a glazier.
“I never felt established,” he admits. “I felt a bit like an outsider and suddenly I had arrived and thought, ‘I’m as good as these guys’ and my confidence improved. That semi-final was quite pivotal for me and the Palace fans. It cemented my relationship with them and there was the song.”
Before the goal the chant of “Super, Super Al” had been an ironic appreciation of Pardew’s talents. Afterwards the irony was dropped. “It was definitely the highlight of my career, no doubt,” he says.
The match that saved Fergie’s job
1990 final: Man Utd 3 Crystal Palace 3 (replay Man Utd 1 Crystal Palace 0)
“We should have won the first game,” Pardew recalls, with another thrilling 3-3 draw, against Manchester United, leading to a midweek replay, also at Wembley Stadium. With seven minutes to go in the first game Palace were 3-2 up after Ian Wright’s brace as the striker returned to the side. Then Mark Hughes was allowed too much space and scored his second.
“We made it easy for him to equalise and it shouldn’t have happened. As a manager I look at it and think, ‘Wow, what a bad goal to concede’,” Pardew says.
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Ian Wright scores his second past Jim Leighton - PA Wire
“And then of course in the replay we had kind of worked each other out and it was a really ugly game. Alex changed the goalie [with Les Sealey replacing Jim Leighton]. It was a massive moment and Jim never spoke to Alex again.
“Everyone talks about how beating Nottingham Forest in the third round saved Alex’s job but, if you think about it, if we had beaten them in the final he probably would have gone.
“After the 3-3 game, I was walking down the tunnel and Alex was shepherding his players in and I thought, ‘He’s really relieved’. He knew he had got away with it and I remember thinking, ‘Mmm, I wonder if we’ve missed our chance here?’. And we had.”
Ferguson was under huge pressure, with United finishing 13th in the league in a campaign when the infamous “4 Years of Excuses And It’s Still Crap. Ta Ra Fergie” banner was unfurled by a fan at Old Trafford. After winning the FA Cup another 37 trophies followed.
“In the replay we didn’t play well,” Pardew says. “We even didn’t like the [yellow and black striped] kit, it was horrible, like bumblebees! It was a weird night. Because we were the smaller club we had the adulation of the first game and the midweek one was different. I don’t know, we just looked lost.”
Full-back Lee Martin scored the only goal in a scrappy game.
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Alex Ferguson celebrates with recalled goalkeeper Les Sealey. The result may have saved the manager’s job - Getty Images/Bob Thomas
“I go up to get my loser’s medal,” Pardew says. “I am disappointed but I am also proud to have played at Wembley in the FA Cup Final, coming from non-League. But after I walked back down to the pitch and looked down at my medal – Manchester United were celebrating, Palace fans were drifting home – they gave me the referee’s medal! I felt stabbed in the back! I had to go into the referee’s room and change it.”
Pardew was something of a social secretary at Palace and organised the after-party for the players. “I was quite good at getting the guys together,” he says. “But I had taken a call from The Daily Star and they wanted to take a picture of me the next day. I was thinking, ‘What’s this all about?’ So I turned up and was still drunk from the night before and they asked me to cycle and I was cycling around and they were taking pictures and I was thinking, ‘This is just surreal.’”
The Gerrard final and an unusual apology
2006 final: Liverpool 3 West Ham 3 (Liverpool win 3-1 on penalties)
This time Pardew was the West Ham manager, again facing Liverpool. But the match was at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff because Wembley was being rebuilt. It became the Gerrard final.
“I would say that other than my Newcastle side that finished fifth [in 2011-12] that was my best team,” Pardew says. “Dean Ashton was fit and he was definitely the best player I ever managed. He would have been England’s striker for many years and ironically that [career-ending ankle] injury happened during an England training camp. It probably cost me my job at West Ham.
“It was the year we signed Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano after the World Cup and can you imagine that with Dean Ashton fit? He left a big hole in our team.
“It was very similar to the 1990 final. We scored; they scored. I remember thinking, ‘It’s happening again’. When we took the lead at 3-2 there was a period around 80 minutes when Liverpool were going nowhere. They were not threatening us at all. And this is where that immortal line came from Peter Grant [his assistant], who said, ‘The only person who can take this away from us is Steven Gerrard. Why don’t we put Nigel Reo-Coker on him?’ So we did.
“And if you watch the last eight minutes you will see Nigel man-marking him and Gerrard getting frustrated and starting to go deeper. Nigel thinks, ‘I don’t have to worry about him’ and protects the back four a bit. And of course he [Gerrard] just smashes it from 35 yards.”
It was in added time. They were that close. There were 30 seconds to go and a West Ham player kept the ball in play, passing infield rather than hitting it down the pitch and out for a throw-in. It was loanee Lionel Scaloni – who went on to coach Argentina, managing them to victory in the last World Cup.
“He was the nicest guy, the way he conducted himself,” Pardew says. “I never held it against him and was so pleased he won the World Cup. He obviously learnt tactically from me!”
After the goal the cameras cut to Pardew, whose face was shown on the big screens inside the stadium. There was a rueful grin.
“My head was so much in the game,” he says. “You can get late goals and although it was an unbelievable goal my first thought was, The keeper [Shaka Hislop] should have saved it. But, OK, it’s gone in and we go to extra-time now’. I was already thinking, ‘Get your head together. You are going to have to motivate these guys in two minutes’ time’. And we should have won it in extra-time [Marlon Harewood missed a good chance]. Liverpool had pushed so hard they were dead on their feet and I thought we’d win. But we couldn’t get the goal.
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Steven Gerrard (centre) leads the Liverpool celebrations following their penalty shoot-out triumph - AP/Matt Dunham
“The penalty shoot-out? I can’t even recall who missed. We had worked for about three weeks in training, every session we had a penalty shoot-out and my focus was for them to work on their technique. I just said, ‘Choose the penalty you want and stick with it – like a golf drive’. But it’s still a lottery.”
Liverpool won 3-1 in the shoot-out.
“The difference between losing as a player and losing as a manager is that as a player it hurts but as a manager it hurts for longer,” Pardew says. “You feel responsible. You feel sympathy for the players. Some are upset. You feel for everyone involved in the club. It’s tough, much tougher than losing as a player. As a manager you are wearing it.
“But I don’t beat myself up thinking I should have done something different. I was more proud of Peter being able to foresee. That’s what a good assistant manager does. But you replay those moments.
“I then had this thing with Steven Gerrard after the game. He came up to me and was really sincere, saying, ‘Sorry you lost’, and it was a nice moment.
“How weird then that you roll on to 2015 and who’s the last manager to say goodbye to him at Liverpool? It was me. Crystal Palace was his last game, at Anfield, and we won 3-1. So, I kind of spoilt his party after he spoilt my party! I saw him at the end and I said, ‘I would rather have won the final!’”
Dad dancing and being undone by Rooney
2016 final: Crystal Palace 1 Man Utd 2
“It was a strange game,” Pardew says of Palace going 1-0 up in the 78th minute only to lose 2-1 after extra-time in a final that, nevertheless, did not save Louis van Gaal from the sack as Manchester United manager. There is one moment, in particular, that became unforgettable.
“I do the dance after the goal and everyone remembers that super-slow-mo version,” Pardew says. “But it literally just happened and was a spontaneous thing. Me and my younger daughter had been messing about, dancing, and she was teaching me to do some moves and it must have been in my head. Of course, what really hurt me afterwards was people saying I had pre-planned it. There were a couple of nasty things said. But it was nothing like that. It was just a spontaneous moment.
“There are times when I am a little bit embarrassed about it, but that’s just me. I am sure they will replay it many times if Palace reach the final. Look at Oliver Glasner in the quarter-final. He is punching the air and dancing around looking awkward and that’s exactly what it’s like. It’s just a weird moment when you score a goal.”
It was even more dramatic as it was scored by Jason Puncheon who had only just come on from the bench. “I had left him out, which was such a painful decision,” Pardew says. “The reason we played Mile Jedinak instead of Punch was because we knew Man United were going to play Marouan Fellaini and that was a threat. We didn’t want to be vulnerable at set-pieces.
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Jason Puncheon puts Palace into the lead - Getty Images/Adrian Dennis
“But he was my lieutenant. I can’t tell you how difficult it was to leave him out. Me and my staff sat down and they were advising me on how I should do it, but there was no easy way. Leaving him out was going to break that bond with him. It was hard on him and hard on the Palace players who loved Punch. My reasoning was sound and it was purely tactical. I thought it might be a tight game and that set-pieces would be key.”
It was Palace themselves who scored from a corner. But they could not hold on. Soon after, Juan Mata equalised from Wayne Rooney’s run and cross with, again in extra-time, Jesse Lingard claiming the winner despite United being down to 10-men when Chris Smalling was sent off.
Above all, that Rooney intervention still hurts.
“My feeling going into the final, particularly after losing the last two, was that, ‘Well, I’ve played a very good Man United team with Mark Hughes, played Liverpool with Steven Gerrard and now facing this Man United team with Wayne Rooney. It would be nice to be the favourite!’
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Pardew with Wayne Rooney before the game, but he was cursing him afterwards - Getty Images/Michael Regan
“But Rooney undid us. Hughes undid us. Gerrard undid us and now Rooney. He ran through our midfield and crossed to the back post and we didn’t deal with it. Mata scored but it was all about Rooney. I can see it now and I was thinking, ‘Just bring him down’ and he’s run all the way through.
“They were down to 10 men in extra-time and I felt we could do it, but we didn’t manage that end period of the game very well. But our performance was good. Bizarrely, the players have never really been held in the same esteem as 1990 and I felt that was unfair on them, not me. I don’t know why that was. OK, you can argue we were not good enough in the final and Man United did a job on us, but that team is regarded differently.”
“The 1990 team was unique. We had a lot of pace and power. If you think of Bright, Wright, myself, Gray, Thomas, Thorn, John Salako. Quick and strong. We had maybe three, four internationals,” Pardew says. “It’s better than the team that I took to the final in 2016 but I am not sure it is better than Glasner’s team. I think they have recruited really well and have the strength in depth, which there has never been before at Palace.
“I look at the team now and compare it to 1990 and 2016 and I think they can win it. They have a good chance; the balance in the team. I think they have enough flair, they play the [3-4-2-1] system well, Marc Guehi is perhaps the best defender in the Premier League. I really fancy them and I genuinely would be absolutely delighted if they won it.”
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