Shaun Derry features on the latest episode of the Football Gods podcast, where the Wolves first-team coach was given the chance to ponder the important questions he would need to answer if given the ultimate power over the sport.
Derry joined hosts Kate Mason and Tim Spiers in discussing a range of topics, including which player he would ‘condemn to hell’, what is the ‘food of the Gods’ and which game would he want to last forever.
Having enjoyed an 18-year playing career where he represented several Premier League clubs before turning to management with Crystal Palace ahead of arriving at Molineux alongside Gary O’Neil this summer, Derry takes a stand against colourful boots, eloquently describes why VAR is ruining football and reveals his obsession with beans on toast in the fourth episode of the Football Gods.
Previous episodes of the podcast featured David Seaman, Max Rushden and Nedum Onuoha, and are all available to listen to below...
On his love for Eric Cantona
“For me just the man. I loved him, I loved the collars, I loved the way that it was like he was in a theatre, especially when he was at Old Trafford playing at the home. The madness that he possessed as well as.
“I remember crying when he retired because he retired so early. He was only about 31 and I was on holiday with my mates and it came through. It wasn't social media back then it was newspapers. I remember going to buy a newspaper and it said Cantona had retired and I was absolutely gutted.
“The goal that he scored at Old Trafford against Sunderland, where he lifted the collar up and looked around the stadium was just unbelievable. I used to think maybe I could play like him, but I was polar opposite to Cantona.
“There's two people that when I was when I was a kid, if they spoke on the news, I'd literally stop what I was doing and I’d just go to the telly and watch. If Brian Clough ever gave an interview for ITV East Midlands, the whole family would sit in front of the TV and watch him speak, and I used to do that with Cantona as well. If there was an interview with Cantona, I would be intrigued to see what he was saying.”
On falling out with Neil Warnock
“It was bizarre. When I was coming through Notts County as a 16-year-old Neil had left by then and gone on to manage a different club. I had four years at Notts County whilst Neil wasn't the manager, and then I went to Sheffield United as a 20-year-old and when I was 22, Neil then started his career at Sheffield United.
“As much as I’d watched his teams throughout my junior years and had the chance to work under a manager I’d watched in the past, we actually didn't hit it off.
“We had a big, massive argument and he ended up selling me after about three months of being at Sheffield United. He sold me to Portsmouth and then many years later, brought me back to Crystal Palace as a 30-year-old and then onwards to QPR.
“People say I was one of Neil Warnock's boys, but I definitely wasn’t at Sheffield United!”
On play-off final loss with Leeds
“The lowest point of my career from a playing perspective was playing for Leeds and we lost the play-off final. We lost to Watford 3-1 and we were lined up to go to the Premier League. Now, everyone was thinking we're just going to turn up, beat this team and we’d be in the promised land.
“I remember on the day none of us turned up, none of us played to our full potential and arguably we probably got our tactics wrong on the day as well. It was just an absolute storm of rubbish that turned up and on the opposition was Ben Foster in goal.
“I don't want to throw him under the flames of hell, for any stretch of the imagination, but Ben Foster played really well in the opening 20 minutes, and he saved about four or five shots from us, and I always look back on that game and I think if he’d just thrown one of them in, it could have been a different type of afternoon. It was played down in Cardiff at the national stadium, and I remember Ben Foster playing really well, and thinking, ‘You b******d’.”
On eating beans on toast before every match
“From the age of 16, when I started playing football, up until 35 when I finished, I only ever ate beans on toast for pre-match. I couldn’t have anything else. It was two slices of toast with butter, and half a can of beans on each one.
“I remember being in a hotel, I’d just signed for Leeds, and I was living in the hotel for the first month, and the first home game was against West Ham, and they didn't have any beans in this hotel. I had to walk out of this hotel and I went to this kind of this market place down in the centre of Leeds, in my Leeds United tracksuit, just to get some beans on toast.”
On being a player in the modern game
“It must be so hard for them who are playing now, where everyone's a reporter, everyone’s a photographer, so you have to be really careful what you say and do because instantly it's on social media.
“I don't think the characters are the same as maybe what they were before social media was around. We used to be able to go out and have unbelievable fun and you'd be going out and having great fun on a Saturday night or on a Tuesday night and nothing would ever come back to a football club on a Wednesday morning or on a Monday morning, because that was just your night out.
“Players can’t have a night out anymore. Well, not how they used to. I’m sure you can in certain places, but you don’t see that anymore.”
On hating multi-coloured boots
“I think everybody should be made to wear black boots, and I think we should see for one particular weekend, you're only allowed to wear three types of black boots – Adidas World Cups, Puma Kings ot the Asics ones, all with the big, floppy tongues and I reckon that would look unbelievable on Match of the Day.
“We should banish all the light, plasticky boots that only lasts for about 180 minutes and then you’ve got to buy another pair of £150 boots, because that drives me mad. That's what boots are like for my boy – he’ll wear them for two games and then the side will split, so I'm going to try and get him some Adidas World Cups!”
On being part of Premier League history
“QPR versus Man City. The Aguero game. I played in that game, and you’d probably get a lot of people saying that was the most exciting finale to a Premier League season. We didn't realize it at the time, but as time has gone on, you put the telly on and see this grey-haired number four trying to get close to Aguero and just can't quite get there in the end, and he puts you in the bottom corner and scores what turns out to be Man City’s probably greatest ever goal.
“That game was game was mental because they won the league and we stayed up, only through default really because Bolton drew with Stoke, so we stayed up and they were crowned champions, but it was a great game to play in.
“Joey Barton lost his absolute marbles and was trying to fight everyone on the pitch. That was mental. It was an unbelievable game and I dread to think what would happen if it went on forever – we’d have probably ended up with seven men.”
