BRENTpeople
Brent’s old boy Stuart Pearce grew up in Brent before becoming a professional footballer and is now manager of the England Under 21 team.
Where did you live?
Did you play at high school?
What did you do after school?
My family were from Hammersmith originally, but mum and dad moved to Kingsbury when I was small. We lived off Church Lane, Kingsbury. It was a nice place to live in and like any teenager I used to spend a lot of time with my friends in the area. Growing up I was always a Queens Park Rangers supporter. My heroes in those days were England goalkeeper Gordon Banks and QPR’s Dave Webb.
I went to Claremont High School in Kenton. There were some excellent teams at the school and we won a lot of trophies – including the Middlesex championship. I went for a trial with QPR when I was 13, but I was released by them. It was the school caretaker at Claremont who drove us around to many of the games; one time we went to Wealdstone FC which is one reason I ended up playing for them. After leaving I played for a Claremont old boys’ team and am still in touch with a lot of them.
I worked for a company called Bineton near the Welsh Harp, which did a lot of repair work and electrics. I was there for a year and went to work for Brent Council as an electrician. I helped rewire Brent Town Hall and worked in the Housing Department. I was based in Alperton, and did a lot of work in the Chalkhill Estate and Stonebridge.
Did you visit Wembley Stadium?
I played for non-league Wealdstone while working. It was hard; I had a full-time job, trained two evenings and played on a Saturday, but it could be a trip up as far away as Scarborough. At 21 I signed as a professional for Coventry. Non-league football was a great training; by the time I turned professional I’d played at least 500 games.
When did you start playing football? My first school team was at Fryent Primary in Kingsbury. Mr Kilpatrick was the sports teacher there and we had a really good nucleus of a team; we were the champions of London for at least one season. Outside of school I also played football at Carmel Youth Club in Stonebridge for a while, and at the Middlesex Sunday football leagues in the area.
I worked at Wembley as a ball boy. I remember being a ball boy at an FA Vase final in the 1970s and for England internationals against Italy and Wales. I heard quite a lot of swear words in Italian directed at Kevin Keegan during the Italy game! In 1975 my brother took me to see Evel Knievel jump a long line of buses on his motorbike.
How did you become a professional footballer?
Stuart Pearce, picture courtesy of the FA.
SEPTEMBER 2010
THE BRENT MAGAZINE
9