From The Sunday Times:
As a kid at Arsenal, the part that he most loved was the coach journey after the team had won away from home.
There would be cans of beer and laughter and camaraderie and the sense of achievement. Unwilling to let that feeling die, the players found a pub when they got back to London. Teams were forged on those journeys and during the sessions that followed. Peter Reid came from the same school and on journeys home after Sunderland won, he directed the bus driver off the motorway and into a quiet village pub. Quinn loved it.
“Even though we were off the beaten track, fans would drive by, beep their horns and remind us of what it was all for. Doesn’t happen any more in the game. And we stopped doing it too: our foreign brethren had to be home for their yoga teacher. I’ve seen this great change in our football culture and I don’t think it’s as good for the game as people think. “On paper, the view of the foreign player makes sense. You eat better, you look after yourself better and no fan can ever say he saw you drunk in the pub. But often the dedication of the foreign player stops when he drives out of the club’s car park. The thrill of doing it as a group can help you more than one individual eating pasta for the five days before the next game.
“I was in Manchester when Alex Ferguson’s team was becoming a force. They’re not big drinkers but you used to see them out together. At Sunderland we stopped calling into pubs on the way home because it was clear the foreign lads didn’t want to be there. As a replacement for this, the manager organised things like a paint-balling day in the hills but you could see the foreign lads were there on sufferance. How long do we have to stay? Can we go now?
“People say they prepare better than us. I think you are better prepared when your team spirit is at its pinnacle. Getting that right is as important as training itself. There are tons of people in the game, non-football people in my opinion, who have become very influential because they know about diet and physiology and psychology. They are clever people but their point of view is not as important as it is made out to be.”