Brian Little opens up on Stoke City reign, leaving Aston Villa and exhaustion

Brian Little has reflected on being tempted back into football too soon when he accepted the Stoke City job nearly 30 years ago.

Little had forged a reputation as one of the leading English managers in the game when he was at Aston Villa, winning the League Cup in 1996. But he admits he had grown exhausted by the time he quit a club he still loves in early 1998.

He was trying to recuperate with a solo break in Mallorca when he was enticed back for an interview at the new Britannia Stadium that May. He had thought he was doing a favour for a friend by showing interest – but ended up taking it on.

Stoke, who had just been relegated to the third tier, started brilliantly and won their first six games – and eight of their first nine. They were still clear at the top by the end of November with 43 points from 20 games but then the wheels came off.

The Potters only took 26 points from the remaining 26 matches to wind up in eighth, with some dreadful defeats thrown in for good measure: 4-1 at home to both Bristol Rovers and Burnley, 4-0 away at Bournemouth and Gillingham, 4-0 at home to Reading.

Little looked back on that time in his career in an interview with Tony Pulis, who was then the Gillingham manager, and Mick McCarthy on The Managers podcast.

He said: “I had a really bad spell (at Villa) and then a really bad day. I was just getting pulled down on and off the field. When I look back, the amount of people would say, ‘Just pull yourself together.’ Nowadays they would say, ‘Brian you need a rest.’ I was in the dumps.

FOLLOW OUR FACEBOOK PAGE! Latest Stoke City news, analysis and more via the Sentinel

“I’d done 10 years of being a manager, out scouting every night, watching the reserves, buying the players, organising and negotiating with agents, negotiating with Doug (Ellis). I was going home and it wasn’t a happy home. One of the stupid things was that I had a beautiful Jaguar sports car and five minutes from the ground I got a puncture. That tipped me over the edge. ‘That’s it!’

“I remember the morning after, Peter Withe and Allan Evans said, ‘If we’d have been there, we’d have strapped you to your chair and you’d have not said what you said.’ We weren’t doing that well in the league, about 15th, and we were in the quarter-final of the Uefa Cup.

“I was tired out. When I had been at Darlington and Leicester I had even designed the strips. I did everything! Villa not so much because they had shirt sponsors but I still did almost everything.

“When I left, Doug did say he would (sort me out), but I didn’t even want money. I think he sent me a couple of months’ worth of money. I like motorbikes and I had one shipped out to Mallorca and went out on my own to Mallorca for four months. I cruised around Mallorca for four months.

“Then the agent Phil Smith rang me and asked where I was. He was in Mallorca too so he asked to have a drink together and he threw Stoke City at me. I said no. They were down in the Third Division that year. I said, ‘No, no, I can’t.’ He said, ‘Will you do me a favour because it would be good for me? Can you just come over and have the interview?’ Of course I took the job didn’t I. Even then it was too soon.

“I did well there but I packed in at the end of the year. I loved the club. It was one of those clubs that when you played against them it was always hard. I won manager of the month in the first two months of the season and then we couldn’t sign players and I had to sell one or two, we’d gone to the third (division) and we ended up mid-table.

“We had been top of the league after about 12 games. Man City were in the league that year and we were playing really well. The first game we lost was Fulham away, that’s in my head, but by the end of the season I was… [holds up hands in submission].”

It was at this point that Pulis chipped in to ask Little, now aged 72, about his trip to Gillingham that year. Gillingham had, Pulis would remember, ruthlessly spanked Stoke in the May at the Priestfield Stadium with goals from Robert Taylor (2), Guy Butters and Paul Smith.

“You battered me every time I’ve been against you!” said Little. “I would always say, ‘Urgh, it’s Tony Pulis again.’”

Pulis said: “Yes, yes, that was that year.”

McCarthy was on hand to come in as peacemaker and said with a smile to Little: “He’ll buy you a pint now. He thinks this smooths it all over but it doesn’t. You can still be bitter and twisted towards him. Most of us are!”

Little had told reporters he would be back when he disappeared from Stoke on a motorbike in July 1999. He returned quickly again to take over at West Brom – but left there the following March to be replaced by Gary Megson, who had also replaced him at Stoke before being cast adrift when the club was taken over by an Icelandic consortium.

One month after leaving the Hawthorns, Little was appointed manager at debt-ridden Hull City in the fourth tier. He turned their fortunes around on the pitch. They had reached the play-offs and were challenging for promotion again when he unexpectedly resigned in February 2002.

He went on to have two-and-a-half years at Tranmere Rovers, just under a year at Wrexham and two years at Gainsborough Trinity to all-but end his managerial life in 2011.

What do you think? Click HERE to join the debate

Get the best Stoke City news and analysis straight to your Inbox courtesy of The Sentinel!

To get it, it's a quick and easy one-two: