In my second season of management, 1993-94, my Bournemouth side of what is now League One, were drawn against Premier League side Blackburn Rovers in a second-round League cup tie.
We travelled up to Blackburn for the first leg on a Tuesday and, after a sleep in the afternoon, we all attended a pre-match meeting. I had a special surprise guest for the lads – a hypnotist.
During his session he asked the team to sit in a circle on chairs, while he sat at the top of the room feeling – he believed – the vibes from the lads.
He switched all the lights off and gave them two minutes in silence in a pitch-black room but then, when he went and turned the lights back on, all their chairs were empty. I was amazed – he had made them all disappear!
It turned out the room had a side-door exit and while the lights were out, our lads had decided to sneak out and leave our man all by himself. He was great about it though, and took it all in good form.
Although the team did not play their part in the exercise in the way I’d intended, it was still fantastic for our preparation because they were all still talking about the hypnotist on the bus to the match, with no pre-match tension at all.
Blackburn had a brilliant side under Kenny Dalglish at that time and they were formidable opponents who were fighting for the Premier League title.
We lost the game, with Alan Shearer getting the winner for Rovers, but only went out 1-0 on aggregate. The lads put in such a great performance and showed no inhibitions whatsoever – I thank the hypnotist for that.
Sometimes though, thinking outside the box just doesn’t work. I have no idea why!
During our promotion season at Stoke when we went up to the Premier League in 2007-08, we put together a video that showed all our goals that season to play to the squad before a crucial point of our run-in, an away trip to Coventry in April with four games to go.
Just before kick-off, the lads sat and watched what was a really uplifting take on all the positives so far, from all the matches we had played, and the video ended with a rousing rendition from Al Pacino from the film ‘Any Given Sunday’, when he inspires his locker room with an incredible speech about teamwork and desire.
I felt after our players heard a speech like that, only a victory could follow, but at half-time Coventry, who were fighting relegation, were 1-0 up and we had been absolutely useless.
My assistant Dave Kemp was waiting for me at the dressing-room door at the break and just said, “Put those toys away and get back to being you!”
In the second half, after a few choice words and a bit of a reset, we went out and managed to win the game 2-1 to go top of the table, with the character that team had coming again to the forefront.
Pacino’s words were unbelievable and miles better than anything I could ever muster to try to motivate my players, but it shows there is a time and a place for everything – and that time wasn’t then!
