Stuart Pearce has come out of retirement at the age of 53 to play for a non-league side dubbed “the worst in the UK”.
Gloucestershire-based Longford AFC, whose entire first team and manager left last summer, play in the Gloucestershire Northern Senior League Division Two, and have lost all 19 of their games this season.
They scored their first goal of the season on 13 January in a 9-1 defeat by Abbeymead Rovers – with their current goal difference standing at minus 180.
Pearce, who won 78 England caps and retired from professional football in 2002, said he “jumped at the chance” to return to action with the club, in a deal arranged as part of a Direct Line marketing campaign.
“Grassroots is essential to the lifeblood of the game,” said Pearce, who was sacked as manager of Nottingham Forest a year ago. “I’m looking forward to working with manager Nick Dawe and to helping a group of talented young footballers achieve their dreams and, hopefully transform both the dressing room confidence and the on-pitch performance.”
Dawe said Pearce, who will train at the club to build up match fitness before making a first-team debut, would give Longford “the best chance possible to go further than we ever have done before … A year ago we were playing in front of one man and his dog and now, we are set to have hundreds for his debut.”
