Coppinger interview

[The Red Baron]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-3994876/EFL-Q-James-Coppinger-11-minutes-Premier-League-fame-love-Juninho-chocolate-oranges.html?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490

[Copps is Magic]

Oh ffs, got excited when I saw the thread title, open it up - Daily Mail link! Really? FS. Can anyone copy and paste please, not clicking on that trash.

[BigKeif]

Full interview.....

With other sides playing in the FA Cup this weekend, Doncaster Rovers will go top of Sky Bet League Two if they win their catch-up game at Stevenage.

No player epitomises their spirit more than midfielder and captain James Coppinger, who made his 500th appearance for the Yorkshire club earlier this season.

Now 35, he recalls his 11 minutes of Premier League fame as a 19-year-old alongside Alan Shearer in this week's Sky Bet EFL Q&A.

He regrets not making more of that opportunity and would like to see wages reduced for younger players to instil the right mindset in them. He also divulges his love for chocolate oranges and Middlesbrough's former Brazil maestro Juninho.

Were you always a midfielder?

No, I started as a winger but then I made my Premier League debut for Newcastle as a striker with Alan Shearer, which is hard to believe really. For the four years I was at Newcastle, I was classed as a striker. We were probably the first Under-19s team to play a diamond formation, in which I played in behind the front man.

For my debut, I came on against Tottenham at St James' Park in front of 55,000 (in August 2000, Newcastle won 2-0), which was such a good experience. Bobby Robson gave me my debut, one that I'll never forget alongside the top scorer of all time in the Premier League. Sir Bobby as well was a special guy.

It was when I went into the Football League that I moved back to midfield. I was 21 and I wasn't the biggest. I'm still not but you needed to be quite physical to play up front in the Football League at that time. As soon as I went to Exeter in 2002 – so 14 years ago - I was put on the wing and that was that.

Best moment on a football pitch?

Brentford away when we clinched the title on the last day of the season (in April 2013, Doncaster won 1-0) when Brentford had a penalty to go up instead of us and then we went down the other end and scored.

Bournemouth had taken the trophy to Tranmere and thought they were going to get it there.

It was a double whammy for us to get promoted and win the league and for me personally to score the winning goal to get us back into the Championship was the best feeling. Probably alongside my Premier League debut.

When we conceded the penalty in the 90th minute, straightaway I was thinking: 'Another two or three weeks of training and the play-offs' – and anything can happen in the play-offs. But then as soon as they missed, I saw Billy (Paynter) get the ball and I just tried to keep up with him. Luckily enough for me, he squared and scored. The rest is history, as they say. It was unbelievable for everybody involved.

It was such a good season and we had worked so hard to get to where we were. We could have had that taken off us. Then within 30 seconds we had gone down the other end, scored and won the league.

Is there one regret you need to put right?

That's a difficult one. There are not many things that I do regret or can regret. But what I would say is that when I made my Premier League debut I was 19 years old and I did think that I'd made it.

The one thing I do regret is not being more focused and not sacrificing more things to try and get into a Premier League team regularly and play there for longer. If I had knuckled down a bit more … but then hindsight's a beautiful thing.

Mentally I wasn't strong enough to cope with what was happening and where I was. I never actually believed that I would have been at Newcastle, so while it is a regret it is probably something that I would never have been able to change because I didn't realise it was such a massive opportunity. My dad used to say to me all the time: 'Do you realise where you are?' The answer was: 'Not really.' I was just playing football because I enjoy it.

I worked with Terry Gormley at Doncaster who completely transformed my life and my football career, based on how I was thinking and how I processed things.

How I was thinking was totally having an effect on how I was performing and what I was doing in my life. Terry made me aware that I could change all that. If I knew that when I was 19, or even 14 or 15, things would be a lot different to what they are now.

I've formed a company called Pro Mindset. It's in the early stages because I'm still playing. At the minute it's aimed at players in general, but we definitely want to try and get it into the academies and make young players realise that how they deal with things has a massive impact on how they perform and what they do in their lives. Nobody actually teaches you this stuff.

Players are human beings. They have feelings and they have to deal with different things outside football, with criticism and people telling them things.

Hardest opponent?

Hermann Hreidarsson. He stands out for me when he was playing for Portsmouth. He wasn't aggressive but he used to nip you and pull you, everything to stop me basically. And he used to talk to me all the way through the game and try and get in my head. He was one of those old school defenders.

And then there was Andy Griffin, who I played with at Newcastle and Doncaster. You wouldn't want to come across him. Even in training he was similar to Hreidarsson in the way that he would do anything to stop you getting past him.

You don't see many of those kind of defenders around any more – maybe because it's more about getting forward as a full-back now rather than stopping wingers.

Least favourite away ground?

MK Dons. I went there for Doncaster in the season we went up as champions. We got beaten 3-0 (in March 2013) and honestly it was like we had never played football before. They were that good and the pitch there is that big that we literally couldn't get anywhere near them. I remember coming off and thinking: 'What's just happened?'

I've played there twice and both times it was if we'd never played football and they were just out of this world. I've never been there and had a good experience.

Funniest thing you have seen in a dressing room?

John Ryan, our old chairman at Doncaster. He came into the dressing room after we had won the (League One) Play-Off final at Wembley against Leeds (1-0 in May 2008). He got absolutely tortured.

The lads just piled on him. I felt sorry for him and I was actually worried for him at one point. He got piled on and then the champagne came out, then the beers came out. He ended up stripping off in the changing room.

It was a magical moment at the same time. We'd spent so many years trying to get into the Championship and John had put all his time and effort and commitment in. He was such an infectious character and that's probably why Doncaster got to where they did.

For him as well, it was a massive release. For the lads, it obviously showed how much we cared for him. It was definitely a funny moment at the same time.

What's your guilty food pleasure?

Chocolate. It's one thing that I crave. Not constantly but one thing that you shouldn't really have too much of.

Terry's Chocolate Orange, oh my God. And coming up to Christmas, mint Matchmakers as well. I'll always get a chocolate orange at Christmas. That's always stuck with me since I was a kid. It's the one with the segments. I try and share as much as I can but once you get started on it, it doesn't last very long.

Boyhood sporting hero?

There were two - David Beckham and Juninho.

I was a season ticket holder at Middlesbrough so I used to watch Juninho. To watch him live, he was such a small player- similar to me. He drifted in and out of midfield, he sometimes played off the striker, so I just looked at him and wanted to be exactly like him.

David Beckham was the same. He just had something about him when he was playing on the wing. The way he crossed the ball, the way he delivered the ball, the way he strutted about the pitch as well.

They were the two players that I always looked at and wanted to emulate.

If you had the power, what one thing would you change about the game?

It would definitely be the money that's involved. It's had a massive impact on football and in my opinion it's only going to get worse. It would be a different game completely if everybody got paid the same. At the top level it's getting astronomical and having a massive impact on the quality and the competitiveness within the game.

The way the world is, money creates power. Players think they are more powerful than they are and before they know it, their contract is finished.

If you drop down the divisions it's a different game – not just in quality but in terms of appetite and people wanting to play football because of the sport, not because they're getting paid hundreds of thousands of pounds. I'd change that and go back to the early 90s when football, to me, was in its prime. That makes me sound old, doesn't it?

A lot of the lads coming through from academies are getting paid far too much. By the time they get to 21, 22, they have never played a competitive game but yet they have earned an absolute fortune. In my opinion, they are playing football for the wrong reasons, for the lifestyle rather than for the love of the game and to win things and be successful. All the reasons why people used to play football.

It's not their fault. They get so much too soon. I think Liverpool were talking about capping their wage structure from a young age so that everyone gets the same money and so that they want to play football for Liverpool Football Club, not because they're getting x amount of money per week. I think that's probably the right thing to do – or at least one of the ways they can stop it happening.

Most embarrassing moment in football?

I missed a penalty for Doncaster at home to Leyton Orient eight or nine years ago – and I missed it big style. I think it was 2-2 and it was to get the win. That night I couldn't sleep at all. I'd just come back from injury. I missed the target completely to the left. I remember being embarrassed at the time. That's one of the reasons why I don't take penalties now, to be honest.

Which player in history would you like to play alongside?

Probably Juninho. Just because of that Middlesbrough team as well with Emerson and Ravanelli. I used to watch them and think I'd love to be involved in it. I actually believed I could have been as well, which is probably one of the reasons why I went on to play football.

Juninho had everything, so to be able to play alongside him would have been a dream come true, just to be on the end of some of his passes. He was outrageous. And just to learn from him as well would have been brilliant.

[Copps is Magic]

Sound Keith.

[RedRover45]

Cheers, good interview that. Is it just me but I could have sworn he missed that penalty against Walsall not Leyton Orient.

[drfc1951]

Cheers, good interview that. Is it just me but I could have sworn he missed that penalty against Walsall not Leyton Orient.

No he did miss one against Walsall, he sort of sidefooted the ball straight to the keeper

[Lincoln Rover]

Wasn't that in the last minute if memory serves?

[drfc1951]

Yes.Im not sure sure if the pen was to win the game or draw.

[Harrogate Rover]

It was a Tuesday night match fairly early on in our promotion season. Lewis Guy scored our second goal to go in 2-1 at half time then got sent off right at the end of the game. Troy Deeney was on the bench for Walsall.