Veteran Premier League manager Sam Allardyce recalls a time when one of his players refused to play for him, and that player is now the head coach of a top-flight club. The 70-year-old has managed several clubs including Bolton, Newcastle, Blackburn, West Ham, Sunderland, Crystal Palace, Everton, West Brom, and Leeds in the Premier League. He also had a short tenure as England’s manager in 2016, which lasted just one match.
It comes as no surprise that Big Sam has experienced a lot in his career. When asked if any player had ever refused to play for him, he provided an example. Allardyce’s time at Newcastle was brief, from May 2007 to January 2008. However, it was a Magpies player who refused to play for him—Scott Parker, who is currently the manager of Burnley.
Allardyce shared this story on the No Tippy Tappy Football podcast, where he discussed whether a player had ever refused to play for any of his clubs. “Scott did it when I was at Newcastle,” he said. “It wasn’t too bad. It was a straightforward situation—‘I need to leave and you need to get rid of me as quickly as you possibly can.’”
He added, “I’d only been in the job for, I don’t know, a day or two days. And I think there were two reasons for that. I understood the first reason, which was he felt that the Newcastle fans didn’t like him.”
Allardyce explained that the Newcastle fans are known for their strong opinions. “If they don’t like what they see, they show their disapproval, rightly so. But they also get behind you extremely well if they do like what you do. And so I was faced with the fact that they, I think it was his first season, he’d only been there for one season.”
He described Parker as a good player but noted the challenges of dealing with fan pressure. “What do you do? Can’t stay here, can’t cope with it, need to move.”
Allardyce had previously spoken about Parker’s departure from St James’ Park, stating in 2010: “Fan pressure there is hostile towards the players. They don’t really support the team as they should; they’re very critical and the players can’t handle that. That’s what Scott Parker couldn’t cope with. He said he couldn’t play at Newcastle.”
Parker himself admitted that he had to leave because of the negative feelings from the fans after a positive start to his time at the club. “I went up to Newcastle and was playing some of my best football,” he said in 2020. “Every week I gave nothing but my everything and ended up being captain of that football club.”
He continued, “In a very, very short space of time, it changed very, very quickly for me. It went the other way, for some reason. Obviously, we were in a bit of a bad turn at the time in terms of results, but nothing that was too much of a crisis. It did turn, and before you know it, I had to leave.”
Parker left Newcastle for West Ham in the summer of 2007 after two seasons and 73 games. His departure marked a significant moment in his career, highlighting the intense pressures faced by players in the spotlight.
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