‘Pele, Glenn Hoddle… and Morrissey’ Sean Dyche opens up on his lifelong heroes

Everyone in football has their icons, role models or figures they look up to when they are in need of inspiration.

Sean Dyche began his senior football career at Nottingham Forest as an uncompromising centre-back in the late 1980s and while he had the iconic Brian Clough to inspire him at the City Ground, those that he idolised were not restricted to the kind of no-nonsense footballing hard men that you may think.

Instead, Dyche’s heroes included a couple of Rolls-Royce players, plus an icon of 1980s British youth culture.

Dyce reveals his heroes on and off the pitch

“There were no managers at that stage, obviously, just players,” Dyche tells FourFourTwo when asked who his heroes were as a boy.

“When I was really little, the first worldwide superstar name I heard was Pele. I used to get a Pele book, cut out figures and put them up on my wall.

“He was later joined by Glenn Hoddle. I was a midfielder, believe it or not, and he was very much my hero.

Dyche admits that his sense of boyhood awe quickly went away when he took his first steps in the game.

“Once you become a professional player, all that worship falls away, because you meet a lot of these people and soon realise they’re just normal guys,” he adds.

Football was not the young Dyche’s only passion and that is reflected by his eclectic taste in music and the cultural icons he looked up to.

“My heroes as a kid weren’t just footballers either,” he adds.

“I loved my music. I still do. Loads of musical heroes – The Specials and The Jam, Paul Weller was a massive favourite, then into the New Romantics: Duran Duran and Simon Le Bon.

“Then The Smiths came along, and Morrissey and Johnny Marr are heroes. That’s never ending.”