Early Life and Playing Career
Allardyce was born in 1954 at a recently built council house in Ash Green on the Old Park Farm Estate in Dudley, Worcestershire. He was the son of Robert Allardyce (1916–1989) and Mary Agnes Allardyce (1918–1991). He has an older brother, Robert junior, who was born in 1951.
He was educated at Sycamore Green Primary School and later at Wren's Nest Secondary School. He was a boyhood Wolves fan and regularly attended Molineux to watch them play.
He joined Bolton Wanderers as a centre-half in 1973 and is best remembered as a player for being part of the side which won the Second Division title in 1977–78 to secure promotion to the First Division.
Allardyce was signed by Ken Knighton to play for Sunderland for whom he played 25 times during the 1980–81 season. He also played for Huddersfield Town, Coventry City, Millwall and Preston North End, whom he captained to promotion from the Fourth Division in 1986–87.
He played in the United States in the North American Soccer League for the Tampa Bay Rowdies. The football team shared facilities with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Allardyce applied many practices of American football (gridiron) towards soccer (with regards to training, player management and tactics). These innovative ideas helped him progress in football management.
Read more about this topic: Sam Allardyce
Famous quotes containing the words early, life, playing and/or career:
“I got a little secretarial job after college, but I thought of it as a prelude. Education, work, whatever you did before marriage, was only a prelude to your real life, which was marriage.”
—Bonnie Carr (c. early 1930s)
“Let the whiteness of bones atone to forgetfulness.
There is no life in them. As I am forgotten
And would be forgotten, so I would forget
Thus devoted, concentrated in purpose.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“If you would be a leader of men you must lead your own generation, not the next. Your playing must be good now, while the play is on the boards and the audience in the seats.... It will not get you the repute of a good actor to have excellencies discovered in you afterwards.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“I seemed intent on making it as difficult for myself as possible to pursue my “male” career goal. I not only procrastinated endlessly, submitting my medical school application at the very last minute, but continued to crave a conventional female role even as I moved ahead with my “male” pursuits.”
—Margaret S. Mahler (1897–1985)