(11-15-2019, 06:17 PM)Squid Wrote: Where do you go these days to find Zoltan Gera?
The answer on Friday night will be Budapest, among a crowd of 68,000 Hungarian football fans due to gather to celebrate the opening of a new national stadium and honour the career of one of their greatest footballers since the ‘Magnificent Magyars’ — the great Hungary team of the 1950s — were bestriding the football world.
Gera hopes that sometime soon, the answer will be back at The Hawthorns, where he became West Bromwich Albion’s most popular player of the Premier League era and got the chance to play for his Subbuteo hero.
But on Thursday night, the answer was Ferney Park in Ballinamallard, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, with its 250 seats and total capacity of 2,000.
This is the start of a new footballing life for 40-year-old Gera, one he hopes will bring new successes back home in Hungary in the summer of 2021.
Five years after he left Albion and 18 months after retiring as a player, Gera is manager of Hungary’s under-21s and enjoying life, but craving some wins on the road to the Under-21 European Championships in 2021, which his nation will co-host with Slovenia.
Before Thursday’s meeting with Northern Ireland, his record was played four, drew one, lost three.
“I am enjoying it but I will enjoy it more if we start winning some games,” Gera tells The Athletic at the team’s hotel on the banks of Lough Erne, near Enniskillen. A few hours later he would once again be denied his first victory as a manager — this time by Alfie McCalmont’s fine late finish for the hosts, one which cancelled out Adrian Szoke’s scrambled first-half effort for Hungary.
“I thought we would have won some games before now but it’s difficult because you have to find the right players and right characters, so I am learning every day.
“The problem is that not many younger players are playing in the top division in Hungary — only four or five players from my team.
“Most of them play in the second division, so that’s not a good thing, but hopefully that will change.”
If a winning personality can be used as a handy man-management tool, Hungarian fans can expect some improvement in Gera’s team.
Just ask former colleagues at The Hawthorns, where his popularity among fans was matched if not exceeded by his standing at the training ground, where is presence rarely failed to raise a smile.
His impressions of Rowan Atkinson’s Mr Bean went down in legend among Albion staff after he opted to fully embrace the nickname he was given by team-mates.
Few staff avoided being labelled a ‘muppet’ with a Hungarian accent and a cheeky smile after Gera adopted the insult first thrown at him by coach Nigel Pearson as his own light-hearted put-down of choice.
In his early years, Gera lived in Pecs, Hungary’s fifth largest city, when the country’s years of communist rule ended in 1990.
“I didn’t know a lot because I was a kid. I just heard a few words from my dad, saying he didn’t like them [the ruling communists],” recalls Gera. “Of course, when you get older, you find out a bit more about history and the communist era. It definitely changed afterwards because the border was open.
“I remember we didn’t have nice fruit — only bananas. There were so many things we didn’t have back then.”
Gera’s father, Sandor, died in May, shortly before his second-born son was given the honour of leading his country’s under-21s.
The men remained close until Sandor’s passing, even though Gera admits his parents’ divorce when he was 12 helped accelerate his well-documented flirtation with a very different life.
The young Gera’s troubles are no secret but worth recalling — a four-year break from a promising football career and a dalliance with drugs and petty crime that only ended when Sandor took him to church.
Faith helped him turn his life around, resume his football journey, and meet his wife of almost 20 years, Timea, the mother of his children Hanna, 11, and Jonatan, nine.
“I spent a lot of time on the street playing football with my friends,” he recalls. “My school was very close to where we lived — five minutes’ walk — so that was a normal life until I went mad and we started to become very naughty boys. I think the biggest problem for me was my parents’ divorce and I didn’t understand what was happening about me, and that was a big, big problem.
“I was around 12 years old and it went like that until when I was 16. That was when my dad became a Christian and took me to church. From that point until now, I am a Christian. We live life as Christians and I pray with my family.
“I found my wife at church. I first saw her singing in the choir at the church in Budapest. I watched her for almost a year but I didn’t say anything — I was scared!
“I was 23. I had moved to Ferencvaros when I was 21 and in my second year there, I met my wife.
“Without the church, I think I would be a prisoner or living on the street without anything. It changed my life completely, that church in Pecs. From one day to the next, my life changed.
“My older brother is a builder and we are very close. He had some problems, like me, but after I became a Christian, he did the same — now our families go to the same church.
“I’ve got two kids. One girl and one boy. Their lives are totally different [to how mine was]. They have a good life. I learned a lot from my parents’ divorce and I don’t want to do the same.
“I have a very good life at home with my wife and kids so the kids enjoy their life with us.”
From Ferencvaros, Gera earned his move to The Hawthorns, although the route across Europe was not straightforward. He only ended up at Albion after David Pleat, during his spell as Tottenham’s director of football, was offered the chance to sign him, liked what he saw, but baulked at the £9 million asking price.
Later Pleat, no longer in the market for a player of Gera’s type, became aware of a clause in Gera’s contract allowing him to move for £1.5 million and recommended him to Jeff Farmer, his former boss at ITV Sport, who was by then an Albion director. Farmer convinced Gary Megson to take a punt.
Even then, Gera had to survive an injury scare in his final game for Ferencvaros — a 3-2 Champions League qualifying win at Albanian side SK Tirana in July 2004.
“My agent called me and said, ‘Are you OK, we have to go to England tomorrow to sign for West Brom’,” he recalls. “It was a knee injury and I had to go off but it wasn’t too bad.”
Things got off to a less-than-ideal start when Scott Field, now director of communications for Great Britain’s Olympic team but then an Albion media man, sent to collect the new signing from the airport, missed the turning off the motorway in a blue Daihatsu Sirion.
But from the moment Gera located the Bromsgrove Hilton, his career in England took off as he was unveiled alongside fellow new arrival Nwankwo Kanu.
“I remember the press conference,” he says. “I was in a suit and tie and Kanu turned up in shorts. It was very funny.
“I nearly asked him for his autograph when I saw him for the first time. I didn’t know he was signing until I arrived and saw him.
“I was so happy when I saw the club, the stadium and the training ground. I thought, ‘Wow, that’s a perfect place for me’.
“It was totally different. We played a classic 4-4-2 with two big guys up front. It was a typical English style but for me, it was no problem because I played on the wing and I was good at reading the second balls off the big guys like Geoff Horsfield.
“Kanu didn’t like to play this kind of football — to fight for the ball — but it was really good for me.
“I made my first start against Tottenham at home and scored a goal after three minutes, so that was a perfect start and for me, it was a surprise how much the fans loved my style. That gave me confidence.”
Midway through his first season in England, Gera would lose the influence of Gary Megson, the manager who had brought him to Albion and given him his first opportunities.
The move would, however, bring him face-to-face with one of his boyhood heroes — Bryan Robson, who took over from Megson.
“I played Subbuteo a lot as a kid,” Gera recalls. “I always played with Bryan Robson because I had the England national team and he was the captain.
“I didn’t know too much about him because I never saw him playing — at that time, there were only one or two games on TV, and it was Hungarian football — but I knew he was the England captain.
“It was very strange for me. He was my hero in Subbuteo and then suddenly, he was my coach.
“Of course, by then, I knew he was a legend at the club and also for the national team, so I was happy.
“But I was also happy with Gary Megson. I never had a problem with Gary and he gave me an opportunity to play.”
Gera’s blend of energy, technical proficiency and eye for goal meant he impressed his managers and fans at The Hawthorns in a way Kanu, his more celebrated fellow new-boy, managed only fleetingly. His status was cemented with his role in the Great Escape, as Robson’s side avoided relegation on the final day of the 2004-05 season with victory over Portsmouth to win a four-way fight for just one survival spot.
“What Bryan Robson did was bring in some really experienced players who knew what we needed to do to survive in this league,” says Gera. “And Nigel Pearson, his assistant coach, was a nice contrast with Robson.
“Robson was a nice man but quite quiet, and Pearson was a hard guy! They were a good mix.
“I always felt we had a chance. I never lost confidence or lost faith. I never felt we would go down. I was sure we would beat Portsmouth on that day and I was sure if we won the game, we would stay up.
“In the second season, we went down and I stayed with the club because I was happy there. I really loved the club and also the fans.”
After failing to avoid the drop in 2006, Robson was sacked during the following Championship season and his departure heralded the arrival of Tony Mowbray and the start of the most dramatic change in styles in recent Albion history.
The first season ended in play-off final defeat to Derby at Wembley before Gera became a seemingly integral part in what the fans dubbed ‘the best midfield in the world’ alongside Chris Brunt, James Morrison, Jonathan Greening, Robert Koren and Filipe Teixeira — the creative heart of Mowbray’s swashbuckling, 2007-08 Championship title-winning side.
Yet while he started 33 games in that season as the six midfielders vied for four places, Gera reveals for the first time to The Athletic that he already knew his time at The Hawthorns was coming to an end.
He did not return to the Premier League with Mowbray and Co, moving instead to Fulham to link up with Roy Hodgson.
“I started in the team but then, sometimes I was on the bench,” he says. “I was close to signing a new contract. It was nearly agreed.
“I asked Tony what was the problem. Why was I not playing all the time?
“He said, ‘There is nothing wrong with you but I think the other players are better’.
“For me, that was a signal that I had to leave if I wasn’t going to be playing.
“I played the whole season but I didn’t feel the trust. I had a very good season, scored a lot of goals and played really good football, but I just felt when they were promoted to the Premier League, he would maybe sign other players in my place.
“I never had any problem with Tony. I respected him but I just felt that if we had similar players, he would choose them, not me.
“He just felt that way. I don’t know why. It was really hard because I really loved to play at the club and I loved the fans. I think they realised it was a hard decision.”
The instant bond forged with Albion fans would always have been difficult to replicate at Craven Cottage, especially now Gera was a proven, well-known figure in England.
He did not envisage, however, just how hard he would find life under Hodgson in London in the early months.
“For me, it was very hard to get Roy’s style,” he admits. “Fulham were a very organised team and I suffered for the first few months because I didn’t touch the ball and I just ran like crazy.
“I felt it was not for me. I didn’t enjoy it. I needed the first season to experience that kind of football and I learned a lot from him about the positions and how we needed to play compact as wingers, midfielders and strikers.
“He was a very cool gentleman. I learned a lot from him in the end. I think I had a good connection with the Fulham fans as well but it was a really difficult start.
“In the first few months, it didn’t look like I would be a favourite because I didn’t play too much and I felt that the supporters weren’t happy with me and the way I played.
“I was angry. I had got angry with myself. I lost patience and I lost confidence. I suffered at that time.
“But the second season, I started to play much better and they realised that I was a totally different player to the one who played in the first season.”
It was early into his first season with Fulham, however, that the idea of a second spell at The Hawthorns first entered Gera’s mind.
It happened in 2011 when Hodgson, by then in charge at The Hawthorns, arranged a reunion with a player who had by then become a fan of his methods.
“In the end, it was a really good time for me and the club at Fulham,” he says. “We played in the Europa League final and had the club’s best season in the Premier League.
“I remember when we played against West Brom away, I thought the fans were going to kill me. But I will never forget the reception I got. It was amazing. I thought ‘wow’ and at that moment, I was sure I would go back to the club. I just felt it.
“A couple of months before the end of the last season there, I heard there was a possibility to go back to West Brom and straight away, I knew I wanted to do it.
“I had some opportunities to move to other countries but I always wanted to go back to West Brom. I knew the club, I knew everything about the philosophy, and I was so happy to go back.
“I knew what Roy expected from the players so for me, that was perfect.”
The second spell at Albion was far from perfect, however. A knee injury just three games into his return ended his first season back in the Midlands and a recurrence midway through his second campaign under Steve Clarke brought that to a premature halt too.
In the end, his three-year second stint at Albion brought just 25 starts and a frustrating end to his time with the club he loved most in his playing career.
“I was very disappointed and I also felt sorry for the club because they had signed me and I spent almost a year and a half as an injured player,” he says.
“That was really hard. The dream was playing in the last game and saying goodbye to the fans and unfortunately that didn’t happen.
“I spent seven years there overall and had the connection with the fans, so there were a lot of good memories.
“When I had the chance to go to West Brom, I knew nothing about them. I didn’t even know where it was.
“In the end, I was really happy there from the first day to the last. I loved my life at the training ground and away from the training ground. It was a really good life.
“I love to joke with others and I like it when the atmosphere is good and relaxed around me. There was Paul Robinson, who was more crazy than me. He was really good and so was Jonno (Jonathan Greening).
“I don’t know who started to call me Mr Bean. Maybe I was a little bit like him! I did some funny things, but I learned most of them from Robinson.
“He was the craziest player — in a good way. On the pitch, he was hard but off the pitch, he was always laughing. He is a really good guy.
“His best friend was Jonno but on the training pitch, they were always kicking each other. Then after, they were laughing.”
His second spell with West Brom ended in 2014 but Gera was not about to hang up his boots with the disappointment of an injury-wrecked spell so fresh in his mind, even though Albion gave him the chance to take his first steps into coaching.
Instead, he returned to another former club in Ferencvaros, became a holding midfielder to protect his fragile hamstrings, and earned a place as Hungary’s captain at the 2016 European Championships as a result.
“When West Brom decided not to offer me a new contract as a player, they offered me an opportunity to stay at the club and be a coach with the youth team,” he says. “But I opted to play on. I wanted to play another few years of football.
“If I had stayed, it would have been a bad decision. If I had retired at that time, I would have missed the Euros.
“I always said to myself, ‘I don’t want to finish football like this’.”
Eventually, though, at the age of 38, a hamstring rupture proved one injury too far and retirement became inevitable.
He was able to play in the final game of the 2017-18 season and say a fond farewell to supporters before joining the club’s coaching staff last season.
In August this year, however, came the chance to manage his nation’s next crop of talented players and to find out whether his happy-go-lucky persona could translate into a management career.
“In the last few years, when I came home to Hungary, I was like a second coach on the pitch, so I said to myself that I would try to be a coach when I stopped playing,” says Gera. “I have learned from all my coaches but I want to be myself.
“At the moment, I am a cool guy, not a frustrated guy next to the pitch, but I am a new coach, so we will see what happens.”
He is true to his word on Thursday, cutting a vocal but calm figure on the touchline in the cold rain of a bitterly cold night in front of a crowd of just a few hundred.
He shouts regular instructions to his young charges, flexes his knees and looks to the heavens as a series of half-chances come and go for his side to add to their 1-0 lead, and remonstrates on occasions with the fourth official.
He exchanges high fives with his coaching staff when Szoke’s header is adjudged to have crossed the line and turns towards the bench with a resigned expression when McCalmont curls home to level the scores, but he never loses his cool as he is made to wait for his first win as under-21s boss.
He will have no competitive games to sharpen up his team’s instincts before the tournament in 18 months’ time.
After last night’s match came an early-morning wake-up call this morning for the two-hour drive to Belfast and a flight back home for what promises to be an emotional send-off.
Gera will take to the field at the new Puskas Arena to accept the applause of Hungary fans and officially bring down the curtain on a playing career that took him from near self-destruction in Pecs to legendary status in Hungary and the West Midlands.
It will be a send-off to match one he was given at Ferencvaros and will leave him with just one, vital farewell to see to.
He is determined to find time in the next few months to return to The Hawthorns and collect the cap that Albion are handing out to every former player.
“I hope I will get chance to say goodbye at Albion and I will be coming back soon to collect this cap,” he says.
“I still love the club and I still follow the club. Whenever I get the opportunity to watch some games, I do.
“I am really enjoying this season and I think there is a good opportunity to get back to the Premier League where the Baggies belong.”

(11-15-2019, 08:34 PM)TETLEY74 Wrote: One of my all time fav Albion players up there with Cunningham, Regis, Bomber, SuperBob etc, dare I say it could he be a future Albion managerial material?

(11-15-2019, 08:24 PM)CA Baggie Wrote: I didn’t realise he left because Mowbray wasn’t really picking him and told him that.  I thought he just took advantage of that Bosman rule.   He’s gone up even higher in my estimation.

He’ll get a good reception when he collects his cap.