After an exceptionally long and successful career you might have thought that former England manager Roy Hodgson would want a break from football.....far from it, he was at the Ship Pub in Portals on Thursday night watching the Arsenal match!
It is reported that Hodgson is staying in the area and he is a frequent visitor. In September 2023, it was reported that he was on his way to a holiday in Mallorca when he was asked to return to Crystal Palace for a second stint as manager.
He has managed 22 different teams in eight countries, beginning in Sweden with Halmstad in the 1976 season. He later guided the Switzerland national team to the last 16 of the 1994 World Cup and qualification for Euro 1996; Switzerland had not qualified for a major tournament since the 1960s.
From 2006 to 2007, he managed the Finland national team, guiding them to their highest-ever FIFA ranking of 33rd place and coming close to qualifying for a major tournament for the first time in their history. He managed the England national team from May 2012 to June 2016.
Other clubs that Hodgson has managed include Inter Milan, Blackburn Rovers, Malmö, Grasshoppers, Copenhagen, Udinese, Fulham, Liverpool, West Bromwich Albion, Watford, and boyhood club Crystal Palace, whom he managed for 200 games across two spells.
Hodgson served several times as a member of UEFA's technical study group at the European Championships and was also a member of the FIFA technical study group at the 2006 World Cup. Hodgson speaks five languages, and has worked as a television pundit in several of the countries in which he has coached