Penalties, Pearson & Chasing Promotion - Gally’s Foxes Memories

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Penalties, Pearson & Chasing Promotion - Gally’s Foxes Memories

Forward Paul Gallagher recounts his time at City, playing in Thailand, taking set pieces and the team’s progress as it strived for promotion to the Premier League.

2025-03-21T15:00+00:00

by John Hutchinson

Published

21 Mar, 2025

Penalties, Pearson & Chasing Promotion - Gally’s Foxes Memories

Forward Paul Gallagher recounts his time at City, playing in Thailand, taking set pieces and the team’s progress as it strived for promotion to the Premier League.

John Hutchinson

2025-03-21T15:00+00:00

Penalties, Pearson & Chasing Promotion - Gally’s Foxes Memories

Forward Paul Gallagher recounts his time at City, playing in Thailand, taking set pieces and the team’s progress as it strived for promotion to the Premier League.

John Hutchinson

2025-03-21T15:00+00:00

Penalties, Pearson & Chasing Promotion - Gally’s Foxes Memories

Forward Paul Gallagher recounts his time at City, playing in Thailand, taking set pieces and the team’s progress as it strived for promotion to the Premier League.

John Hutchinson

2025-03-21T15:00+00:00

Penalties, Pearson & Chasing Promotion - Gally’s Foxes Memories

Forward Paul Gallagher recounts his time at City, playing in Thailand, taking set pieces and the team’s progress as it strived for promotion to the Premier League.

John Hutchinson

2025-03-21T15:00+00:00

After signing for Leicester City in August 2009, he went on to make 137 appearances for the Foxes in teams managed by Nigel Pearson, Paulo Sousa and Sven-Göran Eriksson. Experiencing playing in the Premier League and Europe for Blackburn Rovers, he also recalls starring for Scotland, his spells at Stoke City, Preston North End and Plymouth Argyle, and his career as a player and a coach after leaving Leicester.

“I was born in Glasgow,” Paul began. “But my family moved to Blackburn when I was six years old. My dad and his brother got a job there and me and my mum followed on. We went back and forth to Scotland a few times but settled in Blackburn and I signed for Rovers when I was nine years old. I actually signed for Preston first, before Blackburn, but I couldn’t get there because my mum and dad couldn’t drive.

“When I was scouted by Blackburn, 92 players got on a trial but only two of us made it and I was one of them. However, I’d already signed for Preston, so if I joined Blackburn or played a game, it would have cost Blackburn about £10,000!

“So, Blackburn told me to play for my grassroots team until my Preston contract ran out, so that’s what I did. I signed for Blackburn when I was nine and, when I got to 16, and left school, I signed YTS (Youth Training Scheme) forms, and in my second YTS year, I was in the first team. It was a quick transition from youth football to men’s football.

Playing for Rovers in the Premier League.

“When I joined Blackburn, Kenny Dalglish was the manager and there were some big names at the club like Alan Shearer, Chris Sutton, Colin Hendry and Tim Flowers. Blackburn had won the Premier League (in 1995) and were then in the Champions League. It was a big club. I think they were one of the first teams to have a state-of-the-art academy. With Jack Walker’s money, I think they spent about £10M-£12M on it. It was one of the best academies in the land.

“When I was 16 (in 2000), Graeme Souness was the manager, and I made my first team debut when I was 18. I came on as a sub for Dwight Yorke at home against Arsenal and we won 2-0. They had big names like Patrick Vieira, Thierry Henry, and Dennis Bergkamp. Just as I came off the bench and was about to go on the pitch, Souness said to me: ‘I believe you are a Celtic fan’. I said: ‘That’s right, gaffer’. He replied: ‘Well go back and sit down again then because I’m a Rangers fan’. It was good banter.”

The following season (2003/04), when Paul made 26 appearances in the Premier League, he also became a Scotland international.

“I was playing for the Under-17s at Blackburn, and I scored quite a lot of goals,” he explained. “I was getting recognition from England, because people didn’t know I’d been born in Scotland. I got 10 or 12 caps for Scotland’s Under-21s side and then Berti Vogts, the Scotland manager, gave me a senior international call-up as a 19-year-old for a match against Wales at the Millennium Stadium (in January 2004).

“I came on as a sub. I only got this one cap. I probably should have had a lot more, but winning that cap was a great experience. It was a proud moment for myself and my family for me to represent my country. I’ve still got the cap and the shirt. Back then, shirts weren’t fitted. It was one size to fit all. Mine was the biggest shirt you’ve ever seen!”

Scoring at Goodison Park.

Between making his debut for Blackburn Rovers and signing for Leicester City in August 2009, Paul made a total of 75 appearances for the Ewood Park side. Sixty-one of them were in the Premier League. During this time, he also made 107 appearances playing on loan for Championship sides Stoke, Preston and Plymouth.

“Usually, you go on loan when you are a young player and then return to play in the first team,” he added. “I did it the opposite way round. I’d played a good few games for Blackburn in the Premier League, but in the 2005/06 season I went on loan to Stoke. Mark Hughes was the Blackburn manager and we had some big name players like Craig Bellamy.

“I just wanted to play every week so I went to Stoke for the season. I played 40-odd games and scored 12 goals. I really enjoyed it there. I had a really good time. I think they wanted to sign me, but I wanted to play in the Premier League. I believed I was good enough to do that, so I went back to Blackburn near the end of the season and, the following season, I played in over 20 games, including playing in the UEFA Cup.

“At the start of the next season (2007/08), I went on a six-month loan to Preston. I just wanted to play as a regular first team player. Rob Kelly, who’d been my youth coach at Blackburn and who’d recently been made Manager at Leicester, was coaching at Preston. I knew him and when Alan Irvine came in as manager there (in November 2007), Rob became assistant manager.

“Alan Irvine wanted to buy me and came up with a transfer fee, but I had three years left on my contract at Blackburn and, for personal reasons, the move didn’t work. I went back to Blackburn. Towards the end of the January (2008) transfer window, I went on loan to Stoke again for the rest of the season. Tony Pulis was Stoke’s manager, and we were promoted to the Premier League at the end of the season when, in the last match of the season, we drew with Leicester, who went down to League 1.”

On loan at Plymouth.

Paul returned to Blackburn in the summer of 2008, where Paul Ince had just taken over as manager.

“He’d come from managing MK Dons,” Paul recalled. “I felt I’d done really well in the pre-season games, but again we had some really big players at Blackburn then like Roque Santa Cruz, David Bentley and Morten Gamst Pedersen. I told Paul Ince that I wanted to play, and, at that time, a few teams were showing interest like Hibernian, Sunderland and Plymouth.

“Plymouth were playing Burnley at Turf Moor so I went to see their manager Paul Sturrock at the team’s hotel. He was a Scot, and he told me: ‘I’ve watched you for a few years and like the way you play. I want to build a team around you’. So, I went on a season long loan to Plymouth, even though I didn’t know how far Plymouth was from Blackburn! I think I repaid his faith because I played over 40 games and was the team’s top scorer.

“At the time, my eldest daughter was three and me, my wife and my daughter lived in Devon for that season. We really enjoyed living down there. It’s a lovely place to live. I was enjoying my football, really felt part of the club and did really well there.

“At the end of the season, I went back to Blackburn. Sam Allardyce had become manager. Before I went to Plymouth, Paul Ince had told me that if I did well at Plymouth, I’d be recalled to Blackburn at Christmas and I did do well.

“However, he got the sack at Christmas and Sam Allardyce, the new manager, told me to stay in Plymouth for the rest of the season. He said it would be good for my education and learning and that I would benefit from the rhythm of playing regular games, which was fine by me.”

The attacker's away debut for the Foxes came at St. James' Park.

Paul did return to Blackburn at the end of his successful season at Plymouth but he soon found himself signing for Leicester.

Explaining how this came about, he continued: “I had a good pre-season (2009) for Blackburn. Sam Allardyce really liked me. He played me in all of the games. The first game of the season was against Manchester City and I came on as sub for the last half an hour.

“Our next game, during the following week, was against Fulham but the match was postponed because they had to play a qualifying match for the UEFA Cup. If had played in that game against Fulham, I might have stayed at Blackburn but, that week, Leicester City put in a bid for me.

“Nigel Pearson, Craig Shakespeare and Steve Walsh had watched me play for Plymouth and I got flagged up. Sam said to me: ‘I can’t promise that you’ll play every week, but I really like you’. I had a year left on my contract, but he then said: ‘We’ve agreed a fee with Leicester’. I just said: ‘Look. I’m happy to leave. I just want to go and make a career for myself’.

I knew all about Leicester, and about Martin O’Neill, Steve Walsh (the player), Matt Elliott, Emile Heskey, Robbie Savage, Stan Collymore, and the others, but I didn’t know how big a football club it was until I went there and saw the new stadium. I’d never played there, and when I went to the training ground and saw the new stadium and the Club’s infrastructure, I just thought: ‘This is going to be the right place for me for the next step in my career.’”

When Paul signed for Leicester City in August 2009, Nigel Pearson’s team had just been promoted back to the Championship as League 1 Champions.

“When I looked at Leicester,” Paul explained, “I thought ‘they are used to winning games so they are on the crest of a wave’. I always thought of them as a big club. I did a lot of research and concluded that it was a club that was going places and at the end my first season there we did get to the play-off semi-finals, losing to Cardiff on penalties.”

Jubilation on Filbert Way after one of Gallagher's two goals against Palace.

Recalling his first season as a Leicester City player, during which he made 46 appearances, Paul continued: “My first game was against Barnsley at home. We won 1-0 and Matty Fryatt scored. I could play in several forward positions. At Leicester I played off the left or right and that’s when I felt settled.

“I thought I started slowly but in October I managed to score twice against Crystal Palace and then I started to score goals. I got a hat-trick against Scunthorpe and scored with a free-kick against Forest. There were some good goals. I was Player of the Month in February.

“At that time, I was getting voted best player in the Championship and playing really well, but I wasn’t getting recognition for Scotland (whose manager was ex-Leicester manager Craig Levein). He was picking players from the Scottish Championship so I felt a bit down hearted, but I didn’t mind because I knew I could just focus on playing for Leicester.”

At the end of Paul’s first season on Filbert Way there were two significant developments. Pearson went to Hull City and was replaced by Paulo Sousa, who as a player was a member of Portugal’s ‘Golden Generation’ and who had won the Champions League with Juventus and Borussia Dortmund, as well as playing for Benfica, Sporting Lisbon, and Inter Milan. Also in August 2010, King Power acquired the Club, ushering in the greatest period in our history.

Thinking back, Paul continued: “I was sorry that Nigel left as he’d signed me and I had a great relationship with him. When Paulo came in, we knew he’d had a great career as a player, but it just didn’t work for him, because I believe that the success that Leicester was having was due to Nigel Pearson and the way he managed players.

One of his many spot-kicks scored, in the third round replay at Manchester City in 2011.

“In September we played two games at Portsmouth in the same week. We won the League Cup game but Paulo changed the team and lost 6-1 in the league. The following week, when we were bottom of the Championship, Paulo was replaced by Sven-Göran Eriksson. That was a surprise! When we were told that Sven was going to be the new Manager we thought it was a joke but then he walked through the door!

“You could see King Power’s vision straight away. They upgraded the training ground and the stadium. Then with the arrival of Sven and with the players they wanted to get in, you could see they were taking the Club to another level. They wanted to get to the Premier League as quickly as they could. I saw Top when Leicester secured promotion back the Premier League at Preston last season.

“He came over and shook my hand and I congratulated him on Leicester getting promoted back to the Premier League at the first time of asking. When my wife did a charity walk on the Great Wall of China, the owners sponsored her for £20,000! Soon after Sven’s appointment, the team went out to Bangkok to play the Thai national team in a friendly match and then we came back to play a home game against Hull City.

“When we went to Thailand, the owners were giving us everything: suits, duty free, everything! They couldn’t do enough for us. You felt a bit embarrassed sometimes, taking all this stuff, but they were so generous. They wanted to show what they wanted to bring to Leicester. You could see straightaway that they had this vision to make Leicester a massive club in the Premier League. As a result, Leicester have had some incredibly successful years.”

When reminded that Sven had said that Paul wasn’t far off Beckham’s level when it came to the delivery of set pieces, Paul responded: “I remember Sven saying that. It was a big compliment. I’d always practiced free-kicks even when I was young, just to be different from other players.

The Foxes came close to Premier League promotion during Gally's time at the Club.

“I used to practice a lot in terms of delivery. Set pieces are a massive part of the game. If you have a player who has a good delivery, you always have an opportunity to be a threat from set plays. It was something I practiced all the time, I really enjoyed it.

“After training I used to spend 20 or 30 minutes practicing set pieces. People don’t see this. They think you are good at free-kicks and that all you have to do is turn up. But you need to practice for hours. Constant repetition. Every day after training, Sven said to me: ‘10 free kicks and then three penalties’. This meant that in a match, I always felt confident about scoring.”

Paul also spoke about his distinctive style of taking penalties, when he always stood with his back to the goalkeeper prior to shooting. “That was mind games, because goalkeepers are always trying to put you off by moving across the line or pointing their arms, or doing whatever they can to put you off. So I just thought: ‘well if you can’t see my eyes, how are you going to put me off?’.”

Paul’s third season at Leicester City looked promising. Sven added to his squad by signing Kasper Schmeichel, David Nugent, Neil Danns, Lee Peltier, Sean St Ledger, Paul Konchesky and Matt Mills amongst others. The stadium was renamed King Power Stadium and the opponents for the main pre-season home fixture were José Mourinho’s Real Madrid. However, in October 2011, with Leicester in 13th position in the Championship, Sven left the Club by mutual consent and Nigel Pearson returned for his second spell as the Foxes’ Manager.

“I think Sven was really honest,” Paul reflected. “He knew he had the resources that the owners had given to him to get to the Premier League and he probably thought we should have got there with the players that we had. Nigel was held in high regard by the Club as he knew how to get the best out of players and he came back from Hull. His first match was at home against Crystal Palace. We won 3-0. Jermaine Beckford got the first and I got the other two. They were two of the best goals I ever scored.”

Making a big impact at North End.

Paul made 34 appearances that season, scoring 10 goals, but in September 2012, he went on a month-long loan to Sheffield United.

“I went because I’d just come back from an injury,” he explained. “The lads were doing well and I just wanted to play. I got on really well with Nigel and he told me that he wanted me to go to Sheffield United for a month, get fit, come back and then we’d take it from there. I really enjoyed my month at Sheffield, but I wanted to get back to Leicester.

“It was a difficult time. My wife was pregnant with twins and when we went for a scan they told us that one of the heartbeats had stopped, so we had to have the babies then. We’d lost one baby and the other was in intensive care. Nigel was as good as gold. He told me to take as long as I wanted and that family was the most important thing. I respected him anyway, but I’ll always respect him for that.

“I wanted to be close to home, back in the north. I went on loan to Preston in October 2013 for three months. Their manager was (ex-Leicester City player) Simon Grayson who I’d played with at Blackburn when I was a young player. I would have loved to have stayed at Leicester but I didn’t want to be away from my wife and daughter, who’s 12 now. I know playing games can be an escape but it was difficult trying to play well when your daughter is fighting for her life.

“At the end of that season (2013/14), Leicester were promoted as champions to the Premier League. Leicester was fantastic with me about me needing to go to Preston. I’d a year left on my contract at Leicester but they let me go on loan to Preston for the whole of the 2014/15 season. That year Nigel kept Leicester in the Premier League. Preston had some really good players like Jermaine Beckford and we were promoted to the Championship and I was the Players’ Player of the Year.

Reuniting with former team-mate Simon Grayson at Preston.

Paul signed a permanent deal with the Lilywhites in July 2015. He then spent the next six seasons at Deepdale playing in another 219 games to add to the 114 he had played whilst on loan. He retired as a player in 2021 having been voted Preston’s Player of the Decade in January 2020.

“I think I hold the record for playing the most loan games at one club,” Paul continued. “I played until I was nearly 37. I retired after COVID. Playing in front of no fans really finished me off. Alex Neil, the manager, liked me as a player and he let me coach the Under-16s when I was 33 while I was still playing as captain. I really enjoyed that and then he gave me the opportunity to come into the first team coaching.

“When he left (in March 2021) I stayed on as first team coach under Frankie McAvoy. When I had the opportunity to work with Alex again (in July 2023), when he was manager at Stoke, I left Preston. It was a tough decision but I felt that if I wanted to improve, work with different players and be a manager one day, I needed to come out of my comfort zone and work at different clubs.”

In December 2023, when Alex Neil left Stoke, Paul was caretaker manager for two games and then reverted to first team coach under new manager Steven Schumacher before leaving Stoke in June 2024.

Paul concluded: “When I came to Leicester with my son for the match against West Ham in 2023, he loved the atmosphere and we put flowers down to show my respect for Vichai because of what he did for me and for my career.”

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