‘MY STYLE? I’LL JUST FIND WAY TO WIN!’
GARETH Ainsworth, longball merchant. It’s an objection raised whenever the 50-year-old is linked with a job, and it’s one of the few things that genuinely riles this most positive and upbeat of characters.
“Of course it gets on my nerves,” admits Ainsworth, whose turbulent recent spell at QPR was preceded by ten-and-a-half years of unprecedented success at Wycombe that brought three Wembley finals and two promotions, the second of which saw the Chairboys spend the 2020-21 season in the Championship.
“You get tagged with a certain style, don’t you? Personally, though, I would say my style is getting the best out of what you’ve got.
“If you’ve got Adebayo Akinfenwa in your team then you’re never going to play silky football down the channels. You’re going to go straight into him.
“That probably added to the perception, as did the magnitude of Ade himself. He was big, and I’m not talking physically. I’m talking about his persona in football. He was mega-famous, almost a mini-celebrity. Everybody knew he played for Wycombe and everybody knew that Wycombe played off him.
“When Akinfenwa didn’t play, different styles were employed. But nobody talks about that, do they?
“Yes, I love getting the ball forward and getting crosses into the box for centre- forwards. But look at Liverpool. They play some lovely football but how often do you see Alisson bang a half-volley over the top to Mo Salah? He’ll run clear and score and nobody cares that the goal came from one long ball.
“For me, that tag is a bit of a shortcut, an oversimplification. I’d like to think real football people see through that and understand what we try to do.”
What Ainsworth tries to do is win, at all costs and by any means. It is, he believes, what enabled him to play in the EFL beyond his 39th birthday, his final appearance for Wycombe in 2013 coming some 22 years after he’d debuted for Northwich Victoria.
“People often get asked ‘What do you miss about football?’,” says Ainsworth, who made over 600 appearances as a winger for Preston, Lincoln, Port Vale, Wimbledon and most famously QPR, where he remains a cult hero.
Challenge
“The stock answer from a lot of ex-players is the dressing room and the banter. But it’s not for me. It’s the challenge.
“When you’re up against someone and you’ve got that fighting spirit and you’ve got a left-back to beat in a header or a sprint - that’s what motivated me. It wasn’t coming in and having a laugh, as good as that was. It was pitting yourself against the best and trying to beat them.
“That competitive spirit is either in you or it isn’t. When I’m playing pool or darts with my mates, Iwant to win.
