CHELSEA TV EXCLUSIVE: WHEN PAT MET ANDY

With Andy Murray currently a regular visitor to our Cobham training headquarters, the opportunity was taken by Chelsea TV to sit down and speak with the tennis star about football and his own sport.

The Wimbledon and Olympic men’s champion, with his personal medical and physiotherapy team, is using our rehabilitation facilities as part of his recovery from the back surgery he underwent in September, working in the gym and hydrotherapy pools when they are not being used by the players.

When it came to the interview, the man asking the questions was official Chelsea website columnist and Chelsea TV regular Pat Nevin, and the first part of the interview can be watched now via the channel’s online access. The second part will be available on the same page from 8pm on Monday evening.

After he had been spoken to Murray, chelseafc.com took our turn to ask Nevin a few questions about the interview. Our former star player and Murray share a nationality of course, but they have more in common. When it comes to football, Murray supports Edinburgh club Hibernian which is also Nevin’s club in Scotland, sharing his affections with Chelsea, and they both have a passion for the sport each other made their profession.

‘I am always surprised that people don’t know about Andy’s depth of knowledge on football and how good a player he was as a kid,’ said Nevin.

‘If you are 15 and you are still on the radar of Rangers then you can play, and he also talks in the interview about how he went to see other teams play quite a lot. I knew there was a good background of football knowledge and historically football being played in his family. Maybe it is the case that everybody in Scotland knows about that, because they know everything about Andy Murray!’

Murray Cobham

Nevin, back in his Chelsea playing days went regularly to watch the Wimbledon championships in the summer, taking tickets rather than rent from the tennis correspondent from a newspaper in Scotland who stayed in his London flat during the fortnight. More recently it was Murray’s first Wimbledon appearance in 2005 that caught the attention.

‘Andy didn’t walk on, he shambled on and didn’t look like you are supposed to look. That was what I was like as a kid when I played for Chelsea. I didn’t fit in, I was a bit shy but I just loved the actual job and I thought I could see a bit of me in Andy when he first began.

‘When he started playing his shots they were really imaginative and I thought he is going to be absolutely brilliant. I think it is really interesting what he says in the interview about football, about coaches and about how you get the best out of yourself.’

Nevin who previously interviewed Jose Mourinho and John Terry at length for television, among other famous names in football, added:

‘I have been fortunate in that most of the people I have interviewed have been people I’ve really admired, and have been really high achievers, and Andy is no different from that.

‘Although we don’t know each other, there is a kind of acknowledged similar background and having watched him more than possibly any other sportsman in the last decade, I’ve liked it when I’ve seen him most relaxed, and talking to me on this occasion, he sounded very much like the relaxed Andy Murray.’

A clip of the interview can be watched above.Click here for the more on the channel’s online access.

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