Who is Stuart Pearce? Bear Grylls: Mission Survive 2016 profile
Drinking urine was a "doddle" for the former England footballer, it was the heights - and some of his fellow campers - that were worrying Pearce. And outdoing his colleague Mike Tindall, of course...
Name: Stuart Pearce
Age: 53
Famous, why? English football manager and player
Bio: Pearce has played for various clubs but most significantly Nottingham Forest, a club he went onto manage. He ran Team GB during the 2012 Olympics and for a time Man City. Affectionately nicknamed 'Psycho' after this penalty, he regularly played for the England team, which he captained nine times.
On thinking he had the upper hand on Mission Survive: "I paid to go on one of Grylls' courses two years previously – a similar type of thing up in the wilds of Scotland for five days. I paid to do it on holiday, so when I got the phone call to do Mission Surive, I thought yes! I felt as though the five days I had in Scotland would be helpful coming in on this. It wasn’t. It didn’t even touch the sides. My expectation was: it’ll be fine, I’ll be home and dry, don’t worry about that. It wasn’t..."
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Pearce struggled with his fear of heights, but found Grylls's usual icky tasks weren't too much bother: "Eating crap [like worms] and your own urine was a doddle!"
On meeting the rest of the cast, Pearce admitted he had his reservations about choreographer Jason Gardiner: "I 'YouTubed' him and there was this clip of him absolutely ripping the a*** out of somebody on Dancing on Ice and I thought 'Wowee, what sort of geezer is this?'. I thought he seems a right a***, honestly. I turned up and the first thing I’ve done, I’ve got to get to know this fella, and I found him one of the best fellas I’ve ever met, honestly. We sat there, we talked."
Pearce even managed to convince Gardiner to run early morning fitness classes: "He was stretching off in the morning and doing his workouts and I said 'Why don’t you do that for all the group Jase?' and he comes out, every morning he used to do a stretch class. It built camaraderie – smashing fella. That’s where you can’t turn up with a preconceived idea of people."
And finally, on trying to outdo fellow talkSPORT DJ and former Mission Survive contestant Mike Tindall, Pearce laughed: "Us football frat want to beat the rugby guys every day!"
Bear Grylls: Mission Survive starts Thursday 3rd March at 9:00pm on ITV
