I won Gladiators and faced Gareth Southgate as a player – now I’m looking to cause FA Cup upset with minnows

HARBOROUGH TOWN’S contender is ready . . . 

Dave Staff, assistant boss of the seventh-tier club, is a former winner of the TV show Gladiators.

But being part of his home-town club’s journey to a second-round tie at League One Reading feels bigger even than reaching the top of the Travelator first.

Staff was a non-league player when he became the 2009 male champion — and then champion of champions — in the Sky One reboot of Gladiators.

Staff, 45, said: “About 10,000 people applied for the series. I’m really proud of it.

“My best event was probably Powerball. I could carry my own bodyweight well and move pretty quick. I also remember coming up against a Gladiator called Doom in a thing called Earthquake.

“You’re on a Perspex plate 50ft in the air or something. You have a wrestle and try to push each other off — and he broke my nose. But the video referee said I won.

“I got £25,000 for winning the main series.

“The missus spent most of it on a kitchen in a house that we ended up moving out of about six months later.”

Gladiators is not Staff’s only brush with fame.

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He was in the Nuneaton Borough side that faced Premier League Middlesbrough and their team of stars in the FA Cup third round in 2006.

Gaizka Mendieta put Boro ahead with a wonderful free-kick. But Gareth Southgate’s handball led to a penalty — that Gez Murphy scored to earn a replay.

Staff said: “There’s a picture of Mendieta curling the free-kick over my head and in.

“Unfortunately, I came off injured after 18 minutes so I missed the replay.

“After the 90 minutes in the game at Nuneaton, Mark Viduka said to one of our lads, ‘What happens now?’.

“‘We’re going back to your place!’

“‘OK, cheers, fella’. He didn’t even know!

“We went out in Nuneaton that night. I hobbled around the pubs and watched Match of the Day — Lee Dixon called me ‘Davy’ Staff for some reason!

“We got the papers in the morning after staying in a hotel and the lad I shared a room with, Matty Collins, was on the back pages. It was a great experience.”

As a coach, Staff was part of Brackley Town’s FA Trophy triumph at Wembley in 2018.

But nothing matches the feeling of success with the club from the Leicestershire town where he was born and bred.

I’m walking around town with my dog and there is such a buzz. It’s the biggest game in the club’s history by far.

Dave Staff

Staff joined Harborough 18 months ago as assistant to boss Mitch Austin and last season they won promotion to the Southern League Premier Division Central — the highest level in the club’s history.

In this campaign, Harborough beat Tonbridge Angels in their first-ever FA Cup first-round tie to earn the clash with Reading.

Staff said: “I’ve always lived in the town.

“I knew so many people behind the goal when we scored those goals at Tonbridge, I kinda wished I was there instead of the dugout.

“I’m walking around town with my dog and there is such a buzz. It’s the biggest game in the club’s history by far.

“As a local boy, it’s a bit of a dream and we’re all hoping it can go on as long as possible.”

And if you have already defeated Doom, why not Reading?

Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk