‘We had fun times’: Dennis Wise on the Crazy Gang, Chelsea and Como

As a young player I had been told a few times that I wasn’t quite good enough. Wimbledon manager Dave Bassett was the one who looked at me in a different way. He was the man who gave me that all-important opportunity. In terms of structuring a team, he was on the ball in everything he did.

He was a long way in front of a lot of others, but because of the way he was, people looked at him in a different way. If he had been well-spoken and had what you might call an intelligent way about him, people would have looked at him differently. They would have said: “Wow, this guy is miles ahead.”

And he was, on regains, percentages, crosses, shots in certain areas, picking balls up in midfield – all sorts. I learned so much from him. When people talk about throw-in coaching and long-throw experts, it is something that Dave Bassett was doing a long time ago. At Wimbledon we had Vinnie Jones launching them into certain areas that we packed, picking up second balls and scoring a lot of goals. We knew how to pack areas in certain ways so that we would outnumber the opposition.

Under Dave I also learned that you can win games without having the best players on the pitch. As happened with Wimbledon in 1988, when we beat the champions and red-hot favourites, Liverpool, in the FA Cup final. You can get results like that through organisation, desire to win and finding the opposition’s weaknesses. Dave was good at all of that.

There were other coaches from my playing days who I took things from – coaches who stick in your mind. One was Terry Venables, who picked me for England. He was a very educated coach who played different systems, but explained the reasons behind them.

View image in fullscreen Gianluca Vialli and Dennis Wise celebrate after winning the Cup Winners’ Cup final in 1998. Photograph: Ross Kinnaird/Allsport

Then there was Luca Vialli at Chelsea. He was wonderful as a person and as a personality, as well as being impressive with the way he thought about the game and his preciseness. All three had things I took into my own management, but they all had their own way about them. They say that all coaches are thieves.