Former England international and Under-21s Head Coach Stuart Pearce has been appointed as the new manager of Nottingham Forest.
Pearce, who will take over at the City Ground on 1 July, was a firm favourite as a player with Forest and spent 12 successful years at the club where he made over 400 appearances, many of them as captain.
He won 78 caps for England and was part of Sir Bobby Robson’s squad which reached the World Cup semi-final in 1990 and Terry Venables’ team which reached the same stage of Euro ’96 on home soil.
Pearce was in charge of England Under-21s from 2007 to 2013
And after a short spell as caretaker boss with Forest in 1996, he started his coaching career with Manchester City, where he went on to take charge for two seasons after ending his playing career with the Blues.
Pearce took on international management in 2007 when he was appointed as boss of the Under-21s, initially on a part-time basis, and he took the Three Lions to the semi-final of the 2007 European Championships where they lost on penalties to host nation Holland.
England were back in the Euro Finals in 2009, 2011 and 2013, becoming the first nation to qualify for that stage in four successive campaigns, even reaching the Final in 2009, when they lost to Germany in Sweden.
After working alongside senior boss Fabio Capello with the senior squad on top of his Under-21s role, the former left-back also had one game in charge of England when he was boss for a match against the Dutch at Wembley in February 2012 after the departure of Capello.
Stuart Pearce
"The pride and the passion of what I do comes before any financial gain."
Speaking about his appointment at Forest, Pearce said: "When they asked if I would take it from the summer, I jumped at the chance. Everything seems right.
"It was probably more of a pull than any club in the country - the pride and the passion of what I do comes before any financial gain.
"The honour of coming back into this club is massive but what I have done here as a player is irrelevant."
The 51-year-old, who also managed the Team GB football team during the London 2012 Olympics, has signed a two year contract at the City Ground with current caretaker boss Gray Brazil taking charge for the rest of this season.
