From Champions League to Pub Owner: My Newcastle Teammate KO’d Me Against Barcelona

Former footballers have short but intense careers full of highs and lows, but what happens when they retire? While some continue to work in football through coaching or moving into the boardroom, many end up pursuing entirely different paths. One such player is former Newcastle left-back Olivier Bernard, who now owns a pub in Blyth, a town 15 miles north of St James’ Park. Bernard played in one of Newcastle’s most successful teams under the late Sir Bobby Robson and was renowned for his marauding runs down the left. He played in the last Newcastle side to reach the Champions League and faced Barcelona and Inter Milan. Bernard left in 2005 to join Southampton before returning to Tyneside a year-and-a-half later, via Rangers, and retiring in 2007. He became an adopted Geordie and has settled 567 miles from his city of birth, Paris, to live in the north east of England. Speaking exclusively to talkSPORT.com, Bernard revealed how he now owns The Mason Arms by ‘accident’. “It was a good friend of mine who knew Blyth quite well, and I was the first one he spoke to, and we decided to go ahead with it,” he said. The north east is ingrained in Bernard’s life, so owning a pub near his family home was an opportunity he didn’t want to miss. “My wife is from Newcastle. My kids were born in the north east, so it was important for me to settle in the north east and having a pub is definitely a good start.”