Samuel "Sam" Allardyce (born 19 October 1954 in Dudley, West Midlands) is the huge-headed dour West Ham manager who made his name by grinding out points with no-nonsense football. Long assumed to be a good old fashioned English traditionalist, privately deriding whilst publicly utilising the talents of immigrants, his comments explaining his player El-Hadj Diouf spitting on opponents, claiming it was "just part of his culture", were surprisingly moderate to anyone who's ever had the misfortune to sit next to the cantankerous old sod in an Indian restaurant.