Ex-England defender Stuart Pearce was sent well-wishes by former club Nottingham Forest during its Premier League match on Saturday after reportedly falling ill and being hospitalized last weekend.
The 62-year-old Pearce suffered a medical emergency on board a flight to London from the United States, Britain’s Press Association reported. After he received treatment, a decision was made to make an emergency landing in Canada where Pearce is recovering in the hospital, PA reported.
Pearce calls matches for British radio station talkSPORT alongside commentator Sam Matterface, who was at the City Ground for the match between Forest and Manchester City — two of Pearce's old clubs.
“I spoke to him yesterday, he’s in great spirits,” Matterface said of Pearce ahead of the game. “He isn’t 100%, that is definitely the case, but he is in the right place, he is in the hospital. They are dealing with it.”
A message reading “Get Well Soon Stuart” was displayed on the big screen at the City Ground after three minutes of the Forest-City game. Pearce, a left back, used to wear No. 3 on his jersey.
“Stuart is not just a legend of our club, he is part of our family,” Forest manager Nuno Espirito Santo said after the 1-0 win over City. “We all send him our very best wishes and hope he has a full and fast recovery.”
Matterface said Pearce was frustrated at not being able to come to the match.
“He actually said to me, ‘I have got so much I had to cancel. Some great games, and Mumford & Sons are playing on Wednesday night and I can’t go now,’" Matterface said. "He wasn’t happy about that. He is in good spirits.”
Pearce made 401 appearances for Forest during a 12-year stint and also played for Coventry, Newcastle, West Ham and Man City, where he was later the manager.
He played 78 times for England, including in the semifinals of the 1990 World Cup when he had a penalty saved in a shootout defeat to West Germany.
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A tribute to former Nottingham Forest and Manchester City player Stuart Pearce is displayed in the third minute on the big screen follow his health scare during the English Premier League soccer match at the City Ground, Nottingham, Saturday March 8, 2025. (Mike Egerton/PA via AP)
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli airstrikes pounded northern and southern Gaza on Wednesday, killing at least 60 people, including almost two dozen children, according to local hospitals and health officials, a day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there was “no way” he would halt Israel’s offensive in the Palestinian territory before Hamas is defeated.
At least 50 people, including 22 children, were killed in the strikes around Jabaliya in northern Gaza, according to local hospitals and Gaza's Health Ministry. At least ten other people were killed in the southern city of Khan Younis, the European Hospital reported.
The strikes came a day after Hamas released an Israeli-American hostage, a gesture that some thought could lay the groundwork for a ceasefire.
But Netanyahu said Tuesday he would not halt Israel's war in Gaza — even if Hamas releases its hostages — dimming hopes for a truce.
The Israeli military refused to comment on the strikes, but had warned residents of Jabaliya to evacuate late Tuesday night due to militant infrastructure in the area, including rocket launchers.
In Jabaliya, rescue workers smashed through collapsed concrete slabs using hand tools, lit only by the light of cellphone cameras, to remove bodies of some of the children who were killed.
In comments released by Netanyahu’s office Tuesday, the prime minister said Israeli forces were just days away from a promised escalation of force and would enter Gaza “with great strength to complete the mission. ... It means destroying Hamas.”
The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people in a 2023 intrusion into southern Israel. Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed over 52,800 Palestinians, many of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many of the dead were combatants or civilians.
Israel’s offensive has obliterated vast swathes of Gaza’s urban landscape and displaced 90% of the population, often multiple times.
The strikes came amid hopes that Trump's visit to the Middle East could usher in a ceasefire deal or renewal of humanitarian aid to Gaza.
International food security experts issued a stern warning earlier this week that the Gaza Strip will likely fall into famine if Israel doesn’t lift its blockade and stop its military campaign.
French President Emmanuel Macron strongly denounced Netanyahu’s decision to block aid from entering Gaza as “a disgrace” that has caused a major humanitarian crisis.
“I say it forcefully, what Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is doing today is unacceptable,” Macron said Tuesday evening on TF1 national television. “There’s no medicine. We can’t get the wounded out. Doctors can’t get in. What he’s doing is a disgrace. It’s a disgrace.”
Macron, who visited injured Palestinians in El Arish hospital in Egypt last month, called for the reopening of the Gaza border to humanitarian convoys. “Then, yes, we must fight to demilitarize Hamas, free the hostages and build a political solution,” he said.
Nearly half a million Palestinians are facing possible starvation, living at “catastrophic” levels of hunger, while 1 million others can barely get enough food, according to findings by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a leading international authority on the severity of hunger crises.
Israel has banned all food, shelter, medicine and any other goods from entering the Palestinian territory for the past 10 weeks, even as it carries out waves of airstrikes and ground operations.
Gaza’s population of around 2.3 million people relies almost entirely on outside aid to survive, because Israel’s 19-month-old military campaign has wiped away most capacity to produce food inside the territory.
Lidman reported from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press writer Fatma Khaled contributed from Cairo and Sylvie Corbet contributed from Paris.
Palestinians mourn their relatives killed in an Israeli airstrikes in Jabalia, northern Gaza Strip, on Wednesday, May 14, 2025. According to local hospitals, 48 people were killed in the strikes, including 22 children. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Palestinians mourn their relatives killed in an Israeli airstrikes in Jabalia, northern Gaza Strip, on Wednesday, May 14, 2025. According to local hospitals, 48 people were killed in the strikes, including 22 children. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Palestinians mourn children from their families who were killed in Israeli airstrikes in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip, on Wednesday, May 14, 2025. According to local hospitals, the strikes killed 48 people, including 22 children. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Palestinians inspect the rubble of homes destroyed by Israeli airstrikes in Jabalia, northern Gaza Strip, on Wednesday, May 14, 2025. According to local hospitals, 48 people were killed in the strikes, including 22 children. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Palestinians mourn children from their families who were killed in Israeli airstrikes in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip, on Wednesday, May 14, 2025. According to local hospitals, the strikes killed 48 people, including 22 children. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Palestinians evacuate patients from the European hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza, after it was hit by an Israeli army airstrike, Tuesday, May 13, 2025. The Israeli military said it had carried out a strike targeting what it said was a Hamas "command and control center" located beneath the hospital. (AP Photo/Mariam Dagga)
