Wenger credits his managerial skills to growing up in his parents' pub! India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger claims that all his managerial abilities have been derived from growing up in his parents' pub La Croix d'Or in a French village, Duttlenheim. Wenger says that he wasn't some child alcoholic, but he used to spend hours analysing football fanatics who used to visit the pub. "There is no better psychological education than growing up in a pub when you are five or six, because you meet all different people and hear how cruel they can be. You hear the way they talk to each other like saying 'You're a liar'," The Sun quoted Wenger, as saying. "And from an early age you get a practical psychological education into the minds of people. It is not often a boy of five or six is always living with adults in a little village. I even learned about tactics and selection from the people talking about it in the pub.. who plays on the left wing and who should be in the team," he added. The 59-year-old, who has been managing teams for more than 25 years, further admitted that initially he had never imagined himself as a manager and he used to find it hard to cope with defeats. "I didn't know I wanted to be a football manager because when I started to play I couldn't imagine my life as a player would stop. It was others who told me to think about it and gradually I realised I was for management and it was the only way I could keep going in football," Wenger said. "I started at 33 as a manager and sometimes I felt I wouldn't survive. Physically I was sick. At a big club like Arsenal you lose nought to five, six or seven games, although zero is the exception. But, at a small club, you lose between 10 and 15 games and you are tested with your resolve to bounce back and that's difficult," he added.