Davy Fitzgerald’s health scare has put the strain of management into sharp focus
JUST over a decade ago, as he was about halfway on his journey from Rathbane in Limerick to the England job, Sam Allardyce volunteered himself for a medical and scientific study. At the time, his Bolton Wanderers side were upsetting the apple cart in the English top flight and he agreed to be hooked up to a heart rate monitor as part of a programme designed to uncover the stress levels of soccer managers.
Against the backdrop of health scares suffered by Glenn Roeder and Gerard Houllier back then, the results were startling. Allardyce had a resting heart rate of 46 bpm which increased to 146 under maximum stress on a treadmill. However, as he stood on the touchline, barking out instructions on match day, it soared to 162 bpm. And with every contentious decision, there was a spike on the graph. Being a manager, it was clear, was bad for one’s health.
Houllier, Graeme Sounness and Joe Kinnear have been among those managers who have suffered heart problems while Jock Stein’s fatal heart attack as he took charge of Scotland’s World Cup qualifier against Wales in 1985 stands as a stark reminder of how pressurised the job can be.
Dr Dorian Dugmore was the doctor who undertook the study with Allardyce and he confirmed that the wild fluctuations in heart rate were worrying. ‘If you raise your heart rate during exercise, it is almost entirely beneficial,’ he explained.
‘But to do it this way involves a different chemistry. It constricts the arteries, irritates the heart and puts enormous pressure on the mechanics. When you are exercising, the body produces all sorts of protective mechanisms, which are absent when the increase is adrenalin-driven.’
All of which should be heeded ahead of today’s All-Ireland SHC quarter-final between Clare and Galway. As Davy Fitzgerald sat in St Vincent’s hospital this past week, the good wishes of friends and rivals alike ringing in his ears, the Clare manager will probably have asked himself at some point if leading his native county has put this strain on his heart. Was the pressure in trying to take Clare back to the All-Ireland summit so much that it compromised his health?
Fitzgerald’s health scare this past week magnified the enormous stress that comes with inter-county management. The news that Fitzgerald had stents inserted emerged on the same day that Derry boss Damian Barton wondered about the kneejerk criticism managers receive after one defeat, suggesting he might even quit if his team beat Tipperary in Cavan last night. He was probably only half-joking.
FEW managers wear their passion for the county on their sleeve like TJ Ryan. He’s a man who bleeds the green of Limerick hurling but in the aftermath of his team’s fourpoint defeat to Clare in the bowels of Semple Stadium earlier this month, it was hard to escape the sense that Ryan was a little relieved to be vacating the helm.
‘Anybody who’s ever been involved in a management team, anybody who has ever been invited into an intercounty set-up, it takes huge time. It takes massive effort. It is every day, every minute of every day, phone calls, trying to organise everything, trying to do it to the best of your ability for the county,’ Ryan said.
Fitzgerald, Michael Donoghue, Liam Dunne and Derek McGrath will all be judged on what happens on the field in Semple Stadium this afternoon but, as Ryan hinted, there is much more to the job now. It all takes a toll with the added strain that managers have become the face of the their county; their body language encapsulating all the emotion attached to a Championship Sunday.
A former player, who enjoyed success as an inter-county manager, made an interesting observation when asked if he would consider going back to the role. ‘There is too much pressure on managers, these days. Everything is about the manager. It is not Dublin or Kilkenny, it is Jim Gavin’s Dublin and Brian Cody’s Kilkenny. Every little mistake a player makes on the pitch, every small thing that goes wrong, it all comes back to one man and that’s the manager. It has only become like that in recent years.’
It’s clear that the manager has become central to the drama now associated with the Championship. One of the most striking images of 2016 so far was that of Cody’s stare as Clare rained in all those goals in the National League semi-final back in April.
When Fitzgerald gets to Semple Stadium this afternoon, he made be advised to sit in the stand – although there is a school of thought that the stand is a better place for a manager, anyway. They are removed from the fury on the pitch and can take a more global view. Rugby coaches always appear the picture of calm compared to GAA and soccer bosses – and that must have something to do with them being away from the battleground’s front line.
A few years after the experiment with Allardyce, the Ulster Council commissioned a similar study, based on Dugmore’s work, when they monitored the heart rate of five different managers during the McKenna Cup and National League. From an average resting heart rate of 78 bpm, it spiked to a high of 190 bpm for a controversial decision and around 130 bpm for an opposition goal. The results were clear again. It’s stressful and emotionally-charged on the sideline.
And as the cult of manager continues to grow in the GAA, and these men are increasingly associated with the hopes and dreams of each county, perhaps we should stop to consider the toll it takes to carry such a burden.