My first job as Bury manager? Having to sing Sweet Caroline!
AFTER two promotions as a striker for Bury, RYAN LOWE, 39, is taking his first steps as a manager at Gigg Lane. Here, he talks about tough trips to Millwall and using cars for goalposts:
1 FIRST FOOTBALL MEMORY My first memory of football was playing in the street with the lads, using cars as goals almost, kicking a ball around and seeing people playing football on Match Of The Day and wanting to replicate that.
2 BEST PLAYER I’VE PLAYED WITH Ian Woan when he was finishing up at Shrewsbury Town — he had a left foot like a wand. He was brilliant and played in the Premier League for years.
3 TOUGHEST OPPONENT Matty Taylor. He was solid, his movement, his distribution with the ball; he is one of the ones that stand out.
4 FAVOURITE FOOTBALLING MOMENT Scoring an 87th-minute winner against Chesterfield in 2011 that got Bury up to League One. My little boy was in the stand behind. He was five and I didn’t celebrate at that end because I knew the fans would run on the pitch so I celebrated at the other end!
5 SPORTING HERO Robbie Fowler. When I was coming up I wanted to be him. I’d like to think I used to score some good goals like him but never got to the highlights he did.
6 TOUGHEST AWAY GROUND Millwall . . . by a country mile! I remember taking a corner there and there were coins — 50p pieces, 20p pieces. That’s the toughest place I’ve ever played.
7 THE FIRST ALBUM I BOUGHT I can’t really remember, probably Now 87 or Now 89 or something like that!
8 KARAOKE SONG I’ve done a few — Oasis, Kenny Rogers. The last one was Sweet Caroline. I’d just got the job on a full-time basis and we took the lads away to a four-day training camp. We did a Stars in Their Eyes night which was very good for team bonding and I got up with my staff and sang Sweet Caroline — a catchy song, everyone joins in and it helps you out!
9 BEST DRESSED TEAM-MATE On a night out, the best dressed I’d probably say is me! Some of the lads go for this harder stuff a bit too much. They’d rather worry about how much gold they’ve got on their body!
10 DREAM DINNER-PARTY GUESTS David Beckham, his wife Victoria and Pep Guardiola. I’d just love to know what he’s thinking. Now being a manager, I’m quite intrigued by how he does it.
11 IF I WASN’T IN FOOTBALL I would have probably gone into property development. I do a bit of that on the side as well so I would probably be more into that.