On The Road
SOUTHPORT IS JUST THE JOB FOR DAVIES, DESPITE PAL DYCHE’S WARNING!
THE manager’s office is hidden away at Haig Avenue. It is effectively in the attic of the main stand, reached via old carpeted stairs, and Kevin Davies waited there to explain exactly why Southport was the perfect destination for his first foray into management.
‘I spoke to Sean Dyche and Sam Allardyce about where to go,’ Davies said. ‘ Se an wa s very much about getting into the Under 18s, then the 21s and work your way up, get that experience.
‘I went for the job here instead and he was like, “What are you doing?” ’ — a story completed with a fine impersonation of the Burnley boss.
The academy route clearly did not suit Davies. He spent a year with Bolton’s youngsters, a byproduct of his son playing for the club, but this — down in the sixth tier, the regionalised National League North — was his calling. Despite defeat by Alfreton Town on Saturday, it is all going rather well.
Southport were floundering in lower mid-table when Davies took over in October. The dressing room was fractured and the former England international didn’t win any of his first 12 games in charge. In the relegation zone, Davies fronted up at a fans’ forum on December 23, publicly backed by his bosses, and fortunes changed.
The turnover of players since his arrival is over 40 and there remains an outside chance of reaching the play-offs following eight victories from 11 games.
Davies, who had never interviewed for a job before and is studying for a Masters in sport directorship in Manchester, realises this could be construed as a huge gamble.
‘If I fail here then people will ask where do I go,’ he added. ‘It’s hard to get in at League One or Two. I applied for Chesterfield before this, put my CV in for the first time — that was new — and the answer was, “You’ve got no experience”.
‘It was quite a negative environment when we came in to be honest. You could tell they’d been losing. The spirit in the dressing room was very poor. You have to make calls on players you feel aren’t good enough or aren’t giving you the right sort of attitude. By Christmas we were sinking. ‘But the club have turned around quickly. The plans are for us to play at a higher level.’ It is now 40 years since the club, founded in 1881, lost their status in the Football League, in which their main claim to fame had been two promotions in 1967 and 1973. At board level there is an unofficial five-year target for promotion back to the League, and Davies looks set for some ride. New owners have pumped in fresh investment and are certainly not short of a few quid, with striker Jason Gilchrist their record signing at £30,000 from FC United. The squad now assembled is generally what Davies will work with next season.
Haig Avenue, 17 miles from Anfield and Goodison Park, is being redeveloped as of next month too. The dowdy corridors will be no more and their vision for the future, a renovated new ground, was revealed last week.
Natalie Atkinson, one of only a handful of female chief executives in the industry, rattled off at least a dozen projects Southport’s board are implementing under a OnePort slogan. The idea they might be running before they can walk was swiftly rejected.
There is much to do. Average attendances dipped under 1,000 in recent seasons and Atkinson, appointed in January, wants to fix a disconnect with the town. That has started, with 1,614 there on Saturday after hundreds of free tickets were handed out in local schools.
‘The community was so far removed from the club,’ Atkinson said. ‘We’ve developed a four-pillar programme that reaches every demographic of Southport from the very young to the old. The new Haig Avenue will be the hub of that.
‘They want to turn this football club around and in three years’ time it will be profitable.’
A prestige friendly against Premier League opposition to open the new main stand is pencilled in for late July. Southport plan to quickly become a more polished outfit — and that starts with Davies.
‘We were on a 3G pitch for two nights a week for two hours. It wasn’t enough,’ he said. ‘The last couple of months we’ve gone to three mornings. That’s been massive in turning round the part-time mentality, making sure the football is the players’ main job. It was jobs, then football; now it’s the other way around.’