MIND GAMES
Manchester City legend Willie Donachie on how he uses his background in meditation as boss of tiny Montserrat
IF Gareth Southgate thinks the traffic on the North Circular to Wembley is bad, he should consider Willie Donachie’s journey to the tiny Caribbean island of Montserrat, where the Scot is national team manager.
‘You need to fly to Antigua,’ begins Donachie. ‘Then you get on a boat or little six- seater plane. The air strip’s like a postage stamp but the boat’s even worse — it takes an hour and 15 minutes but you can’t go on the deck. You have to go below and a sign says, “Please use these sickness bags”. Luckily so far it’s never been that rough.’
Luckily for Montserrat, the British Overseas Territory that suffered a volcanic eruption two decades ago, in Donachie they have a coach who is an island of calm.
As a 1976 League Cup-winning full back at Manchester City and first-team coach at Oldham and Everton, the Scot was a pioneer of mindfulness techniques. He used them to help Joe Royle turn Oldham into a Premier League team and Everton into FA Cup winners.
His son Danny, sitting with us in a Manchester hotel bar, has followed his father’s interest in Buddhist teaching and, as head of therapy services at Goodison Park, once took his favourite yogi to address the Everton team before a Merseyside derby.
Can mindfulness really help Montserrat, a team from an island of 5,000 people whose best player is Charlton Athletic forward Lyle Taylor? ‘I’ve given a few exercises but Montserrat’s a special case because they’re good players but mainly non-League players and still want to be shouted at really,’ says the senior Donachie.
‘How do you know? Have you asked them?’ responds Danny.
His dad proffers an example: ‘We lost my first game in the 95th minute because the sub is this chubby little guy who couldn’t run and he let this player go and he scored. After the game I said, “Well done guys”. They were saying, “Is that it?”
‘They were expecting me to have a go at this lad who just couldn’t do any better. But it was against El Salvador, six and a half million people and all professionals.’
WILLIE DONACHIE is 68 but looks almost as trim as in a playing career which included more than 400 appearances for City before spells at Portland Timbers, Norwich, Burnley and Oldham.
It was at Maine Road that he began to pursue the power of the mind. ‘It was after my mum died and I was quite young that I started thinking,’ he explains. ‘I started following this practical philosophy course when I was 20. They taught awareness exercises — it wasn’t called mindfulness then.’
How was a meditating footballer viewed in the 1970s? ‘You had to keep it quiet,’ he replies. ‘My close friends knew I was interested but not many other people.’
His most open-minded manager was Malcolm Allison at City. ‘First time round, Malcolm was brilliant, way ahead, bringing in weightlifting and fitness work, very simple and positive, always encouraging,’ remembers Donachie.
Allison introduced him to Lennie Heppell, the former ballroom dancing champion whom Donachie later took into Oldham. ‘He taught everybody about speed and movement — boxers, golfers, tennis players, table tennis, footballers.’ For both Donachies, working with footballers’ minds is just as important as their bodies. Both feel the pressure and scrutiny surrounding the modern game makes this more challenging.
‘I became a coach because I wanted players to enjoy playing,’ says Willie. ‘Dan will tell you now it’s changed. With kids it’s too complicated — you’ve got all these learning plans and parents thinking they might become stars. They should be having fun and playing — it’s playing football.
‘When I went to Man City, I was almost 17. Now kids of eight or nine think they’ve got a chance because they’re signed by a club.’
Danny takes over. A physiotherapist and life coach whose clients have included boxer Tony Bellew, he was at Everton under David Moyes and Roberto Martinez and returned in 2018 after a spell at Aston Villa. ‘I feel like the young players coming up aren’t well prepared for being footballers any more,’ he says. ‘They aren’t resilient, other than the ones who’ve had trauma.
‘The players who for me have the least anxiety about playing and the most hunger are the ones from slums in places like Brazil or Colombia — if you look at Yerry Mina and Richarlison, they love playing and they’re happy every day whereas the English players, I don’t really see that.’
Social media adds to the issues. Willie adds: ‘It’s because their heads are so full of stuff they don’t know what they really feel and football is an emotional game. It’s not really thinking. It’s feel.’ NEXT the pair are discussing an Indian yogi called Sadhguru and the occasion Danny took him to meet the Everton squad before a Merseyside derby in 2010.
‘Moyesie let me do it. A lot of the players were sceptical but they came and they were like puppy dogs. They all said they felt the most relaxed they’ve ever felt. We beat Liverpool 2-0 the next day and they’re all singing his name in the dressing room.’
Phil Neville was a keen pupil at yoga classes. ‘He’s got a very stiff body so he used to come and see me every day and we got a close relationship. Because footballers don’t experience relaxation, when you can give it to them it has a massive impact because it’s the opposite of what they’re used to.’
As for his father, it was 25 years ago next month that Willie arrived at Goodison Park as Royle’s No 2 and helped spark the upturn that brought the 1995 FA Cup win.
‘Joe was the manager and he allowed me to get close to the players, so I built a relationship with most of them,’ he explains.
‘It was more as a friend rather than a boss. Your best friend should tell you if you’re not doing your best, with care. Not shouting at people.’
One player in need of soothing words was Anders Limpar. ‘He is p possibly the most gifted player I’ve worked with and he didn’t want to go out to w warm up because he was t too nervous.’
Neville Southall described him as ‘ the first holistic coach’ he worked with, w while Andy Hinchcliffe credits it Donachie’s breathing a and relaxation exercises as th the key to his becoming one o of the Premier League’s best se set-piece takers.
‘He showed me how to be ca calm and to focus. The only w way to do that is practise yo your breathing, relaxing and th then when you’re standing ov over a ball you let everything els else just fall away.
‘ ‘Once with England, me, Da David Beckham and Matt Le Tis Tissier were taking set-pieces with Glenn Hoddle. I was doing what I normally do after I put the ball down: two steps back and stand there, breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth, basic meditation to calm yourself. I struck five or six and every one went top corner. Glenn said, “What are you doing there?” I explained what Willie does and how we focus on centring yourself.’
Under his guidance former whipping boys Montserrat missed out on qualification for last summer’s Gold Cup — the equivalent of our Euros — on goal difference.
Last Saturday they hosted big boys El Salvador in the Concacaf Nations League, falling to a 2-0 loss. They bounced back with a 0-0 draw with the Dominican Republic, doubtless helped by Donachie’s positive thinking. ‘Everyone is going to enjoy this,’ is his approach — once, of course, they’ve taken in a deep gulp of sea air.
He certainly does at their Blake’s Football Complex home ground, practising what he preaches. ‘There’s a little stand that holds four or five hundred and then a standing area and then over behind the pitch, it’s the ocean. It’s beautiful.’