Losing my father and bottom of the league on my 50th birthday - welcome to life at the sharp end of football
SILVER helium balloons which announced his 50th birthday three weeks ago are still buoyant in the corner.
But Neil Cox didn’t feel like toasting his half-century landmark when Scunthorpe United, propping up the Football League, were trounced 6-1 at Harrogate.
Instead of a celebration, he went home and pored over the horror show on video, and it capped a month from hell for the Iron manager.
Cox had earlier missed his side’s heavy defeat by Exeter when he received a phone call, two hours before kick-off, and dashed to his gravely ill father’s bedside. Noel Cox passed away, aged 81, the following day.
And a fortnight ago, Scunthorpe players were locked out of their own ground 90 minutes before the home game with League Two leaders Forest Green Rovers by fans protesting against chairman Peter Swann.
The irate lobby had padlocked the front gates at Glanford Park with a D-lock made of hardened steel and it took a tractor to force open the entrance.
So next time you feel sorry for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer or for Newcastle United’s new owners down to their last £305 billion, spare a thought for Cox in the basement.
He thought he had used up his quota of bad luck when he was relegated from the Premier League with Middlesbrough, Bolton and Watford.
Then he missed the FA Cup final with Boro in 1997 after a heated altercation with striker Fabrizio Ravanelli on the morning of the game.
But nothing could prepare him for the assorted horrors at the Scun Siro this season.
Two wins in 14 games, lowest scorers in the division, and a transfer embargo is only the start of it.
Welcome to the sharp end of football management – and one of the good guys isn’t going to lie down like those Insulate Britain trolls sabotaging our motorways.
“You could say I’ve had a difficult month,” said Cox (with Mirror man Walters, right). “Losing my dad was a massive shock – whether you’re top of the Premier League or down with us in League Two, there’s never a good time to lose your father. As the manager of my home-town club, it hurts me to see Scunthorpe where we are. I was brought up next to our old stadium, the Old Show Ground, and I used to jump over the fence to get in.
“You could see half the pitch from my mum and dad’s bedroom – this is the town where I was born, I made 21 appearances for the club as a player, and now I look at the table and I feel the pain as much as any supporter.
“As manager, you feel it even more. You look at what went on with Steve Bruce and the abuse he had to put up
with as manager of his boyhood club, his dream job. “On a different scale, I know what it’s like.
“Last season we made a poor start and I had fans knocking on my front door, telling me to get out of their club, which was a shock.
“When you are a manager, there are things going on that the world doesn’t know about but you can’t use them as excuses.
“We’ve had four players lose family members to Covid. We had to keep it inhouse because it was the right thing to do. You can’t just tell them to pull themselves together. As a club, we’ve tried to do everything properly during the pandemic. It’s not easy getting changed and eating in your car, and not being able to take showers after training, but those are the rules.”
And that milestone birthday that turned into a wake?
“It was my birthday on the Friday and I was hoping to have something to celebrate the following evening, but the following day we just didn’t turn up at Harrogate,” said Cox, whose side go to Colchester this afternoon. “We were five down at halftime so it was a very quiet weekend.
“I’ve had some good birthdays in the past, but the 50th was a difficult one to take.
“I came back home, watched the game back because that’s my job, and then tried to get some positives out of a bad month. But I had some nice, supportive phone calls from people inside the game, which shall remain private, and they harden your resolve to turn the corner.
“My main concern about staying in the League and pushing on up the table is to ensure that people around the football club keep their jobs. If we get relegated, people behind the scenes will be laid off, and I don’t want that on my conscience.
“We’ve taken four points from our last two games and, if we can build on that, hopefully consistency will follow.
“Would I swap jobs with Ole Gunnar Solskjaer right now? Yeah, I wouldn’t mind taking in the view from the top of the tree – but I’m not sure he would have traded in his job for mine after the way my birthday weekend turned out at Harrogate.”
I had fans knocking on my door telling me to get out of their club, which was a shock