Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Mellon has it in him to become the Tangerines’ professor
NEVER mind teaching players a thing or two, Dundee United manager Micky Mellon has what it takes to be a professor.
That is the educated opinion of head teacher Phil Denton, with whom Mellon has collaborated on their new book ‘The First 100 Days: Lessons in Leadership From The Football Bosses’.
After a remarkable sliding doors moment when they first met to the starry-eyed interviews with Jurgen Klopp, Pep Guardiola, Sean Dyche, Davie Moyes, Gordon Strachan, Walter Smith, Mauricio Pochettino, Ole Gunnar Solksjaer and more, Phil – or Mr Denton to the pupils of St Bede’s Catholic High School in Ormskirk, Lancashire – has been with Mellon all the way.
He has been the one typing most of the words but Mellon has opened all the doors, provided the football expertise and also written a chapter on his own first 100 days at Tannadice. United fans will be keen to see what that entails when the work – proceeds of which will go to fight Motor Neurone Disease in honour of Mellon’s ex-Burnley team-mate Lenny Johnrose – is published next March.
It all adds up to Phil being the ideal person to judge if Mellon would be able to cope with life at the chalkface.
He said: “Yes, he would make a good teacher and would be great in the classroom. There would be no messing about because he would be on top of the behaviour!
“Seriously, though, he already strikes me as a bit like a professor in that he listens to every single word that is said to him and can pick you up on the slightest thing.
“I can see his team talks and analysis at United being forensic at times.
“I would also class him as being emotionally intelligent.
“By that I mean that he can assess and read both people and situations. I think that maybe goes back to his upbringing in Glasgow, which he addresses in the book, because he had to be quick-witted and smart to deal with things growing up in that environment.”
Phil revealed that the pair met only thanks to his being economical with the truth when it came to a trip to see his beloved Tranmere Rovers, the team managed by Mellon at the time.
He explained: “I am a big Tranmere fan but it was difficult to get to away games and I hadn’t managed to see many.
“I knew my wife would be keen on a spa weekend and I mentioned that there was a nice hotel in Stevenage that we could visit.
“I didn’t reveal that Rovers were playing Stevenage at the same time. I tricked her, really!
“Anyway, off we went for the weekend and, by a stroke of luck, Tranmere were staying in the same hotel as us – I didn’t plan that bit!
“I went down to the gym one morning and bumped into Micky. We were the only ones there.
“It was good timing because we both had a couple of hours to kill, time that we filled with a long chat about Tranmere and football in general.
“Micky is an excellent listener and he asked what I did and I told him that I was a head teacher.
“That got us on to the topic of leadership, Ernest Shackleton and a few other things, most of which have ended up in the book.”
Phil had previously admired Mellon from afar as the gaffer of his favourite team but the pair have now become firm friends as well as co-authors.
He added: “As a Rovers fan, I had been impressed already by Micky.
“He had come into a club that had seemed to be on a consistent downer and raised everything up.
“He used psychology and dealt with things like the culture and history of the club.
“The great thing was that it was all authentic. He really did care.
“It was almost overnight that he managed to change the whole atmosphere at Tranmere. From a side that had been on the slide, there was now so much optimism.
“I don’t think you will meet a Tranmere supporter who has a bad word to say about Micky and I’m not just saying that as someone who regards him as a friend.”