‘Be prepared’ for anything is Mellon’s advice to managers

HERE is a question you never thought you would be asked.

What do football managers, The Lion King and Robert BadenPowell all have in common?

The answer is they should all “Be Prepared,” with Dundee United boss Micky Mellon’s book joining one of the hit musical’s songs and the founder of the Scouting movement in adopting that motto.

Mellon has co-authored The First 100 Days: Lessons in Leadership from the Football Bosses with head teacher Phil Denton and it is published today.

It is a comprehensive guide for gaffers to the fraught and even frightening job of being in charge of football players.

It is all for a worthy cause, too, with proceeds going to fight motor neurone disease in the name of Mellon’s former teammate Lenny Johnrose.

Asked to name the single piece of advice he thinks those sitting in the dugouts should take from the words written by, among others, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, Sean Dyche, David Moyes, Sam Allardyce, Walter Smith and Joe Royle, Mellon was quick to reply. He said: “Be prepared!

“Doing this book, for two and a half to three years, the same sort of things kept coming up all the time.

“You get recurring themes and one of them was definitely ‘Be prepared’.

“You have to understand before you go into a club, get as much information as you can about the job you’re about to go into, ask the right questions to the relevant people and do your homework.

“The book is about the first 100 days and it is probably a nice period of time in management.

“However, when you go through that period, you should remember that all the time because in football every three days you’re good or you’re bad.

“Therefore, make sure you stay focused on that and try not let outside influences affect you.”

And the next crucial factor? He added: “Relationships are massive all the way right through it.

“You must keep nurturing relationships, with supporters, with staff, your sporting director and your owner.

“Those are the real, big important things that kept coming up all the time.

“And it’s not just relationships with people.

“There are relationships with how the players feel about how you want to play, what the tactics are, what the philosophy of the club is, and what you want them as a team to know.

“They will have a relationship with that idea. They will either hate it or they’ll love it.”

For the most significant difference in management over the years, Mellon took to cyber space.

He said: “Social media is the biggest change.

“I came into management maybe at the start of social media, with forums and phone-ins.

“Now with social media, especially during this pandemic, which we speak about in the book, it is the fans’ opportunity to voice their opinions.

“That has really changed because that can gather momentum on any kind of subject.

“That is something that, as a manager, you have to be aware of but make sure you filter out the unnecessary stuff.

“Also, we have a 24/7 news channel on football on Sky so it is constant. That has evolved since I started my managerial journey.

“I think because of the access we have to much more football now, the opportunity to watch more from around the world, you can learn more about tactics and there are TV programmes that you can really watch.

“You can learn from Twitter, too, so there are loads of positives as well but those are things that the modern manager has around them all the time.”