Why McGhee still considers himself a flop
SAYS MARK McGHEE
“My first task at Reading? To free Brendan Rodgers”
WITH his 900th game as a manager approaching, Mark McGhee would not be human if he was not prone to wondering what might have been. If only this or that result had gone another way, who knows where he could have ended up?
Instead of taking a mid-table Scottish Premiership team to Tynecastle tomorrow, he might have been welcoming Manchester United to Anfield as Liverpool manager on Sunday.
Asked to pick out the worst games of the 899 spent prowling the technical area for eight different clubs, McGhee instantly hones in on his two failed attempts at steering a side into the English Premier League. The play-off semi-final losses with Wolves and Millwall in 1997 and 2002 respectively.
‘These were chances to go into the Premier League and they were life-changing games,’ he said.
‘That is the reason — and don’t misinterpret me here — why I’m managing Motherwell and not Liverpool.
‘If I had won promotion on either of these occasions the chances are that’s the kind of place I would be.
‘That’s the progression you need to make if you want to manage in the Premier League and I failed to make it.
‘So that’s why I feel unfulfilled,’ added McGhee, who briefly managed in the top flight with Leicester City after quitting his first job at Reading but could not prevent the Foxes’ relegation.
‘I’ve always been very much unfulfilled. I’m standing here having managed almost 900 games, I don’t feel as if I’ve been a success.
‘I’ve not managed in the Premier League for the last 10 years, which is what I set out to do, so therefore I still feel I’ve got everything to prove and achieve.’
Simply making it to 900 matches as a frontline manager is an achievement, something McGhee hopes to extend to the magical 1,000 mark — something only five other Scottish managers have achieved since the Second World War.
Although he confesses to a lack of brilliant recall, there are moments that stand out. Including spending one of his first days as a gaffer, at Reading, freeing a young player who would turn out to make quite a mark as a manager. ‘I can still remember my first game,’ said McGhee, now in his second spell at Fir Park.
‘It was against Stoke at home for Reading, the very last game of the season.
‘I took over on the Thursday night, took training on Friday and was there in charge against Stoke on the Saturday.
‘It was a bit crazy, of course, because I’d only ever been a player — and this was all new to me.
‘We won 1-0, there was a bit of a pitch invasion, a few scraps after the game. Welcome to football management!
‘Was I nervous? Not really. It was the last game of the season and there was nothing at stake, other than me just getting a first win so I could then prepare for the following season.
‘I was more nervous the following Monday, when my first task was to release the boys who weren’t getting new contracts.
‘That was a new experience for me.
‘The funny thing is that the first boy I had in, to tell him he wasn’t getting a contract — and remember this was a decision made by other people, because I didn’t know these players — was Brendan Rodgers.
‘Thanks and no thanks, eh? Brendan was fine, I kept in touch with him for a long time and he actually married my friend’s daughter, so I was aware of him for a long, long time.
‘I tried my best to help him but, no, I wasn’t expecting a call to be his assistant at Liverpool.
‘He never reminds me of the fact that I released him. It didn’t do him any harm, obviously. It was character-building!’ McGhee, whose personal highlights include taking Wolves to the semi-finals of the FA Cup, was famously overlooked for the Celtic job when Tony Mowbray was appointed in 2009.
Having kicked around English clubs of limited scope, he endured a complete disaster as manager of Aberdeen where he was previously adored as a player. So his feelings of having never quite fulfilled all of that burgeoning potential from his early management days are understandable.
But nobody makes it in football management without ambition and, just as importantly, a healthy sense of their own worth.
McGhee still enjoys the game, still takes pride from having stuck around longer than the vast majority .
Explaining his longevity, he said: ‘I think one of the things you have to do is be prepared to start again.
‘Football management isn’t a progression, you don’t go from there, to there, to there, even if you go up the leagues or up the jobs. Every game you start again.
‘It’s a whole new script every game and that’s the same with the approach you have to have with each game, job and day.
‘You need to find something fresh and it’s something I’ve always tried to do.
‘I’ve got 1,000 games in my sights, so I asked the guys in here to look up how many I’d done — and they came back to tell me I was on 899. That’s just coincidence, that Saturday is my 900th game — but I’m quite proud of that.’