My old mate is right choice to put England on the map again
THERE’S a lot of snobbery in our game now. There will be plenty of people looking down their nose thinking how can a working-class centre-half, a boy from a council house with a Dudley accent make it good as England manager?
Let me tell you this, that’s one of the reasons why Sam Allardyce will be a success. He appreciates what he has. Since a formative age, Sam has always learned to make the best of what he was given.
You can hear it now. Where’s his international experience? He’s a long-ball merchant. He’s not, he’s a pragmatist. Look at Sven Goran Eriksson, look at Fabio Capello, terrific CVs but what success did they bring to England?
We have delusions of grandeur — it’s 50 years since England won the World Cup. There are good players but they still lost to Iceland in Euro 2016 and my belief is that wouldn’t have happened if Sam had been in charge.
We all want to savour the beautiful game but ultimately we want to win. Did Portugal win Euro 2016 with flair? Did Greece in 2004? No, but they’ve both achieved more than England recently.
Sam isn’t all gruff, bluster and aggression. Yes he’s relished getting in the face of Arsene Wenger and under the skin of Rafa Benitez but underneath that he has great respect for what they do and he knows how to mix it.
When Sam and I played for Bolton Wanderers in the 1970s we had a manager who wanted us to play out from the back. one match, the rightback John Ritson passed it to Roy Greaves in midfield who then missed out Sam, passing to our other centre-back Paul Jones who moved it out to the left to Tony Dunne. Sam, puzzled by this, turned to Roy and shouted: ‘Hey pass me the ball!’ Roy just turned to him and said: ‘No, the boss said not to give it to you, as you can’t pass’.
Sam wasn’t happy, but he recognised that manager Ian Greaves was right: it was about working to your team’s strengths. Sam was a good stopper, strong at set-pieces, key to the team but passing wasn’t his forte.
That episode stayed with him. He was always a thinker; always seeking more advice from older players such as Tony Dunne, who had played at Manchester United under Sir Matt Busby, or Peter Thompson, the former Liverpool winger who played under Bill Shankly.
It wasn’t just play the game, have a pint and go home. We debated, argued if you like, how the match was played. The tactics: whether a defence should keep a high line, when to press, when to lay off — tiny details. We both wanted to know more, get better.
I first met Sam when I was a little 15-year-old lad walking into Bolton’s dressing room in 1971 and there was this big, 6ft 3in defender with the goalkeeper Barry Siddall. He’d been there a couple of years before me and was quite intimidating but we hit it off quickly.
I was taken by the fact he recognised, even then as a teenager, how important it was to have a strong dressing-room. Good camaraderie, all pulling in the same direction. He’d worked in a factory too while an apprentice, so it had all helped shape his character.
To this day, a good atmosphere in the dressing-room is important to him. Look at the personalities he had at Bolton: Nicolas Anelka; Youri Djorkaeff; Jay Jay okocha; Fernando Hierro; Ivan Campo and Gary Speed. That’s not an easy bunch to fool if you don’t know what you’re doing. He commanded respect, delivered analysis, detailed game plans and it wasn’t a long-ball game that attracted them to Bolton.
He gave them variety, whether it was cryotherapy sessions or racing each other in toilet seats. He made it fun and prolonged many of their careers with ideas about recovery and sports science, some of it he’d first picked up while playing with Tampa Bay Rowdies in 1983.
The late Gary Speed took a lot of those practices to the Wales set-up and look what’s happened to them. Sam will know the dressing- room is pivotal with this England squad. If there are a few prima donnas in there, he’ll cut through any nonsense. They have to be as one.
Fear factor? Sam may want to go round the clubs to see how they train and how he can help transfer what they enjoy into England training. They shouldn’t fear playing for England. Sam will tell them how lucky they are to pull on that shirt; embrace it. He’ll handle the press.
This is a guy who showed his desire by starting out at Limerick. I know the knocks he has had. He was distraught 20 years ago when Blackpool sacked him after losing in the play-offs and there were disappointments when he lost his job at Newcastle and was overlooked by England for Steve McClaren. Yet he doesn’t wallow in negativity, he’s always one to take the positives. He’ll say he’s a more experienced manager now and better prepared.
Sir Alex Ferguson has been a champion of his and that’s not just out of friendship, I don’t think it’s because Sam had Scottish parents either! What he achieved at Sunderland last season should command everyone’s respect.
There’s no one more patriotic. We’ve shared a few St George’s Day dinners and he’s always belting out Jerusalem as loud as anyone. That doesn’t qualify him as the man for the job but I know what managing his country means to him.
Martin Glenn, the FA chief executive, called for someone who can inspire; for resilience under pressure. Well, trust me, here’s your man. Now give him a chance.
He knows how to mix it when he needs to He wouldn’t have let England lose to Iceland