Will Micky Mellon get the chance to show Scottish football he’s more than a funny name?
MICKY MELLON occupies a unique place in Scottish football. Everyone has heard of him, yet precious few actually know him.
The unusual name regularly causes a giggle on BBC Radio Scotland’s Off The Ball show.
But, although Paisley-born, his playing and managerial careers have exclusively been played out south of the border.
A sort of homecoming might soon be in the post for the 48-year-old, however.
Belatedly granted permission by current club Tranmere Rovers to speak with Dundee United, a familiar name could become a well-kent face on our scene.
It would certainly be an intriguing move on behalf of the Tannadice club — if evidently something of a gamble.
Renowned as something of a managerial maverick, Mellon has the smarts, the personality and the track record to take the club forward. The chance to demonstrate that he’s so much more than a memorable name to a Scottish audience after all this time would hold obvious appeal.
So who is he? Brought up on a Glasgow housing estate, Mellon’s long and winding road as a player began at Bristol City in 1989.
In total, he played for nine clubs but is best remembered for his spells at Blackpool (’94 to ’97) Burnley (’99 to ’01) and Tranmere (pictured below) where he was domiciled either side of that time at Turf Moor. A skilful, diligent midfielder, he sampled life in the three lower leagues in England, winning promotion with Bristol City, West Brom and Burnley and receiving a player-of-the-year award at Blackpool. Among others, Joe Jordan and Sam Allardyce shaped his thinking on management.
The first opportunity to put his ideas into practice came in 2008. Then an aspiring sixth-tier side, Fleetwood Town initially allowed Mellon to divide his time between there and coaching Burnley’s youths. But, by early 2009, they had his full and undivided attention.
He led them on a successful FA Cup run, reaching the second round for the first time. But it was the fact he took them from bottom to eighth place in that first season which suggested he had something.
A year later, Mellon guided them to the Conference via a play-off, was only denied promotion to League Two by the same means 12 months later, and then romped to the title in 2011-12.
His reward for three straight losses the following December was the sack, yet Mellon was soon back in work at Barnsley as assistant to David Flitcroft.
Having helped keep the Tykes in the Championship, the club turned down approaches for him from Forest Green Rovers before sacking him six months later.
Shrewsbury offered him a soft landing in 2014. Reinvigorated, Mellon’s new charges knocked Leicester out of the League Cup but, more importantly, won promotion back to the third tier at the first time of asking.
The following season he led the Shrews to the FA Cup fifth round for the first time with the scalps of Cardiff City and Sheffield Wednesday taken.
League survival that term was achieved by the skin of their teeth but a poor start the following season saw Mellon exit and immediately return to the National League with Tranmere.
His return to Prenton Park coincided with yet another promotion to the Football League, a further rise to League One, then the cruelty of relegation last season on a points-per-game basis.
If eking out a living in those environments is a collision course with both triumph and disaster, Mellon has enjoyed much more of the former while siphoning off valuable lessons from every eventuality. Jousts with Jose Mourinho and Louis van Gaal chief among them.
He does not pretend to have reinvented the wheel.
While no tactical novice, those closest to him speak of an extraordinary man-manager and a supreme motivator.
At Shrewsbury, he got a local pub landlord to explain the difference in trade on nights when the side won or lost.
He brought Second World War veterans — and Shrewsbury fans — in for dinner with the players to tell them their stories.
He was not averse to blindfolding his players — once to have them interrogated by the SAS as part of a team-building exercise, then for a game against the blind team he helped set up.
Helicopter pilots from nearby RAF Shawbury were also invited to share their stories about serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. He sought advice from the Red Arrows to help prepare for different scenarios in a match.
And, when none of that worked with one particular player who seemed to be indifferent about winning and losing, he let him into his world.
‘I told him I’ve got a two-hour drive home to Blackpool and that my kids are waiting for me,’ recalled Mellon. ‘We were due to go out on Saturday night but my missus cancelled it because she knows that the last place in the world I want to be is anywhere else but that settee with a glass of red wine to dull the pain. ‘All that “leave it” nonsense, it can’t be done. If you can, then good luck to you, you’re not feeling it enough. I absolutely love the game and I want to win. When we win, my missus Jane could say: “Micky, I quite fancy buying the moon”. I’d tell her to get two of them. You’re that elated.’ Leadership fascinates him. He has read every available syllable on Ernest Shackleton, JFK and Abraham Lincoln. He has studied the people-powered management techniques at Toyota. ‘Football management… very little is tactics,’ he offered.
‘It’s mentality and we’re only scratching the surface.
‘The biggest thing we talk about is confidence. So that’s mentality.
‘Really, it’s the biggest part of the game and the least practiced. We don’t practice the mind.’
Mellon’s view of management primarily being an extension of basic psychology is true, yet it remains only part of the required skill-set.
The truly great bosses — Ferguson, Stein, Busby, Clough — were only able to become masterful psychologists because they knew the game and they knew a player.
Mellon does, too. Back in 2011, he watched Jamie Vardy move past defenders in a blur in the colours of Halifax Town.
As others looked for the catch, he implored his chairman to look out his cheque book.
‘There was a lot of interest in him but nobody wanted to make that jump,’ said Mellon.
‘I’ve heard some people say they were going to buy him. Well, why didn’t you?’
Individuals of Vardy’s ilk remain as rare as hen’s teeth at that level, of course, but there are still under-appreciated talents out there that are obscured from view and deserving of a wider audience.
Dundee United might just be talking to one right now.
He’s said to be an incredible man-manager and a supreme motivator